Schiit Heresy hot treble?

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Geshelli amps are great. Every bit as good as the Heresy, or the JDS Atom. In other words, they'll sound just the same. You're of course free to spend your money on any gear you want...I do it too. I have a Fiio E10k, a Liquid Spark, the Heresy, and I'm considering buying a Geshelli. Help me! lol...But you aren't going to get audible improvement in sound quality. You'll maybe think you've gotten an audible benefit, but you'll be fooling yourself. That's fine too! I do that myself. However, if you really want to improve the sound I'd recommend exploring the wonderful world of EQ. Tune those cans man! You already have essentially perfect signal reaching the headphones (assuming the dac is transparent too - pretty sure the topping is).

 

[Rayman30]

Geshelli amps are great. Every bit as good as the Heresy, or the JDS Atom. In other words, they'll sound just the same. You're of course free to spend your money on any gear you want...I do it too. I have a Fiio E10k, a Liquid Spark, the Heresy, and I'm considering buying a Geshelli. Help me! lol...But you aren't going to get audible improvement in sound quality. You'll maybe think you've gotten an audible benefit, but you'll be fooling yourself. That's fine too! I do that myself. However, if you really want to improve the sound I'd recommend exploring the wonderful world of EQ. Tune those cans man! You already have essentially perfect signal reaching the headphones (assuming the dac is transparent too - pretty sure the topping is).

IKR! Yeah but just ordered a Schiit Magni 3+, curiosity got the best of me, wanted to hear if it’s different to my Magni 3 and Heresy. Now, I really want a THX 778, but sold out

 

[solderdude]

It is quite easy to record the output of both amps using an external soundcard
You can even make an 'adapter' cable that lets you connect a headphone and 'tap' of the signal to an external soundcard.
When there are audible differences it will be recorded and you can let everyone hear it.

 

[raistlin65]

Lots of good debate here, I appreciate it truly, even if I was a little put off initially by the posts dismissing my subjective findings. Think I may switch gears alltogether and get a different amp other than Schiit made, any suggestions for less than $200? was thinking Geshelli? or maybe even just different phones?

One day Il have a pair of ZMF Aeolus or Clears, I guess il have to start playing the lottery.

It's not personal. The scientific evidence indicates otherwise, so anyone here would doubt their own experience if they found the same. You would need to volume level less than 0.5db, which can't be done by ear.

And then once you've perceived that difference, confirmation bias could continue to reaffirm it as long as the comparisons are sighted. Read this to learn more about the power of confirmation bias: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-we-hear.html

 

[DeepFried]

That is frequency response, not distortion vs frequency.

That's what I'm saying.
For the sake of it, These are the headphone amps in a bunch of budget interfaces from the shootout done by Julian Krause. All are within 1 dB of being flat 20-20k (and the rolloff is only on some, at 30hz or lower).

Distortion products... not so much. The roll off is due to bandwidth limitations in Julian's measurements.

I can tell you from experience that these do not sound the same, and the dist vs frequency plot backs that up!

What are these charts supposed to be showing us? that second chart is not distortion vs frequency its distortion + noise vs frequency, we already know from the first chart there is no significant distortion, so doesn't the second chart just tell us some of these low quality amps are noisy?

isn't noise completely different from distortion? I might be wrong i'm pretty new to audio measurements in general, but isn't it true to say distortion is deviation from a flat frequency response e.g. a boosted bass or treble, but noise is just hiss or something similar laid on top of the desired output?

 

[AnalogSteph]

Frequency response deviation is linear distortion - it only affects the amplitude (and possibly phase) of the signal. If need be, it can be reversed fairly easily.
When most people are talking about distortion, they mean nonlinear distortion, which is what a lot of curves in the second graph are clearly limited by. Nonlinear distortion changes the shape of the signal waveform itself, adding additional signal components in the spectrum that are, in general, very hard to get rid of again.
THD+N was chosen because it makes calculating things easy - you can just level match test signal and recorded signal, subtract them, and the remaining "rest" is all distortion + noise. Calculate its ratio vs. the test signal, done. It is possible to isolate just the distortion products to some degree but this takes some fancier processing.

I'll have to look up the source (video, I guess?). Some of those interfaces are nasty. -40 dB worth of mostly 3rd harmonic by 6 kHz? Ouch. In the past I've been able to hear something being off with onboard sound hitting -60 dB by 10 kHz.
EDIT:

 

[Nango]

So I was switching between A. Schiit Modi3 and Magni3 and B. Topping D50S and Schiit Heresy with my Sundara and HD-650, I noticed that I preferred the HD-650 on the Heresy but the Sundara on the Schiit Stack.

Observations:

HD-650 sounds better on the Heresy due to the combination of high detail retrieval and hotter treble negating some of the warmth and darkness of the HD-650
Sundara being a brighter headphone, is being tamed by the Schiit stack's laid back sound signature.

I simply cannot stand the Sundara with the Heresy, and I am wondering if I should look into another amp to maybe meet in the middle with detail and warmth, Schiit Magni 3+ ?

+1, same here. Sundara + Heresy just awfully harsh and bright.

 

[Jimbob54]

Lots of good debate here, I appreciate it truly, even if I was a little put off initially by the posts dismissing my subjective findings. Think I may switch gears alltogether and get a different amp other than Schiit made, any suggestions for less than $200? was thinking Geshelli? or maybe even just different phones?

One day Il have a pair of ZMF Aeolus or Clears, I guess il have to start playing the lottery.

The problem with this approach is , how do you know what attributes of the Sundara/ Heresy didnt work for you? What is to say a new amp and/or cans will get you a better result? Do you have the equipment/ software to experiment with EQ?
Also, stop switching and just listen to the Heresy/ Sundara for a session. I guarantee unless something is absolutely broken, you will like the combo more after an hour.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#589/4011

the Sundara looks to be on the bright side - much like my 400i's. I EQ the highs down slightly with the Heresy...same as I do with the Liquid Spark. It ain't the amp (which is flat as a pancake), it's the cans.

I have a few different sets of headphones. They each have a slightly different signature. I don't buy a new amp for each one, I adjust the EQ for each set.

 

[dfuller]

When most people are talking about distortion, they mean nonlinear distortion, which is what a lot of curves in the second graph are clearly limited by. Nonlinear distortion changes the shape of the signal waveform itself, adding additional signal components in the spectrum that are, in general, very hard to get rid of again.
THD+N was chosen because it makes calculating things easy - you can just level match test signal and recorded signal, subtract them, and the remaining "rest" is all distortion + noise. Calculate its ratio vs. the test signal, done. It is possible to isolate just the distortion products to some degree but this takes some fancier processing.

I'll have to look up the source (video, I guess?). Some of those interfaces are nasty. -40 dB worth of mostly 3rd harmonic by 6 kHz? Ouch. In the past I've been able to hear something being off with onboard sound hitting -60 dB by 10 kHz.

Correct in one - nonlinear distortion is indeed what I'm talking about. It adds extra harmonic (and nonharmonic) information which is essentially impossible to remove later.

And yeah, cheap interfaces have truly shocking head amps. Even my old Audient iD22's was not great, and that costs $500.