[Erick Muller]

None at all. There would only be an inherent problem if you then described that NOS DAC as high fidelity (or even mediocre fidelity) or as high (or good) quality with some implied reference to fidelity, because that would be an incorrect/false assertion. Unfortunately, we quite commonly see that sort of false assertion, which is a problem.

G

And I'm not making that claim either because I lack the technical expertise to make that assertion, so I would be speaking out of my ass, but I do know that when I'm doing upsampling to DSD in HQP and playing around with different filters and modulators, in the case of my DT880's 600ohm, listening to certain songs like Luis Miguel's Mañana de Carnaval, when I was listening just straight out of Tidal, the sibilance was so excessive that it make that song unlistanable for me, I first try EQ'ing my HP to try to solve this issue, no success(at least not without compromising other aspects of the sound that I was not willing to make), I do the upsampling and now I'm not cringing when Luis Miguel is about to sing a hard S word in spanish and I'm actually starting to enjoy my DT880s, something that was not happening before.

Is this higher fidelity and true to the sorce?, probably not. Does it make me enjoy more my music and my headphones? absolutely!, Does these findings make me care more about listening as high a fidelity and as true to source as possible with my music? Nope. Do audio manufactures should be more open and transparent of what actually the equipment that they're selling actually can and cannot do? Yes and more so because what they're selling is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination and the audiophile world is rightly lampoon by other people because of the ridiculous prices for what really just are glorified external sound cards.

 

[gregorio]

And I'm not making that claim …

Then that’s fine and there is no problem, there’s only a problem when false claims are made. There are some things I find very strange and *could* be problematic though. For example, it seems you have spent some significant amount on a Non-OverSampling (NOS), filterless DAC and then spent more money on software to apply a filter and oversampling, which seems to defeat the whole point of buying a NOS DAC in the first place. That seems a bit bizarre to me, why not just buy a standard oversampling DAC to start with, there’s less chance of errors, it would cost less and the end result would effectively be the same? That’s a rhetorical question though, because regardless of whether I think it’s a bit bonkers, it’s entirely up to you how you choose to spend your money. So I don’t really have a problem with it unless you make unsubstantiated claims about the sound/fidelity or advising it as course of action to others.

G

 

[Erick Muller]

Then that’s fine and there is no problem, there’s only a problem when false claims are made. There are some things I find very strange and *could* be problematic though. For example, it seems you have spent some significant amount on a Non-OverSampling (NOS), filterless DAC and then spent more money on software to apply a filter and oversampling, which seems to defeat the whole point of buying a NOS DAC in the first place. That seems a bit bizarre to me, why not just buy a standard oversampling DAC to start with, there’s less chance of errors, it would cost less and the end result would effectively be the same? That’s a rhetorical question though, because regardless of whether I think it’s a bit bonkers, it’s entirely up to you how you choose to spend your money. So I don’t really have a problem with it unless you make unsubstantiated claims about the sound/fidelity or advising it as course of action to others.

G

I've been looking to a bunch of DACs lately, tbh I'm really happy with my DAC right now and I get to play around with different settings and all of that, and given some offerings cost north of $500 usd, my $200 usd DAC with a $300 usd software seems reasonable(of course when we put ourselves in the audiophile world), specially compare to higher end offerings and the software carries on to other DACs if I ever do upgrade.

 

[bigshot]

I don't see a point to playing with settings on a DAC. A DAC should produce a signal that conforms to digital spec. If you monkey with it, your DAC will sound different than every other source you have and you'll be forced to monkey with settings for every different source. That's chaos.

The way to apply coloration is to maintain optimal audible fidelity throughout the source and amplification stages and apply signal processing as a last setting before the amplified signal goes out to the transducers. That way you can arrive at a response curve or distortion characteristic or dynamic range that you prefer, and it will be the same, no matter whether you plug a DAC, a DAP, a phone or a player into it. Save money on players, DACs and amps and spend it on a good DSP system.

It's very easy to achieve optimal audible fidelity with a DAC. Just buy a DAC with oversampling and use the stock built in filter. It will produce audibly transparent sound. It's equally easy to achieve optimal audible fidelity with an amp. You just match impedance and power with your transducers. Audiophiles think that breaking equipment up into the maximum number of black boxes with the maximum number of buttons and switches connected by the maximum number of thick wires is the way to get great sound. It isn't. All that complication just creates opportunities for error to creep in. It can also make your system user unfriendly.

Keep it clean and simple.

 

[Erick Muller]

I don't see a point to playing with settings on a DAC. A DAC should produce a signal that conforms to digital spec. If you monkey with it, your DAC will sound different than every other source you have and you'll be forced to monkey with settings for every different source. That's chaos.

The way to apply coloration is to maintain optimal audible fidelity throughout the source and amplification stages and apply signal processing as a last setting before the amplified signal goes out to the transducers. That way you can arrive at a response curve or distortion characteristic or dynamic range that you prefer, and it will be the same, no matter whether you plug a DAC, a DAP, a phone or a player into it. Save money on players, DACs and amps and spend it on a good DSP system.

It's very easy to achieve optimal audible fidelity with a DAC. Just buy a DAC with oversampling and use the stock built in filter. It will produce audibly transparent sound. It's equally easy to achieve optimal audible fidelity with an amp. You just match impedance and power with your transducers. Audiophiles think that breaking equipment up into the maximum number of black boxes with the maximum number of buttons and switches connected by the maximum number of thick wires is the way to get great sound. It isn't. All that complication just creates opportunities for error to creep in. It can also make your system user unfriendly.

Keep it clean and simple.

I'm fine with chaos, it's my second name actually.

But on a more serious note, I'm not a reviewer, I don't test equipment and I only have my current stack, my other stuff is on storage and I'm not planning in doing side-by-side comparisons, if it sounds better to me, then it sounds better and no much point in doing comparisons, so fiddling around with settings is not an issue for me. And again, I don't care about absolute fidelity and being true to source if it sounds worse to my ears.

 

[KinGensai]

@Erick Muller
DT880s are notorious for having poorly controlled treble (the beyer house sound or whatever), if you couldn't fix that with EQ it's probably due to not targeting the 8.4k region precisely enough to tame that mountain range.

Not a big fan of beyer's previous gen lineup because of that, I really like the DT1990 in comparison because they refined the tuning significantly. Still has that diffuse field treble spike though.

 

[Erick Muller]

@Erick Muller
DT880s are notorious for having poorly controlled treble (the beyer house sound or whatever), if you couldn't fix that with EQ it's probably due to not targeting the 8.4k region precisely enough to tame that mountain range.


Not a big fan of beyer's previous gen lineup because of that, I really like the DT1990 in comparison because they refined the tuning significantly. Still has that diffuse field treble spike though.

I have a modded version by Custom Cans that adds lead weights to the back of the driver so in theory and according to CC, it mainly helps with bass extension on this cans but also apparently also helps a bit controlling the mad treble on them.

Anyways, I'm kind of digging them right now with the all the fiddling around but I also to an extend bought this cans because of their infamous reputation and it helps to test my gear to certain limits, how well my amp can handle this high impedance, hard to drive and kind of picky cans when it comes to your source chain, but now and if you look at the headphones I have in my collection, they pretty much deviate significantly when it comes to their sound signature and they're also helping me train myself to enjoy treble and bright/sparkly cans and extend my pallet to other things.

And thank you for sharing that graph, also wondering if there's also a impedance response graph for this cans? because nominally these are 600ohm but it would be nice to see how the impedance response curve changes, if at all, in both the treble and bass regions.

 

[KinGensai]

I have a modded version by Custom Cans that adds lead weights to the back of the driver so in theory and according to CC, it mainly helps with bass extension on this cans but also apparently also helps a bit controlling the mad treble on them.

Anyways, I'm kind of digging them right now with the all the fiddling around but I also to an extend bought this cans because of their infamous reputation and it helps to test my gear to certain limits, how well my amp can handle this high impedance, hard to drive and kind of picky cans when it comes to your source chain, but now and if you look at the headphones I have in my collection, they pretty much deviate significantly when it comes to their sound signature and they're also helping me train myself to enjoy treble and bright/sparkly cans and extend my pallet to other things.

And thank you for sharing that graph, also wondering if there's also a impedance response graph for this cans? because nominally these are 600ohm but it would be nice to see how the impedance response curve changes, if at all, in both the treble and bass regions.

Updated the previous post with impedance. Picky makes sense looking at that impedance curve.

 

[Erick Muller]

Updated the previous post with impedance. Picky makes sense looking at that impedance curve.

Jesus Christ!!!, 725ohm for the sub-bass region, no wonder why they're so hard to drive them properly!!!

 

[KinGensai]

Jesus Christ!!!, 725ohm for the sub-bass region, no wonder why they're so hard to drive them properly!!!

Lol.

IMO, the 1990 is beyer's home run. T1 didn't hit well for me because beyer seemed like they were still figuring out how to tune the Tesla driver without pulling the knives out in treble. Amiron is better but too mid-bassy.

source:diyaudioheaven

This apparently tames the treble region passively, you can achieve the same effect with a PEQ, but if you want to, you can build/order a passive filter like this.

 

[bigshot]

I’m really not even talking about science here. I’m taking about effectiveness and convenience.

The science is alrrady worked out by people who made the effort to conduct controlled tests. The truth is out there. Yet people argue with it and favor their ill informed guesses over established facts.

Random actions bring random results. If it doesn’t need to be an expensive tangled mess, what is spurring you on to make it that? I can understand not wanting to go to the trouble of doing tests yourself, but resorting to random impressions and snake oil isn’t the alternative to that. All the info you need to come up with a great sounding, inexpensive, user friendly system is a small amount of research with legitimate sources. The tests have all been done. It’s easy. But if you ask all the wrong questions of all the wrong people, you’ll get all the wrong answers.

Why would anyone be so determined to make things hard on themselves?

The only answer I can come up with to answer that question is that home audio has very little to do with sound for some people. It’s equipment fetishism. Busy boxes plugged together like tinker toys. It’s ego gratification. Conspicuous consumption to impress the neighbors when the stop by for a backyard bbq.

I’m not saying this to be insulting. If this makes you happy, that’s cool. But if that’s why you’re in the hobby, why would you come into a group titled Sound Science and argue points that have absolutely nothing to do with science? Especially if you don’t have any interest in science or motivation to explore it?

It makes no sense to me.

 

[Erick Muller]

I’m really not even talking about science here. I’m taking about effectiveness and convenience.

The science is alrrady worked out by people who made the effort to conduct controlled tests. The truth is out there. Yet people argue with it and favor their ill informed guesses over established facts.

Random actions bring random results. If it doesn’t need to be an expensive tangled mess, what is spurring you on to make it that? I can understand not wanting to go to the trouble of doing tests yourself, but resorting to random impressions and snake oil isn’t the alternative to that. All the info you need to come up with a great sounding, inexpensive, user friendly system is a small amount of research with legitimate sources. The tests have all been done. It’s easy. But if you ask all the wrong questions of all the wrong people, you’ll get all the wrong answers.

Why would anyone be so determined to make things hard on themselves?

The only answer I can come up with to answer that question is that home audio has very little to do with sound for some people. It’s equipment fetishism. Busy boxes plugged together like tinker toys. It’s ego gratification. Conspicuous consumption to impress the neighbors when the stop by for a backyard bbq.

I’m not saying this to be insulting. If this makes you happy, that’s cool. But if that’s why you’re in the hobby, why would you come into a group titled Sound Science and argue points that have absolutely nothing to do with science? Especially if you don’t have any interest in science or motivation to explore it?

It makes no sense to me.

I'm a simple guy.

I check-marked a few check boxes and if they make music sound better, then it's good enough for me, I don't need to make a doctoral dissertation to convince myself or to justify to others that I enjoy this better.

 

[bigshot]

The answer already is simple. You’re making it complicated. Just about every DAC produces perfect sound, yet you went out and bought one that doesn’t produce a full range of frequencies. Then you connected another expensive box to restore those frequencies and make it exactly like every other decent DAC on the market, including an $8 Apple dongle! Gregorio asked why you did that too. It makes no sense. Your foot is full of bullet holes.

 

[KinGensai]

I’m really not even talking about science here. I’m taking about effectiveness and convenience.

The science is alrrady worked out by people who made the effort to conduct controlled tests. The truth is out there. Yet people argue with it and favor their ill informed guesses over established facts.

Random actions bring random results. If it doesn’t need to be an expensive tangled mess, what is spurring you on to make it that? I can understand not wanting to go to the trouble of doing tests yourself, but resorting to random impressions and snake oil isn’t the alternative to that. All the info you need to come up with a great sounding, inexpensive, user friendly system is a small amount of research with legitimate sources. The tests have all been done. It’s easy. But if you ask all the wrong questions of all the wrong people, you’ll get all the wrong answers.

Why would anyone be so determined to make things hard on themselves?

The only answer I can come up with to answer that question is that home audio has very little to do with sound for some people. It’s equipment fetishism. Busy boxes plugged together like tinker toys. It’s ego gratification. Conspicuous consumption to impress the neighbors when the stop by for a backyard bbq.

I’m not saying this to be insulting. If this makes you happy, that’s cool. But if that’s why you’re in the hobby, why would you come into a group titled Sound Science and argue points that have absolutely nothing to do with science? Especially if you don’t have any interest in science or motivation to explore it?

It makes no sense to me.

You are making an assumption about motive here that is not in evidence. Yours is clear enough, help people get hi-fi sound without selling a liver or whatever, and that's respectable, but when you approach the topic like this, it engages psychological reactance and oppositional defiance, so you actively set the stage for conflict that didn't need to be there.

I'm a simple guy.

I check-out a few check boxes and if they make music sound better, then it's good enough for me, I don't need to make a doctoral dissertation to convince myself or to justify to others that I enjoy this better.

All they are trying to do is help you understand what's actually happening to try to save you money and time. You don't have to listen if you don't want to, but you did jump into a conversation fundamentally about hardware efficiency with what I'd consider to be a provocateuring post in tone.

It's very easy as humans to zone in on particulars and lose sight of the bigger picture, and what you are doing seems characteristic of that to me. You have invested some of your identity into the process you use, so you are treating bigshot and gregorio as if they are demanding you justify your existence rather than just the methodology you use to achieve a particular end. The bigger picture here is that you may be forgetting to check what all your modding to a NOS DAC has done that a standard DAC and some PEQ work can't do.

If you are actually happy with your setup as opposed to defending it's honor against an attack, that's fine, it's your property and enjoyment thereof.

 

[bigshot]

Can you offer a better reason why someone would choose something that doesn’t sound better and then jury rig it to sound just like everything else? Obviously the goal isn’t sound quality, although it ended up there in a convoluted way. The only thing I can think of is to want things to be unnecessarily complicated. I see the same thing here at head fi when people post photos of portable rigs that are anything but portable because it’s a daisy chain of components like a Rube Goldberg contraption. Am I missing something? What is your guess about it?