Since on
The Watercooler ranking lists (
Preference Ranking) seem not to be what people jump on, I would like to try here again. Then I give up
Since we all have our sonic preferences, a pure Rank without giving a hint, of what sonic preference you have, might in the end be completely comparing apples and pears. So I got an idea about howo to not make the whole ranking idea too complicated, but bring a tiny bit of objectiveness into it.
Instead of just a rank I would like to give a separate rank on the two main aspects, that pop up all the time in comparisons and where I can feel, they are the main difference in preferences. (yes there is also bassheads and the likes, but then it would get too complicated again)
So I would propose to just do:
1. "clarity" which consists of clarity, resolution, stage and detail (not a fan of calling it "technicalities" since it sounds judging. Music is more then "technical" also for those who prefer better "clarity")
2. "musicality" which consists of flow of music, immersion, texture, foot tapping, "magic", ...
These are the terms, that I (we) used for 30 years now having come from record player / loud speaker Hifi. (Linn Glasgow TOTL stuff, some of which I still have)
The terms could still be the same, although we deal with different issues (mechanical issues vs. digital issues like Jitter etc.). Power btw. was and will always be an issue.
So often in all this years and hundreds of serious comparisons we had the conclusion, that A "sounded" better ("sound" = "clarity"), but B made more "music". And this curse seems to continue in the digital world. It is like if one aspect goes up when tuning, the other one automatically goes down. My feeling is, the DAP developers struggle with that, too.
So I give it a go for my last experince:
Rankin "x/y" is for "clarity/musicality"
Ranking by musicality preference
M9 --> 8/10
M8 -->7/9
3MAX -->10/8
220MAX -->9/7
M15 was like 8/6
Ranking by clarity preference
3MAX -->10/8
220MAX -->9/7
M9 --> 8/10
M15 --> 8/6
M8 -->7/9
Is that helpful?
Would others like to do that with their lists. For people like me with a clear preference, it would be a tremendous help.
Looking for new DAPs to consider I went up and down in this thread and only by knowing certain users got an idea, what might be interesting. Other ranks I simply could not understand at all and got the feeling, it is because the rank lacks the sound preferences.
Last remark: If necessary one day we can go higher than 10