High-End Audio Faces a Reckoning

I can tell you that there are some real aholes on the Steve Hoffman forum. There are so many guys there that think that all dacs sound the same and some say that a $25 dac sounds better than a $10k dac. And they ridicule you if you say cables and audio players can sound different. They think that it is all psycho acoustics.
 
Mechnutt said:
I can tell you that there are some real aholes on the Steve Hoffman forum. There are so many guys there that think that all dacs sound the same and some say that a $25 dac sounds better than a $10k dac. And they ridicule you if you say cables and audio players can sound different. They think that it is all psycho acoustics.
Click to expand...
I gave up on that forum years ago. Is it still all Beatles all the time?
 
Michaels HiFi said:
I agree. There is no "right or wrong" in audio. If you like something that is all that matters.
Click to expand...
I dont go that far . There is certainly right and wrong but the dogma that surrounds it doesn't work. You can put Ketchup on a Filet Mignon at Peter Luger's I don't think that is right but its your steak and your money. I have seen and heard some really awful examples of high end systems they were all WRONG in many ways but if the owner liked it then good for him.
Audio has become a selection of words that hold less and less meaning every year.
Natural, organic, musical, liquid, dry etc. This destruction of the language ( this is everywhere not just audio) makes communicating ideas almost impossible
 
nicoff said:
One could use traffic to determine the best and worst audiophile forums.

For example, Here’s what public traffic-estimator Similarweb reports for audioshark.org in May 2025:
  • Global rank: ~1,168,524
  • U.S. rank (Consumer Electronics): ~619,589; Category rank (U.S.): #3,105
  • Monthly visits: ~23,800 (down ~23% from previous month)
  • Bounce rate: ~47.6%
  • Pages per visit: ~1.52
  • Average time on site: ~9 seconds
Headphonesy:
  • headphonesty.com (Global #137K; ~385K visits/month)
ASR has $1.4 million visitors per month.
  • Global rank: ~#38,877
  • U.S. category rank (Consumer Electronics): ~#141
  • Total monthly visits: ~1.4 million (virtually unchanged month‑over‑month)
  • Bounce rate: ~51.7%
  • Pages per visit: ~3.02
  • Average session duration: ~3 minutes 18 seconds
Take What’s Best Forum;
  • A site‑traffic aggregator estimates ~16,500 unique visitors per day, which translates to roughly ≈495,000 unique visitors per month.
  • The same estimate suggests ~27,555 page‑views per day and ~757,350 page‑views per month.
  • The site is ranked at approx #177,920 globally according to that source.
Based on traffic, ASR tops all of them.
Click to expand...
9 seconds average time per visit on this site and 198 on ASR could be seen as an indicator that something is a little off in the current state of high-end audio. The more I look at ASR, the more impressed I am with all of the measurements that they throw up and how the info is presented. It looks very impressive, and I can appreciate all of the work that went in to all of this testing - except for the fact that all of those measurements often have little to no bearing whatsoever on how a piece of equipment SOUNDS to me. I base this observation solely on tests that I have done on my own equipment that sounds fantastic to me but measures poorly on ASR.

Yes, testing by measurements AND listening is the best way to go - that goes without saying. But if I only had one of those to work with when considering a product, there's no contest - I trust my ears alone, and I would NEVER trust measurements alone.

An example is the new Imersiv DAC. It claims a SNR of 168 (28 bits). These numbers are off the charts, and if accurate, do indeed represent the paradigm shift that Imersiv claims. Based on what reading I have done on it, I have a feeling that this unit lives up to the hype. But I wouldn't buy this or any other item in its price range based on measurements alone and without listening first.

(Just one guy's opinion.)
 
JCS123 said:
9 seconds average time per visit on this site and 198 on ASR could be seen as an indicator that something is a little off in the current state of high-end audio. The more I look at ASR, the more impressed I am with all of the measurements that they throw up and how the info is presented. It looks very impressive, and I can appreciate all of the work that went in to all of this testing - except for the fact that all of those measurements often have little to no bearing whatsoever on how a piece of equipment SOUNDS to me. I base this observation solely on tests that I have done on my own equipment that sounds fantastic to me but measures poorly on ASR.

Yes, testing by measurements AND listening is the best way to go - that goes without saying. But if I only had one of those to work with when considering a product, there's no contest - I trust my ears alone, and I would NEVER trust measurements alone.

An example is the new Imersiv DAC. It claims a SNR of 168 (28 bits). These numbers are off the charts, and if accurate, do indeed represent the paradigm shift that Imersiv claims. Based on what reading I have done on it, I have a feeling that this unit lives up to the hype. But I wouldn't buy this or any other item in its price range based on measurements alone and without listening first.

(Just one guy's opinion.)
Click to expand...

Amir has had his ass handed to him by numerous manufacturers who disagree with how Amir takes his measurements. I've never seen that happen to John Atkinson from Stereophile. Choose your gurus wisely.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top