Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Or perhaps yourself , that current measurements, including your own currently promoted ones, backed up by "Objective" A.S.R. user reports, are of course all that is needed to explain that ALL Subjective reports are the results of vivid imaginations  .?

I’ve not seen any beef measurements on ASR, but perhaps you read it much more than I do and I missed it

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

I’ve not seen any beef measurements on ASR, but perhaps you read it much more than I do and I missed it

 

 Music is supposed to be for enjoyment, not analysis .

 Perhaps your measurements can save me the trouble of checking out J.D's new corrections using my ears ?

 Perhaps they can tell me whether the soundstage is improved along with low level ambience and instruments sound real, and whether voice sibilance is normal or not  ?,

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

 

 Music is supposed to be for enjoyment, not analysis .

 Perhaps your measurements can save me the trouble of checking out J.D's new corrections using my ears ?

 Perhaps they can tell me whether the soundstage is improved along with low level ambience and instruments sound real, and whether voice sibilance is normal or not  ?,

I enjoy music on my iPhone and on my car stereo. But hifi equipment is supposed to be about faithful music reproduction. We are still talking about equipment here, correct?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

23 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

Personally, I prefer to know the truth, but if you just want something that tastes good, that’s your choice.

The truth is I want something that tastes good, that's how I know it's the truth. I will sit down to dinner tonight and taste my food. If you want to measure your dinner that's your choice and your flavor of the truth 😁

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

Just now, pkane2001 said:

I enjoy music on my iPhone and on my car stereo. But hifi equipment is supposed to be about faithful music reproduction. We are still talking about equipment here, correct?

I thought we were talking about ice cream?

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

The truth is I want something that tastes good, that's how I know it's the truth. I will sit down to dinner tonight and taste my food. If you want to measure your dinner that's your choice and your flavor of the truth 😁

you go ahead and eat what tastes good. I’ll eat what I know is the real thing... by checking ingredients.

[pkane2001]

2 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

I thought we were talking about ice cream?

Beef

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

Just now, pkane2001 said:

you go ahead and eat what tastes good. I’ll eat what I know is the real thing... by checking ingredients.

You will know the ingredients but you will never know what it tastes like by checking the ingredients. I am afraid you are left with the reality that tasting is in the tasting😉 there is only one truth and the truth is out there for the tasting😁

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

3 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

5 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

I thought we were talking about ice cream?

Beef

you want ice cream to taste like beef? This is what happens when you get your measurements mixed up🤣

[fas42]

The arguing is, yet again, about whether the measuring tells us the "full truth" ... IME, it doesn't - Paul likes to invoke me having "vivid imagination" 😉, but if one has had a rig that's right on the edge of "the good zone", as I did 30 years ago, then one very quickly builds up an understanding of what's going on with the subjective, inner interpretation of what one hears - the 'mirage' either forms; or it doesn't. Completely predictable in terms of exactly how one triggers it; and what then causes it to fade - utterly reliable, irrespective of mood, etc.

 

The objectivists don't want to know this is possible - it gets right in the way of their nicely pieced together belief structure ... 😜.

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

you want ice cream to taste like beef? This is what happens when you get your measurements mixed up🤣

You’re losing sight of key concepts here. Keep up please! Artificial beef that tastes like ice cream is neither true ice cream nor true beef. That’s the truth!

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

3 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

Artificial beef that tastes like ice cream is neither true ice cream nor true beef. That’s the truth!

And I know the real thing because I have tasted the real thing.I am afraid you are still left with the reality that tasting is in the tasting😉

There is only one real truth and that truth is out there for the tasting😁

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

I enjoy music on my iPhone and on my car stereo. But hifi equipment is supposed to be about faithful music reproduction. We are still talking about equipment here, correct?

Perhaps many people need amplifiers like Pass to make up for the typical shortcomings of most digital reproduction , which is often cold and clinical sounding without any natural warmth? (source S/W as well as H/W)

Perhaps that also helps to explain the resurgence in Vacuum Tube amplifiers and Vinyl as well ?

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Perhaps many people need amplifiers like Pass to make up for the typical shortcomings of most digital reproduction , which is often cold and clinical sounding without any natural warmth? (source S/W as well as H/W)

Perhaps that also helps to explain the resurgence in Vacuum Tube amplifiers and Vinyl as well ?

So you find that Pass amplifiers taste better than the real beef. Personally, I find vacuum tubes a bit too crunchy for my taste.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

4 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Perhaps many people need amplifiers like Pass to make up for the typical shortcomings of most digital reproduction , which is often cold and clinical sounding without any natural warmth? (source S/W as well as H/W)

Perhaps that also helps to explain the resurgence in Vacuum Tube amplifiers and Vinyl as well ?

 

Less "accurate" to an unreality but more faithful to reality

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

Just now, pkane2001 said:

So you find that Pass amplifiers taste better than the real beef. Personally, I find vacuum tubes a bit too crunchy for my taste.

I trust you measured the pass amplifier before you ate it ?! You wouldn't want to eat a fake pass amplifier !😁

[pkane2001]

2 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

I trust you measured the pass amplifier before you ate it ?! You wouldn't want to eat a fake pass amplifier !😁

I always do.

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

So you find that Pass amplifiers taste better than the real beef. Personally, I find vacuum tubes a bit too crunchy for my taste.

 Perhaps we need this to upset Highway Patrol when they read Zero?

Maybe Paul can measure the difference in smell between DUI and a fragrance ?

https://au.news.yahoo.com/victoria-bitter-launches-fragrance-thirst-014207936.html

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

I’ve not seen any beef measurements on ASR,

 

Just as well, I would hate to learn that "rigourous scientific testing" revealed all beef tastes the same🤣!

[pkane2001]

7 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Just as well, I would hate to learn that "rigourous scientific testing" revealed all beef tastes the same🤣!

Or that some has insecticide or antibiotics added, or that wonderful pink sludge.

[Confused]

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Pretty decent stuff, as far as I know ...

 

To demonstrate that it picks up clearly what's going on in the room, here's one hot off the presses, showing lots of positives in the replay - to top it off, old time gear, etc - jump to 17:00 to skip all the introductory filler,

 

 

 

I would have to respectfully disagree.

 

I hear lots of distortion, sibilance, noise etc., and this is just when the guys are talking and before the system is playing.  Also, to my ears this system (as recorded) does not sound that different to the giant Bob XL horns.

[John Dyson]

28 minutes ago, Confused said:

I would have to respectfully disagree.

 

I hear lots of distortion, sibilance, noise etc., and this is just when the guys are talking and before the system is playing.  Also, to my ears this system (as recorded) does not sound that different to the giant Bob XL horns.

I don't normally listen to these 'demos' because it is almost impossible to capture the quality of a system, however good or bad it is.  To me, the sound is irritating, and the micing/recording appears to be peaky -- probably a combo of room effects, and possibly the quality of the recording equipment itself.   (Almost sounds like it recorded in an un-conditioned/no absorbing material recording booth.)

Basically, it sounds like it is in a 'box'.

 

John

 

[Confused]

18 hours ago, fas42 said:

This piece by @Archimago, https://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/07/measurements-pass-amp-camp-amp-aca-11.html, to me points out so strongly the hole that the objectivists have dug for themselves - after trashing the Pass amplifier, by pointing out how badly it measures, he says,

 

 

That is, if the recording sounds better, it must be distortion ... why? Because, a system built of components that measure brilliantly don't make it sound so good - and obviously measurements don't lie 🙄 ; an "accurate system" must be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 🤣.

 

Therefore, it's a guilty pleasure for objectivists to enjoy the playback of these inferior, subjectively pleasing, components - they can never consider the possibility that they are actually getting closer to the true nature of the recording.

 

As someone who routinely evolves a system from sounding edgy, or dreary and flat, to a situation where there is tonnes of "air", "bloom", and all the other good things - without doing a damn thing to change the inherent working of the parts - I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I read pieces like this ... they are so certain they understand what's going on, when in fact they are so far from laying a glove on it.

 

Ah well, there's always next year ... 😉.

I see this a little differently.  For me Archimego's article looks reasonable.  Maybe I am able to step away from worrying about the subjective versus objective debate, for me it is pointless and I suspect the vast majority of audiophiles are "somewhere in the middle" anyway.  I think most are happy with subjective views, and maybe interested in measurements to some extent.  Those at the extremes are rare an can be ignored, they are usually just having fun taunting those at the other extreme anyway.

 

We then have the concept that something that does not "measure perfectly" may in fact have "distortions" that are euphonic.  In such a case something will not have objectively perfect measurements but may sound great.  For me this is a relatively easy concept to understand, and as others have mentioned, perfectly explains why many like the sound of SET valve amps, vinyl, Harbeth speakers, and similar.

 

Imagine two reasonably normal folk meeting at an audio show (?Oxymoron?), one says, this sounds great does it not?  The other says, yes it does, although I understand it measures badly, The other says, "it just goes to show that something can measure badly and still sound great".  They then wonder off together, hand in hand in audiophile bliss.

 

Of course, if one of them posts about their experience in the wrong section of an audiophile forum, someone might chime in saying "you are an idiot liking the sound of that overpriced bad measuring thing, either that or you are so stupid that just like the sound of distortion".  But that's just the internet for you.

[botrytis]

14 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

you want ice cream to taste like beef? This is what happens when you get your measurements mixed up🤣

 

Guinness ice cream is awesome, BTW.......

[botrytis]

7 minutes ago, Confused said:

I see this a little differently.  For me Archimego's article looks reasonable.  Maybe I am able to step away from worrying about the subjective versus objective debate, for me it is pointless and I suspect the vast majority of audiophiles are "somewhere in the middle" anyway.  I think most are happy with subjective views, and maybe interested in measurements to some extent.  Those at the extremes are rare an can be ignored, they are usually just having fun taunting those at the other extreme anyway.

 

We then have the concept that something that does not "measure perfectly" may in fact have "distortions" that are euphonic.  In such a case something will not have objectively perfect measurements but may sound great.  For me this is a relatively easy concept to understand, and as others have mentioned, perfectly explains why many like the sound of SET valve amps, vinyl, Harbeth speakers, and similar.

 

Imagine two reasonably normal folk meeting at an audio show (?Oxymoron?), one says, this sounds great does it not?  The other says, yes it does, although I understand it measures badly, The other says, "it just goes to show that something can measure badly and still sound great".  They then wonder off together, hand in hand in audiophile bliss.

 

Of course, if one of them posts about their experience in the wrong section of an audiophile forum, someone might chime in saying "you are an idiot liking the sound of that overpriced bad measuring thing, either that or you are so stupid that just like the sound of distortion".  But that's just the internet for you.

 

I built a pair of those amps. Were they the end all and be all? No, but they were 288 USD or so. These were designed to help people build amp and learn how to do it. I think they succeeded well.