Interesting ASR review of small GR Research speaker kit


I bounce between various kinds of analysis — more subjective listening reports, more quantitative measurement analyses and, my favorite, those that combine both strategies to tell a useful story about audio products.

Amir of ASR has just done a very powerful takedown of a fairly inexpensive kit being sold by Danny at GR Research. Not only does he prove his point about the speakers, he also makes (to my mind) a very convincing case that Danny put his finger on the scale in how he reported his own measurements. 

I'm not in any camp — Danny's or Amir's or anyone else's. What I appreciate is thoroughness and meticulousness in exposition. Danny does that in his own videos. (Again -- to me. I'm really still learning and cannot easily spot gaps in argument in this subject matter.)

I know people with some of GR's best kits — and I've heard one of them. They sounded incredible. I've watched a bunch of Danny's videos where he criticizes other companies; I've come away thinking, "Wow, he really revealed some of the grift embedded in that product." 

But here, the tables are turned, it seems, on Danny. I hope he responds, both to defend his reputation and methods, but also because it will set in relief where some of the distance may be between these two dominant online figures' methods in assessing what makes for a good speaker.

https://youtu.be/IikqAg38FPs

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@lanx0003 Attack to Amir’s comments and disrespect got to end here, folks.

You're not my supervisor! 

 

I have watched it up to minute 10 - by then Amir showed the freq graphs, and gave his opinion on them. I have noticed this his measurements are sound, but his interpretation is flawed.

Amirs frequency measurements confirmed Dannys. However, he placed them in a context that his own measurements did not support.

Here’s the details:

Amirs ⅓ octave smoothing looks very close to Danny’s, a good confirmation - no contradiction whatsoever, it is a good confirmation of Danny’s published freq response curve.

At the start Amir shows a finer scale measurement that reveals more details. This is no contradiction, no surprise, every professional knows that finer resolution will give a rougher picture. What it should not give is sudden large (approx 10dB or so) peaks and valleys. Amir confirms there are none of those, so he in fact confirms Danny’s measurements for being solid.

Whether I agree or disagree with Amir on a specific subject or product, he still makes me throw up a little bit in the back of my mouth...

As JP would say "a disagreeable personality".

 

noske

560 posts

 

@thyname What has worked for me over the years: take exactly opposite of what AmirM says. In other words, if he likes something, I will never consider buying it. Scratch from my list.

This suggests to me that measurements are very reliable in predicting your (and others expressing similar sentiments) listening preferences.

Your prediction of my listening preferences is completely irrelevant to me. To put it politely 

Your prediction of my listening preferences is completely irrelevant to me. To put it politely


I do not believe that it is solely @noske that is being referenced as the one(s) who has/have shown that measurements can be correlated to what people like.

And I do put some stock in the years of research as a way to help identify what is worth pursuing and what should be skipped over. 

To be confrontational to the point that you would defend these speakers seems like a risky pair of speakers to wager on being good. And I say that because we are not exactly talking comparing subtlety different, and subtly nuanced, top shelf gear here.

 

Maybe you can let us know how those GR “Little Giant Killers” sound to you?
Amir said he would sell them at 1/2 price.