Amir at ASR claims Uptone won't sell the ISO regen to him...

[christopher3393]

45 minutes ago, mansr said:

It doesn't matter if Amir is the biggest jerk to ever walk the face of the earth. By refusing to sell him a device, Alex still looks like he is hiding something. I can see three possible reasons for this refusal:

1. Alex knows it's a scam and is afraid he'll be found out.
2. Alex has no confidence in his product and is afraid it will be shown useless.
3. Alex is a petty, vindictive dick.

I'd also like to point out that the approved reviewers who'd be permitted to measure the device are known for never publishing a negative review. Even when the measured performance is questionable, they find some way to praise the product.

Mans, this doesn't appear to be even close to objective.

[christopher3393]

33 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

You may want to take a look at the two threads where I tested $699 3 foot Ethernet and $340 12 foot Ethernet cable.

 

What DAC can I order, in conjunction with a regenerator, to hear this?

 

...admit it... 

 

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

9 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

I've heard you refer to various successful blind tests involving the Reg but never found any actual details, sorry if I missed them. Would you be so kind to point me to their posting or supply some further info here.

Exactly how was this test conducted? Who were the participants?  What were the various components involved, source, DAC, etc? What source material was used? How many rounds of tests were made?  What were the specific "blind" conditions. What were the final voting numbers.

TIA

 

 

[christopher3393]

9 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Again, the best defense against slander is the truth. As long as the measurements are done in a way to enable 3rd parties and they achieve the same results then things are copacetic. 

 

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I'm with you.

 

But is it always practical? And do the results from available testing always indicate to the potential listener what value the product may have? While this is a good general guideline, it sounds to me like some demand this in all cases. This strikes me as very unreasonable.

[christopher3393]

10 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

If you are in the business of designing audio equipment I should expect so. You can either get the equipment in house or you can send out product to a lab for measurement.

 

So let me ask this:

 

Is it acceptable for a company to design with a shoot from the hip approach where they actually have no way to analyze what their equipment is doing? 

 

Loaded question. "Shoot from the hip": is that a fair characterization? And by analyze do you include listening? Or only standards acceptable as state of the art strict science, so that only a strictly measurable/ adequately blind testable results count?

[christopher3393]

Just now, mansr said:

Would you prefer the term "stab in the dark"?

 

Sardonic points, yes, but I think it is exaggerated and an unfair, highly biased characterization.

[christopher3393]

44 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Ok. A shot in the dark. Better? 

 

Let me ask you this: How are you going to convince anyone with reasonable intelligence that you can design audiophile product in a vacuum. That is absent any ability to measure the analog output? 

 

Please make the argument that they were able to do it by ear. I dare you. 

 

43 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

It's not biased! They don't have any audio centric measurement gear. It's like designing a speaker by ear with no Klippel gear. 

 

My general thought is product that can be measured whilst in the midst of being designed tends to end up being a better product. I know I'm the outlier for thinking that way. 

 

My point was that if you are generalizing about the whole process of product development by characterizing it as ridiculous because adequate testing was not performed and publish, it would be more accurate to apply your critique to testing as your solecomplaint rather than demean the whole propcess and product. You don't really know one way or the other how good this product is or is not under optimal real world conditions, do you?

 

 It has also not been clear to me that there is consensus regarding the adequacy and practicality of the testing that you believe will give the proper results.

 

And of course measurement along the way seems like a better idea and I don't think you are an outlier. Do you really think you are on this point?

 

I have an iFi iUSB 3.0, but do not have a rigorous understanding of how it measured up in testing. But I did the best I could to blind test it and the imrovement in my particular situation was pleasantly obvious. But still it took me a lot of listening to  have what I'll call relatively adequate confidence that the net result is improvement. And now I completely ignore it and just listen  with what I have and assume that it is for my practical purposes adequate.

 

What someone in Alex's situation should have to do, what testing is imperative for him to do to operate in good conscience is not something I'm qualified to address from my own background. I have to rely on a certain amount of consensus from reviews and forums like this, And I will own that this may also be colored by the fact that I like Alex and John and the way they generally interact around here. I'm not suggesting that this should be adequate for you, but would recommend that you please try to be less personal and more objective in this overheated situation.

 

Two cents over.

[christopher3393]

1 minute ago, jtwrace said:

The study that I have from Harman on this is quite amazing but again nearly all people here would pass it off since it's science based.  

 

Please share. 

[christopher3393]

8 minutes ago, jtwrace said:

It's not for public consumption just yet.  

 

You can certainly go to Harman like I did though.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=149780.0

 

 

 

Thanks. I followed a series of posts by Tyll Hertsens about his visit to Harman a year ago. Interesting work (that is a bit over my head). Just wanted to say that this non-scientist would not "pass it off because it's science based".  The question regarding testing that you  raise regarding the Regen is a very important one, imo. But it doesn't look like there is a ready-to-hand workable protocol to get at what benefit it may have. You may disagree with this and know more than I do, but I can't readily right off all of those who report favorable results just because there hasn't been, or may not be practically available (cost, expense, know-how,  the need for developing a different approach to testing like jabbr and others are exploring) adequate testing. Caveat emptor.

[christopher3393]

26 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

The Scholastic's reduced ontology to a branch of metaphysics in the high middle ages.  It's all been downhill from there...

 

Not so fast, partner.    There is some very good work going on. Here are two of many examples: 

Retrieving Realism, by Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor, two eminent elder philosophers of out time, and a collection from Dreyfus entitled Skillful Coping: Essays on the Phenomenology of Everyday Perception and Action. Both in their own ways make efforts toward moving beyond the Cartesian radical subject/object dichotomy, which  contributed to this subjectivism/objectivism dillemma we find ourselves in.

 

Although it isn't focused on ontology, Richard Bernstein's Beyond Objectivism and Relativism addresses philosophically a number of the divisions and impasses that affect the way we frame reality and attempts to suggest how this might be resolved. But who reads philosophy? 

[christopher3393]

1 hour ago, crenca said:

I am not familiar with Bernstein - what are his "suggestions"?

 

http://blogs.stlawu.edu/metaphilosophy10/files/2010/01/Richard-Bernstein-Beyond-Objectivism.pdf

 

pp.46-49 are suggestive. 

[christopher3393]

2 hours ago, crenca said:

 

Wonderful Christopher3393!  Just read p. 46-49.  I like how he points out in his own way that Aristotle never escaped the earlier (Platonic) dialectic.  Realism (if it is to be a "beyond" the modern objectivist/realist dialectic) will have to escape the earlier dialectic in my opinion.  He appears to be claiming to do just that, so I will now have to read the whole paper...

 

Actually, you've read the ending of the first chapter of Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis. To try to demonstrate that this is relevant to meta-questions provoked by threads like this, and not just parlor games, I'll quote a little from the beginning of this chapter:

 

Quote

There is an uneasiness that has spread throughout intellectual and cultural life. It affects almost every discipline and every aspect of our lives. This uneasiness is expressed by the opposition between objectivism and relativism, but there are a variety of other contrasts that indicate the same underlying anxiety: rationality versus irrationality, objectivity versus subjectivity, realism versus antirealism. Contemporary thinking has moved between these and other, related extremes. Even the attempts that some have made to break out of this framework of thinking have all too frequently been assimilated to these standard oppositions.

 

There are, however, many signs that the deep assumptions, commitments, and metaphors that have shaped these oppositions, and from which they gain their seductive power, are being called into question. For along with the disquietude that is provoked by these extremes, there is a growing sense that something is wrong with the ways in which the relevant issues and options are posed--a sense that something is happening that is changing the categorial structure and patterns within which we think and act--a sense that we have an urgent need to move beyond objectivism and relativism.