[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Yeah, I know my microwave is great!  

Anyone up for a Bonfire?!  

 

[Sonic 748i]

 
Quote:

Anyone up for a Bonfire?!  

I got the fire

 

[Edwood]

I'll bring the pretzels.
 

 

[momomo6789]

amp3 was spot on that thing sucked besides the battery life

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

I can not share what is not mine to share or I would, I would recommend since you have one look closely for yourself. Look at the solder joints, the old burr pcm1704 DAC used from 1998 which has been discontinued … the design flaws in the hifiman are clear and obvious, I didn’t need to look at graphs to determine my opinion, but it certainly helps.

It's pretty clear you're here to back up dfkt, but unfortunately you're doing it with a raft of gross misinformation and misunderstanding of the meaning of measurements. Some of the top DACs available today use the PCM1704UK or similar R2R DA chips, as, despite new advances, well-implemented they still reproduce music from a digital source better than just about everything else. Most modern DA chips are designed to be made cheaply, not to sound as good as possible.  If you guys believe that all this portable audio stuff is overkill and everyone should just buy an iPhone, iPod or Sansa Clip, then fair enough (quite understandable considering the Hifiman and many portable amps are quite large) but trashing someone's hard work with outright BS is trolling.

Quote:

Quote:

I do think the Wolfson sounds better than the PCM1704. Have you ever heard PS Audio PerfectWave?

A common misconception on this forum is that the DAC chip makes the sound.  It doesn't.  So while you might have preferred the Perfectwave to another DAC, that would be the result of the entire design of both.  Also, the popular WM8740 has pretty poor distortion measurements compared to other DA chips (the manufacturer measurements are available online), which is an incredible irony in this thread.  Yes, the Perfect Wave doesn't use the 8740, but my point still stands.

 

[MrGreen]

Quote:

 
 
Your mistake is to think that a maximized soundstage width is desirable, moreover one with an unnatural feature: extreme channel separation at low frequencies. When I'm talking of «preserved» of «improved» soundstage I'm addressing lifelikeness, credibility and threedimensionality. A hard-panned recording doesn't provide this, despite the wide soundstage. Note that it suffices to reduce channel separation at low frequencies, so you don't lose any essential spatial cues.
.

 
I certainly don't think maximised soundstage width is desirable (for example I think some old coltrane albums are unlistenable on headphones without a crossfeed of some sort). What I do think, however, is that if a device has high crosstalk (low separation), that cannot be turned off, it is an inherent flaw. I certainly agree with your sentiments when it comes to headphones or optional applications of crossfeed, however I cannot agree on a device with a fixed crosstalk, because some music (if I can use shpongle for example) does not benefit from crossfeed in any way and forced crosstalk is only going to bottleneck your collection in some way at some point in time
 
Quote:

I don't understand your question concerning the «STX». An Asus soundcard? I can't speak for it. As to measuring sound quality: Without any extreme measuring data you can't predict the sonic characteristic or the sound quality of an electronics device. The only data I'd consider extreme with the HM-801 is the treble roll-off.  Everything else is decent and below the established hearing threshold. Sound quality can effectively only be judged by ear.

 
Thanks. The purpose of using the STX is that it boasts extremely good RMAA results, and in my opinion doesn't sound all that good, so I was just curious. Of course, it only scores very well in 24bit, at 16 bit I think it scores somewhere in the region of -95dB
 
Have you got a link to these established hearing thresholds? I'd be delighted to see them.

 

 

[JaZZ]

 
I certainly don't think maximised soundstage width is desirable (for example I think some old coltrane albums are unlistenable on headphones without a crossfeed of some sort). What I do think, however, is that if a device has high crosstalk (low separation), that cannot be turned off, it is an inherent flaw. I certainly agree with your sentiments when it comes to headphones or optional applications of crossfeed, however I cannot agree on a device with a fixed crosstalk, because some music (if I can use shpongle for example) does not benefit from crossfeed in any way and forced crosstalk is only going to bottleneck your collection in some way at some point in time.

My whole music collection is crossfeeded, and every single recording has benefitted from crossfeeding, even those which would have been enjoyable without. (But that's just because I have tailored my crossfeed to my own demands. Regular crossfeeds usually come at a price IMO.) As to the HiFiMan's crosstalk: it is inaudible and far from being a fixed crossfeed. Remember the vinyl example!

 

Have you got a link to these established hearing thresholds? I'd be delighted to see them.

This could be a starting point with several links.

 

[shigzeo]

Wow, what happened? I left on a short 100k bike ride, ate some heavy fried chicken, and come back to explosions of anger and popcorn! Way to go HF!

 

[dfkt]

Here's a little test for everyone interested.

I've put a piece of music in FLAC on three different players and recorded the players' headphone outputs with Sound Forge 8.0, with a standard 16 Ohm load attached. My sound card is an Echo AudioFire, it's more precise and sensitive than these MP3 players, so the recording quality should be sufficient. Well, everyone can decide that for themselves when they listen to the tracks. For that reason I've also included the original file that I ripped directly from the CD in this test, to make it more conclusive. The only modification I did to the files was normalizing them to the same level (matching the player with the lowest recorded output).

The audio track was ripped from CD by me, using EAC in secure mode, Test&Copy, and AccurateRip. It's a 100% perfect rip.

So here are the four candidates, with a little description on what RMAA shows about those players - but of course you better listen for yourself instead of trusting graphs. Specs like SNR, THD, IMD don't really matter for these players, the differences should be inaudible and negligible.
 

1. Hifiman HM-801: average sound quality, rolled off treble, mediocre channel separation
2. Cowon V5: average sound quality, rolled off bass, better channel separation
3. Sansa Clip+: average sound quality, linear frequency response, mediocre channel separation
4. Original FLAC: exactly what is to be heard on the original CD

Can you hear the differences? Also, always keep in mind that one of the four tracks is the original.

Here you can download the test tracks. In that folder is also a password protected RAR archive with the solution key to the files. I will give out the password in a few days, after some people have listened to the files and posted their results.

I recommend Foobar2000's ABX plugin for a comfortable way to test these tracks. But of course any other method works as well. Happy listening!

 

[chinesekiwi]

What people underrate, particularly in portable devices, is how important the firmware is in sound quality.
 
Hardware specs are really meaningless (I do mean meaningless) if you do not have adequate firmware to help the user use it but also to adequately use the hardware properly.
A great example is here but also say the difference between Rockbox'ed and non-Rockbox'ed players and tbh, the old iPods (see 'brick' ones) are quite good hardware spec wise but had inadequate firmware thus sounded bad.
 
And yeah, measured specs like SNR, THD and jitter do not matter when it reaches the threshold of human hearing / software implementation (e.g. jitter below -80dB, SNR above 96dB [CD 16bit 44.1 kHz dynamic range] / 120dB [SACD / Blu-ray 24bit 96 kHz dyanmic range]).

 

[FortisFlyer75]

Interesting thread/debate going on here as i am on the verge of ordering either JH13 or 16 pros and once that is completed want to get a porta amp for my current dap the Sony X1060, but have been intrigued by the HifiMan if it is a realistic alternative for the outlay in terms of SQ to $$'s.
 
So anyway after reading this informative info about the technical side of the 801 and just curious with all you techy guys on here that are immersed and educated in the technical side albeit it some of you agree to disagree on the same subjects! here is a tongue in cheek Q....  do any of you use all the data & stats (RMAA) influence you in purchasing gear like the 801 or any gear come to that or do you solely let your ears  at the end of the day decide? (or both in conjunction factor the decision?) 
 
Has been informative and educational reading this thread even with all the popcorn throwing, jesting and baiting from offended remarks and if a lot of this needless crap bagging was not on here the thread be only four pages long! 
 

 

[Beefy]

Ugh, what a train wreck. Despite my better judgment, I have a few comments......

To all the people posting nothing but popcorn - you're not helping. Nobody even remotely cares that you are watching the thread with interest, so all you are doing is advertising that you are completely out of your depth with the subject material at hand. So please stop padding your post counts with pointless drivel.

Now that is out of the way, onto the meat of it. I cannot fathom how anybody thinks that deliberate and severe frequency roll off at their source is a good idea. This was my opinion when I started in this hobby with no vested interest, and it still stands now. If you lose such a huge chunk of your response at this step you are never going to get it back at your amp or phones. Following on from this, I cannot fathom how anybody thinks that deliberate frequency roll off at the amp is a good idea. If you lose so much of your music at this step, you are never going to get it back at your phones. Considering there is a such a vast range of sound signatures available from phones and speakers, why not tune there where it makes most sense, and you only have to replace one component if the sound signature isn't what you hope for. This isn't to say that different DACs and amps with different sound signatures don't have their place, of course, but killing the frequency response is by far the least ideal tool to use.

To anybody they can't hear several dB drop off at high frequencies, but still claim to hear ridiculously minute differences in other aspects of the sound signature...... well I just plain don't believe you. Either it is pure cognitive dissonance to defend an uncomfortable finding about your equipment, or the gold in your ears is actually just a very thin plating and you probably can't hear any real differences between anything. Further, if you deliberately have your source/amp rolling off at high frequencies because that is the only way to help it sound 'analogue', then I really just don't know what to say other than it is absolute nonsense. I wouldn't be surprised if these same people have previously claimed that frequency extension well beyond 22kHz is required for accurate music reproduction.
 
Enjoy your popcorn.

 

[JaZZ]

 

 
Can you hear the differences? Also, always keep in mind that one of the four tracks is the original.

Here you can download the test tracks. In that folder is also a password protected RAR archive with the solution key to the files. I will give out the password in a few days, after some people have listened to the files and posted their results. tracks. But of course any other method works as well. Happy listening!

I'm venturing a guess:
 
1: Cowon V5
2: original Flac
3: HM-801
4: Clip+
 
They're really close, though, not one of them sounds bad. But why do such examples always consist of sonically relatively uncritical excerpts with lots of low-level passages with low overtone content – plus an unfamiliar, relatively dull instrument sound in this case (even reminds of electronically produced sound)!
 
BTW, the sound through a headphone attached to the headphone out could possibly be another story.

 

[dfkt]

Give me a track you think is better suited, and I'll do the same again.
 
About the headphone out - you did listen to the original, so you know what it should sound like, how different it is to the recorded tracks.

 

[El_Doug]

I dont know about you, but I have a hard time finding headphones which exactly provide my preferred frequency response, on top of having the soundstage I crave, a high level of comfort, etc. all at once.  I enjoy my HD800's to death, due to their comfort, soundstage, and extreme levels of detail.  However, their highs can be a bit obnoxious.  Do I reach for other cans?  No!  I simply adjust the input.  For many of us, our only choice is to have the frequency response adjusted somewhere upstream of the headphones. 
 
Your logic is flawed, in that you suggest that EQ in the headphone is fine, while EQ in the source or amp is sacrilege - this is an odd statement indeed. 
 
Quote:

Now that is out of the way, onto the meat of it. I cannot fathom how anybody thinks that deliberate and severe frequency roll off at their source is a good idea. This was my opinion when I started in this hobby with no vested interest, and it still stands now. If you lose such a huge chunk of your response at this step you are never going to get it back at your amp or phones. Following on from this, I cannot fathom how anybody thinks that deliberate frequency roll off at the amp is a good idea. If you lose so much of your music at this step, you are never going to get it back at your phones. Considering there is a such a vast range of sound signatures available from phones and speakers, why not tune there where it makes most sense, and you only have to replace one component if the sound signature isn't what you hope for. This isn't to say that different DACs and amps with different sound signatures don't have their place, of course, but killing the frequency response is by far the least ideal tool to use.