Being an objectivist this feeling is eating my brain... [Headphone amps]

[JIW]

In the picture, the A90 is connected to the D90 via RCA while the Auralic is connected to it via XLR. Have you also tested it the other way round?

 

[Zensō]

There’s nothing unusual about liking gear that colors the signal. The question is whether or not you want to live with that on every transducer and every piece of music going forward. Personally, I prefer to start with a pristine signal and then add EQ and/or effects using software.

 

[mcebrian]

In the picture, the A90 is connected to the D90 via RCA while the Auralic is connected to it via XLR. Have you also tested it the other way round?

Yes of course. But after matching the volume I can't detect any difference between XLR and RCA.

 

[Robin L]

I've owned a fair number of tube amps, preamps, hybrid tube preamps, headphone amps, etc. The really vintage [60 year old] tube gear used output transformers, I think that's a lot of what people think of as "tube sound". I'm making this digression because of the possibilities of preferring a sound with greater measurable distortion. My sense with transformer coupled gear is a focus on the midrange at the expense of definition at the frequency extremes, filtering out some of the crud from sources in the process. Does wonders with vintage LPs.

I've got the Topping E/L 30 duo and Drop 6XX 'phones. I suspect this might be the gear with the lowest distortion I have owned, so far. At the same time that more low-level detail is revealed, there's less of a treble "edge" on everything. It's just a little off-putting, confusing that edge for presence and "realism". However, hearing all that low-level detail makes it all the more clear that one is listening to a cluster of different microphones, synths and room sounds, taking away some of the illusion that one is listening to a real-time performance. Vintage [Fisher 500-C, Dyna 70/Pas-3, Scott 299B, Marantz 8B, etc.] electronics strike me as much like Vaseline on a camera lens, deliberately blurring everything a little for effect, aiding and abetting a "live music" experience by pasting over all the seams.

I would gather that the difference between the two headphone amps of yours could be described as "one is micro dosing vintage tube sound".

 

[tmtomh]

Wouldn't there be two required steps to determine (at least to a degree) what the likely explanation is?

1. Measure the Aurelic's frequency response to see whether or not it is sufficiently close to the Topping's to rule out core frequency fidelity as a factor; then
2. If possible, perform some acoustic measurements of each amp's actual output with the given pair of headphones. I realize this would be difficult, but if you set up the headphones on a stand and put the mic right up next to one of the ear cups, and didn't move the headphones or the mic, you could record a tone with the mic (and you could do so multiple times to get a baseline variation amount), and then you could just switch the headphones to the other headphone amp and do the same thing.

Step 2 wouldn't be a terribly accurate test of the headphones, because you wouldn't be using a proper headphone testing setup like Amir's - but it would seem to be a fairly accurate way to compare the two amps' performance into that headphone, yes? One would think any inaccuracies produced by the setup would be identical with both amps, and so the only differences that would show up in what the mic recorded would be either core amp performance differences, or amp-headphone interaction differences.

Or am I completely out of my depth here?

 

[Frgirard]

Hi all,

I wanted to share something with you all after months of reflecting about it without reaching any reasonable conclusion or output... Maybe getting older but nothing else xD

I have been an "Audiophile" and an engineer for quite some years now, I have had different equipment, from very cheap to very expensive, and this is the second time in my life that I have observed / faced the following:

So, this is the equipment in question:
View attachment 131740

Issue:
As an engineer I deny anything that I can't measure repeatedly and that can be sustained by numbers... but... The Auralic Taurus Mk II sounds better to me with different headphones than the Topping A90 in most of the occasions. I have forced myself to do level-matched blinded A/B tests with a friend (thanks for his patience) changing the cable again and again and I "prefer" what I feel with the Auralic even if I want to like more the Topping A90 because I have read 100 times the review from @amirm.

Question:
Have you experience any similar situation when the number say one thing and your brain feels the opposite? Could it be possible to "like" some type of distorsion? ...

Let me close saying that as an engineer I appreciate the work Amir and Wolf and everyone else does here presenting real figures and solid data as opposed to the biased / paid reviews and nonsense EVERYWHERE else but... I wanted to share this thought in spite of most probably getting burned.

It's the audiophile life.
Use ABX for tame your feeling
or
Audiophilia is a hobby, listen music.

 

[pozz]

https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews...ic-taurus-mkii-balanced-headphone-amp-review/

AP measurements included. Nothing to speak of for difference. Crosstalk is consistent at -50dB, but with music shouldn't be an issue.

Likely level matching.

 

[Jimbob54]

https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews...ic-taurus-mkii-balanced-headphone-amp-review/

AP measurements included. Nothing to speak of for difference. Crosstalk is consistent at -50dB, but with music shouldn't be an issue.

Likely level matching.

Uh oh, it's only a matter of time before the "things that can't be explained by measurements" folks drop onto this then.

 

[solderdude]

Uh oh, it's only a matter of time before the "things that can't be explained by measurements" folks drop onto this then.

just give them some reading material:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/things-that-cannot-be-measured.20808/
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...can-everything-be-measured.23059/#post-768924
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...so-different-compared-to-other-sources.14435/
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...dio-understanding-speaker-measurements.20182/
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...e-as-transparent-are-that-many-confused.9245/

 

[eddantes]

Maybe you can't hear the difference... (The difference being big enough to be measured, but too small for YOUR ears)

Maybe it's just the rest of the experience that is affecting your choice. Not that Topping is unattractive, but it is rather utilitarian.

 

[solderdude]

Maybe you can't hear the difference... (The difference being big enough to be measured, but too small for YOUR ears)

People that hear differences usually turn it around. The differences that can (clearly) be heard are too small to measure, or can't be measured by lack of measurements or by lack of measurement methods. Methods that still have to be invented. Reasoning for the latter is the millions of examples where 'we' didn't know things existed before a measurement method for it was invented. Or... we don't know everything about the universe, or hearing, or brain, or what's in the bottom of the ocean...

 

[Count Arthur]

Decide which amp is heads, which is tails, toss a coin and get rid of the amp that"wins". Now you've got nothing to compare it to and you can stop worrying about it.

 

[Jackpine]

https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews...ic-taurus-mkii-balanced-headphone-amp-review/

AP measurements included. Nothing to speak of for difference. Crosstalk is consistent at -50dB, but with music shouldn't be an issue.

Likely level matching.

Wouldn't -50dB crosstalk be basically a small amount of crossfeed? Also something seems wrong if Auralic specs -80dB.

 

[Nango]

@mcebrian Oh Sir, they will soon launch the A90a or A90PRO or A91a and then the new "final game" included @amirm award ..... you just dont learn !!!

 

[KSTR]

@mcebrian ; I can understand your dilemma ;-)
I own to RME ADI-2 Pro's, one is the latest FS R model, the other the FS, one cycle behind. The differences between the two are minimal (slightly different DAC chip, minor differences in PCB layout and such), but basically the exact same product. On paper and in measurement, both are top tier and got the "absolutely transparent" tag.
Yet, again and again, gut feeling says with my HD700 phones the older FS is a bit punchier, and easier/clearer in the midrange, in the "just noticable differences" category (thus, in practice irrelevant in the end, at least for me, but that's not the point here). A quick level-matched ABX turned out to be fruitless, and that was to be expected. From previous experiments**) I think the only way to get a grip on this is blind long-term evaluation, fully intergrated in your normal recreational listening setting. Roughly outlined here. At the moment I don't know if its worth the effort in my case here, most probably not... will see....

**) In a quick ABX, phase distortion or switched polarity in music playback is not immediately audible for many that do this for the first time for this topic, and even when you already know what to listen for and have some experience in short-term ABX it is never easy and straightforward for alleged subtle differences. It is an unnatural situation and I'm personally conviced that our detection thresholds for subtle differences are compromised by that. "Test stress" would a not fully adequate abbreviation for this, and with training etc this can be mitigated for, yet we may assume that a quick ABX is not a normal listening scenario for the far majority of people.
But when I trialed this topic in an automated long-term preference test (which was easy as I just had to automate loading randomly selected convolution kernels at startup) over the course of weeks, it turned out that eg. polarity changes are generally readily audible to me, typically in the timbre and "fatness" of low bass notes, and sometimes in a different ambience/reverb impression. Of course within the limits of statistics and procedureal glitches (this was in no way scientific level).

I see no reason why DACS of different make and model and thus construction, even though having "good enough to be transparent" standard measurements, can't sound subtly(!) different... on a level that really takes a lot of effort to nail it down with some significance. We quickly enter the path of diminishing returns here, nevertheless it would be nice to have more data points to fuel more meaningful debates.

 

[mcebrian]

Wouldn't there be two required steps to determine (at least to a degree) what the likely explanation is?

1. Measure the Aurelic's frequency response to see whether or not it is sufficiently close to the Topping's to rule out core frequency fidelity as a factor; then
2. If possible, perform some acoustic measurements of each amp's actual output with the given pair of headphones. I realize this would be difficult, but if you set up the headphones on a stand and put the mic right up next to one of the ear cups, and didn't move the headphones or the mic, you could record a tone with the mic (and you could do so multiple times to get a baseline variation amount), and then you could just switch the headphones to the other headphone amp and do the same thing.

Step 2 wouldn't be a terribly accurate test of the headphones, because you wouldn't be using a proper headphone testing setup like Amir's - but it would seem to be a fairly accurate way to compare the two amps' performance into that headphone, yes? One would think any inaccuracies produced by the setup would be identical with both amps, and so the only differences that would show up in what the mic recorded would be either core amp performance differences, or amp-headphone interaction differences.

Or am I completely out of my depth here?

You sound actually quite right to me...
Another note for the holidays!

Wouldn't -50dB crosstalk be basically a small amount of crossfeed?

This is actually an interesting point. Are you @pozz sure that -50db when music is on is beyond audibility?


Thank you everyone for contributing with so many thoughts and funny comments!

 

[pozz]

This is actually an interesting point. Are you @pozz sure that -50db when music is on is beyond audibility?

For comparison, vinyl playback has crosstalk of around -20dB or so. Maybe 5dB better, 10dB at most.

Wouldn't -50dB crosstalk be basically a small amount of crossfeed? Also something seems wrong if Auralic specs -80dB.

Crossfeed works at -25dB and up, with a slight, manipulable time delay and frequency dependent mixing of channel information according to a filter. Usually 1kHz and lower for effectiveness, since that's is where ITD works for hearing.

Crosstalk is poor channel separation from power supply or circuit layout. The bleed from one channel to the next could be in phase or out of phase depending on what's in the recording and there is no time delay as with crossfeed.

-50dB is not beyond audibility. You could probably come up with a contrived signal that has sharp differences in frequency vs. channel content and pick it out. Since most music has a mix of stereo and mono content, it's unlikely.

Edit: Typo.

 

[MOCKBA]

Sell the Topping, problem solved?

I would suggest just put on the attic. Selling it will create a problem for other person that isn't good. On a positive note, always try to listen an equipment before buy. Do not relay on measurements, they are deceiving. Amir always provide a section on listening impressions after a thorough testing.

 

[mcebrian]

I would suggest just put on the attic. Selling it will create a problem for other person that isn't good. On a positive note, always try to listen an equipment before buy. Do not relay on measurements, they are deceiving. Amir always provide a section on listening impressions after a thorough testing.

I already said that I am keeping both, no matter what. I was just sharing my thoughts.
But, let me insist once more: I am not claiming in any way the technical superiority or accuracy. The Topping A90 is an objectively better machine, that works flawlessly, and, by the way, doesn't heat up your whole room. Period. All the discussion is about likes and dislikes deviating from the perfect measurements if any.

 

[MOCKBA]

Have you experience any similar situation when the number say one thing and your brain feels the opposite? Could it be possible to "like" some type of distorsion?

This is widely known fact. Many people like a tube amplifier sound name it as "warm". Any tube amplifier will have more distortions and greater noise. Did I mention that some people prefer a turn table to a digital sound, although obviously a digital sound is much better.