Audio gd Sparrow Blind Test

[Pricklely Peete]

Face palm x 10
 
Look  Carl all you've proven here is that you are in terrible need of a ticket to Chicago for the upcoming CanJam which would give YOU badly needed perspective and exposure to a myriad of amps, dacs, etc etc etc.
 
Peete.

 

[Pyriel0]

Quote:

 
 
Distortion? Really? Any amp if its well engineered should not suffer much distortion. If it did even an ibud would pick it up. All the points you made wouldn't even matter as if an amp is $300 it would have more than enough money to sufficiently cover those issues. I mean rises and falls are covered in pico to nanoseconds. You tell me you can hear that picosecond delay? Give me a break. The only differences in amps is the power or gain it gives out. And that is the difference in amps to drive cans that are higher or lower impedance.
 
Don't even get me started on DACs.
 
If you want overengineered amps that changes the sound then that is different. You are paying the money to change the flavour and not to have a more "detailed" and "precision" amp. Of course R/D also goes into the prices of the higher end amps but just because its highly "researched." You might pay the money for an research that created its own op amp or dac but that doesn't make it different or special than the already commonly establish components on the market.
 
I never said high end was fake. I said the difference would be quite small and sometimes negligible. The most suspicious thing is that everyone cries for a DBT and when its proven false all the audiophiles cries that the test is unfair and biased which I ranted about in my original post and makes us look like a bunch of hypocritic snake oil believing fools.

What makes me laugh the most is that you are going to be the one finding out the hard way with the hd800 that other things make a difference.

 

[grokit]

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Hey guys, you should all go buy this for the sparrow.
 
http://www.dedicatedaudio.com/inc/sdetail/22704
 
Only $1750 for a 3 ft power cable!

Well obviously this one would be twice as good (for the seller)

 

[haloxt]

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^If the "difference" is subtle enough to take months(!) to properly discern, then what is the point of such high end equipment in the first place?

Because hearing subtle details is a cultivated skill. Imo it takes a lot of auditory experience (whether real life music or reproduced music) to know the difference between noise and actual music, because low quality sound reproduction is so prevalent that we believe low fidelity portrayel of music is all there is to music, just a lot of making of noise. With higher fidelity gear, and more cultivated perception of music, you can see that it is not just the "making of noise", but a real art, and musicians are real craftsmen of their art, not incompetent wishy washy musicians like the majority of low fidelity gear portrays them as.

 

[Crazy*Carl]

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Well obviously this one would be twice as good (for the seller)

ROFL ROFL, this is real?

 

[Crazy*Carl]

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Face palm x 10
 
Look  Carl all you've proven here is that you are in terrible need of a ticket to Chicago for the upcoming CanJam which would give YOU badly needed perspective and exposure to a myriad of amps, dacs, etc etc etc.
 
Peete.

 
Not gonna happen.  I will go to a local meet if there is one, but I am not falling down the same trap alot have.  My soul will be spared.
 
There is multiple posts on this thread reaffirming my beliefs.

 

[happyxix]

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What makes me laugh the most is that you are going to be the one finding out the hard way with the hd800 that other things make a difference.

Oh I haven't updated my sig in a while. I've bought the HD800 on impulse because I got half my tuition back since I am doing part time in my last quarter. It is exactly what most people say it is. Very detailed, quite light in bass, and harsh trebles. I've tried different amps, GS1, my own, some OTL amps, and dare I say my portables (for fun) and they all exhibt the same harsh highs. Now people told me this and this amp will cure the highs. I said thanks but didn't listen to them because there is no "magical" amp that can cure something that is present in the headphones. These peak at a point where I find massive sibilance and no amp is going to change that. If it does that means the amp is flavoured and rolls off the top end which it should do with every headphone and thats not a good thing (plus the amps in question are over a grand and there is no sense is spending more money on an amp then headphones). A neutral amp is only going to amplify (BECAUSE THATS WHAT AN AMP DOES) the sibliance and not cure it.
 
 
 
I might as well use that money to find the perfect headphone which doesn't have these issues.

 

[Henerenry]

I love Carl's threads.
 
Isnt the sparrow the bottom of the line audio gd? As highly as audio-gd are raved about in the forums, I can imagine it losing to say.... an stx...
 
Personally I've only found amping to make a significant difference with a portion of headphones that I owned, in fact until I upgraded my source, I found that my rather expensive amp made my grados sound WORSE than through my sound card.
 
With my hd650 and my dt880 however, I have heard what I consider to be a significant difference by amping. Funnily enough, people hark on about how the hd650 loves tubes and power, but I found the difference between the hd650 on a rather "cheap" amp to be pretty similar to my pricier OTL amp.
 
As far as source goes, I have found that it has made the biggest change to my system. Sometimes better, sometimes just different.
 
I reckon, go to canjam or the like, listen to some stupidly expensive setup that you have no intention of actually buying, ask if you can plug your headphones into a couple of them. If you still cant hear the difference in a well recorded song that has been ripped well (or an original) then, I say, sell everything, bar your ipod a pair of koss portapros and be done with headfi.

 

[Crazy*Carl]

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I say, sell everything, bar your ipod a pair of koss portapros and be done with headfi.

HD580s still are wonderful.  And some nice ultrasones are great to.  What I am getting at is there is huge differences in changing between crap headphones and 100 to 200 dollars headphones.  Past that, good luck hearing it, unless you paid for it

 

[haloxt]

The sparrow would not be beat by an stx sound card. I have had two $200 sound cards from ht omega, and the audio-gd compass (a predecessor of sparrow) crucified the sound cards, period. Others have compared audio-gd's entry gear to $150+ sound cards and invariably notice a big difference, crazy*carl being the sole exception.

 

[Henerenry]

My pricier amp was bought for me as a present, to be honest, I'd like to sell it and try something else, however I am bound...
 
It is however widely regarded and it does sound great.
 
Also in what way does the sparrow/compass beat an stx? I'm not trying to stir the pot, I am legitimately just curious. I was considering buying one for my gf as a gateway into what she thinks is stupid (that being said, she has pretty good ears)

 

[JamesL]

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Troll?!
Thats what I get for spreading the truth!
Read my first post, I am only trying to reveal what I heard!

I agree with some of the stuff you have to say, but your avatar speaks for itself.  

 

[Currawong]

Crazy*Carl: I understand you feel angry that you've somehow wasted all your time and money on buying gear for nothing.  That doesn't change what I said in my first post in this thread, about what a genuine scientific experiment requires. It's not an excuse, it's fact.  If you want to rally on that all of Head-fi is snake oil or whatever (unless you go around trolling threads and posting crap as a result), or leave Head-fi, go for it. Alternatively we could look at your experiment and suggest improvements (such as better tracks to test with) and see how you go then.  It wouldn't cost you anything and you might learn something.
 
Quite a lot of higher-end audio gear, as well as headphones, have measurably lower distortion to a degree that is readily audible.  If you're going to say it's all load of rubbish when some things are clearly measurable then you'd be calling the wrong people deluded. 

 
So the question is, where do you want to go from here?

 

[haloxt]

Compared to compass, I thought my two ht omega sound cards (which I admit aren't a fraction as popular as auzentech or xonar) sounded very flat, 2D, like viewing a roll of camera film going across my vision. The greater amount of texture in entry level audio-gd products should be evident to people who have listened to a lot of flat, analytical equipment. Also, there have been many, many people who have used audio-gd discrete opamps inside of sound cards for the last 2-3 years, and many of them have said it does wonders for the soundstage, and in that regard far better than most opamps. A modded soundcard, with very good IC opamps or burson or audio-gd opamps, better psu etc, I imagine could be in the same league as entry level audio-gd products, but an unmodded soundcard, I can't imagine can get near audio-gd.

 

[grokit]

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After 7 months of dabbing in audio devices (DACs/AMPS) I was able to finally conduct a fully blind audio test.  I left the room for the changes to ensure I had no knowledge of the source that was selected.
 
-snip-  
I don't want people reading to see this as a threat to head-fi, like I am out to make it that everything is snake oil.. Im NOT .  These are only my humble opinions.
 
HAPPY LISTENING

Nice thread anyways, 63 75 posts in less than 24 hours!