Since they both use the same bio-dynamic driver I’d imagine they are both about the same in terms of at what volume level they come “alive”.
I generally don’t listen very loud (with exceptions) and I really like the Eikons, they really don’t sound closed, but I don’t have Auteurs to directly compare to.
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Appreciated, the more I research the more I like what I see about the Eikons, but holy crap the Auteur’s look amazing.
That pretty much settles it then, fun signature? I’m on that like a donkey eating a waffle. Now to get the offer letter to come in.
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I have never heard that phrase before lol
From my experience the eikon is a bit more fun, where the auteur is more neutral, both are pretty awesome
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Magni 3+ if you’re hooking it up to a turn table for sure. You’ll like their class A like sound. It’s some small but I’m sure you will appreciate it.
but i thought the heresy was objectively better and not as hot and sounded better on certain headphones
If you want a THX like sound, then yeah the Heresy. If you hear @M0N talk about the Asguard 3 and you want that experience at $100, Magni 3+.
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I wouldn’t overthink it too much they are both good amps. And they sound more alike than different.
You might as well just pick the one that comes in the color you prefer.
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i dunno what the THX like sound is
Not sure if you really want to shoot for a thx like sound lol, I think you would want to look for something transparent instead lol
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if by transparent i mean it basically doesn’t color the sound in any notable way so i can focus on how the vinyl and preamp already sounds…
then yes
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Gotcha, then the heresy would be pretty great then, the 3+ is a bit less harsh and a tad warmer but they do sound somewhat close, both are fairly clean
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I just realized the speakers I want have like a 96 db sensitivity. So I’m gonna probably scale back from a planned bryston 4b³ to a 2b³
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i just prefer when most things of sound are as neutral as it can have so i can judge how good the music is… the music should be mastered fun, headphones should just amplify it and i feel like preamps and amps should just increase a sound
I’ve found I like building a transparent, revealing sound with my system so I have a base of what sounds pure to my ears so I can the fuck with it with things like tubes
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Gotcha, well that’s not really reality unfortunately so you have to make some compromises lol. Things are already mastered the way they are intended to sound for the most part, and of course having a transparent signal chain to recreate the audio would be nice for sure, but everything will color the sound so you can’t do much lol
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It’s a common misconception that music is in mastered on colorless equipment.
Everything in the listening chain when it was mastered colored the sound, no one has ever heard just the sound of the recording.
The average THD on a headphone will be in the 1% range, and speakers are worse, those swamp any coloration from almost anything else in the chain (probably not the cartridge on a turntable which may even be worse).
I understand the goal of hearing what’s recorded, but as someone on a different forum said today, if you want to hear what the artist intended goto a concert.
For most of us who’ve been around the block with this audio thing, the goal is really to provide a pleasing reproduction of the music.
Complete lie lol, I own all my mastering gear because it gives me a certain sound that I find desirable and work with, also alot of times mastering is done on some hifi setups lol.
also one thing that makes the DAC thing hard for me is that its hard not to think of “bits are bits so if the DAC can get all the bits it will do everything right”… based on having trouble hearing a difference (not in EQ and tone and texture at least) between a dragonfly black and an acers built in DAC. its like its all the same sound waves so as long as the sound waves are being made its hard to think of how it can change
those bits need to be converted into an analog signal.
There are several ways to do that the common cheap solution is what’s called a Delta Sigma DAC, in theory this involves modulating a single bit at much higher frequency than the sampling rate. In practice some of the top bits are directly decoded using a resistor ladder. But to do this the input signal needs to be both over-sampled and filtered (different DAC’s do this differently).
In addition you don’t just squirt the output of the DAC chip onto the RCA connectors at the back, there is an analog filter (to remove the noise the modulation introduced) and there is an amplifier in the DAC.
So even DAC’s with the same DAC chip will sound different.
Most cheaper components pretty much just build the circuit in the manufacturers data sheet, and in some cases expose the various digital filter options the underlying chips provide.
As you move up in price point DAC’s can use custom digital and analog filters, do custom oversampling etc etc.
So yes they can sound different.
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