This is beneath you, Rob. What are you saying? "If you don't like my DACs you are no good at evaluating sound quality" Really? "Frankly deaf"! Oh dear. The world is full of people dedicated to producing better quality sound, and listening for it, writing about it, and sharing experiences on forums. To denigrate everyone not among your followers is the height of arrogance. I hope you did not mean it.
Have you watched the video of Susan Rogers talk at Canjam?
The sections where she describes:
why any two individuals will have totally different responses to the same music inputs
why students with music training during their early years, hear different things to Rogers herself
etc
Started me thinking that this helps to explain why some individuals will always hear different (sometimes almost opposite) things with the same dacs/speakers/amps/headphones compared to other individuals.
Of course many reviewers will think that only they hear the 'correct interpretation' of how any gear sounds, even if the physical parts of their ear lobes plus thickness of their nerve bundles, etc puts them at an inevitable disadvantage.
Maybe this is partly what Rob is trying to describe, although he could have used more polite terms to make the point.
Those are the ones to either avoid or only consider in a limited way. Those who admit their biases tend to be the fairest. The reminded me of the recent passing of Anthony Cordesman. He was one of the fairest in my opinion.
What matters a great deal as well is whether one has the same listening preferences as a reviewer. A reviewer who has struck me as being exceptionally trustworthy is Christiaan Punter. His reviews of the Antipodes servers have been both spot on and tremendously insightful. But I wouldn’t necessarily follow his recommendations as he and I have different aims. But if someone wanted to understand what how they’d benefit from a particular server, I would direct them to his reviews.
What matters is whether one has proven themself to be a trustworthy listener. That a person chooses to walk around with AirPods can’t tell us that because many other factors could have lead to that choice. We’d have to hear is what that person would say if better sound quality was presented to them. Would they be able to be fair in assessing the differences? Not everyone is equipped to do this, unfortunately. For some, what’s more important is that they give the “right” answer where the “right” answer is determined by how they would be perceived. Some need to be seen as a member of a particular tribe, so they can only provide assessments that keep them aligned with that.
I think most people can actually be fair. I have had many non-audiophiles over to listen and almost all have been able to call a spade a spade. One exception was a guy who couldn’t bring himself to say anything positive about brands or technical approaches he didn’t like and couldn’t say anything negative about brands or technical approaches he liked. He’s not at all a fan of Chord DACs and it was clearly evident that his dislike made him not the most trustworthy listener when Chord DACs were involved.
I think if one falls in the fairness camp, they tend to only value the observations of those who have also demonstrated that they can be fair. Those who fall in the tribalism camp tend to only be able to determine how much they value another’s opinion by what tribe they perceive that person to be a member of. Since they often can’t hold an opinion that isn’t shared by their tribe, they tend not to value the observation of those who have demonstrated themselves to be fair. Some have drunk so much of the Kool Aid they have to imagine that the only fair people are the ones who give the “right” answer.
I agree that any of my non audiophile friends can appreciate my higher end gear. Some even sorta want to recreate the experience for their own. The vast majority could care less and love their airpods. And that is 100% totally fine.
But, only my audiophile friends who trained themselves to listen for the subtle differences--the ones that listen to the equipment more than the music can accurately describe what they hear. These are the ones that I would discuss changes in my system.
Regardless though if my friends are trained or not, there is no "right" or "wrong" it boils down to personal preference. I don't fault or think poorly of someone who doesn't appreciate the detailed presentation of the DCA Stealth/Chord combination. I don't care if someone craps all over my Grados. Just because I spent many thousands if dollars on my system doesn't mean I'm better than anyone else. The fact I've invested both financially and time wise into the hobby does give me the ability to more accurately evaluate gear. I also have a better ability to describe what I hear. That's about the extent of it. Does this mean I'm good at judging SQ? I don't know. I imagine people like Rob Watts and Mike Moffat are pretty solid at evaluating SQ though.
It's a hobby after all. At the end of the day, it's about the enjoyment of music regardless of it's from a $20 BT speaker or $20k+ setup.
Haha... Same here at my local head-fi meet last time where I setup DCA Stealth/Chord Hugo 2. People hated it. They much prefer Hugo 2 with pretty much any other headphones. But they almost all use class A or tube amps to drive their planar magnetic or electrostatic headphones so they are also not fans of Chord DAVE or Hugo 2.
As a total aside, I listen to my AirPods Pro all the time.
That said, given how controversial some comments are being made and being interpreted in the past 24 hours, I'll keep my thoughts to myself, just like I did during that last head-fi meet. I have said many times here: At the end of the day, my friends at the local head-fi meet used their hard-earned money and precious time to select the gear they love to listen to the music they love. So as long as they're happy, I'm happy for them. And I'm happy that they are generous enough to let me try their gear. What I truly think about sound reproduction or Hi-Fi doesn't matter.
It's very simple actually, I used to play a lot of guitar and have been around a lot of live music. I also get to hear a lot of high end DACs and to me they all sound overly processed, often times overly-liquidy with bloated bass, which some love, and frankly dead boring, they don't move me at all. People can be debate all day long about DAC topologíes and other DACs, at the end of the day Rob's DACs are the only ones that move me really. That is my litmus test.
It's very simple actually, I used to play a lot of guitar and have been around a lot of live music. I also get to hear a lot of high end DACs and to me they all sound overly processed, often times overly-liquidy with bloated bass, which some love, and frankly dead boring, they don't move me at all. People can be debate all day long about DAC topologíes and other DACs, at the end of the day Rob's DACs are the only ones that move me really. That is my litmus test.
My litmus test is getting emotional listening to music, I usually get that from live music. I suspect his focus on transient resolution, small signal accuracy and transparency is doing something which is creating the same response I get from live music. So, I love his DACs, but that's just me. I'm sure others love other DACs and that's fine, I know what I like.
Nothing I wrote addressed appreciation. I was talking about fairness and being a trustworthy listener. It’s more a measure of personal integrity in that one has to want to be seen as being fair vs being seen as part of a particular tribe. That eagerness to be fair wouldn’t be only demonstrated in their audio observations. It would also carry through to how they handled the comments another person made and whether they’d want to properly represent the opinions someone else has expressed.
Same here - even more so since I purchased the AirPods Pro 2. The offer a very nice improvement over the original in both sound quality and noise cancellation.
My litmus test is getting emotional listening to music, I usually get that from live music. I suspect his focus on transient resolution, small signal accuracy and transparency is doing something which is creating the same response I get from live music. So, I love his DACs, but that's just me. I'm sure others love other DACs and that's fine, I know what I like.
It’s a good test. It’s the same for me. I’ll often gasp at a passage, exclaim out loud or on occasion shed a tear. When the music is able to do that I’m happy with my system.
It’s a good test. It’s the same for me. I’ll often gasp at a passage, exclaim out loud or on occasion shed a tear. When the music is able to do that I’m happy with my system.
It's a good test of how much we enjoy our "system". By system, I mean everything in the chain from the original musician's performance and all the intangibles within that, to the listener's state of mind. In between these are the tangible elements of the recording and playback gear and of course the transducers, including the ears and brain. We all love good sound, but if we love our music, we get the feels from even quite poor playback chains.
To be a critical listener, we almost need to shelve the emotional involvement in order to home in on the tiny differences each alteration to the system makes. If the technically excellent system then involves us emotionally, we have a great setup. This, I think, is what can make the difference between a gear head and a music lover. Some obsess over the technical so much that they miss the music, others really couldn't care less about the playback chain as long as the music hits them up.
It's a good test of how much we enjoy our "system". By system, I mean everything in the chain from the original musician's performance and all the intangibles within that, to the listener's state of mind. In between these are the tangible elements of the recording and playback gear and of course the transducers, including the ears and brain. We all love good sound, but if we love our music, we get the feels from even quite poor playback chains.
To be a critical listener, we almost need to shelve the emotional involvement in order to home in on the tiny differences each alteration to the system makes. If the technically excellent system then involves us emotionally, we have a great setup. This, I think, is what can make the difference between a gear head and a music lover. Some obsess over the technical so much that they miss the music, others really couldn't care less about the playback chain as long as the music hits them up.
It's a good test of how much we enjoy our "system". By system, I mean everything in the chain from the original musician's performance and all the intangibles within that, to the listener's state of mind. In between these are the tangible elements of the recording and playback gear and of course the transducers, including the ears and brain. We all love good sound, but if we love our music, we get the feels from even quite poor playback chains.
To be a critical listener, we almost need to shelve the emotional involvement in order to home in on the tiny differences each alteration to the system makes. If the technically excellent system then involves us emotionally, we have a great setup. This, I think, is what can make the difference between a gear head and a music lover. Some obsess over the technical so much that they miss the music, others really couldn't care less about the playback chain as long as the music hits them up.
True, but if I don't feel the music I just don't care. I visit friends and many high-end dealers with systems much more expensive than mines and even with all that money, treated rooms and crazy cables 99% of them just don't do anything for me. People can focus on all the technical details of a system, I used to as well, but in the end I learned that if I don't feel the music I couldn't care less. Now I just enjoy a ton of music and don't chase anything else. It's awesome. I visit these dealers to hang out with friends, no longer chasing the flavor of the month components or whatever. My TT-2 and M Scaler combined with My Parasound JC gear and my Persona speakers is all that's needed now, all the emotion is there.
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