Redcarmoose
Headphoneus Supremus
Consider that synergy is very problematic from a sound science perspective. People attribute synergy based on sighted comparisons where audio science would often tell us that no audible difference may exist between dac/amp combo A and dac/amp combo B.
So many times the Sound Science forums become the place that rehashes the concepts still not known, either not known ideas or not understood ideas and various opinions there of.
We have not questioned the fact that frequency graphs are real and important. I still wonder though if the response would always be the same at different volume levels? Lower volume levels could show less bass?
I have always wondered if a headphone distortion graph would show distortion at higher volumes as that is what we hear? I have also always thought there could be a volume level going into the headphone that would yeld the most flat graph?
The question of synergy is a difficult subject for science and non-science minded members to get their heads around. It is maybe the most haphazardly tested concept in Head-Fi. Folks blindly running around at a meet going from system to system trying stuff out. Not exactly scientific but a needed action at times.
Some of our best surprises have been when our listening guesstimations were wrong when audio testing systems and synergy. Science gets us close in terms of how stuff is going to react together, still I think the most honest here would admit that the proof is in the sighted listening tests.