NuForce uDAC-2 Listening Challenge - Page 4  

I lol'ered

where are the files? Can I join or is this over?

It's over insofar as the identity of the tracks has been revealed, and it looks like NwAvGuy removed the test tracks from his blog. Might be worth PMing him if you want to give it a try yourself though.

so which was which and which one won? :)

NwAvGuy is preoccupied at the moment with the amps at amb.org - he feels that a virtual ground (as used in the Beta22 and M^3) is useless and that the Mini3 specs quoted there are largely fictitious. Suffice to say a few sparks flew when he bought this up with Ti Kan on the AMB forums...

http://www.amb.org/forum/mini3-portable-headphone-amplifier-f16/somebody-isnt-happy-t1094.html

 

It seemed to me as if the discussion ended up in personal attacks; not sure if I would characterize that as "censorship" of a "discussion".

I tend to the "your forum, your rules" side, when it comes to bouncing people off your site, but it does seem like amb could have left nwavguy on the forum and let him deal with the criticisms of his test procedure. That would have been to everyone's advantage.

Just to provide some closure here, I asked on the AMB forums for a clarification of the matter. The resulting response, which hopefully closes the matter, is detailed below:

 

http://www.amb.org/forum/post10556.html#p10556

 

NWAVGuy.  I respect you.  Please keep doing what you do.  I like your blog, its very informative.

 

LOL, several of the first few replies are priceless. To paraphrase,

 

"Heresy! How dare he???! ... Catch him!"

 

That kind of reaction seems utterly familiar. Those from the German-speaking world who are aware of a certain individual and blog (a good bit more provocative than a down-to-earth guy like NwAvGuy could ever be) are likely to know what I mean. If you're into psychology, here's an ideal opportunity to learn more about human nature and how little we have actually changed in the past few hundred years.

Burn the witch!!  

I just checked back there again. And now that the wounds have started to heal, the discussion continues on in Willakan's AMB thread. It's been sensible, civil and objective, without any further personal attacks.

 

Yeah, the overwhelming majority of the tension came from NwAvGuy increasingly implying...in a stating-rather-than-implying sorta way- that AMB lacked the knowledge to do some basic maths with resistors and was clearly unfit to produce a Cmoy, let alone sophisticated amplifier designs.

 

EDIT: Also, the CMOY he bought off Ebay using a 0.50 generic opamp is apparently much better than everything else...don't let the fact it has no gain (yes, this amplifier performs wonderfully, but doesn't actually amplify anything) stop him from briefly pointing out this flaw then waxing lyrical about it for several paragraphs.

 

 

Edited by Willakan - 5/29/11 at 4:49am

Because all amb said in the beginning was something like 'I don't need to explain the output power because I actually measured it years ago' and after a couple of pages came up with an (not commonly used) '8-cell battery plus different diodes to reduce the voltage drop explanation' to reach the controversial 300 mW.

 

A normal mini3 configuration cannot reach this value for even one channel. I think that's what made NwAvGuy rage a bit. This and that amb somewhere made a mistake calculating voltage drop across the output resistor (link). And the claims about the virtual ground.

 

Sure, the snide comments are inexcusable but nevertheless, there are a couple of valid points he makes.

 

Edited by xnor - 5/29/11 at 6:47am

Fiddlesticks! He devotes several sections to the 'fatal flaw', as he calls it, with that particular cmoy. And he will modify it to increase the gain, and measure that one as well I assume.

 

Ignoring gain or no gain, the 3rd channel (virtual ground) in the mini3 wouldn't magically disappear with no gain, right?