My problem with objectivism is that it's not based on experience, it's based on a rigid ideology.  Objectivists always think they are so scientific, but it's much more like religion than science.  Scientists are open minded.  Objectivists are not.  People here like these headphone measurements not because they just like measurements, or because they don't trust their experience.  People here like these headphone measurements because they explain and inform their experience. 

Both extremes of objectivism and subjectivism are fucking ridiculous.  Objectivists have completely lost touch with the whole point of all of this, and subjectivists have their heads up their asses and need to learn to jerk off in private. 

*Interesting fact: the opamp in the Mini3 that AMB couldn't get working at higher voltages (18V - specified for 3 to 24V) works absolutely fine at those voltages with suitable attention paid to implementation. Analog Devices aren't usually in the habit of flat-out lying when it comes to some of the most vital specs on their datasheets.

what are you going on about here?  facts please?

Quote from: AstralStorm on October 10, 2012, 11:47:51 AM

Yes, that's really misread. All properly designed amps sound the same. There are other qualifiers such that certain headphones are more sensitive than others to non zero output impedance or (rarely) current requirements, as well as lack of power which may lead to clipping.

This is pretty much true if you define 'properly' as something like 'accurate' but not everyone really has that goal, even if they won't admit it.

The  idea is to get them to admit it and identify why they like it. Should cut out lots of misinformation and make for easier buying decisions.

For example, I like my Audiotrak Prodigy Cube DAC with a "cheap" amp section of OPA2134 + 3x JRC4580 (all on stabilized boosted +/-10 V), good DAC section of TI Tenor, mostly because it has lots of current for those current hungry low impedance IEMs and avoids a score of other bad decisions.
(except this: one output sports a current limiting ferrite for no real reason, thus has 8 Ohm output impedance - the other output is near 0 Ohm.)
Measures and sounds very well, much better than our cheap scope and has a suprisingly nice potentiometer with only very tiny amount of channel imbalance at the low end.

The best part that will definitely tick some people off: it costs $125 and does much better than more expensive FiiO stuff while having equivalent driving power, meaning enough to drive those low efficiency Hifiman orthos.

Saying "properly" tends to piss people off because they either don't want to admit to preferring a coloration or that they might have 'heard' something that doesn't actually exist.

So what.  Do you care what other people think about your preferences?  Don't bow to peer pressure.  Go your own way and be proud of it.  Were your senses fooled?  It's not a big deal.  We're all fooled about something or other because we're all human beings with imperfect brains.

Yes.  It's funny that it pisses people off when someone challenges what they hear, yet not that many were ticked off by Pepsi/Coke DBTs. It's when you define your value by the value of your equipment when things go the wrong way.

If you don't want to be fooled again look at the data or do some tests of your own.  If you do like a certain coloration then objective measurements could help you narrow down your choices.

Exactly. However, few manufacturers provide enough data for amplifiers - fewer still, for headphones and IEMs. Everyone gets to guess or run trial and error.
That's why the service that Tyll, purrin and HeadRoom provide is so valuable.

I almost always use crossfeed with my headphones and that does a number to the original signal but given the context of headphones it makes it closer to listening via speakers.

I'm open to the idea that some amps could inherently do something similar, adding to the signal in a way that makes artificial two channel stereo sound more natural, especially over headphones since they're so unatural to begin with.  If we can figure out exactly what it is then it wouldn't be hard to implement it with a DSP or possibly even an active filter with $5-10 worth of parts.
I want everything to be dead accurate except for the colorations I specifically add.  Headphones will never meet that criteria but fortunatly it's pretty cheap to achieve with the electronics.  I think it takes more variables out of the chain and keeps it simpler.

Same here, with the addition of flat-sounding personalized equalization (to make the playback truly binaural) and a small amount of reverberation. I'm also planning to experiment with actual HRIR recordings - if I manage to get in touch with the right sound engineer that has the access to the anechoic chamber, a speaker tossing robot (I can help build it if necessary), in-ear microphone capsules and lots of time.

I'm pretty sure though $5-$10 is not enough. It's barely enough for a good passive crossfeed alone, much less an accurate enough parametric equalizer.

I am waiting on rev. 2 of a certain http://cubieboard.org/ which will be about $50 + li-ion battery + cost of CS4272 DAC/ADC (if builtin ones are not up to snuff) + cost of reasonable opamps + case + cheap screen + lots of work. Likely end result around $100-$150 of an ADC/DSP/DAC/amp combo - on par with FiiO E17, but with stable amplifier section and maybe a tiny bit larger. Hopefully this project will pan out and that better than, say, Digizoid Zo 2, which only has very basic DSP.
Maybe I'll toss in a bunch of free DAP software too.

(If you need to know why I wait - rev. 1 doesn't have li-ion controller and doesn't have I2S available, which prevents the easy use of a different DAC/ADC.)

That could be part of it - and part of what puts people off from some DACs for being "too clinical"


For another example, the new Hobbit movie has a much higher frame rate than normal films - and some people have reported it looking more "fake" as a result - how does crisper, cleaner, clearer translate to "fake"?  For one thing, you're seeing prosthetics/makeup work through a much clearer lens which can make it seem more fake.  But some early viewers have reported everything looking more fake.  It could just be they are used to their movies with just a little more blur and the cleanliness of it all puts them off.


I don't think this accounts for everything but it certainly seems like a piece of the puzzle.