Hifiman HM-801 sounds no better than my iPod Touch 3G... - Page 3

Well, it has 20 ohms (ES5), which isn't a lot. I can't seem to find the output power for the HM-801 though. Anyone got a spec sheet?

Gee, did it ever occur to you that music you are listening to really does'nt have all that much resolution to begin with. I have a Touch & an HM-602 ,playing back wav files(which is by the way the reason to spend the money on these non-iPod players which do have inferior UIs.) the "Touch" can't touch the HM-602 in detail retreveal. Would it be fair to say you prefer the more foward sound of your Touch for the music you listen to? It's extremely inaccurate to call a higher priced player a ripoff. The player was'nt designed for people who think iPods sound pretty good, it was designed for people who don't really care for the way they sound ! The HiFiman players sound a little bit like decent analog sounds like ! I guess these players are for us old farts or at least anyone who has heard good analog (which as time goes by is rapidly declining).

WAV files on a DAP? Really?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Achmedisdead 

WAV files on a DAP? Really?

 

LAUGH OUT LOUD. 

whatamievenreading

Quote:

Originally Posted by knowhatimean 

Gee, did it ever occur to you that music you are listening to really does'nt have all that much resolution to begin with. I have a Touch & an HM-602 ,playing back wav files(which is by the way the reason to spend the money on these non-iPod players which do have inferior UIs.) the "Touch" can't touch the HM-602 in detail retreveal. Would it be fair to say you prefer the more foward sound of your Touch for the music you listen to? It's extremely inaccurate to call a higher priced player a ripoff. The player was'nt designed for people who think iPods sound pretty good, it was designed for people who don't really care for the way they sound ! The HiFiman players sound a little bit like decent analog sounds like ! I guess these players are for us old farts or at least anyone who has heard good analog (which as time goes by is rapidly declining).

 Other DAP's play WAVE, you know!

Like for instance, my Cowon.

http://www.jetaudio.com/products/iaudio/7/

Not that any sane person should use WAVE. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tronz 

I hear a slight difference between 320kbps and FLAC, but it's a difference that literally makes my head hurt to concentrate on to hear.

Same, but using WAVE on a DAP is pretty darn ridiculous. Using WAVE on a computer is kind of dumb too since there are all sorts of lossless compression out there that don't have tagging issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tronz 

What!? If it doesn't sound better to " my " ears regardless of the audio codec used for the music over a FAR cheaper source than it's a rip off. Don't name the device " Hifiman " when " HiFi " stands for high fidelity or high accuracy. This thing is so far from accurate after reading those RMAA's and even hearing it with my own 2 ears. If this is what analog sounds like, count me out. I prefer digital. I want my source to be accurate and my headphones to color the sound.

I don't want to get involved in this conversation too much, but there is an inaccuracy here. RMAA isn't the last word in measuring "hifiness". Yes, there is a moderate roll-off in the higher frequencies on the Hifiman. But you can't deduct from that that it is any less "Hifi" than an iPod. I remember seeing on a Japanese website a measurement of the DAC impulse response. The Hifiman measured almost dead-on, the ipod terribly. So there is much more than just frequency response in level of Hifi accuracy.

Here's the link : http://sonove.angry.jp/apple_ipad.html

As you can see the HM 801 has a superb impulsion response measurement - many times better than any iDevice (which are a terrible mess at it). It has indeed an unfortunate roll off at high frequencies (remember however that 2,5 dB @ 15k hz isn't much - but the combination between your low impedance multi BA IEM and the HM 801 high output impedance - undeniably a mistake on Hifiman's part - might worsen the situation). Also, phase is quite well controlled in the high frequencies - the iPods have a pretty bad phase management up-there, that's likely to counteract any benefit of having 2,5 dB trebles more (I think if I'm correct that phase issues are bad for details). With these very bad impulse response and phase measurments, you cannot call the iDevices any more accuracte than the HM 801.

Also, in this comparison, it is important to distinguish between the DAC section and the amp section. For example, when I possessed them both, I directly compared an iPhone to a HM 602, but to level the playground I should have been using the same amp to determine which of the DAC is best.

It's also been noted several times by some people that the amp output impedance of the Hifiman isn't very good for multi BA drivers. Maybe should you try both the iPod and the HM 801 with an external amp to get a clearer view of each dac's abilities.

Just to put things in perspective, with EQ off, I couldn't hear an obvious enough improvement between my $300 Sony X1050 and my $30 Sansa Clip+ to warrant the cost of the Sony so I sold it and use the Clip+ as my main DAP. I could however easily distinguish between my $60 Cmoy and my $300 Headstage Arrow, enough to warrant the cost of the Arrow and sold the Cmoy. Now I'm using a $30 player with a $300 amp and it sounds incredible to my ears. Point I'm trying to make is cost is unrelated to personal satisfaction. Try to keep your eyes and ears open and stay honest to yourself, even if you just spent $800 on a HM801 that sounds worse than your $100 iPod. Sell the HM801 because someone might hear the opposite of what you're hearing and will use that HM801 with $30 headphones. ;)

Granted, Clip is an excellent player by all technical analysis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MayaTlab

 

I don't want to get involved in this conversation too much, but there is an inaccuracy here. RMAA isn't the last word in measuring "hifiness". Yes, there is a moderate roll-off in the higher frequencies on the Hifiman. But you can't deduct from that that it is any less "Hifi" than an iPod. I remember seeing on a Japanese website a measurement of the DAC impulse response. The Hifiman measured almost dead-on, the ipod terribly. So there is much more than just frequency response in level of Hifi accuracy.

Here's the link : http://sonove.angry.jp/apple_ipad.html

As you can see the HM 801 has a superb impulsion response measurement - many times better than any iDevice (which are a terrible mess at it). It has indeed an unfortunate roll off at high frequencies (remember however that 2,5 dB @ 15k hz isn't much - but the combination between your low impedance multi BA IEM and the HM 801 high output impedance - undeniably a mistake on Hifiman's part - might worsen the situation). Also, phase is quite well controlled in the high frequencies - the iPods have a pretty bad phase management up-there, that's likely to counteract any benefit of having 2,5 dB trebles more (I think if I'm correct that phase issues are bad for details). With these very bad impulse response and phase measurments, you cannot call the iDevices any more accuracte than the HM 801.

 

Also, in this comparison, it is important to distinguish between the DAC section and the amp section. For example, when I possessed them both, I directly compared an iPhone to a HM 602, but to level the playground I should have been using the same amp to determine which of the DAC is best.

 

It's also been noted several times by some people that the amp output impedance of the Hifiman isn't very good for multi BA drivers. Maybe should you try both the iPod and the HM 801 with an external amp to get a clearer view of each dac's abilities.

The iPod's impulse response is like that because it uses a reconstruction filter with different tradeoffs. It's not the result of sloppy engineering. Old iPods used the same kind of filter as the Clip+, the HM801, and the Lavry. Some engineers say that the kind of filter in the new iPods is less objectionable than the "pre-ringing" in the conventional linear-phase filter that you would find in the HM801. Some D/A converters even let you choose which filter you want to use: http://www.stereophile.com/content/dcs-debussy-da-processor-measurements

Some high-end gear use a similar minimum-phase type filter as the latest iPods:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/ayre-acoustics-qb-9-usb-dac-measurements

http://www.stereophile.com/content/meridian-8082808i2-signature-reference-cd-playerpreamplifier-measurements

If the decay time really bothers you, you can roll off the top end of the iPod, just like the HM801. Here are some measurements I took with an iPad:

iPad impulse response.

iPad impulse response with EQ.

There; you not only have good decay time; you also don't have pre-ringing. So if an iPod sounds bad, it's probably not because of the filtering. In practice the difference isn't nearly as noticeable as the difference in frequency response resulting from the HM801's 18-ohm output impedance. I had a chance to compare the HM801 with an iPad, an iPhone 4, and a Clip+. The HM801 was the one that sounded noticeably different from the rest, even though it shares the same kind of filter as the Clip+. On the SE530 for example, there's a hole in the response at 5 kHz that the others didn't have.
 

Here's an idea: bring an HM801, a Clip+, and an iPhone 4 to a lab that has a Benchmark, a Grace Designs, or a Lavry. Plug in your headphones and IEMs to their headphone amps and see which DAP sticks out.