FunkyBassMan
500+ Head-Fier
Lol, folks could also claim that the Dave simply sounds great.
As nearly everyone who's ever heard it does.
Testing audiophile claims and myths
As nearly everyone who's ever heard it does.
You could rephrase that way but I wouldn’t agree with you.
The example I gave; some people will prefer tubes / r2r and some people might prefer ss / delta-sigma. These systems will measure differently. Ditto vinyl vs cd. Nothing to do with marketing or social influence. The quality and characteristics of the playback system play a role in how music is perceived and the resulting emotional impact for the listener.
Absolutely, 100%. Eg, a listener may have a stronger emotional connection to music simply because they are listening via equipment that has deep sentimental value.
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FunkyBassMan
500+ Head-Fier
Yup.
The irony is that all the audiophiles I know are the some of the most resistant to marketing I know for the simple fact that they want their ears -- and not some salesman -- to decide. I personally disbelieve anything anyone trying to sell me something says, audio gear or whatever else, unless what they're saying is rock hard verifiable fact.
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Maybe for you it's not the case, but this is just wrong.
solid12345
100+ Head-Fier
The only audio store I’ve ever stepped foot in here in the sleepy Midwest is a Best Buy magnolia center years ago and the guy working there gave me a tour of their McIntosh setup after I bought a Sony TV for fun. I was absolutely blown away and told myself someday I will have one of these. I finally do. Funny thing is I never even read a single audio magazine or catalog until I started getting them in the mail AFTER I started buying nice equipment, somebody sold my name to a mailing list obviously. Everything I’ve ever owned is from reading testimony from forums like this not mass market trade ads.
FunkyBassMan
500+ Head-Fier
I know exactly what you're saying. Sometimes I prefer the Mojo2 to it because it's punchier. Or the Hugo2 because of its smoothness.
The Dave has so much detail that sometimes it's more than you want. The reverb tails can be so real sounding that you kind of lose track of where you are. (Crossfeed helps btw to build a less distractingly huge soundstage, but you probably know that.)
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FunkyBassMan
500+ Head-Fier
I don't even believe the forums or reviews. Because I've liked other Chord gear, I bought the Anni that got great reviews and was beloved on the forums and absolutely despised it - couldn't even listen to it for more than a couple minutes. I also was contemplating the Zähl headphone amp that people are over the moon about. I'm fortunate that I can buy things without really caring about the price, but after a half hour of listening, I was like, "meh...it's fine, but not much -- if any -- better than Dave's internal amp".
To buy something I have to hear it. That's the only thing that's never let me down.
And since your hearing is what will be judging the gear forever after you buy it, it's wise to let it make the decision.
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solid12345
100+ Head-Fier
One reason I own so much stuff is because there is nowhere to demo it where I live. And yes I’ve bought some stuff disliked by alot of people like the Sennheiser HD820. I’ve always been a bit contrarian. I don’t go off reviews so much as I like to see what a lot of people are talking about and see if it could fit into having a spot that isn’t filled by anything else, like for example I got my first SET amplifier a few weeks ago (Mapletree OD300). Just never heard one and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Luckily I’ll keep it versus flip it.
MrHaelscheir
500+ Head-Fier
Of course, R2R could measure differently, though I haven't heard an "atrocious" one, but with something like the Holo Audio May, I would be more skeptical of descriptions of increased holography and whatnot. That property may not be detectible in the measurements or a null test, but fair enough if extrasonic cues unrelated to what the electronics are doing induces that perception. Would one not have had to have heard of the term "holography" before to begin believing themselves to be perceiving it or to have looked out for that quality?
Anyways, re. @FunkyBassMan et al., fair enough to the stance of one's having heard or enjoyed things prior to exposure to specific reviews or others' claims, but surely one's language for describing these things came from somewhere and may have induced certain expectations.
Consider https://www.head-fi.org/threads/rec...ely-curious-objectivist.972411/#post-18078699 (post #9) where I described my experience listening out amid decently quiet conditions, including a comparison with the Hugo 2. Tonality, detail, texture, incisiveness, bigness, staging, and imaging, or the warmth and richness of certain recordings when volume-matched were inextricably identical between all gear compared for my tracks of choice, and measurements and audibility thresholds could probably corroborate that experience. Does that mean my hearing is "broken", or rather that I am in that instance much less susceptible to extrasonic cues warping my perception? E.g. Why do I seem to be able to separate how the HD 800 S actually images to my ears from any tonal cues (e.g. upper midrange relaxation) attempting to "fake" distance such that that headphone still images far-panned sounds no further than its drivers, and yet for headphones facing the same problem, my personalized HRTF DSP immediately fixes that and produces a convincing stereo image a meter in front of me between two virtual channels?
Now, directed to the "objectivist" denizens here, is your aim to educate, and if so, does that ever extend to the point of "disallowing" that others at least try to hear some gear for themselves and decide what sighted impression it makes upon them if any?
@solid12345 Anyways, for that "The Chain" example where the F-bomb could have through many listens been mistaken for noise considering the sliding that followed it, how does happening to maybe be the first to notice a detail establish causality with the DAVE itself being "more detailed", or what stops others from faulting you for not noticing it the first time around with your other gear? Say, in "The Chain (2001 Remaster)" (https://open.qobuz.com/track/19512579), have you noticed the quiet "pt tshtsh" on the left at 0:27 in your listens yet (presently using my HE1000se free-field EQ on my signature chain sans HRTF DSP)? Or the little noise or slide and tap on the left at 1:31. Or the slight rattle on the right at 2:59. Does it matter how much attention I was personally paying or how "relaxed" I was or if it was rather a case of listening and being like, "Oh, there was a really quiet thing that preceded this!"? Are the hi-hat (or whatever) triplets more articulate through the DAVE? Were some microtransients completely missed on a lesser DAC or amp? And sure, maybe it took my switching to my FiiO ASIO driver on the Qobuz app sans EQ to enable the hi-res play back for me to have paid attention to more textural details with the left and right guitars and realize or finally think to consciously note that the aforementioned "rattle" was a more pervasive guitar amp distortion or whatever (or my brain thought that timbre/texture to have been familiar and obvious enough to have not been worth noting), but I'd call that correlation, not causation, as it sounds identical in the CD-quality resample through my browser.
If someone were to use their ears and be convinced that their Topping stack was more detailed than the Chord or dCS they had a chance to spend lots of time with, would you forsake your "hear it for yourself" subjectivism and call them delusional?
I don't "hate" high-end products, though I can get rather annoyed by some crazy subjective claims. I for example am absolutely enamored by the Holo Audio May and Bliss for their aesthetics and engineering, but I would be absolutely unsurprised if on finally owning them, they sounded absolutely identical to my FiiO K9 Pro ESS for headphones within the latter's power capability. My objectivist stance is partly to challenge the belief that certain gear is innately electrically inducing certain effects, or that certain fancy gear are an innate prerequisite for certain effects to become audible.
solid12345
100+ Head-Fier
I don’t have my Dave hooked up right now but was able to pick up some some of the details you mentioned in The Chain with my Audio Technica AT-DAC100 which I’m playing with right now. I do believe you can capture the kind of high-level detail you get in the Dave with cheaper DACs but like this dac for instance, it’s bass is a lot hazier though than the Dave, transients aren’t as quick and it has an overall lazier sound. I think where DAVE gets it right is you’re sacrificing very little it’s the whole package, R2R’s you tend to sacrifice detail for weight and heft while Delta-Sigma’s you’ll get sharper percussions and treble. (This is a general statement of course) but the DAVE seems to have strength in every area of sound production from dynamics to detail.
I never think anyone is delusional, people can convince themselves of anything if they like something so much, maybe a Topping user thinks they’re the best thing since sliced bread and more power to them. Hell I can be led to believe I’m wrongly putting the DAVE on a pedestal just because I particularly like the sound signature. I only think someone is delusional if they had only ever heard $200 DACs all their life and if exposed to a DAVE (or any other obscenely expensive DAC) one day they wouldn’t at least go “wow, that’s interesting….” even if it’s not their cup of tea sound-signature wise. I was impressed hearing the Susvara the first time but I also didn’t see the big hype either, but I still think there is something unique going on there.
What I’ve never been convinced on though is two DACs or amps should sound exactly the same just because they are both putting out similar low distortion numbers. I’ve never experienced this phenomena. I don’t know if it’s because golden ears is a real thing or there is something we haven’t mastered with the science of sound measuring but I wouldn’t be draining my wallet for years buying new equipment if they all sounded the same to me. I can put the same EDM song on two different DACs and one the tempo will feel faster and the other slower and more laid back for instance even though in theory they should just be translating the signal and nothing more. The overall sound signature will differ too much as playing the same exact song in two different night clubs will sound different because of different construction materials, size of the room, etc. I admit I’m not scientifically educated to explain why I just can only report my subjective experiences. I was just a lowly graphic designer for years
MrHaelscheir
500+ Head-Fier
I guess the idea is that the primary thing we on Sound Science are trying to point out is the high likelihood that the "sound measuring we haven't mastered" is little more than that of the intricate way in which perceptual bias from non-auditory stimuli may influence the perception of sound. When I say "null test", I mean taking the difference between two audio signals ("waveforms" as you may know) that are matched in level and synchronized; https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...test-deltawave-null-comparison-software.6633/ shows a tool for such and some results. If that difference yields a "null" (the noise-like signal corresponding with the difference) of magnitude well below what is humanly audible, then it can be expected that those two DACs or amps are presenting objectively identical audio signals and should be indistinguishable in controlled listening. Should the audio signals indeed be effectively identical, then in that sighted listening comparison, other than imprecision in matching playback volumes, any differences heard must be a property of the influence of non-auditory senses (the "McGurk effect" is often mentioned), expectations you might not be aware of, or past beliefs.I don’t have my Dave hooked up right now but was able to pick up some some of the details you mentioned in The Chain with my Audio Technica AT-DAC100 which I’m playing with right now. I do believe you can capture the kind of high-level detail you get in the Dave with cheaper DACs but like this dac for instance, it’s bass is a lot hazier though than the Dave, transients aren’t as quick and it has an overall lazier sound. I think where DAVE gets it right is you’re sacrificing very little it’s the whole package, R2R’s you tend to sacrifice detail for weight and heft while Delta-Sigma’s you’ll get sharper percussions and treble. (This is a general statement of course) but the DAVE seems to have strength in every area of sound production from dynamics to detail.
I never think anyone is delusional, people can convince themselves of anything if they like something so much, maybe a Topping user thinks they’re the best thing since sliced bread and more power to them. Hell I can be led to believe I’m wrongly putting the DAVE on a pedestal just because I particularly like the sound signature. I only think someone is delusional if they had only ever heard $200 DACs all their life and if exposed to a DAVE (or any other obscenely expensive DAC) one day they wouldn’t at least go “wow, that’s interesting….” even if it’s not their cup of tea sound-signature wise. I was impressed hearing the Susvara the first time but I also didn’t see the big hype either, but I still think there is something unique going on there.
What I’ve never been convinced on though is two DACs or amps should sound exactly the same just because they are both putting out similar low distortion numbers. I’ve never experienced this phenomena. I don’t know if it’s because golden ears is a real thing or there is something we haven’t mastered with the science of sound measuring but I wouldn’t be draining my wallet for years buying new equipment if they all sounded the same to me. I can put the same EDM song on two different DACs and one the tempo will feel faster and the other slower and more laid back for instance even though in theory they should just be translating the signal and nothing more. The overall sound signature will differ too much as playing the same exact song in two different night clubs will sound different because of different construction materials, size of the room, etc. I admit I’m not scientifically educated to explain why I just can only report my subjective experiences. I was just a lowly graphic designer for years
Perhaps nothing we say could break the "spell" of the differences you and others hear between gear, just like how I probably won't stop hearing identical texture, detail, incisiveness, and imaging etc. between similarly or reasonably measuring DACs and amps, i.e. where the same excellent recording sounds just as exquisite through all. For some people, everything really does sound the same as can be supported by the current science, while others are fortunate or unfortunate to be able to hear differences (whether that means they can hear amazing enhancements from higher-end or preferred equipment that some others would not perceive, or if it is rather that their brains prevent them from hearing the measurable perfection perceivable to others unless they dish out on something esoteric), so long as they don't turn extraordinary subjective accounts into extraordinary objective claims about electrical or acoustic phenomena. Otherwise, I can understand obtaining items of prestige or fancy claimed engineering and the "feels-good" element attributed to listening through that system, so long as one separates one's feelings and other effects from the reality of the electrical and acoustic signal.
FunkyBassMan
500+ Head-Fier
I get what you're saying, and agree. Any number of things may be involved.
But just realize that stating that it's possible these things may have induced certain expectations doesn't add useful information, because lots and lots of things are possible. Aliens may have zapped my brain with music-enjoyment lasers. Low blood magnesium levels that day may have caused my amygdala to fire off excessive excitement neurotransmitters.
What is a fact is that no human is capable of listening to anything objectively (see the neuroscience of prediction/simulation per Barrett, Barsalou and many others). Objectivity literally doesn't exist with the hearing system.
So the best we can do is be aware of that reality, and use the best and most relevant tool we have to evaluate audio, which is our hearing.
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MrHaelscheir
500+ Head-Fier
I think it is precisely the lack of objectivity of the human hearing system that has us objectivists have great distrust in such hearing, at least in the evaluation of the objective properties of electronics. The problem is when despite what measurements or null tests say, one believes that a fancy pulse array technology, "pure" amp topology, or cable construction etc. actually electrically or acoustically delivers details or spatial information or tonality etc. that other reasonably measuring gear somehow does not, and then bases that belief purely on their subjective perception. Obviously our own ears are our best tool for judging what we ourselves perceive, but may rather well be the worst at judging the reality of the actual acoustic signals impinging on the eardrum prior to the rest of the brain's stimuli messing with it.
bigshot
Headphoneus Supremus
You can’t hate or love an inanimate object. You can project your own emotions on it, but the object itself is just an object. It can be functional for a purpose or not functional, or somewhere in between.
bigshot
Headphoneus Supremus
Just like the $8 Apple dongle!
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