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The criticisms that people have of this site are ridiculous. People can be a little worrisome.

Zerimas

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I was just doing some random googling and stumbled across this :



As a rando/noob/googan to this site I have to ask why no one is calling a spade a spade: seems pretty obvious that the denizens of Amiristan have an agenda which is motivated by payola. Having dealt with China contract manufacturing for almost 30 years this isn't the first example I've seen of it, both online and thru various trade organization meetings and publications. I never cease to be amazed by how much information about my company's order volume is shared between the supposedly competing vendors i deal with on the mainland.​
So what do you do when an outsider starts making serious inroads on your sales volume? Better quality,lower pricing, better service?​
Nah, costs to much vs assasination.​
Conspiracy theory? Sure,tell me what you think after dealing with the Dragon for a couple of decades.​


Source.


This isn't the first time I've seen this, but it is totally baffling everytime. It is also ridiculous. Firstly, I am pretty sure that general "idea" of what this site represents isn't popular, or very mainstream in the audiophile community. Secondly, the supposed "legitimate" hi-fi (which espouses the views the presumably agree with) has a long history of colluding with manufacturers. I am pretty I didn't imagine this, but did the audiophile press not collude with (primarily British) manufacturers to smear the DD tables coming out of Japan at the time? Also all sorts of myths like "cogging" (maybe not a "myth" but definitely exaggerated) and PLL/Quartz-lock systems "hunting-and-pecking" remain even to this day.

Everyday I become increasingly convinced that reasonable and rational discourse no longer exists. I am not referring just to the world of audiophilia. This sort of mindset permeates basically just about every topic.

This kind of stuff goes way beyond any sort "objective vs. subjective" sort of debate. It is almost like these people think subjective listening impressions are the literal word of god. Any attempts to interrogate this (measurements) are considered heresy. Doubly so if the measurements don't support their subjective analysis.
 
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simbloke

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I certainly remember when I was young and there were many British turntables, all belt drive IIRC. It was common 'knowledge' that direct drive Japanese stuff was rubbish. In those days the hi-fi press and the dealers provided this information. Never thought about this point of view until now!
 

anmpr1

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I certainly remember when I was young and there were many British turntables, all belt drive IIRC. It was common 'knowledge' that direct drive Japanese stuff was rubbish. In those days the hi-fi press and the dealers provided this information. Never thought about this point of view until now!
The 'traditional' Brit turntable most people are familiar with (Garrard) was idler drive. That was OK for wow and flutter, torque, and mechanical speed adjustments, but unweighted rumble was usually not as good as was the case with belt drive, or especially DD. The (in)famous Linn Sondek guy (Scotland's Ivor Tiefenbrun) was mostly responsible for changing that, and mostly responsible for the anti-DD propaganda disseminated back then. Ivor's 'great idea' was taking the then existing Swiss Thorens design, which itself was pretty much the old Ed Villchur AR turntable suspended chassis thing, and marketing it through the press and through questionable audio dealers (who stood to make a pretty good spread selling it). Whether you thought the Linn was great engineering in and of itself, you had to give Ivor credit for salesmanship. And you could always count on its price rising, with each new fawning review.

That said, he actually had a point, as far as it went; the old SP-10 (that was the table Linn demoed against) didn't really have a suspension (at least until Mitch Cotter got his SP-10 Mk II installed into his custom spring suspended/mass loaded base). Ivor had a pretty clever demo, where he'd mount the SP-10 and the Sondek with matching Keith Monks arm bases, and then lift the entire arm wand/cartridge off one table's mount, then on to the other (The KM arm was a unipivot with removable wand, floating in a mecury bath at the pivot). The test was not 'blind' or A/B, but it did minimize cartridge/arm variables. So his demo had merit. Again, as far as it went.

FWIW, cogging is supposed to have been eliminated in the latest and greatest Panasonic SL-1200 and SP-10 decks. For my part it was never something I ever experienced with any DD deck--at least as far as I noticed any effect that was supposed to 'sound' like cogging.

An early DD with a 3 point suspension was the Ira Gale/Sao Win lucite turntable. Very beautiful. Sao Win kept working with this idea, first with a belt drive model, then adapting the SP-10 Mk II to his creation. Win claimed that the original Canadian Oracle deck was essentially a rip off of his design.

Against the spring loaded thing, at least one Japanese manufacturer (Micro) used high mass/belt drive/vacuum platters/air bearings for acoustic vibration damping. Some of their tables weighing in at 60 to 70Kg, with a fully loaded SL-8000 coming in at 135Kg.:

sx-8000-h.jpg
 
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Jorj

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I was just doing some random googling and stumbled across this :

Well, that's the SBAF site in a nutshell. I personally know folks that use that site a lot, and they are good people, but damn, in general those guys seem like a cult. If it says Campfire or Schiit on it, they love it, even if other gear that costs half as much and measures better can be had. They go on and on about "measures great, sounds like shit", which is just nonsensical and semi-religious. Of COURSE they believe that R+2R DACs sound better, as if anyone can hear the difference between any of the top 3 tiers of DACs Amir has measured in blind, level matched listening. It's just infuriating, and I strongly advise you to:
a.) Stay away from SBAF if you have a weak stomach &
b.) If you must go there, get inoculated against logical fallacies, technobabble and personal insults.
 

StevenEleven

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Wow, I didn't get this whole dynamic until a few minutes ago, using the OP as a jumping off point. I see that @amirm has been knocked around by extreme subjectivists in a couple of places and extreme objectivists in another. I would have hoped people could just be more civil, and be open minded when they are confronted with a point of view that is different than theirs (whatever the merits of the different positions--and I do have my opinions on that, but I try to refine on what I know as I go along). It's kind of a sad dynamic among the four different places overall.

I don't really like the religious versus atheist analogy. At least where I live people of different religious and philosophical bents are next door neighbors and get along just fine. I guess it's the online dynamic that we're seeing play out here?

I'll try to be nice and open minded toward others and disagree when a point of view is just too much to take or ask about something when it differs from what I learned before (often enough I am actually wrong), or challenge another's thoughts if I think they will be interested and civil rather than hostile. But at some point you have to challenge something that is just plain wrong or the content goes way downhill. So there are actually some lines in the sand if you want to keep the validity of the content up.

I am dazzled at some of the technical expertise on this site and I appreciate that some people come in here with a personal agenda to upset people already here.

Well, not much point to all that rambling but there it is. I think this site can aspire to be even better than it is and I think it has the right mix of people to do so. When I feel we have gotten there you'll see my donation indicator thing under my moniker or whatever it is. I want to see a couple of things improve first. I have a volunteer subscription to The Guardian. I subscribe to Consumer Reports. I'll put down my cash money here when I feel comfortable this place has a similar integrity. Not that anyone is on the edge of their seat to hear what I think. But I have my eyes wide open, I think. I don't have the required 20 years of Internet forum experience but this has been an eye opener!
 
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Dialectic

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To my delight, ASR continues to rise in the web traffic rankings, as other forums, such as SBAF, seem to fall.

I checked SimilarWeb just a few months ago, and ASR had significantly lower traffic than a number of other audio forums.

Kudos to Amir, Thomas, and others for posting honest, enlightening content here and keeping things reasonably civil (but not too civil). Onwards and upwards.
 
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cjfrbw

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Amir's measuring instruments have been hacked, infiltrated and programmed by the Chinese. Woulda thought?

Now, back to my 'General Conspiracies' reader.
 

pozz

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There's this line from an old movie running through my head. Something about a little humiliation and money loss being enough to set anyone astir.
 

Sal1950

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Amir's measuring instruments have been hacked, infiltrated and programmed by the Chinese. Woulda thought?
NO, everyone knows it was the Russians. :)
 

THW

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i did browse SBAF for some time but i couldn’t take it even after a short while.

the utter hubris, the utter nonsense being posted and the levels of what to me is essentially voodoo is unbelievable.
 

Sergei

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i did browse SBAF for some time but i couldn’t take it even after a short while.

the utter hubris, the utter nonsense being posted and the levels of what to me is essentially voodoo is unbelievable.

I stopped reading the posts there after I saw "And this is exactly why people who come into SBAF and demand DBT are immediately banned."
 

BillG

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My advice is to just ignore other sites you don't like, ultimately each site has its own ethos and dynamic and attracts people accordingly.

Yes, I've noticed this as well. On the few other audiophile forums I've joined, I've almost immediately been attacked, quite personally on occasion, by some emotionally attached subjectivist simply because I said our perceptions are unreliable. I'm not sure why one would be so offended by that statement, but judging from the vitriol directed my way, I may as well just have slapped their mothers and killed their fathers... :rolleyes:
 

RayDunzl

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My advice is to just ignore other sites you don't like, ultimately each site has its own ethos and dynamic and attracts people accordingly.

This site keeps me adequately occupied.

I don't visit any others in the audio realm, unless I foolishly get sucked into clicking a link posted here.

Am I missing something?
 

solderdude

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One usually doesn't walk into a house of worship and tells the inhabitants they are wrong and what they believe might not exist or should be examined. Neither can prove without a shadow of a doubt they are right. Only from their P.O.V.

Replace house of warship by any website with a 'color' (yes includes some ASR members as well) and it is clear why visions on audio don't mix.
 

BasicConcern

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Everyday I become increasingly convinced that reasonable and rational discourse no longer exists. I am not referring just to the world of audiophilia. This sort of mindset permeates basically just about every topic.

Etymotic IEM's loved by nearly everyone, there are allot objective companies and much more. The whole ignorant audiophile is just a small sub group that taints everything. Blame head fi for popularising that attitude since they have a ABX free rule out of sound science area.
 

anmpr1

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NO, everyone knows it was the Russians. :)
It was Russians using Huawei hardware. Obviously.

PS: any site using the words "super best" in a non-ironical way has to be avoided. I never heard of them, so I presume they are being literal and serious. LOL
 
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