General Headphone Audio

[Things change I've changed]

Nothing changes in here I see, putting down of Rotel now as well!, an amazing family owned Japanese company that has really good heritage, so what's the new hotness we all should worship at the feet of today?, let me guess, anything that MRK owns lol, and 16 bit be damned!!

A well implemented Delta sigma will always trump any well implemented R2R on paper, Delta sigma factually performs better, but that obviously doesn't mean it's preferred as a listening experience on a subjective level.

@mrk You've already got the Fiio Warmer thread locked on ASR due to your arguing on there, when you yourself said,

"this WARMER DAC is designed from the start to ignore measurements, it's even marketed as such and the Fiio CEO interviews published by various outlets highlight the reasons as to why."

Which is correct, "designed from the start to ignore measurements", you're on a measurement based forum trying to argue the toss when you yourself admit the product in question is not designed to be a measurement king, just accept that subjectively you like a product and that's it, you don't need to convert everyone around you, I love the Chord DAVE, it's a 10 grand DAC, it got butchered on ASR, I'm not going to try and convince them otherwise, truth be told they have some valid points, but you know what?, it's ok, science has it's place as much a subjective and personal opinions.

And Luxsin aren't members of the magic circle doing voodoo with DAC chips that only they can do, manufactures have been getting good results from DACs for decades now, plenty of good DACs out there for penny these days, truth be told you could probably blind test an SMSL SU-1 (£60) will most probably perform audibly as well as any DAC out there, TBH DACs have solved 'the problem' a long time ago which is one of the reasons R2R DACs are popular today is because they the deviate from that and offer something 'new' to sell to the masses.

I can already pre-empt the laiv crescendo verse critique now, "OMG the display is only 20x7 dot matrix, whaaaaaaaaaa!!", "the knob doesn't click whaaaaaaaa", "the case thickness whaaaaaaa!!".

End of the day just enjoy what you like whether it's a £200 JSD Labs Atom stack (which in my opinion could be genuinely end game) or a 20k setup, this isn't a religion where we need convert people or nit pick at other products all the time to help affirm our purchases.

 

[Angst]

The Centaurus by various reviewers big and small have said sounds good but too un-R2R-like likely because of this very reason. It's more analytical than musical, it's been engineered for transparency.

The higher model Laiv DACs with tighter tolerances sound more musical going by reviews because the rest of the implementation is better thought out than say Centaurus. I do not believe OS vs NOS has anything to do with it since OS/NOS are software filters and reprocessing, not actual hardware elements, which is why OS does not sound natural to my ears whereas NOS does, and considering the implementation of the rest of the components in those FiiO DACs is very good, the NOS experience is very detailed but still musical/natural or whatever anyone wants to label it as, and only gets moreso with a good LPS.

Not sure what you mean by that, NOS VS OS has a lot to do with it. You have a lower SNR due to the lower tolerance resistors and its effective 12bit resolution. The oversampling filter increases the sample rate and essentially spreads the noise across a larger spectrum, reducing how much is in the audible band 0-20khz before everything out of the audible band is filtered out. Whereas something like the centaurus with its higher quality components has a higher snr and lower noise to begin with. Nothing wrong with liking the NOS sound on the cheaper r2r dac, my only point is that the quality of the components has everything to do with how an r2r dac sounds.

I cant find the specs for the Centaurus/holo audio components but the Laiv Harmony doesn't seem to use that much higher tolerance ones than fiio which i guees it why it still has that kind of sound you like.

 

[mrk]

The ASR Warmer thread was modded because too many people came in throwing insults at those who were posting their preferences, not just at me, perhaps you should have posted links to those posts instead things change because the way you've said it, it sounds like it was me doing the arguing when it wasn't. After that thread several people DM'd on ASR saying it was about time someone stuck to their guns instead of going with the bandwagon which is the typical ASR norm.

The rest is your interpretation which you are entitled to as before, it doesn't sway my view one way or the other as I have always remained consistent in my own experience and subsequent preference. You just seem to have an issue with me relaying what I'm observing, there has been no diss of Rotel, I have pointed out matters of fact based on what reviews and people are showing and saying, and then pointing out that for £1500, these issues should not exist, just like how the LCD-5 should not be anywhere near £4k with the way it sounds, yet you claimed they were the most balanced planar out there back at that time.

 

[Things change I've changed]

LCD-5 for me personally was/is a very balanced Planer, for me, you don't gave to agree with that, preferences, you know, it's kind of a thing, and also head-related transfer function plays a massive part in audio preferences and tolerances in the FR domain.

The difference is I'm not making multiple silly posts putting down a product I don't like which you did regarding the LCD-5, for example posting photos with a lamp behind the HE1000se and LCD-5 showing how much light is shining through the drivers and equating that to audio transparency lol.

You try too hard to justify your choices by denigrating other gear and you really don't need to, spam the forum with how much you love the products that you enjoy, I'm all for that, believe it or not I'm genuinely happy that you love your setup, I love it when people are enjoying their gear even if it's not my preference, just stop with the picking apart of other products to affirm your preferences.

You say "no diss of Rotel",

Wow so reading around about the Rotel DX-3, it has a bunch of "quirks" that should not exist at £under £1k let alone at its £1.5k price.

1: The remote control is sluggish to respond and volume increments holding the button down do not work
2: The UI isn't too intuitive
3: FW updates require one of these and isn't included in the box (!?!?!)
4: Look a the upgrade process(!)

This is what you do, you love your LX8 which should be enough (I think it's a really good headphone amp bty), but you find a competing product and start your denigration campaign, in your head it's just observations but in reality it's more than that, and this is a product you've not even used yet personally!!

To be honest I think in todays market it's pretty hard to choose a wrong product, we're at an amazing point in history in terms of audio products and choice, especially with the recent race to the bottom with price to performance products giving 'traditional' brands a kick up the bum, and I say that as someone that still gravitates towards those traditional brands.

And regarding ASR, why do you need to even have that fight? take a breath and think about that for minute, what's your goal? it's a science based forum where opinion is heavily weighted on measurements, there's something to be said for internalised joy and the silent feeling of fulfilment rather than the reliance of your fulfilment to be based upon external opinions and beliefs, it shows a distinct lack of self confidence, joy, or rather contentment comes from believing in yourself and loving what you do without the need for constant affirmation and validation from others.

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Any who, in other news regarding the LAiV Crescendo VERSE AMP/DAC I don't think LAiV have publicly/officially announced this but they are releasing the Crecendo BEAT soon which is their LPS to go with the VERSE, will be a nice little stack, atheistically at least, whether it will improve it audibly speaking will be another matter.

 

[mrk]

I don't know how you saw that as a diss, it was pointing out an objective fact, FW updating using that cable and not supplying the cable is pretty poor, the UI quirks are another one given the price tag as is the convoluted FW update process once you buy one of the cables. There isn't a single reasonable mind that would disagree there.

 

[BF-Bert]

I don't know how you saw that as a diss, it was pointing out an objective fact, FW updating using that cable and not supplying the cable is pretty poor, the UI quirks are another one given the price tag as is the convoluted FW update process once you buy one of the cables. There isn't a single reasonable mind that would disagree there.

You can actually update the Rotel USB to USB.