“I would not even make something like that for a DIY project”
Did someone get tought by Nvidia on how to do marketing?
Also: People running into the 120dB wall. Time to get some big-boy measurement gear and learn the fun of routing coax measurement leads. 
Well if there is A and B products that “basically” can do the same thing but price difference is 5 x.
Specially when tested they both perform well. I could see me being mad also, if my product could not give any more toys that would explain the price difference. 
Or performs more worst than it should.
Like here is a Fiat Panda that performs like a Ferrari, what price. Like 10k. waaaaaaaaa!?!?!
TBH, I didnt realize the magnius had the same power output as the A90, but anyways, my impression was just that th A90 is so recommended because it does everything quite well. Not great, and it certainly isnt an overtly colored source (maybe also part of the reason for the req), but over all just makes a great all arounder. That said, I guess for the price you could pretty easily get a SE and balanced amp seperately for cheaper.
Isnt the asgard unbalanced though?
The G111 and the tubes I have heard of, but ill have to look into the RNHP. Ultimately though it seems like you prefer an overtly colored source with all of the tube recommendations? I havent even started looking into tubes yet tbh. Is your take kind of that a clean sound can be done so cheap that there isnt a reason to look at the higher end to peruse that?
Lol, that is already happening with tesla
I guess it could be called that, but honestly it just does nothing that makes me thing it’s worth 500 bucks
Yes, does that actually change anything when it comes to sound quality?
Not really, the hagerman tuba with stock tubes is somewhat mid forward, but with the right tubes it’s a pretty dead neutral tube amp that really for most that come from lets say a darkvoice would be surprised to learn it’s a tube amp. For the feliks that is a warmer more smoother laid back but still technically capable, that one is a noticeably colored sounding amp. All depends on the headphone you have for what the most appropriate amp is for your goal. Regarding the coloration comment, looking at coloration of a single component is pointless, if your goal is to avoid coloration it’s a wasted effort and it’s not attainable. Coloration isn’t determined by one component, but by the entire chain. Let’s say you have something like a violectric v280 which is a bit more neutral but warmer smoother wider leaning amp, and a soekris dac1541 which is more bright and analytical source, aggressive, more deep than wide, both on their own are pretty noticeably colored, but when you combine the two you actually get a pretty dang neutral sound out of them if neutrality is your goal, so if you are trying to aim for a specific target (like neutrality), you want to view everything in your chain as a whole instead of trying to look at single components to actually have the end result be what you are after (including the cans as well lol)
Another side note is that I would argue the a90 is actually fairly colored, not in frequency response, but in it’s excessive smoothness and dullness, which leaves stage rather flat and smaller minute detail smoothed over and meh timbre, which to me is just as colored as an amp with a bit of a bump in a specific frequency range but accurate spatial recreation and dynamics. But I guess it all depends on your view on the idea of something being colored, to me if something is colored it means it deviates from what you would hear in real life for a certain way which would include pretty much everything from fr, timbre, dynamics, impact, spatial recreation, presentation, etc
It would be nice if coloration and synergy didn’t play a role, and if all dacs and amps were truly transparent and like a wire with gain, but unfortunately that’s not the case, it’s an unavoidable evil, but you can manage it with proper pairings to reach whatever sonic goal you are shooting for
Most studio gear is balanced, up to the point where the headphone gets plugged in. 
You have to volume match. 
Edit: I’m a big boy, I read through this whole thread.
Get a Schitt Modi 3+ and call it a day. No need to spend a fortune.
Before I found Hifi Guides I lurked a bunch of forums looking for a good community. This place tends to be the best of all worlds
Good mix of technical and music focused listeners for both Head and Speakers, and across the budget range
This is legit the reason i joined. Finding a place where people are not only willing to post “I think a thing that measures worse than another thing sounds nice” but for that post to not get instantly flamed is pretty cool.
Just realized reading a review over at ASR…
The entire model especially reviewing and amplifier or a DAC, they give you a horsepower figure and use that as the sole recommendation. I’ve never actually read anything that’s been commented on as how it actually sound.
So when you have a car’s horsepower you can obviously say what the lap time around the ring will be right?
Depends if you have a good set of track tires among other things 
. What im getting from their camp (ASR) is using a measurable definition to what youre hearing. Choosing gear with no sound signature to reproduce “what the artist intended” and if you want to change the sound signature it should only be done by EQ or speakers. But for amir himself the only good gear is a broad flat curve to get a positive recommendation.
So in car terms amir is offering dyno testing without tuning service.
Which doesn’t exist, and is completely unfeasible to accomplish. Also known as an ignorant and wasted effort
So the best you can do is try to build a system with the flattest broadest FQ response you can is what theyre leaning toward ? I can go with that for a 2.2 dedicted room setup. What gets me is the “what the artist intended” thing.
i think your take mon is its impossible for any gear from mic to speaker that recreates the sound in the studio recording room or live event other than being physically in the room with the artists?
For asr, they are trying to build systems that best meets their target response and metric, what they personally feel is correct. This doesn’t mean it’s correct, but it’s what they think is correct. Basically they want something that looks good on paper to them and real life performance comes second
It’s a great question, what the hell did the artist intend? It’s not like you can go and ask them, as I’d guess they really can’t fully explain their intent through words. There’s really no way of knowing, there’s so many factors that go into it. The closest you might get would be “what did the mastering and production engineers intend” and even that’s a long shot. One big problem is the question of was intent ever realized in the first place, it’s a game of compromises, who’s intent took priority more? The artist themselves? The recording engineer? The mastering house? The label? And more. And let’s say to take out variables, the music was entirely created throughout the entire process by the artist, did they actually have the skills and tools to realize their internal intent? And then we get into the actual process and idea of how things are produced and how there are limitations there. Which will take awhile to talk about. Basically just assume that true intent is a lost cause at this point
As mentioned above, the closest you can get is most likely what the mastering studio hears or the mixing process, and to recreate that, you would need the exact same room, same equipment, and exact same ears and brain to hear that with yourself, which you can see most likely isn’t reasonable to do. That’s not intent either, that’s just getting as close as to hearing what they might hear. And another question would be do you really want to hear that anyways? You have to keep in mind that a large amount of music is recorded for the common person on their common setup, so the final product is optimized to sound good on that lower end gear. It could have sounded excellent if it were geared for playback on higher end gear, but then the common person wouldn’t enjoy it as much. And yes, as soon as you actually have to record that music, some intent may be lost, but that all depends on the artist and how they feel, which you can’t really know anyways
His point is that what’s on the disk isn’t what the artist heard.
The artist heard it through a DAC, amp and speakers (probably near field) in a room with a shape and sound treatment.
Unless you were in the room at the point the artist signed off on the mix, you have no way to know what they heard, so assuming something with a low SiNAD, somehow reproduces it is fiction.
Most amps and DAC’s have flat frequency responses, through the entire hearing range, and yet they sound different, go compare the FR 20-20000 Hz of say a liquid spark, and a Magni Heresy, they are both flat, and yet one sounds warmer than the other.
Measure any amp through an actual pair of headphones and all the FR variation is swamped by the transducer, so what’s the point?
I have no problem with taking measurements, I think it’s useful to a point, but you should judge a system on what you hear from it, not try and reduce it to a single number.
The closest thing you can basically shoot for at this point is the idea of making something that will “most accurately represent the source material” or something that is “the most faithful to the final recording” which again is a tall order, but it least it could be more potentially possible than figuring out what an artist intended, but still somewhat impossible imo
You also have to consider that some studio gear is typically not clean and linear. It exists to add coloration and distortion most of the time, but in a desirable way. There’s no real point to having ultra low distortion or ultra high sinad gear when it isn’t going to matter because the source material is going to be worse than that anyways, along with the actual transducers themselves being worse measuring than the gear typically, so you sacrifice other aspects of the sound for those extra good measurements that won’t even matter in the end.
So pretty much, if they know the smell of the console discussed in the linked video… then trust them?
If we’re getting pedantic, the point of mastering isn’t some artistic ideal, it’s to make it sound good enough on a range of typical listening systems.
Car audio, crappy earbuds, beats etc etc.
Correct, hence my lowest common denominator or average person comment in the previous post, it’s all a compromise, the mastering engineer typically isn’t hearing anything all that pleasant while he’s working on it and optimizing it for the typical listener
And that would be me. So if you want to know what demi on fent signed off on is get the copy the sound guy has on his hard drive buy the monitors amp and dac hes got on top of his console. Bam you got “what the artist intended” hard and fast. you want audiophile add an exact replica of the sound guys control room.
Just by being here, you are already far ahead of the average consumer lol, along with some of the gear you own too
If you want what the artist intended, you just have to be the artist lol