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Stuville77

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I started down the path with headphones a few years back, and try to search for a new piece of equipment every year or two. Headphones, DAC, or amp, I’m always looking for a new widget that I can try out. 2020 definitely helped with boredom purchases.

I think I’ve read the review/thread on the Valhalla 2 at least four times by now, as I bought it within the last year, so I have some cost sunk into it. That said, I’ve tried a few different tubes in the Valhalla and it can be made to sound great. Maybe I prefer the tube sound, added warmth, I can’t tell the difference, or it’s all psychological. I took a flyer on it, and enjoy listening to it. Sitting next to it is a DX7s, a JDS atom, an Objective 2, and a Bottlehead Crack, and I can feed it from the DX7, Atom DAC, or Bi-frost multi-bit (early purchase - found this forum later than I should have). I have started to mix and match equipment with different cans to find what I enjoy.

I’d have to say the Atom DAC and Bottlehead is probably my favorite pairing. I can’t tell you why other than it just sounds detailed with the best timbre. I’m not listening to jazz, or piano concertos looking to hear extreme detail, but have found much more detail in tracks that I’ve heard hundreds of times as I’ve progressed in the hobby. The sound from this pairing seems to step up the depth of the sound as well.

There’s more going on than just simple conversion and amplification in this hobby. I think the 2nd Yggi review starts to touch on it when looking at wave shapes. Digital is absolute, and any conversion to analog is going to approximate the original signal. Each amplification stage is going to round the corners even more due to hysteresis, add harmonics, etc. Is this where tubes fill in the gaps of digital to make the sound more complete? I respect Amir’s measurements, but is there a missing piece?

Side note - @amirm I think many of us owe you a debt of gratitude for the education and accuracy you’ve provided us. Here, or on YouTube, you’ve added data into an area that is filled with fuzzy adjectives that equate into bigger dollar signs.

I am trained as an instrument and control technician with nearly thirty years working on electronics at nuclear facilities. I’m guessing my lack of education in audio circuit design (or forgotten information from years back) have me with some gaps in my knowledge.

Any resources resources the members know of to help me gain some knowledge? Thanks!
 

BDWoody

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There’s more going on than just simple conversion and amplification in this hobby. I think the 2nd Yggi review starts to touch on it when looking at wave shapes. Digital is absolute, and any conversion to analog is going to approximate the original signal.

Welcome!

Monty is always a good place to start.

You can recreate the original band limited signal with no loss of information. Careful trying to make sense out of marketing copy...

 
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Stuville77

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Wow! I have never seen a video that so succinctly demonstrated how my mental model of something was flawed. It definitely proved to me that I have a lot of reading to do.

I happened to have today off from work and took a quick stroll through wikipedia to jot down definitions and gain some more base knowledge of concepts. Well beyond what I learned in the Navy.

I have a feeling that this is a deep rabbit hole I'm entering... Thanks for aiming me at the proper references.
 

Soniclife

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Wow! I have never seen a video that so succinctly demonstrated how my mental model of something was flawed. It definitely proved to me that I have a lot of reading to do.
Don't feel bad about that, sampling theorem is a non-intuitive solution/proof worked out by very clever people, and a lot of us have been through the exactly the same journey. But it's fun to have your mind opened like that as well.
 
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Stuville77

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https://web.archive.org/web/20150315003640/http://headwize.com/?page_id=575

I was reading about dither, in this article, and it actually made sense. Combine that with the increases in resolution, and the simple picture that I had in my mind about how this works ends up being antiquated. Maybe learning about this stuff before the internet age puts me back in the stone age? ;)

Still have more homework to do.
 
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