The Watercooler -- Impressions, philosophical discussion and general banter. Index on first page. All welcome.

[paggio]

More amps to the God of amps

 

[fejnomit]

I have yet to hear any differences in sources. I will be gladly proven wrong, but so far it made no difference to my ears, besides volume capacity.

To me, source is the most important part of the chain. Garbage in, garbage out, as the old saying goes. Neither a cable nor an IEM can add back information that's lost or distorted in the source. So spending the most time finding the best source is always essential. Best being relative to your preferences (and pocketbook!), of course. But look if you really can't hear the difference between your computer's headphone jack and an RS8, for instance, or a Hugo TT2, then you can save a lot of money!

 

[KrólArtur]

By reading this thread you can understand more than by reading many reviews. Maybe it's just my observation.

 

[Rockwell75]

So I would say, we don't hear A/B split test differences between sources, like 15 seconds here and there.

I find this to be especially true. You can glean some superficial differences on short demo's or a/b's-- but it's the nuance that comes into view with extended sessions that really makes the more subtle differences between whatever it is you’re comparing more evident. For myself I can appreciate good BA bass in the short term but all my efforts to settle into it long term have failed because I always eventually start nit-picking about something.

In other news interesting article on BCD-- it was invented by Beethoven no less.

https://www.zmescience.com/feature-...d-to-his-piano-and-clenching-it-in-his-teeth/

 

[Piotr Michalak]

EE had a demo pair of IEMs that included BCD drivers. One pair had a thicker shell and minimal bass while the other had a thinner shell and much better bass

Hmm... So maybe LeJardin has their wooden shell so thick, that I can't actually hear the BCD, and it is completely a placebo? However I think I hear it's definitely more than a "simple" 12BA IEM...

 

[jwilliamhurst]

Nice color! Do you hear any noise using the CDM with IEMs?

On low gain with iems no noise but high gain yes. I use high gain for my earbuds.

 

[haci]

Hmm... So maybe LeJardin has their wooden shell so thick, that I can't actually hear the BCD, and it is completely a placebo? However I think I hear it's definitely more than a "simple" 12BA IEM...

BCD in UM IEMs are of different type, called piezoelectric, maybe they work/transmit a bit different compared to EE.

 

[RTodd]

Hmm... So maybe LeJardin has their wooden shell so thick, that I can't actually hear the BCD, and it is completely a placebo? However I think I hear it's definitely more than a "simple" 12BA IEM...

At CJNY Musicteck had the MEST demo with a switch to turn off and on the BCD. Wonder if anyone else played with it. It was an opportunity to hear for yourself with that IEM if you could hear a difference and how big a difference. Unfortunately it was noise filled space and lots of distraction around.

Andrew of Musicteck told me a couple years ago that early on in the UM exploration of BC they had done testing with two versions and giving people time to compare, the overwhelming winner was the one that included BC. This testing was only done in one market per Andrew so if there is an east west preference at work could make the result questionable.

My own experimentation with the Mason FS I could notice the biggest difference if I put some outward pressure on the IEM so it made tight contact. There is something there for sure though we have struggled to clearly define it over the past couple years. With the continued release of more IEMs that include BC drivers by a couple different companies and those IEMs are not all going for the same profile it just gets more elusive to describe as far as I am concerned.

Interesting about Beethoven makes sense with his hearing loss, that whole story is so fascinating. As his hearing diminished to have been still able to craft complete pieces in the mind with evermore limited feedback from playing the piece and adjusting it after hearing it.

 

[stacey]

Hmm... So maybe LeJardin has their wooden shell so thick, that I can't actually hear the BCD, and it is completely a placebo? However I think I hear it's definitely more than a "simple" 12BA IEM...

BCD is affected by shell material, thickness, and the eartips you use.

 

[slumberman]

This is incorrect from the little bit of reading I have done on them and my own experience. They literally vibrate and that vibration is transferred to your ear:

Out of all the drivers we have discussed so far, Bone Conduction Drivers(or BCD in short) are different from the previous ones. The sound-generating principle is the same, the driver vibrates in its place and produces the sound. But BCD drivers produce sound by coming in contact with our bones. BCD drivers are heavily used in hearing-aid devices. But in recent times, we have seen brands implementing Bone-Conduction Drivers in IEMs as a part of the hybrid configuration.

At CanJam NY EE had a demo pair of IEMs that included BCD drivers. One pair had a thicker shell and minimal bass while the other had a thinner shell and much better bass. Both were tuned exactly the same according to EE with the only difference being the thickness of the shell. The difference was immediately noticeable.

Hearing aid devices with bcd have an implant underneath the scalp that’s where the bone conduction happens (and the name comes from). I personally never felt any of the BCD equipped IEMs I tried vibrate.

Also, I’m not saying they don’t do anything. I am just saying they’re not making the shell vibrate in my experience. That’s all.

 

[maegnificant]

I urge someone with expertise to just open up the shells, disabling the BCD and do comparisons. Please

 

[MatW]

Hearing aid devices with bcd have an implant underneath the scalp that’s where the bone conduction happens (and the name comes from). I personally never felt any of the BCD equipped IEMs I tried vibrate.

Also, I’m not saying they don’t do anything. I am just saying they’re not making the shell vibrate in my experience. That’s all.

I saw a video once of the EVO vibrating and moving on a desk, driven by bass heavy music. Maybe I’ll try to replicate that this weekend.

 

[fejnomit]

I urge someone with expertise to just open up the shells, disabling the BCD and do comparisons. Please

Theoretically if you have no damage to your inner ear, especially the cochlear hairs, the stimulus reaching your auditory nerves should be the same whether it comes from a driver within the earpiece of an iem or from a conduction driver radiating sound waves through bone to that nerve. But this is basically never the case. We all have some blockages in our outer ears and damage in our inner ears simply from living, not to mention anatomical anomalies, etc. Theoretically, the waves reaching the auditory nerve through bone conduction bypass any of these irregularities and could, again theoretically, be a "cleaner" way to reach the nerve. There are bone conduction headphones already - I am sure you have seen or heard them - the conductor/earcup rests not in/on your ear but on the bone of your skull behind your ear They are remarkably good for what they are. So the tech exists, it's real, it's just a question of whether it "enhances" the sound coming from an iem's other drivers. I imagine timing is an issue vis a vis the other drivers. Also, as has been discussed, the materials through which the sound waves must pass before finding bone is also an issue. I can see it as a stand-alone application - pure BCD iems - but when it's paired with other driver types and it covers some of the same frequency range as those drivers, I'm not entirely sure what it's meant to do. If anything it reinforces those frequencies but it may also have a different sound given that it bypasses some of the aforementioned irregularities yet at the same time introduces new potential influences on the sound like the IEM material and human bone into the mix.

 

[Bret Halford]

I saw a video once of the EVO vibrating and moving on a desk, driven by bass heavy music. Maybe I’ll try to replicate that this weekend.

There were a lot of customer concerns with the Odyssey about asymmetric vibration levels between R/L units when doing this type of testing.

IIRC Jack/EE clarified that the BCD unit is hand mounted on the shell so there is expected variation in the shell interaction this shows, but this isn't in fact the mechanism the BCD uses (the driver is aimed the other direction) and is simply a byproduct of manufacturing that won't affect sound.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

SD cards do not look like much, just a small rectangle of plastic. But inside any SD card there is unbelievable complexity. The i400 has 176 layers of 3D NAND Flash memory, and CPU, firmware, OS to control/implement memory functions. As with any Processor system, there are the related clock, power, etc., systems, all jammed together onto a small chip. Different implementations and architecture/manufacturing can improve on clock accuracy, jitter, power handling, noise, etc., etc.

Some implementations are optimized for price, manufacturing ease. Some, like the Micron (and other vendors) Industrial cards are optimized for long life, extended read write, data integrity. There is more care and expense in the chip design to optimize and test for clean internal layout, better clock/jitter, and power, noise control, etc., etc.

Given that some card implementations will have better noise and clock performance, and the SD card is at the heart of the DAPs operation, just one factor, like lower noise injected into the DAP, can alter the end reproduction of sound.

So looking at this small piece of plastic, and thinking that it is simple, and there is no technology involved, compared to a DAP, where you can see the size and complexity, this can lead people to believe that the SD card is irrelevant and cannot affect sound. It is like the old understanding of bacteria/disease before the microscope was invented. People had no idea of the micro world that they could not see. Look inside the lowly SD card, and you find a world of complexity.

Given the variations (and effort and money spent) on different SD cards design, is it so strange that some cards are better than others, in specific areas? i.e. The Industrial cards are better for sound, as a by product of their design for endurance and data integrity, which resulted in better power and noise performance, while cards designed for speed do not sound as good, because they are optimized for speed, and use more power, with higher noise? The results are by products of different design decisions, for other factors than sound, as none of the manufacturers design for sound (except a few one offs, like by Sony).

So why would a tremendously complicated SD card not be able to affect sound? Anybody who believes that a wire, which is much simpler, can affect sound, should not be surprised that the complex micro processor/memory system in an SD card can have an effect?

I would just say keep an open mind. Try it if you are curious. Just another factor/component in the audio chain. Edit: If you believe that everything in the chain matters.......

EDIT: A TOTL system has a TOTL DAP, IEM, Cable. But the microSD card which is the source of the music can be the cheapest microSD card? Does this not seem like putting cheap tires on a Ferrari?

https://www.mouser.hk/new/micron-technology/micron-i400-microsd-cards/

Sharing my experiences and findings with regards to microsd cards:

The method of formatting the microsd card can have a very noticeable effect on the playback sound quality.

I have done my own comparison between:
1) Fresh factory stock by the manufacturer(no formatting done)
2) Formatting via Microsoft Windows Format Function
3) Formatting via SD Memory Card Formatter Tool for Windows
4) Formatting via the Walkman OS

I find that formatting via the Walkman OS to be sounding the best. I highly recommend this formatting method for all Sony Walkman owners. Not only does this method sound best, but also the loading of album art and updating of database function is noticeably faster too.

I do not own any other brand of DAPs, so I cannot comment on what formatting procedure works best for the other brands. But I would recommend for those adventurous to experiment with different formatting methods to uncover what works best for their DAPs.