Audiogon thread critical of ASR

[Killingbeans]

I asked a person if all 6-10 test they ran covered all 15.8 billion ears?

No ears can turn back time and alter a sound wave before it hits them. All they can do is affect the perception. Ears have zero influence on the playback system itself. Sound waves have no personality, and they can't obtain it from you.

It means that even if you believe that "garbage in, garbage out" is futile, since one man's garbage is another man's gold, you still have a powerful tool at your at your disposal. The tests shows you what will hit your ears, and you can correlate that with the knowledge of what pleases your personal perception. It makes the hunt for setups that fit your preference endlessly more easy.

But I do acknowledge that the practice of "taste testing" is the essential part of the hobby that makes it enjoyable to most people.

I'm just saying that even though the alternative I proposed might not be very fun, it's definitely not based on a disregard of individuality.

 

[Talisman]

I don't think the best way to deal with the guests of a subjectivist forum is to mock them, we all perceived differences that we later realized were not real.
I believe that the only right thing to do is not to try to convince them, but to ask them to try for themselves. Give them tools to get their own idea.
If a user says they find some better features by listening to two dacs that have been measured transparent, my answer will never be
"you are imagining it, isn't it true"
because this clearly puts the person on the defensive.
The thing I'm going to say will be
"well, I have no problem believing you, but I ask you to listen to the difference in a blind test with matched volume, if you recognize the difference then you can also have a preference, I won't be the one to deny it".
Almost none of them will object to this because they are genuinely confident that they can feel the difference. And if they really felt a demonstrably difference at this point it would be right for me to question my beliefs, because that's how science works.

 

[Killingbeans]

ALL thing BREAK-IN. Many things burn up, and burn down but cable and ENGINES, and motors and tires and my sofa, my shoes, my home everything on earth in going DOWN, breaking-in, going away, changing, except. WHAT? What is not changing? ONE THING? What is not breaking-in to a point of breaking down? Please explain to me how things work in simple terms a silly old mechanic understands. Who trained you? Tesla? I watch Murdock Mysteries. How's that?

All thing change and cool down. See I pay attention to science. There was a beginning and there is an end. 2nd law of thermal dynamics right?

Nobody here is denying the workings of entropy, but a mechanical system in motion and an electical conductor are two very, very different things.

The degree of how much the tolerances of different things change over time is not a mystery that can only be judged by ear.

Go to any facility in the world that deals with experimental physics and tell them that they need to recalibrate all of their instumentation because of how the myriad of cables being used is undergoing burn-in. They'll have a very hard time keeping a straight face. I guarantee it.

 

[Newman]

The thing I'm going to say will be "well, I have no problem believing you, but I ask you to listen to the difference in a blind test with matched volume, if you recognize the difference then you can also have a preference, I won't be the one to deny it".
Almost none of them will object to this because they are genuinely confident that they can feel the difference.

Doesn’t work in my experience: you just open the door for them to crank up the anti-DBT diatribe and excuses.

If they don’t object to the suggestion, then we would be reading their reports of the results that they got from their DBT tests. But that’s as rare as hen’s teeth, because they typically do object.

 

[Vacceo]

Russel’s Teapot applies…

It's not just placing the burden of the proof on the listener (if you listened to something different, prove it), it's also an issue of inconsistency.

As far as I know, humans do not have a wide variety in the organs that perceive sound, the variety is in the brains that interprete those stimuli.

 

[Koeitje]

At least you have a sense of humor. ALL thing BREAK-IN. Many things burn up, and burn down but cable and ENGINES, and motors and tires and my sofa, my shoes, my home everything on earth in going DOWN, breaking-in, going away, changing, except. WHAT? What is not changing? ONE THING? What is not breaking-in to a point of breaking down? Please explain to me how things work in simple terms a silly old mechanic understands. Who trained you? Tesla? I watch Murdock Mysteries. How's that?

All thing change and cool down. See I pay attention to science. There was a beginning and there is an end. 2nd law of thermal dynamics right?

A cable doesn't change? OK it's the only thing on earth or all creation that doesn't. I've been schooled. Thanks. I'll tell that to the next person
tonearm I wire and he send it to someone else to condition the wire. ALL tone arm manufactures know that, ASK any of the manufactures that
are still in business. The most important part of a tonearm is the wire.

Can you convince a customer his tonearm sounds better when it sounds worse? Why try.
If they didn't run in, change, break-in, millions of dollars would be returned because of impatient tonearm and TT nuts.
It doesn't happen for a reason.. Some people have the chops, to hear the difference many are full of crap and a few know the difference and who's
ears to trust. I'm not arguing with Carlos Santana if something sounds right. There is a time to listen, ay?

I've never met two people that were the same. EVER. 7.9 billion people, 15.8 billion different ears. That's some differences if you think about it.

Time to feed my rabbit.

Your argument is a strawman. If you want to discuss this, at least try to refute the actual argument.

 

[Geert]

I don't think the best way to deal with the guests of a subjectivist forum is to mock them,

That's what criticists want you to believe is happening here, but that's far from true. Have a look at the 'Are measurements Everything or Nothing?' thread to see how members have done a ton of effort to explain things to newbe subjectivists in a respectful and constructive manner. This deserves respect I believe. Unfortunately these discussions never end well, but not because of ARS members misbehaviour.

Now look at how the Audiogon thread has been evolving since Amir stepped in. It's an open sewage. Messages from their own members have been removed. The OP called Amir an "asshole" and "fraud", ASR members are constantly referred to as "minions" and we are being accused of not understanding what we're measuring (by people with zero knowledge of EE).

Almost none of them will object to this because they are genuinely confident that they can feel the difference

In practise they all object:
- They don't believe in blind tests
- They don't believe auditory memory is bad
- They don't accept they can be biased
- They don't believe in null tests

Funny thing is these things don't require 'believe', they are facts. Unfortunately subjectivist don't believe in facts.

 

[Talisman]

Doesn’t work in my experience: you just open the door for them to crank up the anti-DBT diatribe and excuses.

If they don’t object to the suggestion, then we would be reading their reports of the results that they got from their DBT tests. But that’s as rare as hen’s teeth, because they typically do object.

My approach is different, I never see it as a controversy with them, if someone wants to refuse the test at all costs and shout at me that he is right then he is not my target of the discussion. The diehards in every faction (including ASR) have always existed.
I want to talk to people who simply gave themselves answers to what they were hearing. I have often done this and the answer I gave myself was not always correct or satisfied. I would like everyone to be aware of what they hear. I speak to someone who in good faith is hearing differences in what they hear and it seems stupid that others tell them that it is not true.
They are not all ugly and bad on the other side of the river, there are reasonable people, for whom perhaps it would be enough to try with hand and ears what our enormous limits of perception are.
Then I repeat it, if someone were able to recognize in a blind test two dacs that the measures consider transparent, then we would have to question ourselves, not in the sense that the measures are wrong, they do not, but in the sense that maybe there could be others things to measure that we do not yet have knowledge of. It hasn't happened yet.

 

[Talisman]

That's what criticists want you to believe is happening here, but that's far from true. Have a look at the 'Are measurements Everything or Nothing?' thread to see how members have done a ton of effort to explain things to newbe subjectivists in a respectful and constructive manner. This deserves respect I believe. Unfortunately these discussions never end well, but not because of ARS members misbehaviour.

Now look at how the Audiogon thread has been evolving since Amir stepped in. It's an open sewage (messages from their own members have been removed).


In practise they all object:
- They don't believe in blind tests
- They don't believe auditory memory is bad
- They don't accept they can be biased
- They don't believe in null tests

Funny thing is these things don't require 'believe', they are facts. Unfortunately subjectivist don't believe in facts.

Yes, I know that thread, I have recently joined but have long been a lurker. And you are right, there have been many honest attempts to explain, and this is commendable, but it is always good to remember that dialogue and attempt at reasoning are always the right way.
Those who do not trust a blind test do not trust their ears, it is a simple irrefutable truth, so it is useless to argue with these people because they are in bad faith or do not want to reason

 

[OldHvyMec]

Break-in not burn-in. There is a point where wear is considered negligible and BREAK-IN has stopped. For the lack of a better term normal wear is
is considered normal wear until it isn't. The time varies on all thing. Cable and wire not so much, but the BREAK-IN or how it will eventually sound
for the majority of it's life happens. I'm not here to debate the change and how long it can take if it changes at all. I'm here to say things change.
I know most OFC .99999 copper with PVC is going to take about 2 hours to sound the way it's going to. Copper with Silver clad/teflon on the other hand
changes for hundreds of hours and THEN stops at a point and stabilizes to a point of no more change. Is it still changing?
Until eternity future or the cows come home. Take your pick.

The fact that many people can hear a change but not tell you which cable it is doesn't change the fact the guy brings the cable back and want's the other
cable, weather biased or not. IT HAPPENS. LOL The guy that bought the BS still has to be satisfied even if it's pacified.

It took 10 years for me to figure out a pair of pure silver # 12 USAF surplus cables needed time to sound right. The guy in Elk Grove
laughed at me for not knowing that in the early 80s. I was using Klipsch Horns and Jensen Imperials and J/Subs. I spent 50 dollars on that GD cable and
it was the worst cable I ever heard. About 5-800 hours and 10 years later, they not only changed, a guy paid 2000.00 for the remainder of the cable on
the spool. I guess silver went up from the 70s. I got my 50.00 dollars worth. Still have them here somewhere.

They sounded wonderful UNTILL, that's a different story.

These may wind up being the most constructive threads ever posted on fellas. YOU could be making history. We might just stop a war and wind up
on the moon listening to music like they should have 40 years ago.

I'm listening to Kenny Rogers. "Ruby"

Come on dog time to dance.

 

[Frgirard]

Yes, I know that thread, I have recently joined but have long been a lurker. And you are right, there have been many honest attempts to explain, and this is commendable, but it is always good to remember that dialogue and attempt at reasoning are always the right way.
Those who do not trust a blind test do not trust their ears, it is a simple irrefutable truth, so it is useless to argue with these people because they are in bad faith or do not want to Season

irrefutable ! you need to learn a bit of congnitive psychologie.

 

[JSmith]

It took 10 years for me to figure out a pair of pure silver # 12 USAF surplus cables needed time to sound right.

Well that is a long burn in time... is that still within the trial/return period?


JSmith

 

[Talisman]

Break-in not burn-in. There is a point where wear is considered negligible and BREAK-IN has stopped. For the lack of a better term normal wear is
is considered normal wear until it isn't. The time varies on all thing. Cable and wire not so much, but the BREAK-IN or how it will eventually sound
for the majority of it's life happens. I'm not here to debate the change and how long it can take if it changes at all. I'm here to say things change.
I know most OFC .99999 copper with PVC is going to take about 2 hours to sound the way it's going to. Copper with Silver clad/teflon on the other hand
changes for hundreds of hours and THEN stops at a point and stabilizes to a point of no more change. Is it still changing?
Until eternity future or the cows come home. Take your pick.

The fact that many people can hear a change but not tell you which cable it is doesn't change the fact the guy brings the cable back and want's the other
cable, weather biased or not. IT HAPPENS. LOL The guy that bought the BS still has to be satisfied even if it's pacified.

It took 10 years for me to figure out a pair of pure silver # 12 USAF surplus cables needed time to sound right. The guy in Elk Grove
laughed at me for not knowing that in the early 80s. I was using Klipsch Horns and Jensen Imperials and J/Subs. I spent 50 dollars on that GD cable and
it was the worst cable I ever heard. About 5-800 hours and 10 years later, they not only changed, a guy paid 2000.00 for the remainder of the cable on
the spool. I guess silver went up from the 70s. I got my 50.00 dollars worth. Still have them here somewhere.

They sounded wonderful UNTILL, that's a different story.

These may wind up being the most constructive threads ever posted on fellas. YOU could be making history. We might just stop a war and wind up
on the moon listening to music like they should have 40 years ago.

I'm listening to Kenny Rogers. "Ruby"

Come on dog time to dance.

Everything changes all the time, sure, but are they changes that you can hear with your ears when an amplifier produces a signal that speakers translate into sound waves?
Exactly what I wrote above is valid, if you are convinced it is fine with me, but if you want me to believe it possible you will have to do more than this, you will have to be able to establish in a statistically significant way that you can recognize beyond all doubt, in a blind listen only test, a cable that has played for 10,000 hours from the same new cable. If you can we can see each other continue talking, otherwise we can talk anyway but on other bases, or something else.
I'm listening to Abba's CD, Gold.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Break-in not burn-in. There is a point where wear is considered negligible and BREAK-IN has stopped. For the lack of a better term normal wear is
is considered normal wear until it isn't. The time varies on all thing. Cable and wire not so much, but the BREAK-IN or how it will eventually sound
for the majority of it's life happens. I'm not here to debate the change and how long it can take if it changes at all. I'm here to say things change.
I know most OFC .99999 copper with PVC is going to take about 2 hours to sound the way it's going to. Copper with Silver clad/teflon on the other hand
changes for hundreds of hours and THEN stops at a point and stabilizes to a point of no more change. Is it still changing?
Until eternity future or the cows come home. Take your pick.

The fact that many people can hear a change but not tell you which cable it is doesn't change the fact the guy brings the cable back and want's the other
cable, weather biased or not. IT HAPPENS. LOL The guy that bought the BS still has to be satisfied even if it's pacified.

It took 10 years for me to figure out a pair of pure silver # 12 USAF surplus cables needed time to sound right. The guy in Elk Grove
laughed at me for not knowing that in the early 80s. I was using Klipsch Horns and Jensen Imperials and J/Subs. I spent 50 dollars on that GD cable and
it was the worst cable I ever heard. About 5-800 hours and 10 years later, they not only changed, a guy paid 2000.00 for the remainder of the cable on
the spool. I guess silver went up from the 70s. I got my 50.00 dollars worth. Still have them here somewhere.

They sounded wonderful UNTILL, that's a different story.

These may wind up being the most constructive threads ever posted on fellas. YOU could be making history. We might just stop a war and wind up
on the moon listening to music like they should have 40 years ago.

I'm listening to Kenny Rogers. "Ruby"

Come on dog time to dance.

Sorry to say. It is a fact, that what you claim has never been proven to be correct - by no test, by no logic and by no science.

There is however very strong scientific evidence that people want to perceive (hear) what they believe must be correct (it is called bias).

If you are open to it. We can direct you to more in depth reading and answer any questions you might have.

This is not a bad start it also addresses the not existing effect of corrosion on conductivity in the wire itself:

When 12 Gauge Wire is Not 12 Gauge

Introduction Why test 12 gauge (AWG) wire? 12 AWG speaker wire is a “safe bet” from performance point of view because anything thinner may interact with the low impedance of your speakers and cause the frequency response to vary beyond threshold of hearing (-0.5 dB). That change can “color”...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Other than that, show us proof to the opposite and everyone will listen to you and be open to your claims. Like it or not.

Edit. Typo.

 

[BDWoody]

The fact that many people can hear a change but not tell you which cable it is doesn't change the fact the guy brings the cable back and want's the other

Yes, when trying to do these comparisons without basic sight and level controls at a minimum, there is no telling what people may hear. Isolate the ears, then see how things compare.

 

[Astoneroad]

It took 10 years for me to figure out a pair of pure silver # 12 USAF surplus cables needed time to sound right.

Perhaps you were just waiting that long for your ears to age and break in. This change is routinely measured and is a fact that hearing changes over a 10 year period. The same cannot be said with proof for cables.

 

[Killingbeans]

If they don’t object to the suggestion, then we would be reading their reports of the results that they got from their DBT tests. But that’s as rare as hen’s teeth, because they typically do object.

I've seen reports on it happening.... but then they object to the results. "The fact that I was being tested made me so stressed that my critical listening skills plummeted!"

 

[voodooless]

This change is routinely measured and is a fact that hearing changes over a 10 year period. The same cannot be said with proof for cables.

No, ears are not subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Every true audiophile knows this!

 

[Astoneroad]

No, ears are not subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Every true audiophile knows this!

Blasphemy. Especially since you chose Maxwell's law that I so embrace... Entropy. Maxwell's favorite poem was by Burns... "Comin thro' the Rye"... later to inspire Salinger's iconic work... portraying human entropy in the form of a teenage Holden Caulfield... but I digress... sorry. Maxwell, Salinger, Entropy... "I love the smell of napalm in the morning... it smells like... victory"... oh yeah... cables... burn in...

 

[ahofer]

I couldn't figure how or why people were being banned on AG. Then I did. There wasn't a reason, just ONE horrible moderator. They only have
one person running the forums and most of the sales. SHE has removed whole threads and enough post to fill ALL the libraries of congress 5 times.

Never banned me, but liberally removed my posts. In particular, I offered a bet - $10k to charity on my side, $1k on their side to prove they could hear various differences. Removed it every time. Gambling liability was the excuse. Charity bets exist all over the place, even on TV shows, by politicians, etc., but if they make AG posters look bad - better be careful.

The really hilarious part was the Greek chorus of AGers impugning my morality. But no takers….

I mean GAMBLING? FOR CHARITY? (everyone faints)