Musetec Audio (LKS Audio) MH-DA005 Review (DAC)

[testp]

my guess is, they didn't add enough weight for it to measure better..

 

[RHO]

Well, in the case of Okto, my listening impressions correlated with measurements. Was I also biased here?

Yes, you were. 100% certain. Humans can not have unbiased experiences.

 

[Hart]

Brilliant.

I just love "liquidity" and "roundness". How embarrassing. I am afraid for my amp which I fear may be square-y and too viscous.

 

[sns109]

$3k dac is relatively cheap in my book, so as far as confirmation bias, I was expecting much lower performance. The Okto exact opposite, far exceeded my cost/value biases. I can be biased in many different directions depending on mood, I could want/need a relatively lower priced component to out perform more expensive component, or I could want/need a more expensive component to out perform the lower priced component to justify my purchase. Remaining mindful of these biases is critical in eliminating them as biases.

Now, arguing the superiority of individual sensory perception and/or our inherent human sense limitations vs. a set of objective measurements may be valid. That battle won't be settled in this thread, go over to audiogon forums for that futile battle.

 

[anphex]

Are those devices built and designed blindly by the manufacturers without measuring them, with the engineers relying only on the part specs and, after a short listening test, going "Yup, dis fine, prepare for batch production."?!

 

[DBB]

Since you seem sincere, some info: Quite a few of the members here are electrical engineers, and a significant subset of those have actually designed audio equipment, including at least one of the ones who replied to you. Certain things are taken as a given for the simple fact that they have been tested repeatedly with the same outcome each time.

I’ll try to state my view as clearly as I can now to avoid endless repetitive back and forth. I am not looking to be a troll or be trolled. I have only occasionally read this forum, but the impression I’ve gotten on this Musetec “review” is that not one comment was from anyone who has listened to it. How much time did Amir spend listening to it? I have owned this dac for over a year and spent many hours listening to it and also comparing it to the Holo May.

My thesis then is the tail is wagging the dog here. Why do we even care about audio equipment if not to listen to music? Please read that sentence twice.

The interesting and important question is: why do measurements of audio equipment sometimes differ sharply from what is subjectively heard by the listener? Even John Atckinson the measurement guru of Stereophile magazine has commented on occasion that his listening impression differs from what he has heard.

So, since musical enjoyment is primary, the significant question to examine scientifically is: why do measurements of audio equipment sometimes differ sharply from what is subjectively heard by the listener?

This is a scientific question, though not one confined to physics and electronic date exclusively. As far as I know at this time we do not know the answer. It is not easy to explore, but it seems to me we should look to the fields of psychology and neuropsychology. For now, again, it seems we don’t know. Clearly enjoyment of music is a mental phenomenon.

To emphasis my point, when we go to a concert, do we bring a microphone, computer, and oscilloscope? No, of course we go to listen and enjoy the music. Again, the tail is wagging the dog in this forum.

What’s going on here appears to be neither science nor a review, but a measurement report. My conclusion is that this forum might best be called not Audio Science Review Forum, but Audio Equipment Measurement Report. The data measured is of interest but ultimately only a footnote since the most significant question is: how does it sound?

 

[Bleib]

Are those devices built and designed blindly by the manufacturers without measuring them, with the engineers relying only on the part specs and, after a short listening test, going "Yup, dis fine, prepare for batch production."?!

"It's now a problem for the market division"

 

[RHO]

Now, arguing the superiority of individual sensory perception and/or our inherent human sense limitations vs. a set of objective measurements may be valid. That battle won't be settled in this thread, go over to audiogon forums for that futile battle.

It is you coming to a forum where the majority is settled on the fact that human hearing is not match for SOTA measuring equipment, arguing your hearing can be unbiased and distinguish things that cannot be measured.
It's not us that are arguing there is much debate about this topic.

 

[Bleib]

The data measured is of interest but ultimately only a footnote since the most significant question is: how does it sound?

Right. Well, if we are after tons of different subjective impressions then there are other websites

Speaker reviews, amplifier reviews TV reviews and buy and sell used audio equipment, audio forums, hot deals and more - audioreview.com

AudioReview brings you user reviews and editorial reviews on speakers, amps, TVs and audio equipment reviews, news, forums, and used audio equipment listings and more.

www.audioreview.com

 

[Lupin]

Remaining mindful of these biases is critical in eliminating them as biases.

You or anyone else are not and never will will be above expectation bias. period

 

[HarmonicTHD]

I’ll try to state my view as clearly as I can now to avoid endless repetitive back and forth. I am not looking to be a troll or be trolled. I have only occasionally read this forum, but the impression I’ve gotten on this Musetec “review” is that not one comment was from anyone who has listened to it. How much time did Amir spend listening to it? I have owned this dac for over a year and spent many hours listening to it and also comparing it to the Holo May.

My thesis then is the tail is wagging the dog here. Why do we even care about audio equipment if not to listen to music? Please read that sentence twice.

The interesting and important question is: why do measurements of audio equipment sometimes differ sharply from what is subjectively heard by the listener? Even John Atckinson the measurement guru of Stereophile magazine has commented on occasion that his listening impression differs from what he has heard.

So, since musical enjoyment is primary, the significant question to examine scientifically is: why do measurements of audio equipment sometimes differ sharply from what is subjectively heard by the listener?

This is a scientific question, though not one confined to physics and electronic date exclusively. As far as I know at this time we do not know the answer. It is not easy to explore, but it seems to me we should look to the fields of psychology and neuropsychology. For now, again, it seems we don’t know. Clearly enjoyment of music is a mental phenomenon.

To emphasis my point, when we go to a concert, do we bring a microphone, computer, and oscilloscope? No, of course we go to listen and enjoy the music. Again, the tail is wagging the dog in this forum.

What’s going on here appears to be neither science nor a review, but a measurement report. My conclusion is that this forum might best be called not Audio Science Review Forum, but Audio Equipment Measurement Report. The data measured is of interest but ultimately only a footnote since the most significant question is: how does it sound?

What use is it, if someone else describes how it sounds?

This person most likely will like things which I don’t and vice versa.

Therefore subjective personal impressions are pretty much useless to be published in reviews in my opinion.

So the only thing which remains, are objective (well done) measurements which I can use to decide if the product is of interest to me. But of course no one is forced to use the measurements in their decision process.

 

[Hart]

Are those devices built and designed blindly by the manufacturers without measuring them, with the engineers relying only on the part specs and, after a short listening test, going "Yup, dis fine, prepare for batch production."?!

Especially disappointing for me as I have trusted and owned Arcam and Anthem, who I thought were well thought out and well priced. The scrappy underdogs in a way. Only to find out Denon makes a much better receiver, something I would have looked down upon in the past. The NAD 2200 tested well for being over 30 years old. I wonder if all along it was better or equal to my McCormack, Krell, Bryston, or Aragon that were much more expensive and hyped accordingly. I am starting to think speakers are 95% or more of the equation, room shape, size and damping also unsung huge players. I had an Eichler in the Oakland hills, the living room was 1,000 sq ft and three walls were all glass from floor to thirteen foot peak. The room was too bright and ill-shaped that I found despite getting better and better equipment I was handicapped by the room. I think the physics of the listening room take a huge part in the sound as well. I have listened to budget speakers in perfectly constructed and dampened rooms at the local audio store and they sounded well beyond their price tag. Take them home and probably less so.

 

[Bleib]

You or anyone else are not and never will will be above expectation bias. period

Nope, humans have faults, which is why science is a tool to correct them. Not perfect but still by far the best tool to use.
If I buy a new graphic card I'm not going to want to read subjective impressions on sound levels (fans), framerate, frame-times etc. I want objective data, which can possibly be falsified. Tested by others too.

 

[RHO]

My conclusion is that this forum might best be called not Audio Science Review Forum, but Audio Equipment Measurement Report.

You don not seem to grasp that the measurement report is the scientific way to express the quality of the reproduced audio by the product under test.
The measurement equipment has far superior "ears" then any human will ever have and is not biased.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Because it would be quite literally a waste of time. Major implementation mistakes like this:

do not magically get solved with some warm up so they can be pointed out from one measurement.
Temperature stability measurement is usually not very eventful, hence not done very often.. 0.5-1dB fluctuation won't be audible.

I don't recall ever seeing jitter like that before. Does anyone here have any idea what might cause that strange repeated pattern?

 

[anphex]

Especially disappointing for me as I have trusted and owned Arcam and Anthem, who I thought were well thought out and well priced. The scrappy underdogs in a way. Only to find out Denon makes a much better receiver, something I would have looked down upon in the past. The NAD 2200 tested well for being over 30 years old. I wonder if all along it was better or equal to my McCormack, Krell, Bryston, or Aragon that were much more expensive and hyped accordingly. I am starting to think speakers are 95% or more of the equation, room shape, size and damping also unsung huge players. I had an Eichler in the Oakland hills, the living room was 1,000 sq ft and three walls were all glass from floor to thirteen foot peak. The room was too bright and ill-shaped that I found despite getting better and better equipment I was handicapped by the room. I think the physics of the listening room take a huge part in the sound as well. I have listened to budget speakers in perfectly constructed and dampened rooms at the local audio store and they sounded well beyond their price tag. Take them home and probably less so.

I feel you. Those cold hard measurements built more trust than any selling clerk claims ever will.
For your room issue: big rooms are a godsend for avoiding room modes, but can be hard to manage regarding reverb. I'd slap acustic pictures all across the walls and you should be fine while even improving your interior. Building them yourself it isn't even that expensive.

As for speakers, I think those are your workhorses but same as with DACs and amps they only strive to an ideal - low distortion, wide and flat FR, wide and smooth irradiation, clean group delay. You get this from big speakers with a pretty weight. Look at Amirs Revel Salon speakers, they are more or less ideal in those ways.
Once you have speakers like those, the only thing left is fine tuning, EQ, room acoustics, room calibration and DAC roll off filters. In my case I had lot's of fun playing around with roll off filters, even though scientifically it "should" be fast linear, but I liked slow roll offs. That's why I am eyeing dedicated DACs again despite me having a totally fine Denon AVR. Although Audyssey introduces a pretty amount of audible noise..

 

[Veri]

Well, I'm happy owner of 005 for a bit over two years now. I had in house Okto Dac8, LKS 004, Auralic Vega and 005 all within weeks of each other, 005 superior based solely on listening. Okto, Vega and 005 directly compared. I know at least the Okto measures far superior. So, at this point one must assume 005 under test malfunctioning, 005 functioning correctly, or subjective listening and measurements undertaken here have little correlation in perceived sound quality. I"m not here to argue the latter. I'd only suggest procuring another 005 to confirm measurements, otherwise component may be unfairly judged.

Again, I'm not here to argue subjective vs objective. I find it concerning unit measured so poorly while I find sound quality to be fine, assume I'd hear some sins of commission with these measurements. Versus Okto dac8, superior measured unit, I also heard no sins of commission, only sin of omission for Okto, less resolving than 005.

It just about clears 96dB SINAD for 16-bit audio which is a benchmark for reasonably transparent audio. So I'm not surprised you can't hear any faults, it should sound fine
But it is not stellar, nor is it worthy of its price. That is hard to argue against. They dropped the ball on some design steps for sure.

 

[LennyM]

In another forum there were several posts by persons who purchased the Musetec DAC with the privilege of return. Some of them were reportedly very experienced in audio; others were very experienced with live, unamplified music. They compared the Musetec over some period of time to DACs already in hand, many of which rank very high in amirm's estimation and ranking. The cost of the Musetec was higher than the DACs already in hand. Yet they reported sufficiently high satisfaction with the audio quality of the Musetec that they kept it and disposed of what they had. How can that be explained here?

 

[DBB]

What use is it, if someone else describes how it sounds?

This person most likely will like things which I don’t and vice versa.

Therefore subjective personal impressions are pretty much useless to be published in reviews in my opinion.

So the only thing which remains, are objective (well done) measurements which I can use to decide if the product is of interest to me. But of course no one is forced to use the measurements in their decision process.

So the deeper question is: what percentage of the time do good measurements result in equally good sound? Have you explored that?

 

[RHO]

In another forum there were several posts by persons who purchased the Musetec DAC with the privilege of return. Some of them were reportedly very experienced in audio; others were very experienced with live, unamplified music. They compared the Musetec over some period of time to DACs already in hand, many of which rank very high in amirm's estimation and ranking. The cost of the Musetec was higher than the DACs already in hand. Yet they reported sufficiently high satisfaction with the audio quality of the Musetec, that they kept it and disposed of what they had. How can that be explained here?

Troll much?
Or have you missed the past 5 pages?