[BS5711]

And I hope my response didn't offend you

No not at all, yours was very much one of the replies I found valuable and that I appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[salwani8888]

When I bought my first amplifier at 11 or 12 years old the only thing I did was comparing THD of dozens of amps and chose a Technics amp because it had (dunno) 0.002% less THD. Go figure...

10 years forward I bought my first tube amp with an absolutely horrific THD that sounded waaaaay better than "well designed" amps with fantastic measurements.

I did the same - probably Technics too ! But 'wait, what!?' moment came late teens when I was gifted a pair of Quad II's from the 60's. Decades and so much gear later, the Quads still going strong and sounding good in the gifter's basement.

 

[salwani8888]

To the question about other hobbies.

Yes I have. I am involved in another hobby/sport where I have around $40,000 USD tied up in a couple of high end items of sporting gear. These in concept are very much along the same lines in terms of luxury item versus performance as the IEM that are discussed here. In fact more like custom IEM because these items are custom order with very specific details to suit my requirements after over 30 years in the hobby/sport to understand what I want and need.

Yes I know others wonder why myself and others put that much money into the items when something much cheaper could do the job. If I was active on a forum about that hobby/sport I would probably be doing the same as the Water Cooler guys are here.

Stupidly that was something that I hadn’t thought about because to me in that other hobby/sport the value of the gear is absolutely clear to me and I would sooner give it up than do it with off the shelf gear at one fifth the cost and get less satisfaction from it.

That was part of the points I hadn’t considered and I hadn’t because I have been involved in that hobby/sport with gear at that level for so long that it seems completely normal and I literally no longer even think about being involved at a lower level of investment. I imagine that is how it is for some of you guys.

I get it better now that I can put it into meaningful context relative to my own experiences.

Relative to you high end IEM guys I am the guy that asks me what the value is in having the expensive gear in my other hobby/sport. I do politely point out the benefits to me and I appreciate those that showed me the same courtesy.

 

[klyzon]

+1. Xe6 is just so unique and fun. There's nothing like it!


More Trifecta love! Such a polarising iem and yet it is getting more and more traction the more people give it a chance!


Great question as always! I did some a/b and could not tell a whole lot of difference. I guess my ears or my equipment is just not good enough. So Flac it is for me to save space!


For me it was the Indigo. Traillii was underwhelming for me when I first heard it. Now however, I am in love with it!

When @drftr posted that, I held back, was not sure what the question was. But now that you broke the ice, technically there should be no difference at all since FLAC is lossless.
And I cannot hear a difference.

I was told by someone trying to sell me a CD transport to bring WAV into my DAC because he said it would sound better then streaming FLAC, so I tried and maybe it is my hearing, logically though the bit stream should be identical once uncompressed.

With a high end DAC I find it hard to believe that simple uncompressing back to WAV could in anyway be degrading the sound I hear. If it is I do not hear a difference.

Can't tell the difference between wav and flac too. But on certain tracks and gear I can tell the imo obvious difference in dsd and flac in my setup

 

[BS5711]

Yes very much so !!

I am just happy the name of the thread included philosophical discussion and general banter !!

 

[Deezel177]

Gents,

My question was genuine and I worded it as best I could to get my meaning across without raising to many hackles.

I appreciate the honest and well thought out responses, you touched on some points that I hadn’t considered, not the least being how would I rationalise what I spend to someone who thinks $1,000 is crazy money to listen to music and probably think $100 is more appropriate.

I don’t so much appreciate a couple of the responses but that is OK, I can live with that. I can only hope that there is some background goings on that I am not aware of to have my choice of manufacturer of one IEM raised and to get labelled as sanctimonious and a touch judgmental.

To the others thank you, appreciate the considered feedback.

Apologies for some of the slightly-defensive responses here, man. We just dealt with someone who was maliciously questioning the spending we do on this hobby, so perhaps some of us are still a bit touchy about the subject. I think your question was very much sincere, and I hope this doesn't scare you from interacting more on this thread.

Can't tell the difference between wav and flac too. But on certain tracks and gear I can tell the imo obvious difference in dsd and flac in my setup

As someone who's recorded and worked with raw tracks from 24/96, all the way down to 16/44.1, I'd say (past a certain point) the bitrate and sample rate of an audio file probably makes the smallest difference in a chain. I think past Apple Music's 320 kbps AAC, you're maybe getting 1-5% more quality going to lossless, and that's even if the track's production quality (mixing, mastering, etc.) is conducive towards detecting such a minute difference. I once scored a 4/5 on a lossy v. lossless blind test, and that was sitting down in a quiet room with full concentration. When I'm out and about, walking around with my IEMs, you can kiss all of that goodbye.

Now, 24/96 tracks are much easier to work with, especially when you're doing things like time-stretching or fine compression, but that's a different matter entirely.

Now, DSD is a different thing altogether, because DSD tracks require a whole new master of the track to be made, rather than the same master exported into different file types, which is what FLAC, AIFF, AAC, MP3, etc. are. It's like when filmmakers make a black-and-white version of a colored film. They don't just slap a filter on it like the kids do on Instagram. They have to go back to the raw footage and re-color-grade and color-time it in black-and-white. That's kinda what DSD is, so it makes sense that there'd be a much larger difference between, say, DSD and WAV vs. FLAC and WAV.

 

[hungryewok]

As someone who's recorded and worked with raw tracks from 24/96, all the way down to 16/44.1, I'd say (past a certain point) the bitrate and sample rate of an audio file probably makes the smallest difference in a chain. I think past Apple Music's 320 kbps AAC, you're maybe getting 1-5% more quality going to lossless, and that's even if the track's production quality (mixing, mastering, etc.) is conducive towards detecting such a minute difference. I once scored a 4/5 on a lossy v. lossless blind test, and that was sitting down in a quiet room with full concentration. When I'm out and about, walking around with my IEMs, you can kiss all of that goodbye.

There used to be a small audiophile scene in Kiev between 2012 and 2015. In all of our normalized 320mp3 vs redbook tests, only 1 person (out of 10-ish) could semi-reliably tell a difference between the two formats.

 

[Andrew DiMarcangelo]

I have been avoiding dongles for the past year since I moved to TOTL DAPs. Can't wait for CanJam NYC to a/b/c the dongles. Looking forward to hearing RU7, WA4 and DC Elite. Also looking forward to hearing iBasso PB5 Osprey with my DX320 Max Ti. I hope Bloom has it.

Yeah, we'll most definitely have it in our NYC room.

 

[BS5711]

Apologies for some of the slightly-defensive responses here, man. We just dealt with someone who was maliciously questioning the spending we do on this hobby, so perhaps some of us are still a bit touchy about the subject. I think your question was very much sincere, and I hope this doesn't scare you from interacting more on this thread.

Cheers,

I only look in here briefly a couple of times a week or so, no I had no idea of any background that might have made my question a bit poorly timed, I guess that explains a couple of the less than gracious responses.

No problem here but appreciate the insight.

 

[RonaldS86]

Can't tell the difference between wav and flac too. But on certain tracks and gear I can tell the imo obvious difference in dsd and flac in my setup

On the wav files usually it ends with .WAV and on the flac files usually it ends with .FLAC
Oh one more thing. WAV files tend to occupy more space and don't have a metadata like album art, etc.
(Yeah I know, it's supposed to be a joke )

 

[Valrhona]

Synergy

Say something about the synergy of the ZM2 and Anni...

 

[swedishpat]

Looking for some advice from the great professionals on here!

Want to spend around $3000 on a new or used Custom CIEM. (universals don’t work) I have these in mind:

Fir RN6
Kinera Loki
Grand Maestro
CFA Bonneville
Used UM Mentor
Used Jewel

I like crisp clarity, natural voices like they’re whispering into my ears, and most importantly deep powerful bass. Not too laid back, I would like something a bit exciting. I listen mostly to pop, rock, indie, folk and americana. My favorite headphone is the D8000. Which would be your choice?

Thanks!!

 

[drftr]

Can't tell the difference between wav and flac too. But on certain tracks and gear I can tell the imo obvious difference in dsd and flac in my setup

klyzon! Nice to see you back here! Hope all is just fine...

After reading far too much about the topic I saw some claims that it's not necessarily about the difference between flac and wav in itself that creates the sonic differences, but mostly the processor having a very tough job decompressing/translating the flac file, while that's not necessary at all with a wav file. However, when using flac with no compression (which is NOT the same as the 0 compression setting) there's nothing to be decompressed and no audible difference seems to occur. The difference seems to be really audible when picking a decompression setting of 3 and higher. Interesting is that most non-audiophile articles claim the best setting is 5; possibly only taking speed and disk space into consideration. Using flac without decompression would also solve the tagging issue wav files can have.

drftr

 

[drftr]

Looking for some advice from the great professionals on here!

Want to spend around $3000 on a new or used Custom CIEM. (universals don’t work) I have these in mind:

Fir RN6
Kinera Loki
Grand Maestro
CFA Bonneville
Used UM Mentor
Used Jewel

I like crisp clarity, natural voices like they’re whispering into my ears, and most importantly deep powerful bass. Not too laid back, I would like something a bit exciting. I listen mostly to pop, rock, indie, folk and americana. My favorite headphone is the D8000. Which would be your choice?

Thanks!!

RN6

drftr

 

[iDesign]

Looking for some advice from the great professionals on here!

Want to spend around $3000 on a new or used Custom CIEM. (universals don’t work) I have these in mind:

Fir RN6
Kinera Loki
Grand Maestro
CFA Bonneville
Used UM Mentor
Used Jewel

I like crisp clarity, natural voices like they’re whispering into my ears, and most importantly deep powerful bass. Not too laid back, I would like something a bit exciting. I listen mostly to pop, rock, indie, folk and americana. My favorite headphone is the D8000. Which would be your choice?

Thanks!!

Third party reshells of custom in ear monitors is hardly ideal and comes with risk. You will be much better off ruling out used monitors and purchasing new units.