Ferrum OOR?

[gallionetech]

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone had experience with the Ferrum OOR? Everyone on the subjective forums praises it as a neutral / natural / organic sounding amp.

I’m trying to figure out:

1) if it’s “natural / neutral sounding”, what makes that any different than the A90D

2) can it outperform the A90D

Thanks in advance

 

[sam_adams]

Indulge the curiosity of all of us here and have one drop shipped to @amirm for testing.

 

[JaMaSt]

2) can it outperform the A90D

In what way? Sound? Longevity? Or measurement of inaudible differences?

 

[MAB]

The product description says:

• OOR performs very, very good right out of the box. But OOR is made to excel above and beyond when used together with HYPSOS. We use what we dubbed our Ferrum Power Link (FPL in short) to connect the two. HYPSOS then will perform to its maximum, unleashing unheard musicality from the combination with OOR.

So after spending $2000 on the amp, gotta spend another $1200 on a linear PS to get rid of the hum and noise...
So if you send one to Amir, please send the PS as well so we can all see the alleged benefit!

All joking aside, 8W into 60 Ohm should be fun! Assuming it meets that spec.

 

[jae]

This product has been brought up a number of times, it has already been measured by goldensound: https://goldensound.audio/2021/10/27/ferrum-oor-and-hypsos-measurements/. I reference goldensound's site for the measurements only, his general opinions are often a mix of truth with the nonsensical so please save yourself and don't get into his subjective opinions on his articles or videos, because they will only serve to confuse or mislead you more.

This Ferrum product actually performs worse in virtually every metric and performs even worse in some circumstances with the overpriced PSU addon. It cannot even outperform a cheap $200-300 Chinese product in any metric except power output. Still a decent performer, but not top engineering. Like most modern amplifiers, it measures flat and has minimal distortion so in a controlled blind test you should not notice a discernable difference between the two, even though it may objectively performs worse than the A90D. You are paying for fancy words/marketing and a nice enclosure here. Wherever you heard about this product or whoever you heard about it from, run far away. A90D is already endgame transparency, you're not going to find anything that sounds "better"- at best you will find stuff that performs similarly objectively well or might perform objectively worse but the performance gains are well beyond the limits of human hearing, so it will sound the same. At worse you will get something totally busted or overpay thousands for something that potentially loses you performance. Even Topping's (and other Chinese manufacturer's) cheaper products perform almost identically to the more expensive ones like A90D. If you have money burning a hole in your pocket and want some more practical features in a product get the new RME ADI-2/4 PRO SE which is a top class combo AMP/DAC/ADC interface which costs $2500 and has features like built in PEQ etc.- but to reiterate there's still not going to be any audible difference with that unit either.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

100% what @jae said.

RME is the brand if you want well engineered, ton of features, great quality and excellent customer support something you can’t expect from the lower price Toppings or SMSLs

RME ADI-2 FS Version 2 DAC and Headphone Amp Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the updated version 2 of the RME ADI-2 FS DAC and headphone amplifier. It was kindly sent to me by the company. The cost us US $1,149. The ADI-2 looks very nice in black with a bright, super responsive display (doesn't come out as well in the...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[gallionetech]

thanks, I figured it was nothing special. I was curious as everyone over at Head-fi tells me I should pair this with the Susvara. Every time I mention the A90D they tell me how terrible it is, yet there description of the OOR is an overpriced A90D lol

 

[HarmonicTHD]

thanks, I figured it was nothing special. I was curious as everyone over at Head-fi tells me I should pair this with the Susvara. Every time I mention the A90D they tell me how terrible it is, yet there description of the OOR is an overpriced A90D lol

That’s what Headfi is known for. They also have a commercial interest and no facts to back up there recommendations (mostly opinions, anecdotes and sighted and non-level matched listening tests ).

Personally, I save myself the time to go there.

 

[gallionetech]

That’s what Headfi is known for. They also have a commercial interest.

Personally, I save myself the time to go there.

I’ve been posting on there mainly so I can get access to the marketplace to sell the rest of my snake oil I want to get rid of lol. It is really concerning how biased many reviews on there are to certain products, etc.

 

[gallionetech]

Just got recommended I swap my D90SE with this DAC: https://www.kitsunehifi.com/product/holo-audio-may-dac/

No thanks lol

 

[majingotan]

Just got recommended I swap my D90SE with this DAC: https://www.kitsunehifi.com/product/holo-audio-may-dac/

No thanks lol

At least it wasn't a bad measuring DAC for a R2R DAC lol: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...may-probably-the-best-discrete-r2r-dac.10161/

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Just got recommended I swap my D90SE with this DAC: https://www.kitsunehifi.com/product/holo-audio-may-dac/

Keep your D90. It is already so well performing that even any other technically better device will not be audibly better.

 

[muslhead]

Wait for @SpeleoFool to respond. He had one and posted his review here on the board.
If i remember correctly, he just recently sold it so it would be good to get his input

 

[nyxnyxnyx]

I think the same things other have told in this thread but at the same time here's my two cents:

Back then Amir tested a tube amplifier, both the measurements of it and the whole "tube isn't a good design" should mean the SS amplifier is easily superior. Yet in the conclusion he was satisfied with it if it was the right match (high impedance headphones for example). I understand that finding as even though there's such a large gap in areas that should have been audible, in reality it was not that noticeable, or can even be outright regarded as abysmal? (JDS Lab Atom vs Little Dot MK2)

So maybe in this case, OOR can perform differently if given the right match? Although I'm willing to bet if there were such differences it is still not worth it to buy.

 

[SoNic]

This thread is hilarious... because of owner's bias. Two contradictory statements are used to validate that bias:
1. Measurements don't matter, you won't actually hear the difference. My stuff is great.
2. Lol, look how bad the R2R are measuring! My stuff is great.

 

[Killingbeans]

1. Measurements don't matter, you won't actually hear the difference. My stuff is great.

1. Measurements only matter above the thresholds of human hearing. Below that you most likely won't hear any difference when testing blind an level matched.

Fixed

And my current setup is crap. I have no reason to put it on a piedestal by skewing my assessment of other gear

 

[bodhi]

This thread is hilarious... because of owner's bias. Two contradictory statements are used to validate that bias:
1. Measurements don't matter, you won't actually hear the difference. My stuff is great.
2. Lol, look how bad the R2R are measuring! My stuff is great.

Context to both statements is that you can get amp that sounds perfect for $150. That should be the floor for performance regardless of price.

 

[SoNic]

Measurements only matter above the thresholds of human hearing.

Then it seems that the R2R is judged by different thresholds in this thread.

 

[Killingbeans]

The Holo May? It's probably plenty "audibly transparent". A really nice engineering exercise. Not much point in it when a Topping d10s already gets you there though.

 

[jae]

Then it seems that the R2R is judged by different thresholds in this thread.

It is not judged by different thresholds from a technical/signal converting standpoint but of course R2R has more scrutiny from a consumer product recommendation standpoint. It is typical of manufacturers (along with reviewers and other "audiophiles") to manipulate those that are ignorant or have less experience, into buying R2R products by the virtue that it is R2R alone. It's based on the false promise that R2R changes the character of the signal passing through it which is of course nonsense, so most of those products are sold to people based on a deception.

This is ignoring the fact that R2R expensive to buy, and cannot outperform modern delta-sigma modulated dacs in general even if they can perform well. The Holo May is a great outlier example of a well-made R2R dac that can potentially compete with current delta-sigma dacs in absolute measurements, but costs $5000 and does not outperform something at a fraction of the price. If R2R and delta-sigma dacs were competing technologies with an number of pros and cons for each, I could see a potential reason to support the good engineering of the Holo May, potentially in hopes of making said implementation cheaper or higher fidelity in time. But they are not competing technologies- discrete R2R is technologically obsolete to the point where even a $15 dongle made for 50 cents in China can outperform 99.9% of R2R implementations available to a consumer.

So effectively you are paying for a nice metal case with respect to other products that offer similar signal fidelity in the case of Holo. It's completely fine if someone wants to use their money on that, but the important thing to us here is that we make sure they know they have full disclosure in making that decision. Product recommendations are not simply a matter of signing off on anything that measures well or even dismissing anything that is not top measuring. Good recommendations are ones either tailored to the average customer or a specific customer based on their wants and needs and price or value is almost always a component of that. OP already has a transparent setup he spent money on, so suggesting him something that costs 10 fold for no perceivable audio quality benefit (or even a non-audible benefit) and no new or additional useful features is completely against the thesis of a good suggestion regardless of how it measures. If OP did not have any gear, we still wouldn't recommend this because of the price. Even if Holo May was not R2R, the responses and suggestions would be identical.