Another of Amir’s agendas appears to be some sort of blackmail model. A member on his site even posted such a statement (ie. accept manufactuer pay in exchange for not posting device measurements) and it was ‘liked’ by Amir. If you (the manufacturer) pay and/or praise him and the site, you get a free pass. For example, how many Mark Levinson products has he tested or scrutinized? The answer is, none. And there is no doubt that most, if not all, of the ML gear would fail the price/measurement performance standard he sets for all other manufacturers he has it out for. His followers remain silent on this fact. They’re also silent on the fact that he praises MQA infected DAC’s as the “Best Audio DAC in the World?” If any other reviewer praised an MQA infected DAC in this way, there would be protests from the group, as there should be.
Fortunately, some forum owners (AS) did the right thing when contacted by MQA. Unfortunately, a few others (ASR?) lack such basic integrity.
I noodled around in this thread out of boredom for a while. But I missed the part where the discussion specifies which PS Audio DAC we’re talking about. The Huron? The Redcloud? The Snowmass? The upcoming RonP—sorry, I meant The Windom? I can’t wait to get my new Windom DAC. Even tho I’m not happy with the name.
This response from Alex pretty much sums it all up:
" If others wish do not wish to accept plainly heard differences until they see someone produce some measurement that means something to them at the output of their DAC, that is fine. But staring at a few spikes on a jitter plot is not going to tell you if the music is going to sound more real or not. So sad to see such a subset of the audiophile populous is still stuck in the rut of not using there own, evolution-tuned test gear affixed to their heads. They are not hard to use and the process can be quite pleasant. "
He carefully doesn’t say what version he’s testing (he makes a big deal about how he can’t figure out PS Audio’s versioning but he doesn’t give anything from the version screen which he criticized so we knew he saw it…) To me that was a big flag that he was skewing things… Who measures something without giving enough info to reproduce the results?
Was this directed at me? I’m fully aware of the fact that we need to listen, in our rooms, rather than use measurements. Although I think that both subjective listening and measurements can be used wisely to work towards the optimum solution. My comments are a response to the fact that Amir is (again) trying to use (what I believe to be) deliberately skewed testing techniques to hurt yet another manufacturer.
Please have a read through Amir’s article to get to his conclusion -
" Needless to say, I cannot in any shape or form recommend the PerfectWave DirectStream DAC.
These companies need to hire trained listeners and perform a simple level matched test before spending so much money on engineering and producing subpar products. Our hobby deserves better. Much better."
The only thing sub par are Amir’s testing regimes.
After skimming this thread I only have this paraphrased popular Mark Twain quote to add:
"Never post responses to an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
"
Protect those “beans!?!?!” Man, you are relentless!