ASR Audio Science Review forum YouTube Channel

[asdf1000]

On 1/6/2019 at 4:03 AM, Teresa said:

 

I thought Amir was female based on her avatar. So am I wrong and Amir is a male? If so how does one explain her (his) avatar?

 

I remembered this cute post (quoted above) of yours @Teresa and thought to mention Amir now has a YouTube channel where you can see him.

 

I can't explain his forum avatar but you will see that isn't him 😃 

 

Here's a link:

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWp1NY1KXGwcOh1RxKp_-FA/videos

 

 

[JoeWhip]

Having had dinner with Amir at CES years ago, I can assure you he is a dood. 

[plissken]

I can assure you that I'm indeed a cat. Joe is a penguin. I see him at my AA meetings.

[botrytis]

2 hours ago, plissken said:

I can assure you that I'm indeed a cat. Joe is a penguin. I see him at my AA meetings.

 

Audiophiles Anonymous?

[sphinxsix]

3 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

Audiophiles Anonymous?

 

Or Audioholics or Avatar Anonymous.?

 

Or maybe Audioscientists Anonymous..? 

 

Some impressions from the ASR site and their youtube channel, which I've just visited.

 

I must admit I'm not a huge fan of 'Audiophile Style' name but 'Audio Science' phrase just makes me laugh. Amir, judging by fragments of two youtube clips that I quickly checked out seems pretty nice though. Even though he's not a woman. Anyway I will never trust a guy with a female avatar. I'm serious (I don't mind the Pink Panther toy though). I will also never trust an audiophile/his system if all the cables sound the same to him/on it. They don't. I won't express my views on Audioquest Wind (I quickly checked the review) cause I haven't heard this cable. OTOH while buying my 'desktop' speakers I happened to check KRK Rokit 6 also reviewed by Amir. BTW IMO JBL LSR 305's sounded better (which I regretted cause I have lots of sympathy for KRK's and their Focal drivers) but Adam Audio T5V's sound IMHO was even more refined (they are slightly more expensive though). Anyway, having quite lots of experience with comparative listening tests as an ex dealer I had spent probably 40min in an Amsterdam shop's listening room choosing among these three. Amir didn't need that much time..

 

So what about his KRK Rokit 6 review and listening test.? Let me quote it.

 

Here's the descriptive/objective measurements part of it:

........................................................................................................................

"This is a review and detailed measurements of the KRK ROKIT 5 Gen 4 active studio monitor (speaker). It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $176 each from Amazon including Prime shipping.

I think these yellow drivers look cute :  

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-review-studio-monitor-jpg.114730/

Nice to see the cabinet sides curved to reduce diffraction. A small waveguide is provided another tweeter:

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-review-dsp-waveguide-studio-monitor-jpg.114731/

Given the small woofer, it is probably sufficient.

You can't see it here since the unit is not powered up but despite being a cheap black and white LCD, I was surprised at its usability (JBL, are you listening?):
 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-review-dsp-studio-monitor-jpg.114732/

There is an App that lets you pair with it and apply equalization. I did not test that. On that note, all measurements and listening tests were performed at factory setting.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of around 1%.

Measurement temperature was 63 degrees. Left the heater on overnight by accident. Probably cost me $5 in heating bill!

Reference axis was center of the tweeter.

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

KRK ROKIT 5 Gen 4 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-spinorama-cea-2034-frequency-response-studio-monitor-png.114733/

The on-axis may look a bit messy to the eye but really, if you zoom out a bit, it is more or less flat. We do have a port interference around 680 Hz which is common with front ports:

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-driver-response-png.114734/

Back to spin graph, directivity is good. Tweeter has some ups and downs as we also see in the drive response.

Early window shows a drop in mid-range but also a droop in highs which is not bad a thing:
 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-spinorama-cea-2034-early-window-frequency-response-studio-monitor-png.114735/

As noted, floor (and ceiling) reflection are the issue here so put some absorber there or keep that path length long.

Predicted in-room response in far field shows what we already know:
 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-spinorama-cea-2034-predicted-in-room-frequency-response-studio-m-png.114736/

Beamwidth is surprisingly good:

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-horizontal-beamwidth-png.114737/

This small woofer is mating well with that wave-guided tweeter. The sharp narrowing toward the end is probably not a bad thing to take away extra sharpness.

We see the same in our contour plot:

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-horizontal-dierctivity-png.114738/

Vertical response is typical of these two-way speakers so stay at or slightly above tweeter axis to avoid the holes at 2 to 3 kHz:
 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-vertical-dierctivity-png.114739/

Waterfall shows some resonances:
 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-csd-waterfall-response-png.114740/

We see the prominent one around 680 Hz which we observed in spin graph just as well.

Distortion is quite good actually at 86 dBSPL, and horrible at 96, the latter of which I could hear during testing:

 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-relative-distortion-png.114741/

I am going to show the 96 dB graph in absolute form as I always do. Question: should I switch to using 86 dB in the future for smaller speakers? It will make it harder to then compare all speakers together.
 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?attachments/krk-rp5-rokit-g4-measurements-thd-distortion-png.114742/

 

..............................................................................................................................................

 

Stop here please!!!!!!!!!

 

A reminder - according to Amir he had performed over 1000 measurements!

 

OTOH here are his listening impressions:

 

...............................................................................................................................................

"I only needed 10 seconds of listening to my standard first reference track to know the sound was right. Very nice tonality which continued to deliver just the same through the rest of my tracks."

................................................................................................................................................

 

That's it. Seriously.

 

I have to admit I have a problem with the review proportions like that. Not only because I can tell much, much more about not only KRK's but also about the above mentioned JBL's and obviously Adam Audio's which I had bought - I'm almost obliged to, after spending with all three of them 4 quarters of an hour, and not simply judging them after 10 seconds - but also because:

 

I don't buy audio equipment to measure it (I don't mind if it measures good of course though), maybe I'm weird but I buy it to listen to the music. I never measure it, maybe some do but I turn it on when I want to listen to some music.

I also don't measure cars, I drive them (although I like to know how much power they have cause I know the difference eg between 200bhp and 100bhp cars which are similar in size).

I watch movies on TVs I buy, I don't measure them as well (except from the fact that I'm interested in their size before buying them).

BTW I also don't measure women (but I must admit here I'm a little bit interested in their size - I have a preference for slim ones), I ask them about their size if I want to buy them eg some lingerie, next I quickly forget about it though. Anyway never in my life I have measured a woman.. I do some other things with them though.

 

But it's probably only me. I guess ASR readers do the opposite...

 

Edit: I'm neither a sexist nor I objectify women, some exaggeration in the above examples was intended.

 

[JoeWhip]

I knew Amir back in the HD DVD days when I was doing video reviews. Seemed like a nice bloke. The problem I have with ASR is with all these reviews, he basically only does some measurements. He comments on DACs but doesn’t even take the time to listen to them and do comparisons. I believe in measurements but make my final decisions after listening. At least he listened to these speakers for 10 seconds before he decided all was good.

[sphinxsix]

14 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

At least he listened to these speakers for 10 seconds before he decided all was good.

 

I think one might have some problem with the fact that people who will eventually buy speakers that a reviewer listened to for 10 seconds in some cases will listen to them for the rest of their lives 

 

 

[sphinxsix]

 

@The Computer Audiophile   @Kal Rubinson , if I may ask, guys:

1. What's the average time you spend on listening to speakers or other gear while reviewing it.?

2. How often the initial impressions from, let's say the first minute of listening are all you have to say after your listening tests about how particular gear sounds and can be expressed in one sentence.?

 

I'm just trying to show something which is pretty obvious to me.. 

 

Edit: Ps. Here's link to the original review, couldn't embed the beautiful png graphs:

 

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?threads/krk-rokit-5-gen-4-review-studio-monitor.20711/

[botrytis]

Amir worked as a software engineer ad Microsoft, I think, before the ASR site. I think he has too much of his ego in the game there and that is dangerous. Unlike Chris, who usually let's us look like buffoons at times, Amir uses the ban hammer quickly.

[plissken]

1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

ACs but doesn’t even take the time to listen to them and do comparisons. I believe in measurements but make my final decisions after listening. At least he listened to these speakers for 10 seconds before he decided all was good.

 

He's repeatedly said he's not out to subjectively evaluate DAC's.

 

I'll drop another truth bomb for everyone here. He's doing something right and I believe this is just the tip of the ice burg. Throw in the social media platforms that he's going to start engaging. And here's another take away: $0 advertising dollars.

 

ASR

 

AS

 

ASR Metrics:

 

AS

 

[JoeWhip]

I used to contribute over at ASR but the people there seem to me to be too devoted to a single point of view to listen to anything I had to say. No need to beat my head against the wall. As for not subjectively evaluating a DAC, fine, but don’t you buy a DAC to listen to it, or just collect them. That atty tood is why I left there. To each his own.

[sphinxsix]

14 minutes ago, botrytis said:

Amir uses the ban hammer quickly.

 

I may be tempted to check him in this regard soon 

 

9 minutes ago, plissken said:

ASR

 

AS

 

I'm somehow not surprised, Fiats are also more popular than Porsches..

I don't know - maybe there is even a rule (that would probably work in case of my subjective ranking) - the more popular the site, the more probable that (subjectively - for me) sh...y it is. Definitely works in case of FB where I needed (due to some business plans) to register a couple of months ago..

 

[plissken]

2 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

I used to contribute over at ASR but the people there seem to me to be too devoted to a single point of view to listen to anything I had to say. No need to beat my head against the wall. As for not subjectively evaluating a DAC, fine, but don’t you buy a DAC to listen to it, or just collect them. That atty tood is why I left there. To each his own.

 

Anyone could shut up the entire objective bent of ASR if they would only sit down for a true blind session of say two DAC's that measure incredibly close but spend $$ incredibly far apart. Same thing for speaker, line, power cables that supposedly make a difference but the measurement data doesn't support the supposition.

 

That would remove any leg that Amir has to stand on.

[sphinxsix]

2 minutes ago, plissken said:

That would remove any leg that Amir has to stand on.

 Why to remove it.? Let's let everyone stand where and the way they like.

 

[plissken]

Just now, sphinxsix said:

I'm somehow not surprised, Fiats are also more popular than Porsches..

 

This is the false equivalency that ASR threads often revolve around.  AS and ASR cost exactly the same unlike Fiats and Porches.

 

No if we made Fiats and Porches the same price you let me know which you would buy.

[sphinxsix]

1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

This is the false equivalency that ASR threads often revolve around.  AS and ASR cost exactly the same unlike Fiats and Porches.

 

No if we made Fiats and Porches the same price you let me know which you would buy.

 

I meant popularity vs quality factor, didn't take prices into account. Read the whole post.

 

[plissken]

1 minute ago, sphinxsix said:

 Why to remove it.? Let's let everyone stand where and the way they like.

 

 

I think prior posts have moved us past this point already. Some posts are already calling his credibility into question. I have a sure fire way of making that actually happen.

[plissken]

Just now, sphinxsix said:

 

I meant popularity vs quality factor, didn't take prices into account. Read the whole post.

 

 

I'm quite capable of reading the post. As a matter of fact you said popularity not quality. Please don't move the goal posts. I asked a simple question: if Fiat and Porsches were the same cost which do you think more people would drive?

[sphinxsix]

4 minutes ago, plissken said:

Some posts are already calling his credibility into question.

 

I think you put it quite mildly. In my case his incredibility is out of question.

 

[sphinxsix]

2 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

I'm quite capable of reading the post. As a matter of fact you said popularity not quality. 

 

I said popularity vs sh....yness (which is connected with quality or rather lack of it)

 

[semente]

1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

I knew Amir back in the HD DVD days when I was doing video reviews. Seemed like a nice bloke. The problem I have with ASR is with all these reviews, he basically only does some measurements. He comments on DACs but doesn’t even take the time to listen to them and do comparisons. I believe in measurements but make my final decisions after listening. At least he listened to these speakers for 10 seconds before he decided all was good.

I disagree. I think that he should only do the measurements.

 

Yes there are lots of alt-objectivists on ASR but there’s also a small number of very knowledgeable and open-minded people who make it worth visiting; that and the measurements.

[plissken]

4 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

 

I said popularity vs sh....yness (which is connected with quality or rather lack of it)

 

 

Here is your post in it's entirety in case you misremember some more:

Quote

 

I'm somehow not surprised, Fiats are also more popular than Porsches..

I don't know - maybe there is even a rule (that would probably work in case of my subjective ranking) - the more popular the site, the more probable that (subjectively - for me) sh...y it is. Definitely works in case of FB where I needed (due to some business plans) to register a couple of months ago..

 

 

[sphinxsix]

10 minutes ago, plissken said:

Here is your post in it's entirety in case you misremember some more:

 

I don't like to quote myself but since you're asking: 

 

27 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

 

I'm somehow not surprised, Fiats are also more popular than Porsches..

I don't know - maybe there is even a rule (that would probably work in case of my subjective ranking) - the more popular the site, the more probable that (subjectively - for me) sh...y it is. Definitely works in case of FB where I needed (due to some business plans) to register a couple of months ago..

 

 

How about getting back on topic.?

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

38 minutes ago, plissken said:

I'll drop another truth bomb for everyone here.

 

In true objective fashion, you've dropped what you believe is a truth bomb without any context, then made a subjective conclusion based on 1/10th of the facts. Well done. 

[JoeWhip]

I have no problems with measurements. I believe in them along with listening. I have participated in blind listening tests of DACs and ICs and PCs. In some I and others heard a difference, many times not. Always interesting. Nuff said.