[KinGensai]

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. Am I missing something? What is your guess about it?

Well, I can only speculate because I don't know the person.

I'd venture that he started out by buying on recommendations from subjective reviewer types and ended up figuring out the hard way that this audio stuff is not universally fitting. So instead of learning the whys, he set out to solve the problem by building on what he already bought instead, ending up in a bundle of electronics that gets to the solution by uninformed trial and error.

It happens all the time in gun culture. I took the same approach building my first AR as I did with IEMs, so I ended up with a build that's functional (optics set at 1.93in rise, light enough to maneuver quick, MPBR with m855 out to 300yds, reliable, etc) the first time. I see examples all the time of people who bought a rifle cause it was reviewed well, but go with fads and end up slapping on a bunch of stuff, lugging around a 12lb gun with poorly tuned internals and complaining about it not matching what people said online.

 

[Erick Muller]

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?

How do you know it doesn't sound better to my ears?

If convenience was a big factor in my enjoyment of music, I would have go along with the times and gotten a pair of BT HP or ear-buds and keep my subscription to spotify and call it a day.

 

[Erick Muller]

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.

I appreciate the sentiment, tbh it is a good instinct and probably a lot more audiophiles should be more discerning when it comes to buying into equipment that at best, only represents a very marginal improvement to the sound quality for thousands of dollars more money, something that I try to do myself to.

 

[bigshot]

.I'd venture that he started out by buying on recommendations from subjective reviewer types and ended up figuring out the hard way that this audio stuff is not universally fitting. So instead of learning the whys, he set out to solve the problem by building on what he already bought instead, ending up in a bundle of electronics that gets to the solution by uninformed trial and error.

That’s a possibility I didn’t consider. I knew an old time Hollywood guy who bought a house in the valley when he just started out. It was a small house but a good sized lot. As his fortunes rose, he would add on to the house a room or two at a time. He’d neglect to put in hallways, and he had no overall plan; so he ended up having to walk through bedrooms to get to the kitchen and walk all the way to the back of the house then back up to the front a different way to access rooms that were inaccessible from the front door. I can totally see building a crazy stereo that way. The irony is he spent more money jury rigging his NOS DAC than it would have cost to buy five competent ones.

It helps to do a little research and come up with a game plan before you pull out the credit card, so you know what you’re buying is going to play nice with the other things you buy.

 

[bigshot]

How do you know it doesn't sound better to my ears?

I’m sure it sounds better jury rigged than straight out of the NOS DAC, because by the time you connect a black box with oversampling and filtering to your NOS DAC, it’s doing the same thing as a $100 nice DAC from Amazon that sounds good.

 

[KinGensai]

I’m sure it sounds better jury rigged than straight out of the NOS DAC, because by the time you connect a black box with oversampling and filtering to your NOS DAC, it’s doing the same thing as a $100 nice DAC from Amazon that sounds good.

What I'm confused by is the DAC. Is the SU-8S actually a NOS DAC? From what I can see of it's measurements it's a perfectly normal DAC with selectable filters. Unless he's talking about another DAC I guess.

I guess he's using a software oversampler? I don't see one in his chain.

 

[bigshot]

I’m going by what was said. I don’t know model numbers.

 

[gregorio]

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!!!

The DT880’s are not picky, nor do they have a notoriously poor treble and they’re not at all hard to drive properly! Unfortunately, you appear to have fallen into another audiophile trap here.

These HPs are designed for studio use, not for consumer use. Historically, studios evolved from the technology and standards developed by the telecoms industry, the standard for impedance was 600 Ohms and modern pro audio equipment still commonly supports that standard. So baring in mind what they’re designed for, they’re easy to drive with most studio equipment but they’re not going to be easy to drive for phone dongles and many of the wimpy audiophile HP amps. Secondly, the specific purpose of these studio HPs is to facilitate the creation of good mixes/masters. So they are not designed to sound good/pleasing, they’re designed to allow engineers to analyse, to identify issues and fine details, etc. A slightly overhyped treble and flat or slightly reduced low bass facilitates that requirement for many engineers (when using HPs), as long as the bass is otherwise clean and accurate. This is not the case for consumer enjoyment which to an extent is the opposite, a overhyped but not necessarily an especially clean bass. I’ve used DT880’s a number of times, they’re quite popular in studios because they fulfil the role well, compare equally well with their competitors in that market segment and are attractively priced.

It appears to me that you are making the job as difficult as you possibly can. You use a NOS DAC and then oversample and filter it, then use studio mixing headphones which do pretty much the opposite of the sound signature you want/like. It’s like you’ve gone out and purchased a high quality off-road vehicle, then attempted to lower/modify it‘s suspension, changed it’s wheels and power train in order to turn it into what you really want, which is a standard saloon car. It would have been far easier and cheaper, very probably better and more reliable just to have bought say a standard Audi saloon car in the first place!

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

Checking a bunch of boxes probably will make the music sound better, if what you’ve purchased is pretty much the opposite of what you want/like. Will it make it sound better than just buying the right tools for the job in the first place though?

If you really are “a simple guy”, wouldn’t you want the simple, reliable solution instead of pretty much the most difficult/convoluted solution imaginable? It’s your choice of course but it doesn’t make rational sense to me.

G

 

[KinGensai]

Interesting that I find the 1990 much better in comparison given that context, it's similar tuning to the 880 but not as offensive. Why did Beyer change the impedance of the 1990 to 250Ω if 600Ω is the studio standard?

 

[71 dB]

I appreciate the sentiment, tbh it is a good instinct and probably a lot more audiophiles should be more discerning when it comes to buying into equipment that at best, only represents a very marginal improvement to the sound quality for thousands of dollars more money, something that I try to do myself to.

I struggle to understand how people have thousands of dollars to spend on audio gear. Sure, rich people exists and some people are filthy rich. Of course those people can afford anything, but most people (78 % of Americans according to a 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org) live paycheck to paycheck. If it is only rich people spending money on marginal at best improvements, do we really need to worry about it at all? 4/5 of Americans are too poor to do that anyway. In Europe the amount of people living paycheck to paycheck is perhaps smaller thanks to better functioning democracy, but a lot of people are poor in here too and there's not much excess money to spend on much anything except necessities of life.

A lot of my money goes to buying physical media because I am a physical media guy. I don't like streaming or downloads. I'm not a millenial. I was born in 1971. I want CDs and Blu-rays (good enough for me - I don't need 4K). That's why I try to have a "bang for the buck" gear. That way I save money for physical media. For me the gear is just something I need to play my physical media. All I want from it is good enough performance so that I can enjoy my physical media collection.

 

[gregorio]

Interesting that I find the 1990 much better in comparison given that context, it's similar tuning to the 880 but not as offensive.

Better in what sense, more pleasing or better at facilitating mixing?

Why did Beyer change the impedance of the 1990 to 250Ω if 600Ω is the studio standard?

600Ω is not the studio standard, it was the studio standard many decades ago and is still widely supported by pro studio gear but these days many professionals don’t exclusively use studio gear. They might have to perform tasks (such as editing) from home, in a hotel room or on location, while using a laptop and occasionally portable/prosumer gear, and as most studio gear nowadays is also perfectly happy with 250Ω, it’s not a problem. You should be aware that the DT880’s were also available in a 250Ω and a 32Ω version, same freq response for pro use though. I’ve not used the 1990 though, or seen it’s performance measurements.

G

 

[KinGensai]

@71 dB
Wealth is distributed by the pareto principle, so you get 80% of the wealth concentrated in 20% of the population. This can be applied repeatedly to that shrinking sample set, turning 80/20 into 64/4 and 51.2/0.8. This phenomenon is not just limited to wealth, it actually happens in many other socioeconomic metrics too where competence hierarchies are concerned.

Now let's put audiophilia into context. There are 520,609 members of Head-Fi as of this post. Maybe some are duplicate accounts or dummy accounts, so let's give that a hypothetical reduction of 10%, so 468,548 for the sake of the argument. Now I figure that having enough disposable income to consider 1k-5k a reasonable expenditure on a completely unnecessary hobby puts you in the 62.5th to 78.8th percentile of income in the US at minimum. So, applying the pareto principle to the population of head-fi and assuming the population of head-fi roughly represents the 23.3rd percentile and above of the general population (that's a minimum of 25k~35k per year, at which the lowest tier of non-ubiquitous audio gear is easily feasible to acquire IMO using something like the 7Hz Zero 2 at $25 as a representative of the lowest price bracket), you get roughly 3750 people who command 51.2% of the purchasing power of the consumer base in head-fi, and subsequently 750 people command 40.96% of the purchasing power.

Of course the pareto principle is not an exact principle, but it's very close, and audiophilia is strictly a luxury hobby, so it's possible that the income distribution is skewed slightly upward, which would shift the numbers a bit higher comparatively.

@gregorio
I find the fidelity of the 1990 improved compared to the 880, the tesla driver improved upon Beyer's previous generation of driver. The treble tuning is still relatively elevated and the bass tuning is tame, but the precision of the bass response is impressive for a 40mm dynamic driver. 880 is blue, 1990 is green.

The transient response of the 1990 is quite good compared to other staples in the price range. I can't find any measurements of the 880 performed on the same testing methodology as the 1990 though, so I can't pull up a direct comparison graph, so I can only provide my anecdote that the 1990 played back bass frequencies cleaner than the 880.

 

[castleofargh]

Some products are just for different markets. I heard a guy making catamarans and explaining how their stuff had a hard time penetrating some markets, the US because Americans often tried to purchase American(not a rule, more like a trend), and the rich Arabic countries because their catamarans weren't expensive and big enough to appeal to the rich people over there.

About audibility, Obviously, not all sounds and circumstances have the same threshold. We do tend to say that for a headphone, 1% THD and below go unnoticed(1% is 40dB below signal). Not that it's inaudible! If you have slightly below 1%THD, depending on where it is and what is the distortion profile you're rarely able to tell, but if we could isolate just that distortion content or ideally have a way to play music without it, I'm confident the difference in A/B listening would be clear.
There is also the matter of the frequencies involved, listening level and ambient noise in our room. All in all, we're always surrounded by noises, and only leaving one not that great transducer, with a radically different frequency response and distortion profile, for another not that great one. I wish THD was the only issue for a headphone. I join bigshot, not in his generic concept that everything is fine, but on the contrary, that transducers are so far from perfect, that DACs and their overall great specs, don't matter much. If we had only amazing headphones with never happening great specs, I do believe that we would reevaluate many hearing thresholds as a result.

About the headphone's impedance graph, going from 600ohm to 700 something, that's not much IMO. Once you're already into high impedance and remain there, it's going to be fine so long as the map has the voltage gain necessary. I'm more worried about the potential impact of a transducer going from 10 to 50ohm than from something going from 600 to 800.

 

[FunkyBassMan]

I struggle to understand how people have thousands of dollars to spend on audio gear. Sure, rich people exists and some people are filthy rich. Of course those people can afford anything, but most people (78 % of Americans according to a 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org) live paycheck to paycheck. If it is only rich people spending money on marginal at best improvements, do we really need to worry about it at all? 4/5 of Americans are too poor to do that anyway. In Europe the amount of people living paycheck to paycheck is perhaps smaller thanks to better functioning democracy, but a lot of people are poor in here too and there's not much excess money to spend on much anything except necessities of life.

A lot of my money goes to buying physical media because I am a physical media guy. I don't like streaming or downloads. I'm not a millenial. I was born in 1971. I want CDs and Blu-rays (good enough for me - I don't need 4K). That's why I try to have a "bang for the buck" gear. That way I save money for physical media. For me the gear is just something I need to play my physical media. All I want from it is good enough performance so that I can enjoy my physical media collection.

I grew up poor but cursed by extremely good ears, which in the beginning were a curse because music was my complete universe and when something sounded great, I did whatever I could to try to find a way to afford it. But poverty also made me have incredibly demanding that anything I bought really and truly sound better in ways that repeated themselves every time I listened to that system.

Fortunately, my good ears also led to a career in music, which fortunately went very, very well so that now I can afford anything want.

But my earlier stinginess remains as strong as ever. As a result, sales speak has never had any effect on me. Indeed, the more they "sell" it, the more I dislike it because I presume it must not be good. So if I don't hear it myself, I don't want it. And even though I do have a very good audio system, it's far, far from the most expensive because when I went to Munich High End looking to upgrade and listened to the most expensive, it didn't sound any better or more transportative (than the system I currently have. So, as you say, there are quickly diminishing returns in the $/quality metric (imho).

That said, the people who say the DAC in my phone or laptop sounds as good as the ones I use in my recording studios or my main home listening space are nuts.

Thus, as you well imply, we all have a "sweet spot", where for one's personal needs whatever we have is "fine" and we won't get enough personal bang for our buck by spending more. I think getting to that sweet spot is the best we can ask for.

 

[bigshot]

The sad part about all the overspending on audio equipment is that it isn't necessary. Price is a very poor indicator of sound quality. The $8 Apple dongle has terrific specs, and one of the worst measuring components ever was made by McIntosh. Go figure.

I guess judging by price is a shortcut that people who are too lazy to take the time to figure out the basics of home audio take.