Is ASR for real, or is it only for those sub $1k or even sub $2K?


I did some browsing on the forum and it seems like most don't own very expensive gears.  Most of them own mostly sub 1K or 2K gears.  

I recently ask about feedback on the Polk R700 but after about a month with no responds.  I did a search "ASR Polk R700", with all but one poster which actually owned a pair.  Most of them would point you to some measurement and some theoretical discussion but non actually own a pair.

I also looked at a few posts on budget speakers such as the Kef Q7 or Polk R600, but I didn't see any actual owners responding.  

I don't mean to knock on them but ASR seems like a lot of hype but very little substance.

andy2

@mahgister  Excellent! Thanks. The final link to Van Maanen appears to be a link to your local Windows file system, BTW.

It turns out I previously read all of the Kunchur papers. I haven't delved to validate the Van Maanen though the feedback in amplifiers papers ring a bell.

I'll just mention that Kunchur's response to Amir doesn't really go after the major flaws in the cable papers, so your quotes about the limits of frequency analysis that are derived from that are just an argument from authority and nothing more.

The longer-form paper on human auditory systems is worth reading by anyone and the one I recalled as a "long-form paper." I don't think it has any bearing on ASR's methodologies.

The most interesting one from Kunchur is on temporal discrimination for square waves. Kunchur thinks that the results provide justification for higher resolution (above the Nyquist frequency) audio files, which is interesting. The test population was fairly small, though, so I'd be interested in seeing larger studies that are looking at things other than square waves.

But I appreciate the refresher and will try to get some of the Van Maanen soon.

I don't see any ideological marketing from ASR reflected in these papers. What happens in science is that there are new findings and they reach reliability over time and that gets pushed down into engineering where there is a practical application. It takes time and it is proper to have "epistemic humility" as I mentioned above meaning healthy but not dogmatic skepticism.

The paper i recommend is the slides in the second position...

All the articles are interesting :

https://www.temporalcoherence.nl/index.php/en/pyra

 

 

I don’t see any ideological marketing from ASR reflected in these papers.

I never said that these papers attacked Amir ASR directly as such (save Kunchur rebuttal of Amir which go to the core problem anyway)   they described the concepts about hearing theory (non linear time domain of our hearing) and the unsatisfied necessary  conditions for the application of Fourier theory in design (Van Maanen ) or in hearing theory Itself (Kunchur and the others) which facts  discredited Amir proposal of his measures as anything else than SOME specs verification  assessing good or bad design  anything else proposing these measures as the standard to determine S.Q.  is ideology and marketing  not science  ...

 Hearing theory rule acoustics(psycho-acoustics) and acoustics concepts, to begin with & at the end, rules audio engineering...Not the reverse ...devil

Example: Amplifiers, speakers and hearing aids design, dacs etc must takes into account how we hear sound and interpret phenomena to be improved ...

 

these are wise words:

What happens in science is that there are new findings and they reach reliability over time and that gets pushed down into engineering where there is a practical application. It takes time and it is proper to have "epistemic humility" as I mentioned above meaning healthy but not dogmatic skepticism.

Good night ...

 

@mahgister OK, good night! But it's still baffling or at least poorly articulated. Take this:

which facts  discredited Amir proposal of his measures as anything else than SOME specs verification  assessing good or bad design  anything else proposing these measures as the standard to determine S.Q.  is ideology and marketing  not science  ...

So maybe you are saying with your capitalized "SOME" that Amir is not fully quantifying what is possible for audio equipment design? Maybe, sure, but what is the alternative? We just don't have a design or testing methodology that shows any particular new design pathways other than, well, it might be valuable to use higher sampling rates than the Nyquist theory claims?

I still don't see any there there... Per my final paragraph, we just have to wait and be mildly skeptical. If there is a way to better use "Hearing theory rule acoustics..." we don't have any model yet. There's no ideology or marketing (which you are using incorrectly since ASR doesn't sell anything), just cautious skepticism.

There’s no ideology or marketing (which you are using incorrectly since ASR doesn’t sell anything), just cautious skepticism.

@mahgister is correct. You can quibble over whether "ideology or marketing" are quite the right words to describe what they are doing, but clearly it isn’t science.

Ehhh, there are reviews and they involve some audio science, but fair enough!