New Zealand - Auckland / Northland - DAC / amp ABX testers wanted
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Oct 29, 2017 at 3:20 PM Post #16 of 50
I'm still okay to contribute to the test. As long as I don't have to pull things apart.

Here is my equipment at the moment. A few changes.

169049.jpg


Yggy > Woo WA22, V281 > Ether Flow open and AudioQuest Nighthawks.
 
Oct 29, 2017 at 10:11 PM Post #17 of 50
Sounds great. Little to no assembly will be required.

@Computer Lounge, is this something you'd be interested in? I can understand if it's a potential conflict of interest.
 
Oct 29, 2017 at 10:17 PM Post #18 of 50
Sounds great. Little to no assembly will be required.

@Computer Lounge, is this something you'd be interested in? I can understand if it's a potential conflict of interest.

I have no problems with Computer Lounge. Purchased Woo WA22 from there.

I don't want to take gear of my rack. Everything is cabled in and cable tied. It's a big
job for me to un-assemble. It takes hours. So it would have to be at my place.

I see computer lounge is arranging that meet. I will likely not go as it's too much work.
 
Oct 29, 2017 at 10:58 PM Post #19 of 50
Sounds great. Little to no assembly will be required.

I think it may be a wee bit finicky, but by no means impossible, to work out... Didn't @Badas say his system was balanced for blind listening? My WA2 and Mojo are not, so camparisons with these, at least, cannot be direct...

So, depending on when, I can bring any, or all of the following:

WA2, or, (if I've paid for it by then) Eddie Current ZDS
Oppo bdp105d (not really a dac, but fairly well respected in use as one)
Chord Mojo
Ether flows (no point, as badas already has these) ; HD600's, and DT1770pro's

Just let me know what would be useful...
 
Oct 29, 2017 at 11:27 PM Post #20 of 50
I think it may be a wee bit finicky, but by no means impossible, to work out... Didn't @Badas say his system was balanced for blind listening? My WA2 and Mojo are not, so camparisons with these, at least, cannot be direct...

So, depending on when, I can bring any, or all of the following:

WA2, or, (if I've paid for it by then) Eddie Current ZDS
Oppo bdp105d (not really a dac, but fairly well respected in use as one)
Chord Mojo
Ether flows (no point, as badas already has these) ; HD600's, and DT1770pro's

Just let me know what would be useful...

Yes. My system is all XLR 4 pin balanced. I have a 8 meter made by Violectric XLR extender.
So we can conduct blind tests and the person listening can't see what equipment is being used.

I think the Mojo and HP's will be what is best to bring.
I use to have the Oppo HA-1 and that uses the same DAC in the BDP105. Yggy run circles around it.
R2R chipsets are way better.
I would be interested in how the Mojo performs tho.

Eddie Current is not really portable. I would advise being careful with it.
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 12:13 AM Post #21 of 50
Yes. My system is all XLR 4 pin balanced. I have a 8 meter made by Violectric XLR extender.
So we can conduct blind tests and the person listening can't see what equipment is being used.

I think the Mojo and HP's will be what is best to bring.
I use to have the Oppo HA-1 and that uses the same DAC in the BDP105. Yggy run circles around it.
R2R chipsets are way better.
I would be interested in how the Mojo performs tho.

Eddie Current is not really portable. I would advise being careful with it.

I have no doubt the yggy runs circles around the oppo, at all....Personally, I think the Mojo does as a dac but it's battery powered amp is always going to be dynamically limiting...and the dac and amp circuitry cannot be used in isolation from each other.

My understanding was that @robthemac wanted to blind test these sorts of differences between dacs; also those between amps... He seems less. Interested in differences between headphones. Is this correct, robthemac?
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 12:33 AM Post #22 of 50
You are entirely correct. There are three reasons I'm not as keen to test the differences between headphones. First, it's hard to do. We can sense the weight, tensions and textures of headphones on our heads easily enough to distinguish which is which before we turn them on. Secondly, there's not much controversy about there being differences between differnent headphones. Finally, I think they exist, so don't want to burst my own bubble!

We can have as many different DAC/amp set ups as we want. I think the easiest test to run (and theoretically the one which should be easiest for us to pick in an ABX test) would be comparing the headphone output of my laptop motherboard to the Yggy/WA22 belonging to @Badas . If we can't reliably tell the dfference between those two setups, then there's really no need to do any more tests.

If you both have the Ether Flow open headphones, that is ideal as we wouldn't even need to keep unplugging and plugging for the ABX testing.
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 12:34 AM Post #23 of 50
Forgot to add that if we can pick the difference between the laptop and Yggy/WA22, then we could go on to trial different DACs with the same amp and vice versa to see whether the amp, DAC or both is making the difference.
 
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Oct 30, 2017 at 12:43 AM Post #24 of 50
Forgot to add that if we can pick the difference between the laptop and Yggy/WA22, then we could go on to trial different DACs with the same amovand vice versa to see whether the amp, DAC or both is making the difference.

Lol. I kind of hope that we can't reliably tell the difference, but I'm highly doubtful that this will bethe case... I'd actually be interested in the nature of differences between the WA22 and WA2, since they're cut from the same cloth, and one is nigh on double the price of the other... With that sort of differential, it should be possible to tell one from the other...
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 12:45 AM Post #25 of 50
The evidence that had been done with speaker amps suggests that we won't be able to. Our bank balances suggest we should!
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 1:17 AM Post #26 of 50
The evidence that had been done with speaker amps suggests that we won't be able to. Our bank balances suggest we should!

Or, from the other perspective, not being able to tell the difference, will save a lot of money...i like your optimism, and I have to say, I've loved some very 'affordable' amps in the past...but I generally only ever upgraded in the past, if extensive ABA tests, with my eyes firmly closed, told me that I should...
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 4:17 AM Post #27 of 50
I’m fairly sure I will be able to pick DAC’s. I certainly can hear the difference between esaber and R2R chipsets. Esaber spits like mad in my the treble. The older Bur Browns were good. In a lot of regards better than the newer esaber.

Yggy > V281 is my A game. V281 is one heck of an amp and beats the WA22. So I suggest using that instead.
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 4:35 AM Post #28 of 50
Yggy > V281 is my A game. V281 is one heck of an amp and beats the WA22. So I suggest using that instead.


Let's roll with the V281 then.
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 4:41 AM Post #29 of 50
Let's roll with the V281 then.

V281 is very interesting. In balanced mode it uses 4 amps. Each channel has two amps set in a push pull configuration. Positive and negative. They seem to be the only ones doing it. For a SS amp it sounds holographic like tubes. Very unique.
 
Oct 30, 2017 at 4:48 AM Post #30 of 50
I’m fairly sure I will be able to pick DAC’s. I certainly can hear the difference between esaber and R2R chipsets. Esaber spits like mad in my the treble. The older Bur Browns were good. In a lot of regards better than the newer esaber.

Yggy > V281 is my A game. V281 is one heck of an amp and beats the WA22. So I suggest using that instead.

Yep burr browns were great, very analogue sounding, compared to today's offerings (at least they were in my linn numerik dac, years ago). But everything else you say, badas, suggests you don't like it particularly analogue sounding!

I'm sure you've tried enough to know, badas, but do you think your wa22 just isn't paired with the right headphones, badas? I really love my WA2, but it's shocking with the ethers, whilst shining with the sennheiser range... The wa22 should be able to handle the ethers better, but it's still an amp for dynamics, more than anything else, I thought? The only reason I got the zds was to see if I could get a valve amp which I can learn to love the ethers on (as I DO love the ethers)...if not, I'll be having to get a Mjolnir 2 for them, and elear (more likely), or hd800s, to make good use of the zds, as well...

in my experience, it's very hard to find a valve amp that can do all headphones well...

So, how we going to do this?
 
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