Amir and Blind Testing

A sound proposed in a blind test, and disconnected from the listener room historical intimate soundfield and proposed to be evaluated in a testing unknown room alien soundfield with a different relation with the speakers/system used cannot prove anything certain about the alleged difference claim by the listener...

Why?

Because the interpretation of a sound difference is ALWAY different coming from system differences in the test, or coming from the speakers/room specific differences for example...

The way a dac translate a specific soundfield from a recording trade-off set and propose it through a specific system FOR another room soundfield is completely specific and always vary...The difference between sound coming from gear in different room conditions can even be huge...

My dac cannot be judged to stay the same after changing the room compared to before for example and this is also true of my amplifier, cables, speakers, they give something which is the same by virtue of their designed qualities but in a complete different way when i modify the A./P.A. conditions.....

I myself could not be able to detect all differences i can detect in my room with my gear transported in other acoustic conditions ... I know that WITHOUT blind test and with a CONTINUOUS Listening experience where the affective and acoustic cues are never disconnected and where my memory then can goes on working...it is how i tuned my room....ANY CHANGE CAN BE DETECTED, even sometimes a single straw acting like an Helmhotlz diffuser or a single straw variable perimeter and lenght working as the neck of an Helmholtz resonators.... But mark my word here, I have ORDINARY hearing ability in my age group by the way but an history of listening experiments for years in MY ROOM which explain how and why i can did what i did...

Then mocking me with the false claim that i pretend to have bat ears is BESIDE MY POINT.... Proposing to test me by blind test make no sense at all....We learn to hear in some condition and with particular tools or instruments and devices...This is this content we learned to identify not by superpower but by learned habits in a KNOWN context with familiar sound/speech/files/albums...

Blind test prove nothing generally in an audiophile tool fetichist deconstructing context... But those using these blind test to debunk some product are , like the opposite group those who promote these same products in the same gear fetichist war FORGETTING acoustic/ psycho-acoustic (A./P.A.) conditions and science...

But when this is said, i dont think that Amirm measures are useless, not at all, but used by his disciples cohort of fetichist tool measured specs, which are not an absolute anyway, they go and stay in an audio dead end, ...

In the same way audiophile focusing on the brand name gear goes in a dead end forgetting the relation between A./A.P. to idolize the gear piece overestimating his power contribution to the final S.Q. experience and undersestimating completely the crucial relation of the gear with A/P.A. conditions ...

Prove me wrong...

It is my personal experience i dont pretend to be a scientist, but i learn something in the last years in my room... 😁😊

The difference between piece of well designed gear in the same bracket of the S.Q./price ratio EXIST but are way less diffrence than the improvement make on them by  putting them in the right acoustical embeddings settings... The diffrence here is HUGE....This is true for all piece of gear at ny porice tag...

No speakers beat the room like said some unknown acoustician...

This is true for a dac, an amplifier and for any piece of connected gear in the system...

prof

because that's you (and likely your imagination)

Is this just like how you want to imagine that every person in the world has the same hearing? Might the following article might help you?

Scientific Study - not imagination

Search the net and you will find many more scientific articles - not "religious" articles, as you mentioned. Then there is the wax build up, hearing loss, genetics, etc.

many of us want actual knowledge as to how the equipment works

Fortunately I do not fall in that group. I use my ears for listening. And the brain translates that into emotions. Eyes are great to see the numbers and study the equipment. But what we hear dictates our preference and that translates to emotions we experience.

If a scientific study cannot convince you that we all hear differently then only Amir can help you. Good luck.

This is a common place fact so evident i cannot even imagine someone cannot know it in the first place... It is the foundation of A./P.A. and the reason why small room acoustic designed for ONE listener could not be the same than amphiteater acoustic designed for a crowd...It is the reason why musicians prefer and own for example very different guitars...And no guitar is the best for all... It is the reason why you must design your room for YOUR specific ears not only from general acoustic principles but from specific listening experiments by yourself...I called that mechanical tuning of the room with Helmholtz method...

Thanks for the link....very interesting proof with brainwaves analysis...

But when a science like A./P.A. is so complex how to present arguments to two groups of opposite fetiichists, the gear tasting one and the tools measuring one to convince them to CORRELATE  their perspectives TOGETHER  instead of opposing them  with useless blind test war or cables wars, or digital/analog futile debates? 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😊

If a scientific study cannot convince you that we all hear differently then only Amir can help you. Good luck.

Nonoise,

I apologize.

I did not notice that there was a link associated with that picture. I’m so used to seeing ASR utterly dismissed, especially by those who take the more subjective approach, that just seeing a picture "Bullsh*t" seemed more of the same.

But clicking the link I do see the author of that piece wasn’t just brushing away ASR but attempted a more detailed case against some of ASRs claims. So I was wrong in assuming you were just posting a picture. Sorry about that.

(A quick skim of that link suggests I don’t agree with some of it, I’ve had my own clashes with ASR and there is a sense in which some there "take things too far" IMO).

I am really tired of reading criticism of Amir who very capably and generously reviews audio equipment. Basically his detractors are saying that they like various types of distortion. There is nothing wrong with enjoying what appeals to you, but it is absurd to find fault with scientific objectivity. Yes, your $1,000 USB cable is very cool, but admit that there isn’t any scientific evidence that it sounds audibly better than Amazon’s $5 cable. All these savants lining up against Amir reminds me of Mussolini’s famous quote, “Many enemies, much honor.”