Audio Science Review Review

I know this stair step, slices/pieces, 'approximation' conceptualization is an intuitive way to think about it, but it is not in the end a good image of digital sampling of analog wave form, nyquist-shannon, etc. I would even say it is a caricature and simplification similar to the assertion SINAD/THD + signal is the sum of music, and anything else is bias. Just sayin...

I spent time A/Bing a Massdrop HD6XX vs. Utopia out of my main rig today (Gun MB A2 > Starlett) with a well recorded classical piece I am familiar with. The fact is your right in that even for many otherwise interested in SQ improvements enough to do a bit of "research" at ASR, here, and the usual review sites, the delta is probably not enough for them to pay more than a few dollars at most or look past the false reductions/methodology of an ASR...

 

No worries. I don't really pretend to be an expert in this area and am always open to learning more about it. I was more using this point to illustrate my frustration with the prevalent attitude in our western societies that any new technology must by definition be utterly superior to anything that preceded it.

 

High quality audio measurements require control of many potential contaminants.
1) stable power souce
2) stable references, such as voltage and frequency, like a Rubidium Frequency Standard for instance
3) shielded power cords
4) stable environment such as EMI / RFI / ESD controlled workspace and monitoring of Temp, Humidity and Barometric pressure
5) attention to connecting cable orientations and examination of connectors every setup
6) sweeping the DUT area with an SDR spectrum analyzer
7) multiple measurement runs to assure consistent behavior

there are more but this should be sufficient to give an idea what is required to satisfy work that regulatory agencies will deem acceptable. Quality measurements are necessarily time consuming.

Sensitivities: some here are able to distinguish certain auditory nuances that elude my detection. My greatest sensitivities are hum, buzz, surface noise, residual noise, digital glare, mouth noise, transient smearing, and a few others, which is why I stick mostly to measurements.

 

It’s this along with a few beliefs that flow from it: 1) I can get the scientifically-proven best gear possible for a relatively small amount of money, and 2) I’m much smarter than all of those morons spending more money than me. In that sense, Amir is providing a both economically and emotionally valuable worldview to his acolytes. They get to save money and feel superior to other audiophiles.

Moreover, this relationship became symbiotic. I’m sure Amir realized what brought him attention and donations quite early in the history of ASR. The reviews where he — owner of a system that retails for more than decent houses in my hometown — claimed $99 Topping DACs destroyed multi-thousand dollar DACs got lots of engagement. The people engaging started donating to Amir. Suddenly, Amir is churning out review after review “scientifically proving” that budget gear is perfect beyond audibility, that gear beloved by audiophiles is “poorly engineered,” etc.

Everyone is “winning,” except companies that want to produce anything other than SINAD-scoring gearing and audio sites that want to present a more nuanced and realistic portrait of the audiophile landscape. The end result a shittier hobby filled with arrogant pseudo-scientists who are themselves being scammed, since they’re being steered away from better-sounding gear in favoring of increasingly-pricey Topping/SMSL stuff that’s also blowing up headphones.

 

AutoEQ has Sound Signatures: https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq#using-sound-signatures

This allows one to generate a PEQ to give a headphone the tonality of another. I have experimented with it. I made my HD650 sound like a HD600 and I also gave my NDH20 the tonality of HD650 (which was weird).

 

Exactly! The fact is that the popularity of ASR forums has swayed even Schiit to redirect their resources into production of opamp-based amplifiers that measure spectacularly but sound exactly like any other chip amplifier. I understand it from a commercial point of view, but as an audio enthusiast, I am not interested in those products at all.

What truly fascinates me is the ability of Amir to sustain this gravy train that he has been on because the whole stated premise of ASR has long outlived its purpose - how many times can a perfectly measuring amp/dac/headphone/speaker be outclassed by an even more perfectly measuring device when according to Amir there is no audible difference between these after they reach the point of transparency? Why would these superior-feeling budget-conscious audiophiles feel the need to buy even more expensive gear when a $99 DAC from Topping sounds exactly the same as the $599 one? I feel like I am missing something.

Full disclosure - once upon a time I bought a Topping D70 only because I wanted to hear whether there was a difference between AK4490 and AK4497 and wanted to experiment with various built-in digital filters. I would have never bought it had I thought that it was going to sound exactly the same as my Modi 3.

I am hoping that the fact that ASR is branching into measuring speakers and headphones is a sign that the game is up at least when it comes to amplifiers and DACs. We can then go back to fresh Multibit DAC designs from Mike, 10- tube amplifiers from Jason, and just generally fun equipment that pushes the boundaries by experimentation and innovation.

 

ASR is full of a lot of nonsense, but an insistence on blind testing is the baby in the bathwater. The fallibility of sighted listening is just incredibly hyper-documented, to the point where if you're dismissing it, you're a crank. Case after case after case after case of "I heard this amazingly obvious night-and-day difference" that suddenly when you follow the exact same switching protocol disappears once blinded. "Sighted testing is unreliable" is just a bedrock fact.

Of course, I say that it's the baby in the bathwater, but turns out that ASR actually is an empty bathtub, because they don't do blind tests. They talk about them, but there are basically zero threads of people actually doing them. If you actually give a shit about blind tests, SBAF is the place you go to look for them. (And tbh, I wish there were more of them here, because I think they're exceptionally valuable, and my favorite threads on this site are of people giving the results of their blind testing. Sucks that they're so annoyingly difficult to do.)

 

I am not dismissing blind-testing. The one time where I was able to do it was when I compared my Steinberg UR12 interface as a DAC against the Bifrost 2. I was able to level match them using a multimeter and a 1kHz test tone since the UR12 has a variable output knob. Anyway, I posted about this here but it was way too close for comfort considering my expectations. I could hear the difference in noise floor if I blasted the volume too high and some difference in cymbals and hi-hats. But, I could not tell them apart reliably every time. Another issue is that I did fast switching rather than listen to a whole song and then switch. I say it is an issue because fast switching between sources makes it difficult to ascertain whether a DAC or an amp is fatiguing to listen to over a prolonged period of time.

My Bifrost 2 had other issues (one channel had some coil whine noise) so I ended up returning it, but I do regret not exchanging it for another one. I kind of feel that I did not give it a fair shot by listening to it over a prolonged period of time to really test it. It is one example of a situation where quick-switch blind testing may not be the best way to judge performance of a component and could lead to false positives.

 

What is this with Amir not having the time? What does he do the rest of the time? My guess is that it translates to not being bothered.

Manic subjectivists also fail in putting blind-testing in the objective camp. There is nothing more subjective than a blind test: It is just us and the sound. I also wish I'd had the patience to do the properly.

And another thing. Folks, I'm not good at formal logic, which I never learned, so please tell me what's right or wrong with the following...

One person does a series of tests and fails to detect a difference between A and B: Fine, that person couldn't detect a difference, that day, with that material and that is all that is proven. It is absolutely not proven that there is no difference.

One person does a series of tests and does, reliably and repeatable, detect a difference between A and B: Proves it can be done. Shows that, regardless of how many millions can't detect that difference, it is there and can be detected.

 

“You all know I am not a big fan of waterfall graphs”

Fail.

 

Honestly, I don’t like to use EQ. With every EQ program I’ve tried, I’ve noticed the dynamic range getting more compressed.

Granted, all I’ve used was real-time EQ, so parametric may not have that issue.

 

I just did another blind test comparing my Steinberg UR12 against the Atom DAC which is my main DAC now. I level-matched them and kept switching back and forth while playing a variety of music. Could not tell a difference, even in cymbals and hi-hats, which was the only place where I could perceive a difference when I compared the UR12 against the Bifrost 2. I believe that UR12 uses Cirrus Logic CS4270 while the Atom uses AK4490EQ. They sounded identical to me to be honest.

It is funny because Jason just posted on HF that apparently now AK4490 may be resurrected so is contemplating a Thunderdome between AK4490 and whatever replacement chip they selected.

 

How are you guys doing blind switching between DACs? If using PC as a source I'd have to select the DAC...so not blind. If using disc transport I'd have to either use different digital outs (SPDIF and Optic) or manually change cables.

 

When is someone going to report ASR to IMG Licensing for using the Pink Panther as his branding device in virtually all photos, presumably without paying royalties.

 

This is the way I do it. I plug both of my DACs into my PC then use JRiver Media Centre to simultaneously output the signal to both devices. In Jriver you can do that by linking 2 zones, with each zone running a different DAC. Then route the RCAs from the DACs to my TC-7240 RCA switcher and then simply switch between the inputs. To make it truly blind, I get someone to switch the RCAs so I don't know which one is which. I really don't even care about which one is which - all I care about is whether I hear the differences between the two or not.

A bigger problem is getting these DACs level matched because most DACs have fixed output and not all of them have a chip-level lossless volume control. This is why I use my UR12 audio interface which has an analogue pot that adjusts its output level.

 

Amir would just call in his Microsoft associates to make them an offer they couldn't refuse.