ASR took the fun out of amp reviews

[rdenney]

Appealing to authority rarely strengthens an argument. In my experience, department heads -at least in engineering within the energy sector -typically don’t have in-depth, hands-on knowledge of the finer technical details. What they do have is a solid grasp of the bigger picture, the ability to set direction, and enough general understanding to allocate or reallocate resources efficiently across major projects.

What I’m getting at is this: just because someone has led a technical department for years doesn’t necessarily mean they could sit down and do the actual design work themselves. Or know how it should be designed.

Taking this even further: If a designer is competent, even highly competent, it's because they understand cause and effect, and know how to manipulate the design to achieve a desired effect on purpose. And that understanding of cause and effect demands the ability to be measured, as hinted by this fellow, who complained about the measurements made by Stereophile. If it can't be measured, it can't be designed, and if it can't be designed, the competence of the designer is meaningless.

So, the appeal to authority, if anything, increases the burden of being able to explain the theory of operation and demonstrate measurable performance. The greatest evil I see in the audio industry is when competent designers engage in myth and lore to impress their clients, or try to steer them away from a technical understanding by telling them to "trust their ears", usually in a cynical bid to impress clients already polluted by that myth and lore. Unlike many of their customers, they really do know better. And if they don't know better, their claims of competence fall on my (apparently) deaf ears.

Had he said, yes, I know the amp will be steered all over the place by speakers, but the effects even if audible will be subtle probably won't undermine the musicality of the result, so if you like it, don't worry about it, then at least he'd be honest. Maybe that's what the guy meant before translation, but we can't ignore the possibility that he's laughing all the way to the bank. In any case, "trust your ears" are trigger words around these parts.

The question I have, though, is why do we need amplifiers that can be steered all over the place by speakers? We've known how to avoid that for about half a century. What benefit can it possibly provide to listeners?

Rick "just be honest" Denney

 

[Old_School_Brad]

Taking this even further: If a designer is competent, even highly competent, it's because they understand cause and effect, and know how to manipulate the design to achieve a desired effect on purpose. And that understanding of cause and effect demands the ability to be measured, as hinted by this fellow, who complained about the measurements made by Stereophile. If it can't be measured, it can't be designed, and if it can't be designed, the competence of the designer is meaningless.

So, the appeal to authority, if anything, increases the burden of being able to explain the theory of operation and demonstrate measurable performance. The greatest evil I see in the audio industry is when competent designers engage in myth and lore to impress their clients, or try to steer them away from a technical understanding by telling them to "trust their ears", usually in a cynical bid to impress clients already polluted by that myth and lore. Unlike many of their customers, they really do know better. And if they don't know better, their claims of competence fall on my (apparently) deaf ears.

Had he said, yes, I know the amp will be steered all over the place by speakers, but the effects even if audible will be subtle probably won't undermine the musicality of the result, so if you like it, don't worry about it, then at least he'd be honest. Maybe that's what the guy meant before translation, but we can't ignore the possibility that he's laughing all the way to the bank. In any case, "trust your ears" are trigger words around these parts.

The question I have, though, is why do we need amplifiers that can be steered all over the place by speakers? We've known how to avoid that for about half a century. What benefit can it possibly provide to listeners?

Rick "just be honest" Denney

Absolutely agree with all of this. The question you end with really puzzles me. They could've made it load-independent without much trouble, so it must've been a deliberate choice -one driven by a reasoning or a goal I just can’t wrap my head around.

Is it to amplify the confusion for customers? To lean into the idea of “synergy” and push all the extra unnecessary accessories? What other reason could there be?

 

[mhardy6647]

Taking this even further: If a designer is competent, even highly competent, it's because they understand cause and effect, and know how to manipulate the design to achieve a desired effect on purpose. And that understanding of cause and effect demands the ability to be measured, as hinted by this fellow, who complained about the measurements made by Stereophile. If it can't be measured, it can't be designed, and if it can't be designed, the competence of the designer is meaningless.

 

[Bland_username42069]

Totally agree with the OP.

I always like to think of reviewers wasted on brandy listening to Led Zeppelin and then taking the audiophiles thesaurus off the shelf in an unsteady manner to see if they heard the dynamic slam from John bonham or whether it was the rhythmic punch of John Paul Jones.

I always like to think of a badly aligned £5000 low output moving coil cartridge too while they do it.

Reality is probably more a brown envelope and two minutes of Norah jones but that spoils the quest for the mythical amp which interacts with the rarest tube and the most expensive lowest output mc cartridge to produce a sound beyond mortal understanding.

The whole stereo will be the biggest most expensive hassle which requires constant correction and supervision but on the vernal equinox it will finally capture the impossible of both punch and slam at the same time.

 

[EERecordist]

This is Audio Science Review.

There is a lot of creative writing and advertising copywriting in audio. This isn't the Audio Creative Writing Review - ACWR, or the Audio Fun Review.

We do in some threads, like the Snake Oil thread, venture into the Audio Creative Writing Criticism Review - ACWCR. And of course the Audio AI Writing Criticism Review AAIWCR is a topic.

 

[rdenney]

View attachment 443595

I wouldn't want to show myself as I often appear at a workbench, if just for aesthetic concerns if no other reason.

Is that a wire-wound resistor being used as a dummy load?

Rick "would like to think his bench is neater, but it probably isn't" Denney

 

[mhardy6647]

You do recognize that guy, yes?
He's one of those guys who is well known as one of those guys who knows how to tune a design to give folks what they want. He's pretty darned good at it, and he has been for a long, long time.

 

[rdenney]

No, I didn't recognize him at first, and didn't want to assume anything.

But he's more honest than most about what his designs intend to do.

I'm still not particularly impressed by his bench, though.

Rick "whose cat would eye that speaker with destructive zeal" Denney

 

[Liberal Democracy]

View attachment 443595

Few things , no shoes but immaculate socks, however, the first thing I notice ( well it was the socks but ) is a open face but closed body . This tell me , someone's being caught in their natural habitat by someone they feel comfortable with to a extent, a limited extent , it's a confession but with a amount of reservation as indeed all confessions have .

No clue who this is but they smile with their eyes , that's virtually unheard of and tells me they're a special person. They've allowed someone into a space that's clearly a intimate safe place for them while being generous and at ease enough to allow it, to me shows a vulnerability but also immense strength( hence the closed arms , this is me, i know it's a bit odd ) with a beaming honestly and warmth giving me a impression this guy is a truly beautiful individual with integrity , very comfortable with themselves but possibly not with being exposed ,, who is !

Thomas "a pictures worth a thousand words " Savage.

Ps it's a beautiful picture, I'd go for beers with this man !

Pps , his bench is a mess but it's clean , no dust , no beer bottles or spent mayonnaise bottles , colour me impressed .

 

[Liberal Democracy]

The question I have, though, is why do we need amplifiers that can be steered all over the place by speakers?

How many audio devices actually suffer this , in the real world. The real world of the TV speaker , the sonos, all the many many integrated audio solutions 99% of folks experience.

Ego , self indulgence and a sense of artistic creativity is probably why in the tiny tiny niche of , audiophiles, ( what dose that mean now ? Truly! ) these types of amp and speaker interactions are still , not just tolerated but actively sought after.

Be careful what one wishes for , lets be honest , there's no actual hobby that involves the pursuit of fidelity like there was in the 50s 60s 70s 80s and less so in the 90s .. it's become something other , something kinda cynical, untethered and I'd argue largely meaningless .

Boys will be boys as a famous press Secretary says, wisely !

 

[Blumlein 88]

Be careful what one wishes for , lets be honest , there's no actual hobby that involves the pursuit of fidelity like there was in the 50s 60s 70s 80s and less so in the 90s .. it's become something other , something kinda cynical, untethered and I'd argue largely meaningless .

Kind of funny. The pursuit of fidelity was genuine in the 50s and 60s. Yet unknown to the participants, it was also a myth. Stereo, recording practices and transducers all meant purest high fidelity to reality never was possible. It was obscured by the very real lack of or marginal fidelity at every step in between performer and the reproduction. By the 1970s the electronics portion was solved finally. You still had all the transducer issues in the way. Tape heads, microphones, LP cartridges and speakers. By the time we had digital sources and digital processing all that was left without fidelity were the microphones and speakers (and stereo itself). However, by then so much processing was done to any signal that took it further than ever from fidelity to the original performance to the point that was something of a performance also. Now we are down to artificially trying to create with multi-channels and ever more processing a real facsimile to a real thing.

So yes it is untethered and meaningless which has allowed it to become cynical on the one hand and a matter of faith in people on the other.

Then you have things like the One Mic recordings. You can have something like the ultimate version of what people were aiming for in the 50s and 60s. You still have limitations of the microphones, speakers and stereo, but those are so far advanced now compared to then. Everything else is straightforward and perfect. I've done such recordings. Some people dig it. Quite a few complain it doesn't sound real, or good or exciting. And you realize they never hear the real thing so have no basis. Something like the musical equivalent of thinking lots of fat, sugar and salt makes for excellent food or it isn't any good. That made me a fair bit cynical. Plus I learned how it is actually not terribly hard to make the kind of recordings with all the attributes people in Stereophile or TAS consider great. Combined with the fact they are essentially impossible to market or get anyone to play only increased my cynicism. My own fault of course for being too attached to a purist ideology. OTOH, the trip was interesting and involving. Maybe all such journeys end this way.

For those who may not know, here are a couple examples of the one mic recordings of John Cuniberti.

OneMic – John Cuniberti

www.johncuniberti.com

 

[Liberal Democracy]

Kind of funny. The pursuit of fidelity was genuine in the 50s and 60s. Yet unknown to the participants, it was also a myth. Stereo, recording practices and transducers all meant purest high fidelity to reality never was possible. It was obscured by the very real lack of or marginal fidelity at every step in between performer and the reproduction. By the 1970s the electronics portion was solved finally. You still had all the transducer issues in the way. Tape heads, microphones, LP cartridges and speakers. By the time we had digital sources and digital processing all that was left without fidelity were the microphones and speakers (and stereo itself). However, by then so much processing was done to any signal that took it further than ever from fidelity to the original performance to the point that was something of a performance also. Now we are down to artificially trying to create with multi-channels and ever more processing a real facsimile to a real thing.

So yes it is untethered and meaningless which has allowed it to become cynical on the one hand and a matter of faith in people on the other.

Then you have things like the One Mic recordings. You can have something like the ultimate version of what people were aiming for in the 50s and 60s. You still have limitations of the microphones, speakers and stereo, but those are so far advanced now compared to then. Everything else is straightforward and perfect. I've done such recordings. Some people dig it. Quite a few complain it doesn't sound real, or good or exciting. And you realize they never hear the real thing so have no basis. Something like the musical equivalent of thinking lots of fat, sugar and salt makes for excellent food or it isn't any good. That made me a fair bit cynical. Plus I learned how it is actually not terribly hard to make the kind of recordings with all the attributes people in Stereophile or TAS consider great. Combined with the fact they are essentially impossible to market or get anyone to play only increased my cynicism. My own fault of course for being too attached to a purist ideology. OTOH, the trip was interesting and involving. Maybe all such journeys end this way.

For those who may not know, here are a couple examples of the one mic recordings of John Cuniberti.

OneMic – John Cuniberti

www.johncuniberti.com

There's gold in them there hills!

 

[Vacceo]

How many audio devices actually suffer this , in the real world. The real world of the TV speaker , the sonos, all the many many integrated audio solutions 99% of folks experience.

Ego , self indulgence and a sense of artistic creativity is probably why in the tiny tiny niche of , audiophiles, ( what dose that mean now ? Truly! ) these types of amp and speaker interactions are still , not just tolerated but actively sought after.

Be careful what one wishes for , lets be honest , there's no actual hobby that involves the pursuit of fidelity like there was in the 50s 60s 70s 80s and less so in the 90s .. it's become something other , something kinda cynical, untethered and I'd argue largely meaningless .

Boys will be boys as a famous press Secretary says, wisely !

To be fair, those are the reasons why I think active speakers have a future. They are the "soundbar but better" option. I gifted my mother a pair of LS50 WII that I connected to the TV with a KC60 for the low frequencies.

She had complained about how muddled dialogues sound in series and how "not bodied" the TV sound. The result with the actives is that not only she enjoys TV content a lot more, lo and behold, she reads for hours, a lot more time than she watches series, listening to classical music thanks to the streaming capacities of the system. She has always enjoyed classical music and making it easy to use and good quality has turned her afternoons completely.

 

[wwenze]

As people get richer and have more space for TV, soundbars will lose their only reason for existence.

 

[Blumlein 88]

As people get richer and have more space for TV, soundbars will lose their only reason for existence.

I've seen the reverse. People just don't want speakers. So much so they put up with some pretty awful sound rather than have a couple boxes around the TV. People with the space and money for it to be a non-issue.

 

[JustJones]

As people get richer and have more space for TV, soundbars will lose their only reason for existence.

Might take a while. Maybe after 2030 the trend will start going down.

Soundbar Market Size, Share & Growth Analysis Report 2030

The global soundbar market size was estimated at USD 7.50 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.5% from 2024 to 2030

www.grandviewresearch.com

 

[Liberal Democracy]

All things being equal what really influences our experience of audio lay beyond our ( most of us ) meddling. It didn't used to be quite as excluding, not to say there's no room left . I absolutely love those that build their own speakers for instance, maybe the end users last stand .

I'm surprised by the relative lack of interest in the recordings , not the formats but the techniques in the capture , the digital processing then the codec with its Psychoacoustic manipulation . But then that's all a bit excluding as I mentioned, easier to just buy another DAC or yet another Amp .

 

[Timcognito]

I'm surprised by the relative lack of interest in the recordings , not the formats but the techniques in the capture , the digital processing then the codec with its Psychoacoustic manipulation . But then that's all a bit excluding as I mentioned, easier to just buy another DAC or yet another Amp .

This and the displayed connection to audibility on the individual presented test results are the two things I miss most at ASR.

 

[Liberal Democracy]

This and the displayed connection to audibility on the individual presented test results are the two things I miss most at ASR.

Me too , I think if the science in ASR was deserved we'd be somewhere different. As it is I think ASR is actually anti science but through no fault in its inception and mission. It was just a call to authority that while understandable at the time, dosnt represent how discussions have evolved over time , because folks didn't want science! They wanted a destination , a set of rules to belive in .

That's not my understanding of the scientific method, but then I'm a construction worker so what do I know .

AKR .., audio knowing review...

 

[Ro808]

Blind Faith is a powerful thing. The desire to fit in is also a powerful thing. Our brains can make us believe just about anything is real or possible if we decide beforehand that we want to feel/see/participate in the delusion/illusion. For one of the best examples of how powerful the brain can be. Do some research on the Medical development of the “Placebo” effect. Once intrenched in a particular dogma it becomes nearly impossible to break free.

Placebo in history - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Like the delusion/illusion/dogma that measurements ~ truth?

I must confess I don't understand the argument. SINAD or THD+N is not perceptually correlated measure. So it is hard to make an argument for audibility of any value regardless of conditions selected. You can have two amps with identical SINAD and one may have audible distortion and the other not.

The reason to measure SINAD is to detect engineering excellence as a general measure. Here, I am not a fan of using 1 watt because I personally have no value for any amp that only produces that much power. So I went up to 5 watts. I could have gone higher but not all amplifiers I test have much power.

The data one seeks is available in my measurements in the THD+N (SINAD) versus power. So if it is the SINAD before peak power is desired, that is there as well. I just don't compile them in a table since that point is different for every amp.

Finally, I don't believe in any sensitivity computed loudness figures. Those are marketing values (for speakers) and don't represent real life situations. Such math may convince you that you need just a few watts but in my experience, it is easy to need and want hundreds of watts.

It's also easy to argue that if you need/want hundreds of watts at home, your speakers are fundamentally flawed. Unless you think obesity is a sign of good health.

Moreover, none of the amplifiers measured on this forum are constant-output devices: capable of driving any load, from dead short to open-circuit.


You might (re)consider the "path of least resistance" heuristic.