[John Q Lin]

Is $900 a good price for the Ragnarok v1, without internal dac?

 

[John Q Lin]

Anyone here have experience with both the RME ADI-2 and the ragnarok v1?

 

[Azzurro]

2021, Chapter 4
The Second Circle

What is the second circle of Hell? As I write this, I’m away from the internet, so I can’t cheat and look it up. But I’m sure someone knows it. And I’m sure it’s not good. Which is very much unlike our Hel 2. Because this is a heckuva sequel. Definitely Aliens vs Alien, if you know what I mean.

“Already?” someone asks. “Didn’t you just introduce Hel, like, 10 minutes ago or something like that?”

To answer that question, Yes, and no.

Yes, Hel 2 is here already. And, to be precise, we introduced the original Hel something like 17 months ago. Which is a short lifespan, we admit.

Aside: Hel is the shortest-lived product ever at Schiit. ​

But the original Hel’s lifespan wasn’t short because it was a bad product…it was short, because we learned quickly how to make it much, much better. So we did. Simple as that.



Early Grumblings

While the reviews of Hel were mainly positive, most people complained about one of two things:

• No console connectivity—as in, no optical or UAC1 capability. We thought this was fine, because we’d envisioned it as a PC gaming device. And because it found another life in the office—lots of home and remote office workers picked up a Hel. Still, they were right…better to have it and not need it, and all that.
• USB-Micro connectors—as in, these were perceived as old…and, to be frank, a pain in the rear end. Problem was, when we did the original Hel design, USB-C connectors were still painfully expensive. Now, they’ve reached the realm of sanity.

So, Hel 2 is a Hel with optical input, UAC1/2 autoswitching, and USB-C connectors.

But that’s really, really underselling it.

And, it’s not the whole story.


The Transformation

Here’s the deal: even if Hel 2 was only those three changes, that’s a huge thing. It transforms Hel from a neat, great-sounding, PC-only gaming rig (or home office rig) to a neat, great-sounding, one-box, two-way communications system you can use with PCs and Macs and many consoles (PS4, PS5, Switch) and virtually any smart TV and monitors with optical output.

Stop. Go back. Read that again.

Or use this simple bulleted comparison:

• Hel: PCs and Macs (and, yeah, iOS and Android and Linux)
• Hel 2: PCs and Macs and consoles and smart TVs and monitors (and, yeah, iOS and Android and Linux)

Yes.

This is a HUGE deal.

“Well, what about Brutoof and stuff like that,” someone is gonna ask. “I likes my wirelesses!”

That’s cool. We get it. But Bluetooth won’t match the quality of a wired connection. Period.

No. Go back and read that again, too. Bluetooth mangles everything that passes through it. Got Qobuz for its lossless? Well, it’s no longer lossless when it goes through your hyper-convenient Bluetooth connection. Got high-res albums you bought at great expense? Yeah, into the blender they go, never to be the same again.

Yes, the mangling is less these days, what with AptX and AptX HD and LDAC and whatever else is new in the world of proprietary CODECs by the time I write this, which probably gives you a good idea of another reason why we don’t want to get into the Bluetooth morass—between different protocol revision levels and proprietary codecs and intentional-transmitter FCC certification, on top of the compression jiggery-pokery, we decided “we gots better things to do, folks!”

Aside: and yes, I know, this isn’t going to be a decision that’s popular with everyone, or understood by everyone, but it’s what we do. Please excuse us for sticking with our beliefs.​

When Bluetooth can do uncompressed transmission, then we’ll talk again. Until then, we’ll stay on the side of maximum quality.

But, back to Hel 2. Here we are, with a device that works with almost every kind of sound I/O out there (save Microsoft Xbox, yeah, talk to them, Sony does UAC1, why can’t they support this ancient standard too—or, say, UAC2?) and outputs excellent sound and has a near-podcast-quality microphone input.

Now, with Hel 2, you have one device that does pretty much anything you need.

• Just want a great-sounding USB DAC/amp? Sure, no problem. Plug it into any computing device and you’re set. Heck, if it doesn’t support UAC2, you still have UAC1 with automatic switching. So it really does do pretty much anything.
• Want something you can use with your phone or iDevice? Sure, same thing, it won’t trigger the “Draws too much power” error (it uses a separate USB wall supply.)
• Or do you want better game sound and communications? Now you can do many consoles as well as PCs and Macs.
• Or how about for Zoom meetings? Yep, the mic input has you covered.
• Eying that optical output on your smart TV? Hel 2 is just the thing for late-light viewing.

Oh, and by the way, Hel 2 is quieter, higher performance, and has more power than the original, in addition to all of the above.

So yeah. Hel to Hel 2 is a hell of a transformation.


An Inauspicious Beginning

Or, in more blunt terms, development of Hel 2 started on the trash heap.

I mean, yeah, we knew that it would be good to have console connectivity and USB-C connectors, but that wasn’t really enough to get development started. What kicked everything off was a new C-Media USB receiver…one that Dave and Mike started designing into new products, but ultimately decided to make everything Unison USB™.

And that’s how the CM6635 made its way into Hel 2—I found it, lonely and disused, in Dave’s abandoned prototypes. Most prototypes we do are simply scrapped at the end of development (some go to the Schiitr, to sit on shelves and confuse people, but most are shredded), so I was literally getting the part out of the bin.

Now, the CM6635, on the face of it, is a very good part. It does the same thing Unison USB does—and a lot more. It also interfaces with an ADC (analog to digital converter) so you can have a microphone input. And it also does SPDIF input as well (as in, optical digital input). And it’s smaller than the old CM6631 we used to use, it doesn’t require external memory, it uses less power to run, and it costs a bit less.

So, win, win, win, right?

Well yes…but we still think Unison USB is better. Unison USB does one thing, and one thing only: receives PCM digital audio over USB. It throws huge computing power at this task (the 32-bit microprocessor we use is almost laughably overpowered). And that’s it. No microphone input. No SPDIF.

Aside: could we add those functions to Unison USB? I wish I could attach an audio file of Dave and Mikes’ laughter when I asked them that exact question. In short, yes we could, but they have more interesting things to do…and they don’t want to take away from Unison USB’s performance in its singleminded task.​

But for a device like Hel 2, the CM6635 was perfect. When we started development of Hel 2, one of the key things was to add an optical input for consoles (this is before Sony started disappearing them). The integrated SPDIF receiver was perfect for that. The fact that it used less power and less real estate was helpful in optimizing the new layout, and the integrated ADC functionality was something we were used to implementing from C-Media in the CM6631A for Hel.

So out went the CM6631, in went the CM6635. We swapped the analog input for an optical, and USB-micro connectors for USB-C.

“Wait a sec,” some of you are yelling. “No analog input? How do we listen to our phones/tablets/etc now?”

Well, to be blunt, you use USB (or optical, if you have an astoundingly weird phone).

Hel 2 is now a digital-only device. We think this makes sense, with so many devices losing the 1/8” analog output anyway; it seems like they are really going by the wayside. In talking to our Hel owners, to, we found the vast majority of them didn’t use the “just an amp” function. So the analog input went bye-bye.

At the time we did the first prototype, that was it: new USB interface, new connectors, new optical. We figured that was enough. What could we expect from a brand-new interface?

It turns out, things were pretty seamless. We worked with C-Media to produce firmware specific to our device, and things worked fairly well from the get-go. There were only a couple of glitches, with the main one being that the device reset wasn’t working reliably. You could turn the Hel 2 off and on, and sometimes it wouldn’t be recognized by the computer. This was solved with some additional oversight logic, and then everything was solid.

Well, except for our changes.

The first thing we did was increase the bit depth and sample rate Hel 2 would accept. While we limit Unison USB to 32/192, Hel 2 goes all the way up to 32/384. And, like Hel before it (and like all of our products), Hel 2 has two crystal oscillators, one for each sample rate multiple, for higher performance. And yes, you read that correctly: Hel 2 will accept higher sample rates than our Unison USB products.

Aside: This is what you might call “thumbing our nose at the establishment.” We’re having a bit of fun; please excuse this silliness. It’s not like we added DSD or MQA.​

Aside to the aside: Also, please don’t take this as an imminent increase in Unison USB sample rates. Mike and Dave are pretty much set on Unison USB—it is stable, it is what it is. If you want to lobby them, bring good arguments. I’m just the analog guy.​

Then, just for fun, I wondered if we could increase performance by using the newer OPA1656 op-amps for output (rather than the OPA1688s we had been using). I was stunned when output increased almost 50% (we rate it 20% higher, because we are conservative.) I was further stunned by how much better it sounded when we also used the OPA1656 for the voltage gain stage. So Hel 2 is 100% OPA1656, one of the most advanced ICs in TI’s arsenal, instead of OPA1662/OPA1688 like Hel.

Yet another aside: a happy consequence of using the OPA1656 for the voltage gain stage is that it has much lower input bias current, which means noise when turning the volume knob is eliminated, without having to go to capacitor-coupling. Hel 2, like Hel, is DC-coupled, no capacitors in the signal path.​

And that, as they say, appeared to be that.

I did one other prototype to optimize the grounds, then got ready to send it to production.

But that’s right around the time Sony kervorked the optical input on the PS5. So the optical input we added started looking pretty silly. For a while, I really worried about it, until Tyler commented, “Well, all smart TVs have optical outputs.”

Huh!

He was totally right! Now we had a device you could plug into a smart TV…which might be a conduit to a game console that didn’t work with optical.

But I realized that was only half the equation. Even if you plugged into your smart TV via optical, you still couldn’t use a microphone input. So that wasn’t perfect.

But…I remembered that the CM6635 could be set as a UAC1 or UAC2 device. As in, you could tell it to be UAC1 for compatibility with older computers and consoles, or you could tell it to be UAC2 for higher bit rates and depths on modern devices.

Could it be set up to detect UAC1/2 capability and autoswitch?

Oh boy, if it could do that, we’d really be set. That would give us PS4 and Switch (and, it was rumored, PS5). We’d just have to look into Microsoft’s requirements and maybe we could get everything…

Long story short, yes, autoswitching UAC1/2 was fairly easy (well, there were some firmware revs after the first candidate, and yes, we had to get a PS5 to confirm it worked on the console, but we got through it. Soon we had a Hel 2 that could be plugged into consoles, TVs, PCs, tablets, and phones…a very big deal, as I mentioned.

So were we done?

Uh, not so fast.


The Big Oops

So, here’s a fun fact: USB-C is complicated.

As in, there are many more levels of complexity to the connector—even if you’re only using it as a connector. I mean, you can go crazy with USB-C.

I mean, to start with, it’s designed to deliver up to 100 watts of power—5 amps at 20 volts. Of course, that’s only with negotiation and testing. You actually need a USB-C interface IC to do the negotiation—“Hey mr power supply, how much power can you safely deliver,” stuff like that. Which is comforting when you’re thinking about passing that much power over a really small wire. Especially one with up to 24 active connections at the plug end.

And it gets weirder, because the superspeed differential pairs are only used when you’re running USB 3.0 protocols and above…the old data connections used for USB 2.0 and below are completely disregarded. Of course, that will take a specific receiver, with its own negotiation, to make that happen as well.

Aside: there is no USB Audio 3.0 or USB Audio Class 3. Period. USB Audio Classes stop at 2. As in, UAC2 is the standard for “fast” audio transmission. And fast is relative. Audio doesn’t need USB 3.0+ speeds. It’s perfectly fine with USB 2.0 speeds. Yes, even stuff like 16x DSD. ​

And USB-C gets even more weirder, because, you know, those 24 connections I mentioned? There are actually 12 pairs, so you can flip over the USB-C cable and use it in either orientation. The pairs mean that one of the connections is always correct. But adding to the confusion is that you can also buy USB-C jacks that don’t have the superspeed connections, or didn’t have data at all and are intended for charging.

But when we started on Hel 2, I figured we didn’t really need to mess with the deep weirdness of USB-C. As in, we didn’t need any power negotiation, because we didn’t need more than the 2A or so a USB-A charger provides. We didn’t need speed negotiation, because we weren’t using the superspeed stuff. We didn’t need to worry about weird connectors, because we were using a standard 24-connection model. And, mechanically we were fine, because everything was paired and it would always be the right connection on one side.

Wellllllllllll…except USB-C got even weirder than we thought, and also requires some resistors so that the interface can tell which way the cable is oriented.

Which didn’t get put on.

Aside: nor did they get put on the Urd prototypes, a fact that I delivered to Dave’s chagrin.​

And…we didn’t catch this until very late in the game. As in, first article late. Nor did any of our early testers catch this. Why? Because when you’re coming from USB-A, orientation doesn’t matter. When you’re doing USB-C to C, though, you need the resistors.

So, when we found that our new Macbook Airs only worked with Hel when the connectors were oriented in one direction, that was an oh schiit moment.

And that’s why Hel 2 is a little late. We needed to add the resistors and check that everything worked fine.

And it does.

Oh, and Urd is fixed as well.

Yeah, do USB-C, they said. It would be easy, I thought.

Well, not so much.

But here we are! I really hope you enjoy the second circle…Hel 2!


Coda: The Other Big Oops

Okay, so I’ve told you before that I write these chapters in advance…sometimes far in advance. The reality was that Hel 2 was supposed to be 2020 product. So I got this knocked out early. (Really early, it turned out, after you take into account adding the UAC1/2 thing and the USB-C big oops.)

And then, just as I get this done, there’s the AKM fire.

“So what?” you might ask. “What does this have to do with Hel 2?”

Well, other than the fact that Hel 2 uses an AKM DAC…and an AKM ADC…and that the programming of the CM6635 is absolutely critical to making those chips run right…and that that programming needs to be different for any other brand of DAC and ADC…

You get the picture. We just designed a product specifically for ICs that had a very, very uncertain future.

Aside: as of this writing, AKM has not confirmed if they will continue making the ADC we use, and there is no date scheduled for the availability of the AK4490 DAC.​

So what do we do?

Two things:

1. Proceed with Hel 2 as designed, leaning on our (large) stock of AKM parts.
2. Get ready for a transition to another DAC and ADC in the future.

As of today, #1 is off and running, and we’re ready for #2. There is a Hel 2 running with a different ADC and DAC, ready to take over when our AKM stock runs out. When exactly that will be, I don’t know. Heck, I don’t even know if we should make a big deal about it (name it “Hel 2x,” where the “x” stands for “oh schiit never eXpected this!”) or if we should just roll it in as a running change. I know people hate running changes, so I figure we’ll call it out, but we’ll see.

In the meantime, as above, we have Hel 2 with AKM right now. Until we’re short on AKM. And that’s all I know right now. I really hope you enjoy it!

How excited am I for the Hel 2? Mega!

However, I've just noticed my back-ordered shipping date has moved out from the 8th April to 20th May

Still super excited to get it but god damn, that delay hit me right in the stones lol

 

[erik701]

2021, Chapter 5:
How We Fool Ourselves

Great chapter! This is why imho many people prefer CDs or Vinyl over the digital recordings stored somewhere on the HDD. That extra physical interaction and ability to add more senses (like touch, sight, or even the smell of paper cover...) all those things are making difference in the way how we perceive the whole experience.

 

[Derrick Swart]

Great chapter! This is why imho many people prefer CDs or Vinyl over the digital recordings stored somewhere on the HDD. That extra physical interaction and ability to add more senses (like touch, sight, or even the smell of paper cover...) all those things are making difference in the way how we perceive the whole experience.

That's why, that when it sounds good in the Schiitr it sounds good everywhere!

 

[Ableza]

I bet the surfing is great in Corpus Christi when there a hurricane spinning out on the Gulf.

 

[tafens]

@earnmyturns
Great to hear that the quirky humour of 'HG2G' is appreciated well beyond these shores

It is. It’s very much appreciated in my corner of the world as well! At least by me and the like-minded people know

I especially like the intro to one of the chapters as heard in the BBC radio show:
The story so far: In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move...

 

[Pondoro]

2021, Chapter 5:
How We Fool Ourselves


I’m sure you’ve all heard these proclamations before:

“OMG, I just got the new Arglebargle A200-33KX DAC and it’s a completely different ball game! It totally opened up the soundstage and the high end is so natural, I can’t believe how much better it is than my Crapstorm 5000!”​

And:

“I just chose the best-measuring product, because measurements are what counts—the only scientific way to choose gear. Why accept a lesser-measuring product when there’s better out there?”​

Uh-huh. Riiiiiiight. On both counts.

Yes Virginia. It’s time to piss off both the subjectivists and objectivists…again.

This time, by examining the myriad ways in which we fool ourselves.


Short-Circuit: Where We’re Coming From

“Again?” some of you are asking. “What do you mean, piss them off again?”

Well, for those of you who are new to this whole Schiit Happened thing, we have a long history of irritating pretty much everyone in audio. People who want to spend billions of dollars on cables and magic stones don’t like us, and people who want to select gear based on APx measurements alone don’t care for us either.

Why?

In short, due to chapters like “Measurements (With a Side Order of Sanity)”,”The Objectivist/Subjectivist Synthesis”, and “Lighted By the Blind.”

Go ahead. Check them out. They’re all linked above.

Aside: And yeah, the Measurements chapter is wayyyyyyy outdated now (we now have an APx555, two APx525s, six Avermetrics, and one Stanford Research SR1, in addition to GHz scopes, FLIRs, spectrum analyzers, ESD generators)…holy moly, we have a lot of test stuff! I need to update that chapter soon.​

Or, you can take this TL;DR summary of where we’re coming from:

1. Differences between audio components are much smaller than most audiophiles make them out to be, at least to the majority of listeners.
2. There are, however, differences that aren’t readily explained in terms of one frequency, one measurement, one number, and these differences may matter to some listeners.

Yep. That’s it. A lot of practicality, mixed in with some magical thinking, arrived at after many, many years in audio (Mike’s been doing this since the 1970s, I’ve been doing this since the 1990s). That’s where we’re coming from.

If this doesn’t gel with your perceived vision of the audio universe, that’s fine; you can move on from this chapter and continue on happily in your own bubble reality.

However, if you want to pry at your own notions of right and wrong, and maybe understand a few of the reasons some people think there are life-changing differences between components…and why some people think there aren’t, maybe this is worth a read. This chapter is intended to be both for objectivists and subjectivists. It tries to document some of the myriad ways in which we fool ourselves into thinking our gear is great/bad/same/different.

Because humans are subjective.

Because as unbiased as you think you are, you really aren’t.

Seriously:

• Even if you think you have assembled a reference system that allows you to make unbiased subjective selections among a host of components that all sound different, the reality is you’re boned as soon as you put mood into the equation.
• Even if you think everything sounds the same, as soon as you choose a piece of gear based on how smooth the knob is or how slick the UI is, your objectivity is toast…you’re now hopelessly biased.

Bottom line: everything is subjective, and humans are rationalizing animals, not rational animals.


Sound Foolin

Okay, so let’s start out by talking about sound, because that’s the crux of most arguments.

Does the Crapstorm beat up the Arglebargle? Does it “punch above its weight?” Does it sound smooth, bright, liquid, clear, nuanced, warm—or does it sound different than any other competently-designed component at all?

Most people make pronouncements about sound in grand and declarative terms: “It totally floored me! I heard stuff I never heard before! The emotional connection was so deep, it made me cry tears of joy!”

Aside: What’s hilarious is that many of these pronouncements are made after listening to unfamiliar music for 30 seconds on a noisy show floor. But more on that later.​

Here’s the problem: these pronouncements are inextricably tied up with things that affect your perception—things that cause you to fool yourself.

Things like what? Things like this:

1. Good mood or bad mood.​

​

What kind of day did you have? Did fedex lose the package you’ve been waiting for since you woke up? Did you get dumped by your significant other? Or did you just get a big raise at work, or meet someone new and dreamy?​

​

If you’re in a bad mood, your gear may sound, well, awful. Because you’re stressed, depressed, and hyper-tuned-in on every tiny thing that isn’t going right at the moment. That slight stridency in your shiny new product may suddenly be a deal-breaker. Or you may just be fooling yourself because you’re in a bad place.​

​

If you’re in a good mood, everything may sound great. If things are going your way, heck, nothing sounds better than a new super-expensive ultra-matched NOS tube set! Or, again, you may be fooling yourself, because nothing can get you down, and the world is a beautiful place to live in (thank you, Devo).​

​

Maybe I’m crazy, but I’ve totally had some crappy days where nothing sounded right, and the next day when everything was going better, it sounded great. If you don’t think your mood influences audio perception, you’re also, er, fooling yourself.​

​

2. Altered state of consciousness.​

​

Sooooooo…how sober were you when you heard that life-changing gear and spent a small mortgage? After a few beers, or a THC vape pen (legal in CA, don’t roast me), things will sound very different. (And yeah, wine, whisky, heroin, E, don’t be pedantic).​

​

Hell, a couple of beers made hearing the difference between Vali 2 and Magni Heresy very, very hard, at least for me. (See the “Lighted by the Blind” chapter.) And I don’t particularly like THC, since all it makes me want to do is listen to music and watch cartoons—and all music sounds great when I’m baked, no matter what equipment we’re talking about. I mean, I probably couldn’t tell the difference between a broken component and one that was operating properly!​

​

So, I could be cynical and say, “This is definitely a call for audio retailers to start serving alcohol (and maybe more in states where that is legal,” or I could be more level-headed and say, “Making decisions based on altered states of consciousness can be very costly.”​

​

3. The total experience.​

​

When you found that magical component you just had to have, did you discover it at an amazing dealer while out with your best friends, or did you hear the worst thing you’ve ever heard when your were caught in a downpour, and were soaked and miserable by the time you hit the dirty, dingy, odd-smelling store?​

​

Yeah, if it was me, I’d probably throw out both audio perceptions, because both were too much intertwined with the whole experience. Again, mood. Again, it matters.​

​

4. Operational preferences.​

​

So wow, that new amp is super-powerful! All you have to do is crack the pot and you’re blown out of your chair!​

​

(Or it has a lot of gain or an aggressive pot taper and it’s not powerful at all.)​

​

Here’s the thing. Controls are tricky. You can fool yourself into thinking something sounds very different, just due to the volume pot ramp. Something that ramps up quicker will sound more powerful, even if that isn’t the case. You can make snap decisions based on the feel of a switch. Relay volume control is monumentally weird, if you have never used it before. A manufacturer’s decisions on the user interface (even if you’re talking knobs and lights) can deeply influence how you feel about a product…​

​

…and how you feel can fool your ears.​

​

5. Packaging bias.​

​

So the new piece of gear you’re lusting after is an amazing tour de force of machining, hewn out of a solid block of aluminum with 32 hours of tooling time and a pile of shavings that will keep aluminum recyclers in business for the next year.​

​

But, don’t you have to ask yourself: is the packaging itself the cause of my lust? Will it make the gear sound better? Or is it just the thing separating a 5-figure price tag from a 4-figure price tag?​

​

And yes, I know, it looks sexy. But you’re not buying for your eyes, right?​

​

Right?​

​

Yeah. Fooled again.​

​

6. Brand bias.​

​

How many times have you heard someone breathlessly proclaim, “OMG, Arglebargle is coming out with a new DAC! GOTTA GET IT!”​

​

Really? Well, maybe Arglebargle has a good history with DACs, but who knows? They may have boned this one. How do you really know? And yeah, maybe you’ve bought lots of their products and always been happy, but again, maybe this is a mulligan.​

​

(And yeah this applies to us, I know a lot of people like our stuff.)​

​

In a perfect world, brand wouldn’t affect perception. But again. Humans. Rationalizing. Not rational.​

​

Getting it now?​

​

7. Place bias.​

​

Like our made in USA. Or made in Germany. Or made in Japan. Or made wherever. Certain locations conjure specific associations, and some people want those associations in their gear.​

​

But does it make it sound better? Ah, no.​

​

8. Review goggles.​

​

How many times have you heard someone say, “Well, it gets great reviews!” as a way to justify a new audio purchase?​

​

I get it. Most people like to have some confirmation of their fine taste and wisdom to purchase an excellent product, so something that gets good reviews is going to be perceived to “sound” better. Even if it doesn’t.​

​

But who’s reviewing the product? What’s their experience? Are they coming at it from the objective or subjective side? If you hew to the objective side, does it have great measurements? If you stick to the subjective, is it synergistic with your system?​

​

And let’s go further? Which reviewer? How much experience? What are their biases? What is their system? Any chance they are financially compromised?​

​

Really, everyone…if it sounds great to you, you shouldn’t care if 99.9% of reviewers say it sounds like ass.​

​

9. Measurement glasses.​

​

“Oh, but I just go by the measurements!” you say. Cool. Yeah. And you’re fooling yourself if you don’t think this doesn’t influence your perception in the same way as reviewer goggles. If you think everything that measures a certain way sounds the same, you’re going to be more likely to think it does, even if it doesn’t.​

​

“But everything does sound the same, the measurements say so!” you say. Again cool. Again yeah. But what is the limit of human perception? Is it -80dB? Lower? On which frequencies? On what harmonics? All? Some? High-order only? Are there any tests we are missing in audio? Are some humans different in their perceptual ability?​

​

Here’s the thing: there’s not a lot of peer-reviewed reseach here, mainly because there’s not a ton of money in audio. But that’s foreshadowing. I’ll leave that till later.​

​

10. Scientism.​

​

See above. Also hewing too close to something that sounds technologically sound or sciency, but isn’t, will probably have you hearing what you want to think as well.​

​

There are tons of companies using sciency stuff to claim different sound or perfect sound. It’s probably worth asking if any actual peer-reviewed research is involved in these claims.​

​

And yeah, I know, we have our buzzword bingo. But it’s not science. And we don’t make audio claims. And when I say something sounds great/different/better, I always slather it with a lot of “I may be crazy.” So there you go.​

​

11. Topology prejudice.​

​

Okay, now we’re going deep. Because this really takes some esoteric knowledge (or ingestion of much design/marketing kool-aid.) Some people think any amount of solid-state components wreck a tube amp. Some people think anything besides op-amps are inaccurate sonic insanity. Some people think all tube amps are soft and warm. Some people think single-ended Class A is the way to go. Some people think balanced and differential.​

​

Here’s the thing: all of these thoughts affect perception.​

​

If you think “Class A or the highway,” you’re gonna be biased against everything that isn’t Class A. Class AB? Can’t possibly sound as good! Heck, it’s right in the name.​

​

If you are anti-sand (solid-state components used in a tube amp, as in “sand vs glass,”) then you’ll be more likely to hear “something disturbing” in a design that uses transistors or MOSFETs as well as tubes, even if they are in the power supply.​

​

Would you hear it in a blind test? Maybe. Maybe not.​

​

But again. You may be fooling yourself.​

​

12. Designerism.​

​

Some people think some audio designers are infallible. Here’s the truth, coming from an audio designer: we are not.​

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Nor is a “house sound” as much of a thing as people make it out to be. Yes, a designer can steer towards certain characteristics (that is, if you believe that competently designed components sound different), but there’s less control than you might expect. Especially if you’re comparing vastly different designs, at vastly different prices.​

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Buy by designer…maybe great, or maybe they’re having an off day. I can confidently state none are infallible.​

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13. Boredom, or familiarity breeds discontent.​

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Have you ever discovered an amazing song…and listened to it over and over and over again, until it doesn’t give you the same visceral reaction, until it becomes simply background noise?​

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Hey, that’s music. That’s art.​

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You think it ain’t different for components? Oh yeah. Once you get used to something, you may get an urge to move on. Because it’s familiar. Because it’s comfortable. Because you know it too well.​

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(But, you know what? Maybe there’s really nothing wrong with it at all. You’re just bored.)​

Okay. Yeah. Time to sum up:

In terms of sound, everyone has biases. Everyone fools themselves.

But, you know what? It’s worse than that.


More Foolin

Oh yeah. You thought it was over. You thought that all the ways in which you fool yourself in terms of sound were bad enough.

Aside: I listed 13 ways above. I’m sure I missed a bunch.​

But no. It gets worse. Go back to that statement early in the chapter: humans are rationalizing animals, not rational animals.

A lot of ways in which we fool ourselves have little to do with sound. Let’s have a look at them:

1. This one will be the last.​

​

Have you ever told yourself, “This is the last thing I need.” Just one more component, just one more purchase, and that will be the pinnacle, the end, finito, done.​

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Hold on a sec.​

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I just…​

​

…I just gotta…​

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…LOLOLLOLLLLLLLROFLCOPTER.​

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Let me be blunt: you’re fooling yourself.​

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Look up “cycle of addiction,” and see if the GIS images line up with your audio buying habits. If they do, welllllll…you may have a problem.​

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Now, I’d definitely take an audio addiction over, say, a cocaine habit. But it is something you may want to consider, the next time you start browsing for new gear (while the boxes for the old gear are still cooling off under your desk), or the next time you say, “I just need this one thing, and I’m done with audio for a good long time,” and you realize the last component you bought was a week ago.​

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2. This is my end game.​

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See above. Read again.​

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3. I know what I like.​

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Yeah. I know what I like, too. It’s every new amp I design. If I’m doing tubes, I’m in love with tubes. If I’m doing solid state, I’m done with tubes.​

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And then I surprise myself, and hit on something that shows me that my tastes aren’t immutable. I started doing very warm and syrupy headphone amps, because that’s what I liked (and many of the headphones of the era were bright), and moved towards more neutral and revealing products over the years. I long thought tubes were the only real answer for voltage gain, but recent products have put lie to that.​

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So. Yeah. “I know what I like.” Until I hear better.​

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4. This is the best thing/worst thing.​

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Absolutes should always be treated with skepticism. Especially when they are based on a minute of listening to unfamiliar music on an unfamiliar system at a noisy show. Or in any unfamiliar system, period.​

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Do everyone a favor and save the absolutes. You don’t know their preferences or their system.​

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5. There can’t possibly be any difference.​

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Yes. I know. There are things where there shouldn’t possibly be any difference. I get it. I am with you. And then there’s Unison USB, which I was so skeptical of that I pronounced it broken until I measured it.​

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Here’s the thing: I think it’s important to keep an open mind. At least a bit open. The balance here is what matters. One way you’re declaring that anything that measures below a certain threshold sounds the same, the other you’re spending $5,000 on crystals to stick to your $15,000 isolation feet.​

Biggest Foolin

Is this over? Oh no. It gets crazier. So, buckle up. Let’s get to the two biggies.

You may like this. Or hate it.

1. I NEED this.​

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When you’re talking about expensive audio components, there is no “need.” None. Period. Sorry. This is BaFWP (beyond a first world problem.)​

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Some people need an inexpensive cellphone or laptop to participate in the global economy, and sweat about the cost of such devices. Some people need shelter. Some people need supplemental oxygen.​

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Nobody needs expensive audio gear. Sorry to be blunt.​

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2. This is IMPORTANT.​

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LOL. No. Sorry. Audio, especially high-end audio, is not important. Not in the grand scheme of things. Delivery of supplemental oxygen on time to your gravely ill parent is important.​

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As I mentioned before, there’s not a lot of peer-reviewed research in audio. Why? Because there’s not a ton of money in it. And investment, like it or not, is a measure of importance, at least on a big scale. If audio is important to you, that’s fine, I get it, but it’s not that big of a deal for the world.​

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Maybe someday big-eared aliens with 1000000x the hearing acuity of humanity will show up, making audio reproduction absolutely critical for interstellar relations. Then the billions will flow. Then audio will be IMPORTANT.​

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Until then, this is a fun pastime. Sit back, relax, and enjoy.​

Aaaand…know that you’re going to be fooling yourself. Probably in multiple ways.

Aaaaaaaaannnd…here’s the thing. If you’re not hurting anyone (or your wallet), that’s totally ok!

I have built, played and listened to acoustic and electric musical instruments live for years. I cannot believe that Total Harmonic Distortion and Noise measurements are enough to prove that, "every product sounds the same", be it amplifier, DAC, whatever. With a live instrument there is zero THD but many things can still affect the sound. Give a designer a choice to design an analog circuit and I believe sonic differences will result. I guess I could believe that "perfect" digital would all sound the same, if "perfect" existed. But once you go analog no way. I still won't buy cables that cost more than a hamburger. (Weelll, I ordered some "Pyst" cables for a bit more than a hamburger but no one else had 6" cables.)

 

[ghfiii]

However, I've just noticed my back-ordered shipping date has moved out from the 8th April to 20th May

Argh, mine said the 8th last night. Today it is the 20th--I has a sad

But patience rewards those that ... well you know

I was going to order to place a back order on the HEL 1, but the new one was available. I hope, the upgrade will be worth waiting for

 

[Odin412]

Since Schiit celebrated their 10-year anniversary last year I was thinking back to which first-generation Schiit products that I have owned – some I have sold over the years but several I still have.

I first ran into Schiit at THE Show in Newport Beach in 2012 or 2013. I forget exactly which year it was but I remember that all the headphone vendors were located around the pool area. Schiit showed their then-full range starting with Modi/Magni through Gungnir/Mjolnir. Yggdrasil and Ragnarok were rumored but were not available yet. I remember listening to their products and I really liked the Bifrost/Valhalla/HD 650 combo. To this day that’s still one of my favorite DAC/amp/headphone combos.

First-generation products that I sold: Modi, Magni, Vali, Wyrd (no sound differences to my ears but great for keeping the Modi powered on 24/7).

First-generation products that I still have and enjoy:
· Bifrost (started with the Uber version, later upgraded to Multibit)
· Valhalla (great with the HD 650, just as I remember from the first listen)
· SYS

 

[golfbravobravo]

I got diagnosed with sleep apnea. No heart disease so far (fingers crossed), but getting used to the CPAP machine is an ongoing struggle - and definitely not for those who are vain about how they look when they sleep!
.

Telling my ex-wife (perhaps this is why we are now "ex") that she was cleared for take off, did not go down at all well.

Also, her sense of humor failure indicator light didn't work when she was using that machine either.........

 

[golfbravobravo]

Reminds me of Agnes Obel
Thanks for the tip!

Is she the Irish cycle racing champion?

 

[Pondoro]

Great chapter! This is why imho many people prefer CDs or Vinyl over the digital recordings stored somewhere on the HDD. That extra physical interaction and ability to add more senses (like touch, sight, or even the smell of paper cover...) all those things are making difference in the way how we perceive the whole experience.

I have found that setting aside time, sitting down and listening to a CD, or even a ripped CD but listening to all the tracks on disk in the original order, increases my enjoyment. It also helps if the CD or LP was released during the artist's lifetime, so a CD from an album that the dead artist released is more enjoyable than a "best of" compilation from after they passed. A glass of wine also helps.

 

[macdonjh]

New product idea for Schiit: a tweak. There aren't any resonators/ isolators I know of available for mobile audio, so I think they should start selling some. After changing this one out yesterday, I swear there is less noise coming from the front-passenger corner of my car. I am so impressed I am scheduled to have three more installed.

I can't believe these are currently marketed simply as tires! Imagine the mark-up possible once a respected audio company guru puts his (or her) seal of approval on them. The forward-thinking entrepreneur could open a whole new line of digitally driven resonators/ isolators if someone like Mike Moffat was to take the helm of the design team.

Nail polish for connectors indeed, what we need is something like this for mobile audio.

 

[G0rt]

Thought of this thread and nearly spilt my beer