ASR took the fun out of amp reviews

[kemmler3D]

What about Amir's subjective remarks - do you skip those too?

I read them, but I don't think he expects us to give them overriding importance, and I tend not to. If he ever said something that apparently measures well sounded like garbage, I'd probably pay more attention to that!

 

[kyuu]

Amir never gives subjective remarks for electronics.

Speakers are a whole different ball game, of course.

 

[Galliardist]

Stop worrying about amps for a bit. Listen to some music. That, I thought, was the point.

 

[DMill]

There's nothing like leaving a dodgy tube amp on all day , the rush of anticipation and nervous energy when returning from work wondering if the house has burnt down or not ..

Alas , iv seen worse than this , looks safe at least , how dull .

Il just take a software plug in or not .

Amazing insight. I can’t tell you how many times I woke up on Wednesday and found my tube amp on from the weekend. My thought was always more about replacing the damn KT88s that cost me $90 each. Or the 6922’s at $100 each. On those days I almost wished the house had caught fire and I could file an insurance claim. I still run the amp in my office, and I’m like my dad now about turning off the f+caking lights.

 

[Multicore]

Amir never gives subjective remarks for electronics.

He sure does. Pass Lab headphone amp comes to mind. And the recent USB reclocker.

Actually he often comments of headphone amps.

 

[Multicore]

I read them, but I don't think he expects us to give them overriding importance, and I tend not to. If he ever said something that apparently measures well sounded like garbage, I'd probably pay more attention to that!

I mention it because I like to read his subjective remarks. Sometimes they are unexpected in interesting ways. Otherwise they are quite consistent and use language I mostly understand, which means that over time I can learn his preferences. In subjective reviewing that's valuable.

 

[Mikig]

but….excuse me where is the problem if Stereophile or Amirm make subjective comments in the tests they conduct. I don't see anything strange.

The subjective comment is absurd when you don't test a product in a laboratory, so you have no logical basis to support sensations that we all experience when listening, unless we are robots!!

It is absurd when absurd logics or magic are supported as the cause or product of a sound result.
But if you do a test, you demonstrate with graphs what you have detected, explain and understand the product that have in hands, nothing prevents you from giving your own sensation when listening, on functionality, and on aesthetics.

We are not talking about the subjective sensation of the usual daily YouTube reviewer who every hour has found the new reference.

Amirm's subjective notes are not based on the use of silver or gold wire, legend or Magic, they are usually based on the auditory observation of observed phenomena….

 

[RayDunzl]

excuse me where is the problem if Stereophile or Amirm make subjective comments in the tests they conduct.

The subjective comment is absurd when you don't test a product in a laboratory, so you have no logical basis to support sensations that we all experience when listening, unless we are robots!!

If I'm not mistaken, a Stereophile Reviewer does their listening and pontificating first, and only later is the device measured in a somewhat controlled condition by somebody else, usually also someplace else.

 

[kemmler3D]

Stop worrying about amps for a bit. Listen to some music. That, I thought, was the point.

Yeah, I bought actives and that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

 

[Mikig]

If I'm not mistaken, a Stereophile Reviewer does their listening and pontificating first, and only later is the device measured in a somewhat controlled condition by somebody else, usually also someplace else.

probably they know well that their audience wants to read the listening part first and maybe only some will look for the tests and graphs at the bottom…
it is clear that the communicative form of Stereophile is more romanticized and even the more technical part is softened in terms to be more friendly and understandable…

I confess that I like it when Amirm spends a few words on his sensations, also because those words, if well weighed, explain in a nutshell even to those less expert in dB and Hz what we are talking about…
then between us, a little good “humanity” never hurts even when talking about science…

 

[kyuu]

He sure does. Pass Lab headphone amp comes to mind. And the recent USB reclocker.

Actually he often comments of headphone amps.

Ah headphone amps. I rarely read those reviews so I forgot about that. A little different, I suppose, in that he has to verify if it can push high-impedance/low-sensitivity headphones to respectable volumes.

Alright, outside of headphone amps he basically never does subjective listening tests on electronics.

 

[wwenze]

The problem is now I skip to the measurements in their reviews and it makes it hard to bother with their listening impressions. I'll readily admit that I have a soft spot for tubes and for a low powered tube amp getting to 8 watts with .1 distortion is pretty good.

Been doing that since 20 years ago, before ASR was a concept.

 

[Fahzz]

Facts aren't fun!

 

[Multicore]

Facts aren't fun!

Fun fact: 12% of people experience allodoxaphobia.

 

[Chrispy]

It would be more interesting to know why not everyone has benchmarks, given that it is practically the best tested... reading here and there it doesn't seem very popular around here

Why would everyone need to do that? I think you're missing the overall point, tho.

 

[rdenney]

It would be more interesting to know why not everyone has benchmarks, given that it is practically the best tested... reading here and there it doesn't seem very popular around here

I can think of about 2800 reasons.

$3500 - $700 = $2,800.00

Rick “and the Buckeye NC502MP is more powerful, too” Denney

 

[Putter]

View attachment 434303
It may be an audible version of this visual effect. The left image is your “straight wire with gain going into your brain” and the right image is artificially adding noise to the same image.

The above isn’t bias, it’s just perception. If these effects occur visually, it would seem that there should be auditory illusions.

Source article.

The real question is would you be able to tell which one is the correct photo and which would you prefer to look at? Applying this to audio a CD sounds better with a small amount of noise added to it. I realize that this has more to do quantization errors being reduce than the noise itself, but think about stereo or multichannel which are essentially artificial constructs. One could argue that mono is more faithful to an actual performance than 2 or more channels. Kind of playing devil's advocate because I'd rather listen to multichannel, then stereo and then mono in that order which means I miss out on some great classical music and older jazz.

 

[Mikig]

Why would everyone need to do that? I think you're missing the overall point, tho.

I gave an answer to a question: why should people take this Aurorasound amplifier, when at the same price there is the Benchmark? answer why all those who can spend those figures do not have the Benchmark? simple, everyone pursues a different goal, has different tastes, lives the hobby in a different way and with a different point of view. my point is; why want to try to understand and a priori judge the choices and tastes of others? it is undeniable, whether you like it or not, people do not choose only based on objective parameters in life, but very often, even at the cost of obtaining mediocre results, they put a certain part of subjectivity and emotion. But I repeat, since we are talking about a hobby here, everyone will interpret it as best satisfies them ... whether we like it or not ...

 

[Timcognito]

I'll bet that someone who tests and listens to 60+ devices a year using the same auditioning material subjectively hears real issues and nuances before far more of the members here would hear them.

 

[ta240]

but….excuse me where is the problem if Stereophile or Amirm make subjective comments in the tests they conduct. I don't see anything strange.

One thing that got me with this review is the subjective reviewer gushing over the artistry of the build and then the tests showing that the build wasn't good because it was leading to noise.

Having the two styles of reviews done by different people seems to highlight the failings of the subjective. We don't even get a "the measurements show this but it wasn't audible to me" (which again seems really odd for reviewers that can hear the difference between types of wire).