[newworld666]

This whole Cradle to Grave as a test track for clipping needs to die because it's really a user case error than the gear where the user has no idea where to set the volume and is treating bg music with 30hz and 60hz like it's 50 cent in da club. I don't get this macho thing that's on the road to hearing loss. The only torture test are broken gear and ears...which is probably how Passion for Sound got ruined Stealths coz of the owner trying to clip Cradle to Grave.

As a challenge, listen to Cradle to Grave at the volume you are whining there's not enough power then play Mozart's complete wind music's track 3. Both have the relatively same DR and peak. Actually the wind album has lower peaks so you can listen 1.5dB louder. lets see if u can handle being that up close to the wind instruments as much as the bass notes.

Cradle to grave



Mozart first 6 tracks

I could notice that clipping and distortion in low and ultra low frequencies are not really linked to a volume level or even dynamic.. but probably much more concerned with some instant juice available with low impedance headphones and not really sensitive like the Stealth for low and ultra low frequencies (though I get same issue with the HEDDphone one too which is 42ohms and not 23ohms) ...
Cradle to The Grave is just an extreme track with almost little dynamic but amazing strong and rather low for ultra low frequencies (probably between 15 to 50hz).
I have many genre that are sometimes concerned with such clipping or distortion like Electronic, Drum&Bass, Trip-Hop, R&B, Rap, Jazz .. it's almost never concerned with acoustic instruments...
It's maybe less than 10% of music I listen... so, in real life, it's probably not a big deal to have such limit for many.

 

[alxw0w]

with almost little dynamic

Little dynamic?
Now I know why there is so much confusion about dynamic music/headphones.
People just don't know what dynamic range actually is.

 

[801evan]

Little dynamic?
Now I know why there is so much confusion about dynamic music/headphones.
People just don't know what dynamic range actually is.

Indeed.... Even veteran YT personalities don't get it. It's kinda wild. This is why we end up with loud music because when we get proper high dynamic tracks, people complain. One YT reviewer uses Dua Lipa as his reference track specifically due to "the high dynamic range". But if you look into it, it's a slappy 5DR.

 

[newworld666]

Little dynamic?
Now I know why there is so much confusion about dynamic music/headphones.
People just don't know what dynamic range actually is.

Before being sarcastic, just test the track with the Stealth... and maybe you will understand the ultra low frequencies of this track are growing really slowly and going down slowly too .. but it's clipping with most my amps at even a rather low level..
So the dynamic in my test won't exceed 70db probably..

 

[alxw0w]

People confuse high dynamic range with just hard/aggressive/powerful (for the lack of better word, or just LOUD) music.
People assume that some hard rock/metal etc. type of music has very big dynamics.... when in fact these types of music dynamic range is like 5... tops (obviously not always, but most of the time)

Before being sarcastic, just test the track with the Stealth...

I'm not being sarcastic. And I know this track very well.

 

[801evan]

People confuse high dynamic range with just hard/aggressive/powerful (for the lack of better word, or just LOUD) music.
People assume that some hard rock/metal etc. type of music has very big dynamics.... when in fact these types of music dynamic range is like 5... tops (obviously not always, but most of the time)


I'm not being sarcastic. And I know this track very well.

I feel like I landed in some noob reddit page. My fault to assume when I communicate with people with totl gear that there is already a foundation of experience and knowledge.

 

[DarginMahkum]

This is smaller than I expected...

 

[MPCK1967]

This is smaller than I expected...

I feel like that happens with me and every piece of gear I buy. It gets to me and I think "that's smaller than I thought"

It's hard to get a perspective on the size of things when you don't ACTUALLY see it.

 

[Daniel Johnston]

Little dynamic?
Now I know why there is so much confusion about dynamic music/headphones.
People just don't know what dynamic range actually is.

So the way I understand the Cradle to Grave track, the sub bass is substantially boosted in the recording. When playing at levels to make the violin sound loud or near “normal” SPL, the sub bass is being amplified exponentially more. Since sub bass is not really audible, you’ll get the clipping/distortion at what may seem low volumes listening to violin. But, in actuality, you’re over amplifying the sub bass.

However, is the Stealth clipping in this track from something like the go blu or is the go blu clipping because it can’t deliver the current? In any case, this track is a good test of bass performance and not representative of typical recordings. I can get the stealth to clip with my HSU research test CD playing 25hz and 30hz tones, but that doesn’t have any practical value.

 

[alxw0w]

So the way I understand the Cradle to Grave track, the sub bass is substantially boosted in the recording

I wouldn't call it boosted. It's just high dynamic recording.
As @801evan showed in the graphic.
Lowest level music is about -19dbfs and highest go to -0.14dbfs.

So let's assume that these quiet violins that are in this track are indeed this quiet sounds so its about ~-19dbfs (probably a bit higher but for understanding let's put it that)
And let's assume that these low frequency bass/rumbling notes are reaching max so about ~-0.14dbfs.

Now when you listen this track and you set volume (on your amp/dac) so the quiet violins that you are hearing are ~80db (when they reach your ear)
But when the bass/rumbling notes kicks in you are reaching much higher db/volume level at your ear canal because it's high dynamic recording.

So it all depends on a listening level of a person. (also depends on frequency spectrum of the track, if track is dark/bassy you can listen very loud without problem, but you still are hurting your ears. But when track is 'bright' human ear generally cannot tolerate higher frequencies at levels that low frequencies are tolerated.) A lot of people listen loud, very loud - most of the times not being aware of how loud.
I'm not here to tell anyone how loud you should listen your music - but let's face it you are hurting yourself in a long term.

I remember some time ago similiar graphic was posted by @mrspeakers in the Ether2 (?) topic

ps. small rant here, no wonder people who listen loud need speaker amplifiers to go with their headphones... their hearing is damaged and indeed they need gobs of power. Same thing with dacs, when your hearing is weak because of abusing for many years you look for dac with distortion/coloration (or whatever you want to call it) to compensate hearing loss - as you think that you hear better/more. Yes I know it's a little of bro science but that's a forum

 

[801evan]

So the way I understand the Cradle to Grave track, the sub bass is substantially boosted in the recording. When playing at levels to make the violin sound loud or near “normal” SPL, the sub bass is being amplified exponentially more. Since sub bass is not really audible, you’ll get the clipping/distortion at what may seem low volumes listening to violin. But, in actuality, you’re over amplifying the sub bass.

However, is the Stealth clipping in this track from something like the go blu or is the go blu clipping because it can’t deliver the current? In any case, this track is a good test of bass performance and not representative of typical recordings. I can get the stealth to clip with my HSU research test CD playing 25hz and 30hz tones, but that doesn’t have any practical value.

You can't boost over 0dB LUFS, mate.

 

[Daniel Johnston]

I wouldn't call it boosted. It's just high dynamic recording.
As @801evan showed in the graphic.
Lowest level music is about -19dbfs and highest go to -0.14dbfs.

So let's assume that these quiet violins that are in this track are indeed this quiet sounds so its about ~-19dbfs (probably a bit higher but for understanding let's put it that)
And let's assume that these low frequency bass/rumbling notes are reaching max so about ~-0.14dbfs.

Now when you listen this track and you set volume (on your amp/dac) so the quiet violins that you are hearing are ~80db (when they reach your ear)
But when the bass/rumbling notes kicks in you are reaching much higher db/volume level at your ear canal because it's high dynamic recording.

So it all depends on a listening level of a person. (also depends on frequency spectrum of the track, if track is dark/bassy you can listen very loud without problem, but you still are hurting your ears. But when track is 'bright' human ear generally cannot tolerate higher frequencies at levels that low frequencies are tolerated.) A lot of people listen loud, very loud - most of the times not being aware of how loud.
I'm not here to tell anyone how loud you should listen your music - but let's face it you are hurting yourself in a long term.

I remember some time ago similiar graphic was posted by @mrspeakers in the Ether2 (?) topic


ps. small rant here, no wonder people who listen loud need speaker amplifiers to go with their headphones... their hearing is damaged and indeed they need gobs of power. Same thing with dacs, when your hearing is weak because of abusing for many years you look for dac with distortion/coloration (or whatever you want to call it) to compensate hearing loss - as you think that you hear better/more. Yes I know it's a little of bro science but that's a forum

I agree. I understand SPL and hearing damage. That’s not what I’m discussing here. And for the record, I don’t listen to high SPL. I do enjoy preserving my hearing.

Boosted wrong word. The recording is mastered focusing on sub bass and bass frequencies would be more accurate. I’m sure if you are watching the actual series on a well built home theater, the track would convey the drama/feeling the composer wanted for the scene. I’m pretty confident that unless they are using the largest taiko drum in existence with the mic within inches of the drum, there is no other natural way to produce such low drum frequencies. I have some tracks of closely mic’d cathedral organs that reproduce exaggerated sub bass frequencies. Again, on the HSU research CD I own, they have an example of one of those recordings.

What I’m trying to better understand is why the seemingly refusal to acknowledge that an amp may not be able to properly drive the Stealths even though the ”specs are good”. So far the rebuttal is that “my chain is not optimized“, I’m listening at too high of volume, or I should use LDAC. And I don’t understand this fascination of running multi thousand dollar headphones off of a relatively inexpensive DAC. Nor the fascination of using such headphones using a lossy wireless protocol. I’m happy that if I choose to use the iFi go blu with my TOTL headphones, it will do a nice job and “sound good”. And I agree that I don’t need to run them off of my 300w/channel home theater hybrid power amps.

 

[alxw0w]

What I’m trying to better understand is why the seemingly refusal to acknowledge that an amp may not be able to properly drive the Stealths even though the ”specs are good”

Problem is complex.
1. Many times comapanies specify power output at specific impedance, for headphones most of the times it's @ 32ohms.
- for example for 32 ohms it could be 500mW
- but you don't know how it is for lower impedances, like 23 or less
- many times power output shrinks as the headphone impedance lowers
2. Power output is specified using steady tones like 1khz
- music is not steady and contains massive amounts of different frequencies that varies over time
- so you cannot be sure how amplifier will interact with headphones and demanding music
- hence you need to do listening tests, as I did with Hiby R5g2 and Stealth. I assumed that it won't be able to drive it, no way. But to my surprise it was a decent/listenable pairing

As for @801evan and his talk about optimization of chain etc. I'm not here to defend him nor I'm here to understand him fully. But some of his ideas about power quality rather than power quantity seem to be in line with my thoughts.
Anyway as always, enjoy your music (not your gear )

 

[TheMiddleSky]

Power Quality always much much more important than power quantity.

Bakoon PRE7610mk3 with 1W power is much better in sound compared to 7W of Topping A90 when paired with Stelath/Susvara.

 

[alxw0w]

. I’m pretty confident that unless they are using the largest taiko drum in existence with the mic within inches of the drum, there is no other natural way to produce such low drum frequencies.

Yup it's probably synthesized artificially. But as you said, in the cinema it's making drama background for the movie (indeed background music plays HUGE role in our perception of scene/movie)

I have some tracks of closely mic’d cathedral organs that reproduce exaggerated sub bass frequencies. Again, on the HSU research CD I own, they have an example of one of those recordings.

I can recommend this recording for low bass cathedral organs:

Particularly track Gnomus