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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ย. 2024
- I shot this video a year ago, but hesitated to release it. The topics I mention keep coming up, as well others, and since other, well-known reviewers have commented on issues, I figured as may as well too.
I'm sure it will generate a few interesting comments. Constructive discussion is welcome.
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Add another for audiophile snobs, people who look down on others with lower price tier gear. It's all about the journey of enjoying music according to what you can afford and choose to buy.
Agreed, and this can also work the other way where people berate people who have more pricey gear.
Seconded. There are some reviewers that do this as well.
@@humm6155 What headphones do you have?
Another thing to consider and I said this in a comment on another channel. Some people are very happy with the gear they have and have no desire to have something better. One of the things I have found while upgrading equipment is that better stuff can sometimes lessen your enjoyment of music. With average or below average stuff everything kind of sounds the same. It levels the playing field. Once you start getting better stuff that can bring out the details it can show you the differences in other equipment and recordings. As in a bad recording truly sounds bad. To the point where you may not enjoy listening to your favorite piece of music anymore. When I was young we used to love listening to Dokken Tooth and Nail on cassette in the car and home on our little cheap system. Later I got the CD and played on a better system and it was horrible. To the point where I didn't want to hear it. Not that I didn't like the music the recording or transfer was just soo bad it was gross. Or with something like John Denver. I love John Denver but there are really not that many great recordings of him. Unfortunately they were just not done that well. And on a better system that really comes through and for me it detracts from the music.
Yeh I'm really pissed off with the audiophile snob.
If it sound good and measures good, it’s good
If it sound bad and measures good, it’s bad
If it sound good and measures bad, we’re measuring the wrong thing
@@enjoshi-godrez8775 Audio Pseudo Science Review ...
If you like it it's good for you
@@enjoshi-godrez8775 lol, when has anyone ever said that ? Sounds like you're just as bad, like some kind of anti-science religious zealot.
Audiophile reviews sound suspiciously like wine reviews .
" it has a hint of oak and vanilla with a saffron finish . The crimson red viscosity allows the aroma to linger on the pallet far longer than thinner wines . a slight amount of sediment was detected but not enough to show up on my lips when i was slobbering due to excessive consumption ."
LMAO This is spot on!
As an audio reviewer, I like the this!
I don't mind derailing hype trains, but I don't aim to do so. I go in hoping all the products are awesome because it's so much easier to do a review a product I love compared to one that's just mediocre.
I like being made aware when I'm wrong because it means I can stop and start being right!
My #1 thing I hate is when people in this hobby/industry forget that this all supposed to be fun! None of this stuff is a need, they're all wants. Let's just have fun with it. Let's argue, but keep it fun.
"95% of "audiophiles" own budget or cheap equipment, but they read tons of articles, which made them "audiophile experts".
This is what an electronics engineer and audiophile, who repairs and makes his own audio equipment, told me.
worst thing? using fancy ass headphones to listen to headphone reviews and not listening to your music or discovering music. Too obsessed on the motorcycle and not enough on the actual ride.
Slightly ironic
People who trash talk your purchase is the worst! I made a purchase that I enjoy , and someone just said “your purchase is over rated, you should have bought ‘X’, it’s ‘X’ or nothing”… from that point on, I will not share anymore and just keep it to myself, and enjoy on my own.
That's stupid. People buy what they like and that's it. As I said, arguing what sound better is arguing what colour is better.
Definitely on the money. I've been in this hobby just since lockdown, coming from photography & wine tasting, and finding it confusing how polarised the community is on simple things such as cables, jitter, high-res, etc.
Both my other hobbies had brand loyalties, but most photographers could be kept in check by seeing amazing photos from other brands. The difference with audiophiles is simply that human capacity for hearing is so much weaker in the sense it's more subjective, but this is no different to wine in that sense, yet the two communities could not be so different.
I suspect the difference is due to audiophillia being rooted in science, because as you say this allows misinterpretations and misuse of science (via bad theory supported by equally bad measurements) that facilitates a sense of misguided righteousness that's just not here in wine, thus ensuring a mutual respect for others subjective differences in taste.
I'm so glad you've raised this issue as it's been bothering me a lot recently after having bizarre discussions on TH-cam. I've since realised the science is complex (and I have two science degrees in different fields), so my response is humility in my ignorance of a subject I don't understand from first principles.
Even if I figure out the science to my satisfaction, I'm not going to get involved in debates, because when people's minds are made up, then they're not for changing....why should they if they 'know' they're right?
No, my plan is to just buy my gear and enjoy the music.
Here's my sole contribution to the community:
do you really *know* the science or do you just have a high level working model....an interpretation of the science? If you're unsure, then take one of your conclusions e.g. 'Nygquist proves high-res is BS' and research it not in audiophile forums, but from other sources - locate Nyquist's original paper and find non-audiophiles who discuss and explain it so you can understand new concepts at a high-level. Drill down on these concepts until you understand throughly the concepts behind the maths (but not necessarily the maths itself). At that point, test your understanding by not looking stupid getting tips from a physicist, then find audiophiles in forums who can discuss at your level how this all this science & its assumptions equates to the quality of sound we can hear. Please then write a paper for the rest of us, but if at any point it proves too much, then how about acting with humility in forums and elsewhere? Thanks.
P.s. the goal is to learn enough about the subject (where enough is a first principles understanding), such that you can re-examine the premises that supported your original conclusion...you need to *know* whether you’re on safe ground when asserting those ‘facts’ on forums/TH-cam and whether your champion really knows what he’s talking about or is simply talking out of his a***. If you aren’t sure then you can only be sure of one thing: that you really know nothing.
Hype trains are my #1 frustration with online audiophiles. #1 frustration with in-person audiophile community is the decades I’ve lived with not been taken seriously at shops by the middle-aged men’s audio club.
Currawong, you hit the nail right on the head hear and the things you mentioned are helping to hurt the community, but unfortunately this type of mentality translates well outside of just audio and is going on in many forums.
Absolutely. I see it in many areas of life. There are particular mentalities that people have that make them behave in certain ways and attracted to certain ideas.
Spot on. I prefer your in-depth approach. Keep doing a wonderful job.
Very common in any relatively niche, technical community on the internet. There's been a lot of issues with people in the visual media space as well, people reviewing TV's and bashing anyone else who reviews the same TV, getting bent out of shape because people disagree with their color calibrations, etc.
In my field, you see a lot of this with Linux snobs. People who think that everyone in the world is stupid for not using linux but then gatekeep the community and treat any newcomers like dirt just for lack of experience, instead of offering good advice and leaving the condescending attitude at home.
I think it comes down to pure hipster mentality. People like being experts in a small niche and they don't want it to become mainstream, because then they won't be as special any more.
I remember wanting to get a set of audio technica headphones back then since i liked the sound and look of it when I borrowed one from my cousin so I saved money in any way i can (as someone who lives in a 3rd world country, having something like 20 bucks is already kind of a big thing), I happily posted my new headphones online bought with my hard earned money aaand all the snobs said things like it's not good enough, my purchase suck or I wasted my money, this brand and model is better, stuff like that.
I love music. Once in a while I get involved in the whole Hifi thing and then I enter into a world where music comes second.
Many "audiophiles" only listen to perfectly recorded music, endlessly tweaking and tweaking to make fewer and fewer pieces of music sound ever more wonderful.
If you really love music you'll discover that many of the greatest recordings aren't in perfect sound. In my experience, the most neutral system is the one most likely to play the widest range of music.
A large part of the listening experience is beyond simple science and measurement.
legrandmaitre I agree. I think they are incels. And they often have no understanding of the process of making music. They probably don’t have perfect pitch. It’s like art critics and the artist; the critic creates an entire narrative about a work of art, it is accepted as “the standard” by academia, and we are forever force fed a narrative by a single individual, that may have nothing whatsoever to do with the artist’s intention. I’m an artist, and I have perfect pitch, and I was part of academia. Hated all academics, loved the students, and no one ever got or gets it right with regard to my intention about a given work of art. I’m fine with that, it is interesting to hear other perspectives, but I’m also not presuming one will be selected to be force fed for decades, centuries to innocent victims.
Ask them if they would choose a poor recording of Caruso singing Nessun Dorma, or a perfect modern recording of me or you or some random dude doing it. I for one would go for the Bottom-Fi Caruso rather than a perfect recording of us.
The internet and especially social media brings out the worst in people.
There is only personal preference in this hobby, nothing's written in stone ..Seek advice by all means and experiment for yourself but stick to what you you enjoy....graphs don't lie but people do...and remember it's all about the music at the end of the day.
This comment deserves more likes
Agreed, its all about the music! Although for some its all about the gears specs and that's a shame.
@@humanmale1085 No, it's about maximum enjoyment, and not being a sucker. There's way too much snake oil in the hobby, and people working to expose the bullshit are benevolent.
The worse for me is when I hear something and think it sounds good, and then reading a review that points out faults I hadn't picked up on (or don't care about). I then find myself siding with the reviewer. LOL So the reviewer, essentially, destroyed my enjoyment of something. I know it's all down to me, but it happens. I used to have audiophile tendencies, but these days I go with "I like what I like", which sometimes means something that others don't like, I happen to enjoy - and it's all good.
At the end of the day its about enjoying the music. Moving closer to this is good, moving further is bad. Everything else is just noise
as a programmer, i have a hard time understanding why the quality of a digital cable has any effect on the quality of the sound, for me the only explanation is that a DAC that is sensitive to the cable is badly designed, a DAC should never rely on the timing of the data coming in, it should use it's own ultra precise clock, it just doesn't make any sense, any USB cable is capable of transmitting binary data perfectly, or the whole computer industry would not work !!, no USB hard drives, keyboards or mice !, please tell me DACS have their own clock ?? if not they should not be bought by anyone, it defeats the whole purpose of digital music, and it's so cheap to fix, a little RAM (yes there would be a TINY delay, a couple of milliseconds), so, NO, i don't accept that the quality of a digital cable matters, it's not acceptable, ditto CD players, i listened to a 30 000 dollar CD player for a month (Mark Levinson 30.1), i didn't get it because i just cannot accept that it would make any difference, if it does, you should talk about that instead, it's STUPID !! 10 lines of code, a clock, a little RAM !
answering my own post :) : i found that the IFI dac has it's own clock, and a little buffer, just like i described, canceling out any jitter generated by the source or digital connection, i rest my case, don't buy a DAC that cannot do that.
It's a fair query, and didn't make sense to me initially either. High frequency noise passing through the ground plane can affect the analog circuits. It's not enough to cause errors in the data. The noise comes from the power supplies, and the chips doing the processing. I noticed, for example, when I installed power filters and a power reconditioner that the differences between digital cables disappeared. Another thing to note: USB Audio doesn't transmit the same way as a regular data transfer, which has issues of its own.
All DACs have their own clock. Jitter is *mostly* a non-issue these days. I think if jitter gets too high, the DAC itself may start generating significant noise from attempting to correct it. More relevant, I think, is that good audio software gets exclusive access to USB DACs to minimize the amount of interrupts and other processing which can increase noise generated by the USB receiver.
it's because in reality, nothing is really digital
I’m glad you took a stance on these things. I’ve always appreciated your humble approach to reviews and unnecessary drama.
I’ve seen this toxic power play play out time and time again across hobbies/fandoms. The toxic leaders usually are compensating for a lack of perceived power in the real world. It’s ironic for them to present themselves intelligent when they simply adapted the poo flinging tactics of our genetic ancestors.
Keep up the great work with reviews and being a positive influence on the community.
As a "high-end" manufacturer of audio components, Great American sound Co. or 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! I repeated these same A/B listening tests many times with various individuals and groups and determined there was a direct correlation between audiophiles and lovers of music; audiophiles were always angered; music lovers were always enlightened, especially women! This same switching system was also utilized for loudspeakers and phono cartridges since GAS Co. was selling "Sleeping Beauty" "moving-coil" phono cartridges made by Coral Corp. in Japan. There was no need try to fool the listener as I did with electronics, switching between different loudspeakers and phono cartridges always produced easily discernible audible changes in the musical timbre characteristics. David Riddle
I've caught myself out a few times wrongly thinking I knew which DAC was connected to which input of an amplifier. It's fun not knowing. I made finding out I'm wrong something that's fun. I'm not surprised that there are plenty of people who don't feel that way! 😁
ordinary audiophile: gear for listening music.
so-called "audiophile": music for listening gear.
I work in the Porn industry and we have a lot of the same issues.
Good shit
except there the measurements really do matter 😆
🗣
More than 40 years ago my friend and I, both audio enthusiasts, were at CES. The audio snobbery that existed then was just as virulent as it is now. Most of that snobbery was expressed in print at The Absolute Sound. We made a pilgrimage to their booth. My friend thought it might be funny to introduce a new term to the lexicon of the pseudointellectuals there. We began a fake discussion of gear we had previewed at the show so all could hear us without being obvious. He invented the term "gray in the midrange" By the end of the show, it was being used everywhere the "audiophile" ventured.
I can think of this bald guy that often trashes Sennheiser with measurements that fits perfectly within the profile of your critique...
Who's that?
Great to see many people got it. Sorry to see some people are just here to trash me. But that's the internet....
A couple of things which a few people (those here to trash me) got wrong:
This video doesn't refer to a particular person, but is inspired by the actions of a number of people over many years. Every few years someone new comes along and feeds a hate-train of some form.
I'm not anti-measurement. I'm against using a limited subset of measurements to make misleading, or even false, declarative statements.
My comment about my experience with optical cables was over 10 years ago. Back then, even flagship DACs (such as the Marantz Project D1 I reviewed) were transport-quality sensitive and would sound terrible with a cheap optical connection. Nowadays such an experience is far less likely as even cheap DACs are far better made and will handle the high amount of jitter in optical signals without generating sound-quality degrading noise. You can still see the differences between digital input quality ... in measurements! It varies between products though. Some do a better job than others.
My point was nothing to do with optical though, it was that making assumptions as I did back then (and as so many people clearly still do now) is really a reflection of ignorance. Now we know what ignorance breeds.... hate and maliciousness, even discussing audio it seems.
@@ThomasPalomas That wasn't the point of my example. The point was, you can't always take what seems logically true to be the only truth in something. It had nothing to do with optical cables other than my using that as an example of one of my early discoveries.
The level of bile in the responses to this video is an indication of the accuracy of your points! Bravo.
How does an optical cable sound different from another?
I'm genuinely asking, I would love to learn the science behind different optical cables
I was gonna ask this exact question
It's more so how the receiving device handles jitter. Either it handles it poorly (less likely in recent times) or in re-clocking the digital signal the circuitry generates more noise which leaks into the analog circuits. Again though, these days that tends not to be an issue, but it was more prevalent 10 years ago.
@@Currawong cool, thanks for taking the time out to explain it
I am blissfully ignorant of this online drama. I pursue the audio hobby from a value for dollar proposition. I follow many content creators with small channels typically reviewing sub 300 dollar equipment because that's pretty much all I need or want. I still do my own research. I'm not interested in measurements, I worked a decade in industrial manufacturing, my hearing ain't going to square with a fancy grid. I want a certain quality for a certain dollar amount. And thanks to the TH-cam reviewer community I discovered ChiFi IEMs, the Koss Kph30i, the ifi Zen DAC, the Xduoo Link, and 20 dollar replacement cables that work just frigging fine. People bashing brands or disparaging other reviewers do not get views from me. I appreciate this channel for the brass tax information and while it always seems abundant, I'm not making a purchase of even 20 dollars on a solo review.
I'm genuinely sorry you felt like you had to speak on this subject but I'm glad you did. Personally I've avoided HiFi forums and will continue to do so. Since I appreciate the work you do I'll be sure to drive whatever support I can your way. My incessant babbling about audio has wore many friends down to the point they want to get into it as well. I'll be sure to recommend stopping here.
Completely agree. I have learned a lot about headphones and amps by reading on forums such as head-fi and it has helped me through many of my purchases, yet at times I feel ashamed belonging to the "audiophile" community as for a lot of folks in this community it is all about their egos and intellectual pride. However this is not very different from other hobbies or even professions.
One thing I have learned is that, reading on forums is essential if one wants to know the products, but one should have a basic idea about their own likes and dislikes and should use common sense to sort the good content from the bad, on audiophile forums. Finally, avoid extreme and purely technical opinions, leave some room for what sounds good to your ears, for the type of the music you listen to.
High resolution audio is not a consumer format. The system only has certain bandwidth and most consumer systems, even very expensive ones can not reproduce the entire bandwidth. And the law says that when you exceed bandwidth you will introduce intermodulation distortion, unless the signal is filtered which it usually is just because of the way speakers work. But that part of the signal should never be amplified, so each system meant for high resolution audio should have a lopass filter in it... rendering the whole idea moot.
Things I cant stand are people pushing overpriced gear/cables and claim "it sounds better" but not being able to break down and explain in technical terms or examples of why its better. Synergistic Research is notorious for this
I also am very leery of cable and room tweaks. I have bought expensive cable and I am not perfect. I ve been a audio guy for over thirty years. I ve have been to audio shows and checked out the cable guys room. During Axpona one year I happened to go into the Synergitic research room and and sat down. Ted Deany the owner of company wanted to show me his new room treatments and cables in demo I told him I am not snake oil guy and trying to sell me on your stuff would be a hard sell .I told him I would give him a chance and give him a honest opinion. Then he played the demos wow I almost fell out the chair afterwards. Very dramatic sound changes and improvements and my friend who been a audiophile for 40 years and his dad who Shure brothers as a engineer who's ears I know I can trust said the same thing about the room.So in closing I am very skeptical about cables and tweaks sometimes it better to listen and then judge by the way I use some of his products today. I had the opinion of the company too but I was wrong. Just letting you know my personal experiences.
@@davemonell9308 Did you take your cables in to A/B? Nobody says that high quality cables don't matter, just that esoteric cables are a waste if money.
Currawong, I'm not a patreon of yours, I am of course considering becoming one . But if I currently were, I have an interesting question for you, since you like to delve into science. I wonder how many audiophiles have what's called "chromesthesia" the ability to perceive color in sound. When I listen to certain songs, I can perceive colors within the music. I usually associate certain songs with specific colors. And for my next question, what do you think about a possible link between "HSPs" highly sensitive persons, and audiophiles. HSPs tend to have very sensitive hearing, I've noticed that when I let most regular people try my gear, they do react positively, but don't seem to really notice much else that's going on in the music that should now be more apparent from the higher end gear. Do certain people perhaps have a better ability to perceive detail in music. I think there was a term for it, "golden ear" I believe. I remember going to CamJam NYC and seeing how audiophiles really listen into what their listening to. I was at a booth trying a company's product and they had a set of sennheiser HD650s that I was trying out. I let a person next to me listen to a song from my DAP on them. I've never seen someone really listen to music like how an audiophile does. It's like their in another world really. That's also how I feel when I listen to my music. So are audiophiles perhaps a bit different from some or most others. And is this the reason why we have a higher appreciation for high end audio gear that allows us to get closer to our music. At the end of the day I guess we're all just a bit nerdy :).
That all may be possible... but...
I just chalk it up to acquiring a finer attention to detail. We spend a lot of time focusing on the minor differences between equipment and overall SQ.
Much like how a blind person's sense of hearing is clearly more tuned than a seeing person, there is obviously room for growth in the perception of sound.
Intentionally or not, critical listening skills sharpen over time.
Your question reminds me of the Oliver Sacks books. I haven't had anyone who perceives colors in sounds, only read a little about people whose senses cross over. There's a girl IIRC who paints sounds in the colors she sees too. As for sensitivity, that can be trained. I think a lot of audiophiles or reviewers do this, essentially. Maybe I should shoot a video about my experience sensitising myself to certain sounds (not music related) and the consequences of over-doing it.
@@Currawong With certain songs I could definitely paint a picture of the colors that I am perceiving while I listen to it. For a strong example, Greig's lyric pieces book 7 Op 62 No 5 Phantom, produces a very misty darkish blue. I seem to be drawn to songs with darkish blue hues. Another song that is even darker and is what I would consider at the extreme end of dark color is Watchers from bloodborne. That piece has of the darkest colors that I have ever heard in a piece of music. I honestly don't really know If I have synesthesia though, maybe I am just perceiving tone, but I really do associate certain songs with strong colors.
An interesting thought! I believe you’re talking about three separate things: Chromesthesia, “Golden Ears,” and trained ears. All real, IMO.
I was friends with a girl in college who claimed she saw colors when listening to music... she described it as similar to the “fireworks bursts of colors” most of us see when we shut our eyes. She was also very emotional and moved by music, which was cool (and possibly enviable), but she didn’t have a trained ear or perfect hearing.
“Golden Ears,” at least how it used to be used ten years ago and among speaker enthusiasts, meant that they had near-perfect (or more than “perfect human”) hearing. A hearing range sensitivity from 20 Hz to 20kHz or beyond. A person who boasts “Golden Ears” (more like they were accused of boasting Golden ears by others) would also often be someone who pays a lot of attention to audio and can note very fine distinctions, however that is also partially due to having an interest in audio and spent several years pursuing and exploring HiFi audio. Thus, there is often a duality connecting people with good hearing and people with lots of training.
You could argue that the average very young child will have “Golden ears,” but they may still have trouble understanding what is said to them or trouble “hearing” when their speech and pronunciation is different from an adult’s. Our ears pick up an incredible amount of information, however we have to train our brains to parse it and recognize the differences, especially subtle differences. This is especially easy to see with people that only know one language, for example the English words for Wet and Vet may sound exactly the same to someone in Asia, or how the Hindi phal and pal might sound the same to an English speaker. It was only through practice that I became more accustomed to pulling apart the tiny differences between frequency responses, impact and ringing, and I’ve even become more accustomed to headphone surround processing or binaural audio (my brain is better now at accommodating the differences between my head shape and the shape of the generic head used to model various HTRF binaural DSPs, though as a consequence I’m also better at determining the direction a sound came from in real life). This is the same as how Sommeliers train their noses.
More info on the way we “learn” to hear languages correctly here: theweek.com/articles/569137/subtle-sounds-that-english-speakers-have-trouble-catching
Have fun, thanks for sharing!
Good points. I saw this before in an audio related list mail forum many years ago. We had industry leaders willing to share their knowledge with us about speaker design. Unfortunately we had several idiots that would attack everyone who disagreed with their pet theories. Eventually the guys who's day job was audio left as they didn't need to subject themselves to the nonsense and waste of time.
Your reviews are excellent and valuable. Thanks for the time and effort you put in.
Five things I live by with audio, 1Listen to and enjoy my music every day, 2 Stick graphs and charts where the sun doesn't shine, 3 Learn to lie to the wife that you really need a new piece of HI FI, 4 Vinyl and CD, one is not better than another they just have a different tone, get over it, 5 I don't like streaming, it feels I'm just borrowing music from a library.
exactly how I feel about it ...:)
Just wanna say thanks for taking this subject up, and also for the way you do it here, in a respectful manner for all to learn. The toxic of this wonderful hobby, need to be addressed once in a while, as it seems it continues to pop up? I guess there is no easy way to address this, but you are taking a big chunk for us all, so thanks again for that. Btw, i couldn't agree more in what you are pointing out here. Cheers from Denmark & peace.
As a long time headphone fan, even back in the day with the HD-414, I love this channel Currawong is very clear. You get a real sense of what he really likes, and more importantly, why. Great channel. Keep it up!
Nothing wrong with keeping it simple and trusting your ears!
While it's "easy to manipulate science" It's far easier to manipulate an idiot into spending $1000 on an optical cable when they could get near identical performance for $50.
@@hurkamur1 there are a lot more important parts in every system than just the cables and if you're spending $1,000 on a pair of speakers you probably won't spend as much on the cables. However if you have a revealing enough system and you want to fine tune it by spending an extra on cables I don't see why not. I know cables get expensive really fast and as you go up in price the difference become less and less noticeable but value for money is subjective
@@malek8736 You miss the point.
Thank you for your honesty, integrity, and knowledge. We’ll put together.
Another point of frustration is that the price mostly is equivalent with quality. Most refuge the fact that there is day/ night difference where a company is actually producing it‘s gear. Is made in China worse because the people there working for little money? I don’t think so. Are prices justified because companies produce in the US, EU and or Japan? Not always I think because high prices are also a marketing tool, as these products gets the most attention.
There are a few different things going on here: Is a company selling direct or going through distributors/dealers? The latter will have a higher mark-up. Also, what market are they targeting? Is their aim to make a lot of stuff at low margin, or less stuff at higher margin? Are they selling primarily in a country that requires high margins due to the common practice of deep discounting? Does the company start with a high price, targeting early adopters, then drop it over time? Or do they prefer to keep the price steady and never have sales?
Interesting topic. I'd like to hear more on your opinions about MQA. I'm no fanboy, but I've been using tidal, with its built in software decoder, for about 2 years now. At first it was a bit of a trial for me; I couldn't see myself spending £20/month indefinitely to listen to music, some of which I already owned. But now I'm hooked on tidal, probably for life, unless a better option comes along for CD quality streaming
Most of the tracks they host sound better to my ear than the wav equivalent I have on my SSD, played through foobar. I use a mojo as my desktop dac/amp when listening with heaphones/iems. Are tidal adding the audio equivalent of monosodium glutamate (DSP) to the music? Or am I hearing higher quality music/better masters? I don't really care either way (good sounding music is good sounding music) but I would still be interested to know. I've read up a bit on how the MQA compression algorithm works, but I'm not a scientist so I only loosely understood.
Some music I used to love sounds terrible on tidal though, such as The Freestylers - We Rock Hard album. But then other tracks I would expect to sound dated and bad actually sound better than I would expect, such as Eric Prydz - Pjanoo or Daft Punk - Homework album. Is it just a recording quality issue? I'm sure We Rock Hard used to sound great on CD. I've considered tweeting The Freestylers just to see if they know how bad their album sounds on tidal, but I don't want to seem like I'm stirring up shit.
They are modifying the music itself, it's not the MQA format. Because they have done a number of things, simultaneously, to the music, they have made it complex enough to be confusing for the average person. I'm trying, at the moment, to decide how I'm going to explain it all in one video.
@@Currawong Thanks for the reply. I should also say that part of the value I see in my tidal subscription is the recommendation algorithm, or "My Mix". It's responsible for most of the new music I discover these days. I guess spotify probably has one too, but my mp3 collection is vastly bigger than my wav collection, so I'm not paying £10/month for mp3s. Maybe one day we'll get a wav/flac streaming service with a foobar plugin for £15/month. I look forward to any video you do on mqa/tidal.
The science being distorted by manufacturers for the purpose of selling their products is the biggest problem and the thing I hate the most.
There is one thing to understand that things *can* go wrong with digital transmissions and another to know what it would take for this to happen and what is the quality standard that makes it irrelevant. All standard USB cables are fine. Luckily you can test this yourself if you have a computer, but other subjects are not quite as accessible.
Been in the hobby since 2004. I think "flavor of the monthism" is a bad thing. Mid 2000s NOS DACs were supposedly how "real" music sounds. Then the hype train ended. Then multibit comes along and supposedly that is how "real" music sounds.
Good stuff Currawong.."I don't have to push other people down, to boost myself up." Good stuff. Yeah, around the audiophile community, can be very toxic at times, sadly. Nice points. 💯✌🏼
I remember a few years ago when i bought the Audio GD NFB 28.38 AMP/DAC and i got slandered for it when just sharing a picture of it. A barrage of people stating how it measures horrible and that you should get the THX 789 etc etc. I got both now and honestly, they both sound great.
My ‘hi-fi’: Teac headphone amp DAC. Samson SR 850 headphones.
which connects to:
Audio Tecnica 120x turntable (with upgrade microline stylus). Sony bd470 blu ray player. My iPhone 8. Cables from Juicebitz. £653 in total over 15 months in 2018/19
The reason for buying this stuff was great reviews from hi-fi magazines and Amazon customers/Internet forum members all stating that these products ‘punch well above their weight’ especially the headphones. Don’t feel any need to upgrade. However I would class myself as an audiophile as these are all upgrades from very basic equipment and I was in pursuit of something better. My low level of patience means I wasn’t willing to save up for higher end gear, especially if the money I was willing to spend gave me a sound I was happy with which is the case.
same! I love the samson sr850s
What i hate in the audiophile world is that 1 person always has something negative to say about your gear.
There are some people like this, even if they dont hear anything bad, they will go and google your gear and look at the measurements and say "ugh the total harmonic distortion is subpar." But they were enjoying themselves and had no problem. Just because of one bad apple I'm not gonna say the whole community is like this.
I'm not really into headphones, just speakers, but I stumbled upon your video, listened, and I agree with what you said. I would say that much of that applies to people in any hobby. Woodworkers, photographers, automobile enthusiasts, all seem to have their pet brands and like to trash others. It seems like any time some folks spend a lot of money on something, they need to constantly reinforce their own choices by attacking the choices of others.
People often have too much of their ego invested in their hobbies. Instead of simply enjoying their hobby and trying to learn as much as they can they choose to derive pleasure from proving themselves superior in social settings. Then there are TH-camrs who try to generate views by promoting conflict or disputes. Unfortunately we have too much of that today in our commercial media as well whether it’s sports talk programs or cable news. But the sad truth is that many people derive satisfaction from witnessing or seeing conflict as well which enables and rewards bad behaviour.
I hate it when reviewers piggy back off each other. Don't be afraid to have your opinions. Your viewers will thank you for it.
The answer to "Are you a god?", and "Should I post this?" - is always YES!
Go you! Love how you're keeping it real. I think we all have our top fives but don't disclose them as it's not how you usually win friends. So, someone as important as you called out a large portion of the community on how you see fit. Kudos.
I found your channel last year but just now stumbled onto this video. You have a very good approach to your reviews and your experience combined with that leads me to factor your opinion into gear I have not heard. I got a Bifrost 2 because of your video and it turned out so great that I bought another one for my bedroom. Measurements are nice and give a starting place, but you need to hear things for yourself and be honest about it.
Thank you for your content. You are invaluable.
You said that you have best measuring stuff that sounds bad and worse measuring stuff that sounds good. Which means that either you like the distortion that is added or it's all in your head. There is nothing wrong with enjoying some thd with your music if that makes it better. But its wrong to conveying the false notion the our ears are somehow magical and superior and measurement can't tell anything.
I don't believe asr manipulated measurements purposefully. He also has good and bad measuring stuff from same manufacturer. I am not entirely dismissing the idea that he may have accidentally made some mistakes. Then again if you have proof of it ,then show it. Show the graphs and try to get some measurements that prove otherwise.
Schiit did exactly that. Check their website. The information pages for the Bifrost and Yggdrasil include formal analysis reports from Audio Precision, the company which makes Amir's test bench. Their measurements agreed with the many Amir naysayers leaving Amir as the only outlier among multiple amateur and professional analyses, including the makers of his own test bench. His answer to this was that he knows more about how the test equipment works than the people who made it and that's why his measurements are correct and everyone else are wrong. No serious engineer would make such a claim about a piece of complex electronics unless they were a raging egomaniac. I don't doubt that Amir is actually an engineer (or at least has been trained as such), so I'm left with egomaniac as the only reasonable explanation.
"You said that you have best measuring stuff that sounds bad and worse measuring stuff that sounds good." -- No, I didn't say that.
Arguing what sound better is like arguing what colour is better. It depends on personal taste.
Not really, there are standardized, physical reasons why one might lean towards one versus another.
Are you for real? Blue is the best
Here's another "thing:" How can a TH-cam audio gear reviewer, who is obviously over 70,, dare comment + or - on high rez files from a DAC yet cannnt hear beyond 10K? (Getting old sucks, I know but ...........)
It’s about opinions and when you involve the music component into the equation, emotions can really get hyperactive. Thing is people like what a product does or does not do. If it makes them happy, all the better, but I don’t see the need for the toxicity that goes on as a result. I say find what makes you happy and run with it. That is what matters. It’s your taste and your gear. The only one who has to really like it is you. The rest is just noise on the line. Enjoy your music on your gear and escape into your own paradise.
Bravo Curawong!
Brave video
Very good points. I now come to visit those "toxic" reviewers every time I am buying new gears, then avoid anything they recommend, and take a good look at what they trash. Treat them like those "investment analysts" and you will get your money worth.
I agree with you about the bad science in measurements and obsessions.
Measurements are great and they serve a purpose. They can give you a good idea if something has an obvious flaw or might not be built/designed well. That being said they are not the end all and be all. Many things that don't measure perfectly sound just fine. And certain people might actually LIKE that sound. For instance with me I don't really care for perfectly flat sounding headphones or speakers. Maybe my hearing is jacked up, I didn't exactly take care of my ears when I was younger and worked around a lot of loud machinery like jets and presses and what not. Or just personally don't like that sound. Either why I don't care for it. I don't particularly like bright sounding things or things with a lot of midrange either. I find it irritating and hard to listen to for very long. I also prefer things that image or stage very well. And that is something that is hard to measure. I am sure it can be done but its beyond me. It is easier to just listen to it. An absolute dead quite noise floor isn't that important to me to be honest. Its nice if its there but given the choice between something that sounds good and images fantastically and something that doesn't but has great measurements and is dead silent with nothing playing I am picking the better sounding one every time.
Same thing goes with cars. There are a lot of cars that don't have great specs but are an absolute blast to drive. And then there are cars that have a lot of power and look great on paper but honestly are not that fun to drive. Fast, yes, but engaging and fun not so much. I have driven a lot of modern cars that are quite fast, smooth and comfortable. Technilogical marvels for sure. However my little 69 opel GT was hands down one of the most fun cars I have ever owned.
Paul;
One of the beauties of music and sound reproduction, is it’s all subjective.
There’s something for everyone to enjoy!
Hard to find fault with that🙂
I love your channel , could you do more reviews for us working class with wives and kids , headphones under AU$1,000 and amps under AU$1,000
would love the more expensive gear but i would be divorced
I have a
John McCaig You are not alone 😂
It's pretty simple really: $200 for amp+DAC that are objectively well-measuring: Modi 3, Topping E30, Heresy 3, JDS Labs Atom. (There are probably others, but we have come into a real golden age when it comes to the performance of electronics for headphones. Since you're actually smart enough to care about your finances, don't climb the perpetual upgrade ladder rung by rung where you'll have wasted many hundreds of dollars for little gain.) The reason to get objectively well-measuring amp+DAC combination is that you will not be sucked into a 'system synergy' rabbit hole, and you can be sure that what you're hearing from your headphones is really how they sound to you.
The headphones themselves is where you should start 'personalizing'. You can spend a lot of time reading and listening to other's opinions, but at some point you'll need to start somewhere to have a reference point. A good idea in general is to get a widely well-regarded and widely understood headphone as a starting point. I'd recommend something generally in the middle like an HD600 (super easy to find used at good prices), because then when you want to further explore your preference, you have an easy baseline to reference.
If you can afford a wife plus kids you’re doing well.
I don't see myself using a lossy format like MQA when I can have the flac files offline. Storage is getting cheaper and cheaper.
Flac files however aren't.
You've rustled some jimmies man that means you're doing something right
Within reason I agree.
I love your comment about science and its oversimplification by news and media. I myself am a scientist and teacher with a doctorate in environmental science and see corrupt data in audio, media, politics, all the time. Real measurments and accurate interpretation of results needs peer review and scrutiny before being published. The audiophile community needs to become more scientific in their pursuit of data.
I'm an electronic technician, and I agree with you 100%.
I generally try to stay away from toxic audiophile forums myself. I see a lot of that going on everywhere, I guess it's become a cultural phenomenon to cancel something you don't like. Then like you said the ones who are canceled just go on to make their own platform. So trying to cancel other people or companies is pretty petty and useless.
ASR will be on fire for a month after this video lol
Good points you made, measurements can be manipulated and don't tell the whole story of how something sounds. The primary reason for being involved in this hobby should be enjoyment of music at whatever level you can afford. There is no right way to assemble a good sounding stereo or Home theater. Today there are some really good products that can be had for a reasonable price. But there is also a lot of good used gear that can save you a lot of money. Keep up the good work, thanks
Audio Science Review is one of the most narrow minded forums ime
How so ?
@@nicktan4530 It's the only audio forum on which people strive to be the first to claim that they can't hear a difference.
@@thanrl-yd9ub Not really? Even when something doesn't measure good I see people talking about how much they personally enjoy the sound of it regardless. Don't misconstrue their logic-forward approach to music as their subjective tastes.
@@HiLoMusic That's literally not what I said
One of the best videos I've seen for promoting our hobby. This should be required viewing for all newcomers.
I've not been disappointed in how gear sounds in the last 5 years or so. Things have gotten so good you can spend minimal money and get really good sound. I've tried tons of stuff in the last year and really eveything sounded really good. There are some differences in tuning and of course power but the basic sound was excellent.
So, I buy on features and what suits me most of the time. I don't worry about measurements, eveything these days measures very good. Best thing is to try stuff for yourself, if YOU like how its soubds - that's all that matters.
Measurements have their place but there are two (or three) problems. Firstly, manipulating the test conditions to make sure not to reveal the products weaknesses - e.g. testing a speaker or headphone at a low level, to lower the measured distortion. Secondly, presenting the measurement data in a way that makes it appear to be more ideal - e.g presenting a frequency response graph with a 100dB vertical axis instead of 40dB, or providing an excessive amount of smoothing to the plot, so it looks ruler flat and peaks and dips in the response can barely be seen. This is why measurements provided by the manufacturer of the product need to be taken with a huge grain of salt, especially if the test conditions are not well defined.
Measurements are best conducted by a third party who has no vested interest in any of the products measured, and with a consistent test method. I and others have done this for speaker drivers, as it allows measurement data for many speakers to be directly compared. If two testers have data for a few of the same speakers, you can get an idea of how the test data relates and start making loose comparisons across multiple databases of measurements. An example of this in the headphone world are the measurements at InnerFidelity, Rtings and RAA.
The final problem is that most users aren't sufficiently trained to interpret the data. Only a person who has looked at a lot of test data will be able to tell straight away if the data was gathered appropriately and if a product looks to be overall poor or exceptional based on a quick glance at the data, given that all speakers and headphones have deficiencies and design trade-offs and it is about judging which deficiencies will be audible and which can be discounted.
Great sentiments made. At the end of the day, its all about mainly unqualified opinion. I have seen some so called audiophiles, think that they have so much influence over the industry. Even though, I am unable to afford some hi end gear. I still love to see what is possible out there. There seems to be a lot of toxic jealousy in the audiophile word. Which is utter nonsense.
4:30, I wonder who he is talking about.
If this video was made a year ago, then it's only become more relevant one year later. You're spot on in every respect. Head-Fi has really become an orgy of idiocy over the last year or so, sadly. One of the things I've noticed as part of the burgeoning toxicity in the audiophile world is an increased tendency toward "clickbait." You see it here on TH-cam both in the style of presentations and in the title of the videos themselves. They seem designed to provoke and attract viewers, and thus revenue. It's very depressing. In relation, one of things you don't mention is the almost total lack of independence in the majority of reviewers. They either work for shops, have gear sent to them, or have some kind of sponsorship deal. I can only think of perhaps one or two reviewers who buy their own gear to review. There are exceptions here and there, but most of the time it smells fishy. In any case, much appreciate you posting this and for your work more generally.
I can't say what other reviewers are doing, but I don't have to buy my own gear to review. But it's not as glorious as it sounds -- the stuff I get takes up considerable space, and in the case of anything battery powered, I spend quite a bit on keeping everything charged and organised. For me, if it helps improve reviews of future products via comparisons, then that effort is worth it. There was a problem with some reviewers on Head-Fi who got banned and blacklisted (by companies as well as by Head-Fi) for selling review samples for profit.
The early days of headfi weren't like this. It was a website that actually brought in people who wanted the biggest bang for their buck for their headphone setup. I joined headfi in late 2003 around the same time i got my first headphone amplifier creek OBH11SE . Unfortunately i was disappointed to find out it was being criticized for having cheap parts, haha. Later i got recommended by the forum to try headsave classic amp which it was cheaper and better than the creek. Now? headfi is a entirely different forum with lots of marketing , hypes , sensational advertising etc...
@@davidong9458 I too was a very old forum participant at Head-Fi before it got super popular. It went downhill fast once Jude figured out how he could monetize the popularity...compromising commitment to the community to chase a dollar, it's an age old story really.
I think you’re right on all counts, especially on “If it sounds good to you, that’s all that matters.”
I like your down-to-earth style and how you point out that measurements aren’t everything. (Otherwise, tube amps and records would be gone)
Agree, and it is a very tough jungle for non audio hobbyists to navigate. Funny I got way down the rabbit hole when I first started and ended up with a ton of unused gear. It's very difficult when you jump headfirst, but then when you stop and ask the simple question *What do I want/use day to day* . I don't regret all the gear that gathers dust, may use it one day but WOW does it take some personal use to really know yourself and your own needs. Some of the cheapest stuff I have are my fantastic goto gear Hahahahaha. However now I wait a week or two after seeing a rave review to decide *Do I want that ? * Usually not when I ask *What for ?*..............
My 5 things which make me laugh about audiophilia
1) When you see folks on headphones forums having 20,000+ posts written... its clear people have gadget fetish. In most cases its ego and love for things not for MUSIC ;)
2) The science of acoustics is often totally lost. For example, the acoustic engineer Tomasz Rogala who also makes his omnidir. speakers does not even bother to advertise and cannot cope with demand, he says audio magazines are simply BS. Audio dealers are mostly full of crap, which is natural. Like medical doctors, all they care is $ALES and money not the quality of the thing they sell or how to match the customer with the product.
3) $100k speakers or $20k DACs dont enrage me:) But $2k antivibration sets, when you can DIY a similar one for $5 to $50...
4) Marketing and ideologies over FUN and science. But thats in every field now.....
5) Audio gear should absolutely reproduce as wide freq. spectrum as possible and transmit it to your listening space evenly across frequencies - this last requirement is very often NOT MET.
1) Those people have a FORUM and EGO fetish. They've not just gone past the music, they've gone past listening to gear and spend the bulk of their time typing arguments into forums and making sure no one dares disagree with them. Worse, they infect the forums of EVERY hobby.
It's really too bad they won't acknowledge their hobby because both they and we would be happier if they formed an uber-meta-forum of forum haters, bullies, trolls, professed experts, and self-appointed 'guy in charge of everyone and everything' and created their own forum where they could attack each other on a professional level all-day. They could select a topic at random each day from one of their members' original forums to argue about it would still be easy for them to act confident because the subject isn't important to them. Plus, it'd be an even field because they'd all have the same level of knowledge as now: expert because google.
This is a Internet Societal issue to me -- too many poison pills out there.
My 5 Things I don't Like About The Audiophile Community:
- often absolute lack of humor -
- self importance of own opinions, aka toxic assholes
- sponsored influencers, who call themselves reviewers and literally advertise products of companies they get money from
- fanboys of certain brands: go to head-fi and try to ask for alternatives in a thread of a certain brand, you literally get bashed by fanboys
- often absolute lack of humor (I got banned from head-fi for a comment I made about one thing I dont like about audiophiles :-):
"I love these threads :
Audiophile One: my favorite colour is blue
Audiophile Two: no its not, red is nicer
Audiophile Three: guys chill
Me: Makes a Meme about it
Mods: Delete my post, because its not subject related"
LOL, Nelson Pass described the Audiophile Community as a lunatic fringe. (Well, guilty as charged speaking for myself at least.) So all this just goes with the territory.
I think "Fanboyism" tends to be a problem that persists in any hobby... It is unfortunately human nature to be tribal, along with having strong confirmation bias.
This was fantastic and the same argument needs to be applied to other hobbies as well.
All hobbies!
Basically I watch reviews to get an opinion or idea about a product how well its made and quality of components used and general opinion on the sound quality and so forth.
Generally once I find a brand of products that I am happy with I usually stick with their products.
Make a quality well made product that is priced reasonably, offer good customer service and sounds good to me for what I am looking for then I tend to not make many changes as far as brand.
I really could care less what someone else thinks about my choices and I find using this criteria for my buying I guess I could be missing out on some better gear but as long as what I am choosing is checking all the boxes for my desires for me am I really missing out on anything? I am happy so that is what matters.
I pretty much use the same approach to audio electronics, headphones, speakers connection cables and any thing audio related.
I have some budget/value set ups and some that for me I consider end game components. As long as these mid 60"s ears are happy and what I use puts a smile on my face who cares.
I feel sorry for those that never seem to find what is their comfortable sweet spot to really enjoy what they have and always seem to desire something they never seem to find.
What reviewers I pay attention to are those that are able to not seem to be for or against a certain brand for reasons other than substantiated shortfalls or positive attributes within the product they are reviewing at the time. Play fanboy and that reviewer will not in my opinion give a fair and accurate review whether for or against the product and not worth my time to watch.
It's exactly for these and other reasons that I left the Cyrus audio group on Facebook. I've never had discussions with such a biased and blinkered group of people. They openly hate on anything not made by Cyrus and PMC. Whereas I have a real assortment of gear. As I own three different systems in total. So I appreciate the differences in sound signature of various manufacturers equipment. Also that nobody's gear is better than someone else's. It's all about what you are looking for in the sound and what you prefer. Also that price is absolutely no guarantee of better sounding equipment. It's better to just ignore everything and everyone else and go and listen to the equipment for yourself. 👍
I have seen all the drama over the years at Head-fi. Never took part in it, never took sides. Maybe I am too grounded or I just don't give a fuck. I know what I like and what I don't like and it doesn't bother me when people disagree with me. Most things in life are subjective anyways, and the things that are not very seldom reach an importance level, most certainly not at Head-fi, for me to commit in verbal wars to proof I'm right and others are wrong. It's a fucking hobby, for crying out loud, it is not like you're trying to proof your innocence of a crime.
One thing I totally hate in audiophile community is that people very often thinks that only hi resolution audio is worth listing to. You listening to Spotifi ? Just go away king of BS.
In my opinion hi res music- let say 24 bit 96 kHz can be very badly mastered/recorded while 16 bit 44 kHz music can be very well mastered/recorded. And on top of that I dare anybody to go and AB test themselves if they can spot the differences between 320 kbps MP3 and FLAC because I personally can't hear any difference whatsoever in ABX test between 16 bit/44kHz FLAC, 24 bit 96 kHz FLAC and 320 kbps MP3 all made from same 24 bit 96 kHz FLAC file.
If you wonder what equipment I have then here you go DAC: Topping D10 ->AMP FiiO K5 ->HP Beyerdynamic DT880 Premium 600 Ohm so pretty resolving I would say. And my hearing is just fine.
@Mr Do 16 bit 44.1 kHz is CD-Audio standard . But people go for DACs with 32 bit 768 MHz for absolutely no reason at all. At least DSD isn't as big BS because you can actually find some music in it and because of different method of coding there is small difference in sound. I would say its better, just a bit different.
I'm confused who was he talking about when he was mentioning altered measurements
Shots fired! ASR
I Love my Atom Stack tho
If you're happy with what you've bought, that's all that matters, ultimately.
For the most part, I attempt to avoid the very type of forum members and reviewers fitting your descriptions. I loathe some of the advice I've received from the toxic types. I enjoy those who, like you, attempt to provide a more relative comparison to other products and allow the individual to make a choice which suits their needs as everyone's needs (and ears) are different. I respect those who may have their personal preference but understand why another may chose differently.
I think I know who you are referring to. I do agree. As a jazz musician who has played and also listen to jazz bands up close, I have a pretty good idea when sound is faithfully reproduced but chasing it via equipment is futile at best. How music gets to you and moves you is case to case. When the community gets all vile and toxic, the original intent of quality sound reproduction of music to connect with the audience becomes lost.
Well said Currawong. Especially at 7:49. There are way too many dogmatic proclamations based on cliches about good and bad thinking. An open mind (open ears?) has always served me well. This goes all the way back to Julian Hirsch insisting that all amplifiers with decent performance will sound the same.
No.1 - The people who run Headfi pretending to be anything other than an extension of the marketing department of headphone manufacturers. Their "reviews" are thinly veiled advertisements. These leads to even the worst sounding headphones being promoted as long as there's ad money involved. Case in point- Audioquest Nighthawk, HD700, Campfire Cascade etc etc
I know "the people who run Head-Fi" and that simply isn't true -- that's just not their interest. That's not to say that manufacturers aren't trying to get themselves known on there. Given they are often subject to severe criticism when they get things wrong, as much as they are praise when they make good products, it can work both ways. I'm on two threads at the moment where the respective companies, both sponsors (as far as I know) are copping *severe* criticism for product failures.
@@Currawong We'll have to agree to disagree. I've been a Headfier since 2011 and from the beginning the narrative was look at this brand new expensive thing it's the best ever!!! Repeated release after release for ever more crazily priced headphones. Can you link me to one critical review of a flagship headphone from a Headfi VIP? I don't mean random members. The Nighthawk sounds wrong. Almost no argument there. The HD700 has horrible treble spikes, any mention of these major flaws? Again I don't mean from random members. The motive is to sell sell sell hidden behind a veneer of " we're looking for the truth" in terms of sound quality. Look at Resolve Reviews and Metal571 for what honest reviews look like. Headfi has nothing like that from the people who run it.
Just wanted to add that a product release singing the praises of a sponsors product followed by an interview with the sponsor is NOT a "review". It's an advertisement and should be labelled as such. For example Headfi's launch of the Focal Utopia from 4 years ago.
The Focal Utopia was a significant new product. Quite a few of the Head-Fi videos feature products from companies that are not sponsors. For example, as far as I know, neither Stax, nor Sony have sponsored the site (though the latter, if they ever bought ad space during the Huddler/Wikia era, never interacted with the forums, so I wouldn't have noticed).
Some years ago, against the same criticism, I tallied up the product mentions in Head-Fi videos and found about 50% of the companies mentioned weren't sponsors, if you exclude Sennheiser, and about 40% if you included them. I don't know what the tally would be now, but the front page contains reviews of products from various members (there aren't any "VIP members") and most of them, when I've looked, aren't from companies that I've seen as sponsors. I myself just posted what you might call a critical review of the DITA Dream XLS.
CanJam videos are different, in that they feature products from companies who are paying to have tables at the event. That *is* a promotion of the event.
As for the Nighthawk and HD700 -- I can't say I liked them either (and I was a beta reviewer for the HD700). There are people out there who like those headphones. Heck, there are people who like the Ultrasone Edition 10s, even though they are almost universally condemned by people. That being said, products that aren't so good simply fall by the wayside, as both of those headphones have.
I think quite a bit of the focus of Head-Fi in the near future will be on measurements. There have been significant announcements in that area recently so we will be able to get a far more accurate idea how headphones and IEMs "sound" than before.
@@Currawong appreciate you taking the time to reply but you know there's truth in what I say.;) Anyway let's leave it at that. Cheers.
Hello, I followed your advice on westone earbuds and I bought the W40 ( less expensive ones) and I love them. They are exactly what I was looking for: under $200, very thin extremity that goes right were is is needed and a pretty thick noise canceling eartips that are perfect to ride, away from the loud roar of my motor cycle. They provide a rich bass and treble sound. Not a 3D sound but it was not what I was looking for for this purpose . You made my day master headphones. Thank you VERY much.
Enjoying your videos and honest approach, thank you.
Sounds like the super best audio friends forum LoL.
The main thing I hate is people recommending/discussing headphones/gear in general that they have never owned. They are an echo chamber of reviewers with no personal opinion on the gear they comment on. Don't get me wrong they can hit the nail but only as long as the general opinion they are parroting is correct. I remember reviews saying the DT1990 is not sibilant and everyone saying the same over forums. Then I tested them and they are sibilant and peaky in the treble. A typical Beyer tuning.
Moral of the story is to test stuff for yourself as the public opinion might be false (90% of the time it's not though). Then it's also true that something that some describe as sibilant, might seem to you as detailed. Personal opinion and taste is very important.
That's right. It turns out everyone has a null in their hearing in the treble -- a point where your ears cancel out around a particular frequency. If your null matches the headphone's treble peak, you wont find the treble to be as bright as other people, whose null is at a different frequency do.
@@Currawong ha, interesting
@@Currawong I am a treble head so I prefer headphones that are neutral to slightly bright. A bit insensitive to good bass so I never like Audeze headphones lol.
This was a welcomed honest take on some of the things I have noticed at places like headfi and audioscience forum. By and large headfi is a terrifc cummiunity with a lots of great helpful people. It's supposed to be a nice resource for some of us potentially interested in a new amp, dac, headphone etc. Sometimes when i go researching on a piece and you get to reading page after page wondering if some folks have other agendas. You sometimes see some great respected gear sorta ripped on. So anymore I just use that as one of many things to consider for future purchases. Guessing your rant is at aipudioscience forum. I made the mistake of reading on gear I was interested in only to be ripped on. The if it don't measure good, it's not a good sounding or piece of gear. I have seen more than one reference to them using fancy expensive measuring equipment and misleading folks with those measurements. And this was brought up by folks that do this for a living....not a hobby. I say leave the measurements to the experts ! I have seen those toxic folks that only believe in what they want and can't be shown or proven otherwise. Some folks with very closed minded thinking. Opinions are fine in this subjective hobby but folks like this don't do our tiny nitch hobby any favours if we're trying to grow it. Can you imagine a newbie walking into something like this trying to learn something? It's easy to say and do this stuff from behind a smartphone. Makes you wonder if they care or even aware of the damage they do.
aipudioscience forum ? Typo?
Audiophile has become steadily a bad word since the late 80's. It connotes an insufferable snob that considers his opinion the same as fact. Has no grasp of value, or humility. Considers more expensive= always better and lords his toys over anyone owning less costly gear. Places gear above music. Decries the science of measurement and blind testing. Is quick to tell others how inferior their setup is, even though he's never heard any of it. They blast anyone who doesn't worship the same gear to the same level as he does. The 1st thing they say? "You are angry and don't like it because you cannot afford it." No, try again. I don't like it because it's got it's own sonic opinion that I don't like. (Doesn't matter how someone quantifies and qualifies it) "Everyone has different ears" which really means, the audiophile considers his hearing/listening ability superior. Despite having no electronics background, the audiophile is a self=appointed electronics/acoustics expert because they read the manufacturers claims and a few high end audio magazines. Yes, I have seen them argue with both AES/EE engineers and product designers. It was like watching a 12- year old argue with a Doctor.
Standing ovation!
You are just describing a douche/jerk/insufferable manchild. Every hobby has plenty of this people and they are usually the loud ones.
What about the people that used to flock around nwavguy and his cheap 100 dollars dac/amp. It's cheap, constantly insults people with more expensive gears, constantly touts how transparent and how neutral the O2 dac, even when it keeps clipping headphones, and telling everyone that don't like it as delusional and anti-science. Nwavguy targeted some small audio maker, constantly saying how shit their products are.
I am describing a bunch of people that acts just like what you said but for a cause that you support. Let's just agree that Audiophiles have a tendency to be an ass to people that they disagree with, whether you're pro measurement or not or inbetween.
well said, always love your reviews. keep em coming. I find comment sections across all web media can be fairly toxic.
If anything, you are too charitable when it comes to measurements. The methodology behind the measurements is usually totally lacking. Thus, no one is able to verify the quality of the presented measurements. Worse still, there is no statistical control. There is zero acknowledgement of the uncertainty in the method used to perform the measurements. I miss Tyll Hertsens because he explained how much time it took him to perform headphone measurements, in part, because of the physical tweaking he had to perform to get consistent and reliable results. For example, I recall his saying that slight differences in ear cup placement and/or seal could make significant differences in his measurements. If this was true for Tyll, even with all of his experience, imagine how much greater the problem is for the average Joe at home. And, this all assumes there is no ill intent . . .
Good point. Jude pointed this out too on Head-Fi, how even a small change in positioning and clamping force on different rigs could have a very significant effect on the measurement.
I am hugely missing Tyll.
My impression is Currawong was talking a lot more about electronics measurements, which are standardized when run on proper testing equipment, and not headphone frequency response. Most of the reviewers now that show frequency response graphs include the disclaimer that it is only meant to be relative to their own measurements, and are not 'absolutes'.
Great vid again. ☺ We were talking about this vid on Darkos patreon.
On the same boat here. Getting bored with some forums and reviews (actually not even missing watching some of them), because of the defenders and attackers of "this file format v. streaming", "why buy multi thousand $ gear to use with streaming", "this product is the best of the world, the other are sht."(but some times, when asked if they even have or tried the product, they never did, is just about graphs and others impressions).
What is important is have fun on different ways, try by oneself and find the flaws and goods of different products, what I like, what makes my songs and experience better.