Here is what you said, and what I quoted. No further context is necessary for the point I was making:
However, measurements just for measurement’s sake are useless - it’s how gear sounds that matters!
Whether or not you acknowledged that some measurements are indeed useful, the point you were making - and to which I was responding - is that ASR is mainly or only doing measurements “for measurements’ sake” - is that reading of your response correct or not?
But let’s look at your follow-up:
With regard to my comments about some of the ASR measurements being useless in terms of sound quality…
I repeat what I said above - they may be “useless” in terms of “sound quality” (an entirely subjective concept that varies widely from person to person), but they are scientific measurements nonetheless, and those of us who have an engineering background often appreciate seeing this stuff because it helps us understand the design and manufacture approach of various companies and provides useful benchmarks against which to compare other products by the same company or other firms, and across the price spectrum. In short, it’s interesting to some of us and there is no reason other than boredom or being a hater to attack them or anyone who appreciates the work they do as “vomit” or worse.
It should be pretty obvious what I meant by “game on” - There are a few people here who attack anyone else (or third parties like ASR) who say or publish remotely “negative” things about PS Audio gear and it gets really old. In fact that’s why I endeavored to stay away from this place for the last 6-8 months after a long ridiculous back and forth about AC mains cables and snake oil in general. So by “game on” I meant let’s see how the DSD DAC compares to the cheapo Behringer DAC; which of course I just had to retract as Amir (I think is his name) is nowhere near to me geographically, making that little challenge I proposed (mainly to myself) not very feasible.
Without getting into the details of your claims about ASR’s alleged arbitrary or capricious approach to measurements, what precisely do you attribute this alleged bad-faith approach on their part? Or is the accusation that they’re just stupid?
I think it’s been established that it’s not actually the case…BUT…
Even if he did order something just to test it, I see nothing remotely unethical about this if he’s paying the return shipping (which one would assume, given Amazon’s business model often includes the restocking fee). Do you have any idea how much money Amazon* makes? The ability to buy and try is one of the perks of a Prime membership. Same thing goes for any online seller of basically anything. Shoes, clothes, sunglasses, speaker cables, $1000 AC mains cables, etc. It’s laughable to think that there is an integrity problem with ordering something with the express intent of testing it out for a review. In fact Amazon has Vine program where they send products for FREE to certain reviewers to test, measure, and otherwise try out.
I think that ASR is doing a service. If these manufacturers of DACs and other equipment are not going to PUBLISH their measurements, then it is a benefit to everyone else that someone does it for them. It should drive them to either improve their products, or to address any glaring shortcomings in the design/performance.
And as I mentioned above, their little chart/graphic is clearly labeled with the following disclaimer: “Please don’t look at this graph too accurately. Small differences are not material and results vary slightly from test to test. Generally look to see what bucket the DAC falls in (color coded in the chart for easy reference: blue = best; red = worst).” Where “best” to “worst” is specific to ONE metric, namely - SINAD - nothing whatsoever to do with how it sounds nor is it a recommendation or warning not to purchase one over another, which is what has been both stated and implied by at least a few people in this thread.
And in general (with exceptions) the cost of the DACs increases as the SINAD decreases. So I don’t understand the irrational hate that ASR gets around here.
Yes I understand that many sellers on Amazon are actually small mom and pop businesses, and that it’s difficult for them to do business with Amazon from the get-go, so excess purchases and returns might really affect them negatively - but again, I think we’ve established that this is NOT what ASR is doing, so it’s kind of a moot point.
That’s irrelevant. If he is kicking costs back to someone just because it’s convenient to him and he has no intention of keeping the equipment, he is operating in bad faith. Just like people that used to buy big screen TVs right before the Superbowl, only to return them shortly after (Best Buy had to make a policy for that, it was abused so regularly). Sounds like that may be not the case (original statement was retracted), but if it was, it’s not in good faith and therefore unethical.
Yeah poor big ole’ corporations. They have nobody looking out for them. GMAFB. Kicking costs back to someone else…LMAO…cry me a river. In this economy? I’m glad you’re rich. I’m not.
Anyway, we’ve already decided he’s not doing that (but so what if he was). So it’s moot/irrelevant/not worth discussing any more. Then why is it of such continuing importance? You’re the one who used the words (or concepts) “unethical” and had an “integrity problem” as though it’s not the manufacturers of such products who instead have these issues.