Let’s not emulate their rhetoric.
Respectfully yours.
I don’t care whether ASR fits the definition of a cult. I detest labels in general. Poked around on the site to become informed on what it is, the approach taken in equipment reviews, the flavor of commentary on the boards. I don’t agree with the purely measurement based approach. I find some of the commentary sniffy and intolerant. My opinion only. I will not waste time on it. Have better things to do. I definitely will not lower myself to the level some on the ASR forum have lowered themselves to.
The earth is FLAT! Can’t you see with your own eyes???!!! 
SOmewhere btw Nelson Pass has posted an article about distortion… I sent it to a younger friend to illustrate the difference between a master engineer and a dogmatic bullshit artist.
Amir feels that he and his analyzer are infallible.
He’s entitled to his fantasy.
He is clearly unaware of and not bothered by what he does not know.
But he takes his “infallible” test results and labels manufacturers of high performance hifi equipment, cable manufacturers, others as frauds, hucksters, liars. And those who enjoy those products as lemmings.
I don’t understand his followers. But i guess people need all sorts of religions.
Amir measured the magnepan LRS speakers with his Klippel system and he took the measurements like it was a box speaker, large panel speakers are hard to measure accurately, the measurements should not be taken from the 1 meter distance.
Clearly someone with EE knowledge Appling it the complete wrong way. My guess is the followers get a sense of good feeling about the cheap equipment he blesses and either don’t want to know why something else is better or cannot afford and use his findings as backer or good feeling that they have what they have. The part I really don’t get is that site has become a site full of haters. Hence the colt labels. You don’t agree get out and you are stupid, then banned so you cannot even reply. Followed by a big hazzah and rejoicing.
Have any of us heard the ASR approved system? if not I’m not sure we should be down playing it, especially since this bunch over here is all about listening as the final validation.
I’m OK with ASR putting together a system based on their measurement, be it that it’s good or bad, obviously when used incorrectly that would be bad. The poster seems to be happy with the result, so more power to them.
I’m happy with my PS Audio DSD Mk2 and P15… regardless of ASR’s assessment, more power to me too.
Thank you, Scott!
Let’s take the high road and avoid the name calling and insults.
More to the point, people there don’t seem to be morons at all. Many seem to be well educated and knowledgable. They just seem to have issues with people who are stupid, have too much money (or at least more than them) and enjoy wasting it on hifi. Count me in.
There’s a lot of attacking people with post-graduate engineering qualifications and set academic texts that are the root of all human knowledge. As a non-scientist, and completely impervious to Paul’s attempts to explain things involving capacitors, I long ago gave up any attempt to accumulate scientific understanding to make any difference to enjoying audio. None of the people I meet in a musical context are scientists. More lawyers or arty types.
Ironically, the only person I know who was a scientist (an atomic physicist no less at that donut place in France), gave it up for a life in finance, I suspect if only to be able to afford a very nice hifi system and UHQR vinyl. When you can afford UHQR you know you’ve made it. I’m not there yet, I have a psychological barrier to cross first.
Perhaps not in your circle, but I beg to differ. As an ex-musician myself and a 3-times degreed scientist I will tell you the correlation between STEM talent and musical talent is off the scale. Many musicians have STEM backgrounds. I’m also talking about accomplished amateur musicians who choose STEM as their paying profession but are so good they continue to play because music is an indispensable part of their lives.
a lot of that going around
On of my regrets in HiFi was not knowing much if anything about ASR and years ago finding a review about a small streaming class d amp (with ARC!) that Anthem/Paradigm made that at the time was like 60% off, I think it was discontinued and they were trying to sell off the remaining stocks…. Anyway the ASR folks had ‘reviewed’ it and said it was trash or whatever superlative they use over there. So I ended up not buying it. Time goes by and one day I happen upon another review of the same amp and this reviewer sings it’s praises saying it’s like alien technology and the ARC feature is super helpful in a small room/office system (same application I was planing on using it with). Needless to say I went back to see if Anthem had any and it was no longer available…. While my wife and I are happy with the Sonos we have in the room now (prob easier to use too, just set and forget), that other reviewer sure made it sound cool.
Boy had I only know….
I kinda wonder what kind of music that guy listens to. Probably overly-distorted guitar amps.
What is STEM?
Exactly my experience as well.
Science, technology, engineering, math
My favorite anti-measurement story was from Bascome King’s BKH videos where he related that the best measuring amp (lowest distortion) he ever tested, sounded poorly.
It probably did sound poorly, but the ASR posters would just say he didn’t do a blind test, and then if he did they would say it has to be double blind, then if had done that they would say he didn’t do it enough times.
To be honest, besides a few doctors, I don’t know anyone who works in engineering, IT or mathematics or science generally and hardly any from a scientific background.
There is one chap who has a doctorate in Applied Mathematics, became a banker and now has an orchestra, cafe and musical restaurant. The musicians I know trained as musicians, often from very young.
Thank you for that.
It does seem the largest forums/review websites are for headphones and IEMs. ASR do some of that. I had to buy a pair of IEM (for a long road trip and the car radio is broken) and I found it all totally confusing. I ended up phoning a dealer, got some advice and bought something on a deal for a sensible price. Never heard of the brand, Etymotic, but he said they were almost as good as the ones three times the price and they had a 40% discount. Stick that in your analyser!