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Have you asked him in his thread on his site? He usually responds to all questions. If you ask a bit more objectively I'd bet you'd get an answer. Why are you so angry? Not at all an attack on you, I'm just genuinely curious.
I'm not sure where your "character assassination" of me has come from. I have simply highlighted, in a ruthless manner, the flaws of his presentation. His marketing, his omission of fundamental facts, choosing gear that suits him (his tube-defaming post, for example). Not to mention his rants about moderators on head-fi (for example, Kwkwarth(?) who I have been banned by repeatedly for arguing with him over LCD-2 measurements), which of course were objective and not all character assassination. Generally I waited for the ban to be removed, and I even spoke to jude about the moderation. What I did not do is start a blog "defaming" the moderators of head-fi (a site I don't particularly enjoy anymore because of the misinformation, parroting, and people who refuse to read readily available literature), and try to attack the work people are trying to make a profit on.
If he is against the overpriced nature of gear, why is he not talking out about the very nature of capitalism? If he goes and gets any documentation of the expenses made by any chicken-based fast food chain for example, he will see how overpriced they are (I believe 200 tenderloins costs each chain about $34). To the consumer, that is probably about 12 tenderloins (I don't really eat chicken, or actually work in a chicken chain). I'm using readily available information.
If the manner in which nwavguy has posted from the beginning is the greatest thing to ever happen to audio, then how are my questions also not a good step?
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Are any other audio companies more open or objectively based than he is?
- Stax provides meausrements of all their headphones, explaining why they measure like that. They also provide reactive load measurements (something I believe NWAVGUY does not do) for all their combos. I do think it's unfair to expect this of nwavguy though
- Etymotic provides measurements of all their headphones, explaining why they measure like that.
- Beyerdynamic explains the design philosophy and target curves of particular headphones, such as the DT880 and provides reason why a diffuse field curve is considered one of the several ideal curves
- Echo provides real-world to AES standard measurements for their DACs, and will provide additional information and measurements if asked
- Focusrite provides real-world to AES standard measurements with their interfaces, and also provides articles explaining what AES standards are, and why many measurements aren't to be trusted (eg. quoting chip specs).
- Headphonic in Australia encourages measuring of headphones, and not only that openly encourages you to come in and listen to everything they sell, without imposing the need to purchase on you.
- Tyll from InnerFidelity (previously headroom), measures a number of headphones. He will even openly discuss his measurement methods, in what ways they wish they were better, and even will discuss ways he could possibly improve them.
What these people do not engage in, unlike Nwavguy, is the messiah-esque self-characterisation, with simple truths that everyone knows or can learn from any text. Nor do they engage in the explicit "character assassination" of people who are trying to help a community (like Kwkwarth).
If nwavguy is so objectively based, then
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When will nwavguy post the 16bit results he promised over a month ago?
When will nwavguy fix his articles on tubes to reflect the existence of some tube amplifiers that perform as well as, or better than transistor amplifiers under REAL load (A lot of stax pairings come to mind)?
When will nwavguy post real loads of the odac, or shed light on the loads used during his measurements? He mentioned he wished to do this in 2011.
When will nwavguy admit that he has basically produced copies of the Coffee (which I believe outdates the odac by a year) and other pre-existing board?
When will nwavguy admit that using a high quality chip surroudned by relatively poor components will still result in a fairly decent DAC? And that nothing he has done is close to original or revolutionary?
When will nwavguy posts sources for his ideas like "Less than 0.001% of what is heard actually reaches the consciousness". Is he doing poor maths like, if you focus on a single line, then it's 1/20k, even though that's not actually true? What about musicians who are able to transcribe the majority of a piece in a single listening (seasoned jazz veterans come to mind)? Are they too only listening to 0.001%? Where are the sources?
Why doesn't he use his cult-like following to discuss the validity of the measurements we use for headphones specifically? Which are in essence, designed strictly for loudspeakers? Although the mechanics are the same for the headphones, the parts of our head used are not; this is easily reflected in things like impulse and square wave resposne - which are radically affected by the huge amount of treble required by headphones to sound flat.
Why doesn't he talk about the lack of standardisation of headphones?
When will he talk about the transparency of anything below 1% THD, and how your headphones are always going to be the most limiting part of your setup?
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He brings a strong argument with as many facts as are available
What he actually does is bring you ideas and knowledge that are freely available to everyone already. That many people on head-fi would gladly share if asked.
What people on head-fi would not engage in (to my knowledge), is using these ideas to try and sell a product. Measurements and science are not marketing.
I haven't asked him on his site, because that gives his site publicity, and I do not wish to support his cause, because of the manner in which he is doing it.
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Well, I think someone has gone too far. It is true that ODAC has its limit but it is an good DAC at a good price and if someone wants to compare ODACs to other more expensive DACs. They just go ahead and do that, those are their choices and their rights. I just want to mean that most of people here are contributors, or just customers look for the best things to hear at suitable prices. And if money is not important to someone than just buy anything that they think or truly is good. Everyone has their own measurements but I want to mention one thing. ODACs are good products of course they are not the best out there but they cost only $150 for each one.
The product I use, an Echo Audiofire 12 contans 12 inputs (balanced) and 12 outputs (balanced). It costs about $500. It measures better than the odac, on all of these channels. That's 12 simultaneous 24/192 dac channels (Balanced), and 12 simultaneous 24/192 adc channels.
I think you can see how much cheaper this is, per channel than the ODAC.
Echo is a business - they make profits. How do they provide superior performance per channel per dollar, if they are currently making profits? Is nwavguys chip less efficient per dollar? Or is there something else happening? I have no idea - and I do not wish to guess.
But maybe I am being a little unfair, comparing only one multi-channel device.
The Focusrite Saffire 6 is just shy of $200. It provides similar real world performance to the ODAC (OTTOMH). What differs is that it provides
- Midi in
- Midi out
- 2 channels of inst, line and mic level input (including phantom power)
- 2 +4dBU outputs
- 4 -10dBV outputs
- And so on.
My chief complaints about the above is that they do not also provide (to my knowledge) 16 bit performance on their site.
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