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

[gez]

Agree and disagree on this

Agree as in some of my gear is technically worse than other gear I've had but I prefer.

Disagree, because measurements can be useful. There was one set of speakers I just couldn't listen to rock music on. If I pumped the volume I'd get ear fatigue, if I reduce the volume there wasn't enough bass slam. I looked up the measurements of the speakers... a big fat 4-5db peak around 4khz. Now I always check speaker measurements for this. Ditto, "head in a vice" speakers, where if you move your head the soundstage falls apart, looking up the measurements could've save me mucking around with badly designed speakers.

"all models are wrong, some are useful". The ASR model is wrong but it can certainly be useful.

Ok fair point. I really had in mind more distortion, intermodulation, noise floor measurements when I posted. I would agree that maybe for some people (actually probably broadly true for a lot of people thinking about it), a frequency response curve measurement probably could be used to somewhat predict if a person would enjoy the music on a system or not. But really only in the most gross terms. Some people love a lot of bass for example, irrespective of if that's accurate in any way they want to hear loud window shaking bass when playing their rock, EDM or rap etc. So a system that had a weak and unextended bass response is highly unlikely to be enjoyable to them. So yes in those terms a measuement could be used to predict enjoyment. But only in a general sense, because there would still be days when they'd listen to their system and get no enjoyment from it because they were tired or just in a bad mood for some reason, it's that pychological state effect that measurements can't account for.

 

[gez]

The furore over the WiiM Amp appears to have died down a little now. More power would help I think and this will likely happen. I can imagine it as a good digital hub. I like the Pro Plus very much.

From the little I've read/viewed about the WiiM Amp, it's shortcoming seems to be in driving lower impedance loads (not super low but when a speaker starts dipping below about 6ohms in places). Basically meaning it works fine at low - mid listening levels but once it is asked to produce higher volume it simply can't provide the current. One of the things that suffer when amps are unable to provide current (apart from starting to clip obviously) is bass response starts to drop below the rest of the frequency range leading to a leaner sound. Which is exactly what I've seen as a critisism of the WiiM Amp. So more power would certainly help, because by definition more power would mean greater current capablity (all other things being equal), but I suspect what it needs more is a beefier power supply.

 

[Eoin]

Probably why it’s relatively inexpensive.

 

[gez]

It may surprise you to know that I ask the same* question. However the conclusion I reached a long time ago is that once I have reached a certain level of performance the equipment makes little difference. I don't thank my stereo at the end of each performance, nor do I blame it. The gateway is always open.

The problem IMHO is over the question- how much responsibility do you think your hifi should have for fluctuations in your musical enjoyment? I think there is an unarticulated assumption around hifi forums that the kit deserves a considerable degree of the credit or blame for musical enjoyment. This is why someone can ask in all honesty whether the equipment is a gateway, without it seeming odd. But it is isn't a bit odd isn't it? is the equipment really blocking access to the performance? Do you need it? How?

It is often remarked on this forum that lots of musos don't care about what they what listen to music on. (Although equally some do). Equally one might often think to read the posts on hifi forums that the posters seem to think they enjoy music more than the poor idiots who listen to MP3s on cheap headphones connected to their phones. And yet the idiots do look kind of happy. Why is it that music often sounds great when you are driving? Or cycling? No doubt we all draw our own conclusions.

For my own part I am inclined to the view that over-associating the equipment with the musical result is unhelpful; it's not that the kit can't make any difference, just that its effect is more on one's mood and ability to marshal one's interest in the component to revive a relative lack of interest in the music. These days I therefore allow my interest in listening to music on my stereo to ebb and flow. When it ebbs, I do not rush out to buy a new component in order to revive my interest in listening to my stereo (or was it music?) .

Paradoxically, this doesn't entirely cure me of my interest in the kit, but it makes me look at it in a different way. Of course I am interested in a really better bit of kit but I'm not auditioning daily, and I won't rush out to fill the vacancy. The bar for doing the job (where there is a job to do) may be low. The bar for a price of kit actually attracting my interest is high. Equally, given my approach, it really does matter rather a lot to me to distinguish information which really is about the kit, from information which is really about people's enjoyment of their hobby in a rather different way.

*sort of; not quite the same.

Something I realised long ago is that I can happily listen to a relatively poor musical replay system (in the car, on a transistor radio etc), and gain a lot of enjoyment from the music. In fact on such systems I almost never think "this sounds bad, it's really ruining my enjoyment", I am only ever concerned with "ooh I love this song or eww I hate that song, skip it". Similarly I do the same thing on systems that are above a given level of quality reproduction. It's the mid-fi stuff that really ruins my musical ejoyment though, the stuff that is attempting good sound quality but is failing by that 5-10% (this is just my own subjective measure not a real attempt to quantify anything) or so. On such systems I'm almost always thinking "ugh the treble is coarse or the response is uneven, this sounds terrible" etc. I liken it to what happens when I watch a film. I can happily watch an old black and white film that was transfered from film to HD or even SD resolution, (presuming I enjoy the film obviously). Similarly I can happily watch a film in anything that's FHD SDR or above. It's the compressed SD TV broadcasts where I'll be watching a film I like and I'll be distracted by the low resolution fuzziness, poor colur accuracy and even minor blocking artifacts that ruin my enjoyment.

 

[SteveG]

From the little I've read/viewed about the WiiM Amp, it's shortcoming seems to be in driving lower impedance loads (not super low but when a speaker starts dipping below about 6ohms in places). Basically meaning it works fine at low - mid listening levels but once it is asked to produce higher volume it simply can't provide the current. One of the things that suffer when amps are unable to provide current (apart from starting to clip obviously) is bass response starts to drop below the rest of the frequency range leading to a leaner sound. Which is exactly what I've seen as a critisism of the WiiM Amp. So more power would certainly help, because by definition more power would mean greater current capablity (all other things being equal), but I suspect what it needs more is a beefier power supply.

Mine is being used with a set of Rega R1's which I imagine aren't a particularly difficult load, but it goes pretty loud with those without issues.

It might well be fair that it's not the amp to buy for speakers that are a difficult load, but don't really see that as an issue given it's price, convenient smalls size, range of functionality and the sort of use it'll generally get put to. Yes my Krell integrated is going to be a lot better than my WiiM amp at high volumes into a difficult speaker - but the WiiM Amp is much better at doing what it's designed for than the Krell is.

 

[gez]

Mine is being used with a set of Rega R1's which I imagine aren't a particularly difficult load, but it goes pretty loud with those without issues.

It might well be fair that it's not the amp to buy for speakers that are a difficult load, but don't really see that as an issue given it's price, convenient smalls size, range of functionality and the sort of use it'll generally get put to. Yes my Krell integrated is going to be a lot better than my WiiM amp at high volumes into a difficult speaker - but the WiiM Amp is much better at doing what it's designed for than the Krell is.

I should have been clearer, what I meant to say is: once it's asked to produce higher volumes in to those lower impedance/more difficult load speakers, that it starts to struggle.

 

[adamdea]

You reference to listening to music whilst cycling took me back to 1966 when as a lad I was cycle touring in Bedfordshire with a tiny transistor radio, attached to my handlebars with elastic bands, listening to River Deep Mountain High. Tina Turner never sounded so awful!

I'm rather taken with my bone conduction headphones which I wear for running and cycling: SQ is not great but you can hear things around you. Incidentally I think River Deep Mountain High sounds great on anything (as it was of course produced to).

 

[Tony L]

Didn't you have a pair of MEGs years ago but moved them on because they excited a room mode too much, or was that a different speaker?

Yes, RL904. The port loading was bang on my room node so I couldn’t get them working right. I’m sure bigger ones like the RL901 would be absolutely fine, especially given the cardioid response. It is only small ported speakers that boom here, larger ones are fine!

PS They were very cool things and stunning sonically in many ways:

 

[S-Man]

Not sure I could relax with a pair of those:

 

[Somafunk]

It's easy to see where Abyss got it's AB 1266 Phi TC headphone design from

 

[Tony L]

Not sure I could relax with a pair of those:

I had them down more as a the one-eyed aliens from The Simpsons!

 

[ToTo Man]

Yes, RL904. The port loading was bang on my room node so I couldn’t get them working right. I’m sure bigger ones like the RL901 would be absolutely fine, especially given the cardioid response. It is only small ported speakers that boom here, larger ones are fine!

PS They were very cool things and stunning sonically in many ways:

Reminds me a little of the Tripp Trapp chair I had as a child... and hated with a vengeance!

 

[Eoin]

Looks lethal!

 

[Kirk]

Each to their own. The process I follow when choosing HiFi generally goes through a long gestation of initial interest, reading views and then listening to the product. The A&R tuner, the Yamaha and the Maggies were all bits of gear that I was constantly attracted to before I bought them. Once I tried them in my system it was as if they’d come home to roost. I love it when gear just fits in snuggly and you love it. I knew the Magnepans were different but I also yearned for transparency. I assumed that Yamaha, A&R and Magnepan knew what they were doing as they had longevity and reputation as companies .I didn’t really feel the need to interrogate measurements too much. The Yamaha measures best in its Pure Audio Mode but that’s how I use it. It is very good in its digital mode. The LRSs provided what I want from speakers; a sense of liveness, immediacy, intimacy and that beguiling transparency that I’ve never had from boxes. So my takeaway is buy what beguiles you the most, regardless of measurements. Choose something that gets you emotionally closer to the music you love. Don’t fall into measurement neurosis that potentially distracts you from the main source of pleasure. I don’t want to sit through George Szell’s Mahler Sixth or Argerich’s Rach 3 distracted by uncertainty or neuroses. I want to be absorbed by the flow and passion of the performance. Life is too short to miss the music we all love. It is the main event after all.

I'm not one for measurements when I buy/listen either. Ultimately if the music is engaging then the equipment it is played on (usually) gets bought. It can be toturutous process sometimes though. Those ASR-FI types have it much easier - look at some measurements, then buy

 

[ToTo Man]

Looks lethal!

It is, especially when you have the writhing type of cerebral palsy and don't have an ounce of fat on you for cushioning! I don't know what possessed my parents to buy something like that, - was probably recommended by a 'specialist'...

 

[tuga]

I use ASR’s measurements for shortlisting but it’s recommendations (SINAD, speaker preference) useless.

 

[tuga]

The reason is that, for me, a perfect DAC merely executes long-established (1915) mathematics

Unfortunately with a sample rate of 44.1KHz the perfect DAC is only possible in theory.
In practice, filtering at that rate is imperfect and different filters have a distinct sound. Some have a better technical performance than others.

 

[cb01]

Is it fair to say that on this thread that there is broad agreement that if the spectrum is of -50 to +50 between

A) measurements tell us everything we need to know and
B) measurements tell us nothing

that most of us are probably more in the middle cohort of -20 to +20 rather than at either extremes?



.sjb

I think you're close, but not fully correct. I have been watching this for over a decade and the dichotomy seems to be:

A) Measurements are a proxy/replacement for what we hear.
B) Measurements are to be considered, but are not a proxy/replacement for what we hear.

Many objectivists at ASR and other places will say that they "aren't trying to replace listening with data", but then the same crowd regularly weaponizes "data" as a cudgel to trivialize, diminish, and mock the listening observations of others as both unreliable and to-be-discarded.

 

[Alex S]

The Genelec 8331s are a point source and sound very good to my ear. What surprised me most is how similar they sound to my main system (vintage amp, not vintage speakers but 10in driver crossover-less design).

 

[Puggie]

I think foot / hand tapping and maybe using a camera and machine learning to recognising smiling would be good metrics to measure audio playback by. Certainly as valid as any other lumped metric.

I think there is a definite risk of reading more into the limited measurements, often on ASR you find products with issues not immediately obvious. One of the higher end SMSL dacs which had some significant noise issues but only when one channel only was playing. I don’t remember the cause, but I think it was related to some noise reduction functionality not implemented properly.

One think I will give Amir credit for is ASR has made more people aware of measurements, and it’s very difficult to do a standardised set of measurements without missing something. More often you use measurements to look for issues, a pre determined measurement plan is never a catch all.