Yes, I wouldn’t want to prevent someone from designing and selling something because they think it wouldn’t succeed, but I will say I don’t like the current trend of numbers over sound too much (I think the atom and heresy nails the sweet spot for high numbers and good sound, but thx starts to sacrifice sound for it’s slightly higher numbers)
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I think people are waking up to the fact that numbers are only a portion of the story. Their ears are telling them the important parts.
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Yes that needs to be conveyed more lol
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I blame certain, cough, YouTuber’s…
At this point, they’ve put themselves in the position as the ASR guy.
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Yeah it’s moreso the idea that people have in their head with thx that bothers me more than the actual amp (but I don’t like how the amps sound either), it’s not a neutral amp (neutral = closer to life for me), it’s not the end all be all, measurements aren’t everything, and yes it makes sense to go get a higher end amp depending on the headphones (it definitely doesn’t make higher end amps redundant from my experiences lol). This is all coming from a listening perspective though, so idk lol. I’m fine with them existing and everything, but not a fan of the hype and people should know what they are actually getting before buying one imo
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With employees not working, companies can save money if they have 0 overhead such as payroll, payroll tax, office place utility bills, etc. The only issue really is if a company leases office/warehouse space as those are fixed and landlords can be pricks.
Also, most companies have an inventory of surplus goods on hand and can still ship and sell without issue…at least while they have items in stock. But if the virus prevents work at a much longer timeframe, it isnt just the small businesses that will be effected, it will be the entire economy. That will be when the worry sets in for me.
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Truer words have never been spoken 
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I agree with everything that’s been said here. Even the contradictory statements.
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What he said! 
This fundamentally is my only issue with THX people feel they need it, and most of them would be better off with one of the $100 amps, very few people need 6W for headphones.
It’s IMO an entry level amp, and you pay extra for the power.
If your going to get one of those hard to drive planars where you need the power, your in most cases over 1K on the headphones and you should probably be looking at a better amp.
There is a tendency with these entry level SS amps to greatly overstate the differences, they’re there, but they are generally subtle, there are lots to choose from, so I understand why people tend to over analyze, liquid spark, atom, magny heresy, magni 3+, you might as well just pick the one you prefer the look of.
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I think the measurebators of the world saw this amp and its spectacular measurements and ran towards this amp and its variants like flies to honey…
Good or bad.
Once the “rush” starts its hard for some folks to not get caught up in the parade.
From an amp “guy” here, I got on just to see what or how good or bad it would work…and it works very well, but I prefer others…
I just got a Lyr3, power, oh yes! Needed, very debatable for sure…but it works nice!!
Great time for headphone stuff!!
Now just to get over this crazy corona virus stuff…
Be Safe and Enjoy the Music while you can!!
Alex
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I mean I had a THX 789 Before, but I kinda found it a bit boring, preferred my Tube stuff over it, It’s not a bad Amp though, and the 6 Watts are quite the tease for anyone with power hungry headphones.
But recently I’ve spent a few weeks working on my personal Tube amp and I’ve had nothing else to listen to other than a Magni Hersey, and:
I kinda agree with that sentiment, It powers my T1s and HD600s perfectly (Even on Low Gain for My Tastes), and I really can’t notice any major difference between both, from memory at least, and since power isn’t much of an issue in my case, it kinda leads me to another sentiment I agree with a bit:
I mean idk, I’ve tried a Phonitor 2 for example, and for what it’s worth, even though from a design perspective I kinda dislike it from making it possible to short it and not have any for of protection circuit to at least save the headphones, it sounded absolutely spectacular when it worked, I immediately noticed that the sound was vastly superior than the THX from memory, and made me re-listen to a bunch of stuff just to see what else it could do better, it just immersed me much more in my music.
With the THX, it worked and had power, but it didn’t really attract me to use it instead of my Darkvoice and La Figaro (Both of these Modded with better components, not stock), but the Phonitor 2 kinda made me go “Ok so at least my Modded Darkvoice isn’t completely left behind, but there’s something in this Phonitor that I really like and that makes me want to listen to it more (Also VUs turn me on)”.
What I’m trying to get at is that the THX is a really good amp, but for less than 400, there are better amps in the cost v. sound department, (The RNHP seems to be a contender for better sound, but for 500 however) and if you just want something clean that’s better than a PC/Phone 3.5mm Output, there’s stuff costing way less with a similar sound and decent performance compared to the THX, like the aforementioned Magni Hersey or stuff like the Gisheli Archel 2 Pro (Which measures BETTER than the THX stuff in some accounts, if you’re into measurements).
If you REALLY want to try THX, the SMSL THX offering is nearly identical (like 88.7% to like 98.7%) to the 789/887 and provides quite a bit of power as well, honestly the only reason I’d get a THX is for the Power anyways, but that’s just me.
So idk, TL;DR, THX is good, but there are cheaper things that work just as well, the distortion values are kinda hyped IMO since there’s cheaper stuff that sound nearly identical to the THX but with less power, although not everyone needs 6 Watts (Had to lower my Magni Hersey because it was getting a bit loud with my T1s 600 Ohm, so there you go, great example of that concept), and for the Price of the 789/887 you can get better stuff, or at least stuff that sounds more attractive (Like a Tube, or a SS/Hybrid). Just to reiterate, don’t but it because it’s THX, buy it because you like how it sounds or if you need the power (Preferably both).
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Zeos: “I can hear the difference between DACs do you know what this means!”
He never said that about other amps, did he?
I mean, it’s obviously the best for him. He tests DACs, tests headphones, wants to hear every little detail in headphones, and… 119dB SINAD + 6 watts? For someone with a wall of headphones like Zeos, with a job like Zeos, good luck beating that.
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?
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IMO if you want to bring that up, he should put more care into amp pairings for his reviews to make sure he is getting the best experience he can, not being handicapped by his electronics pairing (as he tends to do with his higher end reviews imo)
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And yeah, AAA tech… “achromatic amplifier”… doesn’t it basically mean (vulgarized)… “this is the perfect timbre and naturalness you’ll ever hear because our tech doesn’t do anything to anything” ?
That’s a blanket statement, huh?
My perspective on Zeos is that he is great for entry level people who are just getting in to things or those with limited budgets. If the Verite doesn’t sound good off of a $400 amp, then it’s definitely not worth $2500 if you need to buy another amplifier with it.
Maybe this is just my personal bias since I’m literally the person I described (new-ish to HiFi with a limited budget, but COULD afford ZMF level headphones if I wanted) but I find Zeos is helpful overall.
Also he can’t really put to much time or money into amp pairing since he does pump out videos daily and even with his patreon I don’t think he could afford to buy all the amps or especially store all the amps needed for all the headphones he reviews.
And to stay on topic for the thread, AAA tech is just another option. Buy what sounds good to you and you can afford. If that’s THX, cool. If that’s an Asgard 3, cool. If that’s the $130,000 DAC that M0N baught for like $80,000, cool. Just listen to your music you pedantic audiophile fucks (please take no offense, this is all intended as friendly joking).
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I mean, there’s two types of people. The people who believe expensive DACs don’t make a difference, and you with a 75 kilos DAC. 
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Interesting discussion. My takeaway from Currawong’s comments and my own listening comparing THX amps to other amp types is that the THX amps are probably going to give the listener the most accurate representation of the music at the lowest price.
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I think this is true in Q1 2020 more than it was when the 789 was released. I know it wasn’t that long ago, but when the Drop 789, er, dropped, it did not have much competition in its price/performance category. Now it does. LOTS of competition. This gets back to my earlier point about THX disrupting the market for the better. The disruption happened quickly. I don’t know how long ago the 789 first dropped, but the past 18-24 months has seen a vast and across the board improvement in <$500 amps. But yeah, right now in March 2020 I do question buying a THX amp at their current prices. And I say that as someone who jumped on the SP200 bandwagon in November 2019 
.
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So here is my take. In the budget realm the amp matters more and you shouldn’t spend too much on your dac, but when you get to the higher end the dac actually might matter more in some systems in my experience
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