Audio Science Review Review

i am severely dumb f* by this...i have no adjectives.

 

Another apples to orange case was comparing the Topping D30 to the Modi 2. D30 is externally powered while Modi 2 is USB powered. Modi 2U was sitting right there with similar features and similar price point.

 

I believe we are witnessing the beginning of the end of ASR.

 

I doubt it. They're just going to get more entrenched and mental. I look forward to it lol. #QAsr

 

“I must stay, compared to all the budget amplifiers I have tested, the PA3 looks like luxury goods! It comes in a hefty case and oozes quality”

“Most importantly, all the regulatory certifications are there which we know from past examination to be true and certified by third-party labs. This is one budget amplifier I wouldn't hesitate to leave on unattended.”

“It is clear that Topping did what it could to build a reliable, safe and robust desktop platform for this amplifier. Alas, they are held down significantly by the performance of the underlying chip amp which is likely all that was available at the time this product was designed. Being selfish elitist audiophile engineering types that we are, we have no choice but to pass on this amplifier. If you are not picky however and want something that is build safe and well, you could choose otherwise.”

From here. Amir can rail against subjectivity in reviews all he wants, but he can’t do it while including PR fluff like this in his reviews.

 

Have you read the Speaker sub forum?. I've had them defend Speakers that cost over $5,000 that measure worse than any Grado headphone or speakers that are large single driver.

 

That must be how he gets his fancy-pants Revel speakers. For what it's worth, an acquaintance of mine that worked at a dealer mentioned to me that Revel (i.e., Harmon) had some of the highest dealer markups in the industry. I believe he said 60% (and think the standard is around 50%). He was trading in some speakers I was considering so he could buy a pair of Salon 2s at employee pricing because it.

 

This right here should bring us full circle on the Harman Curve nonsense. You know full well they have plenty of consumer preference data and have correlated that with "what would ya pay" survey response data after participants heard some Wilson and YG Acoustics stuff on the spinorama. Those correlations are a gold mine, because if you have segment preference for a certain house curve (hi! boomers!), and consumers expressing willingness to pay exorbitant prices for anything that meets that preference, well, all you gotta do is find the cheapest possible drivers/x-over/basic cab dimensions that'll sim to that response, and stick 'em in a glossy non-resonant enclosure and you're practically printing money. Anybody ever wonder why the drivers in Revel stuff looked an awful lot like HiVi stuff for a while? And now they look an awful lot like SB Acoustics? The hi end of this hobby only exists to fleece gulli-boomers out of money.

I'd bet that most Revel speakers are 20/1 to 15/1 ratio of retail to COGS, i.e., $25,000 retail = COGS of $3000 give or take, with wholesale/dealer cost somewhere around $9-10k and FAT retail margins. I'd also wager that by lowering the manufacturing cost it makes it quite a bit more feasible for a manufacturer to offer demo pieces at COGS for dealers.

 

Thanks, Look like another case of making avoiding science to make another product look better. Like them bashing electrostatic speaker/headphones having 6% at 3KHz.

That there the fast food of the audiophile community.

 

No wonder why a lot of rich audiophiles over Audiogon shit on Revel speakers, saying they're a rip off even at %50 discount.

Reminding me of how topping priced their D90.

 

“Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel”
- Amir

so mr dispersion fetishist doesn’t want to set up a stereo system optimally in a room. Not that he ever knew how

 

It's really been bothering me lately how much influence ASR has had on the products that were released by Schiit and other manufacturers in the last couple of years. Their faux-scientific agenda is stifling creativity and promoting mediocrity in product design. It is literally taking the fun out of this hobby for me. I am so tired of them hiding behind measurements as the only thing that matters and tells the whole story of a product.

I was panned on those forums when comparing the differences in sound between the Magni 3+ and the Heresy. I had them properly level-matched and could pick out the differences every time, but was dismissed by ASR "experts" for not conducting a proper blind test. Their conclusion is always the same - we imagine the differences if we are aware of what we are listening to. They know that most people are not going to bother with buying all the equipment required to conduct level-matched blind testing of audio equipment, so they simply dismiss it as placebo.

The question is, how does one counter the influence that they have within the community so we can go back to companies like Schiit experimenting more, taking risks, and pushing the boundaries of audio? Unfortunately, to convince the general public, someone will have to beat ASR at their own game and use some kind of testing methodology to prove that basic measurements do not tell the whole story. For DAC testing, doing a null test of the output could be done fairly easily, but it is a lot more complicated for headphone amps where one has to take into account the interaction between the amplifier and a set of headphones.

 

Yes, the default position if you actually hear a difference in a volume matched blind test is that you did the blind test wrong. It is very frustrating to say the least. I remember linking a few posts I found giving results from blind tests at meets, and it was always dimissed as THEY DID IT WRONG!

Measurement extremists are also generally completely unwilling to entertain the idea that their own belief that there are no audible differences between amps and dac assuming "good enough" measurements might placebo them into NOT hearing a difference. Placebo only works in one direction, the one that agrees with their preconceived notion. Convenient!

Thus there really is no way to convince them to change their mind, any evidence you provide will be dismissed as wrong and they will never be able to hear the difference themselves as they are already convinced they can.

This is one of the most damaging aspects of ASR IMO, I would love for their to be loads of blind tests conducted all over the place as they will be a integral part of figuring out why people think certain amps/dacs sound better, but a good chunk of people in the hobby now are totally convinced they can never hear a difference. That the Iphone dongle is OBJECTIVELY SUPERIOR to a Bifrost 2 etc.

 

I agree the measurement extremists are past the point of being able to be convinced just as flat-earthers are - even that group finds scientific measurement methods to prove their theory right. I was thinking more of being able to show to the general public who are not extremists that the ASR leaders are simply using measurements to blind them by "science" with the sole purpose of selling specific products. That is what it really is - a simple but effective marketing tool designed to sell stuff. The measurement extremist disciples who actually believe all the ASR propaganda are simply a collateral damage of this. There is something oddly comforting and reassuring in believing that audio reproduction can be oversimplified to a set of THD measurements.