Humbling experience

[Veri]

So I was working and listening to music on my PecanPi > Singxer SA-1 set-up all through the day. Somewhere after lunch, I had a problem with my mic and unplugged everything and continued this zoom/teams call I was in with the on-board I/O. Later through the day I kept thinking this Singxer SA-1 amp sounds so clear and with such notable 'heft' / lovely bass etc, your typical 'happy audiophile' nonsense. All listening was with my Audeze Sine planar headphone.

By the end of the day I realised I had continued listening on my Mid-2015 Macbook Pro on-board headphone out rather than my audiophile 'stack'. Everything I appreciated about the sound was just the laptop out, the Singxer+DAC stack realistically doesn't sound any different. All positives I thought I heard were one hundred percent imagined.

Anyway. I sent back the Singxer SA-1. It's a great toy but after all this I can't for the life of me justify owning it. So I'm back to my L30 + DAC stack which still probably doesn't do anything super appreciable compared to proper dongles/standard outputs. But at least I 100% realize that now!

 

[Marc v E]

Well, to your credit, the Macbook Pro is a nice laptop. I've listened a couple of times this way because I had no choice and was pleasently surprised. In my experience the dac conversion sounds pretty clean and only the amplification with certain headphones can be a bottleneck. Still pretty good. Good to stay honest. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

It's a common refrain amongst many of us...the sobering realization that much of our audiophile obsession is a huge house of cards built on a foundation of cognitive lies. But there is a certain liberating relief in making peace with that reality.

 

[LightninBoy]

Great story and example of a humbling experience; thanks for sharing. There are similar stories collected here for anyone interested ...

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/what-was-your-humbling-moment.18952/