[joojoo2915]

Very sorry for the delay in reply, had to go to work at my other place of employment.

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As I have the convertable, and you work for HeadRoom, I will submit myself to a double blind test on the modules I currently have. They all have the same gain and will all provide the same volume level without the amplifier having to be touched. All variables, except the amplifying electronics will be constant - PSU, main board, etc. There are 8 modules and I content that, double blind, I will be able to ID them, without the luxury of A/Bing them (including even getting the Home '05 and Reference '04 correct, despite the fact that they use the same electronics design and only differ in layering of the board, and the size of the capacitors). In fact, if you trust me, I'm happy to have a friend do it with me here - as the modules have no labels on them, he will have no idea which one is which, and I'll wear a blindfold, sitting 10ft away. I hold myself to getting 6/8 correct (i.e. no more than 1 incorrect, which therefore means 2). I will use the same track, from the same source and listen through it for each no more than 2 times. Also, as I won't know whether I was correct or not until the end of the test, I will not be able to use a process of elimination.

As I understand it, people are very sensitive to slight derivations in volume, on the order of .1 decibels, or so. They don't hear it as being louder, but often hear it as sounding better. If you would like to do the test I'd love to hear the outcome, but I believe it would be difficult to match your amplifiers to within that degree of accuracy. If you haven't read the link I put in my first post, you should.

If you don't care to read the link I will summarize. Basically there is a man named Richard Clark who is famous in the car audio world for being very outspoken about the audio voodoo that goes on these days. He helped start a company in the late 70's called Auto Sound 2000 that holds the patent on the stiffening capacitor as well as other audio related goods. Anyway, he has a $10,000 amplifier challenge. He will allow anyone to compare any two production car audio amplifiers, with any set of speakers and if they can pick the correct amps 24/24 times he will give them $10,000. I don't know if he is even still doing his challenge, but thousands have taken it in the past and every one of them has failed.

If you do have very precise audio calibrating equipment and do take a double blind experiment, and pass, I will happily concede to your point that amplifiers sound different. All evidence that I currently posses, however, seems to indicate otherwise.


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Quote: Originally Posted by joojoo2915 ...snip...If a cable is capable of carrying the voltage (anything bigger than say, 22 gauge)...snip... Are you sure you mean that? Not very good for your credibility if you do.

You are absolutely correct. I am sorry, I wrote my first post late last night and screwed up. The wire needs to be capable of carrying the current, not the voltage. I do stand by my 22 gauge statement, though. If you visit this site and scroll down to '#16 Wire' on the right hand scroll bar and then scroll down the page to the first calculator you can enter the power output, speaker wire length, speaker wire gauge, and load impedance and it will give you the dB output loss incurred by the wire.

According to the calculator, with a power output of 500 mW (.5 watts), speaker wire length of 15 feet, 22 ga speaker wire and 32 ohm source impedance you will lose .13 decibels due to the wire. This would be absolutely worst case scenario. It is very possible you could hear the difference between this wire and a wire with a larger gauge, or one that was shorter but it is not something that can't be fixed by an extremely slight change of the volume knob. Electricity also travels at the speed of light, whether it is traveling through copper or through forged silver made by Himalayan monk blacksmiths, so I can't understand how speed would be a factor.

Again, I could be 100% wrong and there could absolutely be something I'm missing. In my experience, however, the explanation that I have given makes the most sense to me.

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Originally Posted by joojoo2915 ...snip...Cable upgrades are absolutely not worth it. Music is just thousands of changing volts...snip... Are you sure you mean that as well? Ditto. I don't want to criticise you if it's all simply for typo reasons, however, if you do mean both of those comments exactly as you put them it shows that you know very little about electronics.

Again, that was a very poor explanation on my part. The CD player reads the 16 bit words from the CD which it sends to the DAC to convert to 1/44,100th of a second worth of audio, in the form of AC voltage.

Mr. Hertsens as well as many other members of this board have far more experience in these matters than myself, I realize and respect that. My stance on these issues are based on what I've read, been told and experienced myself, while doing my best to maintain an objective outlook on things. I will continue to maintain my objective outlook and if I read, hear, or experience things that are more convincing to me than what I have in the past, I will have no problem admitting my stance was errant and ill-informed and move on. Until that time, however, I will continue to express the opinion that wire upgrades aren't all they're cracked up to be and amplifiers still sound the same so long as they are compared fairly.

 

[TheSloth]

Thanks for replying clearly to the questions raised.

Firstly, you talk about music just being AC voltage. I'm sorry but it isn't - there is NO AC in audio reproduction. Unless you are using AC to mean something very strange indeed... And if only the current you are referring to was constant, amplifier design would be so easy. But it isn't. Impedance and therefore current draw varies wildly even within one driver (look at your own company's graph for the Senn. HD 580 for example) with frequency.

Regarding a double blind trial, I believe that within the modules I have, modules from the same line with the same overall circuit topology, i.e. all the '05 modules (micro, desktop, home, max) have gain and output matched to that sort of level of tolerance, and therefore can be compared. The modules of an older design would have to be eliminated from the trial as they are not output matched to the others within that degree, though they are in the same ball park, and even the premium '04 would have to go. Therefore I would be happy to use the modules I have from the '05 line, i.e. the Micro, Desktop and Home modules and perform the test. I believe that Joe will confirm for you that their output levels, given the same amplifier conditions, will be matched at least to somewhere near the degree that you specify. Also, you are forgetting that even if the levels were not matched to that degree, I would not be selecting which one's I thought were best, or worth more. I would be selecting which one was which based on their sound, and therefore the 'louder = better' problem is largely irrelevant in this case.

I would like to point out the the tests at the link you provided are utterly flawed, as they do not allow the listener to practice, thereby proving absolutely nothing. What do I mean by that? I intend to listen to the modules critically, and take notes before I actually take the test. But isn't that cheating? Of course not; the objective is to prove that one can hear differences in the sound. Therefore if one practices listening to them to hear the subtleties of the differences, if there are differences that one can hear and remember, the results would get more and more accurate the more you listened/practiced. If there were no audible differences and the differences heard were all down to placebo, no matter how many times you listened, the results would not improve. I don't contest that differences may be inaudible in a one off double blind trial, however that doesn't mean they are inaudible, and after some 'practice', I'll be happy to prove it for you.

Interested...? I'll probably do it anyway because now I'm interested!

 

[RichardCory]

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Originally Posted by TheSloth If there were no audible differences and the differences heard were all down to placebo, no matter how many times you listened, the results would not improve.

Likewise, one could say, "If there were no medical advantages and the remedies felt were all down to placebo, no matter how many times you took a sugar pill, the symptoms would not improve." Such a statement, I assume, would be disproved if one were to find a study on physicians dispensing sugar pills to hypochondriacs. But...*shrug*

 

[TheSloth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardCory Likewise, one could say, "If there were no medical advantages and the remedies felt were all down to placebo, no matter how many times you took a sugar pill, the symptoms would not improve." Such a statement, I assume, would be disproved if one were to find a study on physicians dispensing sugar pills to hypochondriacs. But...*shrug*

No one couldn't say that. It's not remotely comparable.

This is a test with 2 outcomes - you either meet the requirements of the test, or you do not. There is no medical test that can possibly be limited to 2 discrete predefined outcomes unless it is something along the lines of 'the patient died after taking the pill' or 'the patient did not die after taking the pill'. Anyway you can pick holes in that too but it's irrelevant.

In this case, the contention is that there are no differences in sound. If one is able to hear differences, and document that in a repeatable and double blind proof way, it is irrelevant how many times one had to listen to determine it beause the point is still proven, i.e. that differences are audible. The repeatable is important to rule out improvements from results from simple placebo by the laws of probability. Of course, it is techincally possible that one would be unable to hear any difference, and yet get the answers right each time, an infinite number of times, however one surely has to concede that the probability is tantamount to 0 and therefore after a pre-determined number of repetitions deemed adequate to lower the probability sufficiently, the point can be proven. The only thing such a point would concede to the detractors is that the differences are extremely small, requiring much listening time to determine them. But they have still been proven to be there...

 

[Meyvn]

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Originally Posted by fondy44 The reason I ask is because a couple of comments I've read on their website strike me as odd coming from audiophiles. The first is "the bundled iPod earbuds don't sound that bad". I know sound is subjective, but almost everyone I have talked to thinks these are just about the worst-sounding earbuds money can buy. I'm no audiophile by any means, but I'd take a pair of MX300s over the iBuds any day.

The reason Headroom is like this is simple: they're far more reasonable than the average audiophile. They understand better than most that everything is relative. They don't say that the iPod earbuds are that bad because honestly, in comparison to a LOT of earbuds, they aren't; while their bass is atrocious, their detail is actually significantly better than many. In comparison to actual audiophile headphones, yes, the standard iPod earbuds are horrible. In comparison to some competitors that are actually of lower market value (KSC75, for instance), they are horrible. However, they do have their own value, and Headroom acknowledges this. Why? Simple: being a business, they are not out to criticize, insult, or scare away potential new customers; they're after people who are willing to spend in every price range, not just the more well-off/crazy clientele. That's why an audiophile specialty store that only sells high-end Sennheisers and Beyerdynamics might tell you that they suck, but Headroom won't.

 

[RichardCory]

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Originally Posted by TheSloth Anyway you can pick holes in that too but it's irrelevant.

I don't see the irrelevance. The amp test has two outcomes, while the sugar-pill test has only three (symptoms worsen, symptoms remain the same, symptoms improve); but, either way, I don't see the premise of either test being any different--determining whether improvements are genuine or self-induced. You can believe what you want, and I could very well be wrong; but I'm just telling you what the critics of your idea about learning amp characteristics are going to say.

 

[Jamey Warren]

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Originally Posted by joojoo2915 My stance on these issues are based on what I've read, been told and experienced myself, while doing my best to maintain an objective outlook on things. I will continue to maintain my objective outlook and if I read, hear, or experience things that are more convincing to me than what I have in the past, I will have no problem admitting my stance was errant and ill-informed and move on. Until that time, however, I will continue to express the opinion that wire upgrades aren't all they're cracked up to be and amplifiers still sound the same so long as they are compared fairly.

We'll be working on this today. This thread makes it a little more obvious to me where HeadRoom could use some good training policies.

We just might have to get joojoo2915 a convertable just like TheSloth has so that he can convince himself of the difference in amplifiers and cables.

 

[sxr71]

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Originally Posted by A.Thorsen So true! EVERYONE read that thing NOW! From that great PDF Beau linked us to: The second link: http://www.rane.com/note100.html [/b] I'm already virtually certain that a headphone amp is in my future shortly after I fin ally get my 701's. But, even at that, I'd like a real life application/lesson here, please. Using the 701's stats, help me do a quick walk through with those specs in context of this advice. In other words: Help me with a real life application.

I'll tell you what, the K701s will beg you to buy them an amp. They may be in the lower impedance range but they have pretty low sensitivity and they hence need a lot of current to play at the levels you might like. I would even go so far to say that you need an amp geared to supply a good amount of current to do them justice.


I remember someone on here posted a great post that shows that impedance alone tells you nothing about how difficult a pair of headphones are to drive. This person posted a good example taking sensitivity and impedance and showing an example where the lower impedance phones were more difficult to drive than the higher impedance phones.

 

[sxr71]

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Originally Posted by Meyvn The reason Headroom is like this is simple: they're far more reasonable than the average audiophile. They understand better than most that everything is relative. They don't say that the iPod earbuds are that bad because honestly, in comparison to a LOT of earbuds, they aren't; while their bass is atrocious, their detail is actually significantly better than many. In comparison to actual audiophile headphones, yes, the standard iPod earbuds are horrible. In comparison to some competitors that are actually of lower market value (KSC75, for instance), they are horrible. However, they do have their own value, and Headroom acknowledges this. Why? Simple: being a business, they are not out to criticize, insult, or scare away potential new customers; they're after people who are willing to spend in every price range, not just the more well-off/crazy clientele. That's why an audiophile specialty store that only sells high-end Sennheisers and Beyerdynamics might tell you that they suck, but Headroom won't.

Very well said. The iPod buds are probably the best buds in most people's homes. Their basis for comparison is like a set of Sony, Aiwa and Panasonic buds that came with their $39 CD player. Sure the iPod buds lose even to the MX500 and of course the KSC-75s, but really how many people even have those?

 

[sxr71]

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Originally Posted by RichardCory Likewise, one could say, "If there were no medical advantages and the remedies felt were all down to placebo, no matter how many times you took a sugar pill, the symptoms would not improve." Such a statement, I assume, would be disproved if one were to find a study on physicians dispensing sugar pills to hypochondriacs. But...*shrug*

"The Sloth" is right because with patients you can't change their therapy from the real medication and to the placebo back and forth and have patients compare the differences. You do a medical study with one half of a group given placebo and the other half given the drug in question. That is how medical studies are conducted because that is what provides the answer they need.

To simulate this little audio experiment in medicine, you would have to have the same group of patients given a placebo for a month and the then the drug in question for the next month, and randomize such a cycle over a year at least. You would also have to inform the patients in the beginning whether they are on A or B for a few cycles so they can learn. With learning they will note the differences between the placebo and the drug because every drug has a physiological effect at efficacious concentrations, and then they will be able to tell you the difference between the placebo and the drug because they know the differences now.

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Since this topic was brought up in open forum, I feel the need to be very transperant here. joojoo2915 (Mike) is and employee here at HeadRoom. He is a local college student who begged us for a job----any job----just so he could get some work experience with an audio company. So, we hire him as an intern/catch-all kind of worker. I hadn't even met him prior to this last weekends posts in this thread.

He is not going to be disciplined or anything because of his posts, though we are going to put in some policies that prevent people from talking as HeadRoom representatives in on-line forums until properly qualified. We are doing so not because we have some underhanded motive but rather because we have developed some corporate beliefs and feel those should be spoken clearly and without confusion. It's not what Mike said, but rather that his mentioning that he worked for HeadRoom means that "we" said it, and it is not in-line with our corporate belief. To be further clear, our "corporate belief" is not something written in a policy manual, but litterally a belief arrived at corporately between me, Jamey, Joe W., Jorge, Ivy and others about how to think of the Objective/Subjective issues.

Mike did spend some time yesterday listening to cables and modules. I do not know what his conclusions are, if any. I don't know how much time he'll be given to evaluate the sounds of cable and amp changes, we did hire him to do other work, but I do think it's worth giving him the chance to hear things. Whether he does or doesn't, we'll just have to see.

I don't really see a win in this situation, if he comes on here again and says that he heard differences in cables, people are going to think he was pressured by us to give a subjectivist slant. If he comes on and says that he didn't hear any differences with cables, then we're fools for shilling snake oil. It's a silly situation.

None the less, that's the current situation, we'll see how it plays out.

 

[A.Thorsen]

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Originally Posted by sxr71 I'll tell you what, the K701s will beg you to buy them an amp. They may be in the lower impedance range but they have pretty low sensitivity and they hence need a lot of current to play at the levels you might like. I would even go so far to say that you need an amp geared to supply a good amount of current to do them justice.

Very likely. In fact, I'm counting on it since I know my AV receiver most certainly falls into that vast majority of those with underpowered, afterthough headphone jacks and treatment.

When one goes speaker shopping, dealing with these sorts of ratings is subjective and nebulous enough...even more so with this headphone realm!

Quote:

I remember someone on here posted a great post that shows that impedance alone tells you nothing about how difficult a pair of headphones are to drive. This person posted a good example taking sensitivity and impedance and showing an example where the lower impedance phones were more difficult to drive than the higher impedance phones.

Probably true.

I do know that, once I get the 701s here finally, get them burned in a bit, that some sort of headphone amp is a mandatory purchase for me.

 

[Beauregard]

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Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens ... I don't really see a win in this situation, if he comes on here again and says that he heard differences in cables, people are going to think he was pressured by us to give a subjectivist slant. If he comes on and says that he didn't hear any differences with cables, then we're fools for shilling snake oil. It's a silly situation. ...

There's probably no win for HeadRoom in this - but I hope I'm not the only one who appreciates your candor in addressing the situation. I don't envy any audio manufacturer the task of dealing with the objectivist/subjectivist divide and the passion it generates.

Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread - I'd point out to the poster who indicted HeadRoom merely because they sell pricey headphone cables and amps (which you've decided, categorically, aren't of value) that part and parcel of the snake oil concept isn't just the product - but how it's sold. In my dealings with HeadRoom, there's never been a hint of the hucksterism that a snake oil salesman uses to deceptively push his product or enhance the placebo effect in the buyer.

In fact, HeadRoom has always been very straightforward about the rule of diminishing returns in helping me to choose a product. (Going back to the early 90s when the CEO routinely answered the phone as part of his duties.

) My present amp is one of the last run of the old HeadRoom line purchased a year ago based on the advice that it would give me 99% of the sound quality to be had from investing $300 more to move up the product line. I bought Senn HD650s at the time; the salesperson never even mentioned the fact that Cardas cables were available much less try to sell me such a thing.

And I mentioned my interaction with Jamey in my first post in this thread. When I called to upgrade my amp with the new Max module, he engaged me in a constructive discussion of my (less than sophisticated) audio sensibilities and the amount of improvement to be had from the module and helped me decide that it wasn't likely to be a cost-effective purchase for me. Keep in mind that an upgrade to an old amp (understandably) isn't covered by the 30-day policy so he quite simply chose to pursue an evaluation of my needs with honesty about his product over what would have been a $700 sale if he had kept his mouth shut and simply taken my order.

From years of online exposure to Tyll, HeadRoom, and their customers I think it's safe to say that what I've described is typical. An honest and straightforward approach to business has been an important part of HeadRoom's much deserved success. Nope, no snake oil here.

Best,
Beau

 

[PhilS]

Deleted in light of Tyll's post, which I missed at first glance.

 

[OceanEnthusiast]

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Originally Posted by fondy44 Thanks for the replies. I'm glad to hear that Headroom is a trustworthy business, their portable amps look tempting.

skip the portable amp unless you have headphones that really require it, i.e., if you're trying to plug sennheiser hd580's into an ipod, you'll want an amp. most cheap (<$100) earbuds or portable headphones into an ipod or computer soundcard, not worth it because they're designed to be driven by portables anyway. i have personally found the effect of amplifiers to be a little exaggerated, although some setups do need it.