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I am not smart enough for this forum

daftcombo

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You can not understand everything at once. Years of frequentation are needed to acquire more and more knowledge. But you'll learn new things every day if you do so. Try to keep it fun, go ahead and start with the topics you're the most interested in.
 

edechamps

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I love to come back every day to this forum, however to be honest I am by far not smart enough to understand the measurements and the results. Many times I struggle to understand the relationship between what is wrong to for example with certain loudspeakers or a dac compared to the measurement results. Am I the only one that finds it difficult to understand the reviews ? There are articles available explaining a lot but they still hard to understand for me.

What is the required educational level to be an regular visitor here? What is the best reading material for dummies like me ?

One problem you might have is that it can be very difficult at first to figure out which articles/posts can be trusted (as in, solidly grounded in verifiable evidence) vs. ones that are more like ungrounded opinions or just plain unadulterated bullshit. Sadly, the audio world is littered with the later, more so than other fields in my opinion. It's a lesser problem here on ASR of course, but still, it's a bad idea to take what people say at face value if their posts don't come with solid citations/references. Especially when it comes to perception. Always be sceptical of everything you read. In order to make progress in audio you have to assume misinformation is everywhere and people are out to get you. Sometimes to sell you stuff, but not always - quite often it comes from well-intentioned people who have been thrown off target by other charlatans (and so on).

Also keep in mind that it's much easier to assert something than to refute it; this is why you will sometimes come across statements made on this forum that are highly questionable and not backed by evidence, but combatting these statements head-on is difficult because there is no evidence to the contrary, either. If you give such statements any credit you risk getting confused very quickly because they will likely contradict each other and you will operate with a mistaken notion of what is fact vs. some guy's opinion.

To avoid this problem I tend to follow a simple rule of thumb: if I can't figure out if a given post is grounded on solid evidence, I just act as if that post doesn't exist. That tends to make things much clearer. For example, I tend to ignore all posts that are about anecdotal/subjective impressions, especially if the post does not explicitly mention the test was done blind. Example topics where many articles/posts can be ignored for lack of evidence are audibility of non-linear distortion and time/phase distortion.

To go back on-topic: when it comes to speakers specifically, I think reading "the book" is one of the quickest and surest way to get you started on solid ground. It's quite easy to read even for beginners. And it meets the above rule of thumb by backing all claims by specific references to solid peer-reviewed research.
 

REK2575

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One of the things I most like about Audio Science Review is that Amir doesn't dumb down the content, while still making his reviews accessible to a non-specialist audience (of which I am very much a part!). There are so many run of the mill audiophile sites that trade in vague generalities and folk wisdom and the cult of 'legendary' personalities. I'm tremendously grateful ASR doesn't do this, and moreover that it has a dedicated group of regulars, many of whom are very well informed with engineering backgrounds of their own (again, I'm not including myself here!) but who are also respectful of others and willing to explain their ideas patiently and clearly. It's just a great, unique site.
 

StevenEleven

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Hi,

I love to come back every day to this forum, however to be honest I am by far not smart enough to understand the measurements and the results. Many times I struggle to understand the relationship between what is wrong to for example with certain loudspeakers or a dac compared to the measurement results. Am I the only one that finds it difficult to understand the reviews ? There are articles available explaining a lot but they still hard to understand for me.

What is the required educational level to be an regular visitor here? What is the best reading material for dummies like me ?

Thanks,

I keep a copy of this by my chair in front of my stereo:

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Loudspeakers-Engineering/dp/113892136X/

Sometimes it runs a little counter to what you see here, it can be a bit of a reality check, but it is very much of the same school of thought. If you read it straight through it will help you move up the learning curve much much faster. You‘ll have a better feel for it when a poster here is running off the rails, too. The writing is not complex. It is written for the layperson and is in the first person so it is engaging, opinionated and biographical as well as factually supported at every turn. However, the price on Amazon seems to have gone up for buying the book by quite a bit. Still easily worth the purchase but it’s a bit steep right at the moment at $60 or so (still less than the $66 “list price” though).
 
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F1308

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No need to understand anything as difficult as power, torque, inertia, acceleration....and the likes. No need to say if the light is now red or green... Just buy Rolls-Royce and hire a chauffeur.
Just buy the ones on the left...within the color of your choice. Included charts courtesy of this very forum.
 

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REK2575

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For audio newbs like myself, if ASR has performed one essential service, it has been to show that there is no dependable correlation between price-tag, brand repuation, and quality. Maybe we all know that, but in other ways it's been a revelation to see just how much ASR demolishes that bias, 'it's really expensive from a trusted brand, ergo, it's probably really good.' Amir's review of the (what was it, $16,000??) Totaldac unit is still the most jawdropping review I've read on this site. Before ASR, I know I eyed brands I had never heard anything about, like Topping, with skepticism -- 'it's relatively inexpesive, probably mass-produced in China, therefore probably not that good.'

Anyway, it's a continuing education to visit this site.
 

NTK

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Oh thank lord! Now I can ask my question in a safe space. So in-room measurements should slope down, as we have read multiple times, but on measuring what? If white noise is played, should measurements of that also slope down, or is that slope down only sine wave sweep?
The measurement is frequency response of the speakers in the room (which includes all the room reflections, as measured at the listening location).

Both sine sweep and white noise (and pink noise and impulses and maximum length sequences) are valid test signals for measuring frequency response. To measure frequency response, we need our test signals to cover the full range of frequencies of interest. Both sine sweep and white noise satisfy this requirement, and they should give the same frequency response measurements. Therefore, if the in-room response is sloped down, both methods will give the same sloped down curves.
 
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tomtoo

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No need to understand anything as difficult as power, torque, inertia, acceleration....and the likes. No need to say if the light is now red or green... Just buy Rolls-Royce and hire a chauffeur.
Just buy the ones on the left...Included charts courtesy of this very forum.

Maybe i get you wrong, but this place is not about Rolls-Royce. It's about performance. And no you not have to go complete to the left, just stay in the middle, there equipment should be transparent. And dont waste your money for expensive things on the right. Nothing more.
 

F1308

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Maybe i get you wrong, but this place is not about Rolls-Royce. It's about performance. And no you not have to go complete to the left, just stay in the middle, there equipment should be transparent. And dont waste your money for expensive things on the right. Nothing more.
As far as I see, they are not THAT expensive....
 

tomtoo

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As far as I see, there are not THAT expensive....

If they are on the right, they have to be cheap.
Couse they are cheap engineered. If on the right something is expensive, maybe it's made out of gold and you can wear it as a fashion ear ring. But it's not great as audio equipment. At the end it's your decission.
 

DonH56

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Judging by various posts over the years, apparently nobody is smart enough for this forum, even those with decades of experience in the field (that is not me; my career took a different path, and I love learning from the real audio experts here).

I would NOT use this thread to ask questions; they'll get lost. Instead, go to the Audio Newbie/Beginner sub-forum (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?forums/audio-newbie-beginner-technical-forum.46/ ) and post your question there. That way the title is meaningful and will help others as well as yourself.

FWIWFM/IME/IMO/YMMV/etc. - Don
 

napilopez

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Hi,

I love to come back every day to this forum, however to be honest I am by far not smart enough to understand the measurements and the results. Many times I struggle to understand the relationship between what is wrong to for example with certain loudspeakers or a dac compared to the measurement results. Am I the only one that finds it difficult to understand the reviews ? There are articles available explaining a lot but they still hard to understand for me.

What is the required educational level to be an regular visitor here? What is the best reading material for dummies like me ?

Thanks,

Hello, and welcome to the forum!

As others have noted, Floyd Toole's book is by far the most comprehensive and imo easiest to understand resource for newcomers trying to understand the speaker science here. There's always more to learn and sometimes people disagree with some of the stuff in his book, but it's the best way to get started. You can get a great intro/overview to the topics with this video though:


If you have a Kindle and/or don't mind reading on your phone/PC/tablet, the digital version is very useful because you can quickly look up specific terms and concepts. You also don't have to read every chapter, there are a few that are particularly important for the conversations here.

I'm an active member here and probably contribute more speaker measurements than anyone not named amir, but two years ago I knew next to nothing about speaker measurements. I'm a journalist who majored in philosophy, so a technical background is not required =]

On the other hand, I still know next nothing about DACs and amps so I rarely contribute there because I have nothing useful to say =]

Edit: The other most useful thing you can do is to start making your own measurements. Get a measurement microphone like the Umik-1(preferably from cross-spectrum labs) and measure your own gear. Then it becomes a lot easier to correlate measurements with sound.

The one advantage I've had is that I'm able to test a lot of speakers through my job, so I've learned a lot through trial and error. But at this point I feel I can understand a speakers sound more reliably from comprehensive measurements than from written reviews - and I'm a reviewer!
 
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Aerith Gainsborough

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What is the required educational level to be an regular visitor here?
If it makes you feel better: I have studied engineering (not audio though) and while I can read bode plots just fine, I also don't pretend to understand all of the subtleties of the measured artifacts.
 

Stokdoof

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One problem you might have is that it can be very difficult at first to figure out which articles/posts can be trusted (as in, solidly grounded in verifiable evidence) vs. ones that are more like ungrounded opinions or just plain unadulterated bullshit. Sadly, the audio world is littered with the later, more so than other fields in my opinion. It's a lesser problem here on ASR of course, but still, it's a bad idea to take what people say at face value if their posts don't come with solid citations/references. Especially when it comes to perception. Always be sceptical of everything you read. In order to make progress in audio you have to assume misinformation is everywhere and people are out to get you. Sometimes to sell you stuff, but not always - quite often it comes from well-intentioned people who have been thrown off target by other charlatans (and so on).

Also keep in mind that it's much easier to assert something than to refute it; this is why you will sometimes come across statements made on this forum that are highly questionable and not backed by evidence, but combatting these statements head-on is difficult because there is no evidence to the contrary, either. If you give such statements any credit you risk getting confused very quickly because they will likely contradict each other and you will operate with a mistaken notion of what is fact vs. some guy's opinion.

To avoid this problem I tend to follow a simple rule of thumb: if I can't figure out if a given post is grounded on solid evidence, I just act as if that post doesn't exist. That tends to make things much clearer. For example, I tend to ignore all posts that are about anecdotal/subjective impressions, especially if the post does not explicitly mention the test was done blind. Example topics where many articles/posts can be ignored for lack of evidence are audibility of non-linear distortion and time/phase distortion.

To go back on-topic: when it comes to speakers specifically, I think reading "the book" is one of the quickest and surest way to get you started on solid ground. It's quite easy to read even for beginners. And it meets the above rule of thumb by backing all claims by specific references to solid peer-reviewed research.

Thank for your reply. This forum Amir and members like you, realy help audio lovers to get an other view on the weird Audiophile world and have more focus on facts rather then stories. I will put the book on my to-do list :)
 

Stokdoof

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I keep a copy of this by my chair in front of my stereo:

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Loudspeakers-Engineering/dp/113892136X/

Sometimes it runs a little counter to what you see here, it can be a bit of a reality check, but it is very much of the same school of thought. If you read it straight through it will help you move up the learning curve much much faster. You‘ll have a better feel for it when a poster here is running off the rails, too. The writing is not complex. It is written for the layperson and is in the first person so it is engaging, opinionated and biographical as well as factually supported at every turn. However, the price on Amazon seems to have gone up for buying the book by quite a bit. Still easily worth the purchase but it’s a bit steep right at the moment at $60 or so (still less than the $66 “list price” though).
Thanks, on my reading list :)
 
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