Hadn't seen anything on this here.
Apparently Amir has riled the headphone faithful on reddit with his reviews.
iono, seems like beef to me.
Frankly, I enjoy Amir's reviews and ASR, which seem to be underfire for its "objectivist" stance.
I've learned a whooole lot here that makes sense my sense of logic.
Here's the opening screed.
"
This hobby drama write-up is centered around
Audio Science Review (henceforth referred to as “
ASR” for short). ASR is run by
Amir, a well-known objectivist reviewer.
Now, for those who might not be familiar with audio, one of the most polarizing, fascinating subjects in the hobby is that of the subjective and the objective. The landscape of the audio world has shifted at an alarming rate in recent years. Widespread (relative) accessibility to measuring equipment has brought the latter - the objective - to increasing importance, and at the forefront of this charge is none other than ASR and Amir.
Amir started out measuring sources (so DACs, amps, and DAPs) and was met with open arms by
r/headphones. Many saw him as the second coming of NwAvGuy, a respected objectivist who unfortunately went MIA years ago (his last post was in 2012!) to many readers’ dismay. The impact of Amir’s work here cannot be understated, as much of the industry has essentially been forced to shift to designs that measure well and can fare under the rigorous standards that compose an ASR source review. Case in point, forcing popular maker Schitt’s (yes, that’s their actual company name) hand with the company’s Magni 3 Heresy headphone amp. The “Heresy” part is tongue-in-cheek as the amp does not meet the company’s intended sound despite
measuring well to appease the measurement crowd.
Nonetheless, for a while things were good. I mean, I certainly can’t hear the difference between 0.001 and 0.002 percent SINAD (distortion), but hey, if we’re getting things that measure better - that should
objectively be better - why not? But then roughly five months ago, it happened: Amir decided to get into measuring headphones. This is where things started going downhill, and quick at that. A quick look at some more recent ASR reviews on the
r/headphones subreddit will show that many of these posts sit with ~60% upvotes and no shortage of controversy in the comments. Most all have failed to make the front page altogether. As for the reasons why? Well...".
This goes into more detail(um).
https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/moapci
I just posted this because I read it this morning on my news feeds and thought, well now.