[ASSAF1984]

Put a sheet of toilet paper in front of the driver. Thank me later.

Ah ?

 

[bigshot]

The transducers are what dictate the frequency response because they make the physical sound. Everything upstream should be audibly transparent. It’s very easy to find transparent sources and amps. The headphones are the wild card. Just pick the cans you like, amp them sufficiently and your ok to go.

 

[gregorio]

I saw in the past week so many YouTubers that I can't even count . And the more I watch the more I understand that I don't understand anything …

Although audio is very simple compared to some fields (say medicine or quantum mechanics), it’s still plenty complex because it covers quite a range of fields. Electrical/Electronic circuits and signals, digital signals/theory, acoustics and lastly of course, human perception of sound (psychoacoustics). To make matters worse, many YouTubers are reviewer types, parroting audiophile misinformation which is virtually always at least somewhat contradictory, so fully understanding it is impossible anyway. The difficulty is separating the audiophile type YouTubers from the minority of well informed YouTubers and to do that, you need to be well informed yourself, a vicious circle for the newbie or even the not so newbie!

Anything along the way can affect what you hear. The source should be good: not a low bitrate YouTube but something better. The conversion (DAC) should be bit perfect.

Anything can affect what you hear but in practice very little does. DACs and amps were perfected (to the limits of audibility) decades ago. The only exception these days are some esoteric audiophile DACs and amps deliberately designed to be audibly lower fidelity. Even the technical quality of the source material usually doesn’t make a difference. For example YouTube commonly uses 128kbps lossy compression, which is only audible with certain types of content and even then, only under certain conditions. And lastly, conversion is never bit perfect in DACs.

Well you kind a blow up all what I listened until now when all I heated/saw/explained that in the chin first get the best HP that you can afford , then the amplifier and then the DAC .. not the other way .

The thing worth upgrading is always the transducers (HPs and/or speakers). The only reason to upgrade a DAC is for added features. The only reason to upgrade an amp is again added features or if you change your transducers which require a different output impedance or power.

also when I look at the market there's tons of amps from all the kinds , you are saying that's the amp is less important then the DAC ?

Providing you have the right amp for your transducers then both amps and DACs are equally unimportant because even relatively cheap ones effectively provide perfect fidelity to (and beyond) the limits of audibility. A typical example would be Apple’s Dongle (a combined DAC/amp) that costs $9 and significantly exceeds the threshold of audibility at any reasonable listening level.

Ah ?

@chesebert was referring to a famous “mod” for a specific set of studio monitors about 40 years ago. Yamaha NS10 monitors were a little too bright/harsh and were famously tamed by some top studio engineers by using tissue paper over the tweeters. However, it was a relatively short lived thing as Yamaha redesigned the NS10s a few years later and got rid of the problem but not before it had become part of studio history/folklore.

G

 

[ASSAF1984]

Although audio is very simple compared to some fields (say medicine or quantum mechanics), it’s still plenty complex because it covers quite a range of fields. Electrical/Electronic circuits and signals, digital signals/theory, acoustics and lastly of course, human perception of sound (psychoacoustics). To make matters worse, many YouTubers are reviewer types, parroting audiophile misinformation which is virtually always at least somewhat contradictory, so fully understanding it is impossible anyway. The difficulty is separating the audiophile type YouTubers from the minority of well informed YouTubers and to do that, you need to be well informed yourself, a vicious circle for the newbie or even the not so newbie!

Anything can affect what you hear but in practice very little does. DACs and amps were perfected (to the limits of audibility) decades ago. The only exception these days are some esoteric audiophile DACs and amps deliberately designed to be audibly lower fidelity. Even the technical quality of the source material usually doesn’t make a difference. For example YouTube commonly uses 128kbps lossy compression, which is only audible with certain types of content and even then, only under certain conditions. And lastly, conversion is never bit perfect in DACs.

The thing worth upgrading is always the transducers (HPs and/or speakers). The only reason to upgrade a DAC is for added features. The only reason to upgrade an amp is again added features or if you change your transducers which require a different output impedance or power.

Providing you have the right amp for your transducers then both amps and DACs are equally unimportant because even relatively cheap ones effectively provide perfect fidelity to (and beyond) the limits of audibility. A typical example would be Apple’s Dongle (a combined DAC/amp) that costs $9 and significantly exceeds the threshold of audibility at any reasonable listening level.

@chesebert was referring to a famous “mod” for a specific set of studio monitors about 40 years ago. Yamaha NS10 monitors were a little too bright/harsh and were famously tamed by some top studio engineers by using tissue paper over the tweeters. However, it was a relatively short lived thing as Yamaha redesigned the NS10s a few years later and got rid of the problem but not before it had become part of studio history/folklore.

G

G .. what can I say ? Thanks a lot for your inputs . Really helpful.

Alright I see what you mean and what you wrote that example of the Apple dongle .
But at the end of the day quality wise we want the best out money can buy . And I'm sure (?) that a 1500$ amp will dramatically sound better then Apple dongle , correct ? And now if you disagree on that that's it I'm retiring from this hobby haha

 

[gregorio]

And I'm sure (?) that a 1500$ amp will dramatically sound better then Apple dongle , correct ?

No, in fact it won’t sound different at all, let alone “dramatically better”! The ONLY way a more expensive amp would sound better is if the transducers you are using require more power than the Apple dongle can supply (which is obviously limited on a mobile device). For a consumer, a $1500 amp is pretty much never justifiable unless you have a very large, highly specified home cinema or unless you justify it purely in terms of appearance and/or bragging rights for audiophile “brand name”.

And now if you disagree on that that's it I'm retiring from this hobby haha

Sorry, it’s been proven by objective measurements for years and by numerous controlled listening tests between numerous amps going back well over 40 years, which have demonstrated no audible difference even between cheap and uber expensive amps (costing $10k and more), even between solid state and tube amps. The only exception is some rare esoteric audiophile tube amps deliberately designed to produce such high levels of distortion it’s actually audible. The most famous such listening test was probably the “Carver Challenge” (detailed here on Wikipedia) nearly 40 years ago, where none of the editors or employees of Stereophile magazine could tell any difference between Carver’s $400 350w amp and an audiophile TOTL $12,000 amp in blind tests. Eventually that lead to Stereophile denouncing blind testing, lol! (Of course, what else could they do and stay in business?)

G

 

[71 dB]

Although audio is very simple compared to some fields (say medicine or quantum mechanics), it’s still plenty complex because it covers quite a range of fields. Electrical/Electronic circuits and signals, digital signals/theory, acoustics and lastly of course, human perception of sound (psychoacoustics).

We could also add mechanical/material engineering (transducers).

The thing worth upgrading is always the transducers (HPs and/or speakers).

Very true. In many cases with speakers upgrading the acoustics is also often beneficial.

And I'm sure (?) that a $1500 amp will dramatically sound better then Apple dongle , correct ?

No. Chances are you can't tell the $9 Apple dongle apart from the $1500 amp in blind listening tests. If you know which one you are listening to, placebo effect and expectation bias probably makes the $1500 amp sound "better", but it is all in your head, a trick of your own psychology. It is also possible the $1500 amp has been deliberately engineered to sound something else than neutral (for example to have "brand sound") in which case it is possible to tell it apart from the Apple dongle blind.

And now if you disagree on that that's it I'm retiring from this hobby haha

No need to "retire." Just change the priorities of how you spent your money on this hobby. You may need to spent much more than $9 on amps for example to get the specific features (or look etc.) you want, but oftentimes a cheaper product might be all you ever need and that helps in saving money for other things such as better headphones, speakers and room acoustics.

 

[Ryokan]

The most famous such listening test was probably the “Carver Challenge” (detailed here on Wikipedia) nearly 40 years ago, where none of the editors or employees of Stereophile magazine could tell any difference between Carver’s $400 350w amp and an audiophile TOTL $12,000 amp in blind tests. Eventually that lead to Stereophile denouncing blind testing, lol! (Of course, what else could they do and stay in business?)

Reminds me of when some early motorcycle manufacturers were eventually banned from some races as they usually won.
So if amps and dacs make no difference over a certain price point, money is better spent on speakers which do make a notable difference and you just need gear that drives them fully?
Even If blind testing had of revealed a very small difference under perfect listening conditions which isn't normal for most listeners, would it justify spending ten times as much.
Is it possible mixing different manufacturer's amps and dacs conflict, is synergy a factor, or can any dac be paired with any amp? - ignoring power requirements.

 

[earmonger]

Hey there, thanks ! Well you kind a blow up all what I listened until now when all I heated/saw/explained that in the chin first get the best HP that you can afford , then the amplifier and then the DAC .. not the other way .
also when I look at the market there's tons of amps from all the kinds , you are saying that's the amp is less important then the DAC ?

Sorry to return to this belatedly but Gregorio is right, and I see that what I had written could be misinterpreted. Yes, transducers first -- always. The transducers are by far the most important. Just about any DAC (including the Apple dongle) will be close enough to bit-perfect unless it has been deliberately tuned differently. You only need an amp if the headphones demand power. I use a VE Megatron, $56 (not a typo) shipped to US, for my 470 ohm Audio-Technica ATH-R70X headphones. It's fine.

But I have heard some really crappy YouTube versions of songs that clearly sound better even on Spotify, not to mention Tidal or Qobuz. For me the cymbals are the giveaway on 128k compression, and higher bitrate does improve things.

 

[bigshot]

Is it possible mixing different manufacturer's amps and dacs conflict, is synergy a factor, or can any dac be paired with any amp? - ignoring power requirements.

One brand of fidelity and audible transparency is the same as any other brand. Clean is clean. Beyond power and impedance, the differences between DACs and amps involve features or build quality, not sound quality.

 

[gregorio]

So if amps and dacs make no difference over a certain price point, money is better spent on speakers which do make a notable difference and you just need gear that drives them fully?

Correct! Although I would add what @71 dB has already mentioned; speaker performance is at least partially (and typically majorly) determined by room acoustics. Therefore money is often “better spent” in this area. I’ve heard >$20k audiophile speakers that sounded mediocre or even poor. Poorer in fact than $2k speakers/monitors in a room with <$1k of decent treatment.

Even If blind testing had of revealed a very small difference under perfect listening conditions which isn't normal for most listeners, would it justify spending ten times as much.

Yes, if you have the money/desire and are one of those who can actually tell “a very small difference”. However, that’s not relevant because blind testing has not “revealed a very small difference”, either with the public, audiophiles or highly trained sound/music engineers, or with typical consumer listening conditions, laboratory conditions or highly specified studio conditions.

Is it possible mixing different manufacturer's amps and dacs conflict, is synergy a factor, or can any dac be paired with any amp? - ignoring power requirements.

It’s potentially possible although I know of no examples, past or present. The output of DACs is fairly standardised (“line level” or thereabouts) and the input of amps are built for those standards with some leeway. This is less true between amps and transducers though, which is why active speakers sometimes perform better than passive ones. As the amp can designed for the specific impedance curve, crossovers and power requirements of the specific speakers.

G