[bigshot]

There is tremendous value in simplicity... a rig that elegantly does its job without requiring a whole bunch of patches to work the way you want. Particularly with a portable rig. All you should really need is a player to play the files and headphones to hear it with. Anything else is ballast. I see people on Head-Fi with ridiculously complicated portable rigs- separate battery packs, separate storage drives, DACs, DAPS, a bunch of black boxes with big fat wires to connect them all. It barely fits in a backpack. I get the exact same thing with my iPhone and my headphones (which sound great and require no amp).

 

[bigshot]

It is a weird hobby where a "1%" improvement will cost $1k

It's even weirder when you do a controlled comparison and realize that the 1% improvement is completely inaudible to human ears.

 

[dazzerfong]

There is tremendous value in simplicity... a rig that elegantly does its job without requiring a whole bunch of patches to work the way you want. Particularly with a portable rig. All you should really need is a player to play the files and headphones to hear it with. Anything else is ballast. I see people on Head-Fi with ridiculously complicated portable rigs- separate battery packs, separate storage drives, DACs, DAPS, a bunch of black boxes with big fat wires to connect them all. It barely fits in a backpack. I get the exact same thing with my iPhone and my headphones (which sound great and require no amp).

And then you have the big daddy:

Yep, that entire thing is a DAP:

1. Has an internal battery.
2. Has internal storage (+ SD card support).
3. Has a display for selecting what music to play.

 

[David Kleinfeld]

If you’re going to level match by ear, at least use tones to balance the levels. If you’re going to compare two components, at least do a simple blind test with a switcher. If that’s too much work, you either don’t care, or you don’t want to find out your money has been wasted.

if your DAPs are properly amped to match the impedance and sensitivity of your transducers, there shouldn’t be any audible difference. If you’re hearing clear differences, odds are you have impedance mismatches. If the differences are more subtle, odds are you are not applying sufficient controls to your comparison.

Human hearing is finite. Most home audio electronics, even the cheapest models, perform at a quality level beyond the range of human hearing. Clear differences exist in transducers, but not cables, amps and DACs.

You may be right but I find it entertaining that this type of assumption is generally done by people who by definition do not think there is any need or benefit for them to experiment first hand on a long term basis to support their claim because science is science and there is no argument about what science should or should not be. Indeed science only reflects the state of understanding of human beings at a given time and this always evolves and that's lucky for otherwise we could not communicate on this forum and you would not have any DAP to talk about in the first place. One day perhaps science will allow people to explain and cure 100% of tinnitus cases. Until then I would refrain to be too categorical on what can people hear and for which reason and will continue to base some choice on my own experience and perceptions like we all do whether or not the idea is pleasing from a scientific perspective. In my view there is an audible difference in sound results between cables and DAPs. I am not claiming I can explain it and as I said there could be part of placebo effect but simply less likely when performing blind test and I am just noticing it. I would certainly not recommend any one who is convinced that there cannot be any difference to spend money on something more expensive for that reason.

 

[Killcomic]

You may be right but I find it entertaining that this type of assumption is generally done by people who by definition do not think there is any need or benefit for them to experiment first hand on a long term basis to support their claim because science is science and there is no argument about what science should or should not be. Indeed science only reflects the state of understanding of human beings at a given time and this always evolves and that's lucky for otherwise we could not communicate on this forum and you would not have any DAP to talk about in the first place. One day perhaps science will allow people to explain and cure 100% of tinnitus cases. Until then I would refrain to be too categorical on what can people hear and for which reason and will continue to base some choice on my own experience and perceptions like we all do whether or not the idea is pleasing from a scientific perspective. In my view there is an audible difference in sound results between cables and DAPs. I am not claiming I can explain it and as I said there could be part of placebo effect but simply less likely when performing blind test and I am just noticing it. I would certainly not recommend any one who is convinced that there cannot be any difference to spend money on something more expensive for that reason.

Science is the observation of facts. If facts cannot be provided to support a claim, then the claim itself is just an anecdote.
The thing about science is, no matter what you believe in or what your opinion is, science is still right, because it’s fact based.

 

[bigshot]

You may be right but I find it entertaining that this type of assumption is generally done by people who by definition do not think there is any need or benefit for them to experiment first hand on a long term basis to support their claim because science is science and there is no argument about what science should or should not be.

You're mistaken. I do controlled tests on every piece of equipment I buy, because my system is very carefully calibrated and I don't want anything in my system that isn't audibly transparent. If I had two players with different sound signatures, I would need to EQ them differently to get them to my preferred calibration point. If I had more than one amp that each sounded different, I would need four different EQ settings depending on the player and amp I used. I demand that everything I use be audibly perfect- no coloration at all. That is why I test everything the day it arrives in the mail. If it is at all colored, I will pack it back up and get a refund. Thankfully, I have never had to do that, and everything from a $1,200 headphone amp all the way down to a $40 Walmart DVD player have all been tested and proven to be audibly transparent.

As for human hearing, there is a finite limit to what human beings can hear, and that has been firmly established and verified by tests going back more than a century. Yes, some people have impaired hearing. But that doesn't mean that someone else might be able to hear the unbearable. The irony with audiophiles is that they spend many hundreds of hours reading spec sheets, and spend no time at all to research what human ears can hear. The fact is that just about every single DAC, amp, cable, DAP or player that you can buy is DESIGNED to be audibly transparent. Some just have better specs beyond the range of human hearing. Why pay a lot of money for sound you can't even hear? That isn't smart.

The reason we ask about controls on listening tests here in Sound Science is because there is such thing as placebo, expectation bias and perceptual error. Those things can make two things sound radically different without a difference existing. If you want us to believe what you say, you need to make an effort to filter those errors out.

Quite frankly, a subjective impression is completely useless to anyone except the person expressing it. I might not "feel" the way you do. I might not have the same biases as you. I might not be subject to the same biases as you. But I do have the same human ears. We talk about things we can relate to here in Sound Science. We can't relate to your feelings, only your objective perception. Talk about those and you'll get respect. Talk about sloppy subjectivism and we are going to just make you mad. If you're going to stick to that like glue, you might want to go to a different forum in Head Fi. In this forum we are allowed to talk about your biases, placebo effect and perceptual error. In the rest of the site, you are free to make up whatever kind of baloney you want. If you can hear it sighted and it goes away when you do a blind comparison, that's what it is... baloney.

When I perceive something I don't expect and can't explain I'm curious to try to find out why. I ask questions of people who know more about it than I do and I do research to try to understand how things work. That is the key to putting together a really kick ass sound system. Randomly swapping stuff, throwing money at the problem and thinking that will solve it, and searching my heartfelt feelings for a solution just doesn't work.

 

[David Kleinfeld]

If you want us to believe what you say, you need to make an effort to filter those errors out.

I don't specifically want you to believe anything, you seem to have you own system of belief be it science based and that's of course all right. By the way as I said from my first post on this thread I do not believe price is correlated with sound qualities.

As for human hearing, there is a finite limit to what human beings can hear, and that has been firmly established and verified by tests going back more than a century

That's a nice argument of authority and you can probably support plenty of things based on it. I am sure no one who ever used that type of argument in history has never been proven wrong or with an incomplete understanding.

The fact is that just about every single DAC, amp, cable, DAP or player that you can buy is DESIGNED to be audibly transparent. Some just have better specs beyond the range of human hearing. Why pay a lot of money for sound you can't even hear? That isn't smart.

Yes and all designers I am assuming are equally good at what they do?I never claimed by the way that I can hear something beyond range of human hearing so obviously I would not decide to pay more based on that.

The reason we ask about controls on listening tests here in Sound Science is because there is such thing as placebo, expectation bias and perceptual error. Those things can make two things sound radically different without a difference existing. If you want us to believe what you say, you need to make an effort to filter those errors out.

I know about cognitive bias but perception error is more difficult to assess, perception is unfortunately what it is for the relevant human being who has it and you may note that I also agree placebo certainly is involved. I am just not claiming it does everything because as I said I can tell the different in blind test. I do not specifically want you to believe what I say hence I do not specifically intends to make any effort to filter any thing. Our opinion may be different but I respect the fact that you can express yours and that you are utterly convinced it is the right one.

Quite frankly, a subjective impression is completely useless to anyone except the person expressing it. I might not "feel" the way you do. I might not have the same biases as you. I might not be subject to the same biases as you. But I do have the same human ears.

I would have to disagree on the last part, there is not two human ears which are the same sorry, like there is not two eyes which are the same and human ears do not functions independently. Audible frequencies on average to human is just a very limited measurement to try understanding how people perceive the sound. Anyway I am just pointing out a fact, that science is not stuck in many areas and that would be very presumptuous to state otherwise in my opinion.

 

[bigshot]

You aren't going to get anywhere in this forum that way. We're just going to figure that you don't know what you're talking about. You're in a forum here with some very knowledgable folks... a more knowledgeable crowd than you are probably used to. If you are here to learn from others and share information that is solid and comes from a good source, you will do well here. If you try to bluff and say "We can't know anything because we can't know everything." you're going to end up getting brusquely dismissed. The longer you keep that up, the higher the likeliness that you will end up going off in a huff and never come back... wasting the opportunity to learn about things you don't know yet. That won't be our fault.

I'm just giving you a heads up. It's up to you.

 

[David Kleinfeld]

You aren't going to get anywhere in this forum that way. We're just going to figure that you don't know what you're talking about. You're in a forum here with some very knowledgable folks... a more knowledgeable crowd than you are probably used to. If you are here to learn from others and share information that is solid and comes from a good source, you will do well here. If you try to bluff and say "We can't know anything because we can't know everything." you're going to end up getting brusquely dismissed. The longer you keep that up, the higher the likeliness that you will end up going off in a huff and never come back... wasting the opportunity to learn about things you don't know yet. That won't be our fault.

I'm just giving you a heads up. It's up to you.

Sure your are absolutely right ! I will refrain from any further post where the word science is mentioned as obviously I don't know anything about and read with great attention the posts of more knowledgeable persons good continuation to you Sir and i hope you can enlighten me from time to time by your sharing.

 

[dazzerfong]

Sure your are absolutely right ! I will refrain from any further post where the word science is mentioned as obviously I don't know anything about and read with great attention the posts of more knowledgeable persons good continuation to you Sir and i hope you can enlighten me from time to time by your sharing.

While Bigshot may be a bit brusque and off-putting, at the same time, he isn't wrong.

If we consider nothing else but sound quality, blind testing is by far the fairest way to go. Now, of course, true blind testing on headphones is next to impossible (as you can feel which one's which, and controlling volume is trickier), but for amps, DAPs and whatnot? Fairly easily done, provided you have the tools. Now, double blind? No way in hell would I ever have the rigour for that.

Problem with fighting against science is that you literally cannot win - the minute it's wrong, it's immediately self-correcting to the newly-found knowledge. Thus why, when you make an extraordinary claim, people (especially bigshot here) are going to hone in on what you just said and scrutinise. Don't take it personally - it's the way the world works.

You may be right but I find it entertaining that this type of assumption is generally done by people who by definition do not think there is any need or benefit for them to experiment first hand on a long term basis to support their claim because science is science and there is no argument about what science should or should not be. Indeed science only reflects the state of understanding of human beings at a given time and this always evolves and that's lucky for otherwise we could not communicate on this forum and you would not have any DAP to talk about in the first place. One day perhaps science will allow people to explain and cure 100% of tinnitus cases. Until then I would refrain to be too categorical on what can people hear and for which reason and will continue to base some choice on my own experience and perceptions like we all do whether or not the idea is pleasing from a scientific perspective. In my view there is an audible difference in sound results between cables and DAPs. I am not claiming I can explain it and as I said there could be part of placebo effect but simply less likely when performing blind test and I am just noticing it. I would certainly not recommend any one who is convinced that there cannot be any difference to spend money on something more expensive for that reason.

Disagree - flipping the switch to get input A vs input B is by far the easiest way to detect differences.

Also, there is a difference in cables and DAPs, simply by being not identical. However, the audibility differences can usually be explained easily:

* deficient or purposeful engineering. The Etymotics BA drivers all actually sound the same, but due to the cable, have different tonality. On the other hand, you have the Fidelio X2 which sounds different when you use an aftermarket cable because the factory one has high impedance and reactance for whatever reason.
* insufficient power. Think I've talked to death about this one already.

The ones that are a bit harder to get away with are the 'bigger soundstage' stuff: that stuff never made any sense to me. Between headphones, sure (please don't jump on the semantics on this Bigshot!). Between DAPs/amps/DACs? Nah, unless magical DSP comes rolling in.

 

[bigshot]

^ nice explanation.

I'm not here to cause trouble. I'm just trying to give him an accurate picture of where his line of reasoning leads. He won't like where it ends up if he keeps it up, and he'll blame it on people like me who are straight with him. If he is honest, he'll appreciate my suggestions and won't go down that road. He seems to be smart enough and clear headed enough to be able to listen to advice.

 

[David Kleinfeld]

^ nice explanation.

I'm not here to cause trouble. I'm just trying to give him an accurate picture of where his line of reasoning leads. He won't like where it ends up if he keeps it up, and he'll blame it on people like me who are straight with him. If he is honest, he'll appreciate my suggestions and won't go down that road. He seems to be smart enough and clear headed enough to be able to listen to advice.

Thanks, clearly based on your number of posts you are much more knowledgeable and have much more time than I will ever have to spend on this topic so yes I appreciate your advice.

 

[gregorio]

[1] I would have to disagree on the last part, there is not two human ears which are the same sorry, like there is not two eyes which are the same and human ears do not functions independently.
[2] Audible frequencies on average to human is just a very limited measurement to try understanding how people perceive the sound.
[3] Anyway I am just pointing out a fact, that science is not stuck in many areas and that would be very presumptuous to state otherwise.
[3a] Indeed science only reflects the state of understanding of human beings at a given time and this always evolves ...

1. That depends on what is meant by "the same". Certainly all human ears are somewhat different but likewise, all human ears operate within a range of established limits and in that regard, are all the same.

2. Yes, we have a limited number of measurements, which do not fully characterise how people perceive sound. However, what we record and reproduce IS fully characterised by (and in fact completely defined/dependant on) a very limited number of measurements. In other words, if there is something we cannot measure, then we cannot record it and you obviously cannot reproduce it!

3. That's not an uncommon audiophile fallacy. Sure, there are many areas where science isn't "stuck", for example, medicine, quantum mechanics and many other areas but unless we're talking about areas that are actually relevant to audio, then it's a fallacy. The "areas" covered by audio ARE effectively "stuck", they've been proven/demonstrated for many decades, even centuries in some cases (such as Ohm's Law or Fourier math) and there is still no reliable evidence that they're in some way incorrect or inadequate (for audio applications). It would be MORE than very presumptuous to state otherwise!
3a. Continuing on, this statement is obviously not true. For example, "1 + 1 = 2" is probably about the most ancient of scientific statements and has not evolved at all over the course of more than 2,000 years. And again, Ohm's Law, the principles of digital audio, certain limits of human hearing, etc., are many decades (or century +) old, have not evolved and there is no reliable evidence to even hint/suggest they need to.

Unfortunately, the audiophile world is wall to wall carpeted with marketing, the majority of which relies on propagating these types of fallacies in order to question the established (non-evolving) science and thereby validate some claimed improvement. In many cases, audiophile manufacturers have no choice but to do this, as "perfection" within the limits of human hearing (in certain areas of audio) was not only attained many years ago but at a fraction of the cost they need to survive.

G

 

[bigshot]

Thanks, clearly based on your number of posts you are much more knowledgeable and have much more time than I will ever have to spend on this topic so yes I appreciate your advice.

Actually, a lot of this technical stuff is just an interest of mine, and I've just taken the time to google it. Nothing special there. Gregorio knows the technical stuff inside and out. My focus is more practical and mundane... how to make a home audio system sound as good as it can in a real world home with real world music. I've found that the application of science is a better way to achieve this than following anecdotal common knowledge in internet forums and manufacturer's sales literature.

 

[Ruben123]

Long time no posting, but I'd like to add that DAPs could sound different, be it worse. I found a pre-smartphone phone (which was cheap even back then) that I liked to use for some pop and house music. Bought a Sennheiser headphone with great bass for it, thoug there was no bass, whatever EQ I even tried. Aweful headphones! Until I tried them on a different phone... In the end DAPs could sound different if they're designed poorly. (and no, the impedance curve is quite smooth)
So I could see the so-called audiophile DAPs could be designed poorly on purpose, though careful ABT should find that out (and whoever would DBT his $$$ AK music box?).