we’re arguing* semantics. Burr Brown is loved because of it’s tubish sound and tubes are loved because of their harmonic distortion and how they enhance soundstage, etc.
*we’re not arguing, that’s just the phrase, LoL!
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That is a bold claim…
We have only really had measurement data for a handful of years and off the top of my head I can think of many items still in production or that were released in the last 3 years that have had objectively poor measurements or incompetent engineering implementations.
As an example Burson Soloist 3XP Review (Headphone Amp) | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum
Sadly measurements are still required to keep this industry advancing as other tech areas have (we wouldn’t suggest that a CRT is preferable to an OLED just because retro games display better on them and that is my preference and synergy) as well as being a means of keeping the manufacturers honest and price competitive.
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and yet the Burson Soloist 3XP is a loved amp and that’s most likely due to it’s bad measurements being pleasing to the ear for many.
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100% healthy discussion and not an arguement but this is not a difference of semantics.
You have made a claim (IFI add pleasing harmonic distortion to their products) that IFI seem to refute in their marketing and to which we have no actual evidence (AFAIK - please update me if I have missed something) or even understanding of how this could be achieved in the analogue domain without causing measurements to change significantly so that the changes can be heard in the audible band. Therefore rendering transparency and measurements important again.
My arguement is - regardless of how much we like a product personally - let’s not be so quick to praise a company or product for something without reason…
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Crt is good due to no input latency. Thats why some hardcore competitors still use them. Its niche but still valued. Just being helpful not trying to take away from everything else being said etc.
Just because something is popular does not mean it is good or even well designed / implemented…
My example above was designed to show this as you suggested that measurements were no longer important as most components measure adequately, yet here we have something over $1000 that has epic power but sacrifices transparency to achieve this. Without the measurements I would not know that as Burson’s marketing talks about clean power and reference grade components.
And if overall popularity is based on numbers, due to the Topping MSRP it will sell far in excess of the Burson. And just like a normal distribution curve within that ownership there will be evangelical users who sing it’s praises. Just because there are more of these users - does this mean it is automatically preferable or a good buy…? Not necessarily…
I would also be careful in making the jump from “people like the amp” to “people like the amp due to the poor measurements”. There is a lot more that factors into how humans make preferences. Price, looks, function, other audio components, brain bias, room treatment, previous listening sources, hearing capability, etc…
It’s hard to draw objective conclusions without any evidence and just our own musings.
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Hi, generally Burr Brown chips (like those used by the Zen DAC) don’t measure as well as ESS/AKM chips. See: Burr-Brown based DAC measurements | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum
This is probably because Burr Brown uses a hybrid multibit implementation rather than the pure Delta-Sigma of the ESS/AKM line. They may also then reduce the noise using oversampling or other methods which “smooth” out the sound creating a different quality than pure Delta-Sigma, that could be argued to be less “true” than pure Delta-Sigma DACs (though “true” with any DAC is always a bit of an approximation because you’re using techniques like dithering and so on to approximate the analog sound, but that’s a much bigger conversation).
In any case, the Zen DAC and relatives clearly sounds different than sources like the ones that typically come from Topping, or JDS, or whoever, and more different still than say fully multibit sources like the Schiit Mimby, Bimby etc, or R2R DACs like the Ares II, which always measure worse than full Delta-Sigma DACs but are preferred by many people including myself.
The bottom line is that sound is subjective, and different people like different things, and sometimes that means things that don’t measure the best. The comparison to monitors is misleading, since vision is different from sound, but even there there’s plenty of people who, for example, still use CRT monitors because the prefer the way the image looks. (This is particularly true for playing retro games, where stuff like NES games don’t really look right on a modern television, but a Google search will find you people who prefer the way things look on CRT in general.)
EDIT: and it’s demonstrably the case that many people like things that measure poorly. See: Tube amps.
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Ah shit here we go again
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Can you guys just go back to ASR forums since you love talking about measurements so much?
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100% but it is more than just input lag. It’s also due to the colour output that aligns with those retro consoles, aspect ratio, upscaling on new tvs not being adequate, output connection options, hell even some people want the scanlines for nostalgia (I am one of those idiots).
Regardless we wouldn’t call a CRT more visual or more pleasing. For general purpose watching an OLED is far more preferable to a CRT, quality and form factor wise as technology has moved on and this is not something people debate (unlike in audio) and so CRT now has a very narrow use case (synergy as us audiophiles like to say) but again it is all backed up with evidence, measurements & tech/standards adoption as to why this is the case and why the advancement to OLED happened. I don’t see many niche use but modern developed TVs listed for market… (Unlike in audio)
We should always be pushing technology to advance (not be satisfied with the status quo) as it brings other areas forward also or helps reduce costs, etc as focus moves into other areas if the tech is at a paradigmatic end point.
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The last 30 posts are back and forth, can we get back on topic?
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I agree but Burr Brown uses a feedback loop as it like the ESS/AKM is a Sigma Delta chipset. Technically, there is no reason for them to achieve lower numbers save for a conversion process that is not best in class currently and that AKM and ESS spearhead. This is not controversial even when looking at price - with the far cheaper BB chips.
This is unlike R2R and multibit DACs (and that is why I have not touched on them here). But R2R / discrete circuitry need not lead to poor measurements - Holo May and Topping A90 discrete as examples.
I have not suggested what measures best is the be all and end all and I have made constant references to niche uses, subjective opinion, etc… but lets not make assertions or explanations (IFI adds harmonic distrotion or BB has a tube sound) without any evidence. It’s hard enough managing manufacturer misleading claims without needing to gauge 100 subjective explanations.
Surely if these differences can be explained technically then they can be measured otherwise how are the implemented with any purpose except for luck…?
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As others have said, this is a whole string of posts where if someone keeps getting notifications for “rumors and new releases” they’d be disappointed - because it’s a back and forth that isn’t about either.
I’m sure there’s plenty left to discuss about it, perhaps start a thread for it?
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I’m sorry if that triggers you… You may need to find a new safe space
Every week another one comes in here and says the sound you’re enjoying isn’t actually enjoyable because it doesn’t measure well.
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Meh I liked your post, but technology is ment to make life easier. As far as advances is all about what you mean. The ultimate evolution of music playback will just be signals a nurallink type device sends directly into your brain. So the focus will shift entirely to how the music was recorded and no deviation on playback as its bit perfect sending the data to your brain. This is the future for better or worse imo.
Edit: on topic though, any new word on clinical trials for implants? I think we were about to fire that up in earnest this year so will be fun literally and sarcastically to see what comes of it.
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…twenty characters…
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Brief aside about my beloved Burson since I see these measurements brought up a lot.
A handful of other people online have independently measured the Burson Soloist 3x and found it’s quite clean. Here’s one thorough example https://www.l7audiolab.com/f/burson-soloist-3x/ When I was researching the amp I did some hunting to be sure and there are about 5 people that measured the Burson and all got stellar performance.
No hate for ASR, he’s just a hobbyist after all and doesn’t owe anyone perfection, but I’m pretty sure he just biffed his measurements or had bad unit (I think the first run of Soloists did have issues) If I recall correctly, he even mentions in the post he should have been able to hear the issue, but that it sounded fine.
Lol, feel free to disregard! Just defending some honor here because the Burson so often gets brought up as a poor measuring unit when it is in actuality pretty well measuring, not class leading, but definitely good. Kinda adds an interesting ironic color to the whole measurements debate though.
Cool discussion to read along to! I agree with lots said by all, but here’s a couple monkey wrench asides! I think a lot of people get lost in the term “distortion” . If an amp adds harmonics that were lost in the recording process that we know would be present in the live performance, guitars and voices produce lots of harmonic distortion, then maybe that’s actually more “accurate”. We can never know what the original analog was exactly like, but we do know it definitely had a ton of harmonic distortion. People aren’t way off base or into things being wrong when they describe tube amps as more live or musical, even if they’re adding to the signal it could well be closer to how the real acoustics would be perceived by our ears and thus has that effect when listening to playback depending on the genre or recording. Your Miles Davis may sound more like the real thing on a tube even if it’s adding something that would lower technical signal purity.
My other thing I always have to bring up THD is an aggregate average measurement. It’s the average of many measured distortions within set test parameters, and of several different categories. As much talk as there is about this versus that units measured performance it’s important to remember it’s not good science to compare this type of measurement. Objectively, THD is only really useful when building a unit to test against itself and as a marketing stat. It’s not really meaningful and likely often misleading to compare the difference in THD between different implementations, designs, or even within delta sigma dacs. So much about the final measurement is determined by hundreds of choices you make in experimental design, great video here (Why you can't trust audio measurements - YouTube)` That’s not to say that things can’t measure worse or that a better measuring unit could actually perform better, but that at the number of decimals we’re talking about for most good units the measurement isn’t very illuminating. It’s a good ole sig fig issue. It’s much more correct in my mind to view THD as a pass\fail measurement, it’s either within bounds of good engineering or it’s bad enough to be audibly bad, but the gradations between fractions of decimals are super meaningless.
I always feel woefully unequipped to explain this nuanced statistics issue, so I apologize. THD is kind of like the 2K OVR rating for NBA players, Shaq’s not an objectively better free throw shooter than Klay Thompson no matter how many times someone shouts that Shaq’s OVR is higher, so he’ll be objectively better in all aspects. Frankly it’s more like measuring the length of every section of the body, torso, calf, nose etc., averaging that, and then using that one single number to rank all the NBA players. It’s just not a kind of statistic that can be used for comparison. Happy conversing all!
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FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Can we have this discussion moved to another thread?
Like, there have been so many posts that this can be moved to an entire dedicated topic/thread. I think a little off-topic is fine, but we have over 30 posts that are just off-topic back and forth…
Edit: @M0N Bless you <3
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Sorry I’ve been out for awhile, just came back
I would kindly ask that for those who want to discuss a product or topic in depth in a thread such as the new releases thread, either:
A. Make a thread pertaining to that product or concept and discuss it there (but search and see if one exists that’s close enough already to avoid repeat threads)
or B. Take it to PM with the person you want to discuss with if it’s only a few people
While it does make sense to have some of these discussions, and it does make sense to throw a few comments out in the new releases thread, I’d just ask that if anyone involved knows or sees that it is going to become a full blown discussion/conversation, to take one of the options above just to make that thread a bit more readable and on topic by cutting down on full blown discussions in there
For now I’ve moved things to a new thread with a random title and category, if you feel like there’s a better name or it should be put somewhere else just let me know, if you want to continue to conversation on this thread further
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