[bigshot]

I'm not that experienced with headphone amps, but I guess it would depend on how much power the headphones require. I have Oppo PM-1s, which are 32 ohm with a sensitivity rating of 102dB. I'm spitting in the wind, because I'm too lazy to do the math, but I would think that all three of these would be safe with my cans to ear splitting levels. Other less efficient cans might need cleaner ratings at a higher power. It's interesting how the red and yellow are so different. Did you test more than one copy of that amp to see if it wasn't a manufacturing defect?

 

[Phronesis]

That is a big consideration. When I went to buy a house, one of my top priorities was to find a place that had a suitable room for putting in a home theater / listening room. It's great because my house extends far back into the lot and my theater is adjoined by back yards on all sides. It's heaven.

We plan to put in a good home theater, but it will mainly be for the wife. I like listening in diverse locations - real office, home office, bedroom, living room, deck, etc. Listening to great music with great hi-fi sound while sitting outside and looking at nature is a unique experience!

 

[amirm]

Did you test more than one copy of that amp to see if it wasn't a manufacturing defect?

I plan to do that since I was offered the loaned unit at the same time that I had ordered one. Will post the results when done.

 

[colonelkernel8]

Since you are rather late to this party and most likely do not know what went on before, I will - in your personal case - let it pass.

There will be no such leniancy towards the older members that - at least should - know exactly what my post you quoted is all about.

I’ve been at this party for over a decade. I really, REALLY want to leave, but there’s always someone spouting off their experience as revolutionary new discoveries in physics that begs to be slapped down. It’s like the drunk guy who keeps trying to drive home from the party and I’m the one who has to take his keys away.

 

[Phronesis]

I’ve been at this party for over a decade. I really, REALLY want to leave, but there’s always someone spouting off their experience as revolutionary new discoveries in physics that begs to be slapped down. It’s like the drunk guy who keeps trying to drive home from the party and I’m the one who has to take his keys away.

Then why not just leave? What are you really protecting people against? Audio is just a hobby, we're not talking about poverty, health, etc. here in this forum. You have your beliefs, why do you care what other people think and how they spend their money? I just don't understand hanging around to be on the lookout to tell others they're wrong, and getting heated up in the process too. Political and religious zealots do that, but I find it odd to see that sort of thing in the audio world. Some people here really need to take a chill pill and get some perspective.

 

[colonelkernel8]

I'm not that experienced with headphone amps, but I guess it would depend on how much power the headphones require. I have Oppo PM-1s, which are 32 ohm with a sensitivity rating of 102dB. I'm spitting in the wind, because I'm too lazy to do the math, but I would think that all three of these would be safe with my cans to ear splitting levels. Other less efficient cans might need cleaner ratings at a higher power. It's interesting how the red and yellow are so different. Did you test more than one copy of that amp to see if it wasn't a manufacturing defect?

I’m going to go with Schiit likely having terrible QC and pretty awful manufacturing processes. Maybe the distortion adds some of that fabled audiophile “charm”. That said, I do have a Schiit Loki tone control that is just lovely.

 

[colonelkernel8]

Then why not just leave? What are you really protecting people against? Audio is just a hobby, we're not talking about poverty, health, etc. here in this forum. You have your beliefs, why do you care what other people think and how they spend their money? I just don't understand hanging around to be on the lookout to tell others they're wrong, and getting heated up in the process too. Political and religious zealots do that, but I find it odd to see that sort of thing in the audio world. Some people here really need to take a chill pill and get some perspective.

1. Audio is my hobby, and I like to talk with people about it.
2. This is the “sound science” forum, not the “subjective personal experience is gospel” forum.
3. Spouting lies like you need “at least DSD256 or 8x Nyquist” or some such nonsense hurts the hobby, and I want my hobby to thrive.

 

[Phronesis]

1. Audio is my hobby, and I like to talk with people about it.
2. This is the “sound science” forum, not the “subjective personal experience is gospel” forum.
3. Spouting lies like you need “at least DSD256 or 8x Nyquist” or some such nonsense hurts the hobby, and I want my hobby to thrive.

OK, but how big is the audience here? How much impact does discussion in Sound Science have on the hobby? In the scheme of things, this isn't overly important stuff, so why not approach the discussions with some levity?

 

[castleofargh]

modo ON, sort of:
let's all ease up on the "us vs them", or telling people what their priorities should be for the hobby. when did defending the truth changed into being judgmental because people don't share our priorities? if someone wants to buy only gears with screens glowing in blue, that's his prerogative.
the Sound Science section is supposed to be focused on facts and technology. is something real(objective real)? is it actually sound related? is it of higher fidelity? how can I tell? how can I demonstrate it to others? science has by far the most effective tools for people trying to get closer to correct answers. so let's use those tools.
defend your claims with evidence, not rhetoric and logical fallacies. when in doubt about what should be done, consider who has the burden of proof. who made the claim? how extraordinary is that claim? that person is responsible for providing evidence. failing to do so will be his failure. no need to go crazy, just ask the guy making a statement for evidence. that's the concrete difference with the rest of the forum. in here you are allowed to demand evidence or demonstration for a claim. you are allowed to demand that hearing claims be based on blind tests. the guy claims to know something we don't? how did he discover that? just ask him. he'll provide relevant information, we'll learn something and discuss, or he won't and we'll just reject his empty claim for what it is. don't legitimize baseless claims with a debate. we all do that too often, me probably more than most, but it's my optimistic mistake. I always assumed that people coming to brag were still interested in facts, turns out it's rarely the case.

- can we hear ultrasounds? humans are said to hear from 20hz to 20khz, so it seems pretty fair that those claiming to hear a difference from high ultrasonic content should be the ones to demonstrate it. even more so when the average audiophile is a middle aged guy who probably doesn't remember what 20khz sounded like back in the days. let alone frequencies above that.

- are all XXXX the same? can anybody even know that for a fact? of course not. it's impossible to prove, so why claim that stuff?

it's not that hard. and if you don't have solid evidence for something, maybe don't make a fool of yourself with a claim about it. it might surprise people, but we don't have to pretend to know everything.

 

[Phronesis]

^ Even within those parameters, a few days participating in this thread already shows plenty of disagreement. People give different weight to different kinds of evidence, and science doesn't rigidly prescribe a single methodology for how to gather and interpret evidence. Seems like some people here want to define 'rules' for science which favor the conclusions they've already reached. That's not how real science works, doesn't resemble any version of scientific inquiry I've seen before, looks a lot more like religion than science to me.

Genuine question: how many regulars in this forum are actual practicing scientists? Without compromising privacy, some background on where people are coming from would be helpful. As I've stated, I'm a practicing engineer, not in the audio or electrical field. Have dabbled in audio off and on for four decades, getting back into it lately. Designed and built an amp in high school, so not totally unfamiliar with the technicalities.

 

[castleofargh]

^ Even within those parameters, a few days participating in this thread already shows plenty of disagreement. People give different weight to different kinds of evidence, and science doesn't rigidly prescribe a single methodology for how to gather and interpret evidence. Seems like some people here want to define 'rules' for science which favor the conclusions they've already reached. That's not how real science works, doesn't resemble any version of scientific inquiry I've seen before, looks a lot more like religion than science to me.

Genuine question: how many regulars in this forum are actual practicing scientists? Without compromising privacy, some background on where people are coming from would be helpful. As I've stated, I'm a practicing engineer, not in the audio or electrical field. Have dabbled in audio off and on for four decades, getting back into it lately. Designed and built an amp in high school, so not totally unfamiliar with the technicalities.

it's hard not to think you're trolling me on purpose right now. I ask to stop the "us vs them" ugliness, you reply right under by doing exactly that.

 

[james444]

- can we hear ultrasounds? humans are said to hear from 20hz to 20khz, so it seems pretty fair that those claiming to hear a difference from high ultrasonic content should be the ones to demonstrate it. even more so when the average audiophile is a middle aged guy who probably doesn't remember what 20khz sounded like back in the days. let alone frequencies above that.

Speaking of which, reading this study ("Audibility of a CD-Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback") gave me a good chuckle. Not because it showed that people can't detect a 16-bit/44.1-kHz bottleneck in a high-resolution playback scenario. I was pretty much expecting that. It was in fact this little side-aspect, that I found pretty funny:

Those subjects able to hear tones above 15 kHz got 116 in 256 trials, for 45.3% correct; listeners aged 14–25 years old (who were, as it turned out, the same group), also got 116 correct in 256 trials, 45.3%.

 

[gregorio]

I suspect that most audiophiles aren't too concerned with truth, evidence, proof, etc. I see the same thing with other hobbies, and it probably just comes down to human nature, but these issues do seem to be intensified with audio, perhaps because there's a combo of (a) the lure of sonic nirvana being so strong and (b) our perception of sound being so inconsistent and fallible.

I would add the most important/influential part of that "combo": And (c) the industry that makes and sells audiophile equipment. - This is the most important part of that combo because the "truth, evidence, proof, etc." provides little/no opportunity for expensive, boutique products and therefore "truth, evidence, proof, etc." has to be contradicted, misrepresented and discredited. This financial incentive results in significant marketing budgets to convince audiophiles not be too concerned with truth, evidence, proof, etc., while there is no financial benefit/incentive and therefore no marketing budgets available to counter all this marketing BS!! To the casual audiophile observer, this marketing BS is the ONLY truth/evidence/proof they ever come across, except very occasionally for a few crazy conspiracy theorists armed with nothing more than nonsense graphs and made-up tests which are therefore banned in the real audiophile forums!!

[1] Now go and play in your studio with CDs - after you've made sure you've got nothing there that could possibly respond to anything outside 20-20k band,
[2] everything runs at 2VRMS or higher, but limited say below 150VRMS, you've found the way for a perfectly resistive piece of wire to act as a loudspeaker - and so on and so forth.
[3] Because you ( as a group ) - ALWAYS - choose "conviniently" to ignore anything outside your extremely idealistic narrow minded view that could cause a chink in your armor .
[4] Well, those camels are in a shock of their lifetime

1. That's a nonsense statement because I've tested and am sure that lot's of things respond to content outside the 20-20k band. How does that make any difference though, as human ears are NOT one of those things?

2. Yep, all my mics run between 2VRMS and 150VRMS, so do all the electric guitars, synths and headphones I use in my studio <extreme sarcasm>! Where do you get all this utter nonsense, do you just completely make it up yourself or is there some audiophile nonsense database you use?

3. Thanks for demonstrating EXACTLY what I stated in my last response to you! You've again just completely inverted the actual facts. It's extremely "convenient" just to sit in front of an expensive box and proclaim a "night and day" difference, while it's very inconvenient to properly test and measure that box. Instead of just spouting complete nonsense and insulting me (as a group), why don't you do the inconvenient thing and learn some actual facts??!!

4. Yes, yes, the end of the world is nigh; And the lord shall raineth down vinyl disks and wax cylinders upon all the world's foul unbelievers, bla, bla bla. I think I get your user name now!

G

 

[Phronesis]

it's hard not to think you're trolling me on purpose right now. I ask to stop the "us vs them" ugliness, you reply right under by doing exactly that.

Not at all, I wouldn’t waste any of our time by doing that, and am not a fan of needless aggravation of anyone. I’m trying to understand the dynamic of the forum, since it doesn’t fit my expectations of a science forum. The dynamic is more like if this was called a religion forum, but the regulars are all atheists who attack any whiff of a religious idea because it lacks their definition of ‘proof’ (ps - I'm not religious). Nothing wrong with having an atheism forum, just don’t call it a religion forum. That said, I struggle to come up with a good alternate name for this forum. It’s anti something, but hard to put a name to it.

Addendum:

Another analogy is the frontiers of science itself, for example the search in physics for a 'theory of everything' which unifies the fundamental forces and brings quantum theory and relativity theory together without contradictions. I haven't read about this topic in a while, but as of a few years ago, there were heavy debates among respected physicists about various hypotheses, the limits and capability of theory and math, the value of 'elegance' and unification of ideas, validity of different kinds of evidence, what to do when empirical testing isn't possible in practice or even in theory, etc. For example, there are several books like this: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Even-Wro...preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

With audio, the situation is perhaps at least as messy, since the processes underlying perception and their fallibility are central to the topic. Brain science and psychology are murkier than physics, and when you bring consciousness and mind into the picture, we're getting into rather uncertain and speculative territory.

 

[Phronesis]

I would add the most important/influential part of that "combo": And (c) the industry that makes and sells audiophile equipment. - This is the most important part of that combo because the "truth, evidence, proof, etc." provides little/no opportunity for expensive, boutique products and therefore "truth, evidence, proof, etc." has to be contradicted, misrepresented and discredited. This financial incentive results in significant marketing budgets to convince audiophiles not be too concerned with truth, evidence, proof, etc., while there is no financial benefit/incentive and therefore no marketing budgets available to counter all this marketing BS!! To the casual audiophile observer, this marketing BS is the ONLY truth/evidence/proof they ever come across, except very occasionally for a few crazy conspiracy theorists armed with nothing more than nonsense graphs and made-up tests which are therefore banned in the real audiophile forums!!

No doubt that there's lots marketing BS and it has some influence. But I suspect that there's even more influence from reviews, opinions expressed in forums like this, opinions expressed by friends, etc. Other influencing factors would be product specs, product aesthetics, brand reputation and heritage, etc. All of those factors are big-time influential with performance cars, and I think these issues are general to the consumer mindset.

My current thinking is that the biggest issue with audiophilia isn't inaccurate or incomplete objective understanding of how different things affect sound quality, but rather the relentless search for better sound quality far past the point when 'plenty good enough to enjoy music' was reached. If people truly 'trust their ears' and recognize that what they have is good enough, the question of what makes sound better won't come up because people won't care about it. As I've said, I'm not immune to this problem myself. Does something like an Audioholics Anonymous exist?