Anti-ASR gear

[yikky900]

Precisely. A lot of folks seem to look at ASR as place where people go to jump from one extreme to the other. But it's actually all about facing reality, if you ask me. Recognise your motivations and back up your claims with evidence. Basically just: Don't kid yourself.

BTW, all of my audio gear probably measures horribly

Yeah they forgot as long you're okay why it sounds they it does then who cares?. Heck this is why i hate the ones who bash headphones that measure poor without trying them or that there nothing wrong owning a tube amp.

The headphone sub is already anti-DAP with few spamming just use a phone.

 

[renaudrenaud]

I've build this thing for the bedroom, salvaging a Raspberry AI kit from Google (I do not agree the fact you have to sign with your blood a kind of contract allowing you to use their API).

I listen to it every night few minutes. It is always working, great technology, awful specifications but this is not the point.

Consumption is very very low so I can forget it without the fear Greta will blame me.

 

[Eirikur]

No. If it fails on my bench it doesn't go much further. Test first, listen later.

No youthful indiscretion at all?

I had this lovely pair of 1968 vintage in the early 1980s, all I could afford at the time - fond memories.

Total harmonic distortion of the amp was 0.3% according to the spec, and the noise floor was really high.
Still, all my records and tapes sounded "just fine" in that mix.

 

[watchnerd]

I only just stopped buying myself one of those, just because of the styling.
I had absolutely no use for it whatever but wanted one a lot

Oh, I don't really have a use for it, either. I have no doubt the Devialet phono stage measures better. It's certainly more configurable.

But it looks cool...it's quite the conversation piece....and its seemingly primitive circuit seems to make it super sensitive to tube rolling. It's fun to play with, and the super low gain, when paired with a SUT (Hashimoto HM-7, in my case) and a variable input level line stage, isn't an issue.

Sadly, the designer, Don Garber, passed away, so they're hard to find. I had to go on a wait list to get mine. He shipped mine to me in January, 2016. He passed away in June, 2017, at age 81. For all I know, my Yph might have been one of the last he built.

If you see one for sale, you might want to snag it. I'd be surprised if more than a couple dozen exist in the world.

 

[Ron Texas]

I like my Crown XLS 1502. It has a built in DSP which allows for a hi pass of the mains when using a sub, gobs of power, low price, and stable into 2 ohms. The SINAD of 75 is mediocre but even the best speakers have .1% distortion (60db) and listening environments are noisy, especially if one lives in a heavily developed area as I do. Sure, Hypex amps measure great, but do they really sound better, especially to us seniors?

 

[Frank Dernie]

I like my Crown XLS 1502. It has a built in DSP which allows for a hi pass of the mains when using a sub, gobs of power, low price, and stable into 2 ohms. The SINAD of 75 is mediocre but even the best speakers have .1% distortion (60db) and listening environments are noisy, especially if one lives in a heavily developed area as I do. Sure, Hypex amps measure great, but do they really sound better, especially to us seniors?

Quite so.
A chain is as strong as its weakest link IMO.
Maybe headphone listening is lower distortion than speakers since DACs are already way better than any other bit of hifi and it is much easier to produce a super low distortion headphone amp than a powerful enough one to drive speakers but whilst I listen to and enjoy headphones I much, much prefer speakers both from a comfort and natural sound field pov.

 

[watchnerd]

I like my Crown XLS 1502. It has a built in DSP which allows for a hi pass of the mains when using a sub, gobs of power, low price, and stable into 2 ohms. The SINAD of 75 is mediocre but even the best speakers have .1% distortion (60db) and listening environments are noisy, especially if one lives in a heavily developed area as I do. Sure, Hypex amps measure great, but do they really sound better, especially to us seniors?

This is where the science in ASR tends to get ignored.

People get fetishistic about minute SINAD differences, when the reality is that the top 10 (or more) amps and DACs are probably indistinguishable if level matched.

The masses get all frothed up when we get a new SINAD king in the same way subjectivists get all excited about a new listening review, when the reality of matched blinded listening gets mostly ignored by both camps.

ASR culture at least pays lips service to blind listening, to be sure, but it seems drowned out by measurement porn drooling, much of the time.

 

[majingotan]

Does anyone own gear that measures or probably measures horribly but enjoy it greatly? I have a tube preamp that adds some coloration but I absolutely love it.

I'm one of those guys who buys schiit stuff because they're a status symbol for audiophiles to own in the eastern world lol. I have the Bifrost 2 + Saga with RCA 5692 tube preamp. They don't sound as terrible or as noisy as shown from their ~80db SINAD and tons of jitter distortion as shown in their measurements

 

[Thomas savage]

Over cut coke is definitely anti ASR gear.

 

[Ron Texas]

Quite so.
A chain is as strong as its weakest link IMO.
Maybe headphone listening is lower distortion than speakers since DACs are already way better than any other bit of hifi and it is much easier to produce a super low distortion headphone amp than a powerful enough one to drive speakers but whilst I listen to and enjoy headphones I much, much prefer speakers both from a comfort and natural sound field pov.

Well, if one starts with an amp with a SINAD of 75 and a DAC with 110, the result will be around 74 combined. The real question is how good is good enough. If you insist on having 100 all the way through to the speaker terminals it's available and for a reasonable price. Will it really sound better than 74 given the high levels of distortion in loudspeakers and environmental noise?

 

[watchnerd]

Over cut coke is definitely anti ASR gear.

"I have never tried to take icing sugar again. Nor would I recommend icing sugar to any young person."

 

[frogmeat69]

I have the Little Dot Mk III tube headphone amp, use it on occasion with my HD650 and Beyer T1 cans and enjoy it very much.
Plus I love the glow of the tubes.
I would like to send my iCan Pro to Amir to measure some day, sure that wouldn't fare too well, especially in tube+ mode, but I still like it.

 

[Old Listener]

I bought an Audioquest Dragonfly Red DAC a couple of years ago before Amir (or Archimago) had tested it. From tests of earlier Dragonfly DACs, I know what to expect. I wanted a DAC with a US company behind it so no chinese imports.

I thought that its performance would be good enough for my application and I have not been disappointed,

 

[Fluffy]

I've been told on this forum that the Meze 99 is one of the most horrible sounding headphones in the world, according to the Harman research. And oddly enough, I somehow manage to enjoy them greatly. So bizarre.

 

[ahofer]

I gather my Harbeth SHL5+ measure oddly off-axis, and may not be up-to-speed on the latest directivity tech. I listen to them every single night and love it.

the electronics, however, would measure well by ASR standards.

I’ve gone by the idea that speakers are the last subjective arena for hifi.

 

[Sal1950]

Well, if one starts with an amp with a SINAD of 75 and a DAC with 110, the result will be around 74 combined. The real question is how good is good enough. If you insist on having 100 all the way through to the speaker terminals it's available and for a reasonable price. Will it really sound better than 74 given the high levels of distortion in loudspeakers and environmental noise?

+1

"The principal determinants of sound quality in your listening room, given the limitations of a particular recording, are the loudspeakers—not the electronics, not the cables, not anything else. This is so fundamental that I still can’t understand why it hasn’t filtered down to the lowest levels of the audio community. The melancholy truth is that a new amplifier will not change your audio life. It may, or may not, effect a very small improvement (usually not unless your old amplifier was badly designed), but the basic sound of your system will remain the same. Only a better loudspeaker can change that. My best guess as to why the loudspeaker-comes-first principle has not prevailed in the audiophile world is that a new pair of loudspeakers tends to present a problem in interior decoration. Swapping amplifiers is so much simpler, not to mention spouse-friendlier, and the initial level of anticipation is just as high, before the eventual letdown (or denial thereof)."
Peter Aczel

 

[Ron Texas]

@Sal1950 Peter Aczel, bless him in heaven. One of my observations is there is a preference among many audiophiles to own modestly priced speakers coupled with far more expensive electronics. It might be like photographers who buy low end camera bodies and really expensive lenses. When asked, they say the resale value on glass is better.

Along with loudspeakers being the key, we have room acoustics and space limitations.

 

[ahofer]

Reaction to a post showing an RME DAC and March Audio amp powering Harbeth SHL5+AE speakers on tontrager stands. Hence $2k of electronics vs (actually) $8k in speakers/stands. He thought that ratio of electronics to speakers was way too low.

 

[watchnerd]

@Sal1950 Peter Aczel, bless him in heaven. One of my observations is there is a preference among many audiophiles to own modestly priced speakers coupled with far more expensive electronics. It might be like photographers who buy low end camera bodies and really expensive lenses. When asked, they say the resale value on glass is better.

Along with loudspeakers being the key, we have room acoustics and space limitations.

It might be that, but it also might be something else.

Modestly priced speakers are pretty damn good these days and the quality gap between mid-price and high-end is narrower than it used to be.

While Aczel is right about the primacy of speakers, there are pretty serious diminishing returns that start to kick in after you spend, say $2K on a pair of two ways, high pass them, and pair that with 2 x subwoofers.

 

[watchnerd]

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I don't get what I'm reading.