I don’t get it either. Do you have a DAC in your system? Does it help you enjoy music?
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Let’s keep it civil please and concentrate on the topic at hand and not make it personal.
Thank you for the cooperation.
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I’ve got no axe to grind and don’t often contribute to these types of threads, preferring the warm and friendly music threads. 
That being said, I want to say how important ASR was in my moment of audio need.
We’d entered lockdown in March 2020 and I found myself in need of something to keep me going. I decided to purchase some gear that would allow me to listen to streamed music on headphones. So many sites were pushing expensive DACs and HPAs. I stumbled across ASR and went ahead with a budget purchase of a Topping DAC and JDS Atom HPA. It was so important for me to find a site that didn’t equate audio excellence with exorbitant prices.
I’m not really into the whole forensic analysis thing (I’ll leave that to others) but I just wanted to say thank you to @Amir_Majidimehr. I can listen to great music on great sounding equipment with a pair of reasonably priced IEMs and still get my family the things that they need.
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Obvously i have a DAC. My question was whether anything is this thread would help increase my enjoyment of listening to music, which i think should be why you liaten to music. I think that is a reasonable question.
This thread is about ASR. Does ASR contribute to the enjoyment of music? If you don’t think it does, then it won’t do it for you, especially if you’re not in the market for audio gear. But the fact that anybody can get that gear and enjoy recorded music at home is the result of many years of research and engineering. Many people who turn to ASR are interested in that engineering. Also, I don’t know what kind of research you did before you bought yours, but there are people who used, are using or plan to use ASR in their research for new gear. They also find it very useful, and they will definitely enjoy the idea of getting the best value for their money.
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Well, Amir answered your question.
But iam guessing you didnt like the answer?
Maybe start a thread on what brings you musical enjoyment and we can respond better to your thoughts on the matter there. Asking a random question like that and persisting with it in this thread seems weird.
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The thread introduces you to the work at I do at Audio Science Review. While it started as addressing the comments made by designer of Mytek Bridge II, it morphed into what we do at ASR and why. In that regard, we absolutely can benefit your enjoyment of music assuming you care about the best fidelity. If you care about how much you are spending on audio gear, we can help you with that too. And if you want to learn how your gear, room, acoustics, etc. work, we are there for you too.
Other than that, I am not a mind reader so don’t know what you mean.
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I have found this entire thread between the two of you fascinating, especially when I realized the avatar being used by Amir wasn’t “her” some 30 years ago (I even located her “on the right” in the link “she” provided … much further right, into the pics winning an Emmy technical award… pretty lady) … but then further down the rabbit hole it became obvious Amir is a dude, which in retrospect should have been more obvious (I then concluded I was just “wishing” the avatar was real).
With all that finally in the rear view mirror I found your back and forth extremely eye-opening, if not ear-opening, and now wondering out loud, with a comment here, why no one bothered to interject “human ears” as an element that goes unmeasured (for good reason I think we can all conclude), as a key part of the equation of buying and enjoying audio playback equipment.
I say this because for one having originally listened to a decent amount of 60’s rock, as it was being recorded in a number of iconic Hollywood recording studios, followed reasonably quickly by the absolute joy of studio monitors blasting out those “listened back” tracks on the best sound equipment available in that decade, it became obvious to me that as an aged now audio hobbyist I was constantly chasing “that sound.” One that seemed inevitable to remain simply a far out goal to move toward, but never to achieve. Until most recently, beginning with the age of digital and just improving ever since.
And today, considerably older, as a constant streamer of a Roon navigated digital library stream, I enjoy sometimes newer music, but mostly well-aged, stuff of my own nostalgia, that I loved so much way back then and now just love the clarity, tones, and lack of distortion delivered by today’s digital playback media.
At a certain volume reminds me so much of those actual studio monitor playbacks. The clarity of vocals, and the superior separation of instruments on those single tracks being brought together for their ultimate melding. Especially so on the wider frequency samples.
But at the end of the day it’s my ears that were always making the most significant difference. Never more true than today. And both of you here, well educated in your fields, experienced, and interesting folks, have not much to say on that subject. Yet for me, and for most I assume, one’s ears change everything.
But still … loved the back and forth and found it fascinating and worth the time spent spiraling down your rabbit hole. Thanks.
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Um… what?
I’m not sure what makes you think human ears have gone unmeasured (and why not doing that is good reason). There’s a whole science dedicated to that: Psychoacoustics - Wikipedia
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Sorry that I was so unclear for you. I note also that you apparently did not have the decoder available to decipher the humor in my response as well. My bad.
First, I was not suggesting that the field of psychoacoustics should be ignored. Who in their right mind would suggest that on a Roon thread? So let’s set that entire wiki-linked thing to the side for a moment, since what I did not clearly communicate is that OUR EARS are very individual elements of all that was being discussed, yet they as personal decoders of how all the sound we hear ultimately end up, for each of us as individuals, will likely be the most important element of all.
These “measurements” of all things auditory to describe (and justify at times) the high-priced custom audio equipment that sells for higher and higher dollars today, can not possibly consider what we at home will subtract from those measurements with our own ears. And as pointed out, measurements that include non-auditory results for a human’s capability to hear make zero difference to the enjoyment of that listener.
I think that the conversion to digital from analog has brought significantly better sounding music to the majority of people with normal, as well as aging, ears. No need to spend thousands of dollars and rack your eyes through graphs of measurements imo, but simply to test listen the equipment that fits your budget and is reviewed without the hyperbole of audio speak fueled by myriad acoustic psycho babble.
If your job is to provide an honest opinion of the pros and cons (at a certain price level) I have found that less is more, and there is great value in much lower price point equipment that can last you for many satisfying years (decades even). And in my case I was comparing that with my own ears, now aged, to my young ears thrilling to actual studio monitor playback, which I still consider to be the best I have ever heard outside of a concert hall, and likely that my ears ever had the ability to hear.
My suggestion is then to go with what sounds the best with a good smattering of music you already enjoy. Test it by listening, and buy it based on that. For the majority of people who love their music this is all that is required and at the end of the day will cost you much less to be very well satisfied with the sound of the music you love, day in and day out.
And buy that life-time subscription to ROON. There’s nothing better. And I wish I had a cool graph to add to that opinion.
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It’s not common knowledge in professional audio that DAC’s with lousy distortion performance are more musical.
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You suggested we listen to capabilities of our ears. Well, we have done that through extensive research. It shows that such listening tests will generate totally unreliable information. This is not the fault of the ear. It inputs what it always inputs. It is the central cortex, the thinking part of your brain that is the problem. Give it two identical inputs from your ears, it can generate wildly different conclusions regarding fidelity.
You might think that being an audiophile or an audio reviewer with “experience” will better your odds of concluding the right thing. Unfortunately it does not. Only professional training helps. See this formal study of how consistent listeners are in evaluating fidelity speakers where differences are obvious:
Notice how poorly audio reviewers did. Again, this is in rating speakers which should be a walk in the park compared to differences in electronics. If you want to know more about this, I have done a video tutorial on it:
This is on top of having access to said gear to listen to which is increasingly difficult to do. This is why measurements are so valuable. They let you have reliable data without having to “be there.”
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Thank you for your thoughtful reply Amir. I enjoyed your dialogue above and can only offer in response to what you have sent in reply to my own comments that being a simple listener of music my entire life, I believe I can tell for myself what sounds good to me.
I do enjoy quality audio equipment and have been lucky in my life to be able to steadily increase my ability to afford better and better equipment. Somewhere along my path though I got quite content with the sound as I heard it, and I became satisfied that I had it as good as I wanted to afford it (I guess; assuming that as the measurements improve as they have done for my lifetime my hearing would not do those improvements much justice…or they simply weren’t really there at all, at least not at the price point that it continued to be worth it to me).
And that’s essentially what I was attempting to convey in my comment. Trust what your ears are delivering to you. Regardless of the measurements if it sounds good to you then you’re good to go.
We aren’t reviewing for audiophile magazines, nor are we out here designing and manufacturing the latest greatest sexy gear. We just want stuff that sounds good when we listen to it.
I support paying up for quality gear, but for myself there was a definitive limit to what I found incrementally enough improvement for what I was hearing to pay any higher price than the very decent equipment I already owned. Took me a few decades, but that’s where my ears have landed me.
I do have a great deal of respect for the work you all do though, and I’m certainly not disparaging that in any way shape or form. Continued good fortune to you.
I think you mistake the goals of those who look at measurements to aid gear selection. It is all about what sounds best to them! And it is by far the best tool to help achieve that.
I for one want highest fidelity, thats what sounds best to me. I then use Roon to tune further if the mood desires.
I also think your getting price confusion. The best measuring best sounding gear is usually not the super expensive option. Look at this thread.
But hey, if you dont accept the science of listening tests thats fine as well. If your happy thats all that matters. For others near perfect high fidelity is now easily achieved and affordable, and Roon opens up all sound options
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Scientific studies using double blind methodology, without time and switching frequency constraints for the listeners, have shown that listeners across the board significantly prefer the most neutral and undistorted audio reproduction chains.
So, judging components from complementary sets of measurements will get you most quickly the best value for money system at your chosen budget.
Any other method might eventually get you there, but at a significantly higher cost in time and money spent.
If that’s fun for you, go ahead and enjoy, but don’t make it a dogma in public fora, unless prepared to be challenged!
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I very well may be mistaking those goals. I have used measurements in choosing gear to listen to, but the measurements don’t much matter to me after that. To each his own.
As for getting price confusion I doubt that’s a problem I have. I experience no confusion over the dollars I spend for the value I perceive, and am willing to pay for. I just don’t overspend to find that out. But we all have our spending habits. Confused spending is not one of mine, or the challenge of “price confusion” (is that a real thing?).
“Perfect high fidelity” is a unicorn for those with perfect hearing. Perhaps you have that as well.
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Even Twain had trouble recognizing facts, and he loved to distort as a humorous pastime.
But good advice. Are you meaning to apply it to my comments?
No, just posting it as generally sound advice. When you say,
Seems pretty sensible to me. Though of course I also agree with @Amir_Majidimehr when he says,
So, I guess, listener beware!
I’m not sure why they would, once you made a decision, since they won’t change.
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