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General Headphone Audio
- Thread starter garyfl
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Caporegime
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I almost bought the H3! lol
Caporegime
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2002
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- 79,655
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- Wish i was in a Ramen Shop Counter
What's in the Pro that isnt in the lite?
I know you guys probably seen it but another thread on blind testing over at r/headphones - Just did a blind volume-matched A/B test. I think we're all hearing with our wallets. A bit like that link the other week.
The OP puts an old Atom Stack up against a Luxsin X9 in blind tests. Which then starts an interesting debate and discussion about the lack of difference in solid state dac/amps. Without being able to blind test different solid state amps I think I can believe it. i.e. there's a certain point where the differences are indistinguishable (not including applying distortion as noted in the thread).
The OP puts an old Atom Stack up against a Luxsin X9 in blind tests. Which then starts an interesting debate and discussion about the lack of difference in solid state dac/amps. Without being able to blind test different solid state amps I think I can believe it. i.e. there's a certain point where the differences are indistinguishable (not including applying distortion as noted in the thread).
From that post, I will post this there too but feel it's worthy for here:
You can get equal or better sound from cheaper DACs, but better is also subjective as we all know.
Plus we already long ago discussed the point of diminishing returns in terms of sonic performance, even the cheapest DACs now are so low in noise levels and support things like DSD512 and have accurate clocking etc that for the average person, noticing any nuanced differences is too difficult as even the cheap sounds so good these days. outside of house-sound signatures and models that are analytical vs organic sounding (subjective preference exclusively driven by what kind of headphones you have too which in turn is driven by the signature you've trained your brain into preferring over a long period of time).
Ultimately as I have hinted a few times here and there, the whole package has to be seen within a certain context, it's not just about price pr sound any more, it's what fits specific tastes and use-cases I'd say.
I think this sort of thinking is misguided, as per my review of the X9, it sounds great, but other amps and DACs also sound great, you are paying for the whole package with something like the X9 (and now X8) - Something that looks/feels as premium as something that costs a lot more, and the X8/X9 have hardware level features in the menu that those more expensive products don't seem to have until you spend even more on a higher end model etc.
You can get equal or better sound from cheaper DACs, but better is also subjective as we all know.
Plus we already long ago discussed the point of diminishing returns in terms of sonic performance, even the cheapest DACs now are so low in noise levels and support things like DSD512 and have accurate clocking etc that for the average person, noticing any nuanced differences is too difficult as even the cheap sounds so good these days. outside of house-sound signatures and models that are analytical vs organic sounding (subjective preference exclusively driven by what kind of headphones you have too which in turn is driven by the signature you've trained your brain into preferring over a long period of time).
Ultimately as I have hinted a few times here and there, the whole package has to be seen within a certain context, it's not just about price pr sound any more, it's what fits specific tastes and use-cases I'd say.
Sounds right to me, pardon the pun. Pay for features, not fluffy descriptor words.
There have been plenty of times where I thought I could hear differences, but outside of a piece of equipment being broken, they are normally so small that it's more than likely to be placebo or just slight differences in volume. As an example, I thought there were differences between the k15 and my old amp/dac when I got it, turns out I had forgotten to disable a minor eq profile that was enabled in APO and only applied to my old DAC, and I was using them on a different output filter type. Once I resolved both of those things and measured the electrical signal from the headphone output, they were near enough identical, and I couldn't tell a difference audibly anymore either.
I assumed that Amps, over the DAC, have more impact in the final sound signal, but posts like this make me doubt that. Obviously with the Luxsin X9 you are paying for the software, parametric EQ, community EQ d/b, more inputs, more outputs, the styling, build etc. But the Atom stacks have always been extremely well regarded so I kind of imagine that's what that OP is posting is true. I also wonder if the price point now for 'good enough' DACs is lower than for headphone amps.
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Caporegime
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The biggest difference is Headphones, amp then DAC, in that order.
Gotta be careful there because different types of DAC do have a distinct sound signature, R2R vs sigma-delta for example, then there are the variations between brands that carry a house-signature: ESS (analytical), Cirrus Logic (mid range emphasis and soundstage) vs AKM (warm/smooth) vs TI (not really heard anything lately to compare) and so on. Then there is the implementation of the DAC in the product and the components connected to it inside the housing, these can colour the sound too as I experienced with the FiiO K7 (AKM+THX) which I did not like and found cold/harsh, vs all other AKMs heard since then which have been great.
Personally I always feel like TI have a slightly dark, warm, raw sound reminiscent of 90s Hi-Fi, it is potentially more transparent than ESS but I prefer the way ESS DACs the details tend to show through that is probably due to a little more treble emphasis. At the end of the day though a lot of the "sound" is probably due to the approach of the designers in their respective markets and which DAC and supporting components they tend to choose i.e. a lot of my ESS experience is from Creative and/or other brands who develop audio devices for the gaming market.
Indeed, but if the headphones sound the same when blind tested on the $1,000 DAC/AMP as the $200 DAC/AMP stack then might inform how much you actually need to spend.
I suppose that's the question; do they? I would have agreed wholeheartedly on your descriptions of the various DAC/AMP solid state chips (apart from the K7 though, my experience wasn't that). However the OP in that thread is contradicting this. I.e. if we blind test various DAC/AMP setups are we actually imagining these differences, or they are so minor so as not to really matter.
Based on what I've read I believe R2R can be as detailed and clinical as a delta-sigma setup and can come down to implementation. But obviously be used as a means to introduce distortion, similar to certain burr-brown and tubes etc.
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That's the thing though, everyone hears things differently as everyone has different shaped ears, think of them like the wave guides on tweeters, but some things regardless of blind test or not cannot be placebo, soundstage differences can't be easily measured, for example, but are clearly varied between amps and DACs alike. Granted not everyone will hear differences like that, but that too goes back to the first line above about all ears being different, some will, some won't.
Indeed. For example even a few weeks ago I confidently picked out individual differences between the K13 R2R and K15 I had arrive and going into details on what I was hearing. But I'm genuinely quite intrigued as to whether this is my imagination. I suppose the only way to know is to try and have a go at a blind test.
If you can do a blind test, you may surprise yourself. Make sure you find a way to perfectly volume match. Even a 0.5db difference might be wrongly perceived as better and not just that it's a volume difference.
Outside of a nice tube amp, on setups that are going for neutral, many a confident person has been surprised when they blind tested and realised most if not all of the difference was indeed their imagination.
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Outside of a nice tube amp, on setups that are going for neutral, many a confident person has been surprised when they blind tested and realised most if not all of the difference was indeed their imagination.
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Yea, going to put some thought into it and see if I can actually set-up a simple blind test with the K15 vs. K13, Fosi K7 or something else in a few days. Run through a couple of test songs taking notes immediately afterwards. The difficulty will be volume matching and getting someone to follow simple instructions like swapping changing the audio output in Windows, or swapping the headphones between DAC/AMPs. I can use an app like OpeNoise on Android to measure the decibel level, although that's probably not the most accurate way of doing it. I notice you can get cheap decibel meters from c.£15 but ideally I woundn't want to spend money on something I'm only likely to use once. And will also not be the most accurate way of measuring something either.
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Personally I would not get too hung up on it, just as there is a rabbit hole for headphones, speakers, amps etc, the same exists for this. Once you find your happy balance that's it, the rest is just nuanced differences you may or may not hear, as long as your music is enjoyed that's the only thing that matters, everything else is just a sideshow really beyond the random discussion here and there.
100% and things like features and connections etc. are worth paying for. And realistically I've found a happy medium with the K15 for a few years. But at the same time it's just going to cost me a little bit of time and hopefully answer the question.
Yeh features, connections and build are what you should pay for. My current amp was settled on because of the tubes, bass boost options and able to use as my desktop speaker pre-amp. Good on you if you do a blind abx test, many an audiophile is scared to do it
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