[bfreedma]

at least I explain and give reason for every ULTRA LOL that I writte, you instead, try to give me professional psychological evaluations for every ultra lol.... that is funny to me but I won't say ultra lol to you because apparently you get very offended

I’ve yet to see you answer any questions or provide a non subjective explanation for anything you’ve posted. Can you point me to something I might have missed that is based on objective data (showing audibility to humans) and not your opinion? Feel free to skip the immature acronyms in your response if you make one.

 

[Laura80]

yes, you can hear a significant difference, that is because the way the dac interprets and forms the analog signal is more complex and dynamic, there is a silent background with very good dynamics and a very good designed stable and clean power source, and very low output impedance, among many many more things that make a dac sounding much much better than a cheap one.

it's the internal processing inside the chip that reconstructs the analog signal where you start seeing the first differences in sound, thats why is so funny when they talk about a perfectly converted signal or when they talk about transparency or the funniest of all when they say all dacs sound the same when they dont even have the same chip and let alone the differences in implementation of such chip, or what digital transport receiver inside such dac can be implemented and how delivers those 1 and 0's to the D/A converter chip, everything counts, even the case as some were ridiculing out of their own ignorance with a sony product

Hello Elecroestatico, you certainly add fire to this discussion and are clearly passionate about this hobby.

I think Sound Science is very much it’s own island to the rest of the forum but I enjoy the diversity of opinion you offer.

 

[Laura80]

Don't listen to him Laura. All these dacs may measure differently but you won't be able to hear it unless you look at the machine whilst using it. That way you can think up millions of magic ways it somehow enhances your audio chain. Hide it behide a couple of boxes and do a blindtest with say an iPhone and you won't be able to hear a difference. If you do I will be the first to call you a doctor

I’m just glad I’m not in the market for a fancy dac

 

[bigshot]

Sound Science isn't the island. We are the ones that are outside of the box, because we're free to challenge and require proof. The rest of Head-Fi forbids the discussion of double blind testing and bias. How can that lead to better discourse?

 

[JaeYoon]

Ahh we're back at the old audiophile bastion: flee when people ask for proof of your claims...and sneak in the backdoor to spout bollocks when the adults are in bed.

Don't listen to him Laura. All these dacs may measure differently but you won't be able to hear it unless you look at the machine whilst using it. That way you can think up millions of magic ways it somehow enhances your audio chain. Hide it behide a couple of boxes and do a blindtest with say an iPhone and you won't be able to hear a difference. If you do I will be the first to call you a doctor

That's the thing. If someone has that amazing of a hearing, they need to go get tested and see if they can be in guinness world record for having hearing well beyond the average human.

 

[oldmate]

The rest of Head-Fi forbids the discussion of double blind testing and bias. How can that lead to better discourse?

Yeah, about that!! I see you have been around here for some time. There is no doubt that Head.Fi in 2018 is vastly different to when you joined. And not in a good way.

 

[bigshot]

Several of the people here such as @bigshot are not concerned of the numbers that the chord dave can pull off if they can't detect it audibly. What is the purpose for someone such as him to spend 2 grand on a item that has really good numbers but humans have a really hard time detecting?

That is a great question. Do you have an answer for it? If a piece of audio equipment performs better than human ears can perceive, what is the point of better numbers? I can speculate... pride of ownership, like owning a sports car, investment into a product that you know is built well enough to last for years, convenience of having something that is smaller or more feature packed... But none of that means that it sounds any different for the purposes of listening to your music. Any of those reasons are fair and I can totally understand them, even if I may have different priorities than you. That is fine. But saying that an expensive DAC sounds better than any other DAC just isn't factual. That is the only thing I am arguing against. I know it isn't true, because I've gone to the trouble to do the tests myself and verify that all the DACs and DAPs I have access to are audibly transparent.

If someone wants to point me to a DAC that they have evaluated carefully and they believe it is colored, then I'm interested. I am curious why a company would would make something that isn't transparent. It would be an interesting curate's egg. I do suspect that it's more likely in super high end audio where a company is trying to sell themselves based on a "house sound" than it is in a reasonably priced unit where there is a lot of competition.

 

[Steve999]

Yeah, about that!! I see you have been around here for some time. There is no doubt that Head.Fi in 2018 is vastly different to when you joined. And not in a good way.

Hey! I was here before that. . . that . . . . BIGSHOT!

I might have taken a decade or more off but that's irrelevant.

It was the same problem back then, but it was a much tighter community throughout. What to do with people like "us" was a real problem for Jude et. al. People with differing views might not have always been so bitter about it, because you came to know personalities and who didn't mean you any harm. Your arch philosophical adversary might wish you happy birthday (literally). I was around for the initial inception of the idea of this sub-forum and I think I remember it even came and went once. Now the Politics forum came and went in a puff of smoke and that was a total disaster. The rest of the community needed Sound Science in their own special way. And this was a convenient repository for threads and people that brought up inconvenient truths. We had some hydrogen audio gurus hanging out here too which was very cool, actually. It was when they were kicking butt developing the LAME MP3 codec.

To stay on topic, I am listening right now through $30 headphones on a $70 DAC that has pretty purple letters on it and drives low-impedance or high-impedance headphones like nobody's business. Sure sounds good to me. I am confident in both pieces of gear. I've read reviews of the headphones with lots of objective measurements. They're damn good headphones. I get a real kick out of a $30 piece of gear that holds its own with the big league stuff. The build quality of the headphones is awful so I assume they might break eventually.

Edit: Wait, wait, this the cables thread. Okay, I am using the cable that is attached to my headphones, and a USB cable that I found on the floor. I am very confident in both.

Now people think they are going to come in here and bust our chops, like it's a sport. Good luck.

 

[bigshot]

I was against the formation of sound science at first because I saw it as a "banishment group". But after a while, I realized that the rest of Head Fi had banished themselves. This group is much less commercial than the rest of the site. And I think the anonymous shills for companies (which are definitely working in the rest of Head Fi) don't dare set foot in here.

 

[oldmate]

Hey! I was here before that. . . that . . . . BIGSHOT!

Sorry man - a few of us old timers still around.

I can speculate... pride of ownership, like owning a sports car, investment into a product that you know is built well enough to last for years, convenience of having something that is smaller or more feature packed...

I totally agree. Problem is though you get these jokers who straight up buy TOTL gear and think it makes them an expert overnight.

 

[oldmate]

I realized that the rest of Head Fi had banished themselves.

Brilliant. Author!! Truest words I have ever read around here.

 

[bigshot]

Problem is though you get these jokers who straight up buy TOTL gear and think it makes them an expert overnight.

I was being polite and not mentioning ego gratification, but that is a big reason for sure. Personally, I can't see investing my ego into a box full of chips and wires, but it takes all kinds I guess.

 

[Steve999]

I was against the formation of sound science at first because I saw it as a "banishment group". But after a while, I realized that the rest of Head Fi had banished themselves. This group is much less commercial than the rest of the site. And I think the anonymous shills for companies (which are definitely working in the rest of Head Fi) don't dare set foot in here.

I was "for" it . . . I thought of it like Hydrogen but with more personality and you could actually state a subjective impression once in a while without everyone screaming about it and referring you to what was it on Hydrogen, TOS #8. I think the whole rest of Head-Fi mandates that you violate Hydrogen TOS #8. I think it was 8. And I thought we were like renegades flying in the face of authority, but Head-Fi needed us, which was pretty cool. But your way of looking at it has some real punch.

The infamous Hydrogen Audio TOS 8:

TOS 8. All members that put forth a statement concerning subjective sound quality, must -- to the best of their ability -- provide objective support for their claims. Acceptable means of support are double blind listening tests (ABX or ABC/HR) demonstrating that the member can discern a difference perceptually, together with a test sample to allow others to reproduce their findings. Graphs, non-blind listening tests, waveform difference comparisons, and so on, are not acceptable means of providing support.

Almost all of us (or literally all of us?) as we conduct ourselves here would be toast over there. But the spirit lives on here.

 

[JaeYoon]

I was "for" it . . . I thought of it like Hydrogen but with more personality and you could actually state a subjective impression once in a while without everyone screaming about it and referring you to what was it on Hydrogen, TOS #8. I think the whole rest of Head-Fi mandates that you violate Hydrogen TOS #8. I think it was 8. And I thought we were like renegades flying in the face of authority, but Head-Fi needed us, which was pretty cool. But your way of looking at it has some real punch.

The infamous Hydrogen Audio TOS 8:

TOS 8. All members that put forth a statement concerning subjective sound quality, must -- to the best of their ability -- provide objective support for their claims. Acceptable means of support are double blind listening tests (ABX or ABC/HR) demonstrating that the member can discern a difference perceptually, together with a test sample to allow others to reproduce their findings. Graphs, non-blind listening tests, waveform difference comparisons, and so on, are not acceptable means of providing support.

Almost all of us (or literally all of us?) as we conduct ourselves here would be toast over there. But the spirit lives on here.

I have a smurf account on hydrogenaudio for some time.

But yes, If you were to turn sound science into tos8 style of hydrogenaudio it could turn sound science on headfi into a ghost town with only it's original members and very few activity. Because audiophiles are not allowed to share subjective ideas into their forum.

We are a small community compared over there.

 

[tansand]

I have those 1" jds labs portable interconnects, the stock ones that came with the topping NX1s', and some 7 dollar silver plated copper ones from ebay. The silver plated copper is a little too bright, but the copper ones sound good, the stock one a bit better than the jds labs. Unfortunate becuase the jds labs are so slim. I think it's helpful you can tune the sound with a 3" interconnect between the DAP and amp.