Blind test: we have a volunteer!!!

[GoldenOne]

Just so things are clear. Are you now retracting or changing the offer for $1000 to charity if the blind test is successfully passed?

Im a bit confused as to what's happening at this point. I'm still up for doing the test.

As to everything else said, let's get the blind test done so we can have a proper discussion after the results rather than going back to bickering beforehand.

I thought things were going quite constructively

 

[pozz]

Just so things are clear. Are you now retracting or changing the offer for $1000 to charity if the blind test is successfully passed?

Im a bit confused as to what's happening at this point. I'm still up for doing the test.

As to everything else said, let's get the blind test done so we can have a proper discussion after the results rather than going back to bickering beforehand.

I thought things were going quite constructively

In any case can you still go through with it? It likely won't be completely up to snuff in the procedure and some trust will be involved, but it would be worth it.

Ideally you would do it for DACs as well as headphone amps.

In the end there is tremendous personal value in testing perceived ability. The unexamined life is not worth living, and all that.

 

[BrEpBrEpBrEpBrEp]

It doesn't seem unreasonable to start with ABXing recordings as a first step and move on to ABXing gear only if someone involves feels it's worthwhile still.

It's true that the proposed differences in the video are substantial enough that they should show in a recording.

 

[GoldenOne]

In any case can you still go through with it? It likely won't be completely up to snuff in the procedure and some trust will be involved, but it would be worth it.

Ideally you would do it for DACs as well as headphone amps.

In the end there is tremendous personal value in testing perceived ability. The unexamined life is not worth living, and all that.

Yes I'm going to do the video regardless.
It'll be a damn shame if Amir doesn't uphold the charity donation offer but regardless I've got the Magnius and SA1 on the way and will still do the video.

And ill donate 100% of ad income on that vid to the charity

 

[DimitryZ]

I would gently suggest:

1. @GoldenOne should rescind entirely unwarranted attacks against @amirm and apologize.
2. @amirm should withdraw his adversarial challenge.
3. Both parties should collaborate toward a meaningful and colligeate framework for a fun test, with the community donating to a common goal - say worldwide Covid vaccinations.

What say you two?

Regards,

DZ

 

[amirm]

Just so things are clear. Are you now retracting or changing the offer for $1000 to charity if the blind test is successfully passed?

Not at all. The $1000 offer was to show the claims in your video are correct. You know, the ear fatigue, compressed dynamics, grunginess, etc. How do you propose to do it different than I what I suggested?

Just differentiating between the two amps is not remotely the same. Of course if you fail even that test, then for sure you don't get the $1000 donation.

 

[amirm]

It doesn't seem unreasonable to start with ABXing recordings as a first step and move on to ABXing gear only if someone involves feels it's worthwhile still.

I do. I am very keen on getting that done. I will see if I can find some time to do the captures.

 

[amirm]

I thought things were going quite constructively

They are actually. I am just not happy with the state of doing a remote physical test. We would really need to build an automated ABX box and send it to you that removes all doubt about the validity of the protocol. This post really set me back on complexity of doing it otherwise:

Here, during our old test, we had two problems.
First, while sitting in the room, we could perfectly hear what the operator was doing with the connections. We just had the headphones plugged into one amp or the other. But the noise was different. Plugging inside amp1 made "clunk", while plugging inside amp2 made "klang".
Second, while wearing headphones, we could hear the connection inside amp1 thanks to a faint static noise "click" in the driver, while plugging the headphones inside amp2 made no noise.

The solution that we found was this :
The listener was constantly sitting, turning his back to the setup. He could ask to listen to what he wanted (play, pause, play, restart playback, please etc).
Both amps output ports were plugged. One with the headphones, the other with a dummy plug.
Headphones cable was running below a heavy book, so the that listener who is wearing the headphones can't feel the cable moving left or right.

The listener could ask to listen to A, to B or to X at will. For this purpose, the listener would
-Tell "Amplifier A, please"
-Put down the headphones on his lap (to avoid hearing the click)
-Cover his ears with his hands and count aloud "ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE" ! We found that this was enough to prevent him to hear the noise of the cables and plugs making "klunk" or "klang". During this time, the operator had to unplug headphones and the dummy plug from Amp1 and Amp2, then plug them back in the required configuration (here, headphone in Amp A, dummy plug in Amp B). The dummy plug is just an extra precaution, as the listener can't hear what's happening anyway while covering his ears and speaking aloud.
-Put back headphones onto his head.

EDIT : I forgot, the operator has to keep the headphone's jack and the dummy jack in hand while switching, because (if we don't cover our ears) we can clearly hear the noise of them being put of the table, and thus recognize which one is being manipulated by ear alone.

 

[BrEpBrEpBrEpBrEp]

I do. I am very keen on getting that done. I will see if I can find some time to do the captures.

I'd love to give it a shot for fun (not that I expect to tell a difference at all). You could use @jaakkopasanen 's online ABX utility if you wanted to make it available to the whole forum - even takes care of emailing you a copy of each result.

 

[solderdude]

Just differentiating between the two amps is not remotely the same. Of course if you fail even that test, then for sure you don't get the $1000 donation.

If, or should I say when, GO fails this test and cannot discriminate between Magnius and any other 'good sounding' amp it automatically means that what he claimed he heard is invalid ?

Since Amir puts $ 1000.- on the line here it would make sense GO also puts something on the line here which is retraction of the video(s) where Amir and ASR is sold short and/or clear retractions of negative things said about Amir/ASR.

I can fully understand Amir has it up to here with all the insults and criticism. There should be some gain/vindication for Amir as well.

 

[GoldenOne]

Not at all. The $1000 offer was to show the claims in your video are correct. You know, the ear fatigue, compressed dynamics, grunginess, etc. How do you propose to do it different than I what I suggested?

Just differentiating between the two amps is not remotely the same. Of course if you fail even that test, then for sure you don't get the $1000 donation.

Well my entire point that is intended to be tested is that the current measurements are either insufficient or the interpretations of them are wrong.

Successfully blind testing between two products that you've deemed to be 'sonically transparent' would demonstrate that they aren't sonically transparent would it not? I don't believe in fairy dust. If something sounds different it can be shown via some measurement whatever it may turn out to be.
But I can't point you to a specific measurement that says 'this amp will sound "grungier" than amp B' if that's what you're looking for.

The whole point of this is to show that I was hearing differences. Differences which I perceived to be negative. And with a blind test success we can then start to look into what those differences might be caused by and do iterative and synthetic tests to explore it. And if the test is failed then there were no differences anyway.
If you want me to say 'this amp is harsher' rather than 'this is the magnius' during the test than I can do that instead...

Im not sure what you're looking for at this point. But regardless, I'm going to do the video anyway and will see if we can raise the $1000 for charity collectively given as it seems the original offer is now off the table.

 

[amirm]

As a side note, I had not watched the end of the video the first go around when I made the challenge. So I did not know he had said all of this about us/me. I just went by so much stuff he claimed in the first 10 minutes of the video initially. It was not until today when I tried to transcript it that he had declared an all out war against what we do.

 

[faheem]

If, or should I say when, GO fails this test and cannot discriminate between Magnius and any other 'good sounding' amp it automatically means that what he claimed he heard is invalid ?

Since Amir puts $ 1000.- on the line here it would make sense GO also puts something on the line here which is retraction of the video(s) where Amir and ASR is sold short and/or clear retractions of negative things said about Amir/ASR.

I can fully understand Amir has it up to here with all the insults and criticism. There should be some gain/vindication for Amir as well.

It's even more insulting when those criticism are done by someone who uses a pseudonym and makes serious accusations with regards to @amirm business , on top of his shady behaviour and accusations.

 

[amirm]

Well my entire point that is intended to be tested is that the current measurements are either insufficient or the interpretations of them are wrong.

They are indeed insufficient to explain one's imagination and made up impairments. There is for example no such thing as "fast bass." Bass does not have speed. It has frequency and said frequency is always slow. There can be impression of boominess but an amplifier with flat frequency response cannot have exaggerated bass. Frequency response measurement was enough to show there is no problem here. What measurements can't do is to compensate for a tester having insufficient knowledge of audio/fidelity and running by audiophile myths learnt online.

If you want to prove what you just said, your test should have been blind and controlled to start. You seem to not care one bit that it was not and proceeded to make extremely damning remarks about Schiit Magnius in the specific, and us/me/measurements/audio science in general.

My suggestion is independent of our challenge, get a loved one and put him/her in charge of switching the two sources on you. Do this with no cameras. See if you can properly tell which is which after a dozen tries. This should be a sobering experience for you and potentially save us a ton of work setting up a formal test where you a simple experiment like this would do.

In the video you seem so confident that sighted tests are just fine and placebo can't be a factor in these types of comparisons. Do you understand that this goes against everything that is accepted in audio research?

 

[amirm]

Im not sure what you're looking for at this point. But regardless, I'm going to do the video anyway and will see if we can raise the $1000 for charity collectively given as it seems the original offer is now off the table.

The offer stands completely. I said that and am repeating it. You need to demonstrate the flaws in your video review with regards to Schiit Magnius are valid beyond your personal impressions gathered in an improper way. That was my only request that led to the challenge:

There are plenty of things people say online. It doesn't make them correct or true.

So it is clear: listening tests are wonderful. You just need to run the controlled so you don't know what is what. If the bass is not fast, that is cool. Just do a blind test against another that has fast bass and show that you can tell 9 out of 10 times. If it is that obvious that such a flaw exists, then it should be trivial to do this. It is much less work than producing 20 minutes of video.

If you don't do that then what you are saying for the device lacks any foundation to be valid. Indeed, I will donate $1000 to Goldeneye's favorite charity if he can prove any of those observations if he can do so blind and in controlled testing.

See the highlight in red. That is the challenge you accepted. You have to show me your observations are correct. If you can't, then I wonder why you do these reviews.

For my part, I am happy to show that my measurements are correct of Magnius. In this forum, I always say our mission is to state things that are reliable and we can show why. I am asking you to live by the same standard. Can you?

Or do you only sign up for a hugely watered down test of whether you can tell any difference at all between the two amps?

 

[Blaspheme]

It's even more insulting when those criticism are done by someone who uses a pseudonym and makes serious accusations with regards to @amirm business, on top of his shady behaviour and accusations.

There are many reasons for using a pseudonym on social media, not all of them relate to "shady behaviour". The argument is at best orthogonal to anything substantive here.

 

[Blaspheme]

The offer stands completely. I said that and am repeating it. You need to demonstrate the flaws in your video review with regards to Schiit Magnius are valid beyond your personal impressions gathered in an improper way. That was my only request that led to the challenge:



See the highlight in red. That is the challenge you accepted. You have to show me your observations are correct. If you can't, then I wonder why you do these reviews.

For my part, I am happy to show that my measurements are correct of Magnius. In this forum, I always say our mission is to state things that are reliable and we can show why. I am asking you to live by the same standard. Can you?

Or do you only sign up for a hugely watered down test of whether you can tell any difference at all between the two amps?

The criteria "prove any of these observations" is met by proving one.

 

[GoldenOne]

The offer stands completely. I said that and am repeating it. You need to demonstrate the flaws in your video review with regards to Schiit Magnius are valid beyond your personal impressions gathered in an improper way.

Please could you clarify what for you would classify as doing this.

My intention was to demonstrate that two devices that measure 'sonically transparent' sound different to me. Because one such as the Magnius may sound harsher or more fatiguing etc.

Beyond correctly identifying the devices I'm not sure what you'd want me to do differently to identify something you don't believe exists.

Let's assume I correctly identify the devices. Despite them measuring 'sonically transparent'. Is that enough? That proves that the measurements or the interpretation of them needs revisiting no??

I can say that the subjective difference I'm hearing is that amp A is harsher than amp B but how do I demonstrate that to be the case beyond correctly identifying the amps blind.

Im very unsure as to what you'd like me to do

 

[spacevector]

Happy to have someone of your choosing host if they're comfortable to do so, or just come and observe/verify at my friends. Beer and food provided

@Thomas savage you reading this?

 

[solderdude]

The whole point of this is to show that I was hearing differences. Differences which I perceived to be negative. And with a blind test success we can then start to look into what those differences might be caused by and do iterative and synthetic tests to explore it. And if the test is failed then there were no differences anyway.

The whole point (from Amir) was the things you stated about measurements, Amir and ASR based on subjective observations.
Those subjective found differences can not be found using a proper blind test and thinking they do shows unfamiliarity with this kind of testing.
That's factual misinformation based on an incorrect testing method when you can't show this in a well conducted blind test.
If you can distinguish those amps and you have done some measurements showing the devices in question operate correctly only then more investigation is warranted.

Amps that measure flat using an ohmic load (read most planars, not all of them) will sound flat but may not be flat with certain headphones.
However, this is very measurable when tested under actual loads. There is no mystery there but can understand people see it that way because that's how they use it.

I am quite certain that when you test things properly, level matched, not knowing what is what during the test and with statistical relevance, you would most likely not have made the videos you did and Amir and ASR as well as measurements in general would not have existed.

Amir's suggestion to investigate your own claims using the Magnius and another amp before you go public and do the test by testing properly level matched and 'blind' comparisons you will find out that, which you stated, cannot be shown to exist (be true) in tests where the playing field is level.