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Have I got a bone to pick with you Mister! Actually I don't. I just don't want you to experience disappointment when you're expecting folks to get all worked up about your video and not enough of us actually do. We all have selective hearing, just ask our wives! Seriously though, if you're male and over 50, statistically a wife's hearing will be better than her partner's. A walk in nature with my wife proves this for me. "Can you hear that high pitch bird call" - Me: "No, what bird". I remember how lousy a portable CD player in the 80's sounded when you outputted it RCA into a home stereo. Pretty sure it was due to the bottom of the shelf DAC inside the player. Man, do we ever need to find the middle ground more than ever, especially this weekend. Great video! Onward to finding a speaker that matches my sleep number (hearing loss profile).
Great you brought this up. There is a forum where they have someone doing great measurements. I enjoy that and respect it because yes measurements does matter. But they also say stooped sh.. like all DACs sound like if they measure perfect Wich sadly means they are hearing impaired 😂. Good work Randy
I've never heard an audiophile say DACs, Amps, and crossovers sound the same. It's the anti-audiophile that says those things. Audiophiles insist that everything sounds different, and the more you spend, the better your system sounds. And the speaker/amp/subwoofer/cable etc you own is crap compared to theirs.
enjoyed the video, one factor you forgot to mention on the speaker discussion is the listening room variable, and thank God we have speakers with different characteristics as we compensate for our hearing our listening room and most importantly what sounds best to us!
Great information. This is why people need to listen to things for themselves to see and come up with there own opinions while still taking in information that great reviewers like Randy provides.
Swapping out the crossover with expensive parts to flatten the frequency response and declaring it to "be better" is 100% opinion. Many people will not like taking out the characteristics that make their speakers sound like Polks or Klipsch or KEF and their opinion is also 100% valid.
My favorite bit of hifi nonsense is people (including Paul from PS Audio) hyping Tesla Powerwalls as improvers of sound quality because they "condition" the power. They do no such thing, matching voltage and frequency to the line input. I had Powerwalls installed for other reasons and they did absolutely nothing for sound quality (no surprise!)
As a "high-end" manufacturer of audio components, GAS Co. was continually approached by "golden-eared audiophiles" claiming the amplifier or preamplifier they owned clearly sounded superior to any of the GAS Co. products we were producing. I would always invite these individuals into the sound room with their preferred audio component and proceed to connect it to the switching system. I would have them select a comparable GAS Co. component that I also connected to the system and then carefully adjusted both components with a precision AC voltmeter for equal levels. Before the testing commenced, I would give the audiophile the remote lanyard--a small handheld box with a toggle switch labeled A or B. I always told them that the "A" position was their piece of equipment and the "B" position was the GAS Co. equipment. After exhaustively auditioning the two components, the golden eared individual would always have a litany of subjective terms that negatively described the sound of the GAS Co. component such as: "overall dullness", "lack of transparency", "ill defined bass", "irritating midrange", "shrill highs", "lack of depth", "unstable imaging"..... ad nauseam. While the audiophile was espousing these opinions, I would bring the level of the music back up, then casually walk over to the components, switch off the power to the GAS Co. component and ask the audiophile to please toggle the lanyard switch between A and B. Unbeknownst to the audiophile, I had connected the switching system exclusively to their component only. During the test when they switched from A to B, the sound audibly dropped-out during the switching process for a few milliseconds cueing the listener that something had changed. When the audiophile realized that I had clearly demonstrated that their golden ears were not golden at all, they would quickly disconnect their component from the system, and while stomping out of the listening room, turn around, and, depending on how invested they were in believing they had golden ears, generally espouse a litany of profanities directed at me. Don't shoot the messenger! David Riddle
They are frauds, delusional, or both. Why someone would label themselves as an "Audiophile" is beyond me. It should set a red flag to a normal, rational person.
In Korea I walked into my local HIFI store looking for a 3.5 jack cable for my focal headphones. The store told me they didn't carry Focal products, and told me to look elsewhere. I said "No no, I am fine with any 3.5 cable." and half the people in room stopped and stared at me. The staff looked shocked and slightly panicked. One other customer who overheard me actually glared in my direction. I then realized I had offended them, even when they didn't carry Focal products and could make a sale to me today. I insisted they do though, and they begrudgingly went into the back and got a cable from Final audio that they had, all the while complaining to me that it won't sound the same. It did sound different! Because the original was broken.
there are some youtube reviewer that review speakers on the basis on charts and dont have the actual speaker. so they dont listen to them. Many of these objective reviewers also believe DSP is the answer. But with experience there is no one answer and people's ears are subjective. believing one solution is right for all is plainly incorrect.
Still, it sounds a bit weird to me if a reviewer judges a speaker (or anything else in audio) while based upon his own, individual hearing loss..? We also need some objective bases to start and compare with. Starting from there, knowing thyself (i.e. your own preferences and/or the characteristics of your hearing loss), you can find your own way. Or use EQ? There 're things like hardware equalizers, (mini-)DSP's and software like Equalizer APO. With a Umik microphone kit you can adjust for your listening room as well.
DACs don't sound the same, that's for sure, but once you reach a point of decent quality, diminishing returns hits hard! Those $500-1000 DACs barely improve the sound compared to the $100-200 DACs. The improvement is like 5-15% and a lot of them are sidegrades rather than upgrades. Upgrading Amps on the other hand are 2-3 times more noticeable than DACs.
Spot on, I got back into Hifi a year or so ago. DACs were built in CD players before, changing them wasn't much of a thing. So I purchased a used Bluesound Vault and hooked it up to my NAD receiver, both quality components, initially using the DAC in the Bleusound. It sound differents using RCAs, Optic to the NAD and Coax digital to the NAD, the last may say more about the cable. The optical cable and the NAD's DAC sounds best. In any event it does matter. I'm not a trained listener, musician or any sort of musician.
On metal core inductor coils in speaker crossovers - the physics of what is happening is well known. The windings create a magnetic field, and the orientation of the field (i.e. the north/south poles of the magnetic field) is determined by the direction the signal voltage is flowing. If you use your right hand with the 4 fingers curved in the direction the voltage is flowing - your thumb is pointing toward the north pole of the magnetic field. This is called the Right Hand Rule. Since music is an AC voltage - the direction of flow reverses 180 degrees at two times the frequency of the signal. This means the magnetic field around the inductor coil has to reverse "instantly" at twice the frequency of the music at that moment. This matters *because* ferrous metal "holds" the magnetic field for a short period of time - it has a delay lag, and the magnetic field lingers - and this "smears" the music. The reason that metal core inductors are used is, they don't require as many windings to achieve the desired induction value. Since the wire used to make the coil is shorter, it can be a smaller gauge - so this saves money. An air core coil requires longer piece of wire, and therefore needs to be a larger gauge to keep the same DCR. Using an air core inductor coil has a *very* audible difference in the sound you hear; because they do not have magnetic eddy currents.
@@chemania1 Right - and the thing to remember too, is that a music signal has *many* frequencies all at once, so the complexity of all the interactions within an inductor coil is exponentially greater.
Everything sounds different. Your ears will adjust and learn to enjoy just about anything if the thing just works. Only audiophiles act as if they have perfect audio memory.
You have gained a lot of insight and a lot of wisdom in the course of your UA-cam career. It is a great thing to watch, and the better you get, the better it is for all of us.
It's funny, and I'm sure I am not the only one that does this. First, this video is listed as end-to-end as 16:42, but to me it's well over 45 minutes due to rewinding for notes and thoughts on the subject. The second, I end up having up to 10 - 15+ explorer/chrome/etc. tabs open while watching to get more details on the details CAM is going over. I LOVE it!
I think a more accurate description of some people’s position on dacs is that dacs that measure well well sound the same. I don’t think they would expect the echo dac and an smsl dac to sound the same.
Actually, about the speaker response, you’re absolutely correct. And furthermore, why would you have to have a system that the response was flat out to 30 or 40 kHz ? You’re just going to piss off your dog !😉
Well said Randy. Made me smile every time you said "Dumb"!!😂 People need to get back to thinking for themsleves and forming their own research based opinions!!
Brilliant! And I’m not even British. Oooooh they gonna be mad at you! I’m here for it. Keep it up man! Good stuff. I’m going to an audio show to check out ghselli based in part to you introducing them. Picked up a WiiM Pro+. Good stuff. Hell I may by you a cup of Joe!
Well I took your advise and others on the positive reviews of the Geshelli dac and ordered it. Its the J2S with the Sparkos opamp on the outputs of the rca, with AK4493 chip.
Re speakers should have a flat frequency response? I can see or appreciate your POV but i will suggest that speakers with a flat frequency response are probably easier to eq adjust to personal taste than speakers with a more defined personality. True you could buy a speaker that matches your taste and hearing profile, but tastes often change over time. With the ability to shape eq i woud think flat response speakers would be better at modeling a different sound signature.
I would counter the flat frequency response point in saying that the goal of most well engineered speakers is to measure flat or smooth anechoically. There is tons of research out there over the years by Floyd Toole and others that proves this. This makes the speaker easy to EQ to a listener's taste after the fact in room. Buying a speaker because of its deviations from flat producing a "signature" sound just seems silly to me. You are essentially paying money for an EQ curve which could just be implemented for free via room correction or EQ software after the fact. So in summary, buy well engineered speakers with a smooth frequency response on and off axis and EQ to taste as needed.
I agree, flat obviously better for exactly the reasons you give. However, there are other speaker characteristics than frequency response that are of equal importance when choosing a speaker. Sound dispersion characteristics come to mind. Here I am thinking more of omni vs dipole vs box rather that off axis response, which admittedly differ largely in off axis response, but to such a radical degree, that it's a different conversation than I think you meant to convey.
The definition of hi fidelity is a reproduction of music to it's most accurate recording. Flat is the most acccurate. You can equalize it or change it but that's not the definition of hi fidelity.
Silly and fun intro! Thanks again for another useful video, delivered with passion! 🙃 Everyone who hasn't subscribed, do a solid for Mr. Cheap Audio Extraordinaire!
DAC's... I've recorded & mixed through a few different pro AD/DA units- Focusrite 2i2, UA Apollo Duo, etc. The differences aren't merely subtle. Not one pro recording engineer in Nashville would claim they're all the same, and we've been hearing differences since the Sony PCM-F1. Converters in Alesis stuff early on (ADAT) were significantly inferior to Sony or Mitsubishi DASH multitracks (no surprise there, based on price). Early CD players had significant phase shift by frequency, because of steep Nyquist anti-aliasing filters (the source of 'brittleness', not because it was 'digital vs. analog').
A flat frequency sweep is actually important for a 5.1/7.1 or above system for home audio (movies). For 2/2.1 music,, I agree, it's a personal choice and also depends on the music you listen to also. I bought a 200on huge tube down firing SVS subwoofer roughly 20 years ago . It had way more controls than what I was used to. It also had 3 tubes to pull in air. It came with foam so you had the option of filling 2 of them and get down to 16hz, which 8s bass you just feel in your chest, so good for movies, not music but thought I had it close enough but was roughly 10db above at roughly 25 to 30jz. Watched a movie, explosion, SVS was fine and handled with zero issues but I honestly thought something had actually exploded even though I was watching ammo or, it was LOUD. Didn't bother the SVS though but I do think it's more important for movies although most systems have some auto setup function and come with a mic for calibration now.
Thanks for the video! Some of your ads have volumes so loud that I tear my headphones off because it’s faster than turning down the volume on my computer. You probably have no control over it but perhaps a warning to your viewers cause it is ridiculous and painful. Damn UA-cam!
Oh I remember reading a forum post years ago where a guy was trying to convince everyone that all amps sound the same. He wrote an entire thesis with mathematical equations, technical mumbo jumbo, the works. It was insane.
Different phones sound different, let alone getting into stand alone DAC's. I am shocked at how many do say they all sound the same..... I guess there are a lot of people with damaged hearing???
Yah. Back when I tested a HK AVR 320 and a Yamaha HTR 5560 among others, I could hear a huge difference between them. The HK had much more powerful bass, especially when driving bookshelf speakers and no sub. HK had less hissing, too.
Randy, THANK YOU THANK YOU for doing this episode and continuing to battle the Dunning-Kruger effect. I've worked with audio for career and play for over 40 years and Ive heard the same comments all along. I tell them to get a new stylus for the turntable in their 10', 1970 Philco "entertainment center".
Most of your observations are correct, however I don't think you know the backstory about "speakers should have a flat frequency". Back in the day, Dr. Floyd Toole (author of "Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms" and former VP at Harman Audio) was in charge of the National Research Council in Canada and he conducted a number of tests with a wide variety of listeners (non-audiophiles) to find out what people preferred when listening to a speaker. His research found that when comparing two or more speakers, listeners perceived the speaker having the flattest frequency response as subjectively sounding "better". This research helped launched the Canadian speaker industry (Paradigm and PSB are still around but back then there were at least a half dozen very succesful brands, many of which were eventually acquired by others). This is the reason why audiophiles look for speakers with a flat frequency response - the research shows they sound better (even to non-audiophiles). Certainly room size and shape, speaker placement, etc. all play an important role, but everything else being equal, flattest frequency response will sound better. FYI, Dr. Floyd Toole has a PhD in Applied Physics from the University of London and has won many awards from the Audio Engineering Society (AES) for his contributions. So looking for a loudspeaker having a flat frequency is neither stupid nor crap because it is backed by large amounts of data using many listeners.
Still new to the whole audio thing. But now know enough to know I don't know anything. Anyway I'm happy with what I have and I just enjoy the music. :) Love your channel!
I have four dacs, four amps and seven sets of audiophile headphones and they all sound different. I also have several sets of non audiophile grade headphones. Go listen to some Beats by Dre, then go listen to HE 4XX and tell me thry sound the same.
Yes, in a digital system ..the quality of the output stage , power supply and output options ( balanced/ rca) along with input and controls ..they all add something to the quality or lack there of.
One problem I found years ago was going from dealer to dealer trying to compare. The other is commission sales dudes that equate dollars to quality. I do know of one dealer who doesn't pay commissions .
As far as amps go, I am lucky enough to own a McIntosh MC300. The difference between it and the power section in my Pioneer Elite receiver is staggering. Honestly, with any other amp I've tried as well. The MC300 also weighs nearly 100lbs. I am currently using an Adcom, and it sounds like Walmart grade comparatively.
@@welderfixer it is the end game, but I'm not using it because I'm going to sell it. I had to ween myself off. It's still depressing. I trade some work for a rich client for it. I used to have a preamp and cd player too. Sounded like the total endgame with my garage sale B&W DM620s.
@@MikePowersTSIG I wish I was in the financial position to buy the MC300 from you. I am sure I would enjoy it for a very long time. Currently, The wonderful NAD 214 amp that was given to me is such a joy to listen to everything through. I haven't had any of the speakers I've played on the NAD sound bad. I think the amp is the key item in a system. I wish you all the very best, Kevin
Overkill amplifiers do have certain advantages, one being a power supply section that has the reserve energy to push momentary transients out properly.
Back when i sold some lower-mid end hifi/hime theatre , the reps used to legitimately try brainwash us into believing their amplifiers are the best for ALL the speakers we sold . The passionate salespeople sold what the customers liked , the moneymakers sold the brand that gave the best commissions.
@4:30, I'm one of those who wonders if all DACs sound different. But I've never listened to different DACs. I always simply use the amp's connections, etc. It would be interesting to test 2 DACs.
There are some utter cobblers hifi geeks believe. The most hilarious are cables used for digital transmission such as HDMI or optical etc. It literally makes zero difference how much you spend because a digital signal is a digital signal. If the 1s and 0s get from one end of the cable to the other that's it. Nothing more to give. Even the engineers at the regulatory authority who issue the standards think it's hilarious when people spend hundreds on digital cables thinking it will make a difference to the sound.
Thanks for the video. How sound is perceived varies from person to person and room to room. Measurements by machines are helpful but we don’t all hear as well as the machine. I believe it’s important to listen to a piece of new equipment with your system in your listening room and decide what sounds good to you. That’s why I Only buy equipment from companies or retailers that let you buy and try and return for free if needed. Rock and rant on Randy!
You nailed it. Being fed with all sorts of information especially from certain publications and went through that rabbit hole only to find myself disappointed and thinking if this is what an audiophile system should sound like than this hobby is not for me. Thanks to people like you, I started believing in my personal tastes and tailored my system the way that it would allow me to listen for hours and not break the bank and feel crappy about it. I am one happy camper and feel good for once being smart with my money which isn’t growing on trees.
Moved my Paradigm Monitor 7s to the family room and brought the Yamaha NS 6390s into my office. Finally got to experience listening fatigue after about 30 minutes with the Yamahas. Didn’t think that was a real thing before. Now running Emotiva B 1+s after your Tracy Chapman review and can listen for hours and hours. P.S. I prefer German chocolate cake.
Wouldn't say all DACs sound the same but if you listen to the top 20 DACs in ASR's tests they are all far better than human hearing, making it likely impossible to hear any difference. Obviously there are bad designs still..
The better test, by which I mean more sensitive, is I think engagement. I find with similar sounding gear there is usually one that is more engaging and that keeps me listening longer rather than getting fidgety. I almost never can identify why that one is more engaging, but the preference usually persists over time. I have experienced this with DACs, amps, preamps and vinyl vs digital. In all cases, I end up wanting to listen to one piece of gear in preference to the other even though I can't pass an A/B test of the gear.
The scary thing about this stupid crap is it predates the internet. Back in the print era there were the letter to the editors in audio magazines that well.. The internet has given some people a bigger megaphone.
All equipment sounds the same unless you have audiophile cables that are isolated on cable risers. 😂😂 You have made my day and weekend with this presentation, brother. BTW, my Crown certainly doesn't sound the same as my Marantz or Rotel. 😂😂😂
I suspect most folks here are aware of the conflation of flat frequency response and pleasing sound. Audiophile culture is historically built around pursuing empirical accuracy of devices used to record and reproduce audio - not the subjective pursuit of what sounds good. To paraphrase the late John Dunlavy: if we understand what matters, measure it accurately, then engineer accordingly, the reproduction should match what was recorded - whether that is subjectively good or bad is outside the scope of the discussion. Playing music through accurate speakers and accommodating the listeners taste in song or EQ are all different things. Most audiophiles I’ve met understand this and acknowledge that speakers don’t have to be perfectly accurate to sound good. In fact, there is no such thing as a perfectly accurate speaker or stereo system. Some of the confusion is generated by “audiophiles” who forget the distinction and overstep, to dictate what is subjectively good for others. Nobody says you have to drive yourself crazy pursuing technical accuracy in your gear in order to appreciate music; but you can if you want and there’s nothing wrong with that, either. And some of the confusion is generated by marketing hype around the word “audiophile” to the point that the term is now effectively meaningless. But hey, if it generates clicks to malign the label, I guess the term still has some value. 🙂
Thanks for your content! Regarding speaker cables I think the number one difference people hear between two reasonable quality cables is first in their head and second maybe simply oxidation causing resistance at the connectors being cleaned when removing the old cables and putting the new ones in. Other claims about speaker cables need to eliminate all the other possible variations including the placebo effect that our brains introduce. Show me some legitimate double blind studies of speaker cables and how people with the very best hearing can accurately identify the better cables each time. No shade on anybody who wants to pay as much as they want for their audio jewelry but justifying it by saying that they can hear amazing difference needs to be demonstrated in ways that can eliminate the individual bias and expectations. Lastly, because someone takes the middle ground between personal anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence does not make them find the truth! Truth that comports with reality must be reliably and repeatedly demonstrated under strict controls.
Haha. This did make me smile. I am quite new to the audio side of listening as always used high end av amps etc. well now I have a streamer dac and amp etc I have noticed a lot of difference. Even down to the cables to inter connect. But again like said it’s a personal experience as we all have our own opinions and what we like and I think that’s the most important but… individual opinions. No one is right or wrong as such. It’s just what they prefer to listen to
I am 62 years old and I must have some hearing loss. I can’t tell the difference between the few DACS I have tried. That is probably down to my ears and not the equipment. I am sure can hear a difference 😊
I'm 63 and I can't either. But, I find with similar sounding gear there is usually one that is more engaging and that keeps me listening longer rather than getting fidgety. I almost never can identify why that one is more engaging, but the preference usually persists over time. I have experienced this with DACs, amps, preamps and vinyl vs digital. In all cases, I end up wanting to listen to one piece of gear in preference to the other even though I can't pass an A/B test of the gear.
I am not the brightest bulb in the drawer so are you saying I should hook my Apple TV, Fire Cube etc... to a DAC before connecting it to my Anthem MRX 720 receiver? I do notice a big difference between "Tracks" while shuffling music on Apple TV, something like Mean Streets by Van Halen off the Fair Warning will sound low and unimpressive with little separation then a Billy Elish song comes on next and the house shakes with bass and clarity. It's very annoying. Would a $100 DAC fix this? Nothing else has.
As for the amps sounding the same, this is partially true. Overdriven amps or amps which need servicing, do sound different. About 35 years ago, Peter Aczel, founder of the magazine, the AUDIO CRITIC, said that all amps that are driven below their maximum output, and working properly properly, uptp their original specs, with no servicing issues, will sound identical, IF their volume levels are matched within 0.1 dB.
Randy, I know you have some playlists for testing gear, but what songs specifically would you use to spot the differences in DACs? I’m someone who has struggled to hear the difference between the 5 DACs I’ve tried, but I’d like to spend some more time on it.
Good video, however I do think a flat frequency response is a good thing, and that a speaker should get its characteristics and attributes through other things like components, drivers, design, and materials used not via frequency range changes. However that is one way to do it
In this day of DSPs, Audyssey, Dirac, Anthem Room Correction, YPAO, etc. It seems to me the goal of the end to end system should be flat. All of the components that can't be tuned (speakers, amps, cables) should have the goal of being as neutral as possible. Then using the processor you can tune to taste. That's why Yamaha has so many sound modes. Would you like "Klipsch sound", "Marantz", "B&W"? There ought to be DSP settings to tune the output to that - while also taking your room into account. And I fully expect that DSP processing is much more than EQ.
Back in the 70’s, Julian Hirsch of the magazine Stereo Sound famously said all amplifiers sounded the same. I stopped reading their reviews at that point. How ridiculous. 🙄
Re crossover components, they don't matter if you don't have a cross-over in your speaker, i.e. use a single driver, full-range speaker. Amp - speaker, straight line. Yes, they exist, and I love mine. Fun video. Thanks!
My YAMAHA Aventage A3070 (2017) with his built-in ESS 9026 dac pro chip are enough qualify (in direct mode) to drive my Musical-Fidelity M8500 S amp ?? How many percent gain if i buy a GOOD preamp-dac and sell my Yamaha ??
I have a beresford dac. It sounds smooth in its stock form, works well with edgy equiptment. If you swap the texas instruments op amp in the line out stage to a different one it doesnt sound smooth anymore, quite lively and detailed, soundstage grows, bass is reduced slightly. Thats just a tiny chip worth £3.50 🤷🏻♂️
How about this one. Big debate out there about cd transports all sounding the same. Its the dac that makes the good, or bad sound quality. What do you think Randy? Oh and I agree with everything you said. Especially the hearing bit. We are sensitive to different sounds. I know people who hate anything to do with metal. They say it's all garbled noise. The perception of sound is down to the individual. Think you do a great job. Like your openness and honesty.
It's amazing how many UA-cam reviewers judge the quality of an item strictly by it's price and say things like "a $500 speaker can never be as good as a $1000 speaker." I don't watch those people any more.
You can't blame people having cheap Klipsch or Polk speakers for not noticing the difference between DACs or amps. If I have bad components I'll never hear details, separation, soundstage, etc. I'm not dumb, just don't have the appropriate tools.
Have I got a bone to pick with you Mister! Actually, I don't. I just don't want to disappoint you when you were expecting folks to get mad at your video and not enough of us do so. We all have selective hearing, just ask our wives! Seriously though, if you're male and over 50, statistically your female partner will have better hearing than you do. This is proved for me when I walk in nature with my wife. " Can you here that high pitch bird call?" Me: " What bird." Lousy DACs have been around a long time. I remember in the 80's how awful a portable CD player sounded when outputted RCA to a home stereo. Man, do we ever need to strive to meet in the middle more than ever, especially this weekend. Great video! Back to my search of finding a speaker that matches my sleep number or hearing loss profile. Happy Friday (and I feel fine)!
I'm new to this and very confused on amps. How does an external amp result in a different sound quality output? Isn't it just adding more power and the source before the amplifier is responsible for the quality? It makes sense to me that two different AVRs (e.g. Marantz vs Pioneer) would result in a different sound quality but how would the same Marantz AVR connected to two different external amps result in a different sound quality output?
In a perfect world. A friend said he always wanted a straight wire with gain. Different caps, inductors, resistors, transistors all sound different so why shouldn't amps?
@@chemania1 Amps usually have much lower THD percentages than speakers. So the speakers have more influence, one would expect. Then there's the way speakerimpedance curves differ and the way these impact on the amplifier performance. How do we know we're hearing the difference purely within the amplifier and not the differences between speakers and/or the impact of a speaker's impedance curve?
I'll say this, the higher in quality the speakers, the more noticeable the higher in quality the amplifier is going to be detected. You can very easily overspend on an amp, however someone telling you that a high-end amp is nothing more than snake oil while judging that on the mid-level speakers they are listening to, is disingenuous. It's all relative and everyone's individual point of diminishing returns comes into play. Seek out people that have the best you can hear and listen to as much stuff as possible. Enjoy the ride!
Audiophiles don't even listen to music. It's a hw hobby... like cars enthusiasts who owns some vehicles, spend hundreds of thousands let every inch of it beyond perfect and special... but by no means these cars are BETTER to drive or race... they are just a hw hobby dream, the dont even drive it, just to show it off to friends or meetings... just like audiophiles, they only turn it on to show the system to somebody else, most huge hifi systems don't run more than 2h/month. And the owner always think it's still not good enough!
See. This is state's evidence number one as to why I stopped referring to myself as an audiophile. So much of that community comports itself like a junior high school cafeteria food fight. Life's too short for that bs. So I rest comfortably within the audio enthusiast realm and am perfectly happy. So it seems to me that a significant number of people making "it all sounds the same" claim, more than likely wasted eighty bucks on a set of Raycon earbuds and now are audiophiles. In their defense, I will agree. Everything reproduced by Raycons sound like crap, so there's that. Also, no one wants to hear anything negative about the gear they have already purchased and can get quite defensive when they find negative criticism. For what that is worth.
Right Randy.. it’s all a matter of degree.. in any given system, there’s going to be a quality level whereby going any further in “quality” with a particular component of the system will not yield any better sonic result, so for any given system, the cables, dacs, amps, or whatever, when changed, can alter the perception and viewpoint regarding the original component and its replacement. Edit: Once that happens, the actual weakest link would need to be identified to reach for the next level of sonic bliss (probably speakers lol).
Because I think that we’re approx the same age, I know that men our age suffer from hf hearing loss due to the small hairs in our ears tend to get stiff.
My take on DACs: Yes, it is inaccurate to say ALL DACs sound the same. That said, it is more accurate that all Delta Sigma DACs natively sound the same and all R2R DACs natively sound the same. (Delta Sigma DACs natively sound different from R2R DACs). DAC chip brands or model numbers (as if anyone can keep track of those or knows what they mean) are not relavant at all. In the case of built-in DACs, how a DAC is implemented within a circuit can also make a subtle difference, but yes, more so it is the analog output that is the most noticeable difference. Not the size of the jack, but the whole build or implementation of the analog output section. In my opinion, it really comes down to capability in regards to outboard DACs, so in reality one can spend as little or as much as one wants and get the same product. That would be the good side of DACs. As for ALL amps sound the same: That is probably the most Ludacris thing I have hear in HiFi. It is not even physically possible. Yes, one may have two or even three amps that sound extremely similar giving the feel they are almost exactly alike, but all 300 different amps or however many there are out there do NOT sound alike. This is understood when one just takes a cursory look as to how amps are designed and made let alone actually listening to different amps with the same speakers and downstream gear to compare. Amps even sound different just between class type and within class type. One can have say a few A/B class amps and I would bet that unless there is a coincidence that two of them where engineered to sound very similar, there would be noticeable difference between their native sound signatures. One might lean more towards the warm side of neutral, one might lean towards the bright side, one might lean as close to neutral as possible and so forth. Tube amps sound completely different from solid state amps to be extra simple about it. "Crossover components don't matter": I kind of thought that many years ago, but that was completely destroyed when I met Andrew Jones whom befriended me out of thin air for some reason (and helped me) when I was a pup journalist and I got to spend time with him at ELAC and such and got a complete walk-thru ad-nauseum of speaker design and build. The very grade of even a capacitor or inductor or what have you in a crossover can make a difference in the performance of a speaker! There is a lot that goes on in the interaction just within a speaker! The crossover components have influence on the voice coil, the phasing, the frequency response, etc. There is no such thing as an "audiophile component" though. Like "audiophile records" or "audiophile amps", "audiophile speakers", "Audiophile chairs" or T-shirts, Etc. That is pure myth. All speakers should have a flat frequency response: Not going to happen. Studio monitors should have a flat frequency response because of how they are used, but for home listening or whatever, most folks do not like flat speakers. I happen to be odd man out who does like speakers that are flat or balanced for listening as well as application of audio work, but that's just me. Most folks want a bit of liveliness on their listening speakers. One must take into account the enclosure, cone materials, etc. etc.....Then there is the room they are put in don't forget. It is also far more difficult to build a speaker with a flat response. Even the flattest studio monitors are not perfectly flat. Randy, the description you gave in the first part of this section is the description of your average cult. Well said.
It’s been my experience that the quickest, cheapest, most bang for the buck and obvious sonic enhancement, way of upgrading a passive audio crossover is to replace the series electrolytic in the high pass with a poly cap.
@@shipsahoy1793 The question is how many people are going to crack open their speakers and toy with the crossover? Answer, none, including me, even if needed (it is not in my case for the record). As for passive audio crossovers: useless, unless one is using speakers that require them and not many out there. Same question though, how many would pop the hood and tinker around in there, probably close to none.
@@ericelliott227 you misunderstood me .. passive crossovers are what the majority of speaker boxes have; active crossovers are less common. That said, I believe you’re right that most people won’t pull their speakers apart to change crossover components, but if you have speakers you like, and you have them long enough, say like more than a decade, and you start to feel like they just don’t seem the same. I think it’s always good to get a look inside, and if there are electrolytics (NPE’s) n them, they would certainly be replacement or upgrade candidates. And when going through the trouble, why not at least upgrade the electrolytics in the high pass to poly caps. At this point, I just upgrade all the NPE’s at a minimum. I personally never bother with crossover work, unless the speakers are reasonably old, with good healthy drivers and a decent cabinet still in good shape.
@@shipsahoy1793 You are correct, I did misunderstand you a bit, thank you for the clarification. I also agree that if the speakers are old enough and one really likes them, a look inside if possible, if there is access is warranted. One doesn't have to do the work themselves either if not comfortable. If the speakers are that loved then paying for the work/upgrade is also warranted. I also agree with replacing the electrolytic caps with poly caps wherever possible as well. Some circuits don't take or use poly caps over electrolytic caps, but in most cases it can be done. I love my speakers (big towers) and there is nothing else like them on the market sonically, even at $60,000 or something. They are over 10 years old I think, but they are the same as they were on day one...well, ok, after they broke in. Nothing has changed. Unfortunately as far as I can tell one can't get to the crossover on them, at least not easily. That is unless there is access through the connection plate, but it doesn't look to be the case. I can replace the drivers no problem. The manufacture says (unless they recently decided on another stupid move) still keeps the drivers and other parts on hand and if needed can remanufacture anything but the cabinet.
@@ericelliott227 interesting. Yes, I have a an old pair of Wharfedales that if I lost a driver, I’d be screwed and it was a very delicate surgery to do the crossover’s in those speakers because the big woofers had to be removed from the baffle and the crossover board removed. In the end, it was worth it because those are my “priceless” speakers. A few years ago I did the crossovers on a pair of old Polk monitors, and that was just a matter of removing the back plate and some wiring to work on the crossover, but because of Polk, there had to be some redesign work done, and I couldn’t fit the caps that I wanted in there, because some of the values were so large that I ended up having to use metalized polyester caps; not quite the caps that I wanted in there. Luckily, it ended up working out much better than what was originally in there. Also, Polk’s SL2500 ferrofluid tweeters were failing and I had switched to their RD0198-1 replacements, which sounded much smoother. I don’t know if those Polks ever sounded as good as they do these days lol Not the same sheer joy of my ‘Dales, but they make a great sounding secondary system.
My challenge to you is to consider that people that have some of theses beliefs have limitations in there system that hide the quality of certain parts. I noticed that low quality speakers or amps will limit any day that they might stay the same.
Well they're all tone deaf. That's also like me saying as a bass player in my younger years, that all bass amps sound the same. They're either tone deaf or missing some brain cells. Then you have the other end of the spectrum with the OCD audiophile, where they'll spend £100k on hardware because they think they can hear the transient on a cymbal a touch better.
I can't hear differences between amplifiers I've owned, but have never heard two amps compared through the same speakers with instant switching between them. However, blind tests suggest that differences are small, and undetectable for most listeners. In any case, assuming there are differences I and other people could hear, how do you use that information when buying new equipment that has to work with speakers you already have? I think most people are going to be shooting in the dark here, even with the information provided by online reviewers.
I agree there are so many variables. May I be so bold without attempting to insult you or anyone, from my personal experience, the higher In quality you go with a speaker the more noticeable an amplifiers sound will be detected by your ears. IMO far too many so called audiophiles have mono blocked shelf speakers and then say a bigger amp or higher quality amp is useless. They may very well be right in their circumstance because of the speaker’s limitations. Conversely I do believe you can over buy an amp beyond your systems limits and negating its strengths thus making its abilities undetectable. In summation, in a chain of equipment a very hi end amp is limited most by the speakers. That’s where the point of diminishing returns happens most
Great video! I like to tell people: "When your beliefs are challenged, take the challenge!" I have a big huge greatroom with vaulted ceilings and hard floors. I'm looking into building a sound system that would sound good in this room. Starting with research into sound absorption lol! Great channel!
Good luck with that. I have a similar room and everything I tried sounded crappy. I finally gave up an use headphones for TV listening in that room and put my music system in a different room. I wasn't willing to do the room treatment that would have been required to make the room audio friendly.
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Have I got a bone to pick with you Mister! Actually I don't. I just don't want you to experience disappointment when you're expecting folks to get all worked up about your video and not enough of us actually do. We all have selective hearing, just ask our wives! Seriously though, if you're male and over 50, statistically a wife's hearing will be better than her partner's. A walk in nature with my wife proves this for me. "Can you hear that high pitch bird call" - Me: "No, what bird".
I remember how lousy a portable CD player in the 80's sounded when you outputted it RCA into a home stereo. Pretty sure it was due to the bottom of the shelf DAC inside the player. Man, do we ever need to find the middle ground more than ever, especially this weekend. Great video! Onward to finding a speaker that matches my sleep number (hearing loss profile).
Great seeing you sing Happy Birthday to your Brother. Happy days. All the best.
Great you brought this up. There is a forum where they have someone doing great measurements. I enjoy that and respect it because yes measurements does matter. But they also say stooped sh.. like all DACs sound like if they measure perfect Wich sadly means they are hearing impaired 😂. Good work Randy
I've never heard an audiophile say DACs, Amps, and crossovers sound the same. It's the anti-audiophile that says those
things. Audiophiles insist that everything sounds different, and the more you spend, the better your system sounds. And the speaker/amp/subwoofer/cable etc you own is crap compared to theirs.
enjoyed the video, one factor you forgot to mention on the speaker discussion is the listening room variable, and thank God we have speakers with different characteristics as we compensate for our hearing our listening room and most importantly what sounds best to us!
Exactly
Thank the speaker designers*
DSP too. Wait - too many Greg's on this comment :)
I think I can sum it up this way: There are some people who still believe the earth is flat.
If you sum it up that quickly then it’s no fun tho! 😊
It is flat all the way around..
I could lecture for weeks on the little details of speaker design
It is!
@@larrygaines7462I'm using this 😂
Great information. This is why people need to listen to things for themselves to see and come up with there own opinions while still taking in information that great reviewers like Randy provides.
Swapping out the crossover with expensive parts to flatten the frequency response and declaring it to "be better" is 100% opinion. Many people will not like taking out the characteristics that make their speakers sound like Polks or Klipsch or KEF and their opinion is also 100% valid.
Smooth response is far more important than a flat response. Good video. Thx.
A flat response is smoother than smooth can ever be.
Define smooth. Flat has a definition.
@@TriAmpMyFi he cant, because smooth is flat. Any deviation from flat isnt smooth no more.
I like flat measuring speakers. So for me its not a stupid idea. Also flat speakers are easier to equalize and play with. It's like a blank canvas.
My favorite bit of hifi nonsense is people (including Paul from PS Audio) hyping Tesla Powerwalls as improvers of sound quality because they "condition" the power. They do no such thing, matching voltage and frequency to the line input. I had Powerwalls installed for other reasons and they did absolutely nothing for sound quality (no surprise!)
As a "high-end" manufacturer of audio components, GAS Co. was continually approached by "golden-eared audiophiles" claiming the amplifier or preamplifier they owned clearly sounded superior to any of the GAS Co. products we were producing. I would always invite these individuals into the sound room with their preferred audio component and proceed to connect it to the switching system. I would have them select a comparable GAS Co. component that I also connected to the system and then carefully adjusted both components with a precision AC voltmeter for equal levels. Before the testing commenced, I would give the audiophile the remote lanyard--a small handheld box with a toggle switch labeled A or B. I always told them that the "A" position was their piece of equipment and the "B" position was the GAS Co. equipment. After exhaustively auditioning the two components, the golden eared individual would always have a litany of subjective terms that negatively described the sound of the GAS Co. component such as: "overall dullness", "lack of transparency", "ill defined bass", "irritating midrange", "shrill highs", "lack of depth", "unstable imaging"..... ad nauseam. While the audiophile was espousing these opinions, I would bring the level of the music back up, then casually walk over to the components, switch off the power to the GAS Co. component and ask the audiophile to please toggle the lanyard switch between A and B. Unbeknownst to the audiophile, I had connected the switching system exclusively to their component only. During the test when they switched from A to B, the sound audibly dropped-out during the switching process for a few milliseconds cueing the listener that something had changed. When the audiophile realized that I had clearly demonstrated that their golden ears were not golden at all, they would quickly disconnect their component from the system, and while stomping out of the listening room, turn around, and, depending on how invested they were in believing they had golden ears, generally espouse a litany of profanities directed at me. Don't shoot the messenger! David Riddle
They are frauds, delusional, or both. Why someone would label themselves as an "Audiophile" is beyond me. It should set a red flag to a normal, rational person.
In Korea I walked into my local HIFI store looking for a 3.5 jack cable for my focal headphones. The store told me they didn't carry Focal products, and told me to look elsewhere. I said "No no, I am fine with any 3.5 cable." and half the people in room stopped and stared at me. The staff looked shocked and slightly panicked. One other customer who overheard me actually glared in my direction. I then realized I had offended them, even when they didn't carry Focal products and could make a sale to me today. I insisted they do though, and they begrudgingly went into the back and got a cable from Final audio that they had, all the while complaining to me that it won't sound the same. It did sound different! Because the original was broken.
The biggest difference in sound, for me, is my mood…
there are some youtube reviewer that review speakers on the basis on charts and dont have the actual speaker. so they dont listen to them. Many of these objective reviewers also believe DSP is the answer. But with experience there is no one answer and people's ears are subjective. believing one solution is right for all is plainly incorrect.
It is the placebo effect that some think if it cost more it must be better. No matter what the price if it sounds good it is good.
THANK YOU FOR talking about flat frequency response. It’s like telling everyone to just have vanilla icecream. Unfortunately I eat too much icecream.
iLikeVanillaItsTheFinestOfTheFlavors
Even still, there are hundreds of different types of vanilla ice cream, many of which taste drastically different from each other
Still, it sounds a bit weird to me if a reviewer judges a speaker (or anything else in audio) while based upon his own, individual hearing loss..?
We also need some objective bases to start and compare with. Starting from there, knowing thyself (i.e. your own preferences and/or the characteristics of your hearing loss), you can find your own way.
Or use EQ? There 're things like hardware equalizers, (mini-)DSP's and software like Equalizer APO. With a Umik microphone kit you can adjust for your listening room as well.
@@eeyorebill04 But still vanilla 🙂. I prefer chocolate flavor
I believe you on DACs. I just updated my Modi3+ to Modi Multibit 2 and the diff is HUGE.
DACs don't sound the same, that's for sure, but once you reach a point of decent quality, diminishing returns hits hard!
Those $500-1000 DACs barely improve the sound compared to the $100-200 DACs.
The improvement is like 5-15% and a lot of them are sidegrades rather than upgrades.
Upgrading Amps on the other hand are 2-3 times more noticeable than DACs.
Spot on, I got back into Hifi a year or so ago. DACs were built in CD players before, changing them wasn't much of a thing. So I purchased a used Bluesound Vault and hooked it up to my NAD receiver, both quality components, initially using the DAC in the Bleusound. It sound differents using RCAs, Optic to the NAD and Coax digital to the NAD, the last may say more about the cable. The optical cable and the NAD's DAC sounds best. In any event it does matter. I'm not a trained listener, musician or any sort of musician.
On metal core inductor coils in speaker crossovers - the physics of what is happening is well known. The windings create a magnetic field, and the orientation of the field (i.e. the north/south poles of the magnetic field) is determined by the direction the signal voltage is flowing. If you use your right hand with the 4 fingers curved in the direction the voltage is flowing - your thumb is pointing toward the north pole of the magnetic field. This is called the Right Hand Rule.
Since music is an AC voltage - the direction of flow reverses 180 degrees at two times the frequency of the signal. This means the magnetic field around the inductor coil has to reverse "instantly" at twice the frequency of the music at that moment.
This matters *because* ferrous metal "holds" the magnetic field for a short period of time - it has a delay lag, and the magnetic field lingers - and this "smears" the music.
The reason that metal core inductors are used is, they don't require as many windings to achieve the desired induction value. Since the wire used to make the coil is shorter, it can be a smaller gauge - so this saves money. An air core coil requires longer piece of wire, and therefore needs to be a larger gauge to keep the same DCR.
Using an air core inductor coil has a *very* audible difference in the sound you hear; because they do not have magnetic eddy currents.
At what frequency does the field hangover audibly affect the signal?
Hysteresis
Thanks, Neil. You taught me something.
@@FrankyGee3 You're quite welcome!
@@chemania1 Right - and the thing to remember too, is that a music signal has *many* frequencies all at once, so the complexity of all the interactions within an inductor coil is exponentially greater.
Everything sounds different. Your ears will adjust and learn to enjoy just about anything if the thing just works. Only audiophiles act as if they have perfect audio memory.
You have gained a lot of insight and a lot of wisdom in the course of your UA-cam career. It is a great thing to watch, and the better you get, the better it is for all of us.
Damn that’s a good comment 😊
It's funny, and I'm sure I am not the only one that does this. First, this video is listed as end-to-end as 16:42, but to me it's well over 45 minutes due to rewinding for notes and thoughts on the subject. The second, I end up having up to 10 - 15+ explorer/chrome/etc. tabs open while watching to get more details on the details CAM is going over. I LOVE it!
I think a more accurate description of some people’s position on dacs is that dacs that measure well well sound the same. I don’t think they would expect the echo dac and an smsl dac to sound the same.
Actually, about the speaker response, you’re absolutely correct. And furthermore, why would you have to have a system that the response was flat out to 30 or 40 kHz ? You’re just going to piss off your dog !😉
" you may think i'm calling your kid ugly, you may think i'm calling you dumb." that's why I'm here....comedy gold.
Well said Randy. Made me smile every time you said "Dumb"!!😂 People need to get back to thinking for themsleves and forming their own research based opinions!!
Brilliant! And I’m not even British. Oooooh they gonna be mad at you! I’m here for it. Keep it up man! Good stuff.
I’m going to an audio show to check out ghselli based in part to you introducing them. Picked up a WiiM Pro+. Good stuff.
Hell I may by you a cup of Joe!
I have to say thank you so much Randy🤘🏻, this kind of videos help me a lot ✌🏻
Thanks!
Probably your best post to date Randy. Really enjoyed it.
Well I took your advise and others on the positive reviews of the Geshelli dac and ordered it. Its the J2S with the Sparkos opamp on the outputs of the rca, with AK4493 chip.
Re speakers should have a flat frequency response? I can see or appreciate your POV but i will suggest that speakers with a flat frequency response are probably easier to eq adjust to personal taste than speakers with a more defined personality. True you could buy a speaker that matches your taste and hearing profile, but tastes often change over time. With the ability to shape eq i woud think flat response speakers would be better at modeling a different sound signature.
I would counter the flat frequency response point in saying that the goal of most well engineered speakers is to measure flat or smooth anechoically. There is tons of research out there over the years by Floyd Toole and others that proves this. This makes the speaker easy to EQ to a listener's taste after the fact in room. Buying a speaker because of its deviations from flat producing a "signature" sound just seems silly to me. You are essentially paying money for an EQ curve which could just be implemented for free via room correction or EQ software after the fact. So in summary, buy well engineered speakers with a smooth frequency response on and off axis and EQ to taste as needed.
I agree, flat obviously better for exactly the reasons you give. However, there are other speaker characteristics than frequency response that are of equal importance when choosing a speaker. Sound dispersion characteristics come to mind. Here I am thinking more of omni vs dipole vs box rather that off axis response, which admittedly differ largely in off axis response, but to such a radical degree, that it's a different conversation than I think you meant to convey.
The definition of hi fidelity is a reproduction of music to it's most accurate recording. Flat is the most acccurate. You can equalize it or change it but that's not the definition of hi fidelity.
Silly and fun intro! Thanks again for another useful video, delivered with passion! 🙃 Everyone who hasn't subscribed, do a solid for Mr. Cheap Audio Extraordinaire!
Great video, Mr. Cheapaudioman, you should be nominated for a Nobel Prize in audio common sense, sadly so missing these days!
I'm DAC curious. Is that 80 dollar DAC better than the internal DAC in my $600 Onkyo AVR?
Thanks Randy...
Great question. I have asked this before. My old Onkyo featured a 24/192 dac onboard.
DAC's...
I've recorded & mixed through a few different pro AD/DA units- Focusrite 2i2, UA Apollo Duo, etc.
The differences aren't merely subtle.
Not one pro recording engineer in Nashville would claim they're all the same, and we've been hearing differences since the Sony PCM-F1. Converters in Alesis stuff early on (ADAT) were significantly inferior to Sony or Mitsubishi DASH multitracks (no surprise there, based on price).
Early CD players had significant phase shift by frequency, because of steep Nyquist anti-aliasing filters (the source of 'brittleness', not because it was 'digital vs. analog').
A flat frequency sweep is actually important for a 5.1/7.1 or above system for home audio (movies). For 2/2.1 music,, I agree, it's a personal choice and also depends on the music you listen to also.
I bought a 200on huge tube down firing SVS subwoofer roughly 20 years ago . It had way more controls than what I was used to. It also had 3 tubes to pull in air. It came with foam so you had the option of filling 2 of them and get down to 16hz, which 8s bass you just feel in your chest, so good for movies, not music but thought I had it close enough but was roughly 10db above at roughly 25 to 30jz. Watched a movie, explosion, SVS was fine and handled with zero issues but I honestly thought something had actually exploded even though I was watching ammo or, it was LOUD. Didn't bother the SVS though but I do think it's more important for movies although most systems have some auto setup function and come with a mic for calibration now.
What up Cheap! Just checking in on my fav audiophile dude. Almost to 200K! Keep it up Randy, good stuff
Thanks for the video! Some of your ads have volumes so loud that I tear my headphones off because it’s faster than turning down the volume on my computer. You probably have no control over it but perhaps a warning to your viewers cause it is ridiculous and painful. Damn UA-cam!
Every Dac I have tried in my rig sounds different. They were all good but some just didn’t fit with my gear. synergy is key.
What!? That David Lee Roth concert in 1987 messed up my ears? What?
Oh I remember reading a forum post years ago where a guy was trying to convince everyone that all amps sound the same. He wrote an entire thesis with mathematical equations, technical mumbo jumbo, the works. It was insane.
That guy is still out there....
Different phones sound different, let alone getting into stand alone DAC's. I am shocked at how many do say they all sound the same.....
I guess there are a lot of people with damaged hearing???
Yah. Back when I tested a HK AVR 320 and a Yamaha HTR 5560 among others, I could hear a huge difference between them. The HK had much more powerful bass, especially when driving bookshelf speakers and no sub. HK had less hissing, too.
Randy, THANK YOU THANK YOU for doing this episode and continuing to battle the Dunning-Kruger effect. I've worked with audio for career and play for over 40 years and Ive heard the same comments all along. I tell them to get a new stylus for the turntable in their 10', 1970 Philco "entertainment center".
By now it probably also needs new power supply caps.
@@1mctous I think you missed his point.
@@jeffreylehman1159 Yes I know he's referring to a fixed mindset. However some people still love the old stereo consoles.
I'm remembering the time when the "budget oriented audio person" heard a difference between HDMI cables. Lost respect for him that day.😢
Most of your observations are correct, however I don't think you know the backstory about "speakers should have a flat frequency". Back in the day, Dr. Floyd Toole (author of "Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms" and former VP at Harman Audio) was in charge of the National Research Council in Canada and he conducted a number of tests with a wide variety of listeners (non-audiophiles) to find out what people preferred when listening to a speaker. His research found that when comparing two or more speakers, listeners perceived the speaker having the flattest frequency response as subjectively sounding "better". This research helped launched the Canadian speaker industry (Paradigm and PSB are still around but back then there were at least a half dozen very succesful brands, many of which were eventually acquired by others). This is the reason why audiophiles look for speakers with a flat frequency response - the research shows they sound better (even to non-audiophiles). Certainly room size and shape, speaker placement, etc. all play an important role, but everything else being equal, flattest frequency response will sound better. FYI, Dr. Floyd Toole has a PhD in Applied Physics from the University of London and has won many awards from the Audio Engineering Society (AES) for his contributions. So looking for a loudspeaker having a flat frequency is neither stupid nor crap because it is backed by large amounts of data using many listeners.
So you're telling me that it's worth upgrading from the Sith Audio "Black" flashlight you showed us to the "Red" for the additional clarity?
difference is like night and when you turn it on at night... night and day
Still new to the whole audio thing. But now know enough to know I don't know anything. Anyway I'm happy with what I have and I just enjoy the music. :) Love your channel!
I have four dacs, four amps and seven sets of audiophile headphones and they all sound different. I also have several sets of non audiophile grade headphones. Go listen to some Beats by Dre, then go listen to HE 4XX and tell me thry sound the same.
Yup..go from even well regarded headphones like the Sen’s 650’s to LCDX 2021 Creators Edition..( I did ) 🥳
are you saying dacs have as much influence on your sound as a headphone or speaker?
Yes, in a digital system ..the quality of the output stage , power supply and output options ( balanced/ rca) along with input and controls ..they all add something to the quality or lack there of.
One problem I found years ago was going from dealer to dealer trying to compare. The other is commission sales dudes that equate dollars to quality.
I do know of one dealer who doesn't pay commissions .
I do not know how anyone could think all Dacs sound the same! That is like thinking all speakers sound the same! Wow!
As far as amps go, I am lucky enough to own a McIntosh MC300. The difference between it and the power section in my Pioneer Elite receiver is staggering. Honestly, with any other amp I've tried as well. The MC300 also weighs nearly 100lbs. I am currently using an Adcom, and it sounds like Walmart grade comparatively.
Try the Fosi V3. Many reviewers praise it and it pays itself back by saving on your electricity bill.
Kidding😅
McIntosh 100% end game. I live an hour away from the McIntosh factory and that is as close as I will be to owning one. Bummer. Enjoy yours!
@@welderfixer it is the end game, but I'm not using it because I'm going to sell it. I had to ween myself off. It's still depressing. I trade some work for a rich client for it. I used to have a preamp and cd player too. Sounded like the total endgame with my garage sale B&W DM620s.
@@MikePowersTSIG I wish I was in the financial position to buy the MC300 from you. I am sure I would enjoy it for a very long time. Currently, The wonderful NAD 214 amp that was given to me is such a joy to listen to everything through. I haven't had any of the speakers I've played on the NAD sound bad. I think the amp is the key item in a system. I wish you all the very best, Kevin
Overkill amplifiers do have certain advantages, one being a power supply section that has the reserve energy to push momentary transients out properly.
Back when i sold some lower-mid end hifi/hime theatre , the reps used to legitimately try brainwash us into believing their amplifiers are the best for ALL the speakers we sold . The passionate salespeople sold what the customers liked , the moneymakers sold the brand that gave the best commissions.
@4:30, I'm one of those who wonders if all DACs sound different. But I've never listened to different DACs. I always simply use the amp's connections, etc. It would be interesting to test 2 DACs.
There are some utter cobblers hifi geeks believe. The most hilarious are cables used for digital transmission such as HDMI or optical etc. It literally makes zero difference how much you spend because a digital signal is a digital signal. If the 1s and 0s get from one end of the cable to the other that's it. Nothing more to give. Even the engineers at the regulatory authority who issue the standards think it's hilarious when people spend hundreds on digital cables thinking it will make a difference to the sound.
Thanks for the video. How sound is perceived varies from person to person and room to room. Measurements by machines are helpful but we don’t all hear as well as the machine. I believe it’s important to listen to a piece of new equipment with your system in your listening room and decide what sounds good to you. That’s why I Only buy equipment from companies or retailers that let you buy and try and return for free if needed. Rock and rant on Randy!
You nailed it. Being fed with all sorts of information especially from certain publications and went through that rabbit hole only to find myself disappointed and thinking if this is what an audiophile system should sound like than this hobby is not for me. Thanks to people like you, I started believing in my personal tastes and tailored my system the way that it would allow me to listen for hours and not break the bank and feel crappy about it. I am one happy camper and feel good for once being smart with my money which isn’t growing on trees.
Moved my Paradigm Monitor 7s to the family room and brought the Yamaha NS 6390s into my office. Finally got to experience listening fatigue after about 30 minutes with the Yamahas. Didn’t think that was a real thing before.
Now running Emotiva B 1+s after your Tracy Chapman review and can listen for hours and hours.
P.S. I prefer German chocolate cake.
Wouldn't say all DACs sound the same but if you listen to the top 20 DACs in ASR's tests they are all far better than human hearing, making it likely impossible to hear any difference. Obviously there are bad designs still..
The better test, by which I mean more sensitive, is I think engagement. I find with similar sounding gear there is usually one that is more engaging and that keeps me listening longer rather than getting fidgety. I almost never can identify why that one is more engaging, but the preference usually persists over time. I have experienced this with DACs, amps, preamps and vinyl vs digital. In all cases, I end up wanting to listen to one piece of gear in preference to the other even though I can't pass an A/B test of the gear.
Beyond human hearing that cannot have a sound. Rather they lack coloration.
CAM: "We're about to hit 200k subscribers!" Also CAM: "I'm gonna piss off a bunch of people in this video!" 😂
Can you use the Chord Mojo as a Dac for Cambridge Audio MXN10?
The scary thing about this stupid crap is it predates the internet. Back in the print era there were the letter to the editors in audio magazines that well.. The internet has given some people a bigger megaphone.
All equipment sounds the same unless you have audiophile cables that are isolated on cable risers. 😂😂 You have made my day and weekend with this presentation, brother. BTW, my Crown certainly doesn't sound the same as my Marantz or Rotel. 😂😂😂
I suspect most folks here are aware of the conflation of flat frequency response and pleasing sound. Audiophile culture is historically built around pursuing empirical accuracy of devices used to record and reproduce audio - not the subjective pursuit of what sounds good. To paraphrase the late John Dunlavy: if we understand what matters, measure it accurately, then engineer accordingly, the reproduction should match what was recorded - whether that is subjectively good or bad is outside the scope of the discussion. Playing music through accurate speakers and accommodating the listeners taste in song or EQ are all different things. Most audiophiles I’ve met understand this and acknowledge that speakers don’t have to be perfectly accurate to sound good. In fact, there is no such thing as a perfectly accurate speaker or stereo system. Some of the confusion is generated by “audiophiles” who forget the distinction and overstep, to dictate what is subjectively good for others. Nobody says you have to drive yourself crazy pursuing technical accuracy in your gear in order to appreciate music; but you can if you want and there’s nothing wrong with that, either. And some of the confusion is generated by marketing hype around the word “audiophile” to the point that the term is now effectively meaningless. But hey, if it generates clicks to malign the label, I guess the term still has some value. 🙂
Getting close to 200K. Any day now. Congrats.
Thanks for your content! Regarding speaker cables I think the number one difference people hear between two reasonable quality cables is first in their head and second maybe simply oxidation causing resistance at the connectors being cleaned when removing the old cables and putting the new ones in. Other claims about speaker cables need to eliminate all the other possible variations including the placebo effect that our brains introduce. Show me some legitimate double blind studies of speaker cables and how people with the very best hearing can accurately identify the better cables each time. No shade on anybody who wants to pay as much as they want for their audio jewelry but justifying it by saying that they can hear amazing difference needs to be demonstrated in ways that can eliminate the individual bias and expectations.
Lastly, because someone takes the middle ground between personal anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence does not make them find the truth! Truth that comports with reality must be reliably and repeatedly demonstrated under strict controls.
Isn't your certainty bypassing the science?
Haha. This did make me smile. I am quite new to the audio side of listening as always used high end av amps etc. well now I have a streamer dac and amp etc I have noticed a lot of difference. Even down to the cables to inter connect. But again like said it’s a personal experience as we all have our own opinions and what we like and I think that’s the most important but… individual opinions. No one is right or wrong as such. It’s just what they prefer to listen to
I am 62 years old and I must have some hearing loss. I can’t tell the difference between the few DACS I have tried. That is probably down to my ears and not the equipment. I am sure can hear a difference 😊
Others
I'm 63 and I can't either. But, I find with similar sounding gear there is usually one that is more engaging and that keeps me listening longer rather than getting fidgety. I almost never can identify why that one is more engaging, but the preference usually persists over time. I have experienced this with DACs, amps, preamps and vinyl vs digital. In all cases, I end up wanting to listen to one piece of gear in preference to the other even though I can't pass an A/B test of the gear.
Well put. I have tinnitus, I can’t hear your perfect testing frequency response speaker. I need certain frequencies boosted and some cut.
There are ways to do that.
I am not the brightest bulb in the drawer so are you saying I should hook my Apple TV, Fire Cube etc... to a DAC before connecting it to my Anthem MRX 720 receiver? I do notice a big difference between "Tracks" while shuffling music on Apple TV, something like Mean Streets by Van Halen off the Fair Warning will sound low and unimpressive with little separation then a Billy Elish song comes on next and the house shakes with bass and clarity. It's very annoying. Would a $100 DAC fix this? Nothing else has.
"Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.” - Alan Parsons
The man the legend never fails me
I remember reading a little book when I was a teenager entitled 'How to Lie with statistics' I recommend it.
Love my McIntosh amp! Does it really sound better than my emotivas? Not really. It makes me happy regardless.
As for the amps sounding the same, this is partially true. Overdriven amps or amps which need servicing, do sound different. About 35 years ago, Peter Aczel, founder of the magazine, the AUDIO CRITIC, said that all amps that are driven below their maximum output, and working properly properly, uptp their original specs, with no servicing issues, will sound identical, IF their volume levels are matched within 0.1 dB.
Randy, I know you have some playlists for testing gear, but what songs specifically would you use to spot the differences in DACs? I’m someone who has struggled to hear the difference between the 5 DACs I’ve tried, but I’d like to spend some more time on it.
Good video, however I do think a flat frequency response is a good thing, and that a speaker should get its characteristics and attributes through other things like components, drivers, design, and materials used not via frequency range changes. However that is one way to do it
In this day of DSPs, Audyssey, Dirac, Anthem Room Correction, YPAO, etc. It seems to me the goal of the end to end system should be flat. All of the components that can't be tuned (speakers, amps, cables) should have the goal of being as neutral as possible. Then using the processor you can tune to taste. That's why Yamaha has so many sound modes. Would you like "Klipsch sound", "Marantz", "B&W"? There ought to be DSP settings to tune the output to that - while also taking your room into account. And I fully expect that DSP processing is much more than EQ.
Isn't a flat speaker eazyer to manipulate with an EQ
Back in the 70’s, Julian Hirsch of the magazine Stereo Sound famously said all amplifiers sounded the same. I stopped reading their reviews at that point. How ridiculous. 🙄
Re crossover components, they don't matter if you don't have a cross-over in your speaker, i.e. use a single driver, full-range speaker. Amp - speaker, straight line. Yes, they exist, and I love mine. Fun video. Thanks!
My YAMAHA Aventage A3070 (2017) with his built-in ESS 9026 dac pro chip are enough qualify (in direct mode) to drive my Musical-Fidelity M8500 S amp ?? How many percent gain if i buy a GOOD preamp-dac and sell my Yamaha ??
I have a beresford dac. It sounds smooth in its stock form, works well with edgy equiptment. If you swap the texas instruments op amp in the line out stage to a different one it doesnt sound smooth anymore, quite lively and detailed, soundstage grows, bass is reduced slightly. Thats just a tiny chip worth £3.50 🤷🏻♂️
How about this one. Big debate out there about cd transports all sounding the same. Its the dac that makes the good, or bad sound quality. What do you think Randy? Oh and I agree with everything you said. Especially the hearing bit. We are sensitive to different sounds. I know people who hate anything to do with metal. They say it's all garbled noise. The perception of sound is down to the individual. Think you do a great job. Like your openness and honesty.
I wanted to like Klipsch and owned a few but so far I’ve only liked their most expensive Heritage designs. Which I can’t afford.
It's amazing how many UA-cam reviewers judge the quality of an item strictly by it's price and say things like "a $500 speaker can never be as good as a $1000 speaker." I don't watch those people any more.
You can't blame people having cheap Klipsch or Polk speakers for not noticing the difference between DACs or amps. If I have bad components I'll never hear details, separation, soundstage, etc. I'm not dumb, just don't have the appropriate tools.
the commenters never mentioned their speaker choices so I'm not sure that your comment makes much sense
Have I got a bone to pick with you Mister! Actually, I don't. I just don't want to disappoint you when you were expecting folks to get mad at your video and not enough of us do so. We all have selective hearing, just ask our wives! Seriously though, if you're male and over 50, statistically your female partner will have better hearing than you do. This is proved for me when I walk in nature with my wife. " Can you here that high pitch bird call?" Me: " What bird." Lousy DACs have been around a long time. I remember in the 80's how awful a portable CD player sounded when outputted RCA to a home stereo. Man, do we ever need to strive to meet in the middle more than ever, especially this weekend. Great video! Back to my search of finding a speaker that matches my sleep number or hearing loss profile. Happy Friday (and I feel fine)!
I'm new to this and very confused on amps. How does an external amp result in a different sound quality output? Isn't it just adding more power and the source before the amplifier is responsible for the quality? It makes sense to me that two different AVRs (e.g. Marantz vs Pioneer) would result in a different sound quality but how would the same Marantz AVR connected to two different external amps result in a different sound quality output?
In a perfect world. A friend said he always wanted a straight wire with gain. Different caps, inductors, resistors, transistors all sound different so why shouldn't amps?
@@chemania1
Amps usually have much lower THD percentages than speakers. So the speakers have more influence, one would expect. Then there's the way speakerimpedance curves differ and the way these impact on the amplifier performance. How do we know we're hearing the difference purely within the amplifier and not the differences between speakers and/or the impact of a speaker's impedance curve?
I'll say this, the higher in quality the speakers, the more noticeable the higher in quality the amplifier is going to be detected. You can very easily overspend on an amp, however someone telling you that a high-end amp is nothing more than snake oil while judging that on the mid-level speakers they are listening to, is disingenuous. It's all relative and everyone's individual point of diminishing returns comes into play. Seek out people that have the best you can hear and listen to as much stuff as possible. Enjoy the ride!
you forgot to mention:
Power cables, cable elevators, power conditioners, ingenious tweaks
Audiophiles don't even listen to music. It's a hw hobby... like cars enthusiasts who owns some vehicles, spend hundreds of thousands let every inch of it beyond perfect and special... but by no means these cars are BETTER to drive or race... they are just a hw hobby dream, the dont even drive it, just to show it off to friends or meetings... just like audiophiles, they only turn it on to show the system to somebody else, most huge hifi systems don't run more than 2h/month. And the owner always think it's still not good enough!
See. This is state's evidence number one as to why I stopped referring to myself as an audiophile. So much of that community comports itself like a junior high school cafeteria food fight. Life's too short for that bs. So I rest comfortably within the audio enthusiast realm and am perfectly happy.
So it seems to me that a significant number of people making "it all sounds the same" claim, more than likely wasted eighty bucks on a set of Raycon earbuds and now are audiophiles. In their defense, I will agree. Everything reproduced by Raycons sound like crap, so there's that. Also, no one wants to hear anything negative about the gear they have already purchased and can get quite defensive when they find negative criticism. For what that is worth.
Right Randy..
it’s all a matter of degree.. in any given system, there’s going to be a quality level whereby going any further in “quality” with a particular component of the system will not yield any better sonic result, so for any given system, the cables, dacs, amps, or whatever, when changed, can alter the perception and viewpoint regarding the original component and its replacement.
Edit: Once that happens, the actual weakest link would need to be identified to reach for the next level of sonic bliss (probably speakers lol).
Because I think that we’re approx the same age, I know that men our age suffer from hf hearing loss due to the small hairs in our ears tend to get stiff.
My take on DACs: Yes, it is inaccurate to say ALL DACs sound the same. That said, it is more accurate that all Delta Sigma DACs natively sound the same and all R2R DACs natively sound the same. (Delta Sigma DACs natively sound different from R2R DACs). DAC chip brands or model numbers (as if anyone can keep track of those or knows what they mean) are not relavant at all. In the case of built-in DACs, how a DAC is implemented within a circuit can also make a subtle difference, but yes, more so it is the analog output that is the most noticeable difference. Not the size of the jack, but the whole build or implementation of the analog output section. In my opinion, it really comes down to capability in regards to outboard DACs, so in reality one can spend as little or as much as one wants and get the same product. That would be the good side of DACs.
As for ALL amps sound the same: That is probably the most Ludacris thing I have hear in HiFi. It is not even physically possible. Yes, one may have two or even three amps that sound extremely similar giving the feel they are almost exactly alike, but all 300 different amps or however many there are out there do NOT sound alike. This is understood when one just takes a cursory look as to how amps are designed and made let alone actually listening to different amps with the same speakers and downstream gear to compare. Amps even sound different just between class type and within class type. One can have say a few A/B class amps and I would bet that unless there is a coincidence that two of them where engineered to sound very similar, there would be noticeable difference between their native sound signatures. One might lean more towards the warm side of neutral, one might lean towards the bright side, one might lean as close to neutral as possible and so forth. Tube amps sound completely different from solid state amps to be extra simple about it.
"Crossover components don't matter": I kind of thought that many years ago, but that was completely destroyed when I met Andrew Jones whom befriended me out of thin air for some reason (and helped me) when I was a pup journalist and I got to spend time with him at ELAC and such and got a complete walk-thru ad-nauseum of speaker design and build. The very grade of even a capacitor or inductor or what have you in a crossover can make a difference in the performance of a speaker! There is a lot that goes on in the interaction just within a speaker! The crossover components have influence on the voice coil, the phasing, the frequency response, etc. There is no such thing as an "audiophile component" though. Like "audiophile records" or "audiophile amps", "audiophile speakers", "Audiophile chairs" or T-shirts, Etc. That is pure myth.
All speakers should have a flat frequency response: Not going to happen. Studio monitors should have a flat frequency response because of how they are used, but for home listening or whatever, most folks do not like flat speakers. I happen to be odd man out who does like speakers that are flat or balanced for listening as well as application of audio work, but that's just me. Most folks want a bit of liveliness on their listening speakers. One must take into account the enclosure, cone materials, etc. etc.....Then there is the room they are put in don't forget. It is also far more difficult to build a speaker with a flat response. Even the flattest studio monitors are not perfectly flat.
Randy, the description you gave in the first part of this section is the description of your average cult. Well said.
It’s been my experience that the quickest, cheapest, most bang for the buck and obvious sonic enhancement, way of upgrading a passive audio crossover is to replace the series electrolytic in the high pass with a poly cap.
@@shipsahoy1793 The question is how many people are going to crack open their speakers and toy with the crossover? Answer, none, including me, even if needed (it is not in my case for the record). As for passive audio crossovers: useless, unless one is using speakers that require them and not many out there. Same question though, how many would pop the hood and tinker around in there, probably close to none.
@@ericelliott227 you misunderstood me .. passive crossovers are what the majority of speaker boxes have; active crossovers are less common. That said, I believe you’re right that most people won’t pull their speakers apart to change crossover components, but if you have speakers you like, and you have them long enough, say like more than a decade, and you start to feel like they just don’t seem the same. I think it’s always good to get a look inside, and if there are electrolytics (NPE’s) n them, they would certainly be replacement or upgrade candidates. And when going through the trouble, why not at least upgrade the electrolytics in the high pass to poly caps.
At this point, I just upgrade all the NPE’s at a minimum. I personally never bother with crossover work, unless the speakers are reasonably old, with good healthy drivers and a decent cabinet still in good shape.
@@shipsahoy1793 You are correct, I did misunderstand you a bit, thank you for the clarification. I also agree that if the speakers are old enough and one really likes them, a look inside if possible, if there is access is warranted. One doesn't have to do the work themselves either if not comfortable. If the speakers are that loved then paying for the work/upgrade is also warranted.
I also agree with replacing the electrolytic caps with poly caps wherever possible as well. Some circuits don't take or use poly caps over electrolytic caps, but in most cases it can be done.
I love my speakers (big towers) and there is nothing else like them on the market sonically, even at $60,000 or something. They are over 10 years old I think, but they are the same as they were on day one...well, ok, after they broke in. Nothing has changed. Unfortunately as far as I can tell one can't get to the crossover on them, at least not easily. That is unless there is access through the connection plate, but it doesn't look to be the case. I can replace the drivers no problem. The manufacture says (unless they recently decided on another stupid move) still keeps the drivers and other parts on hand and if needed can remanufacture anything but the cabinet.
@@ericelliott227 interesting. Yes, I have a an old pair of Wharfedales that if I lost a driver, I’d be screwed and it was a very delicate surgery to do the crossover’s in those speakers because the big woofers had to be removed from the baffle and the crossover board removed. In the end, it was worth it because those are my “priceless” speakers. A few years ago I did the crossovers on a pair of old Polk monitors, and that was just a matter of removing the back plate and some wiring to work on the crossover, but because of Polk, there had to be some redesign work done, and I couldn’t fit the caps that I wanted in there, because some of the values were so large that I ended up having to use metalized polyester caps; not quite the caps that I wanted in there. Luckily, it ended up working out much better than what was originally in there. Also, Polk’s SL2500 ferrofluid tweeters were failing and I had switched to their RD0198-1 replacements, which sounded much smoother. I don’t know if those Polks ever sounded as good as they do these days lol
Not the same sheer joy of my ‘Dales, but they make a great sounding secondary system.
Funny how no Audiophile thinks that way at all.
My challenge to you is to consider that people that have some of theses beliefs have limitations in there system that hide the quality of certain parts. I noticed that low quality speakers or amps will limit any day that they might stay the same.
Well they're all tone deaf. That's also like me saying as a bass player in my younger years, that all bass amps sound the same.
They're either tone deaf or missing some brain cells.
Then you have the other end of the spectrum with the OCD audiophile, where they'll spend £100k on hardware because they think they can hear the transient on a cymbal a touch better.
I can't hear differences between amplifiers I've owned, but have never heard two amps compared through the same speakers with instant switching between them. However, blind tests suggest that differences are small, and undetectable for most listeners. In any case, assuming there are differences I and other people could hear, how do you use that information when buying new equipment that has to work with speakers you already have? I think most people are going to be shooting in the dark here, even with the information provided by online reviewers.
I agree there are so many variables. May I be so bold without attempting to insult you or anyone, from my personal experience, the higher In quality you go with a speaker the more noticeable an amplifiers sound will be detected by your ears. IMO far too many so called audiophiles have mono blocked shelf speakers and then say a bigger amp or higher quality amp is useless. They may very well be right in their circumstance because of the speaker’s limitations. Conversely I do believe you can over buy an amp beyond your systems limits and negating its strengths thus making its abilities undetectable. In summation, in a chain of equipment a very hi end amp is limited most by the speakers. That’s where the point of diminishing returns happens most
Great video! I like to tell people: "When your beliefs are challenged, take the challenge!" I have a big huge greatroom with vaulted ceilings and hard floors. I'm looking into building a sound system that would sound good in this room. Starting with research into sound absorption lol! Great channel!
Good luck with that. I have a similar room and everything I tried sounded crappy. I finally gave up an use headphones for TV listening in that room and put my music system in a different room. I wasn't willing to do the room treatment that would have been required to make the room audio friendly.