John Phillips
pfm Member
This may not be exactly what the OP asked - sorry - but IMHO testing of the ASR type is there mostly to help me decide what not to buy.
It's like the ratings on white goods for energy consumption. It's there to show up the laggards amongst equipment makers who ought to do better. There to bring their performance up towards a good practice standard. There have been some real howlers on ASR. Finding the things that needed fixing on some piece of kit because they fell below "good practice" standard or customer specification was always how I used to use lab test gear.
But then if you keep your eyes open on audio forums any one product, of good practice or otherwise, gets opinions all over the place from buyers. One size clearly does not fit all. However, some ideas of good practice will be more broadly useful to buyers than others. That makes testing of them, and ASR-type testing in general, more valuable to equipment makers who want to appeal to a large portion of the market than to the smaller number of buyers with less average audio tastes.
I think it's an audiophile thing (and to me logically problematic) to invert the approaches: from avoiding the bad to seeking the good, and from focus on equipment-maker value to focus on buyer value. However, for quite a few it seems that seeking that last tiny improvement is what they enjoy. OK. Some do it by ear/brain and some by test result. There lie the two opposite ends of one dimension of the hobby. IME, buyers validly occupy all points on that axis. No right place, no wrong place.
It's like the ratings on white goods for energy consumption. It's there to show up the laggards amongst equipment makers who ought to do better. There to bring their performance up towards a good practice standard. There have been some real howlers on ASR. Finding the things that needed fixing on some piece of kit because they fell below "good practice" standard or customer specification was always how I used to use lab test gear.
But then if you keep your eyes open on audio forums any one product, of good practice or otherwise, gets opinions all over the place from buyers. One size clearly does not fit all. However, some ideas of good practice will be more broadly useful to buyers than others. That makes testing of them, and ASR-type testing in general, more valuable to equipment makers who want to appeal to a large portion of the market than to the smaller number of buyers with less average audio tastes.
I think it's an audiophile thing (and to me logically problematic) to invert the approaches: from avoiding the bad to seeking the good, and from focus on equipment-maker value to focus on buyer value. However, for quite a few it seems that seeking that last tiny improvement is what they enjoy. OK. Some do it by ear/brain and some by test result. There lie the two opposite ends of one dimension of the hobby. IME, buyers validly occupy all points on that axis. No right place, no wrong place.
