Have you done anything to help bring you to this conclusion? Listening/testing? Or is it just something you have just adopted as a belief system?
I would say you would know something about adopting belief systems.
Have you done anything to help bring you to this conclusion? Listening/testing? Or is it just something you have just adopted as a belief system?
I trust Zeos' ears a lot more than those of Hans Beekhuyzen, who can be quoted saying that a perfectly measuring DAC that costs 100$ sounds 20% of the sound quality on his setup A, 40% of sound quality on his setup B and 80% on his setup C, compared to another DAC that costs 3000$ and also measures perfectly (better, but just better because it improves a little while both DACs are certainly below 115dB in noise floor and harmonic distortion and both certainly have more than 15-bit).I would say he's probably the "reviewer" I trust least when it comes to their ears. Just throwing that out there...
How Mike Moffat is regarded is entirely meaningless if their actual product is an engineering failure. If anything, products like this tarnish his and Schiit's reputation.
If you know what usenet is, you know the answer tot hat.
The "they" that deleted your post were almost certainly head-fi mods and not Mike. They are very zealous about removing links to other audio sites. HOWEVER, a poster upthread said they called Jude and told him to yank the references. What would you do if someone called you and told you to remove links?
Is providing a through link to information against the TOS at head-fi? I would assume that Amir would look at the links in question and if they had merit let them stand. Not feel threatened.
Well if you can do double blind listening tests, never mind about preference just see if you can reliably tell the difference first then we will be ‘all ears’.
Otherwise your subjective conclusions mean absolutely nothing here, I know that sound harsh but we all know how inherently faulty sighted listening is. You may well hear a difference or to be more precise related to the sound differently, who knows why but the resulting conclusions mean absolutely nothing minus any controls in the process . ( on this forum ).
Haven't listened to many of his reviews, so thanks for the additional perspective.Even a broken clock is right twice a day - Zeos' listening skills are anything but trustworthy, quite the opposite. Tons of inaccuracies that don't match the frequency responses, etc. Not to mention he loves bloated, horribly distorted bass. So much so that he does such bizarre things like breaking the seal on Stax, killing sub bass and raising mid bass. Lots of other things I could mention. I would say he's probably the "reviewer" I trust least when it comes to their ears. Just throwing that out there...
It would be intresting now we’ve measured a good few DAC’s , get a few guys together and do some controlled listening tests.All for this!
Let's start with an Exasound E32, Topping DX7, and the repaired Bimby.
Please make sure that the sample is unbiased -- including those that worship at the subjective altar AND those that worship at the objective altar...as well as those that don't 'know', or care for that matter, what the results will be!
I lived in dev sections on usenet (I was also a Comp-u-Serv subscriber).
Is providing a through link to information against the TOS at head-fi? I would assume that Amir would look at the links in question and if they had merit let them stand. Not feel threatened.
We don’t have that policy but we do get a fair few sign up that are basically spamming , Leaving a link to some doggy site.I think it is. I also think it is stupid, but it isn't my site to run.
It would be intresting now we’ve measured a good few DAC’s , get a few guys together and do some controlled listening tests.
See if it contradicts the measured performance or if it does not seem to relate to the measurements at all.
I’m not sure if we could get enough people together for the results to be statistically relevant.. but would be fun.
If you have to google search for something, then it is not a link.Every picture had the link name, and you said you were discussing it here. By name. One google search (which really wasn't needed) and here I am. Searching for "schiit" let met get a little feel of the lay of the land here, before I posted.
snip....
It's funny how the more expensive the audiophile equipment gets the less it matters about how good the measurements are because there is no feature advantage to make it worth paying that much money to begin with. It's at the budget prices of a few hundred dollars or less where the demand for quality is at it's highest.
It's why I don't care about measurements for the more expensive products here because there is no feature advantage to make it worth buying in the first place. The owner will care about some nebulous sound quality from sighted listening and the measurements won't stop that. They are just a novel curiosity to be discarded if they are less than ideal. Nothing at the high end matters which is why I hope this forum doesn't become fixated on it. The most that will happen is some audio nutters on another forum will get riled up and throw some accusations but it doesn't actually help anyone because they don't care and the people buying the high end equipment don't either. I just see it as a waste of time.
If you have to google search for something, then it is not a link.
I just got off the phone with Jude. I told him that he better start removing references to Changstar or SBAF starting a few years ago. He complied of course.
We are using different instruments and testing products at different times. I think the latter is the main explanation. Schiit seems to be making product changes without notice. I am reminded of this review by Stereophile of BiFrost: https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-bifrost-da-processor-page-2For me, the question is, why have so many other people and mags looked at the same data and come away with such vastly different conclusions? Certainly JA at Stereophile (?) is no friend of theirs, and atomicbob seems to have no axe to grind on anyone.
I think you express a useful concept here. Expensive, at least really expensive DACs aren't sold to customers convinced by measurements. In the middle ground may be moderately expensive DACs worth measuring as a reference. I would think the Benchmark is perfect for this (even the name of it fits). At some $2k or a bit more it isn't cheap. Its not super silly money. It may not have the finest performance on the planet, but it is darn close to SOTA. So much so the AP may cause more issues on the measurements than the Benchmark DAC itself. So that could be a Benchmark reference of the possible quality.
So the biggest benefit of this site, and its starting to generate some new members looking for exactly this, is good info not generally available elsewhere on the real measured performance for gear less expensive than $2k. Especially in the $500 and below range.
Schiit has used the reputation of Mike Moffat at Theta, and other wise spun up this image of a small boutique maker who makes DACs (and other gear) that sounds special. That has the ethos of a real high end upper performance company like MSB, or DCS or such people. Yet they have focused on giving a slice of those at affordable prices. So far it looks like the spin and promotion is all that is high end. The performance of the gear is iffy, or subpar or not what people are being given the impression they are getting. They aren't the only people pushing product this way.
Some are playing in the $2k to $5k range while being no better than some $1k gear. However like alluded to above, customers of such gear aren't going to pay attention to methodological testing.
Why on earth would you do this? Is it that serious a subject that you need to harass the web site owner on the phone?
In other words they are a moving target.
Ultimately though the onus is on them to figure out the discrepancy in different measurements. Why is it my responsibility to explain the difference between my measurements and others? Why don't they have to explain it?
BTW, I accept that you don't have an axe to grind. I welcomed you to the forum and meant it.
It's sarcasm.
Well...in a well run DBT, there is no 'failing'...just results that indicate people hear a difference (or don't).If you fail you'll be disregarded for not being golden-eared enough by others who are supremely confident in the difference based upon their sighted listening. So it's only really of use if the individuals taking part in the test want to know themselves.