Audio Science Review = "The better the measurement, the better the sound" philosophy

@crymeanaudioriver - 

Please state for us what other names you've used on Audiogon. 

Tammy-

This guy is like a tick that burrows into Audiogon until he causes enough irritation to get booted out... Then comes back under another name and starts the process all over again. 

@fair

Thus, while testing on 2 ohm has its merit, it appears from the discussion that testing on non-purely-resistive loads is of more interest to people with practical experience in designing and repairing amps.

 

It is not in my review charter to help either camp in that.  That aside, I did build an emulator of a 2-way speaker per stereophile.  And used it for a bit of testing.  It didn't reveal anything useful so I retired it.

I have used real headphones for headphone amps.  That too was a useless exercise as the back EMF combined with the impedance of the amp produced completely erroneous and misleading THD measurements. Similar situation exists with testing amplifiers with speakers.

Even if something useful popped out, who is to say that speaker is representative of any other?  It may be a corner case, an easy case, or a difficult case. Who knows.

I do vary the resistive load to test for load sensitivity and report on that (usually a problem with low-end class D amps although some high-end ones suffer the same).

Finally, keep in mind that any speaker or emulated load of one would have to be at very low power.  There, distortion may not be material at all (swamped by noise).  This is why JA at stereophile only uses is load emulation for frequency response test.

Yes, there is a $15,000+ load cube that provides a couple of reactive loads (NOT representing any real speaker).  Audio critic had one but I think it blew up on them and they no longer used it.  I would spend the money if I thought it would add value but it simply doesn't.

Making sure this point is understood: there is a very high bar for adding more tests to the suite that I run.  Every test suggestion must come with strong justification which I have not seen in any of your posts.  Folks on ASR routinely make such suggestions.  You want a new test?  Come back with real data that shows usefulness.  "Would be nice" isn't going to work.  A lot of things would be nice but not when it clutters existing measurements and take time and resources form testing other products.

@boxer12 

Tammy-

This guy is like a tick that burrows into Audiogon until he causes enough irritation to get booted out... Then comes back under another name and starts the process all over again. 

What is the solution?  Ban them after a few posts when you realize they are going against the grain of the forum/thread?

@fleschler 

I do not trust @crymeanaudioriver opinion(s).   ASR site is replete with anecdotes and foolish statements concerning cables, especially digital cables.    I've tried half a dozen digital cables and none of them sound the same, not even close.  I bet they measure the same though, 75 ohms, similar capacitance, resistance, inductance although I have no tests proving that other than a voltmeter.   I decided based on listening.   None of the cables had specs although five had extensive explanations concerning their construction.  

My tests are extensive and include measuring the output of audio devices to see if the waveform has changed at all.  I recently started to play music through them and perform null tests showing the cable made no contributions whatsoever.

Reports like yours persist not because the facts are different, but that you think listening with your eyes wide open is the same as doing so without them.  Until such time that you can provide reliable evidence of sound only, what you are saying has no value.

One of the top audiophiles in this forum with half a million dollar audio system swore a few years ago that he can tell the difference between his MIT oracle cable and others.  He agreed to a blind test where he could not remotely do so. All it took was using just his ears to change the outcome.  You can read about it here: 

"So our results with Mike as our listener were clear: for this particular methodology, Mike could not accurately identify a difference in the cables."
 

Mike posts this about the experience: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/86-ul...184-observations-controlled-cable-test-2.html

"yes; i have, to some degree, changed my perspective on cable differences....but...my mind is still processing the results and what they mean for me. i hope that i can coherently relate the various thoughts that go thru my mind. as Chris mentioned; the controls were successful at keeping me from knowing which cable was which. for each test i felt confident about my choice (except #6...see below).
[...]
when i made my choice known for #8 i was confident that i was 100% for all 7. then my friend Ted said 'that's it.....test over'. we had discussed prior that any result 7 out of 10 or better or 15 out of 20 or better would mean a positive result and to continue. once we got to only 3 out of 7 it was clear that we were not going to get a positive result.

why did i fail?.....or put another way.....why did this test show no real difference? was i overconfident?

yes; regardless of the eventual answer i was not respectful enough of the challenge.

[...]

in my mind i am not confident that i will ever be able to hear reliable differences between the Monster and the Opus to pass a Blind test. OTOH i am also not sure i won't be able to do it."

----

Until this lesson is learned, nothing you know in audio can be trusted to be true.

“ What is the solution? Ban them after a few posts when you realize they are going against the grain of the forum/thread? “

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