[FLTWS]

 

[Pondoro]

Those do not work! You need oxygen free copper.

 

[Rensek]

I think when we get to Bifrost 2 and up it becomes as much about sound profile and preferences as it does expense.

I now have a Gungnir Multibit to go along with Bifrost 2. To my ears its a nice upgrade in SQ over Bifrost 2. But..... I could understand people wanting a warmer/darker sound... like Bifrost 2. I know of at least two people who have said they prefer Gungnir to Yggy
(gasp!) I really enjoy my HD600s and Focal clears... those are a brighter hps then many like. Same with the LRSs, they are very detailed..... I know some people prefer HD6XXS over 600 or 800s, some people prefer Clears over Utopias... and some prefer ZMF Verites over all of those, not to mention hifiman, audeze, and other planars.

To me, too many folks make it about whats the most expensive thing I can afford to buy, in any hobby. At this point I'm trying to buy for preference, system synergy, quality and value. I doubt I'm alone in that line of thinking.

Variety is nice.

I also bet Jason likes variety, if you have read enough of his posts, you will know his setups change over time. I bet he also has many desks/listening setups between two manufacturing facilities, and two homes.....dont get too caught up in what gear hes using this month/quarter/year. If he didnt like how something sounded, I doubt he'd offer it for sale. He is also usually drinking a different wine or beer in each video...

 

[artur9]

My audio nervosa right now (besides upgrading my VA Waltz to Totem Tribe IIs if the couch has enough spare change).

Love my Gungnir MB. LIM might be an upgrade (more blacker). OTOH, by doing "my own research" I'm going crazy with the reported effects of TI's sample&hold architecture.

I need a psychic to tell me what will synergize with my 2ch setup.

 

[Rensek]

Can someone explain blackness and more blacker in terms an idiot can understand? I saw a handy chart on sbaf, subjectively comparing mostly Schiit dacs and one Soerkis. While Gumby was quite highly rated, its lowest ranking was its blackground.

 

[rfernand]

Can someone explain blackness and more blacker in terms an idiot can understand?

Alright I’ll bite for the good of all Kree. See if this makes sense:

Neutral: Imaginary ideal state in which all men are tall, all women are strong, and all children are above average. The holy grail of measurement aficionados. Unobtanium. A precision tool you’re likely to use when professionally mixing The Next Great American Record. Smells like a hospital.

Coloration: It’s just like, your equipment’s opinion, man.

Common types of coloration (with respect to frequency response):

Bright: Favoring high frequencies. When poorly executed, high frequencies are higher than Spicoli. As in “My ears hurt”. Sounds like kindergarten during recess when someone brings puppies.
Dark: Where are the high frequencies? Why does that tambourine sound like a taped-over high hat? Some people prefer this, and there are dozens of them. Dozens. Common folk may recognize the distinct sound of a car right next to you at a stop light with the latest EDM greatest hit at full volume and the boomBoomboomBoom annoying sound and feel you get inside your car with the windows rolled up. That’s dark.
Warm: What most people love. Bass is a little up. Vocals are up and superbly human. High frequencies are reined in so they don’t distract.
V for Vendetta: High highs and High lows with steeply recessed mids. Perhaps the best way to enjoy Bono’s vocals: behind everything else the Band is doing.
U shaped: A more delicate suppression of mids than Vs.
Blackness: Silence! A black background has no hiss or hum when no instrument is playing.

Common stereotypes to exemplify things:

- Grados are bright.
- Beats headphones are darker than a politician’s soul.
- British sound is brighter than American sound, the latter favors more bass. The experts can’t agree on who does vocals better and are still debating. Let ‘em.
- LCD-X (other than 2021) are neutral. Insipid. No opinion. They just resolve everything. Need equalization to be fun.
- The Harman Curve is what every headphone should sound like. If you like a headphone that doesn’t match the Harman curve you’re listening wrong.
- HD600 are God’s gift to creation because they sound the most natural (U shaped with polite bass and highs). No wait they are V shaped, you want the HD650s. You’re crazy, the HD800s fixed these deficiencies. (or whatever).
- Solid state amps are better that tube amps to preserve blackness. Also my 3k power line conditioner made my phono stage the blackest but only at night.
- DACs that measure perfectly against some ideal made up target are clearly superior. Who cares to listen when you can measure instead?

Practicalities to keep in mind:

- Recordings are imperfect. Equipment is opinionated. Your listening room is opinionated. Your ear shape (YES! SHAPE!) and current stage in the journey towards diminished hearing affects how you perceive sound. What sounds good to you, sounds good to you. Screw everyone else’s erudite opinon. Stick with what you like.
- It is possible to enjoy diversity. You may find yourself owning more than one dac and more than one pair of headphones and speakers and amps for different moods. It’s all good.
- If you hear noise in a track, it may be the track itself and no blackness magic will help. If you hear noise when you’re close to the speakers when nothing’s playing, that’s anti- blackness and a bad setup or bad gear.
- Try different things. Have a simple set of terms that help you compare things and learn (yes, learn) what you like more.

But above all else, if you must do one and only one thing, forget all these things and the associated audio nervosa and enjoy the music.

P.S. There are many more terms to disappoint strangers at cocktail parties. Ask your fellow addicts about openness, timbre, detail, width, transparency, attack, and hang in a later post. Bring popcorn.

 

[FLTWS]

Can someone explain blackness and more blacker in terms an idiot can understand? I saw a handy chart on sbaf, subjectively comparing mostly Schiit dacs and one Soerkis. While Gumby was quite highly rated, its lowest ranking was its blackground.

I've noticed this quality on occasion. It's like a sense of a lack of any electronic background sound with equipment on. This background sound is subliminal. It's something that occurs at the limits of aural perception. It's weird but you (may) know it when you (don't) hear it. Could be the equipment, could be the source material. On those occasions when I do notice it it is usually something to do with imaging and the outlines of instruments / voices coming into a very sharp focus that catches my attention. But its not something I necessarily listen for it just suddenly seems I'm aware of it and it may or may not be a constant. There may even be physiological or psychological factors in play here as well. Could be noise entering the system thru the air or over AC lines. With wireless everything now days the air could be jam packed with stuff and that's why proper shielding is probably a plus with gear. For years I had at times an extremely low level electronic sound that appeared and that I wasn't aware of until it was removed. What removed it? The local naval air station closed and I was no longer near the northeast to southwest landing pattern. It could have been electronic landing aid signals of various types or just plain old communications air to ground / ground to air.

The fact that I prefer the sound of tube amps that usually have higher noise floors than SS or hybrid types indicates to me that there are a lot more meaningful characteristics to reproduced sound than ultimate blackness of the background. But that's just me.

 

[artur9]

I have a thing about "noise." My compromised hearing struggles in the face of "noise."

The quieter the background the less fatigue I endure when listening to anything.

Some overcome this by playing things louder. I found, at a headphone meet, that many of the youngsters were playing things at levels that I found painful.

As my upper limit is low and my lower limit is elevated, I need things that help lower the ambient lower limit.

My ideal listening level is something like 70dB (my wife's is lower still). If there's 30dB of noise in my system that means I'm only allowed 7bits of signal. I find really interesting things happen with more bits than that.

At least, this is what I think. I don't know if science supports any of it.

Hence my desire for a DAC with a blacker background. I need that blackness to help expose more of the music akin to how a bas relief needs a flat surface.

Or maybe I need to start vaping recreationally instead....

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Hence my desire for a DAC with a blacker background. I need that blackness to help expose more of the music akin to how a bas relief needs a flat surface.

Or maybe I need to start vaping recreationally instead....

Nobody ever said it was an either/or situation


JC

 

[earnmyturns]

Can someone explain blackness and more blacker in terms an idiot can understand? I saw a handy chart on sbaf, subjectively comparing mostly Schiit dacs and one Soerkis. While Gumby was quite highly rated, its lowest ranking was its blackground.

Speaking from experience, blackground: Bifrost MB < OG Yggdrasil A2 < Sonnet Morpheus < Soekris dac1541 < Holo Spring 2 KTE. How well does actual sound pop out from in theory totally silent segments? Personally, I don't care much for this particular characteristic, but some listeners do. Apparently some DACs have a kind of artificial blackground where they clamp output to zero at very low levels, but fortunately I don't think I've ever owned one.

The absolutely blackest but not artificial blackground I've recently experienced was from a Linn Klimax Organik DSM + ATC SCM40A speaker system. It better for the price...

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Speaking from experience, blackground: Bifrost MB < OG Yggdrasil A2 < Sonnet Morpheus < Soekris dac1541 < Holo Spring 2 KTE. How well does actual sound pop out from in theory totally silent segments? Personally, I don't care much for this particular characteristic, but some listeners do. Apparently some DACs have a kind of artificial blackground where they clamp output to zero at very low levels, but fortunately I don't think I've ever owned one.

The absolutely blackest but not artificial blackground I've recently experienced was from a Linn Klimax Organik DSM + ATC SCM40A speaker system. It better for the price...

$56K for the streamer & speakers. They'd better be special!

 

[HK_sends]

Alright I’ll bite for the good of all Kree. See if this makes sense:

Neutral: Imaginary ideal state in which all men are tall, all women are strong, and all children are above average. The holy grail of measurement aficionados. Unobtanium. A precision tool you’re likely to use when professionally mixing The Next Great American Record. Smells like a hospital.

Coloration: It’s just like, your equipment’s opinion, man.

Common types of coloration (with respect to frequency response):

Bright: Favoring high frequencies. When poorly executed, high frequencies are higher than Spicoli. As in “My ears hurt”. Sounds like kindergarten during recess when someone brings puppies.
Dark: Where are the high frequencies? Why does that tambourine sound like a taped-over high hat? Some people prefer this, and there are dozens of them. Dozens. Common folk may recognize the distinct sound of a car right next to you at a stop light with the latest EDM greatest hit at full volume and the boomBoomboomBoom annoying sound and feel you get inside your car with the windows rolled up. That’s dark.
Warm: What most people love. Bass is a little up. Vocals are up and superbly human. High frequencies are reined in so they don’t distract.
V for Vendetta: High highs and High lows with steeply recessed mids. Perhaps the best way to enjoy Bono’s vocals: behind everything else the Band is doing.
U shaped: A more delicate suppression of mids than Vs.
Blackness: Silence! A black background has no hiss or hum when no instrument is playing.

Common stereotypes to exemplify things:

- Grados are bright.
- Beats headphones are darker than a politician’s soul.
- British sound is brighter than American sound, the latter favors more bass. The experts can’t agree on who does vocals better and are still debating. Let ‘em.
- LCD-X (other than 2021) are neutral. Insipid. No opinion. They just resolve everything. Need equalization to be fun.
- The Harman Curve is what every headphone should sound like. If you like a headphone that doesn’t match the Harman curve you’re listening wrong.
- HD600 are God’s gift to creation because they sound the most natural (U shaped with polite bass and highs). No wait they are V shaped, you want the HD650s. You’re crazy, the HD800s fixed these deficiencies. (or whatever).
- Solid state amps are better that tube amps to preserve blackness. Also my 3k power line conditioner made my phono stage the blackest but only at night.
- DACs that measure perfectly against some ideal made up target are clearly superior. Who cares to listen when you can measure instead?

Practicalities to keep in mind:

- Recordings are imperfect. Equipment is opinionated. Your listening room is opinionated. Your ear shape (YES! SHAPE!) and current stage in the journey towards diminished hearing affects how you perceive sound. What sounds good to you, sounds good to you. Screw everyone else’s erudite opinon. Stick with what you like.
- It is possible to enjoy diversity. You may find yourself owning more than one dac and more than one pair of headphones and speakers and amps for different moods. It’s all good.
- If you hear noise in a track, it may be the track itself and no blackness magic will help. If you hear noise when you’re close to the speakers when nothing’s playing, that’s anti- blackness and a bad setup or bad gear.
- Try different things. Have a simple set of terms that help you compare things and learn (yes, learn) what you like more.

But above all else, if you must do one and only one thing, forget all these things and the associated audio nervosa and enjoy the music.

P.S. There are many more terms to disappoint strangers at cocktail parties. Ask your fellow addicts about openness, timbre, detail, width, transparency, attack, and hang in a later post. Bring popcorn.

ROFL!! Well said!
Cheers!
-HK sends

PS - Cookin' some popcorn...

 

[ScottFree]

PS - Cookin' some popcorn...

Microwave or Kernel?

 

[HK_sends]

Microwave or Kernel?

Kernel on the stove. I don't want any stray radio frequency waves affecting the sound of my audio gear...
Cheers!
-HK sends

 

[rfernand]

Severe OT warning, call me on it if it’s not OK, @Baldr

Ran out of ideas of where to ask. Given the classic-o-philiacs tend to gather here, any info on Scribendum Recordings? I just ran into quite the Tatiana Nikolayeva set but I’ve never heard of this label before. The CDs with her work I’m familiar with are from Hyperion (which are well made). Any tips greatly appreciated!