Comparative Listening Tests

Leif S · Apr 29, 2017

BruceD said:
Well I see this thread is slowly racing to the Bottom--of what I don't know--anyway --for an observer the raising of voices is entertaining

If i may throw in a question-- I notice the VSA room was --gasp! Square?--surely a no no for optimum placement

so for it to get Best in Class/etc-- the devil was tamed?

Go the Tube traps ( I presume)!

BruceD

Damon and I both knew we were going to be facing a challenge with the square room and we were a little nervous. We had a large room last year that wasn't square on the lower level, but those rooms have some challenges of their own such as extremely loud air conditioners and a horrible 60Hz peak, and if the speakers were capable of deep bass response, 18 Hz became a problem as well. We went with the square room this year and recruited Arthur Noxon to help us with this. We didn't have the loud air condition this year or any of those bass peaks and I am very pleased with the systems performance given the square room no-no

Leif S · Apr 29, 2017

It doesn't surprise me one bit for Amir to trash our room. It's all good.

Lee · Apr 29, 2017

amirm said:
Sitting here I have next to me a $300 AC outlet that I am confident will do zero to improve audio performance. Yet, I still bought the thing to test. Who here has done such things in reverse? Jkenny? Stehno? Anyone else? How come you all are not open minded that your audio beliefs and methods of evaluation may be horrifically wrong? I don't even know if anyone has run my simple exercise that takes a few seconds and costs nothing. So why am I being asked to be open minded?

Hi Amir!

I can add an observation. I have a quad outlet, one of which I have a Litton contractor grade and the other I have a Furutech NCF outlet. Both are separately wired from the breaker. The NCF (which was an improvement on a standard outlet and an Oyaide GX) is more clear when I plug the Denali into it and has better bass. I can switch back and forth all day between outlets and note the difference although the comparison is easier with a Benchmark AHB2 due to the warmup being faster than my ARC tube amp.

Lee · Apr 29, 2017

Leif S said:
It doesn't surprise me one bit for Amir to trash our room. It's all good.

The Ultra 11 room had some of the best sound I have heard in going to audio shows for 20 years. I thought it was wonderful and I will give it a Best of Show award on PTA.

Leif S · Apr 29, 2017

Lee said:
Hi Amir!

I can add an observation. I have a quad outlet, one of which I have a Litton contractor grade and the other I have a Furutech NCF outlet. Both are separately wired from the breaker. The NCF (which was an improvement on a standard outlet and an Oyaide GX) is more clear when I plug the Denali into it and has better bass. I can switch back and forth all day between outlets and note the difference although the comparison is easier with a Benchmark AHB2 due to the warmup being faster than my ARC tube amp.

The NCF plugs are night and day for me. Oh wait.....I can't hear lol

Leif S · Apr 29, 2017

Lee said:
The Ultra 11 room had some of the best sound I have heard in going to audio shows for 20 years. I thought it was wonderful and I will give it a Best of Show award on PTA.

Steve Williams · Apr 29, 2017

Lee said:
The Ultra 11 room had some of the best sound I have heard in going to audio shows for 20 years. I thought it was wonderful and I will give it a Best of Show award on PTA.

With everyone but Amir proclaiming the sound in the VSA room to be exceptional with most giving it the Best In Show and then to read Amir's description of the room as well as its shortcomings makes his assertions about his superior hearing somewhat laughable. That plus the fact that he already has a bee up his butt about VSA and MB cable only serve to show he has no credibility. If one person said it was the best and he differed I might take notice but the fact that everyone who heard the system loved it tells me he is not believable.

Lee · Apr 29, 2017

Steve Williams said:
With everyone but Amir proclaiming the sound in the VSA room to be exceptional with most giving it the Best In Show and then to read Amir's description of the room as well as its shortcomings makes his assertions about his superior hearing somewhat laughable. That plus the fact that he already has a bee up his butt about VSA and MB cable only serve to show he has no credibility. If one person said it was the best and he differed I might take notice but the fact that everyone who heard the system loved it tells me he is not believable.

Greg Weaver from TAS was also impressed by the room. I heard a couple of shortcomings but generally it was an awe-inspiring playback chain. I do wish I had at least met Amir while he was there.

bonzo75 · Apr 29, 2017

Steve Williams said:
With everyone but Amir proclaiming the sound in the VSA room to be exceptional with most giving it the Best In Show and then to read Amir's description of the room as well as its shortcomings makes his assertions about his superior hearing somewhat laughable. That plus the fact that he already has a bee up his butt about VSA and MB cable only serve to show he has no credibility. If one person said it was the best and he differed I might take notice but the fact that everyone who heard the system loved it tells me he is not believable.

Same treatment he gave to Mike. If everyone likes it, and he has a bee, then he had to say something different. It will be too embarrassing for him to admit that either Mike or Steve were right about gear

cjfrbw · Apr 29, 2017

Heh, Heh! Grab the popcorn, the blood is starting to flow.

Maybe some honor saving pistol dueling will resolve some of these issues.

Steve Williams · Apr 29, 2017

cjfrbw said:
Heh, Heh! Grab the popcorn, the blood is starting to flow.

Maybe some honor saving pistol dueling will resolve some of these issues.

It's not about grabbing the popcorn Carl but rather a well established audiophile community here at WBF who frankly have had enough of this one person's pompous and bombastic posturing as to how he is the only one who has trained ears and he is always right and the rest of us are all idiots.

stehno · Apr 29, 2017

stehno said:
......
You even posted a thread boasting, “Conclusive proof that higher resolution audio sounds different” and like a badge of honor you pinned it for all to see what fabulously trained ears you have. Which I wish they’d unpin. Yet another testament of your supposed superior hearing skills, but to me and perhaps to others, it’s just another of many bits of evidence that you don’t exhibit any traits of knowing the first thing about possessing a set of trained/developed ears. Perhaps like the blind man trying to convince everybody he can see. A monkey, a child, a dog, and even most women have better hearing that you. But out of that group you and perhaps Ethan are the only ones calling yourselves audio experts. I just don’t understand that.

......

BTW, thanks to whoever unpinned this thread.

BruceD · Apr 29, 2017

Ah Indeed fine to read the venerable Tube traps are still held in some esteem--and can prove a sonic difference . Firm believer myself always via trapped room since 1990.

Long may they reign!

BruceD

https://www.hightail.com/download/dDZHNU1HRStTSUE5WThUQw

amirm · Apr 29, 2017

853guy said:
Hi Amir,

"Being open minded" and purchasing an object to test while declaring you are confident it will do zero to improve audio performance is not only indicative of selective exposure on your part, but at best, a form of confirmation bias that renders your self-described "open-mindedness" to be completely questionable, and at worst, a flagrant display of experimenter bias suggesting a deficiency of robustness in your ability to design and conduct experiments with any scientific credibility.

Hope you are well.

853guy

Hi there. I am doing wonderful. Thanks for asking. This year's AXPONA was the best high-end audio show I have ever been to. Everything was better. Had tons of discussions and new connections with industry people. Discovered boatload of new music. Rooms were comfortable. Everyone had taken showers so no bad smells.

Couldn't be better. Alas they are moving to another hotel next year because they have gotten so big. So hopefully it will be progress not regression. I am still uploading my impressions but I have post quite a few already: http://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?forums/axpona-audio-show.33/

On your comment, I am afraid it is ill thought out and misses the point. I am begging for people in the other camp to do a bit of objective testing. Close all of their senses and at least do a one minute blind test to see if what they think they are hearing, is reflection of soundwaves or something else. But no matter how much I ask, no one will go there.

For my part as you say and I mentioned, I have no belief about these outlets doing anything for the sound. However, I am taking a step to buy one so I can physically look at its construction (which looks pretty nice). I will do some measurements like was done by Shunyata. And some others. Plus listening. All the others except last, are objective and can't be biased. The last one can but if it makes night and day difference as folks swear, that should not get in the way. And unlike you all having to do blind tests for free, I had to pony up $300+ for this thing.

You see the difference? Come my way an inch and consider the type of testing that the entire audio research both medical and entertainment approve. To the extent a mountain of words are written here instead of spending a minute doing a better test tells me it is not a matter of time and resources for folks but 100%, certified, unwillingness to face the reality.

amirm · Apr 29, 2017

stehno said:
BTW, thanks to whoever unpinned this thread.

My thanks as well.

amirm · Apr 29, 2017

Leif S said:
It doesn't surprise me one bit for Amir to trash our room. It's all good.

Hi Leif. It was a pleasure meeting you at last. For others wondering what is going on, here is my write up: http://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...-masterbuilt-audio-cables-asc-tubetraps.1575/

And I defend it as much of a drunk guy recalling the women he met at the bar the night before.

Anyone who is critical of my write ups doesn't understand who I am and what is meant behind them. I am simply sharing my personal experience with music I heard. If it puts a smile on my face, I say it. If it doesn't, I say that. I try to guess at the issues if that happens. But of course it is not a scientific evaluation.

I thought overspreading the speakers was a common problem at this show. A number of suites had speakers way too far apart (Wilson comes to mind) and then proceeded to play music with high channel separation giving one the impression that two different systems were playing, one on the left, and one on the right. Bless the heart of people who didn't hear that disjointed experience. It bugged the hell out of me.

It is one of those things that once you notice it -- and I first noticed it at Wilson -- it is hard to get it out of your mind.

Heaven help someone who takes my writing as gospel.

Read my write-ups to discover music, and see half decent pictures of the event, and some "color" about what was going on.

amirm · Apr 29, 2017

DaveyF said:
However, I have always done one thing with the gear presented....listened with my own ears- and preferably in either a system I am very familiar with, or my own system. I have never just assumed that because the piece in question LOOKS suspicious that it cannot work as advertised. You stated that you attributed nothing to this piece of gear...NOTHING. This without any back ground as far as I can tell.

What do you mean without background? How can you dispense with my decades of training, education and work experience in assessing effectiveness of something like a power outlet? Do we do that with our doctors? Lawyers? CPAs?

In what other profession do we dismiss their assessment of a situation and force them to start fresh on every topic? Here is a story I have told.

My doctor prescribed a medicine and after I started to take it regularly, I developed another symptom. I do an online search and to my complete surprise, I see that symptom is shown as one of the side effects in the drug studies they had submitted to the FDA!!! I go visit my doctor and tell me about my new symptom and that it was caused by the medicine. He asked how I knew. I sheepishly said, "the Internet." Before he could give me the look of, "are you serious?" I said the source was not some random dude but the company's own drug research.

My doctor calmly looks at me and says the way drug research works is that they document any and all symptoms the patient under study report. It doesn't matter if there is no cause and effect. They report it.

He said the real data point comes when doctors prescribe such medication. In the specific case of what I was taking, he had prescribed that to hundreds of patients and the side effects I was reporting was unlikely to have been caused by that medication.

Some time goes by and I discover the source of the other symptom I had so it had nothing to do whatsoever with the medication as he mentioned.

Would you have suggested that my doctor go and do a study on my side effects being real? Or even doing research when his own experience gives him proper data? I assume not. So why here? How do the physicians in this thread and forum justify throwing out the medical training to act so far against it just because it is audio?

R Johnson · Apr 29, 2017

amirm said:
... Heaven help someone who takes my writing as gospel. Read my write-ups to discover music, and see half decent pictures of the event, and some "color" about what was going on.

Amir, Thanks for your comprehensive coverage at ASR. I see that you visited the room with the NEAT Acoustics IOTA Alpha. I lingered there to enjoy the music. And at the end of my Axpona day, I came back to listen to more music. That was the only music room I wanted to revisit. Very enjoyable sound from a most unlikely speaker design. (I revisited the first floor rooms to see more video with the big Sony and JVC 4K projectors.)

After show hours, I especially enjoyed hearing the Chicago Symphony performing Beethoven's Symphony Number Six at Orchestra Hall. After listening to lots of speakers all day, real non-amplified music was even better than usual.

RogerD · Apr 29, 2017

amirm said:
Hi Leif. It was a pleasure meeting you at last. For others wondering what is going on, here is my write up: http://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...-masterbuilt-audio-cables-asc-tubetraps.1575/

And I defend it as much of a drunk guy recalling the women he met at the bar the night before.

Anyone who is critical of my write ups doesn't understand who I am and what is meant behind them. I am simply sharing my personal experience with music I heard. If it puts a smile on my face, I say it. If it doesn't, I say that. I try to guess at the issues if that happens. But of course it is not a scientific evaluation.

I thought overspreading the speakers was a common problem at this show. A number of suites had speakers way too far apart (Wilson comes to mind) and then proceeded to play music with high channel separation giving one the impression that two different systems were playing, one on the left, and one on the right. Bless the heart of people who didn't hear that disjointed experience. It bugged the hell out of me. It is one of those things that once you notice it -- and I first noticed it at Wilson -- it is hard to get it out of your mind.

Heaven help someone who takes my writing as gospel. Read my write-ups to discover music, and see half decent pictures of the event, and some "color" about what was going on.

Amir,
After reading your review I don't doubt that the sound stage was L and R directional. Was it on the majority of material used? Given the MB cables,if the speakers were toed in and possibly closer I would say the presentation should have been homogeneous.

Leif S · Apr 30, 2017

Silly Goose said:
I was considering auditioning some of the Von speakers. But after the feedback I'm reading here, I'm having second thoughts. Was it just Axpona that these issues occur, or is it a problem in all rooms?

I would use your own ears not Amirs. The system we had at Axpona delivered an enormous soundstage. All things considering, we were quite happy with the systems performance regardless of the square room challenge. And pushing the speakers closer together wasn't an improvement regardless what Amir thinks.

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