castleofargh
Sound Science Forum Moderator
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2011
- Posts
- 10,446
- Likes
- 6,065
Great thread and great info thus far! I'm new to the whole audiophile world, but understand all that's being discussed with perceptions and placebo effect, as I work in neuroscience. That being said, I purchased my first set of audiophile cans a couple of weeks ago; Sennheiser HD800's, and I love them. I tested about maybe 8 or so different headphones and settled on these. I'm listening to my lossless files through an Apogee Duet, which I have used for years in a home recording studio environment.
I listened to a couple of other DACs at the high fi shop and noted that some DACs that are reported to be "warmer" or other adjectives I can't remember, are essentially doing exactly the same thing as my current DAC- This led me to believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that slight tweaks in my EQ can likely match what I heard with other DACs (we were playing music files in 16/44 and 24/96).
Regarding tube amps, I'm told that if my DAC can't properly drive my cans, then to consider a tube amp or amp in general. If my sound is lacking "body" or "depth" etc., I should also seek out an amp. Maybe those adjectives can't be addressed with EQ? I don't know. I'm new at this.
EQ is obviously the best approach to changing the signature. you'll find a lot of people even to this day with some idealistic (and erroneous) concept of not touching anything to get the "real sound" unaltered. not only do we have no headphone that is sure to be flat for you specifically, so EQ is usually the only mean to get closer to the "real sound", but a good deal of those very people are actually switching DACs and amps until they get the EQ they wished for(and possibly other sound changes). I'll be very careful with unicorn hunting and complicating our lives for the wrong reasons.
if we take the hd800 as a typical example, people buy it because it's impressive, 10seconds with one and that's clear. some also buy one because they read reviews and see that it's maybe the best dynamic driver headphone ever made. who wouldn't want that right? but then it's a very clear and IMO(but again we all have different hears) bright headphone. and while all those people are fine with the glory that comes with the name, they're not used to that sound. a high distortion warm tube amp could be the key to turn back the sound to something less objectively qualitative, but subjectively closer to what "feels" right/what we had before.
I've read some stuff suggesting that we make most of our audio personal taste based on what our parents liked, and what we heard as a teen. I wonder if this could also show some tendencies about the sound system of our parents/the one we heard most as a teen?
anyway EQ can't do everything, so it's just a matter of finding the right tool for the right job. but to do that we have to know more or less what we want and that can be one tricky question.
I decided not to do the amp and DAC waltz because I don't have the money and because it feels like waiting for luck to strike at my door with that one right combo I will love unconditionally. also I strongly believe that headphone listening of albums made on speakers is flawed in a way that can't be solved with basic DAC/amp behavior.
so instead I go with EQ and some convolution(for crossfeed and a very tiny tiny bit of reverb to "make" a room). I wasted a great deal of time on this so I can't even say it's faster than trying 20amps and 30 DACs for one headphone, but I do end up with a sound that I like very much. and as a bonus, a sound where panning doesn't end up vertically tilted like it is for me on most headphone systems for some messed up HRTF reasons). so I feel like I made the right choice, but it's easy to think that as it was my choice to get my sound following my ideas^_^. all I' really doing is agreeing with myself. I know for a fact that the sound I'm getting doesn't work on most people the way it does on me, because you need my messed up body(or close enough) for the final tuning.
as you can guess, GuyUnder is a typical case of audiophile who doesn't see a frontier between his subjective opinion and objective reality. if he likes something, it must also be better for you, after all you're in his world. I'd look at his posts for personal opinion, but not so much for factual data(but that's just my opinion ^_^).
about the better amp in general, of course there are amps better than the O2, amps that sound subjectively more enjoyable to the user, and also amps that simply measure better or do more things, have more inputs/outputs... now looking inside the box to evaluate the quality of the sound, that's one messed up idea if you're not an electrical engineer. BTW often the doubling of components achieves a little less crosstalk(almost always inaudible anyway) and about 3db of dynamic. economically it's not the cheapest approach.