Paul … please watch … ASR is an extremely popular Forum …
Does Phase Distortion/Shift Matter in Audio? (no*)
ASR has been discussed in this forum many times. ASR appeals to those who choose measurements over everything - which is perfectly find if this is your preference.
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I have a couple of measuring instruments better than anything ASR has. My ears, and my brain. They even work during a long, total blackout!!
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Oh boy, a little black box filled with used snake oil, and a less-than sincere “trust me, I’m a real scientist” claim.
No thanks, I’ll stick with Paul.
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Yup. I’ve seen it. Amir certainly likes to snipe. I wouldn’t bother with him—I certainly won’t. He’s not an experienced listener and often focuses on one small point (like phase shift) then uses Floyd Toole or other experts that also aren’t experienced listeners on resolving systems to prove his point. (While I have a great deal of respect for Floyd Toole because of his smarts and numerous contributions to the state of the art, I take issue with his listening techniques and equipment and his audible evaluation methods. That said, at least Toole contributes much value to the HiFi industry. The same cannot be said for Amir)
Here’s the thing about phase. Adding a low pass filter (or HP) to an amplifier with a -3dB point low enough to cause phase shift in the audible range (as Amir is showing using the Jensen transformer) is absolutely audible on a reasonably resolving system and from an experienced listener. I’ve made the experiment countless times and it’s obvious. Easily demonstrable.
My guess is that Amir is more interested in supporting Harman products that are in his AV shop in Bellevue Washington (just down the block from Difinitive), and being a sensationalist. There’s always one of them around. 
I remember the Audio Critic, Peter Aczel. He too loved rattling people’s cages and would often do it just to make for a newsworthy review that got people talking. That’s fun for some, but not much in terms of adding value to the community.
Amir is a fairly wealthy former Microsoft manager that I am guessing is bored. He’s got an Audio Precision (gee, we have 4!), a Klippel speaker measurement system in his garage, and time on his hands. He loves nothing more than stirring the pot. Note in his reviews of JBL/Harman products how he sometimes gives them a pass for bad measured behavior but then lambasts other products that measure better.
He makes me smile. I wish him well.
We need people like him to keep the entertainment value of our industry high.
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And sensationalism and pot stirring over contributing to the betterment of the high-end audio community.
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Amir does have value in he gets us talking and, as a result, we often learn something as we consider what is correct and what is wrong with his approach.
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He ( 13mh13 ) is also a bit foul in his speech…
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You’re offended. I’m entertained . PFFFFFFFFFTTT.
Anyway, boyz and gurlz … it ain’t 'bouts whoz rights andz whoz iz wrongz … its ‘bout dat Alexa rating (most accurate and Internet traffic metric ranking system.).
Bottom line:
YouTube: 2
Amazon: 11
Wikipedia: 13
audiosciencereview: 67,071
head-fi.org: 22,390
Stereophile: 82,219
PSAudio: 181,988
A few months Amir in an interview video stated on how popular his site has gotten and he ain’t just sh-ts-n-giggilin’ it folks.
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No not offended…just your speech speaks poorly of you…
and is really not the general etiquette in this forum…
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They should all just put their speakers out of phase and enjoy themselves.
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It’s too bad the ignore function doesn’t also hide the person’s threads they’ve started.
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It does not, but you should not see any of that person’s posts in the thread.
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ASR does refer to listening tests in this video.
#QAmir is at it again with the pseudo science 
Yeh, but Amir fail to explain why if we cannot hear above 20khz, why do I hear 192khz recordings sound so much better and higher resolution than the same recording in 96khz or 44khz. The bits are the same at 24 bits. It should sound exactly the same shouldn’t it? Maybe higher phase shift sounds better than lower phase shift, no?
I found Amir’s graphs of the effect of reflections in real rooms and headphones very interesting. He showed that the real world was more complex than Paul’s deliberately over-simplified explanation of phase shift in electronics. There was no justification for his subsequent conclusion that phase was not important. In general, at ASR, I find Amir’s measurements informative but treat any conclusions he draws with extreme caution; they are one guy’s opinions.
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Some can hear well above 20kHz. When I was working at a retail store in the mid 70s, the store had an ultrasonic motion detector system that worked at 24kHz. Although no one else heard it, when it was activated, it was very loud to me. It’s a good thing we had to get out within one minute upon leaving or turn it off within a minute upon entry to keep the alarm from going off, or I would have had a very splitting headache.
I much prefer Danny at GR-Research who backs up his science with an improved approach in design and in a new crossover that he then measures vs what the speaker company did…as cheap as possible. This to me is real engineering and not just snipping.
Danny has surely opened my eyes to looking more closely at speaker test results and the stock speakers when the company claims some high level engineering has taken place. Those improvements I can hear as well as seen in graphs. I trust my ears more, but the graphs can tell me what I should be listening for.
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The “issue” of phase shift has had absolutely nothing to do with my decision to purchase any audio component over the past 50 years, including BHK300 monoblocks. For how many is phase shift the make or break criteria as to whether or not to buy a particular piece of audio equipment?
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