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Budget DAC Review: Schiit Modi 2 ($99)

andreasmaaan

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Also possible @amirm, but with no reason to assume the worst, I'd prefer to assume the best ;)
 
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amirm

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Also possible @amirm, but with no reason to assume the worst, I'd prefer to assume the best ;)
Man following his dream of being on the road is assuming the best. :) I know I am tempted to do the same.

Saying he has lost his hearing is letting down his fans gently....
 

Sal1950

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Man following his dream of being on the road is assuming the best. :) I know I am tempted to do the same.

Saying he has lost his hearing is letting down his fans gently....
Yep, good excuse. Something he didn't have to listen to a lot of whining and begging not to leave just yet. yata yata yata.
 

Wombat

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Interesting that so many high-end audio reviewers are long past their best hearing age. I guess one can just make-it-up as one goes.

Hey, that may explain lots of reviews. facepalm.gif
 
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Frank Dernie

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Interesting that so many high-end audio reviewers are long past their best hearing age. I guess one can just make-it-up as one goes.

Hey, that may explain lots of reviews. View attachment 13728
Probably because the vast majority of their readers who can afford the stuff they promote, and the time to listen to it, are long past their best hearing age too.
3 of my 4 children are music lovers who have no interest in hifi, mainly because the space it takes but also because they have better things to do with their money.
My son mainly listens on headphones, when he has time, and 2 of my daughters, both of whom are excellent amateur musicians who perform in lots of concerts, listen on modest systems which take up little space. Optimum speaker positioning in any of their rooms would be ridiculously inappropriate for either of their lifestyles.
 

andreasmaaan

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Man following his dream of being on the road is assuming the best. :) I know I am tempted to do the same.

Saying he has lost his hearing is letting down his fans gently....

Yeh, whatever the basis I think he’s making a great decision :)
 

Wombat

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Probably because the vast majority of their readers who can afford the stuff they promote, and the time to listen to it, are long past their best hearing age too.
3 of my 4 children are music lovers who have no interest in hifi, mainly because the space it takes but also because they have better things to do with their money.
My son mainly listens on headphones, when he has time, and 2 of my daughters, both of whom are excellent amateur musicians who perform in lots of concerts, listen on modest systems which take up little space. Optimum speaker positioning in any of their rooms would be ridiculously inappropriate for either of their lifestyles.

Well said. This preoccupation(hobby) needs more such grounded input.
 

andreasmaaan

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I’m looking forward to the day that noise-induced and age-related hearing loss can be treated.
 
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Wombat

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I’m looking forward to the day that noise-induced and age-related (ie conductive) hearing loss can be treated.

Prevention is the best we have at the moment. Ear-buds are high risk hearing devices because they seal the sound into the ear cavity. Headphones to a lesser degree but still conducive to extended higher-level listening bouts compared to loudspeakers. Bass is exaggerated. A new generation of more-hearing-impaired music listeners is already out there. More so than before. :(
 

Frank Dernie

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I’m looking forward to the day that noise-induced and age-related (ie conductive) hearing loss can be treated.
Since age related loss hapens very, very slowly we are unaware of it and remain used to the sounds around us.
My wife, a professional musician, is sadly going deaf. The audiologist measured her hearing loss and provided hearing aids which corrected it accurately. She -hates- them and never uses them because they make the world sound "screechy and unpleasant", which is a shame since she needs aid to hear us, and the choirs she conducts, and she often mis-hears or doesn't hear at all :(
 

andreasmaaan

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Since age related loss hapens very, very slowly we are unaware of it and remain used to the sounds around us.
My wife, a professional musician, is sadly going deaf. The audiologist measured her hearing loss and provided hearing aids which corrected it accurately. She -hates- them and never uses them because they make the world sound "screechy and unpleasant", which is a shame since she needs aid to hear us, and the choirs she conducts, and she often mis-hears or doesn't hear at all :(

Sorry to hear about your wife's hearing loss, and you're absolutely right about our brain's internal filter, which tends to adjust to the frequency our ears provide. However, assuming her hearing aids are not creating unpleasant distortions etc, it must also be true that she would get used to their frequency response if she wore them constantly (following an adjustment period ofc).
 

Wombat

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Sorry to hear about your wife's hearing loss, and you're absolutely right about our brain's internal filter, which tends to adjust to the frequency our ears provide. However, assuming her hearing aids are not creating unpleasant distortions etc, it must also be true that she would get used to their frequency response if she wore them constantly (following an adjustment period ofc).

Find an old piezo earpiece and try it. Hearing aids are better but that sound is still apparent.

61p4ALaGBBL__SX569_.jpg
 

andreasmaaan

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Find an old piezo earpiece and try it. Hearing aids are better but that sound is still apparent.

Exactly why I'm looking forward to therapeutic treatments being available in place of hearing aids in future ;)
 

Ron Texas

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What happens is as you age the high frequencies gradually drop off. The music is still engaging, but the "air" from the top octaves is gone.
 

andreasmaaan

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What happens is as you age the high frequencies gradually drop off. The music is still engaging, but the "air" from the top octaves is gone.

In an ideal case, yes, but in reality most of us will find by even middle age that our 2-4KHz range has also taken a significant hit due to noise exposure.
 

Ron Texas

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In an ideal case, yes, but in reality most of us will find by even middle age that our 2-4KHz range has also taken a significant hit due to noise exposure.
When that happens a hearing aid is needed to understand speech. Somehow I have survived loud music, shotguns and deep water diving.
 

andreasmaaan

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When that happens a hearing aid is needed to understand speech. Somehow I have survived loud music, shotguns and deep water diving.

Good for you :) I'm not really talking about damage to such an extent that speech becomes unintelligible, which would ofc require treatment in all cases. What I mean is that the "normal" levels of noise most of us are exposed to in daily life will result in a long-term loss of hearing in this range. The degree of loss won't be significant for most people, but for those who either work with or enjoy audio, the possibility of regaining this lost hearing would be attractive.
 

andreasmaaan

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Also keep in mind that, to be clinically defined as noise-induced hearing loss, the loss needs to be 25dB or more below someone with normal hearing. In other words, we are talking about at least 25dB-ish of loss in the lower-mid treble before clinical diagnosis of noise-induced hearing loss.

According to this study from the NIDCD, around one fifth of Americans in their twenties "show signs" of this kind of hearing loss (i.e. a notch in the lower-mid treble that may or may not be severe enough to qualify as clinical hearing loss). Likely causes include headphone use, noisy work environments, and concerts, etc.

Sure, most of these cases are not clinical. But "not clinical" could mean a 24dB reduction in this range! Definitely not the kind of hole in frequency response you'd accept from your equipment if you were an audiophile ;)

And btw @Ron Texas, I hope my "good for you" in the previous post didn't come across as facetious - just re-read it and realised it might have done so, which was definitely not the intention ;)
 

Ron Texas

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According to this study from the NIDCD, around one fifth of Americans in their twenties "show signs" of this kind of hearing loss (i.e. a notch in the lower-mid treble that may or may not be severe enough to qualify as clinical hearing loss). Likely causes include headphone use, noisy work environments, and concerts, etc.

Sure, most of these cases are not clinical. But "not clinical" could mean a 24dB reduction in this range! Definitely not the kind of hole in frequency response you'd accept from your equipment if you were an audiophile ;)

Now, doesn't that make you wonder what kind of shape the talking heads hearing is in.
 

Grave

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"Either they don't measure their DACs, don't care or don't know how to design a clean DAC. Yes, -85 db distortion products is not likely and hence the reason they get away with such poor performance. But the engineer in me wants to throw up on it. Let the no-name Chinese vendors produce this stuff."

not likely audible?
 
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