[castleofargh]

my altoid cmoy is the thing with another op amp on the ground(why?????) so maybe it doesn't have the specs of the basic cmoy. but that one doesn't sound like my o2 or leckerton, when they both sound very much the same and were almost identical to the pico amp(small hiss on the pico).
so those amps sounding the same and with known flat and nice measurements, I'm tempted to guess that's how accurate sounds like (with not too hard to drive headphones, I'm talking portable amps here).

 

[Roly1650]

I haven't seen measurements for an HA-1. Cmoys do tend to measure fairly well though (well enough for audible transparency with the majority of headphone loads, though they would struggle with truly high power demands). As for the evidence in general? Measurements are really the most reliable evidence. A properly conducted double blind study with a known good reference amp is pretty good too. Plain anecdotes like Bigshots really aren't any better as evidence than the anecdotes to the contrary, aside from the fact that Bigshot's anecdotes are more in line with the expected results.

Part of the problem is nobody, apart from Stereophile, measures anything anymore, to find objective measurements is a major Google search. Even Stereophile makes no attempt to correlate listening to the measurements, except when it can't defend the abysmal performance. As an expat Brit, I remember Hi-Sound, Hi-Fi News and Record Review, & etc., would never publish a review without measurements and attempt a correlation between them and the subjective sound. Now it's all anecdotal and as Nick Charles has already said, there is evidence suggesting that reviewers are the last demographic to trust. Maybe it's tacit acknowledgement that even modest electronic equipment exceeds the limits of human hearing, the only differentiation then being to "tune", to reach some nefarious definition of "better" on the pretext that it's "audiophile standard" and nonsense like " it measures horribly but is tweaked to subjectively sound accurate".

 

[MasterKuni]

I had a hell of a time finding a frequency response plot for any Schiit products - mainly the Magni, since that's what I was interested in purchasing. I finally found one measured by a third party that demonstrated it was flat as a ruler. I would've thought Schiit would take more pride in this accomplishment. THD would've been nice to have too, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

 

[SunshineReggae]

I had a hell of a time finding a frequency response plot for any Schiit products - mainly the Magni, since that's what I was interested in purchasing. I finally found one measured by a third party that demonstrated it was flat as a ruler. I would've thought Schiit would take more pride in this accomplishment. THD would've been nice to have too, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

 
Well, if you're going to take pride in your measurements, they have to all be good, and you have to provide all of them. And to consistently do all of them well, you need to know what you're doing; you need to be a great engineer. That is of course a much harder game to play. I haven't heard any Schiit devices though (and probably never will), but it's safe to say they'd rather play the marketing game, which so far seems to work all too well for them.

 

[bigshot]

You guys can have fun crossing Ts and dotting Is. I am just interested in getting accurate, consistent sound. That way if I apply EQ to correct, it's the same whatever source or amp I use. I have headphones that really don't require amping, so I can compare the direct out from my iMac and iPhone and iPad and iPod and iWhatever to the amped output. If they all sound the same, I'm good to go.
 
Specs are fine. Double blind tests are fine. But to be perfectly honest. Stuff like that is a chore to me. I do the legwork so I can be confident, but all I care about is how it sounds. I don't need an objective measurement if I can deductively figure that it's flat and clean by comparing it to a bunch of other stuff, some of which is known to be clean and flat.

 

[bigshot]

I had a hell of a time finding a frequency response plot for any Schiit products - mainly the Magni, since that's what I was interested in purchasing. I finally found one measured by a third party that demonstrated it was flat as a ruler. I would've thought Schiit would take more pride in this accomplishment.

 
Why would they take pride in something that the majority of amps are able to do. Flat and clean is easy in amps and players. It's only a real problem with transducers.

 

[cjl]

  You guys can have fun crossing Ts and dotting Is. I am just interested in getting accurate, consistent sound. That way if I apply EQ to correct, it's the same whatever source or amp I use. I have headphones that really don't require amping, so I can compare the direct out from my iMac and iPhone and iPad and iPod and iWhatever to the amped output. If they all sound the same, I'm good to go.
 
Specs are fine. Double blind tests are fine. But to be perfectly honest. Stuff like that is a chore to me. I do the legwork so I can be confident, but all I care about is how it sounds. I don't need an objective measurement if I can deductively figure that it's flat and clean by comparing it to a bunch of other stuff, some of which is known to be clean and flat.

 Listening tests alone won't tell you if it has problems with ultrasonic ringing though, or if it has poor noise rejection from the AC lines, or what the actual range of loads it can comfortably drive are. Sure, you can say "competent designs should be fine in all of the above," and you're right, but that doesn't mean that all designs out there are competent. Good measurements/specs are important, and I'm always disappointed that more companies don't publish a proper spec sheet for their equipment.

 

[bigshot]

If it sounds good, it works for me. I have yet to find an amp or player that *isn't* correct. There are SO many important things to deal with in getting good sound, I really don't understand why people spend so much time and energy on minutiae. It's the same with subjectivists as it is with the sound science crowd. I know why so many audiophiles are confused. No one puts things into clear perspective. Mountains out of molehills.

 

[nick_charles]

  If it sounds good, it works for me. I have yet to find an amp or player that *isn't* correct. There are SO many important things to deal with in getting good sound, I really don't understand why people spend so much time and energy on minutiae. It's the same with subjectivists as it is with the sound science crowd. I know why so many audiophiles are confused. No one puts things into clear perspective. Mountains out of molehills.

 
Michael Fremer once reviewed a CD/DAC combo with over 20% distortion on low frequencies, almost zero response below 100hz, terrible distortion and noise and gushed all over it, and cables that were so off it was just not funny, they sounded excellent to him, some of the exotic tube amps reviewed by Stereophile would not be considered to meet even the most basic levels of fidelity for solid state kit yet were greeted as if they were the second coming [insert alternative key religious moment as required]  - the "it sounds good to me" is a measure that has no real value for anyone except the "me" - it should be trivial to engineer competent kit yet some companies still manage to create kit that is technically dreadful if by chance or design - does not matter - and yet supposedly highly paid (Fremer's HiFi supposedly cost $350K) and supposedly expert reviewers seem incapable of detecting these egregious flaws or interpret them in magical terms of space/airiness or even worse detail/clarity/accuracy.
 
Earlier you said that your amps sounded the same, what if I listened to them and told you in all sincerity that I believed that they were very different, assuming we both took the same level of care in the comparisons what would an interested 3rd part make of this disagreement over something as elementary as same/different devoid of any other subjective judgment ?
 
Well a 3rd party might do one or more of a number of things.
1. Decide whose judgment she/he trusts more based on some criteria
2. Decide that neither of our judgments can be trusted
3. Ask me in what way the amps are different forcing me to say why I experience a difference, maybe I will say something that can be tested, but probably not
4. Ask me for reasons why they should be different - is there a rational basis for the difference 
5. Ask me to prove that I really can hear a difference
6. Buy or borrow said amps and try the comparison
7. Look for other more reliable sources of information
 
Since the experience is so subjective 6 seems tempting but is fraught with many problems

 

[bigshot]

Post the name of the products so we can avoid them. Then we can get some use out of the tiny exceptions to the rule.
 
Again, you aren't taking into account the fact that I compare everything to everything else. That is well over a dozen different amps and players that all sound exactly the same. What would you say the odds of all of them being off in exactly the same way is?
 
If you took the care to listen to them and compare them carefully, you coiuld come to any conclusion you want for your own stereo. BUT the people who claim all amps sound different HAVEN'T taken the time to do that. If they did a little research into how stuff works and then did a little careful listening to figure out how that relates to what they can actually hear, they would come to a practical decision. I did my research and figured out what the general rule of thumb is. Then I verified it for myself with my listening tests. That is good enough for government work. If someone goes to the trouble of doing the same test and gets different results, I would be interested in figuring out why that is. I would immediately be suspicious that something in their equipment isn't flat and clean. Wouldn't you?
 
Absolutism is great for splitting the atom. But if you can cover 90% of the truth with a simple broad strokes statement of fact, it's going to be a lot more useful than stating the truth and then following it up with ten really obscure worst case exceptions that no one is likely to run into. That gives equal weight to the exceptions as the rule. It gives totally the wrong impression.
 
Horse sense is more useful than piling a million irrelevant details on.