I like them, very solid speakers. You will tend to see z have really different experiences and reactions to high end, where personally I really don’t trust his reviews on higher end headphones, or higher end amps and dacs for that manner for many reasons. He does a good job with budget stuff typically, but he really doesn’t pick up or has flaws in his high end reviews imo
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Thanks for the perspective! If I watch 10 hours of audio reviews on YT per week 70% is Z, 10% is Gutt, 5% Darko, and 5% the rest. I agree with your take that Z’s bailiwick is cheap/budget lanes for each of the categories. When he steps up in class he doesn’t seem to be able to scale his reviews as well. But on the opposite side Darko/Gutt really seem out of touch with reality when they review $5k+ components and throw them around like they are nothing.
Again not stirring the pot just a difference I’m picking up on how each of the channels run. zero fidelity does a good job at splitting the difference.
I agree with you on Z. I’ve been disappointed by some of his recommendations in every product category based on sound. What he does really well is introduce the community to the breadth of options out there. He also dives much deeper into functionality than any other reviewer I can think of. I like him for how he keeps me informed about what’s out there and his humor. His sound recs I now take with a grain of salt.
I wonder if it has to do some of the quality of his sources. I cant imagine. With what I’ve heard demoing speakers I’m not sure that those crown amps of his would pair well with something like elac.
I mean when you pair higher end headphones with thx that already presents many issues (and discount higher end amps)
The crowns are workhorses but they don’t do high end speakers justice. His dacs are alright but he could go higher end and be better off imo.
Large grains lol
Correct
Also correct
You kinda just need to get to know each reviewer lol
Yeah. Coming off his qutest review and finding how much I liked the sound of the hugo tt2 and how different it was from something like a low to mid range smsl type dac I was surprised when it was just shrugged off as nothing different
Especially when I plugged my stellias in. What a difference
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Yeah, I won’t comment anymore on z since there is so much I would complain about, but I won’t bother. At this point I don’t even pay attention to reviews and just experience things for myself, but of course not everyone can do this
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Yeah. I think what I’ve run into isnt so much any thoughts on z’s reviews so much as the importance of testing things yourself which unfortunately is becoming very difficult for a lot of people
Can you go into more detail about what you mean here? I thought THX was supposed to be high quality tech?
It prioritizes numbers over sound, and I have no idea why z and others feel like it’s “an endgame headphone amp” or “one of the best” or “a real example of neutrality.” It sounds fine with most midrange headphones, but once you get to the around 700+ up headphones thx really starts to fall apart, and you want higher quality amplification. And it’s not hard to tell the higher quality headphone amps apart from thx, the differences can be very apparent and once you hear a higher end headphone amp, you will wonder why you even bothered with thx in the first place.
At this point I just suggest people to skip thx altogether because you are doing yourself a disservice buying a thx unless you like 2 dimensional, overly sharpened and harsh analytical sound. There really isn’t a case where I would call thx “neutral” because imo neutral means true to life, and thx def isn’t that. I personally prefer the jds labs atom or magni heresy, or the archel 2.5 pro, or the asgard 3 over thx, because imo they are just as resolving, have more than enough power, have better tonality, and also better spatial capabilities and a more accurate presentation. The only think thx has over it is power imo, and most headphones will never really tap into that anyways
I would just skip thx altogether and instead spend on something like a rupert neve rnhp or cayin iha6 witch both easily outclass thx for not so much more money imo. I complain about this so often on the forum, legit just search “@M0N thx” lol. Really just hate the precedent that thx has set fooling people into thinking it can’t get better or they are hearing neutral sound.
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I agree but…
paragraphs?
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There I made it more readable lol
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That review was an eye opener for me.
It made me question his ability to discern audible differences in sound quality.
That’s most of his reviews for me lol
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The review posted to Youtube from today had an interesting moment when he was demonstrating the volume level of the HD 300 (?). When he took them off it seems as though he was WAY over 85db. It made me cringe.
I got over the idea he was a reviewer a long time ago.
He’s entertaining and will tell you if he hates something, and he occasionally “reviews” gear I haven’t heard of which has value in introducing me to something new.
But he’s not a reviewer in the classic audio reviewer sense.
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Yeah, it’s definitely more of a Bravo reality TV show than a serious review.
I like Z’s reviews for functionality, and I haven’t personally been burned on any of his recommendations, but I also did a lot of research outside of just his review for stuff that I was interested in. SHP9500s as an introduction to open backs, X2s as the upgrade to those. I got the ELAC B6.2 after watching his review of them and then doing a bunch of additional research on what other people said.
But, I also don’t currently have the budget to go after super high end stuff, so maybe I’d feel differently if that were the case.
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