Audio Science Review Review

I just wish they would just provide counterpoints to what @purr1n is addressing. Seems like they won't (sadly I'm not too surprised on that part).

Some of the comments from their thread is making me shake my head.

 

Yes, I think you are right, and kindness never goes amiss. But you will continue to find any of my posts that mention that unmentionable man to be not kind, not even polite, but verging on foul-mouthed.

It's not about measurements v ears; it's not about subjective v objective. All those big audio arguments are straw men fighting straw men.

I'm not going there, but I'm not surprised. They will do that. And they will misrepresent what has been said here to fit the arguments that they want to make. They will not talk or discuss because they won't listen. This lack of listening is rather strange in people who are supposed to make a hobby of it!

Measurements. Objectivity. So you'd think that maybe Mr A would be at home at hydrogenaud.io, the bastion of audio objectivity? Well... no. Because his objectivity is whatever suits him. Or, according to some of the Hydrogen people at the time, his commercial interests.

 

I used to think that before, is very convenient to ignore and deflect topics in a discussion, specially if it is harmful to some juicy commercial interests. Amir does that from time to time...but his minions?
That would require a certain degree of intelligence and awareness, and I don't see any sign of such qualities radiating from the typical ASR poster. In fact, they'll eat any kind of crap Amir feeds them. I see them more as some kind of malicious, mind controlled autists instead of a group of people casually having an argument.

 

"JBL monitor amps are not "state of the art" but that is not terribly important" lmao

Well, I believe they have serious flaws, but considering the price I wouldn't complain or redesign the circuit myself. But yeah. LoL. " It isn't super important how shitty the amps are." LoL.



Btw, I regard JBL as a pro company that just offers products some are quite good, ime, so I am not here on high horse. I think JBL knows their stuff. These 305s are just extreme compromises that could still make you enjoy music - they aren't going to bother redesigning it for the time being.

 

Their review based on measurements of the liquid platinum is laughable

"Measures flat on frequency sweeps therefore must sound perfectly neutral, tube does nothing, will sound same as a JDS atom"

From 30 seconds of listening it is obvious that LP while not hugely colored also does not sound like a neutral budget SS amp [in a good way]. Which goes to show their measurements-based conclusory methodology is not anywhere near capturing what the hardware subjectively sounds like.

Although I feel all measurements are flawed as a conclusory tool due to being too primitive compared to how humans perceive audio - complementary information rather than info you can solely make a solid overall judgment from - the way ASR does them and makes conclusions is special brand of useless

 

Review ideas for 2021. "It isn't super important how bad the drivers are"

 

The budget market for amps may need years to recover from the damage dealt by those kids with their fancy .00000 numbers. Imagine how much R&D has been wasted to pursue those numbers instead of a better sound!.

 

Companies will probably just engineer bad sounding headphones around the bad sounding gear.

"THX AAA Headphones - guaranteed not to sound like a trash can on THX gear!*

*THX AAA Headphones connect to PC via USB "

 

I don't go there. It must be even weirder than I imagined! I guess they'll be having fun with your description of them. lol.

 

Haha, given my own mouth bears no little resemblance to a cesspool at the best of times (particularly after all this metal and plastic and rubber was installed— blech!), I say your potty-pleasantries are as good as anything I might dredge up out of this morass. I do recall you've known of Mr. Formerly-of-Microsoft for far longer than I have (I only learned about him through this forum, truth be told) so my store of good will likely isn't quite so depleted as yours.

Say whatever you want so long as it's done with due respect and candor, IMO; being too reserved with opinion only leaves room for misunderstanding.

True, since if it were really about measurements then both this forum and theirs should be getting along better, as well as Mr. MoreSINAD with the HydrogenAudio board (bit too dry for my tastes but a good place nonetheless). It's taking a lot of willpower to avoid losing my temper at people who conflate the forum's "measurements don't tell the whole story" ideology with "SBAF says magic exists", as that's evidently false.

@Hands the last image shows up as a missing image and I have no idea if that's deliberate but I hope you keep it because it's hilarious.

 

Oh wow

 

Such a huge surprise a forum that makes people feel good about buying cheap junk is more popular than one that makes people desire gear they can't afford.

 

I hope you're right, but I think you're being over-optimistic.

R.A. Belcher, Wireless World, May 1978:

"It has long been recognised that total harmonic distortion measurements generally do not give a good indication of the subjective impairment due to non-linearity, and in 1950, in an effort to provide improved subjective agreement, Shorter(1) proposed that the measurement of distortion should be weighted to take more account of high order harmonics. In 1960 Wigan(2) proposed an improved weighting criterion to be applied to the harmonics of a 1kHz test signal. His subjective data..." etc.

So despite people who've actually been listening having recognized for three-quarters of a century that not all distortion is equal, manufacturers, trade publications and consequently consumers have persisted in talking THD; and someone who set himself up in the late 2010s with a single distortion-plus-noise number as his main criterion of measured 'truth' still finds a large and willing audience. Unless manufacturers stop playing the stupid how-many-zeros-after-the-decimal THD+N game, I'm not optimistic there'll be a paradigm shift in consumer opinion. I think the best that can be hoped for is a small shift in the Overton window due to a (sadly) few around the edges who are prepared to listen, research, and think for themselves.

This is not to say though that calling him out on shit like claiming to hear distortion of the amp while playing the headphones at >100 dB, being inconsistent in the application of his 'consistent' standards, etc., isn't worth doing. The more the audience can be shown he's not some sort of infallible or always 100% honest guru, the more they'll hopefully be open to other information.

 

I guess that's why you might get a good PA system amp. Almost limitless power and decent SQ. I mean, high-end clubs and better live shows usually have at least decently good audio.

Pro audio is no joke, but you need to know what to buy.

 

I am actually more interested in PA, because of price. Get some amp, and some good drivers and probably DIY the speaker. Or just use PA amp for the lower part and get something for mid and highs.