Is THX (precisely: is AAA) a bad thing?

[SpeleoFool]

Found this thread a week or two back, but it took me a while to find an opportunity to dig through it all, which I wanted to do before jumping in with my own thoughts.

@Hazi59

Measurements are valuable, but only are half of the story. I don’t think a person has to sit firmly in the measurement or subjective listening camp. The smart person would utilize both IMO. But I also think some measurements can be flawed in what they are measuring…especially if it is something that is inaudible to human hearing.

This is a great place to start. I completely agree that both objectivity and subjectivity are important to building understanding. Measurements provide a concrete way to evaluate and compare audio equipment. And subjectivity cannot be dismissed, because music is an art form, and beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

I wouldn’t call measurements flawed so much as limited. The problem is they usually very precisely show you one thing, but never capture the big picture. They cannot. Attempting to define a single measurement that does so becomes so broadly-scoped and poorly defined that you end up with something like Crinacle’s IEM rankings. While I personally find those ranks very useful, they are nevertheless boiling a huge number of factors down to purely subjective letters–good for casual inspection, but hardly the whole story.

Measurements are good as guideposts, but not as dogma, especially if your goal is the pursuit of pure subjective audio pleasure. I think a good analogy would be animation–it’s a medium that seeks to be its own aesthetic rather than live action realism. There’s room for both.

@Polygonhell

I found the THX to have brittle sounding treble, which could be perceived as harsh.
The thing it does well is detail retrieval, but It doesn’t sound natural doing it.

My experience is that the THX amps simply seem to be hyper-revealing, which can reveal other weaknesses in the playback chain. If the amp’s job is to take what is fed into it and make it louder, perhaps the problem is harsh treble coming in from upstream?

I’ve got a number of Astell & Kern DAPs that have biased me towards AKM DAC chips. I started with an AK380 (4490), then moved up to the SP1000 (4497) and heard an undeniable improvement. Meanwhile, my desktop rig at the time was a Topping DX7s (ES9038Q2M). I liked the sound from my DAPs better, at least until I upgraded my DACs to the RME ADI-2 (4493) and D90 (4499).

I’m not sure if it’s filters or some other secret sauce–maybe even placebo at this point–but the AKM DACs sound more refined to me. D90 into 887 is still my favorite reference stack.

@LeDechaine

My feeling is, Zeos prefers AAA’s detail retrieval capabilities above everything else, and if he wants to hear different values of “timbre and naturalness”, he just switches headphones?

I am certainly guilty of this. To me, the Focal Utopia and Stellia from a THX amp are about the pinnacle of clean, detailed, natural sound. I am very much in lust with the depth of detail retrieval from those headphones. More recently, I’ve been enamored with DT 1990s and other Beyers for treble-rich detail, which I don’t find as perfectly done as on the Focal flagships, but which is nevertheless very appealing when combined with the overall presentation of the 1990s, etc.

In any case, I’ve zeroed in on D90 + 887 as “provably audibly transparent” and have used that stack as a way to analyze differences between my various headphones (pushing about 30 pairs now). I feel like this combo puts the DAC and amp as far out of the picture as possible so that the characteristics of various headphones are as plain as I can make them. Therefore, my impressions of the headphones should reflect the headphones themselves and not so much a mix of the headphones and playback chain.

So, anyway, yeah–I roll headphones to change up my sound signature. I find them to be, by far, the biggest variable in the whole playback experience, and I get a lot of mileage out of this.

@M0N

Yes lol, seriously skip thx and get a heresy until you can save for like an amp in the 700 and up range imo, makes more sense. Personally I feel like you don’t want to go above 250 usd on a solid state headphone amp, skip 250-450, and then at above 500 your options really start to open up

I wish I could relate better to this sentiment, but so far I just don’t get it.

My first amp was an Aune X1s, followed up shortly with an X7s to complete the stack. Then I got a Little Dot Mk III to figure out what “tube sound” meant. But then I jumped into the 789 and it was like a small quantum leap in detail.

I’ve been able to fully appreciate scaling up in headphones, but amps have been almost a dead-end for me. I really wanted to hear some kind of magic out of the RNHP, but in direct A-B with the 887 it just sounds equally transparent. Which does make it an excellent amp–as good as the THX if more expensive–but I have yet to find any combination of headphones and songs that make anything stand out as a repeatable difference to me.

I’ve also heard some of the high-end SS amps at CANJAM and RMAF, but outside of the closed listening rooms that’s a poor environment to judge an amp very reliably. So I’m left wondering, just what do you get out of a SS amp above $500 or so that you can’t get from a THX amp?

I could see a Phonitor, perhaps, but that would be paying extra for features rather than raw sound quality, discounting the bonus option of playing with crossfeed.

@Hazi59

Very true, this forum is great. If this thread were to happen on SBAF, someone would have been murdered by now, lol.

And this is the perfect place to close. I have been hanging out at HiFi Guides because the vibe here is more Generally Cordial Audio Enthusiasts. SBAF is too cliquey for my tastes. It didn’t feel like a friendly place to be a new person learning things, and I’d fully expect a lynching for challenging the groupthink there.

[Hazi59]

Well written friend and I think you did a great job of separating the main ideas of the arguments from each side. You did so tactfully and respectfully. This is the textbook way to approach it, imo. Cheers.

[Polygonhell]

@SpeleoFool

My experience is that the THX amps simply seem to be hyper-revealing, which can reveal other weaknesses in the playback chain. If the amp’s job is to take what is fed into it and make it louder, perhaps the problem is harsh treble coming in from upstream?

This is not my experience, I have other amps here that are better at detail retrieval, they don’t have the same brittle treble issue as the THX amp I heard.

[M0N]

@SpeleoFool

I really wanted to hear some kind of magic out of the RNHP, but in direct A-B with the 887 it just sounds equally transparent. Which does make it an excellent amp–as good as the THX if more expensive–but I have yet to find any combination of headphones and songs that make anything stand out as a repeatable difference to me.

If you are doing direct a/b, most would be hard pressed to hear a significant difference, that really comes from spending more time with it and then going back to what you were using before later on, most wouldn’t be able to figure out a difference just a/b something. For me it’s rather apparent, but again, we all hear differently for sure

@SpeleoFool

I’ve also heard some of the high-end SS amps at CANJAM and RMAF, but outside of the closed listening rooms that’s a poor environment to judge an amp very reliably.

Yes it’s quite a shame lol, I wish it was easier to get a good listen at shows

[SpeleoFool]

Thanks @Hazi59. Appreciate the support.

@M0N

If you are doing direct a/b, most would be hard pressed to hear a significant difference, that really comes from spending more time with it and then going back to what you were using before later on, most wouldn’t be able to figure out a difference just a/b something. For me it’s rather apparent, but again, we all hear differently for sure

My preference for a direct A-B comparisons stems from everything I’ve read about listening memory from the objectivist side of the fence. For example, that listening memory is terribly unreliable, and even a few seconds between listens can impact your impressions. I’ve found some truth to that.

For example, there have been times where I’ve listened to a passage on setup A, then the same on passage B, and I’ve clearly heard that B does something better–tighter bass, more detail, etc. But then I go back to A and focus on those aspects and find them not so different. Seems it’s a function of where and how I was focusing my attention, or else there’s something to the corruption of listening memory.

In the longer term, I’ve found significant variability in hearing from day to day. I’m certain fatigue is a factor–that’s an easy one. It’s much easier to listen deeply after a good night’s sleep or after resting my ears for a time in quiet. I believe mood is important too–I’m at my best when I’m calm, patient and happy. Beyond that, I’m not sure–weather? Temperature? Environment?

For me the important takeaway is that there’s always a margin of error to be considered, so I aim to reduce the time between A-B comparisons to as close to zero as possible, attempt multiple samples in one session to establish a preference, then repeat my experiments on more than one day to confirm my biases.

If nothing else, this ritual helps me to gain confidence in my opinions.

–

There’s also truth to what you’re saying–that acclimation to gear (or music) will help you suss out its character, making it easy to zero in key differences.

You remind me of when I very first set out to audition speakers, but I had no practical idea of where to start. So I looked up some opinions online, and site after site recommended: “listen to your favorite music.”

So here’s me, methodical software engineer, wringing my hands because I own 2000 CDs spanning multiple genres, and I like all of it. Way to cop out, Internet! Why don’t you give me some pointers for what specifically I should choose from my vast collection and why?

Well, long story short, I ended up burning 3 CDs worth of my own music and listening to all of it on every system I could find in the greater Phoenix area, and by the time the dust settled I not only had found my speakers, but also had discovered the wisdom in the original advice: the music that speaks to us best is the music that we know most intimately–every intonation, every tiny detail, the compositional balance, and simply when the emotional connection is as it ought to be. So that’s the music that should most readily reveal real playback differences to us across multiple systems.

–

Anyway, I’ve encountered a great many objectivists who have no idea what critical listening is and have never developed their own listening skills, so I can appreciate your concern over a casual quick comparison between two chains. If you’re not focusing on the right things (if you don’t even know how to do that) you’ll blow right by important differences even if they’re obvious to other people, and then you’ll be certain there are no such differences, because science.

My speaker auditioning escapade laid the groundwork for learning how to listen critically, and over time and with tons of practice I’ve found piles of favorite tracks that tell me certain things (like the bass sweep at ~ 5:05 in “Corona Radiata” by Nine Inch Nails, which is a nice clean passage for assessing bass articulation and extension).

Armed with that practice and those references, I find it easy to hear differences between headphones with direct A-B comparisons. DACs and amps much less so. Measurements and capabilities have gotten so good in the past few years that the actual differences between devices are shrinking down into my own personal band of uncertainty.

Maybe I’m hitting my own perceptional limits? Or maybe there’s some aspect of differences between amps that I just haven’t cued in on yet. I can’t say, but I’m going to keep looking for my answers.

[M0N]

@SpeleoFool

For example, that listening memory is terribly unreliable, and even a few seconds between listens can impact your impressions. I’ve found some truth to that.

Absolutely, it’s really bad lol, and most a/b tests even with almost instantaneous switches have this issue. You have to give the brain time to make connections and get a picture of what you are hearing, switching back and forth quickly really disturbs this process

@SpeleoFool

For me the important takeaway is that there’s always a margin of error to be considered, so I aim to reduce the time between A-B comparisons to as close to zero as possible, attempt multiple samples in one session to establish a preference, then repeat my experiments on more than one day to confirm my biases.

Fair enough, I just haven’t found value in a/b comparisons unless I have like a weeks worth listening time with both units exclusively, and even then

@SpeleoFool

In the longer term, I’ve found significant variability in hearing from day to day. I’m certain fatigue is a factor–that’s an easy one. It’s much easier to listen deeply after a good night’s sleep or after resting my ears for a time in quiet. I believe mood is important too–I’m at my best when I’m calm, patient and happy. Beyond that, I’m not sure–weather? Temperature? Environment?

Everything plays a role lol, another reason why I would advocate with spending lots of time with something first to even out the results and get an idea of something with less variability

@SpeleoFool

You remind me of when I very first set out to audition speakers, but I had no practical idea of where to start. So I looked up some opinions online, and site after site recommended: “listen to your favorite music.”

I just hit the random skip button and go from there lol, no real “test tracks” or anything like that for me at least, if I have it I like it, stuff I know well and thoroughly enjoy is what I would test something with, even if the quality is garbage lol

@SpeleoFool

I find it easy to hear differences between headphones with direct A-B comparisons. DACs and amps much less so.

For most of the lower to midrange end of things I would def agree

@SpeleoFool

Measurements and capabilities have gotten so good in the past few years that the actual differences between devices are shrinking down into my own personal band of uncertainty.

Also true, but debating if those measurements are actually useful and translate to subjective quality is another story lol . I personally feel like we are focusing on the wrong measurements and that new measurements or existing ignored measurements might be more helpful, but I’m not one that could tell you what those are lol, and am personally a more subjective person in some regards, but ideally finding the balance is the key

@SpeleoFool

Maybe I’m hitting my own perceptional limits? Or maybe there’s some aspect of differences between amps that I just haven’t cued in on yet. I can’t say, but I’m going to keep looking for my answers.

Could be lol, who knows, listening is a skill and you develop it with experience and time, and it’s different for everyone, so no real way to tell I guess

[SpeleoFool]

@M0N

I just hit the random skip button and go from there lol, no real “test tracks” or anything like that for me at least, if I have it I like it, stuff I know well and thoroughly enjoy is what I would test something with, even if the quality is garbage lol

I am definitely at this point now. Starting out I didn’t have enough experience for a proper frame of reference. Now I do. I love jamming through random tracks and finding new references to compare so I don’t wear out all the old ones, lol. I do maintain a mental index of favorites for specific spot-testing, like I mentioned. That has come in especially handy for show environments, for example, allowing me to call up a few specific tracks that I’ve spent gobs of time with to aid in forming some quick impressions as I bounce around listening to things a few minutes at a time.

@M0N

@SpeleoFool

I find it easy to hear differences between headphones with direct A-B comparisons. DACs and amps much less so.

For most of the lower to midrange end of things I would def agree

Exactly. The more you climb the mountain, the more diminishing the returns until you’re up in the clouds, lol. The upside is that stuff at that peak level is all so sublime!

@M0N

Also true, but debating if those measurements are actually useful and translate to subjective quality is another story lol . I personally feel like we are focusing on the wrong measurements and that new measurements or existing ignored measurements might be more helpful, but I’m not one that could tell you what those are lol, and am personally a more subjective person in some regards, but ideally finding the balance is the key

The trouble with measurements like SINAD is that they’re like looking through a keyhole–you’re taking the temperature of the amp cleanliness at a specific reference point (e.g., 1kHz or 12kHz tone or whatever) and extrapolating that data point to the entire performance of the amp. I don’t see how one continuous tone at a high reference level can tell you how accurately an amp can recreate an entire tapestry of musical sound, though I suppose it can tell you whether it would screw it up.

Another aspect that’s difficult to assess is how important certain measurements are and at what point they become unimportant. Like, maybe 101dB of SINAD out of the RNHP is “good enough” and everything beyond that point is merely academic? Or maybe the fact that the RNHP’s SINAD measurement was driven by harmonic distortion spikes while the noise floor was extraordinarily low yields a much different subjective listening experience than a similar measurement derived from higher noise and lower distortion?

I appreciate measurements for giving me something to think about, but they don’t get to dictate whether I’m allowed to like a thing or not, lol. That’s the right-brain’s job.

@M0N

Could be lol, who knows, listening is a skill and you develop it with experience and time, and it’s different for everyone, so no real way to tell I guess

Absolutely. And, frankly, my depth of experience with headphones far exceeds my experience with various amps, making it all the more challenging for me to decide whether some aspect of my listening skills are underdeveloped or whether amps are just all that good.

You did mention something about THX amps holding back higher-end headphones (I think that was in another thread). I’ve been fond of pointing out to people with whom I discuss HiFi that to optimize a listening experience, every link the the playback chain needs to be strong. I do know that my very best playback experience is D90 → 887 → Stellias. If I simply go by ASR-logic, then I can write off the DAC and amp as “provably transparent” and excuse myself to stop paying attention, but I am open to the possibility that the THX amp really is the weak link in my chain.

I do wish I could confirm or refute that by listening to a much better amp. So far the only candidate has been the RNHP, and I got stuck there.

I suppose the silver lining is that I still have the VC and Pendant combo coming, so some day in the not-too-distant future I will get to throw objectivity to the wind and just play.

[M0N]

@SpeleoFool

I suppose the silver lining is that I still have the VC and Pendant combo coming, so some day in the not-too-distant future I will get to throw objectivity to the wind and just play.

This is where it gets real fun lol, hopefully the pendant and vc is an eye opener for you for enjoyment (in a good way preferably)

[SpeleoFool]

Well, I’ve heard that combo at a couple shows, so I’m already excited to have it on hand so I can really sink into it. I know from that limited experience that ZMFs play well with tubes. Not sure if it will be eye-opening, though it will definitely be both fun and educational.

In fact, from objective listening via my THX path, I occasionally find certain tracks where the ZMF tuning kinda stomps on pieces of the source material or otherwise clashes a little bit, but when you find a good synergy between music and their headphones, WOW!

I expect the [right] tubes will draw attention away from those occasional objective limitations by accentuating the strengths of ZMF’s tuning. The whole point of this angle is to make listening as fun as possible.

I’m all for objectivism, but not to the detriment of subjective enjoyment. My own philosophy is why focus on one goal when you can have both and win at everything?

[Polygonhell]

@SpeleoFool

Well, I’ve heard that combo at a couple shows, so I’m already excited to have it on hand so I can really sink into it. I know from that limited experience that ZMFs play well with tubes. Not sure if it will be eye-opening, though it will definitely be both fun and educational.

I’d be surprised if you weren’t stunned by the difference, even with the stock JJ tubes the Pendant, is an obviously better amplifier to me than any of the cheaper stuff I own.
And the Verite was a revelation in the way it sounded for a closed back.

I’ve said before I find most of the entry level DAC’s more similar than different, and most of the entry level SS amps the same way. I have preferences from what I’ve heard, but I wouldn’t insist they are definitively better.

Now compare say a something at the Liquid Platinum level to a $100 SS amp or a THX amp, and I think the differences are obvious, and I think the Pendant is a similar step up again.

[SpeleoFool]

Sorry, I don’t mean to come across like I’m downplaying the magnitude of what Pendant will do–I just meant that I’ve already spoiled the surprise.

Hence, no eye-opening or stunning–but that shouldn’t be taken to insinuate that I’m not currently giddy with excitement or that I won’t be enthusiastically basking in an altogether new dimension of musical enjoyment when the time comes. I just already know this.

[Grant]

I am wondering after reading much, but not all of this thread if an issue I’m hearing might be the result of “over sharpening”. In some tracks, there is a crunch to the bass, sounds like distortion. But it’s inconsistent. I can hear it on other amps but it’s less pronounced. Is there something wrong with my 789 or is this part of the somewhat problematic sound signature it produces?

[M0N]

Is it consistently on the same tracks at the same spot, or more inconsistent than that? Also what other amps are you comparing to?

[Grant]

I’m comparing to a CTH. Same source. It’s consistent at the same place in each track which is why I think it may be in the recording and accentuated by the amp

[M0N]

Gotcha, that sounds like it’s the case then

[Grant]

One example is Post Malone Wow. That bass line is crunchy. More so in some areas than others. I kinda feel like I’m going crazy

Listened on my iPhone and yup, it’s just part of the mix.

[SpeleoFool]

@Grant

One example is Post Malone Wow. That bass line is crunchy. More so in some areas than others. I kinda feel like I’m going crazy

What are you using as your recording stream? Could it be something like a compression artifact, or is just a native part of that recording? And which headphones are you using? Have you tried different cans?

Just tried out a “stupid amounts of bass” test track of my own and got some crunchiness out of my 887:
The Advent, Industrialyzer - “Up Close”

I’m not ready to rule out a cabling problem yet since I’ve got both this and an Atom hooked up to my RME on splitters. Earlier I had some very bad crunchiness out of the Atom, and fixed it by powering off the atom and disconnecting / reconnecting the RCA connections.

[Grant]

This is in both Spotify and tidal. I listened to that track and I can hear the small amount of crunch in some places on my 789, but it also shows up through my CTH. I’m pretty sure it’s just in the mix but now that we’ve heard it it can’t be unheard

[SpeleoFool]

Speaking of things you’ll never un-hear:

Funny Picture/GIF/Video thread

Here’s one for those of us whose senses of humor stopped developing in junior high. It’s a total gas… Stumbled across a Headfonics review of the Hip-Dac. On page 2 of that review is this passage: "First off if you do not have a copy of Steely Dan’s “Everything must go” from 2003, get it. It is a well-recorded CD. Get it just so you can verify what I am about to say if not for some of the great tracks it has. Please get the FLAC version or the CD. There is a track on that CD called “Godwhacker…

[DagoRed]

It took my Schiit Modius coming in to finally appreciate the THX 887 properly after trying better gear. The answer is disappointing as it pairs best with sigma delta DACs that are slightly warm… which seems to be in line with a theory I have on the THX and maybe why it measures well. I have a feeling the THX amps sound harsh because they don’t handle transients very well, which you may get from ladder DACs and ultra high resolving DACs.

The harshness to me might be due to small transients of digital music that sigma delta dacs smooth out in the lower tiers. With that said… I can see how my THX 887 may not scale up to the Benchmark THX amp. There is still a slight colorization of my THX 887 which means either you’re a fan or you’re not + it makes your signal chain a little more picky.