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Monoprice Monolith THX 887 Balance Headphone Amp: New Champ?

yummy

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"they keep you from spending 20K on a stupid dac".

like i said before, no transducer can do better than -60db

which is 0.1% thd+n

if don't wanna believe it, everyone can skip this hobby, some new money are buying gears to show power (esp in Asia), they might not be interested in music or specs whatever
 

AndrewMason

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i think you should skip this hobby

no transducers can go below -60db distortion in audio range

why bother at all
I think your thinking is too simplistic. It only applies to the big transients.
Now think through what happens when reproducing the critical 0.1mW or 1 mW, which is what you're listening to 99% of the time.
Poor amplifiers can easily have >-60dB crossover distortion here, and it's more audible (and way more fatiguing) than -60dB transducer distortion because crossover distortion has large 4HD to 10HD harmonic components which are perceived as unnatural, whereas transducer distortion is primarily lower order 2HD, 3HD which are less unnatural (they're found in nature all the time). Good amplifiers like AAA maintain low <-120 dB crossover distortion at 0.1 mW all the way up to several watts.
Lack of crossover distortion is the main hypothesized reason why AAA sounds more pleasant than conventional amps, even if conventional amps measure fine at high output power (where crossover distortion is swamped out).
It would be interesting to compare headphone amplifiers THD and THD+N at 1 mW output. @amirm comes close with his 50mW SINAD test.
 
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I think you missed the question about what the way is you're able determine between good and excellent amps are though? All you said was "if you have a decently engineered amp with enough power, it comes down to the headphones or speakers".
I never said I could tell the difference between good and excellent amps. I said that in double blind tests people cannot tell the difference between good-excellent amps with enough power operated below clipping. So basically I said the opposite. I said if an amp is good to excellent people can't hear the difference between that amp and another good to excellent amp, meaning you can tell the difference between a good and a poor amp, but not between two good amps.
No idea if I personally can tell the difference between a good amp and an excellent amp--I've never tried it. But if people in double-blind studies can't tell the difference between two amps that are good to excellent, then I doubt I can.

"Oh and headphones are the bottleneck as you state in the start of your post. The only thing is, it's irrelevent because headphones are also at the point where differentiation between one or the other is basically down to FR(and this has nothing to do with quality as FR can eb corrected with EQ, but a bad FR does show lazy development of a headphone if that's something you would count, which I would agree wtih) and not actual other serious sonic qualities we somehow can't measure as some deluded audiophools claim (aside from distortion metrics sometimes due to headphone rig differentiations or headphone geometry construction that lead to undesired effects like resonanaces that may require a tad better gear to measure, or having parts that are created stupidly not taking into account things like contact with the ear and the driver)."

"Audiophools" are actually right about this. Amps and dacs can easily be reduced to measurements, but not headphones. It is a matter of taste whether someone likes one excellent headphone over another. I don't think I believe in the existence of "serious sonic qualities we somehow can't measure", but I also don't think you can place a score on a headphone that tells you how "objectively good" it is, whatever that might mean.

"...headphones are also at the point where differentiation between one or the other is basically down to FR(and this has nothing to do with quality as FR can eb corrected with EQ, but a bad FR does show lazy development of a headphone if that's something you would count, which I would agree with...headphones have also reached nearly the same status as DAC's and AMP's, audible transparency essentially".

This is objectively false. Notice lack of a headphone ranking chart on this site with corresponding measurement calcs. You can take frequency measurements using headphones on a dummy or whatever and try to assume a flat measurement is perfect and take into account the ways in which the sound bounces off your head making it less flat. But at the end of the day, there are too many variables and too many assumptions that have to be made. You end up with a squiggly line on a piece of paper that doesn't mean shit about whether you will like one headphone vs another one.
 
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Tks

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I never said I could tell the difference between good and excellent amps. I said that in double blind tests people cannot tell the difference between good-excellent amps with enough power operated below clipping. So basically I said the opposite. I said if an amp is good to excellent people can't hear the difference between that amp and another good to excellent amp, meaning you can tell the difference between a good and a poor amp, but not between two good amps.
No idea if I personally can tell the difference between a good amp and an excellent amp--I've never tried it. But if people in double-blind studies can't tell the difference between two amps that are good to excellent, then I doubt I can.

"Oh and headphones are the bottleneck as you state in the start of your post. The only thing is, it's irrelevent because headphones are also at the point where differentiation between one or the other is basically down to FR(and this has nothing to do with quality as FR can eb corrected with EQ, but a bad FR does show lazy development of a headphone if that's something you would count, which I would agree wtih) and not actual other serious sonic qualities we somehow can't measure as some deluded audiophools claim (aside from distortion metrics sometimes due to headphone rig differentiations or headphone geometry construction that lead to undesired effects like resonanaces that may require a tad better gear to measure, or having parts that are created stupidly not taking into account things like contact with the ear and the driver)."

"Audiophools" are actually right about this. Amps and dacs can easily be reduced to measurements, but not headphones. It is a matter of taste whether someone likes one excellent headphone over another. I don't think I believe in the existence of "serious sonic qualities we somehow can't measure", but I also don't think you can place a score on a headphone that tells you how "objectively good" it is, whatever that might mean.

"...headphones are also at the point where differentiation between one or the other is basically down to FR(and this has nothing to do with quality as FR can eb corrected with EQ, but a bad FR does show lazy development of a headphone if that's something you would count, which I would agree with...headphones have also reached nearly the same status as DAC's and AMP's, audible transparency essentially".

This is objectively false. Notice lack of a headphone ranking chart on this site with corresponding measurement calcs. You can take frequency measurements using headphones on a dummy or whatever and try to assume a flat measurement is perfect and take into account the ways in which the sound bounces off your head making it less flat. But at the end of the day, there are too many variables and too many assumptions that have to be made. You end up with a squiggly line on a piece of paper that doesn't mean shit about whether you will like one headphone vs another one.

Okay, I'll make it shorter this time.

No one was asking how literally you tell the difference. The guy asking the question meant to ask how would anyone differentiate between good or excellent amps from your view. Like what would one need to do when buying an amp to differentiate between one or the other.

Again, the question isn't asking you to test your abilities, we're asking for the method required in the first place to even begin such deliberations rationally.
 
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Again, you can't. I sincerely hope this helps.

Oh yeah. You bring your tube amp to the amp store and compare it with the good to excellent amp to make sure it doesn't sound all warm and fuzzy.

Also sell car on way to amp store. Take public transport to oscilloscope store. Buy audioprescision analyzer xxx. Take bus to amp store. Analyze all balanced amps, and figure out which ones are good and which ones are excellent. Profit.
 
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LuckyLuke575

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Massdrop operates on take money and then build. Monoprice hopefully can foot the bill for production in advance of orders.

That is the customer service catastrophe and scam at the same time. I can't bring myself to buy anything on that site.
 

ZeDestructor

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That is the customer service catastrophe and scam at the same time. I can't bring myself to buy anything on that site.

From what I read, CS is just fine, as long as you're not trying to cancel during the manufacturing time (understandable and spelt out very clearly in the contract). It's also not a scam in the slightest: Drop has since day 1 been a groupbuy aggregator/middleman of sorts, going directly to the manufacturer and getting things from there directly. A lot of times, that also means waiting for the thing in question to be manufactured first, which, once again, is clearly spelt out from the get go with a timeline and everything.

The downside of such a method is that you can't get a replacement item if the one you got is faulty, but that's the price you pay.
 

Tks

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Again, you can't. I sincerely hope this helps.

Oh yeah. You bring your tube amp to the amp store and compare it with the good to excellent amp to make sure it doesn't sound all warm and fuzzy.

Also sell car on way to amp store. Take public transport to oscilloscope store. Buy audioprescision analyzer xxx. Take bus to amp store. Analyze all balanced amps, and figure out which ones are good and which ones are excellent. Profit.

You're not understanding me. What me and the other guy who asked was wondering was how would anyone be able to differentiate between good or excellent amps. We're asking for the definition between one or the other. We're not asking you how do we personally (or how you would do it) go about finding out, we're asking for what the procedure would be conceptually if we could do it.

The reason we ask is because you talk about such differences, and all we're asking is how would anyone in any way be able to differentiate between one or the other in theory. We're basically asking what the definition form your point of view - on what a good amp is, versus an excellent amp from someone seeking an objective understanding of those two types of amps.
 
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You're not understanding me. What me and the other guy who asked was wondering was how would anyone be able to differentiate between good or excellent amps. We're asking for the definition between one or the other. We're not asking you how do we personally (or how you would do it) go about finding out, we're asking for what the procedure would be conceptually if we could do it.

The reason we ask is because you talk about such differences, and all we're asking is how would anyone in any way be able to differentiate between one or the other in theory. We're basically asking what the definition form your point of view - on what a good amp is, versus an excellent amp from someone seeking an objective understanding of those two types of amps.

Yeah I know what you are saying. You are trying to get me to say "the measurements" because I was stating that measurements don't really matter, since people can't tell the difference between decent amps and dacs anyway. The measurements are what make us know what is going to be a good amp or an excellent amp, since we can't hear the difference between them. I know, I overlooked that in my earlier statements. Measurements are still important, because without them, how do we know what amps to even shop for without published measurements. I agree it is great that we have someone to perform independent measurements for us to take the guesswork out of buying amps and dacs.

Still though, I wish there would be a push toward finding new and better ways to measure the measurable aspects of headphones since they are what affects sound the most. Without auditioning, it is very difficult to choose headphones just by reviews, and even with auditions, you are still kind of feeling your way around in the dark, because there is going to be some placebo effect from listening to headphones that are expensive and look cool.
 

Tks

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I wasn't trying to make you say anything, just was wondering what you were trying to say in the first place. Now it all makes sense to me with that clarification.

As far as headphones, I fully agree. Tbh I don't even care about their sound, more than 50% of the reason I'd even consider a headphone is comfort. I'd gladly take a worse headphone if its more comfortable than the other(dumped LCD2C's for HD6XXs). The whole sound "signature" of a headphone is far to varried between subjective impressions between models that I don't even look at anything beyond FR and distortion metrics. Things like "soundstage" and other such nonsense is so subjective I'd have trouble trusting even measurements pertaining to it until some industry wide standardization came out for it that made logical sense.
 

maxxevv

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FourT6and2

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For that price ?

Nah ... I'll stick with the DX3Pro that has the same functionality ( Plus BT receiver) at 1/5 the price (on discount).

I don't think 3.5mm connection @ 10ohms and less than 3/4 watt of power would work for me.
 
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dropbear

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This looks promising. The not-yet-released all-in-one looks interesting if you want an amp/dac combo. Anybody have news about this one?
https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=304&cp_id=30405&cs_id=3040505&p_id=38967&seq=1&format=2&res=1
For that price it better be good, at the end it is still Monoprice...I hope it will have a remote and output selector and perform really well...at least they nailed the looks, I am a sucker for this chasis design like with that little baby 100$ amp.
 

FourT6and2

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Avoid the name Alex Cavalli. Just saying...

I don't know who that is. I'm new to all of this, but the other products in that lineup seem to have tested well, no? I'm finding it hard to source an amp/dac all-in-one that meets my requirements. Why is this so haaaard lol

I'll probably have to go with separate dac + amp I suppose.
 

DonMobliano

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I don't know who that is. I'm new to all of this, but the other products in that lineup seem to have tested well, no? I'm finding it hard to source an amp/dac all-in-one that meets my requirements. Why is this so haaaard lol

I'll probably have to go with separate dac + amp I suppose.

The RME ADI-2 DAC is fantastic. I love mine!
 
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