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Has anyone bought a product because of a recommendation on ASR?

I wonder if theres anyone on ASR who bought a piece of gear that measured well, but didn't like the sound, but kept it anyway? I suspect that cohort is non-existant. As a broader group they might all claim to be led by the numbers, even actually buying based on the numbers, but no one keeps shit sounding gear, do they.

In that way I see them as no different to the notional reel to reel ongaku, olympian buyer. Their motivations to select and purchase might be wildly different, but I've never met anyone who kept gear they didn't like.

The sniping at the motivations of those in opposing groups is identical, it's just othering.

Hands up anyone who ever kept gear they didn't like the sound of because they let selection criteria overule what they heard, anyone?
 
sq225917 said:
I wonder if theres anyone on ASR who bought a piece of gear that measured well, but didn't like the sound, but kept it anyway? I suspect that cohort is non-existant. As a broader group they might all claim to be led by the numbers, even actually buying based on the numbers, but no one keeps shit sounding gear, do they.

In that way I see them as no different to the notional reel to reel ongaku, olympian buyer. Their motivations to select and purchase might be wildly different, but I've never met anyone who kept gear they didn't like.

The sniping at the motivations of those in opposing groups is identical, it's just othering.

Hands up anyone who ever kept gear they didn't like the sound of because they let selection criteria overule what they heard, anyone?
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If you believe in the numbers then it could well affect your perception of that gear and so you could end up liking something that you otherwise wouldn’t. There was a very nice chap with a cravat who could fit that bill! Come to think of it he now posts on ASR.
 
sq225917 said:
Hands up anyone who ever kept gear they didn't like the sound of because they let selection criteria overule what they heard, anyone?
Click to expand...

No one in the so-called ‘subjective‘ camp would never do that. Those in the ‘objectivist’ camp would have to challenge their measurement criteria and ultimately their belief-set (especially given they’ve been taught not to trust their ears), so results may be different there. It depends how fundamentalist they are.

There are always a lot of ‘hangers on’ too, e.g. I wonder how many in this 63 page collective slag-off of the Chord Dave have actually heard one?

www.audiosciencereview.com

Chord DAVE Review (DAC & HP Amp)

This is a review, detailed measurements and listening tests of CHORD DAVE combination DAC and headphone amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $14,000. Having been frustrated with the user interface of lower end Chord products with their color Morse codes, I was really looking...
www.audiosciencereview.com www.audiosciencereview.com

PS For clarity: I’ve never heard a Dave, but I’m bright enough and have been around audio long enough not to join a mass pile-on like this. Yes, I know we sometimes have vaguely similar threads here, but a) as forum owner I‘ve never started one, and b) they make me cringe.
 
Tony L said:
No one in the so-called ‘subjective‘ camp would never do that. Those in the ‘objectivist’ camp would have to challenge their measurement criteria and ultimately their belief-set, so results may be different there, it depends how fundamentalist they are.

There are always a lot of ‘hangers on’ too, e.g. I wonder how many in this 63 page collective slag-off of the Chord Dave have actually heard one?

For clarity: I’ve never heard one, but I’m bright enough and have been around audio long enough not to join a mass pile-on like this. Yes, I know we sometimes have vaguely similar things here, but a) as forum owner I never start them, and b) they make me cringe.

www.audiosciencereview.com

Chord DAVE Review (DAC & HP Amp)

This is a review, detailed measurements and listening tests of CHORD DAVE combination DAC and headphone amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $14,000. Having been frustrated with the user interface of lower end Chord products with their color Morse codes, I was really looking...
www.audiosciencereview.com www.audiosciencereview.com
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And I wonder how many of those who “rated“ the Chord Dave had actually heard one.

The Dave is very expensive and sounds very, very good, although I wouldn’t have considered swapping a Chord TT2 for one even if they were the same price. Come to think of it I wouldn’t swap a Qutest for a TT2 just on sound quality! All comparisons with an m scaler connected. Mind you my hearing is now rather odd and maybe always was a bit which is why it would be foolish for me to buy on numbers without listening.
 
camverton said:
The Dave is very expensive and sounds very, very good, although I wouldn’t have considered swapping a Chord TT2 for one even if they were the same price. Come to think of it I wouldn’t swap a Qutest for a TT2 just on sound quality! All comparisons with an m scaler connected. Mind you my hearing is now rather odd and maybe always was a bit which is why it would be foolish for me to buy on numbers without listening.
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FWIW I’ve not heard any Chord digital stuff I’ve not liked. I really liked Rob Watts’ work with DPA, and I like what I’ve heard with Chord. I’ve got a Mojo 2 and very recently a DSX1000, and Richard (Lordsummit) has an original Mojo. Great sounding kit IMO. The looks/ergonomics are wilfully ‘out there’ and very much a matter of taste, but it is clearly good kit and I’m always pleased to see a UK audio company innovating and in many ways leading the field.

PS Despite being a vintage kit fan I’m no Luddite. I totally get the attraction of current technology. If I wasn’t a vinyl/physical media junky I’m sure I could be fully content with say Qobuz or Tidal, the DSX1000 or a Hugo TT and say a pair of MEG studio monitors, ideally RL901K (which would likely be the system I bought if my house was ever wiped out and I had to start again from scratch with no physical media). That’s basically a two box system; DAC/pre and active speakers, well three if one counts the speakers as two.
 
camverton said:
If you believe in the numbers then it could well affect your perception of that gear and so you could end up liking something that you otherwise wouldn’t. There was a very nice chap with a cravat who could fit that bill! Come to think of it he now posts on ASR.
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That's exactly my point, with the reel to reel and vox owners buying into the story in just the same way. "I've paid £200k for these, I'll just get used to them..." it's equally unlikely...

We are all equally affected by confirmation bias....
 
ASR helped me to choose a Khadas Tone Board late 2019-early 2020. It cost me £85 and the aluminium case was around a tenner.

Owning an Exposure DAC at the time I was pretty much dumbstruck by the KTB and the performance relative to the £900 that the Exposure retailed for. I wanted to hear a real and better performance from the Exposure but it didn’t happen over a few weeks.
I did buy the Soncoz SGD1 that was released by the same man in early 2020 and never regretted it
The same man went on to fix the ESS ‘hump’ and released the fix to all the manufacturers foc.

4 years on, sold the Soncoz and using a KTB temporarily as I look around for a replacement DAC.
ymmv
 
My listening habits in terms of formats have really changed of late. I was a die hard vinyl fan from the mid eighties until the millennium, I then largely switched to CD until this year when I’ve moved more towards streaming.

I like having everything at my fingertips, I still listen to albums & rarely get the urge to spin a physical format.
 
Robert said:
I know exactly what I'm saying.
ASR places great emphasis on SINAD - it's the very first test result you hit. Mention SINAD and people automatically think ASR....
My point, in case a bright chap like you missed it, is that you cannot judge the worth of a product based on some SINAD figure.

The site actually ranks products using this number and produces a league table, so people can judge for themselves.
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I’m glad we’ve clarified that your objection is that someone who does not bother to read one of their reviews, ignores the rubric about the measurements used, and assumes a recommendation from one chart rather from one of their actual recommendations, will be (self) mistaken. And you are right of course.
 
I think that the most you can hope for in a forum is that it contains some information that is useful. On that basis ASR rates fairly highly. Merely having some nonsense, or even a preponderance of nonsense, hardly counts as a disqualification. There are many criticisms that can properly be levelled at ASR, the chief of which is having a proprietor who is an arse, but that is no excuse for most of the half-arsed misrepresentations made about the site.

ASR does not pretend that SINAD uniquely determines the performance of electronics; it does not suggest that a device with SINAD of 121 sounds better than a device with SINAD of 120; it does use measurements with a bandwidth above 20-20kHz.

A lot of the tripe posted about ASR clearly comes from people who are entirely opposed to any measurement-based assessment and/or entirely unable to interpret the measurements for what they are. Every half point about testing methodology gets a round of applause from people who don’t want tests at all.

Yes the proprietor is an arse, people are banned just for disagreeing with him, and a lot of the forum posts are idiotic. But it has contributed some real information. And that is not true of most forums or magazines.
 
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I don’t think people are entirely opposed to measurements. I’m always interested but it’s not really my first port of call. Do good measurements equal good sound?. That’s always my question.
 
Del monaco said:
I don’t think people are entirely opposed to measurements. I’m always interested but it’s not really my first port of call. Do good measurements equal good sound?. That’s always my question.
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It’s a very crude question
 
I don’t actually buy equipment just because of good reviews, but if I’m in the market for something and have a shortlist I do check the reviews - print media and online - to see how shortlisted items perform before making a final decision.
 
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