[Xcalibur255]

I think it's really interesting how big shifts in ideas and established norms in this hobby tend to come primarily from just one or two people starting a fire with a bold new idea or thought. The rest of us seem to just be following the same lemming train of thought, knowing or unknowing, that's been marching in the same direction for ages.

Take Bob Katz and his Blender experiment. Five to ten years from now being able to adjust the amount of 2nd order harmonic distortion your system has to achieve your desired sound might be a relatively standard feature on amps, in much the same way most high end subs now have parametric EQ for room mode correction.

Tyll is also one of those people who tend to come up with these breakthrough thoughts, along with a small handful of others like Nelson Pass. I would *love* to see Tyll and the Schiit team have some kind of official and ongoing collaboration. Not only does it seem hand in glove obvious now that the idea has hit the table, but it may well lead to something new and amazing.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

Great. I had just decided to get the Modi Multibit, now I'm questioning if I should just get the Modi 3 instead...

Trust your emotional gut instinct. Your soon-to-be shipped Modi MB will sound (using the same tone of Lars on YouTube's Survival Russia channel) awwwwwwwsome.

No, you made the right choice. I have both and I hear a noticeable difference between the two DACs.

If you are concerned about cost to performance ratio, with cost being a major contributor I'd get the modi 3 and know that you are getting great sound for your 99 bucks.

If you are wondering what the fuss is about multibit, comfortably have the funds, have good enough ears & equipment to perceive and care about small changes, then I think modi multibit is a great choice.

I have both, modi 3 is easily excellent/good enough for most people. Modi multibit is better to me.

If the 250 is comfortable to you, I would recommend you consider the modi 3 and Loki mini. It allows you to tweak the sound to your taste. If you swap HPs or iems, or listen to a variety of recordings Loki is very fun and handy. I would argue that Loki/modi 3 is a strong competitive choice to modi multibit. Dollar to dollar and return on what you get.

+1 for @Rensek . I started this ridiculous hobby with a Modi Multibit. I kept with the MB-path (not upgrade) because I like unorthodox technologies. Oh and big-ass potentiometers. Love 'em. I'm totally kitted out for shiny-boxes (DAC/amps). I'm putting a portion of my beer-fund-allowance into nicer (weirder) headphones.

 

[3 toes of fury]

Outstanding article Jason. One of my favorite to date. And also, as usual, one that i would assume would scare and/or be counter intuitive to someone like yourself who owns a company that could be negatively affected by such a proposal. Kudos sir for seeing the greater good in your musings!

The concept of reviewer bias is one ive thought about constantly since getting into higher end audio gear. Its very real. Its very prevalent. And its darn near impossible to avoid...with one and only one exception....blind listening.

Here's just a few of the ways i think our community can be 'reviewer biased':

• Trusted Reviews. This is a double edge sword. I find trusted reviews (ie: tyll's wall of fame, sniff, r.i.p..) to be invaluable in helping guide solid purchases HOWEVER they also give us a perception that the gear is good because someone told us it is.
  
  
• Misc Reviews: question for y'all...how often to you buy some gear and THEN go out and read a bunch of random review sites about the gear...especially looking for good reviews? If you are like me, you do this alot. At then end of the day i think its because we want validation that we are right when we say something is good OR we want to the warm fuzzies that come from saying "A HA! Others like this too!"
  
  
• Personal Reviews: no disrespect to head-fi, but getting truly objective reviews from individual personal reviewers reviewing their own gear seems tricky to me. Namely in the fact that if we spend alot of money on gear that we like, we're bound to review it well. Thats not to say that the individual is saying something untrue..far from it...but truly objective non biased reviews are tough from dedicated reviewers....and way tougher from individuals owning specific gear. (also there's the factor of our own ability to compare is limited by what we have access too).
  
  
• Cost Bias: This ones huge. As we invest more and move up higher in a companies product line, the assumption is that we are gettting better sounding gear. And alot of the time its true. But its also not always clearly obvious. Nor is it also linear. Just as Jason mentioned...moving from a $100 DAC to a $1000 DAC may...MAY...improve sound quality but it also may...MAY..do so marginallly.
  
  
• Audiophile Collective Hive Mind: no disrespect to our community, but there does seem to be some general stereotypes out there. Before jumping on me, let me give you an example. What do you think about the recently released Beats model XXXX headphones? Is your knee jerk reaction that Beats do not make audiophile headphones? Im not saying that reaction may or may not be warranted by personal general overall experience with their products, but lets just pretend that they literally create one of the greatest sounding headphones ever. How many people would never give them a listen purely based on the audiophile collective history of bashing their cans?
  
  
• Audiophile Collective Hive Mind part 2: Lazy Blogging: Ive noticed another trend. Some headphones that get picked by a few trusted sites as 'best in class' end up showing up on many many other sites 'best of' lists. Example...if i ask you what the best noise cancelling headphones are out there to buy today. Ill be you dollars to donuts that a lot...a WHOLE lot...of you thought of the Sony WH-1000XM3s. Its certainly a great pick....i happen to dig them alot. But i also notice that they show up on countless sites, many of which i dont really think have a focus on gear analysis (my own opinion) and that creates an overall larger-than-reality opinion of them. Again, it may be warrented, but it does impose bias.

So...in the end...after all my rambling....what is the one and only way to remove every single bias above? Blind listening. Its the one way to find out what sounds the best to each individual AND help prove/disprove our own opinions of gear and variances between specific elements of it. Thanks Jason!!!

Peace n Living in Stereo

3ToF

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Jason,

Nice post and I second your emotion!

Why is it that audiophiles are always so mad? I can't spend 10 seconds at Computer Audiophile without my blood pressure exceeding it's maximum limits.

So I design for Pro Audio and Audio. Over in the Pro Audio realm there are no wrong ways of doing things. Everyone has their own thing and nobody yells over there.

Plus Guys & Girls, you don't have everything out there so how can you comment on what is going on when you have no reference???

My reference is the 8 guitars, 2 drums sets, 2 sets of vibes various wood winds my father made at Reynolds.

It should be a requirement for audiophiles to play an instrument to hear real tone!

Anyway back to work, thanks again Jason!

Gordon

Yeah, what is it with pro audio vs high-end? Pros do seem to be much more open-minded.

When we first met Danny from Requisite (Raal/Requisite), we told him that we had two DAC modules for the Jotunheim, one that measured really well and a Multibit one. He asked, "Which sounds better?" We let him listen to both and he chose the Multibit version. Not a care in the world about measurements.

Now, if we could just listen to each other on the high end side...because objective measurements have helped us improve our products, no doubt...but so has subjective listening. There's a place for both!

Good to hear from you, Gordon.

 

[Paladin79]

Outstanding article Jason. One of my favorite to date. And also, as usual, one that i would assume would scare and/or be counter intuitive to someone like yourself who owns a company that could be negatively affected by such a proposal. Kudos sir for seeing the greater good in your musings!

The concept of reviewer bias is one ive thought about constantly since getting into higher end audio gear. Its very real. Its very prevalent. And its darn near impossible to avoid...with one and only one exception....blind listening.

Here's just a few of the ways i think our community can be 'reviewer biased':

• Trusted Reviews. This is a double edge sword. I find trusted reviews (ie: tyll's wall of fame, sniff, r.i.p..) to be invaluable in helping guide solid purchases HOWEVER they also give us a perception that the gear is good because someone told us it is.
  
  
• Misc Reviews: question for y'all...how often to you buy some gear and THEN go out and read a bunch of random review sites about the gear...especially looking for good reviews? If you are like me, you do this alot. At then end of the day i think its because we want validation that we are right when we say something is good OR we want to the warm fuzzies that come from saying "A HA! Others like this too!"
  
  
• Personal Reviews: no disrespect to head-fi, but getting truly objective reviews from individual personal reviewers reviewing their own gear seems tricky to me. Namely in the fact that if we spend alot of money on gear that we like, we're bound to review it well. Thats not to say that the individual is saying something untrue..far from it...but truly objective non biased reviews are tough from dedicated reviewers....and way tougher from individuals owning specific gear. (also there's the factor of our own ability to compare is limited by what we have access too).
  
  
• Cost Bias: This ones huge. As we invest more and move up higher in a companies product line, the assumption is that we are gettting better sounding gear. And alot of the time its true. But its also not always clearly obvious. Nor is it also linear. Just as Jason mentioned...moving from a $100 DAC to a $1000 DAC may...MAY...improve sound quality but it also may...MAY..do so marginallly.
  
  
• Audiophile Collective Hive Mind: no disrespect to our community, but there does seem to be some general stereotypes out there. Before jumping on me, let me give you an example. What do you think about the recently released Beats model XXXX headphones? Is your knee jerk reaction that Beats do not make audiophile headphones? Im not saying that reaction may or may not be warranted by personal general overall experience with their products, but lets just pretend that they literally create one of the greatest sounding headphones ever. How many people would never give them a listen purely based on the audiophile collective history of bashing their cans?
  
  
• Audiophile Collective Hive Mind part 2: Lazy Blogging: Ive noticed another trend. Some headphones that get picked by a few trusted sites as 'best in class' end up showing up on many many other sites 'best of' lists. Example...if i ask you what the best noise cancelling headphones are out there to buy today. Ill be you dollars to donuts that a lot...a WHOLE lot...of you thought of the Sony WH-1000XM3s. Its certainly a great pick....i happen to dig them alot. But i also notice that they show up on countless sites, many of which i dont really think have a focus on gear analysis (my own opinion) and that creates an overall larger-than-reality opinion of them. Again, it may be warrented, but it does impose bias.

So...in the end...after all my rambling....what is the one and only way to remove every single bias above? Blind listening. Its the one way to find out what sounds the best to each individual AND help prove/disprove our own opinions of gear and variances between specific elements of it. Thanks Jason!!!

Peace n Living in Stereo

3ToF

Good examples. My experience with blind listening/testing has led to some interesting outcomes where $500 equipment is rated in the same group as $5000 pieces. Oftentimes we do this as a group and average the results so you can see how your personal preferences fared against other listeners. It may not be a perfect system but there is a lot of bias eliminated when you are just listening and not looking at price tags, or brand names.In each instance we can take as much time as we want if we get down to just a few items we especially liked.

 

[adydula]

I found this very interesting from Jasons posting:

"And heck, if it’s true, it pretty much completely blows up the “burn-in” thing. If this is true, there is likely no burn-in except brain burn-in; your brain simply adapted over much listening time to the small differences in your current components, so when you swap one out, the difference seems much bigger at first."

I have 12 headphone amps in house at present and I rotate thru them every 4-5 days...the $99 ones to the $2K ones...tubes and SS. Schiit and non Schiit.

Each time I go from one amp to another my brain tells me "hey this amp is really good!". Then after the 4-5 days, I change and a new amp is used, and I again hear my brain telling me the same thing. "hey this amp is really good!"...

So after a few days its seems the new amp in the circuit becomes "friendly" and the initial "hey this amp sounds really good" becomes "I'm bored... time for something different!"

At least with 12 amps I dont ever get bored!!

Today it was a switch from a TOTL tube amp, parafeed to a B Stock Magni 3 (not the 3+) and my brain told me "hey this amp is really good"!!!

Maybe Jasons addage "this may be all the amp you will ever need" is "true!!"...

Alex

 

[judson_w]

I found this very interesting from Jasons posting:

"And heck, if it’s true, it pretty much completely blows up the “burn-in” thing. If this is true, there is likely no burn-in except brain burn-in; your brain simply adapted over much listening time to the small differences in your current components, so when you swap one out, the difference seems much bigger at first."

I have 12 headphone amps in house at present and I rotate thru them every 4-5 days...the $99 ones to the $2K ones...tubes and SS. Schiit and non Schiit.

Each time I go from one amp to another my brain tells me "hey this amp is really good!". Then after the 4-5 days, I change and a new amp is used, and I again hear my brain telling me the same thing. "hey this amp is really good!"...

So after a few days its seems the new amp in the circuit becomes "friendly" and the initial "hey this amp sounds really good" becomes "I'm bored... time for something different!"

At least with 12 amps I dont ever get bored!!

Today it was a switch from a TOTL tube amp, parafeed to a B Stock Magni 3 (not the 3+) and my brain told me "hey this amp is really good"!!!

Maybe Jasons addage "this may be all the amp you will ever need" is "true!!"...

Alex

I do similarly with switching between headphones and speakers. Those are my only two options, but I enjoy one a lot and then switch and remember how much I enjoyed the other. Then eventually I switch back and remember how much I enjoyed the first.

I also just got new headphones, so I am having fun breaking them in. Some reviews might have colored my perspective some, but I am enjoying them for the most part. (For those curious, they are Audio Technica ATH-M70x. I "needed" closed backs, and I like really neutral. Are they perfect? No, but they fill the need and I do not dislike them)

 

[Zojokkeli]

It should be a requirement for audiophiles to play an instrument to hear real tone!

I couldn’t play an instrument if my life depended on it. I just enjoy good music and I’m here for the cat pics.

 

[golfbravobravo]

Interesting, relevant and very timely article here: https://audiophilereview.com/audiop...olution-audio-facts-fiction-and-findings.html

With the gd challenge info here: http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6713

Cheers

 

[Paladin79]

I found this very interesting from Jasons posting:

"And heck, if it’s true, it pretty much completely blows up the “burn-in” thing. If this is true, there is likely no burn-in except brain burn-in; your brain simply adapted over much listening time to the small differences in your current components, so when you swap one out, the difference seems much bigger at first."

I have 12 headphone amps in house at present and I rotate thru them every 4-5 days...the $99 ones to the $2K ones...tubes and SS. Schiit and non Schiit.

Each time I go from one amp to another my brain tells me "hey this amp is really good!". Then after the 4-5 days, I change and a new amp is used, and I again hear my brain telling me the same thing. "hey this amp is really good!"...

So after a few days its seems the new amp in the circuit becomes "friendly" and the initial "hey this amp sounds really good" becomes "I'm bored... time for something different!"

At least with 12 amps I dont ever get bored!!

Today it was a switch from a TOTL tube amp, parafeed to a B Stock Magni 3 (not the 3+) and my brain told me "hey this amp is really good"!!!

Maybe Jasons addage "this may be all the amp you will ever need" is "true!!"...

Alex

I have a few more than 12 headphone amps but I have several I would not or could not listen to for more than a few minutes. One out of China, in particular. I have changed tubes a half dozen times trying for better combinations and still the amp is pretty crappy. I will eventually rebuild it with better components and maybe alter the design a bit and then it might be in my rotation. Oh yeah, and other than a Whammy designed by one of Nelson Pass's people, I do not listen to any solid state amps and I have a few of those.

 

[Varejao17]

...So after a few days its seems the new amp in the circuit becomes "friendly" and the initial "hey this amp sounds really good" becomes "I'm bored... time for something different!"...

Sounds more like "burn out" than "burn in".

Totally tongue-in-cheek,
ed

 

[Alexnova]

It should be a requirement for audiophiles to play an instrument to hear real tone!

Not to respond directly to your post, but rather as a way to springboard further discussion about audiophile hifidom vs. pro audio.

I think most hi-fi audiophiles would agree that they are less after a sound that accords with how say a recording engineer hears a band play in a studio and rather more focus on what they themselves find euphonious. Is there really such a thing as a true "reference" playback if both approaches are different?

This starts to become philosophical, but all music reproduction is itself an interpretation, and the preference for the listener lies in how that gets interpreted. Some may love how music sounds from a cheap pair of Bose speakers up to some esoteric $30k vintage setup. None of these preferences are more "correct". It ultimately boils down to what you, the listener, personally like.

We may not know what kind of equipment was used in recording studios or mastering rooms in an attempt to get "closer" to the source or how the "artist intended it". Then there's the question of what rooms and speakers are used in these setups in how the artists and recording engineers heard them. It starts becoming nearly impossible to replicate it. But should we be really chasing after what the recording engineer heard? Why should that be the gold standard?

The focus I think should be what kind of sound do you like and build a system around that, not to worry if you're getting a studio reference solution.

 

[ashirin]

Moffat’s Corollary Human hearing seems to be more integrative than differential, so those small differences between components may be magnified over time, and therefore seem larger and more important than during rapid switching.

To me, this is a regularly undervalued aspect of hearing. When I'm listening to all new equipment in quick succession, it's difficult to hear a difference, or even if I do, it's difficult to describe it or say which I like more. I'm positive that blind listening will make this more true.

In my experience though, it hasn't been difficult to hear a difference when a change is made to a system that I already am familiar with. A good example for me is the Modi (first generation) I have in my car, which feeds the base audio system in my Toyota Camry (through the AUX input). When I get into my brother's car (which is identical to mine) and play the same music I've been listening too, the difference is perfectly obvious. Because I've been attuned to this difference, I can also pick it out very easily now in a A/B.

This is not about equipment but I had the same experience with switching between streaming lossless on Tidal and streaming on Apple Music. When I would do A/B tests, it was difficult to discern the difference at first, even with music I like. But at some point I got a free trial and lived with Tidal for a few months. After that, when I switched back to loss-y streaming, something felt off. Again, the differences were not as big as is often purported, but everything seemed less sharp. This is not blind of course and I could be fooling myself, but I noticed the difference consistently enough that I have no discomfort in concluding that it makes a small but noticeable difference to me.

 

[GearMe]

....
Oh, and BTW, I now have that inane song, Manfred Mann's Blinded By The Light in my head. Thanks for that. ...and it's "racked up like a DEUCE... another runner in the night". Sigh....

Greetings!

Here's the original...less 'earwormy' but a little rambling





Bonus..."They're built like Light"

 

[adydula]

Another thought I had after reading Jason's listening post was in that it is difficult to ascertain tiny, very tiny differences across differing priced gear and fastly different designs. This point out to me that Schitt makes some really good stuff across the spectrum....great performance / sound from the low cost stuff to the high end stuff....

Awesome!
Alex