Kef R Meta Series Release

[goat76]

Depends on whether he had a bad hair day.

I've never seen him with a good hair day, so he should be fairly consistent.

 

[Daka]

I think this discussion is running bit off course.
Some might not care about impressions of other people and rely on measurements only (probably not trusting their ears also) - and that’s fine.
But a lot of people will be balanced about it and treat it as extra data point in deciding whether it’s worth to give it a demo whether at home or at dealer’s.
So far there are very early days and very few data points to rely on - so even though I don’t find his impression as revealing/detailed it’s still something.

 

[dogmamann]

I think this discussion is running bit off course.
Some might not care about impressions of other people and rely on measurements only (probably not trusting their ears also) - and that’s fine.
But a lot of people will be balanced about it and treat it as extra data point in deciding whether it’s worth to give it a demo whether at home or at dealer’s.
So far there are very early days and very few data points to rely on - so even though I don’t find his impression as revealing/detailed it’s still something.

So let’s conclude that hid opinions doesn’t matter and move on back to meta

 

[JRS]

I don’t trust his hearing at his age. He is a human being, who definitely will have his share of hearing loss at that age. So, anything he says about “highs” cannot be trusted or useful for the entire age group of people. May be for folks of his age it’s relatable.

I resemble that remark at the age of 66 and an upper hearing limit of maybe 10k on a good day, yet I feel qualified to evaluate SQ. For me highs are everything from 4k to 20k, the vast majority of which is under 10k. Perhaps he should make a disclaimer now and then that he may not be in a position to eval the last octave.

All that said, I find it laudable that Toole "retired" when his hearing became less acute. Maybe Guttenberg can find a younger sidekick to help out with that lost octave of airiness or whatever that last octave is referred to.

And the last post from me off topic.

 

[MattHooper]

So let’s conclude that hid opinions doesn’t matter and move on back to meta

Correction: don't matter to you.

It's clear he has plenty of viewers who can find his reports useful (and entertaining).

I'm not a big fan, but visit his channel out of curiosity sometimes, and I'm interested when he reviews a speaker I'm curious about. I really appreciated his review of the Devore O/baby speakers (still, I think, the only review out there).

 

[Descartes]

I always find amusing that Audiophiles are primarily old dudes who all have hearing loss and need to crank up the volume in order to evaluate speakers!

Age-Related Hearing Loss (Presbycusis) — Causes and Treatment

Age-related hearing loss (also called presbycusis, pronounced prez-buh-KYOO-sis) is hearing loss that occurs gradually for many of us as we grow older.

www.nidcd.nih.gov

That’s why relying on data first is essential, then listening for oneself is critical.
I find reviews by these older gentlemen amusing at best and just an other commercial for the manufacturers!

Waiting for Amir and Erin to put these speakers through their engineering labs!

 

[dogmamann]

Correction: don't matter to you.

It's clear he has plenty of viewers who can find his reports useful (and entertaining).

I'm not a big fan, but visit his channel out of curiosity sometimes, and I'm interested when he reviews a speaker I'm curious about. I really appreciated his review of the Devore O/baby speakers (still, I think, the only review out there).

The point of this whole website itself is to make people understand this kind of bullshit isn’t reliable. It’s the same story about anyone who does this kind of reviews! Totally pointless.

 

[Talisman]

The point of this whole website itself is to make people understand this kind of bullshit isn’t reliable. It’s the same story about anyone who does this kind of reviews! Totally pointless.

I think you are making a huge confusion, it is one thing to say that in a dac you can finally hear Jimmy Hendrix's fingers sliding on the guitar strings, it is a completely different thing to express an opinion on listening to the speakers, which Amir himself does , sometimes with somewhat surprising results, if we look first at the measurements as in the case of the Wilson Tune Tot.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...etot-review-high-end-bookshelf-speaker.29219/

“For comparison, I switched back and forth a dozen times with the Revel M106 speaker ($2,000). The Revel had a smaller halo and sounded more focused than the TuneTot. It didn't have the TuneTot's brilliance, but its it was a double-edged sword in that the TuneTot consistently gave the impression of more detailed, "audiophile" high-frequency notes that were very well defined. The TuneTot also had a deeper, cleaner bass response than the M106. overall, I preferred TuneTot to Revel."

This is not to say there is any magic behind it, there are simply so many and such variables behind listening to a speaker, that looking at a spinorama and thinking you know exactly what it sounds like is pure delusion of omnipotence.

I would also like to dwell for a moment on how ridiculous it is to say that a loudspeaker has no point in being rated...by listening to it!
We must not make the mistake of exchanging science for a new blind faith.

 

[MattHooper]

The point of this whole website itself is to make people understand this kind of bullshit isn’t reliable. It’s the same story about anyone who does this kind of reviews! Totally pointless.

You've tripped in to blind dogmatism there, unfortunately.

Sighted listening can be less reliable than measurements for identifying the character of gear (presuming we are talking about speakers in this thread).
That does not entail they are wholly unreliable or uninformative - "pointless" in your words.

Whether every day empiricism or strict scientific empiricism - confidence levels are scaled. They are not binary. Higher confidence levels with one method does not entail zero confidence levels with another (that's why, for instance, science accepts single blinded as well as double and triple blinded experiments).

I have made numerous purchases based on reading subjective reviews of speakers - where what I heard correlated very well with the descriptions in the reviews.
So it's been far from "pointless" for me. And for many, many other audiophiles.

It's fine to say "I want a higher level of specificity and reliability, so I'll stick to reading measurements." That's where a site like this is extremely helpful. And it does help weed out both manufacturer B.S. and some audiophile B.S.

But there is no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater by taking the stance someone listening to speakers, comparing them and describing what they hear is "totally pointless." Literally most of our daily lives are navigated by such exchanges...successfully so.

And, again...can you point to anything in Steve G's review description in the KEF video that is unlikely? Or...did you simply dogmatically dismiss it without bothering to view it?

 

[Daka]

I think you are making a huge confusion, it is one thing to say that in a dac you can finally hear Jimmy Hendrix's fingers sliding on the guitar strings, it is a completely different thing to express an opinion on listening to the speakers, which Amir himself does , sometimes with somewhat surprising results, if we look first at the measurements as in the case of the Wilson Tune Tot.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...etot-review-high-end-bookshelf-speaker.29219/

“For comparison, I switched back and forth a dozen times with the Revel M106 speaker ($2,000). The Revel had a smaller halo and sounded more focused than the TuneTot. It didn't have the TuneTot's brilliance, but its it was a double-edged sword in that the TuneTot consistently gave the impression of more detailed, "audiophile" high-frequency notes that were very well defined. The TuneTot also had a deeper, cleaner bass response than the M106. overall, I preferred TuneTot to Revel."

This is not to say there is any magic behind it, there are simply so many and such variables behind listening to a speaker, that looking at a spinorama and thinking you know exactly what it sounds like is pure delusion of omnipotence.

I would also like to dwell for a moment on how ridiculous it is to say that a loudspeaker has no point in being rated...by listening to it!
We must not make the mistake of exchanging science for a new blind faith.

And there are many variables or relations which are not covered in those measurements - but are of great importance in psychoacoustics.
In other words so far one cannot decide based purely on measurements whether they will love a speaker or not.

 

[MattHooper]

And there are many variables or relations which are not covered in those measurements - but are of great importance in psychoacoustics.
In other words so far one cannot decide based purely on measurements whether they will love a speaker or not.

Yep.

Measurements can indicate numerous things. But few (if any) people can look at any speaker measurement and know precisely how it will sound. Many times people with technical competence in reading speaker measurements have pointed to cases were "even though the measurements show a deviation, X coloration didn't sound as obvious or bad as the measurements looked."

 

[MarkS]

can you point to anything in Steve G's review description in the KEF video that is unlikely? Or...did you simply dogmatically dismiss it without bothering to view it?

I watched it all the way through. As usual for Steve G, I found his "review" to contain nothing remotely useful. Compare and contrast with the quote above from Amir's direct comparison of two speakers in the same rooom at the same time: now that is a useful subjective review, and furthermore delivered with far greater economy.

Steve G also claims to hear large and important differences between different cables. To me, this means that he hallucinates what he thinks he hears, which renders his reviews even more useless.

Finally, he likes speakers that measure horribly, like the Zu. And he's extremely fickle, constantly changing his "reference" speakers. His new ones are a full-range driver plus a 15" woofer mounted open baffle. You can be 100% sure that these will measure at least as horribly as the Zu's.

So: no reason at all to believe that Steve G can hear anything remotely connected to reality.

 

[MattHooper]

I watched it all the way through. As usual for Steve G, I found his "review" to contain nothing remotely useful. Compare and contrast with the quote above from Amir's direct comparison of two speakers in the same rooom at the same time: now that is a useful subjective review, and furthermore delivered with far greater economy.

Fair enough. Doesn't mean others wouldn't find it useful.

Steve G also claims to hear large and important differences between different cables. To me, this means that he hallucinates what he thinks he hears, which renders his reviews even more useless.

That's a false dichotomy.

You are arguing that because someone is susceptible to sighted bias, therefore it renders all his perception (his reviews) useless.

Here's the problem with that logic: Literally everyone is susceptible to sighted bias. Including Amir. In fact, Amir makes a point of this in many of his reviews of the tweakier stuff like cables. He's said (paraphrasing) "when I swapped it in during sighted listening...yeah I seemed to perceive a difference" but when he did a blind test, the differences went away.

So...

1. Amir like anyone is susceptible to bias effects
2. Amir does not use blind testing for the subjective reports in his speaker reviews.

By your logic, you need to dismiss Amir's subjective descriptions.

But...you don't.

Because even though everyone can imagine differences that aren't there, people can also identify and articulate differences that ARE there.

This means that even if Steve G. suffers a bias effect with cables, it doesn't entail he is not hearing and reporting real differences when they are there - between speakers.

And if one is familiar with some of the equipment Steve has described, and found those descriptions accurate to one's own impressions, that can justify some confidence in Steve's descriptions for that viewer.

Finally, he likes speakers that measure horribly, like the Zu.

While acknowledging that they don't sound neutral, and pointing out the KEF sounded distinctly more neutral than the Zu speakers.

Which is correct, right?

The point is you don't have to buy what Steve likes - he makes the point all the time he's just trying to describe what he hears, not what YOU should buy. The point is whether Steve's impressions are actually inaccurate. I didn't see anything in that video suggesting they were. He described the more forward top end of the B&Ws, the more sculpted midrange of the Zus vs the more even KEF. He described what you get when moving from the smaller KEF stand mounts to the floor standing R7 the richer, bigger more easeful sound etc.

All of which are plausible observations, given what we know about how KEF and those other speakers measure.

So: no reason at all to believe that Steve G can hear anything remotely connected to reality.

That poor baby, flushed out with the bathwater again...

 

[MarkS]

You are arguing that because someone is susceptible to sighted bias, therefore it renders all his perception (his reviews) useless.

Here's the problem with that logic: Literally everyone is susceptible to sighted bias.

Yes, everyone is susceptible, but some reviewers (1) know this and take steps to minimize it, and (2) the amount of "sighted bias" is very definitely not the same for all people.

Anyone who thinks they hear big important differences between cables has off-the-charts sighted bias, and so I pay no attention to whatever else they have to say.

 

[dogmamann]

Fair enough. Doesn't mean others wouldn't find it useful.




That's a false dichotomy.

You are arguing that because someone is susceptible to sighted bias, therefore it renders all his perception (his reviews) useless.

Here's the problem with that logic: Literally everyone is susceptible to sighted bias. Including Amir. In fact, Amir makes a point of this in many of his reviews of the tweakier stuff like cables. He's said (paraphrasing) "when I swapped it in during sighted listening...yeah I seemed to perceive a difference" but when he did a blind test, the differences went away.

So...

1. Amir like anyone is susceptible to bias effects
2. Amir does not use blind testing for the subjective reports in his speaker reviews.

By your logic, you need to dismiss Amir's subjective descriptions.

But...you don't.

Because even though everyone can imagine differences that aren't there, people can also identify and articulate differences that ARE there.

This means that even if Steve G. suffers a bias effect with cables, it doesn't entail he is not hearing and reporting real differences when they are there - between speakers.

And if one is familiar with some of the equipment Steve has described, and found those descriptions accurate to one's own impressions, that can justify some confidence in Steve's descriptions for that viewer.



While acknowledging that they don't sound neutral, and pointing out the KEF sounded distinctly more neutral than the Zu speakers.

Which is correct, right?

The point is you don't have to buy what Steve likes - he makes the point all the time he's just trying to describe what he hears, not what YOU should buy. The point is whether Steve's impressions are actually inaccurate. I didn't see anything in that video suggesting they were. He described the more forward top end of the B&Ws, the more sculpted midrange of the Zus vs the more even KEF. He described what you get when moving from the smaller KEF stand mounts to the floor standing R7 the richer, bigger more easeful sound etc.

All of which are plausible observations, given what we know about how KEF and those other speakers measure.



That poor baby, flushed out with the bathwater again...

We need to talk about meta here. Therefore let’s once again conclude that subjective reviews are useless because the sound they hear depends on their hearing abitility and the room acoustics and the music they choose. These three things won’t be same for all the listeners, hence an opinion of this particular combination is bullshit unless the listener has exactly the same three things. Let’s talk R META.

 

[Mnyb]

Audio memory is not that good , when a reviewer compares to speakers that are not even there in the room , you know there’s a problem usually comparing to something they had 6 months ago...

You can ofcourse remember if you enjoyed listening to music trough them as I do remember fun times with the speakers I had years ago . But I can not describe their sound in detail.

 

[MattHooper]

Yes, everyone is susceptible, but some reviewers (1) know this and take steps to minimize it, and

We are talking about speaker reviews at the moment. Remember: Amir does not blind test speakers. So that does not apply. (And he knows the measurements before-hand, unlike Stereophile reviewers...which could bias his results even more...)

(2) the amount of "sighted bias" is very definitely not the same for all people.

Perhaps, but that vague statement says nothing really about whether Steve G is describing real attributes of the speakers he has reviewed. I've found him to be fairly on point when describing speakers I'm familiar with. Have you done much correlation to determine he's describing the sound inaccurately?

Anyone who thinks they hear big important differences between cables has off-the-charts sighted bias, and so I pay no attention to whatever else they have to say.

Sure, that's your prerogative.

 

[goat76]

We need to talk about meta here. Therefore let’s once again conclude that subjective reviews are useless because the sound they hear depends on their hearing abitility and the room acoustics and the music they choose. These three things won’t be same for all the listeners, hence an opinion of this particular combination is bullshit unless the listener has exactly the same three things. Let’s talk R META.

If so, we can also conclude that there’s no point with measurements either, because of different hearing ability, different room acoustics, and different choices of music at the user end. Everything is just bullshit unless the listeners has exactly the same three things.

No, let us conclude that for you, subjective reviews are useless but not for everyone else.

 

[dogmamann]

If so, we can also conclude that there’s no point with measurements either, because of different hearing ability, different room acoustics, and different choices of music at the user end. Everything is just bullshit unless the listeners has exactly the same three things.

So you think Amir, erin and all others who measures stuff are doing a useless job here?

 

[goat76]

So you think Amir, erin and all others who measures stuff are doing a useless job here?

No, not me. But if we all make the same kind of conclusions you make, they are doing a useless job.