Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Reminds of that "Oh! So its' not 100%" joke from Don't Look Up:
I'll admit I ignored ASR review of those Adam speakers because they don't appeal to my eye and cost less than dinner out. But curiosity after reading here led me there and to Kal Rubinson's review of a more domesticated ADAM (is it an acronym? yes apparently) floorstander, which his ears favoured. Based on that—and because I'm not much interested in speakers on a desk—I might peg the diminishing returns around $7K (give or take inflation since 2012). The three way (or 3.5 in fact) configuration using the pleated driver for the midrange as well is interesting but from their website it looks like they don't do speakers you can use with your eyes open anymore (otoh I may have missed something) and the good midrange is now a semi-dome, so I guess that's moot.Spending more money does not greatly improve the first four stated characteristics. Returns are therefore inherently diminished. There are also numerous expensive speakers which neither reproduce lower bass frequencies nor reach significantly higher SPLs than their much cheaper counterparts and vice versa.
Great film.* Otoh, when global annihilation is a possible consequence of my stereo setup, I'll absolutely call on a team of engineers and simulations before adjusting toe-in. If not, I'll just use my ears.Reminds of that "Oh! So its' not 100%" joke from Don't Look Up:
I don't think the preference is wallet led. It's a fantastic time to be a budget audiophile.My mind says I'm an objectivist but my wallet says subjectivist.
Well, I'm not saying you need to spend millions to get good audio (a lot of recordings are not even great either..), but you're unlikely to get good frequency response on a too limited budget either.I don't think the preference is wallet led. It's a fantastic time to be a budget audiophile.
Objectivism has zero to do with wallet depth these days, quite clearly. Nor has it anything to do with measurement fanaticism to the last 0.05%.
That’s an interesting political analogy. I see it from the other pov though - it feels to me that it is the ultra-objectivists who are akin to the flaming passions and extreme positions of the Trump/Brexiteers/anti-vaxer believers. In my experience in any cable thread it is the objectivists who usually come on strongest and most single-mindedly with echoes of religious zealots, whereas the subjectivists are usually just saying “I like that cable, I heard a difference".I agree with this.
I don't think that "subjectivists" (audiophiles, antivaxxers, Tramp or Brexit supporters, etc.) are sensitive to reason and logic. Any evidence based argumentation is lost in them, they just go with their gut...
And when you attak their ideas they feel that they are themselves under attack.
In my experience in any cable thread it is the objectivists who usually come on strongest and most single-mindedly with echoes of religious zealots, whereas the subjectivists are usually just saying “I like that cable, I heard a difference".
A) Refusing to accept that something that is highly unlikely or even physically impossible actually happened when there is no evidence that it did.That’s an interesting political analogy. I see it from the other pov though - it feels to me that it is the ultra-objectivists who are akin to the flaming passions and extreme positions of the Trump/Brexiteers/anti-vaxer believers. In my experience in any cable thread it is the objectivists who usually come on strongest and most single-mindedly with echoes of religious zealots, whereas the subjectivists are usually just saying “I like that cable, I heard a difference".
There are test rigs, but they are not as reliable/predictable as speaker measurements, and Amir acknowledges that with every review he's made of headphones. On top of that, one would expect more person-to-person variation in subjectively evaluating headphones due to differences in the shape of ears. I would imagine this could result in some sort of adjustment akin to Dirac to compensate. But for the moment one needs to take headphone measurements with a few grains of salt.Isn't there a laboratory dummy head with microphones in the 'ears' that can be used to verify headphone performance?
The psychological effect of a product is an important one that we tend to play down on ASR in favour of a purely objective analysis of enjoyment.I know it's expectation bias that the prettier speaker also sounds better to me, but, well, there it is.