Stereophile's snide editorial on ASR and Amir

[amirm]

They will come with time.

 

[sq225917]

We can sum up the Stereophile editorial thus. ,"We're telling you the truth, we are the authority because we say we are, anyone else is a part time pretender, we know what makes good sound, you should buy the products we review".

That's it in a nut shell just a bit of FUD and piss poor rhetoric based on self survival.

Just ignore it, you're all just giving them oxygen by talking about them.

 

[Audiofire]

That's a broad blanket statement, and demonstrably false. Even in some "bad" brands there are decent items (Schiit for example). And some "good" brands have dogs once in a while (Topping has at least one "no" recommendation). So I will wait to see what each item individually tests, thanks.

Not necessarily demonstrably false. It depends on how you want to separate the good from the bad brands. Schiit had a turning point thanks to some reviews on this site from what I understand. So it seems to have become a good brand.

It was not so much a blanket statement as a generalization about certain brands that are worth testing more than others. For example, if we look at the overpriced cables, it's clear what poor performance to expect. A classic example that shows how some brands really are bad.

 

[G|force]

... This leaves speakers. If you have unlimited budget and want statement speakers, then we have no coverage of those. That is the only hole I see...

One
One
One day Amir will be sent or delivered a W371 sample with an 8361 or *gasp* a pair of 8361 .. or dream of all 4 set up for Amir's scrutiny in his own room and we'll see where the statement lies.

I own a 8341 pair solely from the review and data presented on ASR. I'm an unpaid spokesperson.

 

[mglobe]

Sure, but I would like to see others tested, Mark Levinson, which I believe you own, for example. And honestly, I would like to see brands like McIntosh, Rotel, Naim, Audiolab, Bryston, etc.

All it takes are people willing to box them up, accept the risk associated with shipping, and pay the shipping bill. As the price, size, and weight of the product goes up, the probability goes down.

 

[Awsmone]

Personally, I've never liked the SINAD concept. To me, it is putting apples and oranges into a single bin and effectively ignoring the differences between the two.

Please, THD is THD. Noise is noise. They are different, and one of them being 'high' while the other is 'low' still equates to a 'poor' SINAD number. Why on earth is it too much effort to simply measure THD and graph that, and measure noise and graph that. To me that approach seems a lot less of a hassle than having to explain why the SINAD number is what it is.

Geddes et al did some research on what is important and what’s not, straight Sinad is not the most important mainly

it would be interesting to apply his metric to Amir‘s measurements

 

[amirm]

Please, THD is THD. Noise is noise. They are different, and one of them being 'high' while the other is 'low' still equates to a 'poor' SINAD number.

The industry as a whole has equated "THD" with "THD+N" Because that is how the THD meters worked. Separating these now will cause nothing but confusion as people compare my "THD" number with "THD+N" number from others.

Fortunately at the high-end of the SINAD spectrum, the problem you are talking about essentially doesn't exist. That SINAD is completely dominated by noise. Distortion in those products is routinely down to -130 dB or better. It is noise that brings it down to 120.

 

[Awsmone]

We can sum up the Stereophile editorial thus. ,"We're telling you the truth, we are the authority because we say we are, anyone else is a part time pretender, we know what makes good sound, you should buy the products we review".

That's it in a nut shell just a bit of FUD and piss poor rhetoric based on self survival.

Just ignore it, you're all just giving them oxygen by talking about them.

The industry is just not used to “critical” reviews, and subjectivism and voodoo gadgets has overtaken the EE basis of the industry

Amir and others have exploded that model, and are stressing the voodoo subjective mantra

its strange as car reviews have been critical and practical for a long time and included real measurements from reviews on systems

for example if your a Ethernet reclocker manufacturer, many subjective reviews have gushed, then Amir reviews and find jitter and noise doesn’t change , that’s pretty stressful for the manufacturers and reviewers who claimed otherwise

Amir and the website is doing a huge public service in redefining the industry , and “embedded” advertising rags will be concerned

 

[theREALdotnet]

The industry as a whole has equated "THD" with "THD+N" Because that is how the THD meters worked. Separating these now will cause nothing but confusion as people compare my "THD" number with "THD+N" number from others.

Also, some of the noise is actually distortion, too. Take quantisation noise for example. That‘s not stochastic but linked to the input in a very deterministic way, hence a form of distortion. True noise would be uncorrelated with the signal, such as thermal noise of components that gets amplified, or RFI that makes it into the circuit.

 

[Vacceo]

If you were to put a system together, don't you think you can do so from what I have tested? And arrive at superb sounding one?

AVR's and AV processors in particular, are the weak leg compared to integrated stereos.

It is not your fault, of course, but for those of us that like multichannel, the landscape is not bad, but it could be a lot better.

That may change in the near future, and not in a small part, thanks to your work.

Sure, but I would like to see others tested, Mark Levinson, which I believe you own, for example. And honestly, I would like to see brands like McIntosh, Rotel, Naim, Audiolab, Bryston, etc.

For a company whose representatives love to say that is engineer-driven such as Mac, I'd love to see if those words carry some real weight.

 

[krabapple]

AVR's and AV processors in particular, are the weak leg compared to integrated stereos.

<me/ cocks an ear to his Denon AVR , which is ON but not yet playing music. And then some music comes on>

hmmm...I didn't/don't hear any THD or N

What should I be listening for?

Or is the 'weak leg' perhaps quite sufficiently sturdy enough, in typical practice?

 

[amirm]

AVR's and AV processors in particular, are the weak leg compared to integrated stereos.

It is not your fault, of course, but for those of us that like multichannel, the landscape is not bad, but it could be a lot better.

That may change in the near future, and not in a small part, thanks to your work.

But that's not because I haven't tested them. We have excellent coverage of them. The problem there is that those companies need to step up the engineering. We have no disadvantage there compared to any traditional publication.

 

[Vacceo]

<me/ cocks an ear to his Denon AVR , which is ON but not yet playing music. And then some music comes on>

hmmm...I didn't/don't hear any THD or N

What should I be listening for?

Or is the 'weak leg' perhaps quite sufficiently sturdy enough, in typical practice?

Compare the amount of good, clean, stereo amps on this site to the amount of good, clean AVR's.

Let's consider for a second that you want a Dirac-based AVR or AVP: not great options on very often, expensive products.

But that's not because I haven't tested them. We have excellent coverage of them. The problem there is that those companies need to step up the engineering. We have no disadvantage there compared to any traditional publication.

My comment was answering to yours about the site having a nice amount of candidates to build a great system.

I agree with that assertion in general, particularly in the part that matters most: speakers. For amps, that is also absolutely true: plenty to choose from mono to multichannel.

The weak part here in that are the AVP's; for AVR's, Denon is doing a fairly good job and shaming expensive products like NAD or Arcam (which is not good news, let's be honest). Hopefully more companies will adopt the procedures of Anthem in their AVM's, which start to get close to certified transparent.

So yes, even with the data at hand, the practicality is there: wait for better products if you can. Which is as functional as browsing for candidates to build your system.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

The industry as a whole has equated "THD" with "THD+N" Because that is how the THD meters worked. Separating these now will cause nothing but confusion as people compare my "THD" number with "THD+N" number from others.

Fortunately at the high-end of the SINAD spectrum, the problem you are talking about essentially doesn't exist. That SINAD is completely dominated by noise. Distortion in those products is routinely down to -130 dB or better. It is noise that brings it down to 120.

I honestly didn't expect anybody to agree with my view, so its really a non-issue. These days distortion analyzers can measure pure THD, perhaps its too much to hope the industry would get with the program and adapt. I was never confused by the distinction between the two, but maybe I'm just ahead of my time.

 

[krabapple]

Compare the amount of good, clean, stereo amps on this site to the amount of good, clean AVR's.

Compare the numbers reported to the likelihood of any artefacts of same being heard in normal listening.

Or heck, just compare some AVR in the middle of the SINAD chart to some top 10 SINAD performer 'stereo amp'. But do it in stereo, blind, level matched, and not overdriving either of them.

I'd bet good money you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. What would that tell you about 'weak legs'?

Let's consider for a second that you want a Dirac-based AVR or AVP: not great options on very often, expensive products.

Dirac has chosen a different marketing path than, say, Audyssey, is what I'd say. That's Dirac's choice.

 

[amirm]

These days distortion analyzers can measure pure THD, perhaps its too much to hope the industry would get with the program and adapt.

Unfortunately AP software can't do that in the dashboard. You have to use a different mode of operation to get that single value. Otherwise I would be more than happy to include it. Ditto for noise.

At high level, I am not sure any of this matters. Either an audio device is well engineered or not. If SINAD is poor, then the device is not well engineered. It matters not how much of it is noise or distortion. If you found a poor SINAD audio product for nothing at a thrift store, then it would be a fine pick up. Otherwise you don't want it on your shopping list.

Getting more specific data is only useful to determine the "why" not the "what." I know some of us enjoy the "why" but ultimately, that is not what the tests are for. Engineers need that info, not us as consumers.

 

[oldsysop]

Stereophile for lying and Purifi for class D, they won't see a dollar from me.

 

[kokakolia]

Compare the amount of good, clean, stereo amps on this site to the amount of good, clean AVR's.

Let's consider for a second that you want a Dirac-based AVR or AVP: not great options on very often, expensive products.


My comment was answering to yours about the site having a nice amount of candidates to build a great system.

I agree with that assertion in general, particularly in the part that matters most: speakers. For amps, that is also absolutely true: plenty to choose from mono to multichannel.

The weak part here in that are the AVP's; for AVR's, Denon is doing a fairly good job and shaming expensive products like NAD or Arcam (which is not good news, let's be honest). Hopefully more companies will adopt the procedures of Anthem in their AVM's, which start to get close to certified transparent.

So yes, even with the data at hand, the practicality is there: wait for better products if you can. Which is as functional as browsing for candidates to build your system.

This is where I'm confused! Denon doesn't generate much interest/hype in the audiophile community. Frankly, their products are priced the same as your typical Yamaha/Cambridge Audio/Atoll/NAD/Arcam/Rega amps. I'm so lost.

Are A/B amplifiers on the way out? I say this because I strongly believe that my cheapo 40€ Sure Tripath amp with a T2024 chip sounds better than the standard fare Yamaha RN402 (600€) amp I previously had. I'm using efficient OGY speakers. The Sure just doesn't have much power or bass. But the REL T5x solves that issue. I'm a Tripath believer now. Are other Texas Instruments chips similar? To be clear, I put a lot of attention on forward midrange and smooth treble. I'm not necessarily chasing neutral.

Anyways, what amp do you buy for about 500€!? There are 1000 options.

 

[Vacceo]

This is where I'm confused! Denon doesn't generate much interest/hype in the audiophile community. Frankly, their products are priced the same as your typical Yamaha/Cambridge Audio/Atoll/NAD/Arcam/Rega amps. I'm so lost.

Are A/B amplifiers on the way out? I say this because I strongly believe that my cheapo 40€ Sure Tripath amp with a T2024 chip sounds better than the standard fare Yamaha RN402 (600€) amp I previously had. I'm using efficient OGY speakers. The Sure just doesn't have much power or bass. But the REL T5x solves that issue. I'm a Tripath believer now. Are other Texas Instruments chips similar? To be clear, I put a lot of attention on forward midrange and smooth treble. I'm not necessarily chasing neutral.

Anyways, what amp do you buy for about 500€!? There are 1000 options.

Getting good, clean, efficient amp (or amps, for multichannel) is the easy part on both class D and class AB. The harder part is getting that clean signal on the processing side, both integrated (AVR) or not (AVP).

 

[Deleted member 21219]

This is where I'm confused! Denon doesn't generate much interest/hype in the audiophile community. Frankly, their products are priced the same as your typical Yamaha/Cambridge Audio/Atoll/NAD/Arcam/Rega amps. I'm so lost.

I'm confused as to why you are confused! Why are you worried whether some thing ... any thing ... generates much interest/hype in the audiophile community? I guess that the "audiophile community" has no validity or integrity in my mind. Am I wrong about that?

Here is how I think. Ten, or twenty, or even a hundred entities (manufacturers) make twenty, fifty or even five hundred products. Maybe I'm too skeptical, but I make no assumptions about any one of those products. That means I make no assumptions based on appearance, on price, on name recognition, on size and weight, or on advertising. The basis I want ( and that I've found here) is tests-and-measurements.

One of the reasons that I think this way is that there is a trend I've noticed over the years. If one innovative design hits the market and sells, then every other manufacturer will copy the looks of it, or the weight of it. They'll copy the advertising hoopla, finding a way to deceive with words. And most importantly, they'll target the same general price bracket. Their copy-cat items will be .... "of a lower level", shall we say.

This happens in the auto industry, the audio industry, the plastics industry and even the medical industry. It happens with battery-powered drills and toothbrushes, with eyeglass and lens coatings, and it happens with airplanes.

How do you, individually, or people as a society, protect themselves? Tests and measurements.
How do you know that the medicine you buy, which is priced similarly to other meds, is efficacious? Tests.
How do you know whether the airplane you're traveling on, which is about the same size and market price as other airplanes, is safe? Tests.
How do you know whether the car you want to buy is safe? Tests. How do you know it's efficient? Tests.
How do you know whether the safety glasses you wear at work actually protect you? Tests.

Without tests, there would be a market full of junk, all priced similarly, with a similar appearance, and claiming the same thing.
And without independent tests, or third-party tests, all you would have is industry insiders patting each other on the back and telling you that the products are just fine, just peachy-keen.
Sound familiar?

Tests and measurements 1) keep the worst of the crooks at bay, and 2) allows you to compare the remaining items for standards that you consider important.

EVERYONE is confused. EVERYONE is faced with similarly-priced items. EVERYONE has difficulties figuring out who to believe. And EVERYONE has the same problems all over again when they go from meds, to audio, to air safety, to cars. EVERYONE has to learn how to be discerning ..... and that's no easy task. You are no different .... and neither am I.

Thank goodness for testing! Thank goodness for some sort of umbrella of protection! If you don't avail yourself of it, I guess that's your choice.

Jim Taylor.