[darinf]

Interesting to know about downmixing. That being said, what does the downmixing? The DAC, or the software playing the music?
 

Generally, DAC's don't do any down-mixing. Some media player software like JRiver Media Center will down-mix multi-channel to 2 channel, but it's literally just combining/mixing the other channels into the left and right channels.
 
My software also "converts" 5.1 or 7.1 down to two channels, but unlike a straight mix, my software makes it sound like you are really listening to 6 or 8 speakers in a room to give you the full 5.1 or 7.1 surround experience. I think it's a great way to experience 5.1 or 7.1 without having to use an actual home theater speaker setup. Then you can try those multi-channel samples that you posted a link to earlier and hear them as  5.1 rather than just the L and R channels. Of course there's movies too even if you don't like multi-channel music.

 

[MygpuK]

Does anyone have the link to the study where they EQed different headphones to sound like each other and asked listeners to grade their sound quality? The result being that when frequency responses were made similar sound quality became similar as well?

That's called RAA:
Reference audio analisys.

Human ears are "emulated" using pro level equipment for studies.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Anyone still feel like posting here after the Dalai Lama from hell ran over this place?

 

[xnor]

 

[miceblue]

Whaaat?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQlrSvnG3dg[/video]


That's really scary D:

 

[Taowolf51]

 

---

Why is it that people claim that listening to planar magnetic headphones from speaker taps magically transforms the sound quality? I don't even know what speaker taps are. >_>

 
Speaker taps are the outputs of a speaker power amp. Basically, the part of a speaker amp you usually connect speakers to, you connect a headphone to.

 

[xnor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_illusion

 

[ssrock64]

Anyone still feel like posting here after the Dalai Lama from hell ran over this place?

Did he just disappear, or is he still at it in another thread?

 

[xnor]

Judging by the "banned" under his name I doubt that.

 

[ssrock64]

  Judging by the "banned" under his name I doubt that.

That was my thought right after posting, but I had Thanksgiving things to do so I forgot to check.

 

[miceblue]

 
[rule]
Why is it that people claim that listening to planar magnetic headphones from speaker taps magically transforms the sound quality? I don't even know what speaker taps are. >_>

Speaker taps are the outputs of a speaker power amp. Basically, the part of a speaker amp you usually connect speakers to, you connect a headphone to.

Ah, mmk.
Still, I see people saying headphones "transform" when hooked up to speaker taps.

Perhaps the extra power "fus ro dah'd" their eardrums.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VGDhGsYoSA[/video]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_illusion

Nice! I didn't know binaural beats were considered an auditory illusion.

 

[Taowolf51]

Ah, mmk.
Still, I see people saying headphones "transform" when hooked up to speaker taps.

 
I noticed a pretty decent difference when I tried my speaker amp, but that's partially because my current headphone amp doesn't meet even half Audeze's 1w into 60 ohm minimum.
 
And it wouldn't be Head-Fi without hyperbole. Though if the Mini-X performs like my speaker amp, it's an excellent option for the price.
 
EDIT: Confused two thoughts and smashed them together into one sentence. Fixed.

 

[xnor]

Without precise level matching you cannot compare two amps. The louder one, which is presumably the power amp, will always be perceived as better sounding.

 

[Taowolf51]

I did quite a lot of fiddling with the volume, high, low, and medium volume listening over the course of a couple days and each result was the same. It isn't foolproof, but the chances of me setting the speaker amp louder each time for at least a dozen testing periods with different volume tests within each testing period is small enough for me to consider my personal preference to be the speaker amp.

 

[xnor]

A better comparison would be actually measuring the volume to be equal and switching back and forth between the amps.
 
Well the next questions would be why do they sound different (or sound at all) and how (technically).