Hi all, new to the forum and pretty new to the world of audio in general. Been a long time lurker and have really enjoyed reading the reviews on the site to gain better understanding of audio reproduction.
That said, I've always read the reviews only half understanding a lot of what has been posted. I understand the measurements in absolute terms such as SINAD (the higher the better) and distortion (the lower the better) etc., but what I'm not getting from looking at the graphs and measurements is exactly where the audibility threshold lies.
e.g. at what value of SINAD does performance audibly suffer and at what threshold (1%? 0,5%?, 0,05%? etc.,) is someone able to actually HEAR any sort of distortion on an amplifier. I think that knowing this, I'd certainly be able to getting a better insight into "real-world" performance, and be able to base purchase decisions on something besides raw numbers (and $$$$ obviously). Surely if 2 DACS are measured, and both are audibly transparent, then for all intents and purposes real-world performance would be identical.
Similarly, what audible benefits would the THX 789 amp have over the JDS atom? surely both have next to zero distortion enough driving power for 99% of headphones.
Being quite inexperienced in all of this, i find myself chasing the next best (measuring) DACs or amp not knowing whether I'd be wasting my money in a useless and endless pursuit, simply because inaudible is inaudible. 5x more inaudible is still inaudible lol.
I hope I've phrased my long-winded question as accurately as i could.
Thanks to the knowledgeable blokes on the forum in advance.
That said, I've always read the reviews only half understanding a lot of what has been posted. I understand the measurements in absolute terms such as SINAD (the higher the better) and distortion (the lower the better) etc., but what I'm not getting from looking at the graphs and measurements is exactly where the audibility threshold lies.
e.g. at what value of SINAD does performance audibly suffer and at what threshold (1%? 0,5%?, 0,05%? etc.,) is someone able to actually HEAR any sort of distortion on an amplifier. I think that knowing this, I'd certainly be able to getting a better insight into "real-world" performance, and be able to base purchase decisions on something besides raw numbers (and $$$$ obviously). Surely if 2 DACS are measured, and both are audibly transparent, then for all intents and purposes real-world performance would be identical.
Similarly, what audible benefits would the THX 789 amp have over the JDS atom? surely both have next to zero distortion enough driving power for 99% of headphones.
Being quite inexperienced in all of this, i find myself chasing the next best (measuring) DACs or amp not knowing whether I'd be wasting my money in a useless and endless pursuit, simply because inaudible is inaudible. 5x more inaudible is still inaudible lol.
I hope I've phrased my long-winded question as accurately as i could.
Thanks to the knowledgeable blokes on the forum in advance.
