Stereophile's snide editorial on ASR and Amir

[kokakolia]

I think we're missing an important point in this; @amirm evaluates individual components here. It is difficult to relate them ALONE to how it will sound. Is the speaker rear or front ported? How far is it from the rear wall? What about the room size and shape. Those matter to the sound. How many of us have a reference microphone and REW? They are much less expensive than most speakers reviewed here. With known equipment, we can intelligently use them with proper installations.

How it sounds depends on where it is.

The electronics and DAQs; quantitative to me is sufficient. Speaker (and other) cables ... don't go there. I can put the best speakers in a lousy location and they will sound ... LOUSY. Those who denigrate measurements do this, TO ME, TOO MUCH.

I used to do performance based measurements of electro hydraulic systems to optimize performance; an extra inch or 2 of conductor (pipe/tubing) USUALLY doesn't matter, but a foot or 2 usually does. $10,000 servo valve mounted "far" from controlled device worked very poorly.

Buy good devices and learn to use your calibration microphone and REW; THEN, complain.

These are the problems we'll constantly overlook if we don't have an IRL local audiophile community. We could share the secret murky knowledge of room treatment IRL to improve our Hi-Fi experience for "free". Every room is different, with unique problems. A lot of room treatment info online is commercially driven and/or vague.

 

[Timcognito]

Sorry if this has already been written I got blurry eyed at page 8 and starting skimming.

Amir shows his graphs (many of which I am just coming to terms with understanding) and he points out a few bumps and squiggles with an arrow and writes things like "this is poor" or "great, rare at this price level". Then in most cases he listens to what he's reviewing and sometimes says things like "wow I didn't expect it to sound that good or bad", makes some kind subjective guess as to why that would be and gives a one sentence go no go recommendation. Rarely is there any ambivalence. I don't see where those in the "HiFi" magazine press should have gripe about this except for one very big issue, and that is, the one thing that they will not and cant not say; I do not recommend this product. It's not the graphs or "objectivity", Stereophile has their own set of graphs. That is why ASR is a big problem and they shoot the messenger. Amir even gets it wrong sometimes, like the WiiM Mini Streamer where are like 130+ pages on ASR of mostly highly engaged new owners keeping the baby and throwing out his bathwater. Doesn't seem to bother him. I'll keep reading and learning and most of all making my own now more educated judgments thanks to ASR.

 

[Dial]

Are you saying you were banished for replying to that Jim Austin article?

Can't remember but it's very common with them, a lot of commentators have disappeared when they were regulars, most were objectivists who only believed in measurements and did not think that an expensive device is necessarily better (like here eh ?). Since 2020 I would say.

 

[Vacceo]

So this is what that guy wrote in one of his first SP articles back in 2004:
"It's true, of course, that good sound can't be measured, that lousy measurements provide no assurance of lousy sound; and that components that measure badly can sound great."
and
"But unless you've got total confidence in the ears and integrity of your favorite subjective reviewer—I respect many reviewers, but have total confidence in none of them—well-conceived and -executed measurements can be very reassuring."

So in his opinion, even proper measurements are both pointless and helpful. Don't expect any consistency from him, since he has now revealed that his critical evaluations are based on his introspective reflections and shared human experience but not so much science (which he claims is his background, as a physics major).

No reviewer uses Carcass, Brodequin, Cannibal Corpse... As test material.

Amir does not need to. That explains my choice.

 

[DMill]

If what you say is true it’s disappointing. Stereophile is at a crossroads. It would be smart for them to NOT alienate any “audiophile” regardless of their thoughts on this subject. I would encourage them to have a “Tech corner” article that gets back to what we all loved about magazines before the internet. But that’s all the free advice I’m giving them as an advertising guy for the last 25 years. You want more, pay me.

 

[G|force]

(I think perhaps PS Audio were the only folks who attempted this, and we saw how that went...)

Hydrogen Audio is or was a purely fact based forum, tread carefully upon those waters. Quickly posters are chased away by strict standards. The first and only time I shared a *notion* without graphic evidence that could be interpreted and repeated by others, I was quickly shown the rules of the forum. I took no offense, I considered my lack of preparation for my post as my own fault and didn't post again.
ASR allows posts like 'how to convert RCA to XLR
(Radial J+4 can add noise but does the task)
or vise versa and some of us just ignore it because beating down ignorant posts only inflates egos on one side and doesn't help the OP on the other.
We want casual newbies to stay so they may gain knowledge.

 

[thegeton]

Interpreting the data is as important as the data

IIRC: "...perform experiment, extract raw data, process raw data, extract information, analyze information, build hypothesis, test hypothesis, perform new experiment..."

 

[SIY]

 

[Deleted member 21219]

So blind trust in "science" is reckless.

Blind trust in anything is reckless. Trust is built by experience and understanding. Jim

 

[amirm]

It is rather unfortunate, then, that you named the site Audio Science Review ...

It opens the site up to easy criticism since, as you freely admit, no 'science' is really being done here. If the site had been called 'Evidence Based Audio' or some such then it would be much more clear . But that horse has probably bolted ...

Huh? The site is full of science review. We discuss it ourselves and have industry experts like Dr. Toole here. On top of text, I have also done a ton of videos on scientific topics. As I explained, science is also used to explain what the measurements mean in the context of audibility.

I am objecting to people calling measurements "science." That aspect is not science. It is hooking up an analyzer and measuring things. The other side elevates that to "science" as to then make the next argument of "science doesn't know everything." Both are absurd statements and have nothing to do with our site name.

 

[amirm]

I don't see where those in the "HiFi" magazine press should have gripe about this except for one very big issue, and that is, the one thing that they will not and cant not say; I do not recommend this product.

That's it really. I see it day in, day out. "How dare Amir says something is not recommended when I said it was best thing I have heard." Statistics of our site indicates this will continue:

The same stat by others is probably 95% if not 100%.

 

[Vacceo]

That's it really. I see it day in, day out. "How dare Amir says something is not recommended when I said it was best thing I have heard." Statistics of our site indicates this will continue:

View attachment 219426

The same stat by others is probably 95% if not 100%.

I have seen cases where you recommend stuff you don't particularly like. I think that was the case of the Kef R3.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Amir doesn't like anything.

 

[Rip City Dave]

But does it lift veils and create a holographic image?

NGC6960 is known as the Veil Nebula. Try lifting that veil....

 

[Beershaun]

That's it really. I see it day in, day out. "How dare Amir says something is not recommended when I said it was best thing I have heard." Statistics of our site indicates this will continue:

View attachment 219426

The same stat by others is probably 95% if not 100%.

This. So much This...

If these other sites are truly unbiased reviewing these products how can 95% of them be good or recommended. I don't want a reviewer that is going to tell me everything is "fine" or "great." I want a reviewer who is going to do the hard work for me to separate out the things that are worth my money from the things that aren't and narrow down the list so I can make an educated decision.

 

[AdamG]

This. So much This...

If these other sites are truly unbiased reviewing these products how can 95% of them be good or recommended. I don't want a reviewer that is going to tell me everything is "fine" or "great." I want a reviewer who is going to do the hard work for me to separate out the things that are worth my money from the things that aren't and narrow down the list so I can make an educated decision.

You got this relationship thing all twisted. The Reviewers don’t work for us. They work for the products they review. They have never had the Customers best interest at heart. Just a new form of Advertising really. Morphed version of Celebrity Endorsement advertising. Amir is just pulling the curtain back to reveal exactly what is behind the curtain pulling the levers.

 

[Mr. E. Guy]

You got this relationship thing all twisted. The Reviewers don’t work for us. They work for the products they review. They have never had the Customers best interest at heart. Just a new form of Advertising really. Morphed version of Celebrity Endorsement advertising. Amir is just pulling the curtain back to reveal exactly what is behind the curtain pulling the levers.

Don't worry, influencers will make everything that came before seem rather quaint.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Brings me back to when Paul at PSAudio explained to us what "timbre" is while pronouncing it incorrectly and then go on to say if only we had a way to measure the timbre of an amplifier then we would have real measurements that showed how good an amplifier is. Yet the FFT analyzer is one of the most widely used tests for equipment.

I’m sure Paul has heard of FFT and spectrum analysers. A spectral plot doesn’t describe the waveform and hence the “sound” or ”timbre” of a signal. Two different waveforms can have the same spectral (FFT) plot.

 

[rwortman]

how can 95% of them be good or recommended.

The standard answer from the high end magazines is that they don’t want to waste magazine space on lousy products so they pre-select the ones they expect to be good. The cynical answer is that advertisers don’t like crap reviews so magazines don’t publish them. Either way, they are selecting for you, by what they publish and what they leave out.

 

[captainbeefheart]

A spectral plot doesn’t describe the waveform and hence the “sound” or ”timbre” of a signal.

Huh!?!? You might want to re-think this. A Fourier analysis exactly describes what's contained within the waveform which is nothing more than the sum of different sine waves at different frequencies.