A bit about your host....

[Bob from Florida]

First time seeing this thread. Very interesting biography. Thank you for providing this service.

 

[pionmw]

Well, I don't know about MSR, but at the old Bell Labs, you did what you were good at. Some of the best CS and computer design types were physicists. More than one EE did pure research.

I will say that it does often take a couple of engineers to support a researcher, and by that I do not mean in a subordinate roll, either, to the point one might considering there being "engineering research".

I speak as a Masters Level EE who spent almost all of my life swerving between basic research and applying the research, alternately. I get lots of "sniff, you're just an engineer", never mind the research results to this day. So yeah, I'm a bit sensitive about that.

Scientists, engineers, researchers, developers...
S are those who work to discover new methods and models. Then they define the abstract requirements to encapsulate the new model into a new method. Almost any (reasonably good) S will understand the E language & limits & value. It has to.
E are those who apply the known methods and models. They execute the abstract requirements and define the practical (engineering) requirements.
R are those S&E who typically do not spend more than 1/3 of work time into production-level product or solution development.
D are those who spend majority of work time (>2/3?) into production level development.
But, EEs are more exception than the rule. A good EE which knows and integrates S-skills is called a scientist as well. One which knows and integrates E-skills is called engineer. R&D is even more gray area for them.

True, many E-S, R-S or EE-S (but fewer D-S) come from pure research or applied research physics (if company affords to pay them). This does not mean that S from other fields cannot have the same path, and be as good or better than physicists. Trick is to open the black boxes and understand what's in there until you see the limits of the models from smallest to widest perspective. Then you choose to be an E or and S about that thing.

Managers are those who like black bloxes and play Tetris with them, and with teams, for success of visions and projects (whatever that means). Very rare (but more successful), one who open the boxes and look inside. It takes lots of hobby or personal time, when and if they have it. I think Amir was/is in this category.
And what he is doing here is good. I appreciate very much his angle and effort.

 

[Deemic]

Hello Amir,

Since this is my first post on this forum, I think it‘s fair to say that after reading your background, you have had a career that most electronics geeks could only dream about.
Also, as I’ve been hitting up all the major audio/audiophile forums and websites trying to acquire data and insight and opinions, your name comes up quite frequently as a point of reference.
This speaks volumes to your character and sincerity. As a relative noob in the head-fi arena I could see within a very short window of time that you are very well respected in the audio community. And rightfully so.

Thank you for your many contributions.
Congratulations on your many successes!

Your glowing recommendation of the RME ADI-2 Pro FS brought me to investigating and purchasing that phenomenal piece of equipment.
I could not be happier thus far!
Thanks again!

 

[amirm]

Thank you so much @Deemic. It is very heart forming to hear your feedback.

 

[jwmitchell]

For amirm, in the text associated with your award picture, you say you are the one on the right. Is that right as viewed or right as in the orientation of the award recipients? Lest this seem odd, I am used to "stage right", I am also used to beginning counts like channels from 0 rather than 1. (PhD astrophysicist, accelerator particle physicist)

 

[jwmitchell]

I enjoy your reviews. I am an objectivist at heart, although I have come around a bit to the subjective side since doing most of my music listening on headphones.

 

[jwmitchell]

Regarding question above, I assume you are on viewer right rather than stage right as that is the simplest. Occam's razor.

 

[Pete Basel]

When my wife (translator) got one of the first PCs in her company to work with (1989) one of the big bosses wondered: "Does she work at all? The whole day I see her just sitting in front of her PC!".

I read in a management book that one of the guys who wrote UNIX at Bell Labs was leaning
back in his chair with his feet up on the desk and a manager came in to ask what are you doing
he said I'm thinking, the manager responded with pick up a pen or pencil and do something, LOL.

Another story, an engineer at Xerox had a pet project that he kept on a bench covered during the
day and worked on it nights and weekends. His manager asked what's that he said I'm trying out
some new ideas for printers. The manager told him to stop working on it so he went over his head
and the higher up manager moved him to PARC where he invented the Laser Printer.

When I worked in defense electronics management became big on metrics. For hardware engineers
it was how many pins you wired up in schematics per hour or lines of HDL code. The logical conclusion
would be not to use logic optimization to produce a gate/transistor efficient circuit.
For software engineers it was lines of code per hour, so of course don't use subroutines or do anything
to optimize your code.

 

[LTig]

For software engineers it was lines of code per hour, so of course don't use subroutines or do anything to optimize your code.

Lately a lot of my work is to reduce the mass of code through refactoring: move duplicate code into functions, remove unused code, etc. With such a metric you described I'd need to pay my employer rather than getting payed.
Luckily my team leader is very happy each time I show him how much code I have removed.

 

[Pete Basel]

The stories I could tell!
I don't read comics but stumbled across Dilbert and would read it anytime we
had the paper around. For years I wondered where the author got his material
and then learned that he worked at Xerox.

 

[DonH56]

Scott Adams (Dilbert author) worked at some bank then Pac Bell if I recall correctly...

 

[Pete Basel]

I feel like I remember reading Xerox with pretty high confidence but it was over 10
years ago and as they say don't believe everything you read. Yes, Pac Bell is mentioned
in a Wiki article about him.

 

[DonH56]

I feel like I remember reading Xerox with pretty high confidence but it was over 10
years ago and as they say don't believe everything you read. Yes, Pac Bell is mentioned
in a Wiki article about him.

He could well have worked at Xerox, I don't know for sure. I just remember a talk he gave (long ago) when he mentioned starting at a bank and then working for Pac Bell. I thought he was at Pac Bell when he was looking for another career and took to comics. He had some funny stories about the rejections he got, particularly for his drawing skills...

Edit: This is from his Scott Adams Essays "About" page:

Pre-Dilbert Career​

Crocker National Bank (eight years): Teller, management trainee, computer programmer, commercial lender, product manager, project manager, and budget supervisor
Pacific Bell (eight years): Budget and financial analysis, fake engineer (literally) in a technology lab

 

[anmpr1]

I read in a management book that one of the guys who wrote UNIX at Bell Labs was leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk and a manager came in to ask what are you doing he said I'm thinking, the manager responded with pick up a pen or pencil and do something, LOL.

Ritchie and Thompson probably did more real innovation in their sleep than someone like Gates ever did in all his waking days.

 

[freemansteve]

Weird! I also got an Electronics degree, but we were the first year to have microprocessors on the syllabus. So I naturally went into software, as it paid twice as much! In time, I ended up running software, hardware, mech design and test groups in an international company! Kinda full circle, but never audio stuff. A bunch of guys who used to work for me did however leave and made the Plato streamer, which was pretty good, despite some errors of over-doing it which made it too expensive, and no budget review bribes!

 

[Colin James Wonfor]

Weird! I also got an Electronics degree, but we were the first year to have microprocessors on the syllabus. So I naturally went into software, as it paid twice as much! In time, I ended up running software, hardware, mech design and test groups in an international company! Kinda full circle, but never audio stuff. A bunch of guys who used to work for me did however leave and made the Plato streamer, which was pretty good, despite some errors of over-doing it which made it too expensive, and no budget review bribes!

God I hated Software, but it was made very hard for me with bloody Dyslexia. System 10 by Singer machine code was ok but the rest was just gobble gook. And Octal machine code was some time OK. But a simple on/off switch was my favorite.

 

[Fred Waites]

got tired of arguing back and forth with someone on what audio products really do. So did some testing and proved the point that way

This just made my day. Cold hard facts for the win! Though with a CV as impressive as that I am surprised anyone has the gall to argue in the first place.

Only found this site last week, very much enjoying it and greatly appreciate all the hard work that goes into making it what it is. Your review (and the conversation that followed it in the thread) was the major factor my acquisition of a Topping A 30 Pro. Only had it 2 days but I think I am in love.

 

[JSmith]

Only found this site last week

Welcome to ASR.


JSmith

 

[j_j]

This just made my day. Cold hard facts for the win! Though with a CV as impressive as that I am surprised anyone has the gall to argue in the first place.

Only found this site last week, very much enjoying it and greatly appreciate all the hard work that goes into making it what it is. Your review (and the conversation that followed it in the thread) was the major factor my acquisition of a Topping A 30 Pro. Only had it 2 days but I think I am in love.

Oh, somebody will argue with anything, this is the internet. It's only been a week since somebody claimed I didn't exist, for instance.

 

[SIY]

Oh, somebody will argue with anything, this is the internet. It's only been a week since somebody claimed I didn't exist, for instance.

Who the hell are you?