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

 

 

[asdf1000]

2 hours ago, JoeWhip said:

I don’t disagree, but I would think that you should listen too, no? Amir doesn’t listen, just goes by the numbers, which may or may not tell the true story.

 

What do you mean he just goes by numbers?

 

He shares numbers but how does that suggest he "goes by" them?

 

[asdf1000]

5 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

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.

 

The opening post of this thread is addressed to Teresa, a woman....

 

Even with your "edit" added, do you think this edit would make your mother, sister etc comfortable, with what you wrote before your edit?

 

A bit of class would be nice. Especially when the opening post is addressed to a woman !!

 

 

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

He makes his recommendation solely using his numbers, not listening.

 

His recommendation are based on being a well engineered product (or not).

 

One can then use that information to shortlist well engineered products, to go listen / demo ....

 

I don't understand why one needs to read/hear what someone else things about sound quality when the HiFi Gods have blessed all of us that are in this hobby, with our own 2 ears.

[asdf1000]

51 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

Sorry plisskin the Yggy sounds fantastic. Not a high fidelity device my ass. This condescending know it all attitude is why I left ASR.

 

Funnily enough, after you left ASR, Schiit Audio and Amir seem to have kissed and made up and they are now sending gear to him to measure and they measure well now and he recommends these products...

 

I really would like to see @Superdad and Amir kiss and make up one day. Nobody likes seeing their parents fighting all the time 😄 . I am hopeful the day will come.

 

I never saw that day coming with Schiit Audio and yet, the beef is squashed.

 

[asdf1000]

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Not at all. We had this discussion previously in another thread. Ranking items based on measurements is a disservice and has nothing to do with being well engineered when the "top" 70% of DACs don't have any issues that humans can hear. 

 

 

Noted but I still don't understand this over fascination on his SINAD chart.

 

He provides a heck of a lot more measurements below his SINAD chart and is not shy to point out measurement issues, even if the SINAD is over 110dB...

 

I previously shared an example of the DAC with high output impedance... maybe a way to "cheat" to achieve their high SINAD? He called them out...

 

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Is it a good design decision to spend more money on engineering, thus making the product cost more, if all that it gets you is a lower nose floor that is even further below the level of human hearing?

 

This seems to be focusing just on DACs? He has moved well past measuring just DACs , onto amps and the things that make sound - speakers and headphones.

 

The latter are also the things with highest distortion measurements...

 

If he was just measuring DACs I would understand some of these comments.

 

But Schiit Audio seemed to listen? They are sending DACs to him now and measuring well ?

 

So an engineering improvement happened right?

[asdf1000]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

Distortion of 0.00000000000001% is technically lower than 0.00000000000002% but nobody in their right mind should care. 

 

The product type does matter. Those numbers don't apply to amps, speakers, headphones.

 

Funnily enough, people involved in engineering products that make sound are active on his forum.

 

KEF Engineering boss is there and happy with Amir's KEF R3 measurements.

 

Genelec Senior Engineer is there and very happy with Amir's Genelecs measurements.

 

Dan Clarke is there and happy with Amir's headphone measurement of their products.

 

Dr. Sean Olive and Dr. Floyd Toole are there and happy with his ideas of what are good speaker and headphone measurements to aim for.

 

Rob Watts would be happy with Amir's measurement of his Qutest DAC...

 

All the above are engineers involved in state of the art products that make sound.

 

Schiit Audio are now sending Amir gear.

 

 

 

[asdf1000]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Amps don’t have distortion? 

 

Distortion at these levels?  

 

"Distortion of 0.00000000000001% is technically lower than 0.00000000000002% but nobody in their right mind should care. "

 

 

I wrote "Those numbers don't apply to amps, speakers, headphones."

 

 

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Amps don’t have distortion? 

 

And when I write the below, at what point does the whinging and complaining about Amir seem a bit silly?

 

We are well passed DACs now and into the area of things producing sound.

 

 

"Funnily enough, people involved in engineering products that make sound are active on his forum.

 

KEF Engineering boss is there and happy with Amir's KEF R3 measurements.

 

Genelec Senior Engineer is there and very happy with Amir's Genelecs measurements.

 

Dan Clarke is there and happy with Amir's headphone measurement of their products.

 

Dr. Sean Olive and Dr. Floyd Toole are there and happy with his ideas of what are good speaker and headphone measurements to aim for.

 

Rob Watts would be happy with Amir's measurement of his Qutest DAC...

 

All the above are engineers involved in state of the art products that make sound.

 

Schiit Audio are now sending Amir gear."

 

 

 

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I don’t follow. 

 

If the Engineers of products we love are active on the forum and happy with Amir's measurements at what point does it seem silly that consumers of these products complain that measurements aren't everything?

 

In addition to the products I mentioned, Genelec, Neumann, KRK, RME, Focusrite (Gen3), Motu - these are some of the biggest names making the gear that make the music we listen to... getting recommendations by Amir.

Good engineering behind the products we love and behind the music we love.

 

What is the issue with Amir here?

 

It really makes no sense now.

 

 

 

 

 

[asdf1000]

 

12 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I still do t follow your logic. 300 Chinese DACs for $500 all measure great. If those engineers are on a site, why should I care?

 

You're still talking about DACs and I said the site has moved well past and onto things that produce sound (speakers and headphones) and the things that drive those (amps).

 

You are right you shouldn't care about DACs ! DACs are solved by the competent Engineers - even by Schiit Audio now (they are sending DACs to Amir to measure and doing well). 

 

Not sure why you single out Chinese but you're not reading what I wrote before or conveniently ignoring - RME engineer is there and product measured superbly, Chord Qutest measured superbly. 

 

Benchmark DAC, superb.

 

Universal Audio's top end pro audio interface measured state of the art.

 

Please read my examples carefully and no need to bring Chinese into it? Even though many of them have solved the DAC performance thing too.

 

The funniest thing with the Schiit example is that the Engineers of Schiit products listened and changed their engineering and now send gear to Amir. But the consumers are still stuck in their mindset. 

 

i find that comical

 

But move beyond DACs. And forget about the engineers being on the forum if that is distracting you.

 

KEF R3, Genelec monitors, KRK monitors, Neumann monitors, Sennheiser headphones, Dan Clarke headphones, Purifi based amps, Hypex based amps, THX based amps - all getting great measurements and recommendations.

 

The whinging about measurements has become silly when you look at the overall picture

 

Respectfully please don't bring up DACs again 😃

 

[asdf1000]

Just now, Rexp said:

The issue is Amir relies on his measuring equipment to tell him if a product should sound good or not, unfortunately no measuring equipment is currently good enough to do this. 

 

No - measurements and careful listening tests.

 

He doesn't need to show videos of him doing blind testing because that would be silly. He leaves it to the reader/viewer to do because that makes more sense... use your own pair of ears. 

 

i.e. go demo stuff yourself! 

 

If you have good speakers and headphones, their design would have been guided by Dr. Floyd Toole and/or Dr. Sean Olive's research.

 

And surprise surprise, they are big on measurements and listening tests...

 

[asdf1000]

21 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I just don’t understand the appeal to authority

 

If the authority is the engineers  making the gear I love and behind the music I love, I have no issues with appeal to authority in this particular / specific case - as long is it is verified ! I don't understand how that can be seen as unreasonable.

 

All I'm interested in, is "does it do what the manufacturer says it does". Nothing more, nothing less.

 

For all those examples I shared, the answer is yes. These products do what THEY claim they do (their own specs!).

 

Before Amir, I had Stereophile (JA's measurements) to go to. Now I have 2 sources to go to.

 

I don't equate measurements to SQ. There seems to be a strong (non-scientific) correlation from personal experience but I try to keep the 2 separate myself.

 

21 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I don’t want to taint our other good forum conversations that are productive 🙂

 

 

I am DREADING the day he gets his hands on one and says it doesn't do what Merging says it does😄

 

Btw I have measured Anubis and their specs do match up nicely with measurements. Easy to measure itself with it's pretty high res ADC (SINAD = 109dB LOL).

 

But yes, let's continue good Anubis convo's and park this debate till next time.

 

I'm hoping to make Munch show next year so maybe we can share a beer with Jussi and finally settle the technical debate once and for all and publish an AES journal LOL

 

[asdf1000]

A great take on ASR by Rob H in my opinion.

 

As I mentioned earlier, just ignore Amir's subjective comments and who cares what another pair of ears hears anyway :-)

 

And as I mentioned earlier, he has verified that Genelec, KEF R3, Neumann monitors, KRK monitors, Focal speakers, Benchmark interface, Focusrite interface, Motu interface, Chord Qutest DAC, RME interface, Benchmark amp, new Schiit Audio products etc, do what the manufacturers say they do . I didn't even mention JBL and Revel there in case someone screams conflict of interest even though measurements and measurements.

 

I agree the way Amir writes has/can put some people off but I find that easy to filter and just look at the data.

 

And Rob H does point out some of the flaws in measurements (which Amir acknowledges himself!)

 

And I agree with some of the points about some fanatics over there.

 

3rd party verification (done well) is always a good thing. Does it do what the manufacturer says it does.

 

If someone argues we should have less 3rd part verification in this world, well I'm lost.

 

 

[asdf1000]

18 minutes ago, Rexp said:

If you rely on meaningless measurements, your are lost. 

 

Meaningless? KEF, Genelec, Harman, Neumann engineers don't think they are meaningless.

 

Your opinion is your opinion but they are lost and you are found? 😄

 

And I don't "rely" on measurements - I consider them. I like to know that what the manufacturer says something does, it does.

 

If you like to be lied to, that's fine for you.

 

I'm lost if someone wants less 3rd party verification in this world.

 

The world should have just trusted VW and a regulator shouldn't have measured right ;-)

 

I am not drawing any similarity between the importance of audio hobby and climate change - the point of the example is sometimes you can't trust what a manufacturer tells you unless you have someone check 😉There have been examples of this in HiFi as Amir has found.

 

[asdf1000]

Remember the state of the art gear on this planet are designed by engineers and engineers use these (and more) measurements.

 

 

[asdf1000]

So what happens when Amir posts APx555 measurements and the designer of the DAC (I hate still talking about DACs but seems I have to) posts his own APx555 measurement and they are different ?

 

Same key measurement gear (different overall setup probably) but different results?

 

Well this happens in the case of Chord Mojo.

 

It didn't change my opinion of my Chord Mojo at all. The designer shared his own APx555 measurements in this case. So it wasn't one persons word against another persons measurements. It was measurement based. Rob Watts of Chord is heavy into measurements and loves to tell the world he was one of the first in all of Europe to own the APx555...

 

The audience is left to decide what they want.

 

I wish there were more cases like this where manufacturers simply posted their own measurements. Then people can decide if Amir is simply measuring wrong. But there aren't enough of these examples. Maybe this is changing now (thanks to Amir).

 

Schiit Audio now post their own APx555 measurements on their website and send gear to Amir. I never thought I'd see that day.

 

Funnily enough, later Chord Qutest was measured as state of the art by Amir.

 

[asdf1000]

Just now, sandyk said:

 

 

The majority of the "lemons: were designed by Engineers too. 😉

 

Correct. We need more 3rd party verification to filter out the lemons ;-)

 

 

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Do do you get a commission on every new member you introduce to A.S.R ?  😃

 

Huge fan of JA at Stereophile too. For exactly the same reasons.

 

And Tyll at Innerfidelity before he retired.

 

These helped the industry, not hurt.

 

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, Rexp said:

I'd be delighted if there was a measurement or way to veryify whether stuff sounds good/high fidelity- but it doesn't exist. 

 

I just want to know something does what the manufacturer says it does on the box. I have to keep repeating this because it seems to be going over peoples heads.

 

After that, I'm happy to use my own ears to " veryify whether stuff sounds good/high fidelity"

 

Sound like a fair and reasonable approach? 😉

[asdf1000]

27 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Do do you get a commission on every new member you introduce to A.S.R ?  😃

 

Btw this thread was never started as a pro-ASR thread.

 

The opening post shows why this thread was started.

 

But the anti-ASR folks came and here we are 😄

 

As I already mentioned above, I am definitely anti some ways that Amir does things and communicates things. Rob H describes it well in the video above.

 

But I can filter that from the useful measurements he is doing these days. And then use that info to shortlist what I demo with my own ears !

[asdf1000]

Just now, Rexp said:

Best to ignore measurements. 

 

Not sure what the designers of the very gear you own would think of this 😄

 

 

1 minute ago, Rexp said:

I think the reason ASR is popular is that many believe most digital tweaks/high priced sources are snake oil

 

Some things that are not "tweaks" or "high priced snake oil" that are very popular on ASR and come recommended by him:

 

KEF R3 speakers,  Genelec monitors, Neumann monitors, Dan Clarke headphones, Sennheiser headphones, JBL speakers, Revel speakers, RME interface, Universal Audio interface, Motu interface, Benchmark amp, THX based amps, Purif based amp, Hypex based amps. Chord Qutest DAC too. There are even more examples.

 

Unfortunately I need to keep repeating this because people still seem angry about early Rendu and Uptone product reviews from years ago.

 

Things have moved on quickly to components that produce sound.

 

[asdf1000]

27 minutes ago, semente said:

Actually I find that he is too caught up in SINAD and Spinorama and resulting Predicted Preference rating, both of which are manifestly insufficient to characterise performance.

It’s a simplistic approach which ultimately is not that different from a star-rating system.

 

Noted but I'm really not sure what is so complicated about looking past the SINAD measurement (which all manufacturers specify btw in the form of THD+N %, so it is one of many checks for does it do what the manufacturer says ) and looking at all the other measurements he does and considering (not relying) all , on the whole.

 

I think readers (both pro-ASR and anti-ASR) seem to get more caught up in the SINAD chart than he does and forget a lot of the other very useful measurements.

 

I use a Focusrite  Gen3 interface which has a SINAD of just over 100dB (both DAC and ADC) .

 

I don't feel like I need to sell that for a Okto multichannel interface for the highest SINAD on the chart. I think 100dB is competent... and other measurements shows good performance.

 

The SINAD game is only annoying to people that seem to put so much emphasis on it. It puzzles me to be honest.

 

There are other important measurements which he shares fortunately.

 

I have to ask again, I'm not sure why people want LESS 3rd party verification in the world when he have so many examples of manufacturers not delivery what they say

 

I'm not at all interested in comparison charts. I just want to know it does what it says on the box.

 

[asdf1000]

27 minutes ago, semente said:

I’m grateful that he is performing measurements but the accompanying preaching is unhelpful and unnecessary.

And often he has to be hard pressed in order to move his stance or perform extra measurements.

 

Still I filter out the noise coming from his flock of believers and focus on those who know what they’re talking about.

There’s a lot of narrow-mindedness and parroting which is annoying.

 

Agree with all this (I've mentioned similar in this thread).

 

 

[asdf1000]

50 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The professional thing to do is to measure something, send those measurements to the manufacturer, determine if there is a discrepancy between the measurements or an error, if something is wrong with the measurements  - fix it before publication, if two measurements are different- figure out why before publication, then publish. 

 

Hi again

 

He already does that if manufacturer sends him gear...

Seems unreasonable to expect this if a general public consumer sends him gear or he purchases himself. 

 

I fully understand you want to defend a couple of your forum sponsors who have had products scrutinised by him (I own and enjoy their products too) but coming up with dated arguments like focusing on Chinese DACs and SINAD chart and that he should behave like a website that receives sponsorship and advertising money, is a bit of a stretch and unreasonable in my opinion. I assume this comes from your difficult position.

 

But others can read the arguments and decide for themselves.

 

I purely use ASR to see if a product does what the manufacturer themselves claim it does. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Why one would rather have no verification and just have marketing and reading other peoples subjective impressions, well I can't understand that... we've had many examples of manufacturers not delivering what they claim - not what somebody else claims.

 

To use SINAD as an example since everyone seems to be obsessed with this one number (manufactures typyically specify THD+N % btw, a common spec) if a manufacturer claims a SINAD of 98 dB and that's verified to be accurate, they are good in my book...  I am not obsessed with the ranking aspect. I am not obsessed with 115dB thresh-hold of hearing - I listen at 70-80dB max... Some fans of ASR seem to be obsessed with the rank. I'm not.