Eleven XIAudio Broadway Headphone Amp Review

[Orion76]

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Green magic marker? Thanks for the memories.
The Audio Prism CD Stoplight

AudioPrism - CD Stoplight

Putting green around the edge of the CD absorbed stray laser light and made everything sound better. Or something.

 

[nagster]

I don't know. There is some leakage current some place. I have to take it apart and troubleshoot. It has caused marginal problems with other gear. I noted it in my review of it: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...me-hp-load-review-headphone-dummy-load.25358/

amirm, thank you as always.

If the HP-LOAD is powered by batteries, there is a possibility that suspects can be reduced.
For example, with usb mobile battery and conversion code, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0789BP9ZX/

 

[Badunn]

If a company produces a component that measures (ie performs) significantly worse than an alternative costing less than 15 times the price - then you have to seriously ask questions of what that company is trying to achieve. This unit is also devastatingly devoid of design appeal and connectivity. The premise of battery operation to provide flexibility of use...really? What were the design team thinking (or smoking?)

The review demonstrates OK performance. I'd be devastated as an owner if I didn't get SOTA performance.

Amir is really giving manufacturers for free insightful tools to achieve straight wire with gain - but it is ignored.

Having lived with a Chord Mojo - only to have it totally and utterly destroyed on every level by a SMSL C200 - reviews of manufacturers producing stuff like this does make me think they are trying it on.

 

[Jimbob54]

One has to wonder what kind of people are willing to give consumer advice without basic controls and being very careful and thorough ?

Those that are either deluded or looking to/ making lots of $$ from it. Or both.

 

[Tks]

I'd agree if you say he should be more clear, throughout and detailed with his reviews, but to say he's a liar for being aware of certain scientific findings but not actually using it as a cornerstone of his audio journey? I think that's a stretch.

As for his recommendation, his list (and to some extent, other reviewer's lists like Crinacle's) is based on his preferences and he mentioned it several times. "He thinks its the best headphones he listened to" sounds pretty reasonable to me, he didn't go out of his way to say it's undoubtedly the greatest headphones ever like it's something set in stone. You can shit on his taste for liking badly designed, overpriced distortion factory and stuff, maybe call him ignorant if you deem so. Additionally, the last time I check, his stance on cables were pretty much alike to what's suggested here as well.

And hey, science does not reflect absolute satisfaction in this hobby, does it? It provides what's objectively the truth, but it does not mean everyone will like it (as in enjoy it), or have the ability to bend their taste to it.
For example you can check the Zero IEMs thread, it passed all objective metrics with flying colors, it's a record-breaker IEMs and yet not everyone who bought it there was happy with it (granted, it is only a minority). Is it their hearing's fault for not being able to like it? Or is it the reviewer's fault for giving it such praises? I don't think either is correct. His listening preference not matching with the scientific findings is not a causal evidence that he's a liar.

The primary issue is their claims are pre-loaded with massive assumptions. When you say scientific tests don't correlate to "everyone enjoying it", that's true on face value, but since Youtube videos are trying to reach a large audience, author's aren't concerned with what could be deemed a deluded or sparse minority.

As far as "Zero passing with flying colors", most of the complaints I've seen are the qualities of the high treble region (which we all know most measurements don't place much weight on since they're inaccurate above 10kHz). So when you talk about "his listening preference not matching with scientific findings, is not cause to assume he's lying", that's only true in the direct literal sense. But when I tell you that his preferences are unknown to him (actually, uncontrollable since something as basic as time-of-day will change his audio perceptability), your claim about him not being a liar still holds, but doesn't matter since willful ignorance becomes the overriding and more pressing factor. This is even before we account for truly troubling bias of being sent gear, not having a good meal that day, stress, etc...

At best you can say he's lying to himself which then doesn't allow him to relay accurate facts of the matter in terms of objective information about performance.

This becomes worse when considering source devices which we all know he would fail blind tests for considering how transparent modern devices have become. It just begs so many questions what the point of said reviews would even be if it's not simply about build quality, and usability/feature sets.

 

[amirm]

amirm, thank you as always.

If the HP-LOAD is powered by batteries, there is a possibility that suspects can be reduced.
For example, with usb mobile battery and conversion code, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0789BP9ZX/

Interesting idea to power it from batteries! Have to look into that. For now, I found most of the problem had to do with the placement of the load box! It was picking up noise when it was close to other desktop gear. Don't know why it is so sensitive with this amp but did make a good testbed to find this issue. The other strange thing is that the distortion for this box is much higher than with my internal AP load. Very strange....

 

[nagster]

Interesting idea to power it from batteries! Have to look into that. For now, I found most of the problem had to do with the placement of the load box! It was picking up noise when it was close to other desktop gear. Don't know why it is so sensitive with this amp but did make a good testbed to find this issue.

This is my anecdote.
About 10 years ago, when I was measuring a phono amplifier, a strange noise appeared and disappeared repeatedly.
I moved all electronic devices far away and moved my cell phone out of the room, but there was no noticeable change.
When I turned off the lights and made the room pitch black, it disappeared completely.
Turning it on one by one, the culprit was the LED downlight flush-mounted on the ceiling board.
Even though the distance between the phono amplifier and the downlight was more than 2 meters.
To make matters worse, the noise distribution was not uniform. There was a direction with strong noise and a direction with almost no noise.
Also, some amplifiers were noise sensitive and others were not.
Since then, I have been working exclusively with incandescent bulbs when performing severe measurements.

The other strange thing is that the distortion for this box is much higher than with my internal AP load. Very strange....

It's strange indeed. I know you're short on time, but I hope you've got it sorted out before the next headphone amp measurements.

thank you for always.

 

[Ziroz]

For $2600 it should be amazing....

Well, it is amazingly bad.

 

[Extreme_Boky]

you have to lift the amp to change the gain which is not ideal

It is! The switch placement on the PCB is chosen to minimise the audio signal track length.