renaudrenaud
Major Contributor
I've sold a lot of audiophile grade equipment accumulated amount few decades. No regrets and I am sure the buyers love them.
I personally think you 'should' at least try things out and don't rely on measurements alone - perhaps this review of the D90 will make you think about not just taking the linear approach to choosing audio components ... you really must listen for yourself.
Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus.
If it wasn't for ASR, I would have gotten this, it has most of the features I need, well within my budget, I liked their CD player, and it's a reputable brand known for good value and reasonable price. If not for ASR, I would never buy some Chinese brand that I never heard of over this one.
Although if I bought it, it would be far from my worst audio decision.
That and some high end custom pure silver XLR cables.
I didn't listen, but now I've got an incredible stack for the office. The 789's build quality and feel is the only real improvement for my use case and borderline worth it. I also have the ability to run balanced if I ever want to get into some hard to drive headphones in the future. My HE4XX are the hardest to drive, and they are pretty much identical on the atom and 789, though the 789 has more gain to push it above safe listening levels. Man, what a time to be an audiophile.Massdrop THX AAA 789
supposedly sounds the same to Atom
Interesting on how the same review can lead to different behaviors : that's one of the pieces I did purchase because of ASR.
Interesting on how the same review can lead to different behaviors : that's one of the pieces I did purchase because of ASR.
This was a very kind, full-worded response to that post. It was nice to read.Thanks for your reply. I haven't checked out that review (as it's more than 20 min and I just saw your comment), but I've put it on my list and will watch it later today.
You've every right to your personal opinion and I certainly understand the logic of listening for oneself. Auditioning gear - for sound, build quality, usability, presence or absence of noise/hum in one's individual setup, etc. - can be very valuable when it's feasible.
However, I think your position here - and your subsequent comment that "you need to try all options" - has a basic logical flaw. We cannot in fact "try all options" because we lack the time and money to do so. There are dozens, and in most cases 100s of options for every part of a potential stereo system, and not even the wealthiest, most dedicated "listening only, no measurements" subjectivist tries anything more than a tiny fraction of the equipment that's out there.
Even if you decided to try, say, only five examples of each item in the signal chain, and even if you have only speakers, a power amp, a digital source, speaker cables, and component interconnects, that's still more than 3,000 possible combinations you'd have to listen to.
So all of us use pre-listening information to narrow down our choices. The only question is what information we use.
By using measurements that have a well-documented correlation with performance, I'm able to greatly narrow down my choices. For example, flat frequency response in my digital source component/DAC and amplifier - plus an amp whose measurements show that its frequency response is insensitive to impedance variations - means I can be confident that frequency coloration is occurring only in my speakers (and the interaction with the room). Any source component, DAC, or amp whose measurements suggest it might not be flat from 20Hz-20kHz, I rule out of consideration, narrowing the field.
Similarly, low noise measurements tell me that it's less likely I will hear hissing or buzzing or humming from my speakers when I put the new piece of equipment into my system. More specifically, if I have unusually high-efficiency speakers - or if I think I might upgrade to higher-efficiency speakers in the future - then by looking for a very low-noise preamp, I can increase the chances that I won't have hissing or buzzing or humming issues (since high-efficiency speakers can accentuate that).
For interconnects, I know from certain physics- backed electrical principles, backed by an overwhelming number of measurements easily accessible online, that a certain gauge of speaker cable will work fine for a certain length of run, and that there are a large number of affordable interconnects that have been tested and produce results identical to (or in some cases better than) much more expensive interconnects. So I can narrow down the field there, based on specs, performance, and price.
With all of this my choices remain somewhat random - for every piece of equipment I have, there are others I could have gotten instead that would perform equally well and likely be indistinguishable. There are also many that might sound very slightly different, but - and this is crucial - not necessarily better or worse. And there are no doubt some that would indeed sound better or worse to me. I will never know with 100% certainty if I have the best performance per dollar from my purchases - and neither will you or anyone else.
I think the underlying difference in our perspectives is something much more basic. I have no interest in using source components, amplifiers, component interconnects, or speaker cables as tone controls. For me, tone controls, equalizers, and DSP are what should be used to actively and intentionally change the sonic profile of one's system (plus speakers and acoustic treatments, although with them its more of a necessity than a desirable situation that they influence the sound so much). What I'm looking for is maximum fidelity, which I equate with good sound but which some folks do not necessarily equate with good sound.
Vinyl playback and tube amplification are measurably, demonstrably lower fidelity than well-engineered, high-quality digital playback and solid-state amplification. So too, albeit to a lesser degree, is it easier and more likely to have IC-based op amps and single-chip DACs that are more accurate than discrete-component op amps and R2R DACs. (Certainly not impossible for discrete/R2R units to achieve superb fidelity - just harder to design, harder to control for unit to unit variation, and usually more expensive.) No reasonable person can dispute this with regard to fidelity. Yet our audiophile world is full of folks who prefer the sound of tubes and vinyl, and who at least claim to prefer the sound of discrete op amps and R2R DACs (and in some cases, 1980s 14-bit DACs and NOS DACs). They've every right to their listening-based preferences - but the notion that there is some greater fidelity magically lurking in these lower-fi components - that measurements not only do not tell the full story but actually indicate the opposite of the real story - is a notion with no real evidence to back it up.
If folks who prefer sound that deviates from maximum fidelity in certain ways would simply say that and be fine with that, we wouldn't have to have a lot of these disagreements.
I personally think you 'should' at least try things out and don't rely on measurements alone - perhaps this review of the D90 will make you think about not just taking the linear approach to choosing audio components ... you really must listen for yourself.
I personally think you 'should' at least try things out and don't rely on measurements alone - perhaps this review of the D90 will make you think about not just taking the linear approach to choosing audio components ... you really must listen for yourself.
I did notice Currawong also posted a video yesterday pretty clearly slagging Amir and the ASR community off.
Yeah wtf was that about?I did notice Currawong also posted a video yesterday pretty clearly slagging Amir and the ASR community off.
What responses?Will never buy Emotiva gear. After seeing their responses to ASR measurements. Very unprofessional.
Who’s currawong??Yeah wtf was that about?
What responses?
Who’s currawong??