Another follow-up after many more years – the Cyberlink Audio Decoder might just be the only way to get the Dolby Virtual Speaker (DVS) software solution that works on any 2.0 systems, rather than only Dolby licensed ones which may be expensive/not very good. Turns out that PowerDVD Ultra...

Your avatar is really cute and furry though... :） Sometimes a hobby needs no external justification. I’m sure everyone here knows that.

Thanks. Imo, the problem often is that we believe our hearing reliably reveals objective differences that will persist over time and across different individuals. The content of the assertions are less interesting to me for the purpose of this thread compared to the nature of the claim itself...

Love it! This is really educational - explains an apparent mystery from multiple angles with reasonable arguments. Definitely something I can believe. I have no expertise in the law but it's wonderful to see the complexity in these issues :)

Wow that's a great analysis. Took a quick look around and it seems you're right. I guess the burden is on education then, if one thinks that there is a problem...

Isn’t this sound science forum? Anyway, I figured maybe part of the reason FTC isn’t on to high-manufacturers is that they’ve already given up on the industry. Why outlaw cables when people enjoy buying them just for their own sake without regard to perceptible performance. Most people can’t...

Cable ABX is rather easy to perform, especially for a manufacturer. Is it really too much to ask them to prove that it's at least different from standard cable? If humans can't tell the difference objectively, that's important product information.

Seems quite similar to selling a placebo and claiming miraculous effects. Why haven't we made it illegal? Edit: Especially with cables/DAC/Amp. Rejecting the null hypothesis seems quite important. Headphones are pretty easy to tell apart, and it's understandable that manufacturers can only do...

Thank you for the note. But before I leave you should know that what you're proposing is not only unscientific, but perhaps anti-scientific. We can't prove a negative with science, but the lack of a substantial positive claim in this case makes any investment pretty pointless imo.

Has anyone passed an ABX blind test to suggest that there's an audible difference? Or is it just 500 pages of pure imagination... Heck we might as well just go ahead and channel the efforts to training our imagination. Bet we'd get a larger reported effect, and save a lot of money.

I see what you mean by “full”, sorry you can see I’m not the most familiar with this type of discussion. I agree that HD800 even well tuned (largely preserving the original FR, short of the drastic Harman curve EQ), can still be brighter than what we normally hear in some music. Maybe HD820 is...

R2R dac working well here. From AB tests it's less harsh than my laptop output. Also more power etc. You can probably do better than iPod for HD800.

I use the HD800 and it actually sounds "fuller" and "have more presence" than some live classical concerts. What's your frame of reference?

I believe that there is no audible difference. But you might want to ABX to convince yourself of this (or disprove it). It was eye-opening for me Edit: this should be one of the easiest ABX tests to conduct. Foobar works very well for it

using r2r dac works very well. I doubt it makes that much of a difference though. Maybe start experimenting with EQ if you have a decent dac/amp

Been playing around with EQ for a few months. We need to start talking about the individual unit FR and any EQ applied. IMO it's much more important than DAC/AMP differences, not that DAC/AMPs don't matter. I'm not considering tube amps though...

I don't know if HD650 "smooths out" background noise any more than HD800 (don't know if that's theoretically possible either....). For overly compressed modern music they do tend to sound good, not sure why. HD800 does not sound good on those. I was skeptical whether it's really the record's...

HD800 >> HD650 >> Bose The jump from HD650 to HD800 is huge (with an R2R dac, if that's relevant). I didn't know there was so much room for improvement in graininess and harshness in HD650. Vocal also sounds a lot more real/focused. A must try.

Have you tried HD800 with some EQ? Much more effective and reasonable than finding "amp synergy" imo if it's practical feasible for you. I'm a bit unsure how neutral HD800 is. After adjusting FR back and forth taking into account the measured response, HD800 is great for music but still sounds a...

I've heard very expensive sony+campfire and other iem's. But sounded much too cluttered/murky compared to HD650/HD800. Not sure if it's personal preference or the objective performance of gear

Bach/Busoni chaconne piano transcription, have been enjoying the discovery

HD800 is actually very good with old classical recordings, contrary to what people say, much better than HD650 on the same r2r dac. Too much detail lost in noise for HD650; instrument details are much more distinctive with HD800, with noise in a background layer. For actually poorly mastered...

After having installed a new pair of ear pads last month and another pair just now, I have a couple of thoughts to add to the discussion: (1) Press on the plastic edge of the ear pads instead of directly on the ear pads. Videos might show people pressing directly on top but it only works well...