Audio Science Review Review

Discussion in 'Audio Science' started by purr1n, Aug 30, 2020.

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  1. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    How else would he clean his data?
     
  2. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    Malcontents, you are. Me, I'm very happy to learn - from a professionally trained listener, no less - that imaging is just as apparent from one speaker as from two. So many more possibilities for placement in my small room, and opportunities to buy speakers - sorry, a speaker - that I'd previously thought beyond my budget.

    While it's very disappointing that the audio industry continues to rip us off by usually selling them in pairs, now that we are armed with this knowledge, we can organize pair buys or swaps.
     
  3. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    I haven’t read the full thread for that “review” yet, but what a frickin hack. Measuring a dipole panel the same way as a box speaker and evaluating their performance based on this makes ZERO sense.

    A simple in-room measurement, where they are put in an appropriate sized room (for these small panels), and placed even in a half-way decent position, and then comparing THAT to a box speaker in the same room, would clear almost of the BS of those Klippel measurements have shown.

    What an asshole for doing this to Magnepan. This is a hatchet job of the highest order. And the sad thing is, I do think he actually believes he’s right and that he’s not intentionally measuring these incorrectly. But getting him to change his opinion, or rethink these things, no matter what logical arguments are made and what data or 3rd party measurements are shown to him, he will not change his mind. What a true scientist this guy is.

    I don’t even own any Maggies, but I feel like buying some now just to spite this arrogant jerk.
     
  4. Ruined

    Ruined HD700 ruined my ear holes

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    Sounds like the perfect opportunity to introduce a stereo grill upgrade kit indiegogo campaign to divide the speakers sound in half split down the middle and achieve full stereo sound.

    Meh. Any rando who reads this site and gets duped deserves to have poor quality sound and waste their money due to failing to do their due diligence; product research involves more than reading one link / the top google hit, and that goes for any product not just electronics. Those who actively participate in the site obviously don't care about sound quality so it works for them, too. Neither is really the Magnepan audience anyway IMO.

    At some point people of adequate mental capacity have the "a ha" moment and realize they have been duped (I see this exact moment posted on HF all the time). The rest remain valiant soliders of the topping-smsl army. There are always going to be a large group of the latter there is no hope for.

    IMO this site more of a problem for companies that offer good sounding entry level products like Cavalli Monoprice, musical fidelity (at least they used to pre acquisition), etc.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2020
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's the histrionics: "designers only considered 30% of physics", another member: "now I wished I bought KEF instead of Maggie 1.7s", etc.

    I don't think Amir is too far off. These mini-Maggies do have a hard time reproducing bass. What it comes down to is they are very much a niche product. I'd personally stick two boxes with 12" woofers next to them. ASR's measurement methodology concentrates on FR and dispersion (which in many ways is overrated and one of those extra measurements for people to get worried about). Maggies do other things well (transient response, openness, etc.) not covered by measurements.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2020
  6. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    You mean the things that audio 'science' shows us are mumbo-jumbo?
     
  7. Josh83

    Josh83 Friend

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    I have no problem with his recommending Revel speakers. Those that I’ve heard have been good to great. But I do have a problem with him being totally inconsistent with his “recommends” given that his followers take them so seriously and that he claims his opinions are sacrosanct. There are several speakers that I’ve heard in my own setup that sound great and measure well, yet he’s “do not recommended” them for no apparent reason. When challenged about inconsistencies, he says his hearing is superior to that of whoever is challenging him (even though Amir doesn’t even meet Harman’s definition of a trained listener).

    He’s allowed to have his tastes and opinions, of course, but he can’t claim his views are right and others’ are wrong because of some value anecdotes about working at Microsoft decade ago.

    Totally agree. He is, or should be, a rich man based on his MS career. He also has access to a wide array of gear through his current business and industry connections. Yet he asks for donations to buy himself gear and asks readers to drop ship products for him to review. He’s also responded to posts critical of his views by saying that he doesn’t even need to take the critic seriously because the critic isn’t an ASR donor.

    People are entitled to be paid for their work, but good judgment should prevail. This isn’t his real gig. It’s a personal vanity project. He doesn’t need donations from people with a fraction of his wealth in order to keep it running.
     
  8. Yethal

    Yethal Facebook Friend

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    Imagine how great of a job he must be doing at his day job if he needs to ask asr members for money
     
  9. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    On SBAF donations are used to buy gear that passes a basic sniff test, sure, but said items thus acquired for the express purpose of evaluation are also lent to trusted others so they might be able to hear gear they might otherwise NEVER have an opportunity to, and are afterwards sold for significantly less than was spent on them, or even less than that when items in question are found to be steamy piles of poo.

    I have a very horrible sense of humour and so would normally appreciate jibes about spending donations on a new dishwasher if it were understood to be a tongue-in-cheek sorta thing like how Marv used to copy the Ken Rockwell "I have a growing family, etc etc" pitch verbatim, but for some reason I can't put it past Mr. Not Harman-Approved to have been serious about that.
     
  10. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Dipoles are a bitch to integrate with monopole speakers. I'd get two OB 2x18" arrays to go with them.

    Or Linkwitz's bass bin from LX521, if space is tight.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2020
  11. Ruined

    Ruined HD700 ruined my ear holes

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    I heard it was a product of an active imagination, actually
     
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Holes in walls to the outside, infinite baffle.
     
  13. mkozlows

    mkozlows Friend

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    What really cracks me up about all the Harman stuff is, obviously the site is conceptually all-in on Floyd Toole's research (which makes a lot of sense -- it seems like good research, maybe with limitations and caveats that they're not thinking about, but genuinely knowledge-advancing, useful research). And obviously they're all-in on Revel and JBL's design philosophy, which is well-aligned with that. And they tend to be fairly lenient on their evals of those speakers.

    But: At the same time that they're like "Harman has world-class facilities and measurement capabilities and design their speakers to these measurements in sophisticated ways," they're also like, "their measurements differ from what Amir measured, therefore they must be lying about their measurements, and these ones are correct."

    It's just astonishing self-confidence with so little reflection.
     
  14. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Actually, based on his measurements alone I didn't think much of the F35. It seems lean for its class (2.5 way tower in its price range).

    I've heard the TOTL Revel Ultima Salon 2. Maybe it was that the room was too small. Maybe it was that the dude played them way too loud. Maybe many things. But all I can say about them is that they are OK. They were not bad. I liked the Sony SS-AR2 better for some reason. Could be the songs they were playing.

    Stereophile covers them both (measurements and all):
    https://www.stereophile.com/content/sony-ss-ar2-loudspeaker-measurements
    https://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-ultima-salon2-loudspeaker-measurements

    The Ultima Saloon 2 seems to go lower. But if you look at the in-room response, both speakers are full range covering 20 Hz to 20 kHz, with a response that will be room dependent. Given room dependence, I believe the Ultima Salon 2 failed to impress because the room was too small. The whole system was bloated and incoherent. The SS-AR2s where showcased on a much bigger room, and they kicked ass. Ironically, the SS-AR2 and SS-AR1 seem to use similar drivers as the Zaph ZRT (2 and 2.5 tower configuration similar to the F35).

    Unimpressive performance by the Ultima Saloon 2 goes to show that how the equipment is used and setup matters a ton. Which is not what Amir did for the Maggies. All that said. I don't like the Maggies.

    Going back to the Revels, indeed nothing wrong with the Revel line as far as I can see. Other than it being severely over priced relative to other speakers such as the Zaph DIY ones which don't get the seal of approval.

    Not to say that I'm perfect but the problem with the ASR dude is not his opinions. It is dishonesty and arrogance. Such is the world though. Again. I'm not perfect either.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2020
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Double-standards when it comes to others: when I decide to go subjective, it's OK; but when others do, they are they imagining things, e.g., "don't let them tell you it sounds different".

    The arrogance is another matter.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2020
  16. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Add that when using graphs to prove your point, be it for your hobby, academics or business they have to be understandable for your intended audience. I am not the most beta-oriented person. If you do not even bother to give the graph some context and a tidy legend, game over.
     
  17. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    That is exactly what a measurement-only design will get you. An okay device. Revels are ok, KEF's are ok, same goes for Neumann and Genelec. There's a lot of stuff out there that's below okay, but the truly excellent is usually designed by ear and measurements both.
     
  18. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    yep, I had the genelec 1037b, jbl lsr32. both "studio" grade, both perfect measurements, both boring to listen to.

    the measurements freak sounds like idiots at this point, with no real experience with both good measuring and lesser measuring speakers which actually sounds magical in comparison to the "studio grades" ones.
     
  19. nishan99

    nishan99 Friend

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    ^
    It's not what the artist intended tho :)
     
  20. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    .......Sad laughter at first.... but I don't even know what to say to this............ despite the fact that I think he has brought up a few legitimate points/general ideas (not fine measurements) over the years, how does anyone still listen to this guy?

    For a moment I legitimately wondered if after making enough money at MS being serious everyday he wanted to spend the rest of his years trolling people for entertainment... but like others said, it doesn't seem like he's trolling. Or he's really good at staying in character for a long time.

    A small part of me almost thinks that someday he is going to give some pseudo-science explanation for audio something or another on the same level of ridiculous as why measuring time with a ruler works and how it's actually superior b/c it saves money over being "scammed" by a $ 5 figure watch (while ignoring cheaper watches/clocks) just to see how many donations he can get for it.

    Also - Didn't know he was behind whatsbest as well... did he get booted from there too? How many other forums?

    This has also always irked me about ASR + the fact that he asks for donations after most measurement posts. That's not to say that I wouldn't pay a rich man to do the same thing as poor man to do just b/c the rich man is already rich, but yeah, pretending to need money from people with a fraction of your wealth to buy relatively cheap audio equipment "for testing" that even said people with a fraction of your wealth can most likely afford is scummy at best.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2020
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