[leeperry]

 

It seems you don't own any AGD gear? There are fanboys (like me) of his gear because they sound so good. Why don't you buy some and try for yourself?

 
Well, the OP was enquiring about real world measurements...now that we've seen them, they're not very engaging. I know audiophiles always use the excuse that measurements don't mean jack and that you should "trust your ears". *Facts* are that the worse the figures in measurements, the farther you'll be from the what's on the record, and the more colored the sound will be in the end...Whether that added color is euphonic and makes one's feel ecstatic is another matter altogether. Colored is nice...for 1 day, for 1 week, for 1 month...but how good is your colored gear 6 months later? Do you still fancy hearing all your records colored in the exact same way?
 
I personally prefer more transparent gear so all the records don't sound the same...and when I listen to my Firestone Spitifire on its DPS using my fav. opamps(LT1363), I'm hearing exactly what the RMAA measurement shows. Look at the link I provided about the guy who measured Burson V2(sorry for the google translation), but for instance look at this: http://jipihorn.free.fr/Documents/Divers%20Blog/AOP/THD-IMD.gif
 
the THD/IMD rates are crazy, and OPA-Earth surely's no better(and way worse if I were to "trust my ears")....let's not mention OPA-Moon. I've heard the 3 discrete opamps from this company FWIW(and from Burson too), and a friend of mine was crazy about the FUN for 1 month...then he couldn't stand how colored it was anymore and sold it.

 

[noinimod]

Quote:

 
 
Well, the OP was enquiring about real world measurements...now that we've seen them, they're not very engaging. I know audiophiles always use the excuse that measurements don't mean jack and that you should "trust your ears". *Facts* are that the worse the figures in measurements, the farther you'll be from the what's on the record, and the more colored the sound will be in the end...Whether that added color is euphonic and makes one's feel ecstatic is another matter altogether. Colored is nice...for 1 day, for 1 week, for 1 month...but how good is your colored gear 6 months later? Do you still fancy hearing all your records colored in the exact same way?
 

Except that this is hardly true. You can have the best measurements on paper with very generous use of negative feedback in the circuit, yet the amp can sound terrible. Just ask Charles Hansen (Ayre), John Curl (Parasound) what they think about NFB. Measurements are not everything, period.

 

[leeperry]

 

Measurements are not everything, period.

They're not meaningless either, and the figures that were posted are not good. Strangely, some very good sounding gear carry very good measurements...weird, eh?
 
the NOS DAC give very poor measurements, does that mean they're good too? http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/378459/valab-dac-first-impressions/1185#post_5483734

the weird stuff happening above 5Khz speaks for itself.

  
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/438220/nos-dac-marketing-bs/285#post_6466846 

I wouldn't trust my ears, no matter if it sounds "good". It is really unbelievable that someone can have fun with mutilated music.