Well I bought a Monoprice tube amp/dac

[Sythrix]

Also the amp in the RME certainly has that analytical bite in the mids. The RME amp can be upgraded easily. It isn't great. The dac is good.

Seems pretty powerful and sounds good to me. Obviously it's not the best there is, but it's light years beyond the FX-Audio DAC X6 I was using before it.

Still, I can't wait to try out the THX 789 after Amir has a go at it (assuming it's not total crap anyways... which I can't believe it would be).

 

[amirm]

hope amir will be interested in measuring it in the future

I like to measure it but at 20 pounds, it will cost fair bit to ship it back and forth unless we send it ground or something.

 

[watchnerd]

Also the amp in the RME certainly has that analytical bite in the mids. The RME amp can be upgraded easily. It isn't great. The dac is good.

I haven't noticed any analytical bite on the cans I use. Seems pretty dead neutral, low distortion, and quiet to me at the volumes I listen to, with the sound being colored by the mix and headphones.

But it certainly doesn't have the extra flavoring of 2H that tubes give.

Nothing wrong with euphonia. I like it, too.

 

[watchnerd]

Seems pretty powerful and sounds good to me. Obviously it's not the best there is, but it's light years beyond the FX-Audio DAC X6 I was using before it.

Still, I can't wait to try out the THX 789 after Amir has a go at it (assuming it's not total crap anyways... which I can't believe it would be).

The amp specs for the THX 789 are beyond impressive, although surely massively over-engineered for most needs.

However, it needs an outboard DAC and I'm now of the philosophical POV that shorter signal paths fewer boxes are good and Moore's Law allows us to cram a lot more high performance into one box with less heat and noise penalties than we used to have.

I used to be a separates guy. Now I'm an all-in-one guy.

 

[Sythrix]

Now I'm an all-in-one guy.

Monoprice has you covered... assuming they ever get around to releasing the damn thing. It's been pushed back 3 or 4 times now.

 

[watchnerd]

Monoprice has you covered... assuming they ever get around to releasing the damn thing. It's been pushed back 3 or 4 times now.

Dirac Sensaround II built in?

Hadn't even heard of that until now.

 

[Sythrix]

Dirac Sensaround II built in?

Hadn't even heard of that until now.

Neither have I. Looks to be some kind of DSP type artificial surround sound emulation.

I would never enable it for music... but maybe it would be good for gaming or movies.

Still debating on whether or not I buy this once it releases. Probably going to hold off and wait for reviews and impressions.

 

[Rod]

I like to measure it but at 20 pounds, it will cost fair bit to ship it back and forth unless we send it ground or something.

OK Amirm, a few weeks. Its new to me. I am going to run it 24 hours a day for several days. I am using the internal dac now.

 

[Rod]

I haven't noticed any analytical bite on the cans I use. Seems pretty dead neutral, low distortion, and quiet to me at the volumes I listen to, with the sound being colored by the mix and headphones.

But it certainly doesn't have the extra flavoring of 2H that tubes give.

Nothing wrong with euphonia. I like it, too.

Could be the recordings I guess.

 

[Jimmy]

I know that the current trend of balanced hp amps is mostly marketing hype and the difference in sound most of the time is due to the fact that in most units totally different circuitry drives the se and bal. outputs, so in the end they won't sound the same.

The HD800s comes with a balanced cable, they should sell it without it, but since you're paying a mandatory 250€ for it I would like to try it, and the new THX amp/dac combos are promising.

Regarding tube amps, they will never measure as well as solid state, but good ones add something special to the sound, and unless the design is poor no noise or unpleasant distortion should be heard, but as with everything in this hobby they are not everyone's cup of tea, and as I said before now I lean more towards solid state (but I still keep tube gear and enjoy it).

Regarding vst tube plugins i tried several ones but never found it to be capable of replacing the real thing, they don't even come close.

 

[Wombat]

The amp specs for the THX 789 are beyond impressive, although surely massively over-engineered for most needs.

However, it needs an outboard DAC and I'm now of the philosophical POV that shorter signal paths are good and Moore's Law allows us to cram a lot more high performance into one box with less heat and noise penalties than we used to have.

I used to be a separates guy. Now I'm an all-in-one guy.

That old 'shorter signal paths are good' chestnut is stated yet again - on ASR can you believe?

If only it were so simple or correct.

 

[watchnerd]

That old 'shorter signal paths are good' chestnut is stated yet again - on ASR can you believe?

If only it were so simple or correct.View attachment 15454

Of course it's not that simple (nor did I say it was).

 

[Krunok]

Of course it's not that simple (nor did I say it was).

This is what you said: " I'm now of the philosophical POV that shorter signal paths are good".

Frankly, as an engineer I never quite understood what exactly "shorter" means in this context.

 

[watchnerd]

This is what you said: " I'm now of the philosophical POV that shorter signal paths are good".

Frankly, as an engineer I never quite understood what exactly "shorter" means in this context.

Saying shorter is good is not saying it's the only thing that matters, nor is it saying it's the most important thing.

But from an engineering reality POV, where most things have to be designed to a price point, if I can keep the noise and heat low enough, while still maintaining performance, having everything in a single box lets me potentially use a single power supply, a single chassis, a single container, etc, leaving more budget for elsewhere.

I'm basically talking about the well known benefits of increasing miniaturization. This is hardly anti-science.

In fact, I would argue that the common audiophile preference for massive stacks of separates, each with a dedicated purpose, chassis, and power supply, is an anachronistic throwback to pre-integrated circuit electronics when things had to be done that way.

 

[Krunok]

I'm basically talking about the well known benefits of increasing miniaturization. This is hardly anti-science.

It's not anti-science, but it is a false fact. You may think that signal path has "shortened" with high density chips like modern DACs compared to the discrete transistors and resistor ladder days, but in fact it is not so - it is much more complex and "longer" than ever.

Btw, last time I checked power supply and chassis were not o the signal path.

 

[watchnerd]

It's not anti-science, but it is a false fact. You may think that signal path has "shortened" with high density chips like modern DACs compared to the discrete transistors and resistor ladder days, but in fact it is not so - it is much more complex and "longer" than ever.

Btw, last time I checked power supply and chassis were not o the signal path.

Okay, let's amend the "short signal path" statement to say "fewer boxes."

 

[Krunok]

Okay, let's amend the "short signal path" statement to say "fewer boxes."

If you're referring to what you said before ("having everything in a single box lets me potentially use a single power supply ") that should be taken with great care as most high quality components use dedicated power supplies for good reason. For example, you can make an integrated amp sound equally good as with the separated preamp and power amp but in that case you certainly wouldn't be using the same power supply for the preamp and amp section.

 

[Deleted member 3566]

The amp specs for the THX 789 are beyond impressive, .

How are they "beyond impressive"? I'm genuinely curious when asking this question. I'm not fairly knowledgeable when it comes to audio gear, but from what I've been taught headphone scalability with more powerful amps are considered a very real thing. For example, the Argon (T50RP mod) I have, supposedly sounds very nice up to 5-6 watts of power (all Planars tend to like a lot of juice).

But all the various amps recommended on this forum seem to be on the lower side of the spectrum, when it comes to power. Take for example, the THX 789, which supposedly has "amp specs....beyond impressive" -- at least for the ones recommended on this forum. It has

Balanced Output power: 6000 mW @ 32 ohms,

Single-Ended output power: 1800 mW @ 32 ohms

How is that impressive? That means I would probably get somewhere around 3000 mW output on my Argon (53 ohm) on Balanced, or 900 mW on Single-Ended. For comparison, the NFB 11.28, which I previously owned, provided 1800 mW in single-ended output power at 50 ohms.

Again, I'm not writing this to shit on anybody, but I'm genuinely interested. I really appreciate this forum and the reviews being conducted here, and have a very high regard of it. But I find it really difficult to find a good headphone amp (or DAC/Amp) to buy myself, from those that have been tested on this forum, as they all seem to be fairly lean when it comes to output power (like the RME ADI-2 Pro, which costs a massive amount of money and has a fairly weak amplifier from the specifications I found -- maybe that's why they never its mention output in the majority of the sites it's being sold on). Is there something I'm missing here? Is the whole "you need powerful amps" claim just pure bullshit, or is it that the general audience in here carry audio equipment that don't need to a lot of power?

 

[derp1n]

How are they "beyond impressive"? I'm genuinely curious when asking this question.

It's a very low distortion amplifier, especially for the price. Your NFB 11.28 might output more power, but it's unlikely to be anywhere near as clean - I don't see any useful measurements in this area in Audio-GD's official specs, so it's hard to tell... but their gear generally performs pretty poorly.

I'm not fairly knowledgeable when it comes to audio gear, but from what I've been taught headphone scalability with more powerful amps are considered a very real thing. For example, the Argon (T50RP mod) I have, supposedly sounds very nice up to 5-6 watts of power (all Planars tend to like a lot of juice).

Headphone/amp scaling is a meme. It's complete rubbish.

 

[alont]

@generalako It seems like the t50rp headphones have a 50 ohm impedance, and an efficiency of 92db/1mw

Plug those two specs into a headphone power calculator, and you'll see that 60mw of good, clean power is more than enough for your headphones (this is assuming you don't listen at ear-meltingly high volume).

Now, this doesn't mean an amp with 60mw power output is good enough - you need to make sure that it can deliver enough current (35 mA) and that it will perform cleanly in those levels.
Typically, when amps are forced to give their rated output power, they are already kinda "choking" and the resulting signal won't be as clean as it would if the amps were running at a lower power output.
This is why it's recommended to add a bit of headroom to the power output we calculated in the beginning. I usually add 6db just to be safe, which would result in 240mw of required output power from the amp.

As you can see, the THX789 would have more than enough power for your Argons.