[leeperry]

I don't disagree with you guys about the science, but I've found that the reality doesn't necessarily echo the science.
 

So far, I haven't seen much science in this thread(if any), and all the questions you wrote in the OP are still up for grabs. Now the brand new "all EQ's sound the same" is just utter nonsense...some ppl must think really hard to talk such nonsense publicly.
 
A fair comparison of EQ's on gearslutz: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/gear-shoot-outs-sound-file-comparisons-audio-tests/477502-linear-phase-eq-shootout.html
 
And to our deaf friends who unfortunately can't listen to to the audio samples by themselves, all EQ's dont sound the same due to a billion factors...and no you can't null top of the range EQ's w/ your favorite winamp plugin, not gonna happen...not in this lifetime anyway.
 
I've tried all the EQ's I could put my dirty hands on, and my fav -by far- is the Sonnox Oxford(that uses the Sony OXF-R3 algorithms)...it just sounds perfect to my ears. You can read many threads where gearslutz users hear the same things I do:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/high-end/9839-oxford-cambridge-waves-eq.html
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/134978-oxford-eq-how-does-compare-other-eq-plugins.html
 
"I love the oxford, use it all the time, haven't tried too many other eq plugins, but definately sounds better then any other plugin eqs I've tried"
 
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/413614-sonnox-eq-stunning-just-similar-my-origin-stt-1-a.html
 
"the Sonnox EQ .... this can sound every bit if not BETTER than the Ogirin .... it's blown my mind.

The Sonnox EQ just seems to be so darn analog and well stunning." 

 
 
 
"A bad case of collective hallucination at work again I guess"(w/ austrian accent)

 

[bigshot]

I find that equipment that is deliberately designed to have an inaccurate response usually is marketed to undiscerning audiophools with hyperbolic poetry describing the uniqueness of the sound. The fact that it is deliberately made to sound different confirms to the audiophool that the difference is somehow better. Most people I know with really good sounding systems don't play that game. They carefully plan and research their purchases and understand the theory behind accuracy in sound. It's hard enough to get great sound with balanced equipment. Randomizing the sound of individual components just leads to chaos... And spending more money on different coloration to try to compensate. That is what people are talking about when they say sources, DACs and amps all have to be matched to each other. That rigamarole is totally unnecessary if you know what you're doing.

 

[xnor]

Quote:

As long as you agree that all complex devices or even most complex devices don't sound the same I'm satisfied.  It's not really important how or why.

In my previous post I said science does not say everything should sound the same. Now you're jumping from one extreme, that science says everything soudns the same, to the other extreme where science says that (all) complex devices sound different. I'm sorry but that's nonsense aswell.
 
Our hearing has limited "resolution" in various aspects. Recording devices are also limited in dynamic range, signal to noise ratio etc. Assuming that, for example, amps with different topologies, components etc. cannot output a signal that is just accurate enough to reproduce the recordings to our hearing transparently is irrational.
 
 
Quote:

That Carver was able to produce and sell amps that historically sounded different, should really end this discussion of "sameness sounding".

I already said, like many others in this thread, that a broad generalization like "all X sound the same" without context makes no sense.
Btw, the Carver challenge was mentioned and even linked to in the first reply of this thread. But I understand that you wanted to discuss and make up your mind about a couple of things.
 
 
Quote:

I understand the level matching rhetoric and have been part of some DBTs.  I've even used those same arguments myself.  I agree with the science, not the reality.

Do you think science and reality are mutally exclusive? Science is about explaining and predicting what happens in reality!
 
Sometimes I feel like audiophiles act like devices have a soul. This reminds me of the threads about UFOs and ghosts ...
 
 
Quote:

Is it the reproduction of the recording we're after or the reproduction of the event? 

My opinion on this is that when I'm playing a record, I want whatever is on the CD or in the FLAC file to be transparently reproduced. If I want to hear the artists performing live I go to an event. If I want coloration or cool effects I use DSP. It's as simple as that.
 
 
Quote:

Carver made a bundle doing it.  Apparently it is something that is desired, and to a large number of people it sounds better.

Audiophiles plus tube amp lovers ... a large number? Not on this planet or in this reality.
 
 
Quote:

If we can agree that some of these complex devices can be made to sound different and that some of those devices that can be made to sound different have been marketed, produced and sold (think Meridian and Carver and Wadia) the thread can be over.

Of course, but imo that's quite obvious isn't it? A change of a single resistor value can make a great amp sound poor and some people enjoy colored equipment (nothing wrong with that).
 

 

[bigshot]

Now the brand new "all EQ's sound the same" is just utter nonsense...some ppl must think really hard to talk such nonsense publicly.

The differences between equalizers are different than the differences between amps. I have had a bunch of them in my day, and cheap ones can be extremely noisy. There is also a big difference between the way one equalizer handles overlap between pots and the shape of the rolloff on either side of the pot's range. Some have pots that bounce around without a smooth gradation from open to closed. And others can shift settings with the temperature, making it necessary to recalibrate all the time.

I have a pro grade analogue Raine equalizer that serves me fine, but a friend of mine just got a really good digital equalizer that is rock solid and accurate. I'm lusting after it, but it is just one channel, so I would need six of them and some sort of 5:1 decoder to use that kind. Out of my price range right now.

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

Sometimes I feel like audiophiles act like devices have a soul. This reminds me of the threads about UFOs and ghosts ...

They think magic will save them from logic but even if magic did exist all it would still have to follow some sort of rules.

 

[Willakan]

Wait, you can design SS amps to measure badly in a traditional sense but have some form of colouration which may or may not be pleasant depending on whether your other equipment is coloured and the recording you're listening to (therefore cannot ever be a good idea IMO unless it is "compensating" for audible and consistent performance flaws of other pieces of equipment - in which case the whole setup is a bad idea). No-one is disputing that - but when such amplifiers or DACs are designed the differences are MASSIVE from a measurement viewpoint - the kind of frequency response rolloff you need for it to be audible is gigantic (in the Yulong D100 review thread a toggleable 3db rolloff at 20khz was described repeatedly as inaudible, which if I saw in a piece of equipment I would probably denounce it as crap - I err extremely heavily on the side of caution when it comes to the numbers but am hardly alone on that front).
 
You can design equipment to be "coloured.", but that does not represent either the majority of audio equipment or good design by any stretch of the imagination. No-one is disputing this - but the differences in such cases ARE measurable.
What I'm disputing is when two excellently measuring devices supposedly sound "different." You gave an example of a NOS and normal DAC - big measurable differences, possible audible ones (pretty safe bet as the majority of NOS DACs measure...interestingly). With the amps you listed, it's more difficult to pin something down as we don't have independently sourced  measurements for any of them.
 

 

[deadlylover]

I fully agree, but considering how pretty much all headphones are coloured anyway, what's the big deal with having an amp or DAC that doesn't measure perfectly?

 

[xnor]

Quote:

I fully agree, but considering how pretty much all headphones are coloured anyway, what's the big deal with having an amp or DAC that doesn't measure perfectly?

Because they are marketed and sold (sometimes with outrageous prices) and furthermore subjectively reviewed as superior, better-sounding devices? Head-fi hype / FOTM says hello.
 

 

[leeperry]

I fully agree, but considering how pretty much all headphones are coloured anyway, what's the big deal with having an amp or DAC that doesn't measure perfectly?

 
Mostly coz THD, SNR and IMD won't tell you squat about SQ.
 
For years, Creative & Asus have been playing the numbers game to impress n00bz, but who cares about 123dB SNR? And who cares that the horrid sounding NE5532 or LME49710 carry 0.00001% THD? they seriously sound like #### anyway.
 
Those measurements don't take the masterclock accurary or the opamps color in account, they aren't meant to measure them either.
 
A good DAC must have +100/110dB SNR and decent THD/IMD, but believing that the higher the better is a gross mistake...and so is believing that above a certain point they will all sound the same™. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your highly technical thread about how everything sounds the same™.
 
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/4432704-post5.html

there were many scientific researches that proved that all variations of IMD, THD, THD+N tests, and all other specific tests can't be used to say how well the sound is reproduced in terms of subconscious human perceptions. And there still are some stubborn engineers and scientists who won't see any evidences.

Amen

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

Mostly coz THD, SNR and IMD won't tell you squat about the SQ.
 
For some years, Creative & Asus have been playing the numbers game to impress n00bz, but who cares about 123dB SNR? And who cares that the horrid sounding NE5532 or LME49710 carry 0.00001% THD? they seriously sound like #### anyway.
 
Those measurements don't take the masterclock accurary or the opamps color in account, they aren't meant to measure them either.
 
A good DAC must have +100/110dB SNR and decent THD/IMD, but believing that the higher the better is a gross mistake...and so is believing that above a certain point they will all sound the same™. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your highly technical thread about how everything sounds the same.
 
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/4432704-post5.html
Amen

Have you demonstrated any of that, or are you just going with your gut?

 

[bigshot]

I fully agree, but considering how pretty much all headphones are coloured anyway, what's the big deal with having an amp or DAC that doesn't measure perfectly?

Say you have a DAC, a DVD player for movies, a headphone amp and a power amp pushing your speakers. The DAC is colored to sound "warm" and the power amp is also colored "warm". The other two are flat. If you play your DAC through your speakers, it would sound double "warm" (read: muffled). If you play your DVD through your headphones it would sound like flat response. If you played your DAC through your headphone amp, it would sound a little bit warm. Every different combination of components would have a different response curve.

That's why you try to keep flat what you can keep flat and only apply coloration at the final stage, the transducers. The speakers and headphones are always colored because it's hard to make mechanical acoustic devices to the same standards as electronics. The only way to handle that is to have flat sources and amps and apply equalization just before the transducers. If everything is different all through the chain, the sound is different with each source and amp combination. Chaos.

 

[upstateguy]

Guys:
 
Every one of you have been correct in your perspectives, opinions and logic.  If I wasn't on the other side of the table in this discussion I would have been using the exact same arguments.
 
But, we have established the existence of complex devices that can and do sound different from each other.
 
That they exist and you can buy them, is enough to support my initial premise that complex devices do not necessarily sound the same.
 
Muffled, lean, fat, bright, bassy, tinny, rolled off, thin, colored, boomy, analytical, "nice", warm and a host of other descriptions all coexist.
 
Although some things sound the same, I think we've discovered that some do not.
 
This thread was never about measurements or design, it was an investigation into the existence of variations that do not sound the same.
 
USG
 
 

 

[bigshot]

If I bought a source and determined that it sounded different from my other sources, I would return it. It would be more trouble to calibrate it separately from the rest of my kit than it would be worth.

Colored components do exist. They're the crappy ones. Crap comes in all price points.

 

[upstateguy]

 
Quote:

If I bought a source and determined that it sounded different from my other sources, I would return it. It would be more trouble to calibrate it separately from the rest of my kit than it would be worth.

Colored components do exist. They're the crappy ones. Crap comes in all price points.

One one hand I agree with you....
 
But on the other hand, suppose the one that sounded different actually sounded better?  Suppose the difference was that it had more resolution (cleaner, clearer sound) and a wider, deeper and more defined sound stage than your other sources?     Suppose you could identify the location of instruments better with this source? Then what?
 

 

[Willakan]

In which case, simple 2 steps:
1. Blind test to determine the difference does actually exist. I personally can attest to hearing giant differences in bass impact, treble extension and even soundstage thanks to a combination of bias and volume mismatch. It astounded me at the time that such enormous differences would disappear so readily. Whilst anecdotal I would draw your attention to the infamous Stereo Review article on amp sound - when sighted-testing the amps even the self-proclaimed skeptics, who had declared they would sound the same, were amazed - the entire group agreed there were audible differences. These completely disappeared under blind conditions (not DBT, just not knowing what they were listening to).
 
2. If you determine the difference is real, take the superior-measuring piece of kit, so you have a more neutral base, and use source tone controls/EQ on PC/Separate hardware EQ to colour it to suit your preference.