[phoenixdogfan]

Wouldn't you suspect that the same principle applies as when chaining any two pieces of gear together? If you only spent a small sum on getting another DAC, amp of similar quality to the internals you would be right. It would be less than a lateral move because of the degradations you mentioned. Even more Smyth is able to stretch their DAC, amp components further because they don't have to reduplicate costs for casing, interface, power supply, etc. To your point, I'm sure Smyth is designing an all-in-one stand alone unit, but the I/O is there for a reason.

If you spend considerably more for high end pieces and cabling you would absolutely not neutralize their benefit. Also as mentioned, some already have this kind gear in their system. Whether you feel the need or desire to make this level of investment is a personal decision. It wouldn't be economically minded for sure, but then again if it were just about economics you wouldn't be here right?

Since the default recommendation of a playback headphone is the HD 800, It's going to be incumbent on the user to match that component up with an amp powerful enough into that load to get the most out of the Realiser.

 

[J.Villain]

Although when digging deeper it does say that "Estimated shipping of Realiser A16 purchased under this scheme is Q4 2017" so probably not much hope of September.

After reading what you referenced I think that may be referencing a second order from the suppliers. I suspect, though with no proof, that they will ship all the orders paid by the end of June in Sept if it is in their power to do. It is curious that MDS still doesn't list a new repeater board. Ether we are at the very front of the line or they sourced one some where else. If they were selling new boards in quantity I would expect them to have them listed by now.

 

[462429]

only measurements could do that.
...

Thank you, but sometimes you learn from people facts that make measurements and listening tests unimportant. For example, I was recently interested in buying external balanced headphone amp as an upgrade to the built-in unbalanced one. But, fortunately, one well known audio expert wrote an article with the explanation that the balanced headphone amps were in principle inferior to the unbalanced ones.

...
... because DACs tend to have the best fidelity in the playback loop already. so the weak link principle seldom leads toward DACs.
...

Thank you for that information. I thought the DAC was first and most important element to make difference.

...
so I'd like to remind everybody that we're talking about making a subjectively good copy of some very imperfect speaker sound recorded with cheap couplers stuffed into our ears.
...

No, no, my question was not so wide and general. It starts after speakers measurement and virtualisation processing have been finished. It starts at the point where the virtualised digital headphone signal meets the choice - whether to take shorter and cheaper or longer and pricier way. In other words - can expensive DAC/amp lose their advantage over the cheap ones due to additional joints and cable(s).

Wouldn't you suspect that the same principle applies as when chaining any two pieces of gear together?
...

Thank you, but here we don't have a dilemma of that kind. It is not - whether to add this piece of gear, or to add that piece of gear. It is - whether not to add anything or to add something. Quite concretely - can expensive DAC/amp lose their advantage over the cheap ones due to additional joints and cable(s).

Since the default recommendation of a playback headphone is the HD 800, It's going to be incumbent on the user to match that component up with an amp powerful enough into that load to get the most out of the Realiser.

I think power is not the only concern. What about the possible degradation due to additional joints and cable(s) in the case of upgrade gear (compared to the built-in)? Furthermore, particularly speaking of HD 800, some say that the amplifier is also expected to correct some specific weaknesses of the headphones ...

 

[Got the Shakes]

After reading what you referenced I think that may be referencing a second order from the suppliers. I suspect, though with no proof, that they will ship all the orders paid by the end of June in Sept if it is in their power to do. It is curious that MDS still doesn't list a new repeater board. Ether we are at the very front of the line or they sourced one some where else. If they were selling new boards in quantity I would expect them to have them listed by now.

That was my hope as well. Ship to the first batch of preorders in September, ship to the 2nd batch in October or November.

 

[castleofargh]

Thank you, but sometimes you learn from people facts that make measurements and listening tests unimportant. For example, I was recently interested in buying external balanced headphone amp as an upgrade to the built-in unbalanced one. But, fortunately, one well known audio expert wrote an article with the explanation that the balanced headphone amps were in principle inferior to the unbalanced ones.


Thank you for that information. I thought the DAC was first and most important element to make difference.


No, no, my question was not so wide and general. It starts after speakers measurement and virtualisation processing have been finished. It starts at the point where the virtualised digital headphone signal meets the choice - whether to take shorter and cheaper or longer and pricier way. In other words - can expensive DAC/amp lose their advantage over the cheap ones due to additional joints and cable(s).


Thank you, but here we don't have a dilemma of that kind. It is not - whether to add this piece of gear, or to add that piece of gear. It is - whether not to add anything or to add something. Quite concretely - can expensive DAC/amp lose their advantage over the cheap ones due to additional joints and cable(s).


I think power is not the only concern. What about the possible degradation due to additional joints and cable(s) in the case of upgrade gear (compared to the built-in)? Furthermore, particularly speaking of HD 800, some say that the amplifier is also expected to correct some specific weaknesses of the headphones ...

it's not that balanced is good or bad, going balanced is very relevant to running 50meters of microphone cable at a live show. but the clear benefits for a headphone aren't that obvious IMO.
but anyway I don't like the balanced/unbalanced dichotomy. a good output is good, a bad one isn't. and that depends on the specific amplifier using a specific design. balanced or not is but a tiny aspect of making a good amplifier.
(would the audio expert be the Benchmark guy? ^_^)

a pretty significant aspect about DACs in the playback chain is that our standards make it easy for DACs. the analog output of a DAC is expected to reach several thousands of ohm at the amplifier, meaning the DAC never has to be concerned about delivering enough power. as long as voltage amplitude is fine, all is good. it's a blessing for DACs as that means they can use very low power signals, so little heat, little noise, little magnetic fields and thus little crosstalk... the DAC has all the cards and it's the amplifier's job to take that low power signal and "deal with it". to make things worst, the amplifier must be designed to serve a variety of headphones with a very wild spec's range. the DAC basically doesn't have to care about that, it's easy life for DACs.
as for the poor headphones and speakers, those guys are slaves, they have to deal with material flexibility, physical wear, resonator behaviors and all the bothers about kinetic energy that doesn't go away by turning off a switch, acoustic, electrical damping... at every turn, something will be far from ideal and the sound will pay for it, not the Mexicans.
that's why DACs come very low in my concern list. but they're still obviously a very vital part of the playback chain. it's really just a matter of perspective.


as for improvements, as I said, you absolutely can make incremental improvements pretty much anywhere as long as the improvement can reflect at high enough amplitudes as not to be buried below other stuff. for example, let's say I'm trying to improve signal down at -90dB with some new gear. just the noise in the room while calibrating the Realiser(or while listening) will vastly cover any audio signal at -90dB. so while there is a theoretical benefit, my sound doesn't really improve. that's why I have such a hard time not looking at the big picture. because without it I can't always say if what I do is relevant or not.
now because of how the Realiser works, some aspects of sound will be compensated digitally and that should include most of the linear variations created by our playback system at reasonable levels. after all it's trying to make us hear the sound of the speakers, not the sound of the headphone gears. so that process may very well diminish the impact of changing gears compared to more typical audio playback upgrades.




-------------------------------------------------
I've been thinking about how I could measure anything, as the Realiser will provide altered sound, we can't just run measurements in a loop. maybe using the in ear couplers to measure speakers, calibrate and then measure the output with the realiser while again recording the signal with the couplers in my ears but this time plugged into my ADC to get a "print' of both speakers and the headphone simulation. it wouldn't deliver usual measurements, but it should let me estimate if some gear or headphone comes closer to the original sound or not. right now it seems like a good idea, but I know all to well how everything always seems fine before we actually start implementing ^_^. time will tell.

 

[VandyMan]

Should we be factoring in the Realiser's filters when selecting headphone amps? For instance, when doing room correction for speakers, correcting a 3db dip requires double the power. I'm thinking that is not a concern with headphones, but I'm not certain.

 

[jgazal]

Should we be factoring in the Realiser's filters when selecting headphone amps? For instance, when doing room correction for speakers, correcting a 3db dip requires double the power. I'm thinking that is not a concern with headphones, but I'm not certain.

related:

Any kind of EQ can significantly modify the power requirements, but it also depends on how the EQ is distributed. If you look at the power distribution of music, the most "wattage" tends to be in the 60 to 500 Hz region, whereas the high frequencies take relatively little power. Also note that the power distribution of music also depends to some degree on what type of music you are listening to, although in general the power demands above 2-4 kHz are 5-20 dB lower, as pretty much all fundamental music frequencies are at or below 4 kHz, which is the highest that a piccolo or piano goes to. This is why tweeters in a speaker rated for 200 watts may only be rated a 1-2 watts and yet won't burn up. Now, bumping up the level by 3 dB, which is a relatively modest increase in volume, requires 2x the power. If you do this in the power region of music, say from 50 to 500 Hz, the overall power demand may double whereas if you do it at 10 kHz, where there is very little power used to begin with, the overall power demand may change very little. And of course, if the EQ drops a band by 3 dB over the entire 60-500 Hz region, you may need only half the power.

An example of this is the SR007 vs SR009. If you look at the specs, they are only about 1 dB apart in output at 1 kHz, however the 007 produces a few dB less sound in the 2-5 kHz region, which is the frequency range the ear tends to use to judge the overall loudness of the sound. So if you adjust them to sound subjectively the same loudness you have to crank up the volume a couple notches, which could represent 2-4x the power demand. This is likely why the SR-007 is considered much more power hungry than the 009 even though the specifications are very similar.

Without knowing what the exact EQ is, it's hard to know whether overall power demands would increase or decrease, or by how much, which could be why Dr. Smyth didn't comment on this. If you listen at levels that don't approach the limits, then an amplifier should be able to accommodate modest amounts of EQ, however if you listen at levels close to clipping, which apparently some do, then yeah, you'll probably get into trouble. Kevin Gilmore reports that one Head-Fier at a meet managed to clip a DIY T2 with its +/- 500volt power supply, which pleased the Head-Fier and scared everyone around him as it was clearly audible across the room - we are talking levels over 110 dB, about the same as a live rock concert, and close to the average human pain threshold. I'm not even going to go into how stupid this, just look at the number of older rockers who have significant hearing damage.

In terms of directivity, a more directive speaker with an anechoic flat frequency response on axis will have a rolled off power response in the room. For speakers in a box, low frequencies will be omnidirectional, while higher frequencies will be more directed forward, with the beam narrowing as the size of the driver approaches the wavelength of sound it is reproducing. A dipole will have a more uniform figure 8 directivity and therefore a more uniform power response in the bass to midrange, although again at higher frequencies it will become more directive - this is all basic stuff that you can read in any acoustics text. Not sure if you are asking something more specific than that.

 

[462429]

it's not that balanced is good or bad....

Right, but the 'Benchmark guy' compared it to the unbalanced and found balanced to be worse. And he certainly didn't give good signal to the one and bad signal to the other, or good phones to the one and bad ones to the other. He probably even used the same amp and only swapped I/O, And that is the credible kind of comparison - upstream and downstream elements must be the same which puts them out of the equation.

...the noise in the room while calibrating the Realiser(or while listening) will vastly cover...

Calibrating is an upstream process and it's influence affects both sides being compared, It is therefore out of the equation and doesn't affect the comparison (of two DACs or two amps...).

 

[Azurik]

Ok, had my measurements taken at the canjam and had a really good demo of movie and game clips.

I'm sold.

Even though I already fully paid off the a16 I was on the fence if I am going to keep the pre-order. After the demo, all doubts vanished

This thing is crazy good!!

You just can't tell you are wearing headphones. Once the video clip plays you still think it's coming out the speakers until you take them off and the actual speakers start playing. You put the headphones back on and the sound continues with no difference.

This is the first time I actually experienced the "out of head" sound and I heard a lot of virtual sound solutions from Dolby headphone, dts headphone x, Dolby atmos for headphones etc.
None of them are anywhere close to the a16.

Telling all directions including heights is so easy and natural it's unbelievable and not cramped in your head at all.

They use the Stax with an additional stax amp at the demo and I hope my HD800S will sound similar without and amp and according to Stephen it's not really needed but an option if required.

Stephen and James are brilliant and we're very helpful in answering questions.

Now it's just a matter of waiting.

 

[Got the Shakes]

Ok, had my measurements taken at the canjam and had a really good demo. I'm sold. Even though I already fully paid off the a16 I was on the fence if I actually like it.

This thing is crazy!!
You just can't tell you are wearing headphones. Once the video clip plays you still think it's coming out the speakers.

They use the Stax. I hope my HD800S will sound similar.

Stephen and James are brilliant.

Now it's just a matter of waiting.

They had been demoing it in the past with the HD800 so I'm sure you'll be happy with your HD800S.

 

[Sordel]

Important to remember when you hear these tests that you are listening to those speakers recorded in that room from that listening position. There's no cognitive dissonance to deal with in the way sound is bouncing in the digital model, so it's very likely that the demo is the most convincing that the Smyth Realiser will ever be in giving the out-of-the-head experience.

 

[Azurik]

Important to remember when you hear these tests that you are listening to those speakers recorded in that room from that listening position. There's no cognitive dissonance to deal with in the way sound is bouncing in the digital model, so it's very likely that the demo is the most convincing that the Smyth Realiser will ever be in giving the out-of-the-head experience.

True, but since I got all the measurements of the room, speakers etc at the time of the demo, I can apply the settings at home now

Also according to smyth, there will be a lot of room presets available and some are quite good like the Dolby theatre in Hollywood which he has managed to measure and is apparently supplied with the standard presets.

I assume the a16 will merge my prir with the presets and it's should sound close to actually being there.

 

[castleofargh]

I think what he meant is that you were seeing what you should hear, which is the very ideal situation where the brain merely tries to associate audio with the visual cues it trusts above all else. much easier to make that work than having to really create everything from sound while the visual cues tell another story. having head tracking is a big deal to make us feel like it's in the real world, but it's not the all story.
to take an extreme example, if your playback system doesn't have any output aside from the headphone(no speakers, no internal tweeters, nothing even plugged in), you will never wonder if the sound comes from speakers. because your brain knows you don't have speakers. that's the sort of basic brain tricks and preconceptions we're involved with. having speakers on my desk, and the fact that I can switch the output with keyboard shortcuts, this is enough to introduce doubt in my head and somehow I feel like my headphone experience(even with a crappy crossfeed) is better since the speakers are on the desk ^_^. I would expect that to be true(at least for me) with a multichannel system in the room while listening to the headphone. even a dead cheap system, just to have physical sound sources in directions I should expect to have some.

of course I'm not trying to diminish what the Realiser does, if the audio cues were badly simulated we would notice it.

 

[Azurik]

I think it hard to explain and it's one where "you have to hear it to believe it".

I think it's brillant having the headphones reproduce the exact same sound as the speakers.

the transition is instant and I couldn't hear much of a difference because as soon as you take off your cans, the speakers play and vise versa.

I would say (with my hearing) the sound was at least 95% the same.l when I took the cans off and the speakers took over.

Really impressed with it.

 

[Sordel]

I think what he meant is that you were seeing what you should hear, which is the very ideal situation where the brain merely tries to associate audio with the visual cues it trusts above all else. much easier to make that work than having to really create everything from sound while the visual cues tell another story.

Yes. When we're in a room we know what room we're in so when, for example, I put a good digital reverb on a guitar feed, I don't suddenly think I'm in a much larger room, I just think I put a good reverb on the guitar. We're used to our home environments, we know how sound bounces off the walls because we're used to the room and we know how the walls are angled. We never think that we're 'in' the room that was recorded, even when we're listening on headphones and the only audio cues come from the original recording environment. I listen to a lot of live recordings and I never felt I was there.

By contrast during the demo the room that is being modeled maps exactly onto the room we're in. It's a unique advantage that the demo gets. If you can take accurate measuerement of your home system well you can probably replicate it at home, but that supposes that the system that you want to hear on headphones through the Realiser is your domestic speaker setup ... certainly not true in my case.