What *ifi?! Truth?!! Integrity?!!! - Come hither, if your blood pressure can take it.

[Vacceo]

Oh, so what coloured sound would you like live instruments to have instead of the actual sound they make?

Oh well, I´d have been very dissapointed if the 15 or so times I saw Motörhead live, they sounded clean.

 

[Chester]

I remember this guy popping up on forums when he was starting out, the sense of entitlement was overwhelming. It was also very obvious his main reason for taking up reviewing was to make money. I’m surprised he’s still going.

 

[Loathecliff]

a combined streamer/DAC/Headphone amp makes a lot of sense as does an integrated amp with a streamer--a modern"receiver"

Until one part fails, and you wish you had separates.
(& now I'm aiding my own thread to go further off-topic .......Mod(s) do something!!)

 

[Waxx]

The thing is, you said you like coloured sound.

Yes i do, it makes listening to music more fun for me. But if you disagree, get a clean system and enjoy music and don't bother my preference. Because that is what it is a personal subjective preference.

And yes, i've heared a lot of clean systems also. I worked in music studio's and still do radio broadcasting where i hear clean systems like Genelec and Kii audio monitors. They are great for monitoring and mxing, but to listen to music i prefer other systems. My own home systems are largely diy build and based arround fullrange drivers, class A mosfet amps and tube amps and i love the sound they make and i don't care what you think about it as it's build for me, myself and I.

 

[voodooless]

The more we write about these people oe mention them, the more we help them perpetuate their BS spewing.
FWIW, as a matter of principle, I don't click on such links.

Pretending they don’t exist doesn’t make them go away.

 

[killdozzer]

@Newman He still doesn't get it.

 

[sq225917]

Naming them only improves their ability to be found on the search engines. Deny them the oxygen of publicity.

 

[voodooless]

Naming them only improves their ability to be found on the search engines. Deny them the oxygen of publicity.

It works both ways, it also makes these topics easier to be found.

 

[egellings]

I say, if it tickles your nun-handles in the right way, then enjoy the music it provides, regardless of its measured performance. You just don't get to brag that your equipment is the best out there. It likely may not be.

 

[JRS]

Until one part fails, and you wish you had separates.
(& now I'm aiding my own thread to go further off-topic .......Mod(s) do something!!)

Yea, I here you and generally use separates for amplification and somewhere in storage I have a very capable Luxman tuner,, but here where keeping the digital all in one house seems sensible to me. I no longer subscribe to the belief that dedicated devices do a better job with digital, the lunacy of having a separate reader for optical discs being exhibit number one. Of course, I also can't here what my Topping Dx3 Pro+ is doing wrong vs separates costing well North of 1000 USD.

 

[Waxx]

Yea, I here you and generally use separates for amplification and somewhere in storage I have a very capable Luxman tuner,, but here where keeping the digital all in one house seems sensible to me. I no longer subscribe to the belief that dedicated devices do a better job with digital, the lunacy of having a separate reader for optical discs being exhibit number one. Of course, I also can't here what my Topping Dx3 Pro+ is doing wrong vs separates costing well North of 1000 USD.

On it's own, nothing really. But i'm more keen to seperate because some parts get outdated, especially digital parts, while some parts may stay good, especially (pre)amplifiers and will last way longer than the digital part. I also use several systems that are fed from one preamp and series of sources, what saves also a lot of money. If i want to listen vinyl in my office, i just need to go to the room next to it (my living room aka music room) and put a vinyl on, and i don't need a seperate turntable in my office. Idem with digital sources btw, altough i also have a laptop in my office that can play music but my dac is old there, an old Steinberg UR22, not on level of the dac i have in my living room.

But each uses what fits them best i think, so if it's all in one for you, enjoy it.

 

[MCH]

If there already exists a collection of the trash written by and about my 'favourite' magazine group, I apologise.

This one really takes the prize

My Favourite Credible HiFi Websites - 13th Note HiFi Reviews

I describe Audiophile HiFi websites, other than my own, which I really rate and go to for credible and reliable information.

www.13thnote.net

​

I must say, many years ago i needed to buy an amplifier. Never ever had visited any hifi website before. Google sent me directly to whathifi. Read around a bit and ended up with a Yamaha A-S500. Enjoyed it some years and sold it for ca 60% of what i paid new new.
I was lucky i guess

 

[JRS]

On it's own, nothing really. But i'm more keen to seperate because some parts get outdated, especially digital parts, while some parts may stay good, especially (pre)amplifiers and will last way longer than the digital part. I also use several systems that are fed from one preamp and series of sources, what saves also a lot of money. If i want to listen vinyl in my office, i just need to go to the room next to it (my living room aka music room) and put a vinyl on, and i don't need a seperate turntable in my office. Idem with digital sources btw, altough i also have a laptop in my office that can play music but my dac is old there, an old Steinberg UR22, not on level of the dac i have in my living room.

But each uses what fits them best i think, so if it's all in one for you, enjoy it.

The question arises as to whether the past say fifteen years of digital progress has resulted in sonic improvements--an answer to which I suspect would generate some major differences in opinion on this forum. I hear little (if any)difference but have a "tin" ear for tiny differences. But my ideal set up would include a pre-pro for DSP, input selection and DAC's. Preferably one that is somewhat future proof. Streamer would be separate, but I would likely settle for a good laptop controlled via tablet.

My DEQX, which I am trying to find an affordable replacement, for offers SPDIF, Coax, and line level inputs and supports phantom mic input. While I know that the 20 year old DAC's ad ADC's are generations old, it still sounds really, really good, though a bit noisy by today's standards. Meanwhile the US dealer rep thinks I am nuts for not having upgraded years ago. I just smile and think of the $$ I have saved by having these tin ears.

But I get that my views are decidedly antiquarian.

 

[JRS]

I must say, many years ago i needed to buy an amplifier. Never ever had visited any hifi website before. Google sent me directly to whathifi. Read around a bit and ended up with a Yamaha A-S500. Enjoyed it some years and sold it for ca 60% of what i paid new new.
I was lucky i guess

And I have made decisions based on Stereo Review and Audio reviews that served me well. In fact, it wasn't until I started reading Stereophile in the late 80's that I came down with "upgrade-itis." Coincidence? Meanwhile those magazines have followed the dinosaurs to extinction and an honest watt spec increasingly difficult to find.

Yamaha and Marantz are brands that are relatively affordable while holding value IME.

 

[srkbear]

Yes i do, it makes listening to music more fun for me. But if you disagree, get a clean system and enjoy music and don't bother my preference. Because that is what it is a personal subjective preference.

And yes, i've heared a lot of clean systems also. I worked in music studio's and still do radio broadcasting where i hear clean systems like Genelec and Kii audio monitors. They are great for monitoring and mxing, but to listen to music i prefer other systems. My own home systems are largely diy build and based arround fullrange drivers, class A mosfet amps and tube amps and i love the sound they make and i don't care what you think about it as it's build for me, myself and I.

For the record, I have never heard Amir disdain “colored sound”. He follows every headphone measurement review with listening tests after he has applied DSP PEQ to his own preferences. We all have our own colorations we enjoy, whether they be the “warmth” acquired through the distortions of tubes or vinyl, or adjustments to tonality or imaging via equalization, convolution or cross feed—the options are fairly limitless.

The point is to have standards by which we determine the fidelity a given component maintains to the source material. We can argue all day about whether the available master is a valid facsimile of what the original artist intended, but the bottom line is the measuring process doesn’t care—it’s assessing how much noise or distortion is being added to the end result through errors in the DA process, for whichever master we have to work with.

Just as DAC measurements provide an assessment of how accurately the original master is reproduced through the DA conversion process, the Harman Curve is a similar standard devised to help tame an industry that has never conformed to any reference point in terms of how headphones should be tuned in order to satisfy the listening preferences of the greatest number of consumers. Given the infinite number of variances that influence how we respond to a given headphone’s tuning—from age, hearing acuity, fit, to even the shape of our ears—no two people are going to hear a given headphone the exact same way. Having a baseline to compare is surely a reasonable way to give consumers some point of reference when making purchase decisions.

You may like the colorations brought through modifications to the source material, but you’re not being rigorous about the etiology of those colorations—simply saying you like colored sound doesn’t describe how it’s brought about. But I think we can all agree that we don’t want uncontrolled processing errors or flaws to construction to be providing undisciplined colorations to our system’s sound—we should be starting with a clean palate and adding intentional colorations to suit our individual tastes, don’t you think?

 

[Waxx]

For the record, I have never heard Amir disdain “colored sound”. He follows every headphone measurement review with listening tests after he has applied DSP PEQ to his own preferences. We all have our own colorations we enjoy, whether they be the “warmth” acquired through the distortions of tubes or vinyl, or adjustments to tonality or imaging via equalization, convolution or cross feed—the options are fairly limitless.

The point is to have standards by which we determine the fidelity a given component maintains to the source material. We can argue all day about whether the available master is a valid facsimile of what the original artist intended, but the bottom line is the measuring process doesn’t care—it’s assessing how much noise or distortion is being added to the end result through errors in the DA process, for whichever master we have to work with.

Just as DAC measurements provide an assessment of how accurately the original master is reproduced through the DA conversion process, the Harman Curve is a similar standard devised to help tame an industry that has never conformed to any reference point in terms of how headphones should be tuned in order to satisfy the listening preferences of the greatest number of consumers. Given the infinite number of variances that influence how we respond to a given headphone’s tuning—from age, hearing acuity, fit, to even the shape of our ears—no two people are going to hear a given headphone the exact same way. Having a baseline to compare is surely a reasonable way to give consumers some point of reference when making purchase decisions.

You may like the colorations brought through modifications to the source material, but you’re not being rigorous about the etiology of those colorations—simply saying you like colored sound doesn’t describe how it’s brought about. But I think we can all agree that we don’t want uncontrolled processing errors or flaws to construction to be providing undisciplined colorations to our system’s sound—we should be starting with a clean palate and adding intentional colorations to suit our individual tastes, don’t you think?

I agree that everything can be measured, even colourations in sound. I'm an objectivist on that (and allergic to snake oil), but have a subjective taste. And some (not Amir) can't handle that i like colouration of tube amps, vinyl and so, even if they are technically no t as good as some other design types. They want to push me to the clean sound i don't like for hifi listening.

And i'm a diy guy, i build most of my speakers myself. My next project is actually a project for a clean speaker. Trying to get as clean as possible with a tight budget. That will be multiway with dsp and class D amps, not fullrange drivers with class A or tubes like my hifi setup is. The speaker will be used as a kind of "studio monitor"-like speakers for home when for i'm making prerecorded radio broadcasts (I'm doing a weekly radioshow for over 17 years now on a local FM station). I'm stil finetuning the design at the moment. I don't think i wil archive the results of toplevel speakers with my limited tools and amateur experience, but it's a challenge and designing it is half the fun.

 

[srkbear]

I agree that everything can be measured, even colourations in sound. I'm an objectivist on that (and allergic to snake oil), but have a subjective taste. And some (not Amir) can't handle that i like colouration of tube amps, vinyl and so, even if they are technically no t as good as some other design types. They want to push me to the clean sound i don't like for hifi listening.

And i'm a diy guy, i build most of my speakers myself. My next project is actually a project for a clean speaker. Trying to get as clean as possible with a tight budget. That will be multiway with dsp and class D amps, not fullrange drivers with class A or tubes like my hifi setup is. The speaker will be used as a kind of "studio monitor"-like speakers for home when for i'm making prerecorded radio broadcasts (I'm doing a weekly radioshow for over 17 years now on a local FM station). I'm stil finetuning the design at the moment. I don't think i wil archive the results of toplevel speakers with my limited tools and amateur experience, but it's a challenge and designing it is half the fun.

Hey, I’m a DIY guy myself—I build guitar amps, vintage Fender Tweed replicas, and I’m all about utilizing valves to achieve the warmth and tone that is desirable from these particular amplifiers. And I have a tube Hi-Fi amp as well.

But I still don’t see how Amir or anyone else on here is trying to shame you for preferring tube amps—if he did he’d be alienating a huge chunk of his audience. Amir has tested many tube amplifiers, and I think he’s pretty diplomatic with his distortion assessments by saying that that this amp or that is performing well for what can be expected from their particular construction—he’s merely acknowledging what we all surely accept as a feature among valve amps.

I’ve never heard him trash an amp because of the tubes themselves—he has his own standards he applies for that category. And I would think that having such information to differentiate between a well-designed tube amp and one that is noisy or distorted from a shoddy implementation would be valuable for those of us making purchase decisions—the fact that you build your own is decidedly a rarity. And I think the vast majority of folks on here would never argue with someone who is satisfied with the sound of their setups—the primary vibe I’ve found here is about painting mustaches on pricey brands who make outlandish claims that are not borne out by evidence.

 

[egellings]

Tube amps are best home-brewed, not purchased. Their simple, forgiving circuits make that effort likely to result in success, and the glow of "made it myself" goes well with the glow of the tubes.

 

[srkbear]

Tube amps are best home-brewed, not purchased. Their simple, forgiving circuits make that effort likely to result in success, and the glow of "made it myself" goes well with the glow of the tubes.

Well I can say this, with all due modesty—the ‘58 Fender Tweed Bassman repro I built sounds as good or better than any original I’ve heard and the total cost with vintage parts and NOS Telefunken/Mullard tubes was $1,300. Vintage ones in similar condition would go for over $10,000 at least.

But for those of you who build DIY Hi-Fi audio, my hat tips to you—guitar amps are way more forgiving and I’d sooner grab a hot filter cap than dare plug my headphones into any amp I built myself…

And if you’re building them and they are better than the prefab ones out there, quote me some prices, I’m buying!

 

[egellings]

My homebrew comments were meant to apply only to hi-fi amplifiers. I am not involved with musicians' amplifiers at all. That's a whole different category of amplification in which some colorations, anathema to hi-fi, might be considered desirable attributes.