[dakanao]

People making a claim isn't evidence, and it certainly isn't clear, it is an opinion. If it can't be measured, there is a really good chance that it cannot be heard. Ultimately it is great that people can enjoy this hobby their way, and they should. Not a problem at all if you don't believe in scientific evidence, you don't have to and nobody should tell you that you have to, but be respectful to those who differ in their opinion from yours. I will bet that the maker of the Ember who you say doesn't believe in the value of over-specified power supplies (there is of course a minimum standard that has to be reached) at least tried to reach an educated opinion and they shouldn't be mocked because they believe in scientific evidence.

There are a handful of members at ASR who collectively have more knowledge and experience designing, testing and implementing audio components than the entire Head-fi community past and present put together. They have earned the right not to be mocked simply because they have publicly stated that they believe in evidence. Let me ask you, would you take medication or drive a car on the highway that had no scientific evidence that it worked or was safe? So why is evidence good when it keeps you and your family safe and suddenly worth mocking when it doesn't agree with your opinion?

It’s because the methology of measurements at ASR is off. Measurements are a tool, and tools are only as good as the person using them.

The HD600 and HD650 are measured to have the same FR response, Amir says that they sound exactly the same. Does this suddenly discredit all other measurements done by other people and the subjective experiences of thousands of others who heard both? That is the kind of “science” that is going on there, and the designer of the Ember is exactly sucked into that mentality.

I mean, he himself said there is no sound difference between his Ember and Polaris, and they only differ in features, because he believes all amps and DACS with a certain SINAD sound the same.

Does that discredit the experience of people hearing differences between those 2, and other sites measuring differences? No.

ASR is an ego driven measurement site that favors cheap products, it’s not about the actual science of what makes the differences, and if current measurements the whole story or not.

If you want an actual scientific audio site, hydrogenaudio is the way to go.

 

[Sonic Defender]

I read the whole HD600 review there and it seems that the claims made that the sound signatures are very similar are fairly well supported. I owned both the HD600 and 650 at the same time and I can't say that I found any major difference. People have FAR, FAR, FAR too much confidence in their audio memory which is extremely inaccurate after just a few seconds. The act of disconnecting one headphone and connecting another then hitting play really introduces a significant time gap.

Add to this the fact that sighted listening tests are completely irrelevant and regardless of how many people you can trot out who swear they can hear a major difference, that in and of itself is not proof. They could be correct, I am not going to take any position because frankly I haven't done any multiple trial, blind, level matched listening tests so I have no evidence to offer myself, but I know enough not to make any claim because I have no evidence.

My argument isn't about whether or not the two headphones sound the same, I have no position there. Maybe they do sound noticeably different? My point is that the attempt, even if imperfect, to use and arrive at evidence based opinions should not be scoffed at. I believe in the scientific method and I have since I was a young boy and I have never in my life found a reason not to, and that includes the world of audio products and enjoyment. That doesn't mean that I put no stock in the value of the subjective experience, it just means that I acknowledge the limitations of it.

My point was and remains, scoffing at ASR simply because the results discussed there do not agree with your opinion is itself not proof that you have disproven the other theory, it is simply an opinion. Nothing wrong with that, have all the opinions that you wish, I have plenty of my own, but I try to remember that opinions are just that. If I were to go through a medical procedure, you can bet that before I did so, I would want evidence that it worked, not just opinion. For me audio is the same, I believe that measurements do matter, they aren't everything, but they aren't nothing either.

 

[Tomcat]

Guys, there seems to be some confusion here. Amir Majidimehr, founder of Audio Science Review, is not the same person as Frans de Gruijter, aka solderdude of diy-audio-heaven fame (https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/). Frans/solderdude is a Dutch engineer, and, as far as I know, all amp designs offered by Jeremy of Garage 1217 have been developed by Frans.

Now, while Frans is in the objectivists' camp, I am not quite so sure about Jeremy. I understand Jeremy is more likely to err on the side of subjective musical pleasure. There wouldn't be any tubes in Garage 1217 amps if that wasn't the case. And he wanted that bandwidth limiting feature in the solid-state Polaris purely for sonic reasons, IIRC.

Frans has reviewed the Sennheiser HD650 (and measured its frequency response), btw. In his review he compares it to the old HD600, and he perceives (and measures) the HD650 as sounding slightly warmer or darker: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/brands-s-se/hd650/

I believe Frans wrote somewhere that he believes that tubes add euphonic distortion, and that's it. I don't subscribe to that idea. I believe if a tube amp sounds subjectively better it doesn't do that because of its harmonic distortion but in spite of it. I believe good tube amps tend to be not as harmful to signal integrity in areas that are of greater psychoacoustic importance. Remember: The whole idea of music reproduction is to create a convincing illusion, to convey musical information and musical emotion to a human listener, not to any kind of meter.

Just because we usually measure THD-N, that dosen't imply that pretty much every sonic difference between amps can be explained by it. On the contrary: I believe the typical measurements will tell us very little about an amp's real-world performance. Just consider that harmonic distortion is measured with sine waves. When is the last time you listened to music that consisted of sine waves? The spectral content of music is frightfully complex. Add to this that music is a highly dynamic and utterly transient time domain phenomenon: Where are the measurements of time-related signal distortion? Measuring with a steady sine wave signal simply can't tell the whole story.

Now, any measurement implies the notion of its relevance. But we ought to keep in mind that each measurement just captures a tiny slice of reality. It's an abstraction. The question is whether what we can and do measure is what we ought to measure - whether e.g. harmonic distortion is as psychoacoustically relevant as many believe. Especially for lower and even order harmonics (the kind tubes tend to produce in copious amounts) the hearing threshold is very high. One reason being that our physical hearing apparatus resonates on its own when stimulated by vibrations. Thus especially low and even order harmonics are masked by our ear. The ear itself produces so much second harmonic - the octave above a sine wave - that we need a level of ten percent or more before we can perceive a two-tone interval with an octave above a sinus tone.

I think, the final arbiter of whether a component succeeds in its task - music reproduction for humans - has to be the human brain. To paraphrase the legendary sailor: I like what I like and that's all I like. And as long as anyone of us likes what he or she hears - where's the harm in that?

 

[Sonic Defender]

@Tomcat there is no harm at all. This hobby is first and foremost about the pleasure that you derive from it. For some it is the science and engineering, for others it is the music pure and simple, there is no right or wrong way to enjoy music and despite my preference and bent towards objectivism (which has never deprived me of subjective pleasure I should add) I do actually value the subjective and I very much enjoy reading about the subjective joys others derive from this hobby.

 

[dakanao]

Guys, there seems to be some confusion here. Amir Majidimehr, founder of Audio Science Review, is not the same person as Frans de Gruijter, aka solderdude of diy-audio-heaven fame (https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/). Frans/solderdude is a Dutch engineer, and, as far as I know, all amp designs offered by Jeremy of Garage 1217 have been developed by Frans.

Now, while Frans is in the objectivists' camp, I am not quite so sure about Jeremy. I understand Jeremy is more likely to err on the side of subjective musical pleasure. There wouldn't be any tubes in Garage 1217 amps if that wasn't the case. And he wanted that bandwidth limiting feature in the solid-state Polaris purely for sonic reasons, IIRC.

Frans has reviewed the Sennheiser HD650 (and measured its frequency response), btw. In his review he compares it to the old HD600, and he perceives (and measures) the HD650 as sounding slightly warmer or darker: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/brands-s-se/hd650/

I believe Frans wrote somewhere that he believes that tubes add euphonic distortion, and that's it. I don't subscribe to that idea. I believe if a tube amp sounds subjectively better it doesn't do that because of its harmonic distortion but in spite of it. I believe good tube amps tend to be not as harmful to signal integrity in areas that are of greater psychoacoustic importance. Remember: The whole idea of music reproduction is to create a convincing illusion, to convey musical information and musical emotion to a human listener, not to any kind of meter.

Just because we usually measure THD-N, that dosen't imply that pretty much every sonic difference between amps can be explained by it. On the contrary: I believe the typical measurements will tell us very little about an amp's real-world performance. Just consider that harmonic distortion is measured with sine waves. When is the last time you listened to music that consisted of sine waves? The spectral content of music is frightfully complex. Add to this that music is a highly dynamic and utterly transient time domain phenomenon: Where are the measurements of time-related signal distortion? Measuring with a steady sine wave signal simply can't tell the whole story.

Now, any measurement implies the notion of its relevance. But we ought to keep in mind that each measurement just captures a tiny slice of reality. It's an abstraction. The question is whether what we can and do measure is what we ought to measure - whether e.g. harmonic distortion is as psychoacoustically relevant as many believe. Especially for lower and even order harmonics (the kind tubes tend to produce in copious amounts) the hearing threshold is very high. One reason being that our physical hearing apparatus resonates on its own when stimulated by vibrations. Thus especially low and even order harmonics are masked by our ear. The ear itself produces so much second harmonic - the octave above a sine wave - that we need a level of ten percent or more before we can perceive a two-tone interval with an octave above a sinus tone.

I think, the final arbiter of whether a component succeeds in its task - music reproduction for humans - has to be the human brain. To paraphrase the legendary sailor: I like what I like and that's all I like. And as long as anyone of us likes what he or she hears - where's the harm in that?

Well said. That was my point entirely, measurements only tell a small part of the sound. However the dogma at ASR, is that we know how to measure every single aspect of sound and that we know how everything relates to audibility, which is simply false.

Both the hardcore objectivist, and hardcore subjectivist have a wrong belief system when it comes to audibility of things. However, the objectivists often tend to be extremely arrogant, spousing there false belief systems on anyone who doesn’t agree with their belief, while the subjecitivists are more open for new information.

Frans definitely has more sense than Amir though, his measurement are simply off in a lot of cases, which brings more harm to the designers of amp/DACS because it’s represented as factual.

Therefore the trend is that we get amps/DACS with excellent SINAD, yet with no dynamic variations in them due to being tested with sine waves.

Aha, so Jeremy has the design decision. That indeed explains why the Ember has a tube in it, since Frans has said the Polaris and Ember sound exactly the same.

 

[Sonic Defender]

Measurements are a huge part, a crucial part, but that should not, and does not preclude the subjective enjoyment. I love hard science and yet when I owned a La Figaro 339 I simply loved the romantic glow of the matched, vintage tubes. It was a thing of beauty and I loved it for what it was, not what it wasn't.

 

[Hyde00]

lol not too sure if this is the right thread to ask but........ long story short:

I've had a chance to demo Project Ember II + Mullard CV4024 a long time ago, and remember it being the only time ever it gave me this "out of your head" experience from any audio gear. But at the time I didn't want to deal with the inconvenience of using tube amp (warm up time, noise, heat.......etc), I did not pursue it at the time.

Now fast forward, few years later I feel like I want to look for that "out of your head" experience again. Saw someone selling Lyr 3 locally and jumped on it, but still not the same as I remembered (Ember II + Mullard CV4024).

Should I just buy Ember II + Mullard CV4024 again? Anyone manage to compare Ember II vs Lyr 3 in 2022?

I asked in the Lyr 3 thread but the answer I got is basically buy it and find out. Which is kind of true but I thought having discussion thread is so I can avoid that LOL.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tomcat]

lol not too sure if this is the right thread to ask but........ long story short:

(...)

Hm. Not sure whether I am the right one to answer your question. Don't know the the Lyr 3. All I can contribute is my finding that there wasn't any small 9-pin tube I really liked in my Ember. My advice would be to get the adapter (option 2) from Garage1217 (sonically, it easily beats the offerings from Asia) and use a bigger 6SN7 in the Ember. I believe the 6SN7 is inherently more linear than any 9-pin tube. This might be one reason that, to my ears, a 6SN7 sounds bigger and more spacious (in any dimension) than any 9-pin tube I ever tried. And I tried a bunch, 12AT7s included. I have never heard the Mullard CV4024, though.

 

[Hyde00]

Hm. Not sure whether I am the right one to answer your question. Don't know the the Lyr 3. All I can contribute is my finding that there wasn't any small 9-pin tube I really liked in my Ember. My advice would be to get the adapter (option 2) from Garage1217 (sonically, it easily beats the offerings from Asia) and use a bigger 6SN7 in the Ember. I believe the 6SN7 is inherently more linear than any 9-pin tube. This might be one reason that, to my ears, a 6SN7 sounds bigger and more spacious (in any dimension) than any 9-pin tube I ever tried. And I tried a bunch, 12AT7s included. I have never heard the Mullard CV4024, though.

All good, yeah I was trying to narrow down the issue where I find Lyr 3 sound kind of....... solid state? But if you said 6SN7 sounds linear then this might explain why. I tried a few 6SN7 tubes they all sound more or less similar. But I do agree they sound big, but I didn't like how the treble is polite and focal is a bit recessed.

It's ok I've decided to buy Project Solstice (as oppose to Ember) and see how it goes. I'll get an adaptor too from Garage 1217 so at least I can compare back to back with the same tubes, then just keep the amp I like in the end.

Thanks!!!

 

[dakanao]

Well said. That was my point entirely, measurements only tell a small part of the sound. However the dogma at ASR, is that we know how to measure every single aspect of sound and that we know how everything relates to audibility, which is simply false.

Both the hardcore objectivist, and hardcore subjectivist have a wrong belief system when it comes to audibility of things. However, the objectivists often tend to be extremely arrogant, spousing there false belief systems on anyone who doesn’t agree with their belief, while the subjecitivists are more open for new information.

Frans definitely has more sense than Amir though, his measurement are simply off in a lot of cases, which brings more harm to the designers of amp/DACS because it’s represented as factual.

Therefore the trend is that we get amps/DACS with excellent SINAD, yet with no dynamic variations in them due to being tested with sine waves.

Aha, so Jeremy has the design decision. That indeed explains why the Ember has a tube in it, since Frans has said the Polaris and Ember sound exactly the same.

To reiderate: by “objectivists”, I wasn’t meaning ACTUAL objectivists like Solderdude and the people at hydrogenaudio. I was specifically talking about the pseudo objectivists consistent of the majority of ASR members, who have a set amount of theoretical beliefs that they see as absolute fact, when they haven’t actually used scientific methods to come at those conclusions.

 

[Astral Abyss]

All good, yeah I was trying to narrow down the issue where I find Lyr 3 sound kind of....... solid state? But if you said 6SN7 sounds linear then this might explain why. I tried a few 6SN7 tubes they all sound more or less similar. But I do agree they sound big, but I didn't like how the treble is polite and focal is a bit recessed.

It's ok I've decided to buy Project Solstice (as oppose to Ember) and see how it goes. I'll get an adaptor too from Garage 1217 so at least I can compare back to back with the same tubes, then just keep the amp I like in the end.

Thanks!!!

Solstice is a good amp. I would recommend that you also get the 12SN7 adapter (Option 1 or 4) that allows you to use the 12V tubes in it.

 

[Hyde00]

Solstice is a good amp. I would recommend that you also get the 12SN7 adapter (Option 1 or 4) that allows you to use the 12V tubes in it.

Awesome, you're the 2nd person that recommend it! It's so hard to find info on Solstice, it's somehow really not popular and everyone else opt for Ember instead lol.

But yes I plan to use the money saved from not buying Ember and use it to get a few extra adaptors, I'll definitely check them out.

Thanks!!!

 

[Astral Abyss]

Awesome, you're the 2nd person that recommend it! It's so hard to find info on Solstice, it's somehow really not popular and everyone else opt for Ember instead lol.

But yes I plan to use the money saved from not buying Ember and use it to get a few extra adaptors, I'll definitely check them out.

Thanks!!!

I own both the Ember and Solstice. They got me into this hobby and I still think they sound better than a lot of amps costing a lot more. Plus, they've got tons of settings to play around with. If you find any 12J5G tube pairs, get yourself an adapter for them as well. It's where the magic is at. Kind of like how we all (way earlier in this thread... years ago) gravitated towards 6J5Gs on the Ember because of the clean, musical sound. Except now 6J5Gs cost too much.

I actually like the Solstice better than Ember because it has a lower noise floor for sensitive headphones and can play all the same tubes plus real 12V tubes. The Ember is better if you're running inefficient headphones. It's quite a bit more powerful. But otherwise the Solstice is the more musical sounding of the two, IMO.

 

[jbarrentine]

I'm all over this thread deciding if I should move from the Polaris to another amp. The full lineup is really confusing.

 

[Hyde00]

I'm all over this thread deciding if I should move from the Polaris to another amp. The full lineup is really confusing.

My friend who had both Ember and Polaris said they have different strengths, but ultimately Ember is better for him.

Polaris has more bass and better extension, but Ember has more of that 3D tubeness and better sense of space lol. That being said I'm buying Solstice since I have easy to drive headphone (25 Ohm) also as the last few posts mentioned it sounds like Solstice is better if you have easy to drive headphone and Ember has more power for harder to drive headphone.

From what I gathered is that:

Starlight = Entry level

Sunrise = Class A, work for 32-300 Ohm
Horizon = Class A, work for 120-600 Ohm

Solstice = Auto bias, 1W max output
Ember = Auto bias, 2.4W max ouput

Polaris = Solid State, 2.4W max output

Sunrise / Horizon has different topology and will sound more different to Solstice / Ember. If you're coming from Polaris then closest is probably Ember. Also only Ember and Solstice has auto bias, I'm sticking with that because I'm lazy LOL.

Refer to this guide:
http://www.garage1217.com/G1217PRODUCTS/Guide/Comparison Guide.pdf

I've had Polaris and sold it, also demoed Ember for 2 weeks before. 2-3 years later now buying Solstice, confusing story I know LOL.

Otherwise you could probably shoot Jeremy a message, he's been super helpful and replies fast lol.