Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

I almost ran out of time to complete the form. That's in seconds below.



When I hit submit, I got an error message saying no spots available. Went back to reschedule - I need to re-enter all the information again on the form.

f**k it. Not gonna bother. He didn't want that swab shoved up his nose anyway. Condemn me all you guys want.

You guys can argue politics and treatments all day. It's shit like this, the little details, why we suck at managing this Xi-virus. It's not too different from audio gear. It's easy to mock-up protos. However 90% of the work is the small stuff with respect to sound and cosmetics that completes the picture.

 

Tell me about it. The global company that I work for, we've been trying to acquire test kits as part of back to work procedures starting the new year.

That plan went to shit after Biden announced the free test kit program. Overnight, supplies got rerouted (more likely put on hold until the Federal contract is signed).

I wish people in our government weren't so retarded and planned ahead of time instead of making it up as we go or waffling back and forth.

 

Back to audio. I get good questions in PM. This is one of them.

Amir's review is useful. It does confirm that I personally won't like it based on frequency response.

Amir uses the Olive / Harmon consumer Target. I dislike this target. Too much bass and a little too much in the upper mids from 2-6kHz. I can take some narrow peaks dips and bumps here and there because headphones are imperfect in this manner. However, I generally do not like a broad lift in this region. Back to the bass, we can see that the DCA Stealth is in excess of the bassy Olive target in a few spots, e.g. 2.5db lift on top of already bassy Olive curve at 100Hz.

The distortion does look good, but not exceptional. Nice and flat from mid-bass to highs. A bit higher than other mid to TOTL planars in the sub and low bass. Group delay is useless for headphones unless something serious is amiss which I've never seen.

The impulse response "settling after one second" is meaningless. The IR is in linear scale. We hear in logarithmic (dB) scale and really if we want to visualization settling behavior, we need to look at CSDs which show us the settling behavior in decibels and per frequency. Linear scale squashes signals only 25-30db below into nothingness. We can still hear this stuff. This isn't -120db SINAD blips.

The big question is dampening. A common complaint cited by many members here is that recent DCA headphones are too damped, too dead sounding - slow and sluggish transients. It's not uncommon for DCA to use layers of "treats" to smooth out and lower the peaks in the highs. Now to be forthright, I have not heard the Stealth so I cannot comment on this.

Bottom line is this:

• Frequency response not to my taste. Overly bassy and a perhaps a bit too elevated in upper mids.
• I see a possible peak just past 5kHz and a dip at 6kHz (that could be a disguised peak - shows up as a ridge in a CSD). If these exist, there could be some hardness or glare to the sound. Without a CSD, I cannot say or predict.
• Distortion looks good, but not exceptional. Hard to compare measurements from different systems. However when compared within same systems, when we look at the Stealth to HD650 ASR measurements, the Stealth is only maybe 5db better than the HD650 below 55db (which is quite distorted). For comparison, something like an LCD-X or HE6 utterly destroys the HD650 when it comes to sub and low bass distortion.
• With respect to sluggish transients, this is a concern based on history and would need to be best confirmed by actual listening. Answer here is unknown. Would be curious how much foam or felt in already placed in front of the driver. On a good day, we may be able to gathering something about subjective transient performance with the attack/decay burst envelopes - on a good day. Amir doesn't do these.
• With respect to microdetail and soundstage, no measurement exists that assesses these two very important aspect to sound quality well. To some extent CSDs for the former and maybe differences between HATS or flat plate (no pinna) couplers for the latter (to assess how much pinna plays a role) - but this gets complex and correlation to perceived sound quality is moderate on a good day.
• Ergonomics are likely first rate, although some have had issues with DCA designs. I have a big head and wear HD800s on two clicks to full extension. I love DCA ergo.

I think the general consensus (others can feel free to chime in), is that it would be best to audition. As I've mentioned, I'm already out based on frequency response preference. This is a big jump with respect to price point with DCA. I'm inclined to believe @KaiserTK's impressions. We are a small community and folks who post, even if they don't post much, usually do a lot of reading to understand the community.

 

That doesn't sound like a KEF Meta at all. The KEF stuff was designed to kill internal reflections and resonances inside the box with a cheap mass-manufacturable disc instead of heroic wood bracing and internal cabinet lining.

What you described sounds like a fancier foam, mesh, puzzle, fazor, whatever. For all we know, @Hands could and @rhythmdevils could have splooged into a scrub pad, let the splooge dry out and harden into a cosmic lattice, and then had the piece laser cut to place in front of the driver.

And what makes it "Meta", was the mesh shit out of an Eternal? Or does it only exist in Suckerberg's Ready Player One world? And why is it Meta and not Omega? Omega particles would do a better job because they can bend space and time, and presumably frequencies.

 

C'mon dude. You know we don't buy into this kind of marketing speak on SBAF.

I don't mind you mentioning it in passing, but unless you know something about how this works, don't equate with the KEF meta pad or any other working tech with claims of novelty. That internal speaker pad stuff has been around since the beginning of time. I've seen primitive versions inside Linn speakers and DIY methods for back loaded horns where the driver is just a few inches from the back of the internal horn. In fact, Madisound used to and probably sells something like this, probably a more effective version.

What I'm getting at is don't bother mentioning Acoustic Metamaterial Tuning System, Continuity, Bitperfect, True Multibit, Nested Composite Feedback Amplifier, Fazor, unless you really understand its underpinnings and most of all, know its effect on sound. I'm already getting PTSD from that Topping fuckhead who berated my ignorance: "What, you don't understand what NCFA means? " This when I've had such an amp, parts on a broadboard, next to my bed 15 years ago as my primary headamp - I just wasn't smart or dumb enough to name it NCFA - essentially because it was copied from a datasheet or based on the META42. Seriously, this is why I HATE this shit, when ways to solve a problem are given fancy names and marketed as scientific wonders and discoveries.

All this marketing shit is cringy. Heck, I've given Jason shit about it too even though I know he does it in a tongue-and-cheek kind of way. I even jokingly suggested to Jason that his approach to addressing the transcendence doubling issue with transistors should have been called Evenflow (based on the Pearl Jam song). Even flow, get it? Haha.

Don't been a tool for manufacturers' marketing. Well, not unless until we can confirm it sounds like something, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.