ASR Audio Science Review forum YouTube Channel

[Miska]

28 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

Such high-frequency IMD effects should be easy to detect in the audible range by capturing the output of the amplifier up to 20KHz, rather than at the output of a DAC, wouldn't you agree?

 

Yes. However measuring DACs gets very complex when you imagine all possible combinations of DAC + pre-amp + power-amp + speakers.

 

But for "audible range" I stick to about 120 dB dynamic range and 100 kHz specification. Since it is quite a bit more complex than many people would quickly think. We are not talking about just constant discrete tones, but also various complex transient and multi-tone cases. To reproduce for example the proper TIM test tone, you need at least 100 kHz bandwidth or more. And this test tone was chosen based on audibility of TIM properties.

 

Since the various measurable problems in the DAC output can be fixed, I don't see reason in not fixing those.

 

[Josh Mound]

On 3/5/2021 at 7:00 PM, asdf1000 said:

This doesn't make any sense.

What I mean is that Amir isn’t providing the same measurements as Schiit’s specs for the Modi 1, so his measurements didn’t serve as a check on Schiit’s claims. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

11 minutes ago, JoshM said:

What I mean is that Amir isn’t providing the same measurements as Schiit’s specs for the Modi 1, so his measurements didn’t serve as a check on Schiit’s claims. 

So we’re back at the theoretical issue of making sure a product does what the manufacturer claims. Seems like the voter fraud commission had more luck, but was equally transparent in its true purpose. 

[asdf1000]

6 hours ago, JoshM said:

What I mean is that Amir isn’t providing the same measurements as Schiit’s specs for the Modi 1, so his measurements didn’t serve as a check on Schiit’s claims. 

 

I think we'll have to disagree on interpretations of the measurements...

 

And I'm happy we have Stereophile (JA measurements), SoundStage, HiFi News (lesser extent, limited number of measurements done) , Archimago and now Amir that show the measured performance.

 

We now have many better offerings than the atrocious performance below, by many lower cost Chinese manufacturers and now Schiit themselves.

 

Without 3rd party measurements of lots of products it's hard to know if these kinds of things would actually get improved over time.

 

It's not good (for me) if we only have subjective reviews by paid writers on forums that are sponsored by companies. 

 

We don't want to be sold fake news.... It's natural for these people to be defensive - either their own feelings are hurt by seeing measurements or their sponsors feelings are hurt.

 

But kudos to Schiit Audio for making large improvements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

 

I think we'll have to disagree on interpretations of the measurements...

 

And I'm happy we have Stereophile (JA measurements), SoundStage, HiFi News (lesser extent, limited number of measurements done) , Archimago and now Amir that show the measured performance.

 

We now have many better offerings than the atrocious performance below, by many lower cost Chinese manufacturers and now Schiit themselves.

 

Without 3rd party measurements of lots of products it's hard to know if these kinds of things would actually get improved over time.

 

It's not good (for me) if we only have subjective reviews by paid writers on forums that are sponsored by companies. 

 

We don't want to be sold fake news.... It's natural for these people to be defensive - either their own feelings are hurt by seeing measurements or their sponsors feelings are hurt.

 

But kudos to Schiit Audio for making large improvements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, bad performance is far different from fraud. 

[semente]

23 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

We don't want to be sold fake news.... It's natural for these people to be defensive - either their own feelings are hurt by seeing measurements or their sponsors feelings are hurt.

 

I think that the The Hi-Fi Performance Truth Crusade is pointless for audiophiles.

Most will buy a multitude of gear throughout their lifetime and some actively navigate ramdomly in search for a sonic presentation which will suit their preference (at least at a given point in time).

 

As for the general consumer, he probably doesn't care less about the performance of his system. He'll probably just buy on looks and budget. He won't watch Guttenberg's videos, read What Hi-Fi? or navigate ASR...

 

 

Which begs a most relevant question:

 

Why does Amir waste so much precious time measuring mostly plasticky toy speakers instead of speakers which audiophiles (his readers) would actually buy?

[asdf1000]

29 minutes ago, semente said:

Which begs a most relevant question:

 

Why does Amir waste so much precious time measuring mostly plasticky toy speakers instead of speakers which audiophiles (his readers) would actually buy?

 

I don't understand. This is a toy speaker? Revel F208 

 

And this is a toy speaker? KEF R3

 

I have this, is it a toy speaker with a pair of subwoofers 😃? Genelec 8341A

 

Those have been measured by ASR and more.

 

It's been mentioned numerous times in this thread but I guess has to be repeated - he measures what gets sent in...

 

I'm certainly not complaining about receiving free data points... in addition to datapoints provided by JA at Stereophile, Archimago, SoundStage, HiFi-News .... before ASR became popular.

 

If  one has big Wilsons, send them in... if one doesn't want to send in their big Wilsons then I can't understand complaining that he doesn't measure big Wilsons.

 

[Miska]

Local magazine here is also doing quite a bit of measurements. And so are Stereoplay and other German magazines as well.

 

All the testing combined gives fairly OK test coverage of things on the market. None of them alone is enough, because too many things are left out.

 

Regarding loudspeakers, for many manufacturers who measure their own speakers, all the speaker models behave in fairly similar way. So you sort of know what you are getting even if the specific model has not been measured. Revel, KEF, Genelec, Dynaudio, Elac...

 

My current speakers consist of Dynaudio, Elac and one DIY pair based on design published by local magazine (with measurements).

 

Now I want to upgrade my Dynaudio's to a newer model and get pair of KEF LS-50 Meta's as office monitors (which measured extremely well). But for the LS-50 I need to hear first to make sure the tweeter is not annoying for me. I usually have a problem with metal dome tweeters and been preferring ribbons over metal domes for that reason. Two of my three speaker sets have ribbon tweeters. Will have to see when I have the budget for these... Headphones are my primary tool though.

 

[asdf1000]

 

14 minutes ago, Miska said:

All the testing combined gives fairly OK test coverage of things on the market. None of them alone is enough, because too many things are left out.

 

100% agree. The more testing coverage the better. That's been my main message from the start of this thread too.

 

Sometimes you have products that tick both the objective and the subjective boxes. Revel speakers, KEF speakers are some.

 

KEF LS50 Meta is a great example tick both boxes.

 

Another example of this: I'm not a big Darko fan but was surprised to see this (we know how well the ADI-2 has measured) which should keep the subjectivists happy, that really need to hear/read about other people's subjective impressions:

 

 

[semente]

4 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

 

I don't understand. This is a toy speaker? Revel F208 

 

And this is a toy speaker? KEF R3

 

I have this, is it a toy speaker with a pair of subwoofers 😃? Genelec 8341A

 

Those have been measured by ASR and more.

 

That's 3 of 121 to date... But you've certainly earned your ASR t-shirt and baseball cap.

[asdf1000]

10 minutes ago, semente said:

 

That's 3 of 121 to date... But you've certainly earned your ASR t-shirt and baseball cap.

 

But you wrote like all 121 were 'toys'... those are 3 off the top of my head (I own the Genelecs).

 

If you're interested, you can probably find more over there if you look?

 

If you're not interested, then why bring it up? 

 

 

[semente]

3 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

But you wrote like all 121 were 'toys'...

Did I really...

[Miska]

Certainly ASR coverage of brands is quite strange. Can't see much dCS, Esoteric, or such there in terms of DACs. Luckily some Holo Audio, although not in the optimal way even.

 

If 75% of the DACs reviewed are based on the same ESS chip series, it is quite boring.

 

So I'd just say the market coverage is a little off....

[skatbelt]

41 minutes ago, Miska said:

Certainly ASR coverage of brands is quite strange. Can't see much dCS, Esoteric, or such there in terms of DACs. Luckily some Holo Audio, although not in the optimal way even.

 

If 75% of the DACs reviewed are based on the same ESS chip series, it is quite boring.

 

So I'd just say the market coverage is a little off....

 

This is because the products he measures and 'reviews' are mainly submitted by users of his forum. This alone explains why almost no real higher end items are tested. His followers are objectivists and these people generally don't believe in high-end audio.

[fas42]

10 minutes ago, skatbelt said:

 

This is because the products he measures and 'reviews' are mainly submitted by users of his forum. This alone explains why almost no real higher end items are tested. His followers are objectivists and these people generally don't believe in high-end audio.

 

IME, there are almost no "toy speakers" ... but there are plenty of substandard replay chains, which can make speakers sound very toyish. So in that sense the whole 121 speakers are fine to test seriously - serious levels of bling may help the visual experience, but are no guarantees of genuine "high end" performance ...

[asdf1000]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

Certainly ASR coverage of brands is quite strange.

 

Strange if you expect reviews of products from paying sponsors...

 

Not really that strange if you consider how the reviews work, which I mentioned a few times.

 

He mostly measures what gets sent in and that's mostly by general public.

 

I gave an example that applies to the same brand DACs you mentioned:

 

"If one has big Wilsons, send them in... if one doesn't want to send in their big Wilsons then I can't understand complaining that he doesn't measure big Wilsons."

[asdf1000]

This guy Erin is very active on ASR and has his own website and YouTube channel now, with loads of measurements.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Nice to see more people measuring and verifying performance. The more datapoints the better in my opinion.

 

These speakers reviewed here have their own DACs built in so no need to worry about Chinese vs 'high end' DACs and SINAD charts. These boxes actually produce sound 😃

 

I read that Amir will be getting 8C's in for review too. The bigger Genelec DSP speakers too.

 

More toy speaker measurements  😀

 

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/dutch_dutch_8c/

 

 

[semente]

3 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

read that Amir will be getting 8C's in for review too.

 

What for? It's been reviewed by Erin (see above), Stereophile, Soundstage...

 

How exciting... 🙄

[asdf1000]

29 minutes ago, semente said:

 

What for? It's been reviewed by Erin (see above), Stereophile, Soundstage...

 

 

The more data points the better.

 

Each reviewer will test slightly different things that perhaps the others don't....

 

Frequency response is only one measurement.

 

33 minutes ago, semente said:

How exciting... 🙄

 

If the topic of measurements doesn't interest you, why are you here?  No other interesting threads on the forum?

[semente]

1 hour ago, asdf1000 said:

 

The more data points the better.

 

Each reviewer will test slightly different things that perhaps the others don't....

 

Frequency response is only one measurement.

 

 

If the topic of measurements doesn't interest you, why are you here?  No other interesting threads on the forum?

 

I'm very interested in measurements. I'm not interested in duplicates.

[asdf1000]

3 minutes ago, semente said:

 

I'm very interested in measurements. I'm not interested in duplicates.

 

It's very simple. The overall set of measurements performed by each reviewer is not a duplicate.

 

Overlap of course, but not a duplicate...

 

If you're actually interested... spend more time looking at each of the reviews of the 8C and it will become more evident 😉

 

 

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

These speakers reviewed here have their own DACs built in so no need to worry about Chinese vs 'high end' DACs and SINAD charts. These boxes actually produce sound 😃

 

I read that Amir will be getting 8C's in for review too. The bigger Genelec DSP speakers too.

 

I just personally wouldn't buy Genelec's for music listening. Even though it's a Finnish company too. I've heard and used many of their speakers and it's just not my thing. Amps, DACs and the DSPs they have are not so great either and hard to replace with better ones given that those are active speakers.

 

Good measurements don't mean that the sound would be good. But if something measures really badly it's a good way to reduce amount of gear you need to test by listening.

 

Quote

ttps://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/dutch_dutch_8c/

 

Ugh, aluminum dome tweeters... Too bad he doesn't measure beyond 20 kHz. Many metal domes have about +20 dB resonance just above 20 kHz and when combined with a DAC that has leaky filters the resonance screams like crazy and can make listening uncomfortable experience.

 

[asdf1000]

 

10 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

I just personally wouldn't buy Genelec's for music listening. Even though it's a Finnish company too. I've heard and used many of their speakers and it's just not my thing. Amps, DACs and the DSPs they have are not so great either and hard to replace with better ones given that those are active speakers.

 

 

Of course, that's fine.  The point of good measurements (for me) is simply to shortlist what to demo. Nothing more.

 

Once I get to the demo stage, it's completely subjective and personal preference for me.

 

I don't need someone else to tell me something sounds good or bad... when I can simply decide that myself with my own ears.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Miska said:

Good measurements don't mean that the sound would be good. But if something measures really badly it's a good way to reduce amount of gear you need to test by listening.

 

100% agreed 

 

You and I are in way more agreement than disagreement on the entire topic of measurements 😃

 

 

[Summit]

I like the Genelec 8341A and think they are hard to beat for what they cost. 

[charlesphoto]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I just personally wouldn't buy Genelec's for music listening. 

 

 

 

I wouldn't either. They're intended for near field over a mixing desk, usually for engineers and producers who are already half deaf. The ones I've heard have been awfully bright and shouty, which works for mixing and raw playback, but not something I'd want to sit and relax to in my home or office.