[MrOutside]

There is no universal hi-end, only what sounds good to you and what doesnt.

 

[Bullseye]

The posts from above are totally subjective. I believe they differ a lot from what the OP was asking. You are giving opinions about your experience with different systems, currawong, and they will always have that bias and placebo presence of comparing one thing that costs more than other thing...

You don't need to try something if it has been measured and tested. As an example of different amps you have the AMB builds with the technical specs. Some are so below the human threshold it is just going to the extreme. You don't need to listen to the amp as you know how it is going to perform.

 

[haloxt]

You guys dissing expensive gear sound like people who have been traumatized by overpriced bad quality audio equipment. Or if you're bullseye you have blind faith in random numbers. I haven't been "disillusioned" by any of my audio purchases, so perhaps you guys were not as lucky as me in choosing products because in contrast to what I've experienced what you guys are saying is high blasphemy. Sorry for advertising, but those of you who think there's no difference between dacs/amps etc, or not enough difference to justify the money, I suggest you keep tabs on http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/aud...ne-amp-417553/ where in the next several weeks there will be many people's opinion of whether this amp was worth $1000 (almost $1170 after shipping+paypal fees).

 

[Oedipus Rex]

In the name of Science I decided to make a wild plunge, a dive, a full blown no barrells hold High G Barrel Roll and bought myself some serious tweaks to play with: first of all, as I needed new pair or RCA connects for my old cd-player anyway, I though "what the heck, lets go crazy" and bought myself my first set of audiophile interconnects. I mean, listen to them specs: Low Loss LDPE dielectric, 99.99% Oxygen free copper, 24k Gold plated connector. Cost me all of 10 euros, which to me is outrageous prize for interconnects, but then again, my headphone stand for the earspeakers costs 100 euros, so I suppose everything is relative.

I also spotted a nifty looking little device that combines surge protection and radio frequency interference filter with attenuation of 50 dB. If I know anything about physics, then this thing should have 1000 times more effect on the actual AC signal than a shiny 18500 pound Odin power cord that is just plugged to the wall. So, I think it is save to say that this little box is worth atleast 18 500 000 british pounds of pure audiophilia. And it cost me only 20 euros, and will protect my whole rig from lightning storms and disturbed neighbors who just can't take the wagner anymore and shortcircuit the local power lines with their own bodies.

I have a set aside a stack of records ranging from classical to jazz to rock to electronic music and will do some listening with open mind.

Here are the tweaks:
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/516/sth70001.jpg

 

[Bullseye]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oedipus Rex /img/forum/go_quote.gif In the name of Science I decided to make a wild plunge, a dive, a full blown no barrells hold High G Barrel Roll and bought myself some serious tweaks to play with: first of all, as I needed new pair or RCA connects for my old cd-player anyway, I though "what the heck, lets go crazy" and bought myself my first set of audiophile interconnects. I mean, listen to them specs: Low Loss LDPE dielectric, 99.99% Oxygen free copper, 24k Gold plated connector. Cost me all of 10 euros, which to me is outrageous prize for interconnects, but then again, my headphone stand for the earspeakers costs 100 euros, so I suppose everything is relative. I also spotted a nifty looking little device that combines surge protection and radio frequency interference filter with attenuation of 50 dB. If I know anything about physics, then this thing should have 1000 times more effect on the actual AC signal than a shiny 18500 pound Odin power cord that is just plugged to the wall. So, I think it is save to say that this little box is worth atleast 18 500 000 british pounds of pure audiophilia. And it cost me only 20 euros, and will protect my whole rig from lightning storms and disturbed neighbors who just can't take the wagner anymore and shortcircuit the local power lines with their own bodies. I have a set aside a stack of records ranging from classical to jazz to rock to electronic music and will do some listening with open mind. Here are the tweaks: http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/516/sth70001.jpg

You are freaking INSANE!!! You should go to jail for that!

Well at least you can feel happy of resale, in case the sonic qualities are not in direct relation with your music tastes...

 

[Pio2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif I haven't been "disillusioned" by any of my audio purchases, so perhaps you guys were not as lucky as me in choosing products because in contrast to what I've experienced what you guys are saying is high blasphemy.

Did you try to ABX some of them ? If not, our experience differ, obviously.

I also heard such obvious differences between cables that doubting them would have been indeed blasphemy. Now they are gone. I can hear the problems of the bad cable in both, if I want, and the qualities of the good cable in both too.

I've also been told several times that I just had to listen to this or that and I will never say that "things sound the same".
I've heard so many times people saying wonders about their equipment while I would just hear nothing interesting that I was rather reluctant to try.
But one day, I borrowed the CD drive with which it was "impossible not to hear the improvement". I listened carefully to many aspects of the sound... Nothing. Not the slightest difference with my player used as a drive.
The listening system was good enough, according to the owner of the drive. He was puzzled but just supposed that my CD player had a good drive.

I also have read or seen too much experiments in which people believe that something is changed while they listen to exactly the same thing.
From the "don't tell me you can't hear the difference" of the visitor of John Dunlavy, who was only acting as if he was changing cables, to the "much much better" of several listeners in Kiang's power cord test, who were comparing the same cable to itself, with the one that found Serinus' power cable test "too easy" because the power cord did change the playback level... and who mistook completely the cable identification.

 

[Oedipus Rex]

Oh, one more bit of trivia. I happen to be a researcher studying psychophysiology (signals such as EEG, EMG, EDA, ECG etc) with very precise instruments that cost ridiculous amounts. I have even been to a lab that is an actual faraday cage, the whole room I mean, to prevent unwanted interferences, but surprise surprise, the actual wires are nothing extravagant (no cryogenically tampered usb-cords etc)

 

[sanderx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinesekiwi /img/forum/go_quote.gif mmm...makes me think... If there was a way to have PCI and PCI-E x1 slots in a separate enclosure away from the other parts of the computer, this will have a severe impact on the lower-end DAC market.

There is a way and its part of the PCI-e standard. Midrange / higher end server hardware does support separate i/o enclosures too, so its not just theoretical support either. However, it costs considerably more than just about any standalone DAC. It is also fairly unlikely it will make it into any desktop chipsets in the next 5 years. If for nothing else then because it requires all parties to implement the spec right and pc expansion has been lately going in other ways (usb3 etc).

For audio, spdif and hdmi already cover it all with niches fairly well taken care of by usb for entry level and aes/ebu & firewire for professional.

 

[sanderx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif You guys dissing expensive gear sound like people who have been traumatized by overpriced bad quality audio equipment. Or if you're bullseye you have blind faith in random numbers. I haven't been "disillusioned" by any of my audio purchases, so perhaps you guys were not as lucky as me in choosing products because in contrast to what I've experienced what you guys are saying is high blasphemy. Sorry for advertising, but those of you who think there's no difference between dacs/amps etc, or not enough difference to justify the money, I suggest you keep tabs on http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/aud...ne-amp-417553/ where in the next several weeks there will be many people's opinion of whether this amp was worth $1000 (almost $1170 after shipping+paypal fees).

High blasphemy? The subforum is called sound science, not sound faith. There is a difference, you know Can't burn people at the stake here for just trusting numbers.

 

[haloxt]

Sound science forum? I was seriously under the impression that it was the sound stupid forum. I'll leave you guys to your "science" then and enjoy my placebo.

 

[Bullseye]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sound science forum? I was seriously under the impression that it was the sound stupid forum. I'll leave you guys to your "science" then and enjoy my placebo.

Well, we only call it like that when people like you come here to share your experience and knowledge

with us. It is just that stupidity is contagious....

By the way, excellent argument!
Hope you enjoy your placebo. I will be enjoying my music much more, as my wallet doesn't hurt so much

, and the sound quality will be the same...

No hard feelings

 

[Currawong]

I wonder what it is about people that they feel they need to drag a manufacturer's gear into an argument about something unrelated. If you couldn't hear a difference between 192k mp3 and flac, then expensive gear would be useless wouldn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullseye /img/forum/go_quote.gif The posts from above are totally subjective. I believe they differ a lot from what the OP was asking. You are giving opinions about your experience with different systems, currawong, and they will always have that bias and placebo presence of comparing one thing that costs more than other thing... You don't need to try something if it has been measured and tested. As an example of different amps you have the AMB builds with the technical specs. Some are so below the human threshold it is just going to the extreme. You don't need to listen to the amp as you know how it is going to perform.

On the contrary, your belief in measurements only is a bias. As I stated previously in example, the ability of a piece of gear to perfectly re-produce a sine wave doesn't mean it can perfectly re-produce the complex signal from an audio device. Most importantly, science cannot measure enjoyment. Though there have been measurements done to find out what is particularly special about things that people enjoy, there are people who don't enjoy the same things. If you want to live your life by measurements, then do so, but the only thing you're doing is projecting your beliefs on other people and the world around you and rejecting what you don't like.

The op asked if there would be any difference between components. I answered that, using a real-world example. Your answer appears to be "No, they all measure close to the same".

I think a major problem is that what science considers inaudible is not. IMO, it's a problem with science that tends towards an attitude of "If we can't measure it, then it doesn't exist". A newborn baby considers anything it can't see to not exist. Worth pondering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oedipus Rex /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh, one more bit of trivia. I happen to be a researcher studying psychophysiology (signals such as EEG, EMG, EDA, ECG etc) with very precise instruments that cost ridiculous amounts. I have even been to a lab that is an actual faraday cage, the whole room I mean, to prevent unwanted interferences, but surprise surprise, the actual wires are nothing extravagant (no cryogenically tampered usb-cords etc)

Scientific equipment has to meet performance standards measured by science, so this isn't surprising. It also has to perform consistently when making measurements.

 

[haloxt]

I was joking about not being able to hear a difference between 192 and flac. And I'm not dragging audio-gd's name anywhere, just saying that if people in this thread don't think there's a difference or good price/performance in hi-fi amps they should follow the Phoenix thread to see what people think of higher quality amps vs. low quality. And just to make it perfectly clear, I was joking about an mp3 player sounding the same as other dacs/amps hehe.

 

[John Buchanan]

..

 

[wavoman]

We want gear that sounds better to us in our home listening rooms.

If I bring "A" home and I listen to it and I say it sounds better than "B", then it sounds better than "B" (tautology).

So I buy "A" and replace "B" and indeed I now believe I have better sound, so in fact I do have better sound since what I think when I listen is all that matters.

I do not care if I would have failed an A/B/X test. That has no bearing on this issue whatsoever. I do not care if you sneak in to my house, re-install "B" but make it look like "A" by faking the chassis, and I never realize it (maybe there is absolutely no difference in reality) -- I remain happy. I have better sound, in the sense that I think I have better sound -- my music sounds better to me. That is all that matters.

It really does sound better.

Had I not switched "A" for "B" the sound would not have improved -- for me. If I need to spend a lot of money to make myself think it sounds better, so be it. I am happier when the music "sounds better".

Placebo treatments cure people.

Set a budget. Stay within it. Never buy anything without serious time to audition (that is what Head-Fi meets are about). Buy used or at discount when you can. Then make the music sound better to your ears, in your home, buying whatever sounds better to you, and the hell with A/B/X for this purpose.

Having said that, I love blind testing for uncovering various truths about populations and their sensory perceptions -- has nothing to do with my buying my rig (although it might tip me not to bother auditioning certain cables, but I probably would anyway since it is fun).