Seems like I'll be the very few defending Amir here. The unit Amir received is manufacturer refurbished which means the unit was approved by SPL when it went into the market. If we are the buyer of this unit, we don't expect it sounds worse or different than the new ones.
I don't really get the ego from him. He does his job for free and has no issue giving praises to high end products like HD800s and Focal Utopia when the number stands up. It's bad sportsmanship to criticize someone's opinion when that person gives an honest evaluation for a product you just happen to like.
As far as the unit is concerned,
@r0dd3r5 covers everything with
his post right above. I also agree that this thread shouldn't turn into a general bashing of Amir's musings; after all, measurements do represent an objective reality albeit within the limits of an overarching hypothesis and the implementation of the experiment that corresponds to it. Still, there are several reasons not to like what's happened with Amir's review on a more grounded basis. Apologies for this extended post, but I will try to offer my argument as concisely as possible.
For the first part, I understand that the whole mentality behind ASR is that measurements stand as an objective tool to assert audio quality in a component. This is true for many designers in the field who measure first and tune second, if at all. History has shown, however, that measurements alone don't necessarily correspond to a predeterminable outcome. For example,
Rockna somehow managed to produce three different iterations of the rightfully acclaimed
Wavedream DAC: one friend of mine has the mk1 and another ran through the upgrade path from mk2 to mk3. We've listened to all of them repeatedly over time on their own, very much comparable, reference-grade systems. Mk1 was wearing MSB modules and sounded fantastic right off the bat; mk2 was wearing Rockna's iteration of these modules and measured great but sounded dull, or at least notably inferior to mk1; mk3 with newer Rockna modules also measured great and managed to sound very close to mk1, yet none of the latter managed the level of transparency and dynamics of the mk1 with the MSB modules. All of these iterations were designed and developed by the same person, Nicolae Jitariu, who also worked for MSB on the development of the original modules. All of them were aiming for the same measurements, which —to my knowledge— were Jitariu's primary concern. Go figure. The same applies to the Phonitor:
after doing some research of my own, I found that the Phonitor exists in two iterations, due to a silent upgrade that SPL performed in order to integrate a power protection circuit. While I'd guess the design objectives of these units remain the same, it would also make sense if they measured differently —and I'd blame SPL if I ever found that an older unit represents poorer value against a newer one given that they both circulate in the second-hand market without publicly accessible clarifications (e.g. mk I vs. mk II). That being said, I believe it's common practice to silently upgrade models without further clarifications; just look at the frequency Audeze does this with their stuff and weep!
Now for the second part. While Amir's methodology remains a constant, the review itself was arguably found lacking in terms of cross-checking and corroboration. Indeed, when an experiment shows results that stray from the norm, it is only reasonable to look for flaws and cross-check. On this part I believe that SPL has a solid argument, especially given that a lot of people rushed to debase the Phonitor according to Amir's findings, with the notable exception of
@Deolum. Amir didn't just offer plain numbers, he offered an opinion based on those numbers. While these numbers may correspond to an objective truth, Amir's opinion was offered as an extended generalisation that degraded the whole of the current Phonitor lineup. While I respect Amir's consistency, I do not overlook the fact that he offered a public review of the Phonitor X line based on a very particular unit, to say the least. In the past, I found myself in a similar situation when I was reviewing the Meze Rai Penta: I found the tonality rather quirky while the rest of the crowd were raving about 'how natural it sounds'. Instead of posting my impressions, I immediately contacted Meze and asked if they could check my unit for consistency. They did, and confirmed that it was true to spec. I then moved
to post my review, feeling confident enough to express my reservations. I'd expect a person with the reputation and recognition that Amir enjoys to have at least done the same.
Overall, I would agree that "it's bad sportsmanship to criticize someone's opinion when that person gives an honest evaluation for a product (...)" but in this case I believe that Amir definitely stepped out of boundaries; first for not looking into the minute details that might have made a difference (e.g. the dip switches which, btw, are there because they are directly attached to the board) and second for not cross-checking with other reviewers, or even SPL, to corroborate his findings. Finally, it would just be nice of him if he just accepted these missteps and offered to repeat the review by actually
asking SPL to send him a review unit instead of complaining how SPL didn't offer to provide it themselves; certainly comes off as arrogant, if you ask me.
I appreciate the help tho.
