Audio GD - bad rap in the past -new breed !!

[krucacing]

I am completely aware of how much bias can mean. My bias was completely and fully on the side of the SMSL. It is 11 years younger, has a great NEW DAC, has rave reviews and meassures near perfectly, as I read on this website. I thouroughly absorbed ALL this information before purchasing the unit. I was honestly flabbergasted by the results I got.

i just signed up to reply to this, i have kinda similar experience with you!

bought SMSL D1SE2 and Singxer SA-1 V2 cause the stellar measurement in ASR for my hifiman HE1000 stealth and Focal Radiance. The sound was okay,it was clean and clear, nothing special.

after sometime i feel like this is not a sound that i want, so i sold the dac and amp.

then i used back my spare Audio GD Compass 2 bought backkkk from 2014, plug it to my HE1000 and voila what a surprise, bass kick improved a lot, soundstage came back, everything sounds more dynamic and alive, i cannot believe this, it is quite obvious the WM8741 and amplifier stage does a much better job at driving the HE1000.

To be fair tough, on Focal Radiance, the old setup was better, it was more detailed. the audio GD sure lose in technicalities, but it give you more natural sound which works wonder for sometimes harshly mixed pop/rock/edm that i like.

so TDLR.. i think tonality trumps everything else.i do not know what secret sauce audio gd put there.

now they have new AIO R29, and i am thinking hard between this and Hifiman Serenade.

 

[AXIOM]

Welcome !

Sorry, but that is wrong to begin with. Level-match has to be done in the analog domain, with a DMM to avoid unprecise and flawed matching.

If this wasn't done blind, not to mention randomised, then the "proper AB comparaison" is worthless.

We do not, because this concept does not exist in any shape or form.

lol, dude! I very much like your response because it's brief, exact, and rational. It makes me feel a sense of humor.

 

[VintageFlanker]

lol, dude! I very much like your response because it's brief, exact, and rational. It makes me feel a sense of humor.

We've witnessed this countless times through the years, so I guess it became kind of a running gag at this point.

Not a big deal really, just explaining why it's wrong when it is.

 

[SuicideSquid]

The difference in sound quality that I hear is obvious without any form of level matching, so there is no way that the SMSL will sound better, even with much higher volume.

You are fundamentally misunderstanding how your ears and perception work. You are underestimating the importance of volume in how you perceive sound, overestimating your ability to hear small differences, and are vastly underestimating your ability to be fooled.

Essentially what you're doing here is insisting that A and B are different shades, and we are saying "check the colour values in an image editor", and you're saying "why would I do that, it's so obvious that they're different shades".

Because your eyes are deceiving you, the image is playing a trick on how your brain processes perception of light and darkness. A and B are the same shade of grey.

 

[roladyzator]

Every audiophile should do volume-matched blind testing of source gear at least once.
It really can blow your mind.

 

[Purité Audio]

Never a truer word said, indeed the only way someone would be truly convinced, at least for a while.
Keith

 

[krucacing]

what i wanted to say is superbly measured unit does not guarantee better sound, we should do both subjective and objective study. once a product passed minium numbers, then the rest is up to the manufacturer to tune to their liking, even in some case it means lower objective performance, and price it accordingly. Whether the product is successful or not, it is up to the customer.

It is not wise to say that people who purely enjoy the coloration of some stuff they like as fools, if so, there are many fools in this world, and i am happy to be one of them. Ultimately, you listen with your ear

isn't this industry is like mechanical watch or luxury car, it is consumerism...

 

[AXIOM]

if so, there are many fools in this world

Believe it or not, this is a fact. Plus, most people see the fool in others, never in themselves.

and i am happy to be one of them

Yeah, that’s how life goes.

superbly measured unit does not guarantee better sound

I think the spirit of ASR is to show what a reliable way to define 'better' is. Measurements do not necessarily contradict what you call the "subjective" stuff. Instead, it provides a consistent way to quantify it.

 

[SuicideSquid]

It is not wise to say that people who purely enjoy the coloration of some stuff they like as fools, if so, there are many fools in this world, and i am happy to be one of them. Ultimately, you listen with your ear

There are lots of people around this forum who like tube amplifiers or non-Harman IEM tunings or vinyl records. The difference between fools and people who just like coloured sound is whether someone says "I know this isn't objectively as good, but I like it anyway" or says "what I like must be objectively better, so the measurements are wrong", which is the position taken by most "audiophiles".

 

[oleg87]

what i wanted to say is superbly measured unit does not guarantee better sound, we should do both subjective and objective study. once a product passed minium numbers, then the rest is up to the manufacturer to tune to their liking, even in some case it means lower objective performance, and price it accordingly. Whether the product is successful or not, it is up to the customer.

It is not wise to say that people who purely enjoy the coloration of some stuff they like as fools, if so, there are many fools in this world, and i am happy to be one of them. Ultimately, you listen with your ear

isn't this industry is like mechanical watch or luxury car, it is consumerism...

“Passing minimum numbers” and “tuning” are kind of at odds with each other. Pretty much anything audibly meaningful is going to cause huge differences in measured behavior. Usually the only significant differences we see here are in high-frequency response of the reconstruction filter. Even poorly measuring DACs by ASR standards (like most audio-gd products reviewed here, with perhaps one exception where distortion reaches levels that should be fairly audible) generally still perform well enough relative to the sensitivity of the ear that you’d be hard-pressed to discern them from any other DAC without peeking in typical listening conditions.

 

[Doodski]

There are lots of people around this forum who like tube amplifiers or non-Harman IEM tunings or vinyl records. The difference between fools and people who just like coloured sound is whether someone says "I know this isn't objectively as good, but I like it anyway" or says "what I like must be objectively better, so the measurements are wrong", which is the position taken by most "audiophiles".

I believe that I am one of the rare people that are extreme outliers due to physical and or mental variations/requirements in my hearing frequency response. I want and need ridiculous to other listeners huge boosts in the high frequencies in my music listening PEQ settings. It has always been this way from as far back as I can remember. I use massive amounts of high frequency PEQ boost and I think that's good and it's normalized to me now. I don't even bother myself with pink noise or calibrated USB mic methods now etc because I know from experience that I am a outlier. I have no idea now that I understand this and admit it how I was ever such a successful speaker salesperson that actually effected change and preference in entire regions and cities to prefer KEF or ENERGY and they loved them and really appreciated me for that. It all is really mind boggling...

 

[VintageFlanker]

Whether the product is successful or not, it is up to the customer.

Then, there's no point for any review, ore even any specsmanship at all.

Do I need to remind that Audio-GD lies in pretty much all their specs and measurements? That is the main issue, above way their "intentional" coloration.

we should do both subjective and objective study.

Has been done already. Most people prefer transparent sound. That's the core basis of High Fidelity, not "whoever prefers whatever they want so there's no way to properly design audio gear".