Can we agree headphone amplifiers are solved?

[solderdude]

It’s called voicing.

No, its deliberately adding distortion and has nothing to do with 'truthful' reproduction regardless what people call it.

 

[Fluffy]

Edit.. damn again crossposting.

On the upside, great minds think alike

 

[solderdude]

P.S have you ever rolled tubes?

yes, and I design tube amps as well.

 

[MSTARK]

I'll just quote myself here:

And I will also repeat myself. Even if you design a perfect amp with no signature of its own, people will still seek their own interpretation of “musicality”.
I don’t think we disagree. But this seems to be a reality of this hobby.

 

[MSTARK]

yes, and I design tube amps as well.

So, can various tubes from the same family sound different in the same design or not?

 

[solderdude]

seek and thou shall find.

 

[Fluffy]

And I will also repeat myself. Even if you design a perfect amp with no signature of its own, people will still seek their own interpretation of “musicality”.
I don’t think we disagree. But this seems to be a reality of this hobby.

I don't deny this reality. But the point of my post regards to the technical side.

People are weird. I saw a subjective review comparing between 3 THX based amps with colorful descriptors of their individual sound. The THX circuits main selling point is that it's non-coloring and transparent, and yet people still attribute specific sound signatures to them. So there is no more point to talking about musicality then there is to talking about which cheese is the best. People will associate biases and preferences with absolute quality no matter what.

 

[solderdude]

So, can various tubes from the same family sound different in the same design or not?

If you have ever measured tubes and put tube(s) in specific designs that have little to no overall feedback then yes, there will be differences even between similar type tubes.
When you insert those tubes in amplifiers with lots of tubes and overall feedback then there will be no discernible differences.

It's NOT the tube its the circuit the tube is part of that determines if there the signal is deliberately changed (colored).

It really is about implementation.

 

[MSTARK]

If you have ever measured tubes and put tube(s) in specific designs that have little to no overall feedback then yes, there will be differences even between similar type tubes.
When you insert those tubes in amplifiers with lots of tubes and overall feedback then there will be no discernible differences.

It's NOT the tube its the circuit the tube is part of that determines if there the signal is deliberately changed (colored).

It really is about implementation.

In my earlier post, I have mentioned amp design as a factor that can make those differences less pronounced. So no real argument there as I’ve heard some of those designs.
And some of those designs, didn’t have many tubes in their circuit. ZOTL for example.
However, over number of years, I’ve come across only a handful of tube amp designs that could potentially full me into believing that I was listening to something else.

 

[MSTARK]

I don't deny this reality. But the point of my post regards to the technical side.

People are weird. I saw a subjective review comparing between 3 THX based amps with colorful descriptors of their individual sound. The THX circuits main selling point is that it's non-coloring and transparent, and yet people still attribute specific sound signatures to them. So there is no more point to talking about musicality then there is to talking about which cheese is the best. People will associate biases and preferences with absolute quality no matter what.

That was my point. But if your goal is absolute accuracy without “color”, there are more options then ever before. At least at customer level and within reasonable price. Not sure if ordinary, speaker amplifiers are at this level? Haven’t been following latest trends so I have no opinion there.

 

[Pluto]

There may be other nonlinearities that only reveal themselves with the highly complex waveforms of a music signal

There are no “highly complex waveforms of a music signal”, only lots and lots of sine waves piled atop one another.

 

[KeithPhantom]

think headphone amp is still not completely solved yet. The channel crosstalk for l30 is -91dB, far from good SINAD. I would also hope that we can get IMD to be lower than -120dB. I would guess after 5 years we can finally say headphone amp is completely solved.

Crosstalk is usually noticed at 20 dB or more, thus, 91 dB is an excellent number. IMD at -120 dBFS is great, it is below the most strict thresholds considered in the engineering of these products. Having better numbers does not mean having a better sonic experience, especially when considering the humans are pretty insensitive to distortion.

 

[JeffS7444]

Headphones using DSP with a personalized in ear impulse response and head tracking can simulate the same thing with greater fidelity and lower cost. Then cross it over to some subs for the bass impact and you've probably got the best simulated soundfield there is until we get to Matrix levels of virtual reality.

Yes, that's why I'm seriously interested in the promised firmware update for Apple's Airpods Pro which will support formats like Dolby Atmos and sense the user's head position, at least when paired with devices like AppleTV 4K. For practical reasons, dunno about pairing this with subwoofers, but Harman's target response curve aims to to simulate the visceral feel of low bass impact, and to a degree I think it succeeds.

 

[Human Bass]

How far is our solar system from its third-closest neighboring galaxy? However many trillions of light years that is, it's a small distance compared to the gulf between normal consumers and ASR members. In other words, the problem with AVRs is my family.

Start with my daughter. She loves, loves, loves movies and TV, both in a serious analytical way, and as a helpless fan. Visual storytelling is of huge cultural importance to her. Her life would be empty without it. Yet she listens to her TV through the built-in speakers. She absolutely doesn't want anything better. Or my brother and his wife. They bought a new house, so felt they "ought" to buy a new TV, and got a Bose soundbar to go with it. Again, sophisticated, literate folks, who take movies seriously. Or my other sister-in-law, who bought an HT-in-a-box thing, and kinda got some of it hooked up, and has been happy with the result for the last eleven years. A librarian, who reads books you never heard of.

Standards will always be as low as they can go, until demand forces them up. And it isn't doing that. 99.9% of people are perfectly happy with what's on offer. Often delighted and impressed. The video side seems to dominate completely. Whereas headphones - lamely trying to stay on topic - have become a huge market, big enough to make the tiny SOTA sliver worth catering to. Somehow the HT market didn't pan out the same way. There's the anything-will-do folks (i.e. my family), and the big-explosion folks (like Beats headphone people), but the demand at the top seems weaker and narrower. Because it's much more expensive than headphones? Probably, but without the demand, AVRs will always be as bad as they can get away with.

Dude, there isnt such a thing as trillion light years in the observable universe. Our nearest neighbor is 4 light years.

 

[Inner Space]

Dude, there isnt such a thing as trillion light years in the observable universe. Our nearest neighbor is 4 light years.

Exaggeration for effect, obviously - but stick around ... expansion will prove me right in the long term!

 

[Blumlein 88]

You've misunderstood what I said. Specifically in terms of amps, yes the signal that their output should be faithful to in everything but total level is the input source signal (and as I've said, this should be fidelity to a music input signal, as transparent fidelity to sine tone input does not necessarily guarantee the same for music signals.)

My second point in brackets in my original comment was that specifically for transducers used for audio reproduction, they cannot be said to be faithful to anything but an acoustic 'signal', as they are analogue audio to acoustic converters. So this acoustic output signal of the transducer should ideally be faithful to the acoustic output that the sound engineer heard when listening to the final master of the music, in order to preserve the intent of the artist.

Others have addressed the 1st paragraph.

So for the 2nd, yes you would need the exact speaker in the identical room to reproduce exactly what the sound engineer heard. Which isn't practical. If recording mastering guys ever use an acceptably high fidelity speaker you would be close to only needing an equally high fidelity speaker yourself for playback. We aren't quite there and may never be. Plus room effects, etc. etc.

The intent of the artist etc is mostly a myth. Artists generally don't sit around listening to the mastering results and sign off on them. It happens, but it isn't normal. They often don't even have a say about it.

So considering all that the signal is all we have to go by, and fidelity to that at least until you reach the speakers is as far as you can go currently.

 

[gorman]

You've misunderstood what I said. Specifically in terms of amps, yes the signal that their output should be faithful to in everything but total level is the input source signal (and as I've said, this should be fidelity to a music input signal, as transparent fidelity to sine tone input does not necessarily guarantee the same for music signals.)

My second point in brackets in my original comment was that specifically for transducers used for audio reproduction, they cannot be said to be faithful to anything but an acoustic 'signal', as they are analogue audio to acoustic converters. So this acoustic output signal of the transducer should ideally be faithful to the acoustic output that the sound engineer heard when listening to the final master of the music, in order to preserve the intent of the artist.

I don't wanna poke an hornets' nest but what's the point of a post like this?

In my opinion music *is* magic. But the magic lies in the art portion of it, the creativity. It's as if people are desperately trying to find an objective reason as to why music is undefinable.
The art is undefinable not the sound waves.
My two cents, nothing more.

 

[bigjacko]

Crosstalk is usually noticed at 20 dB or more, thus, 91 dB is an excellent number. IMD at -120 dBFS is great, it is below the most strict thresholds considered in the engineering of these products. Having better numbers does not mean having a better sonic experience, especially when considering the humans are pretty insensitive to distortion.

Isn't crosstalk another form of distortion because left and right channel play different music? Is there any study showing how much crosstalk can be perceived by human? Maybe it is harder for us to hear crosstalk than THD and noise, I still want it to be as low as possible and add my own crossfeed if I want.

 

[Racheski]

What about this obnoxious argument:
1. Headphone amps are governed by physics and electromagnetism.
2. Physics and electromagnetism are not completely "solved."
3. Therefore headphone amps are not completely "solved."

Amiright?

 

[KeithPhantom]

Isn't crosstalk another form of distortion because left and right channel play different music?

It isn't, this is an electrical parameter of a multichannel (more than one) system. It does not alter FR (linearity) or add new content (non-linearity).

Is there any study showing how much crosstalk can be perceived by human?

I swear that there are some studies about this, but I do not recall them right now.