Random thoughts about our hobby

Discussion in 'General Audio Discussion' started by k4rstar, May 19, 2022.

  1. Gazny

    Gazny MOT: ETA Audio

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    I'll start by stating, I respectfully disagree to most if not all your points.
    Personally as someone as myself I love all my headphones, most are TOTL(pronounced total as in my total investment in this hobby is very high) From the utopia to the Susvara and even 1266 or 1337 colloquially. These are not all difficult to drive, infact most are very easily driven by my WA33 or wow amp as I call it. It isn't something everyone can get into but it is a very easy choice. Easy being the operative word as I had no difficulty thanks for summit fi threads.

    I feel I shouldn't respond to this one but I have to, I am not affraid to share my own truth here. You wouldn't want a sepia tone would you? I think I can easily rest my case here as I think my 1337 has a very clean and natural tone with no bloat or emphasis. I suggest you give them a listen.

    I actually use stock cables in all my gear I see cables as snake oil and a waste of money.

    You must really like a sepia tone, personally I run my wa33 as a preamp and it has been great. Again, it might not be a good "synergy" as you call it, but I suspect it would bring life into your Radio Shack headphones :rolleyes:
     
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  2. Wilewarer

    Wilewarer Almost "Made"

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    I think the deal with integrated headphone outs is a bit more complicated than people dismissing them because they liked the sound color on baby's first external whatever.

    For one, sometimes the headphone jack really is bad. I've heard good ones and bad ones. My phones have both been fine. The cheapo CD players I had in the fading days of Walkman, not as fine. My desktop computer's one is really bad (too noisy to use, honestly). There's a range of performance here. Some of them really are much worse than even a low-end external something. And if you know yours is awful, you're not going to want to waste good music time on it.

    The other thing, though, is that if you're talking about a computer, smartphone, etc, even the most audio-obsessed are usually buying these for reasons other than their audio performance. The headphone output is a tiny piece of the puzzle. If you were buying it primarily for that, as in the headphone out being bad enough is a real dealbreaker, then you might well need to trial a bunch of different things. And you might find that you like a lot of other features of one of them despite worse audio performance.

    At that point, it's probably more feasible to compare external components and find something you like. Easier than setting up an entirely new computer system.
     
  3. ColdsnapBry

    ColdsnapBry Almost "Made"

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    Just reading between the lines here @k4rstar and @E_Schaaf - Is this sort of a pushback to the current state of deep-headfi? Hear me out a second before you jump to an answer..

    I'm calling it deep-headfi, people who are deep in the headphones game, like many here. Who have heard just about everything and most likely built what they feel is a very synergistic chain around something like a 650 or Utopia. And coincidentally most of the components of the chain are either unobtanium, extremely expensive, involve some sort of nervosa (tube rolling) and also a bit finicky (tubes again).

    I've built a system like this and it's a bit exhausting. To go even further would take a lot of effort / time on buy / sell / trade. Or put down some serious cash and wait a year or more for the component to show up.

    Have we gone too far with multiple components and increased complexity? I'm just going to come out and say it, a vast majority of what I've heard is worse than my Porta Pro/Ksc75 out of my Shanling M0. I'd say that combination covers about 97% of my music enjoyment.

    I've seen a bit of a movement towards people playing around with things like the Vali. I think we've possibly passed the time of grandeur and are now simplifying. The big amps are out there, but it seems all the new production and mass produced stuff is garbage. I want to encourage this explortion of smaller systems and more efficient headphones. I think it's exciting.
     
  4. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    haha sort of. I'm not actually trying to rail out against anyone, especially not someone who paid their dues and has a carefully curated system they're happy with (I have one too, I just don't turn it on much anymore). But so many people don't actually get there or put themselves through a lot of grief to do so. So my thoughts are more just questioning the conventional and mainstream approaches to system building which involve a lot of tribalistic groupthink, dogma and consumerist tendencies. It's not an attack against members here, just some food for thought on how to approach things differently. I admit this was more clear in my first article.

    the search for components to build the 'perfect' system is totally exhausting. Like I was saying, most subjective audio reviews are written on the basis of comparison to other imperfect components and what you get is a balancing act of different but not better, regardless of monetary outlay, which leads to frustration and burnout.

    This is why I have created rules for myself of what better means to me, and how to avoid components I know will not satisfy. This is why I now evaluate components in the context of 'is it better than nothing?'. If an amp sounds less clear than my headphone jack, it's difficult to be positive about it, even if it brings flavour differences to the table.

    yes, definitely, too much complexity, too many boxes. the approach goes against nature, our ability to relax and integrate with our environment, and the acceptance of our non-audio-loving loved ones.

    Thank you for understanding. The jackass in me also wants to say that all the new production and mass-produced stuff is garbage, but instead I will say I just struggle to find it interesting to listen to. The savvy system builder should shun new is better philosophy and instead involve themselves in vintage, used, DIY. Less reading about what to buy and more about how to shop. I plan to open a thread soon about how to build a speaker system on a budget using the aforementioned means.
     
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  5. Erroneous

    Erroneous Friend

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    @k4rstar To be fair, your journey to finding just the right headphone jack hasn't been easy or fast either. You have it down to which year Mac and which version old operating system system is needed in order to achieve the sound you're looking for. There surely was much churning and experimentation to arrive at that.

    All of this would likely need to be repeated by each person to find their own preferred sound so it's still a lot of churning and trouble, just with different gear.
     
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  6. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    Expense and time is the price of entry to this hobby, it's unavoidable.

    I think the bigger danger is in people being led down the wrong path by head-fi hype-men, wasting money on stuff they wont be satisfied by in the long run, because it's garbage. This is different than a deliberate, focused, wisely guided attempt to find the system that's right for you based on component matching of quality gear.

    Even if you end up with a headphone jack situation, you still had to churn through gear to come to that conclusion... does that make the journey foolish, just because you spent time and money to come to a satisfying conclusion for yourself? Ultimately that's all anyone is trying to do.... and they really need to come to that conclusion themselves to understand it and be satisfied, rather than being preached to by people who's subjective experiences aren't the same.

    It's more about walking a wise path (quality component matching) rather than walking no path at all (chasing gear is dumb).
     
  7. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    TL DR

    If you are making long posts like this then perhaps you need a new hobby. Hobbies in general shouldn't have ultra complex reasons behind it.
     
    Last edited: May 21, 2022
  8. gepardcv

    gepardcv Almost "Made"

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    it would be amazing to have a non-hand-wavy definition of “system synergy”. The trending obsession with bad measurements stems from an absence of clarity of why and how a sensitive headphone can sound dead even though it’s getting 10x more current * voltage than it needs to fry itself and the hearing of everyone in the room.

    It seems impossible to even agree on the basics. Is the HD600+Mac pairing good or bad? Is it “dead”? Sufficiently “well-driven” or “underpowered”? I’ve been trying to define “dead” as “subtly distorted” and “good enough” as “sufficient power for 95dB peaks with low distortion across all audible frequencies”, but either I don’t understand measurements well enough or that type of measurement is not commonly available.
     
  9. Gazny

    Gazny MOT: ETA Audio

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    I would love to try the 2009 mac mini, but I can't justify it. It is affordable and cost less than most usb cables

    someone else who criticized it once told me

    Plenty of reasons to why it would be good, but plenty of reasons why someone will convince themselves a usb cable or a ddc reclocker is also a good choice

    That is always what is so fun to me about "the experience", many of us are completely disillusioned with what we believe to be the truth. If you cant trust someone else's experience I believe that says more about you than them. Personal I can't truly feel what someone else experiences because that is so much more complex, we can only attempt to get close and touch a fraction of it. I believe I would need to experience your whole life and even then I don't think it would be the same. Who am I to deny someone else their lived experience?

    That brings me into the whole core of our beliefs and how we interpret our own enjoyment and what we are striving to achieve. I like to think my beliefs are not shared by others, not that I am superior than others but I simply don't think we could share interests, although deep down I know others would think they do in fact have superior taste.

    Instead we find out selves trying to describe an auditory, and sometimes visual sensations strung up through a visual mediums.

    I don't deny others experiences, I simply understand if I cared I would also try to experience it. and that is part of the fun, sharing in the experience for me. Personally I have filled my room with wood, it just feels better.
     
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  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    This is a noble endeavor. Personally I've given up. People are going to do what they want to do. If that means endless sidegrades or a continuing chase to higher and higher end, then they absolutely need to go through this process. I have no compunctions recommending ultra-hifi brands to people who are so inclined. They are going to do it anyway, may as well give them good advice instead of letting a dealer do it. Dealers are happy selling them what the rags say is the best. I still can't get over how one dealer gave me a free metal VPI tonearm because I went against the grain, telling him that the 3D printed arm sounded like ass. What I've seen is that 90% of people don't know and simply want to be told what to get. And they don't want to be told to get used PP amps that need the caps replaced and be manually biased, speakers that need reconditioning, DIY kits, or oddball stuff from AliExpress or from the Ukraine.

    The truth is that there is no perfect system. I think it's almost universally agreed upon that transducers make the most important difference. After I sold my Linn system (this was 20 years ago), I've built my own speakers, almost any kind of design imaginable. After a number of years, the only thing I've crossed out are inefficient drivers (at least from the mids on up). However, that still leaves a huge universe of different kinds of designs: efficient three-way with big woofer, wide-bander BLH + sub & supertweeter, hybrid big woofer with wide-bander BLH, or hybrid big woofer with front-loaded horn, or horn big woofer and compression driver, etc.

    My truth is that there is no absolute truth and that I will end up having a different design in every room of the house, much like how I did in California. (Knowing that I would end up moving out of California, I basically dismantled every speaker set up and gave the parts away of sound them for cheap to SBAFers). It's fun to burn stuff down and restart, incorporating lessons learned, learning new things, along the way.
     
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    Last edited: May 22, 2022
  11. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    This is an interesting point. Most folks who have been around for a while do the synergy thing without actively thinking about it. We're talking about final tweaks, components, ingredients if you will, once someone is already pretty happy and knows where they want to do.

    I do think it's a mistake when synergy is done for the sake of synergy. For example, pairing a bright headphone like the HD800 with a syrupy amp (e.g. Violectric V200 or Lake People V111) and getting results which maybe gets us a desired tonal balance, but losing everything else good about the HD800. This isn't synergy. This is nonsense, because if one wanted a more neutral or laid-back headphone, then get one. As I've often cited: accept the HD800 largely for what it is, don't try to turn the HD800 into an Audeze. This doesn't mean we don't pair with say tube amps with a bit of bloom or wetness to compensate for the dry presentation of the HD800.

    However there are better examples of proper synergy such as when it comes down to selection of tubes for a BH Crack that better suits an HD600 vs HD650. This makes absolute sense. Or what I did with the FHXL-Fostex FE166NS where I decided to switch from a neutral sounding DAC to a dark sounding DAC on the account of the FE166NS's rising response (admittedly this makes less sense because few people have the access to the stash of crap that I have in the house). The neutral DAC didn't sound bad, but it's these final tweaks (including tweaks to the speakers) that make everything fall beautifully into place. Alternatively, I could have used the warmer sounding PP amp instead of the SET amp and stayed with the neutral sounding DAC. Some people even do the synergy thing, at least the last bit, the last few percent, with cables!**

    We've been talking about synergy more and more on SBAF because most people will buy random expensive components, or super high Amir-NAD components, slap them together, and think they will get good sounding results. This is not true. The problem that is everything has a sound. People who claim an amp sounds like wire with gain* - these guys are either deaf or part of a cult who worships a certain designer or manufacturer. Every audio component has a sound regardless of its SINAD at 2V, 4V, bandwidth, load, etc. Sometimes synergy or lack thereof is a matter of basics: high Z OTL tube amps sounding soft and limp-dick into the latest low Z orthos.

    What it comes down to is that putting a system together is like cooking. Curating the ingredients that will work together to make a good dish. If you've amassed a $5k-$10k system over a number of years that you realized you don't care much for and don't listen to (I've been guilty of this myself), then you are shitty chef and did something horribly wrong. No one said this is a cheap hobby. If not cheap, then time-consuming, which is the same thing because money = time.

    * In my years of experience, gear where its proponents say sounds like "wire with gain" either has a ton of negative feedback or weird higher order harmonics.

    ** FWIW, I happen to prefer the sound of Sennheiser's HD650 cables on either the HD6xx. I dislike the sound of the majority aftermarket cables for the HD6xx and I've heard a ton of them.
     
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    Last edited: May 22, 2022
  12. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    This is praxis. Reflective practice. If you can't carve out an hour or so each day to re-evaluate/ground yourself to your current system because it doesn't "do the right things" when you first approach it, you might consider a gear purge and reassessing all of your major assumptions about your intents.
     
  13. wbass

    wbass Friend

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    Even if I seem to reach for HD800/S through a tube amp most these days, I also like having the HD600 (through Starlett) or LCD2 (BHA-1 works great with Audeze IMO) around for when I don't want the slight steeliness of the former.

    Rather than over-correcting for that attribute of the HD800 family, I just kinda let it ride and get my "different" fix through HP that are truly different. Ditto with speakers. What my Magnepan 3.7i do well and what my Klipsch Forte III do well are kinda polar opposites. Without turning the house into a hi-fi shop, having a B choice around let's me appreciate what system A does well and (generally speaking) keeps me from endless tinkering with a rig that basically sounds 90% right most of the time.

    This is not to say that fine-tuning isn't a great goal. (Holy hell, did I listen to a bunch of amps trying to get the Magnepan rig right. Still not sure if I got it nailed--landed on Sanders Sound ESL Monos--but at this point, I'd probably just go with a different set of speakers rather than get in another 5 amps.) But you can also blow a lot of money on fine-tuning and not really get that much further. Then again, I sort of burned out on A-Bing components and am sort of happy, at the moment, to let good enough be good enough.
     
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    Last edited: May 22, 2022
  14. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Sometimes I think I'm striving for synergy, but really it's probably the part of my brain that just likes matching gear.
     
  15. CEE TEE

    CEE TEE MOT: NITSCH

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    @k4rstar About your Thought #6: Regarding preference for amps without output transformers, is that for headphones and speakers? Dynamic drivers only? Or planars too? What about the sound of certain transformers makes you unable to relax?

    As far as input and output transformers go (not power transformers), I think they are an interesting and difficult beast. Hard to find or get custom-made with the sound, performance, consistency, and quantity you are looking for (in a timely fashion) as an amp manufacturer.

    They are expensive, big and/or heavy, as well as a weird mix of quirk and science. (Yeah, you mentioned "esoteric".)

    Seems like several of the audio transformer makers were small, one-designer driven shops. (Electraprint, Tribute, O-Netics are examples.)

    They seem to have their own ways of doing things (such as there can be a lot of variability in hand-winding as an example) and I have heard that transformer makers can even debate with customers about how/what to make or what is even possible when requested to fulfill certain requirements.

    One of my favorite chats about transformers was while speaking with Tim de Paravicini of EAR (Rest In Peace). He was saying that his designs don’t require boutique components and that solid engineering should not rely on such things. I asked him about his transformers, if they were “off-the-shelf”…and he immediately said, “oh no! I have a guy in England that is the only person I allow to make my transformers for me, all custom.”

    When I think about transformers at a high level, seems to break down into electrical, objective, and subjective areas.

    Satisfying the electrical requirements and values of the circuit. You can get some fiiltering or may need phase splitting of signal for differential circuits. They may lower the output impedance in a tube circuit.

    Objective performance such as the measure of how well they pass signal in the audio frequency band (high and low frequency extension for example).

    As you said...subjectively, certain materials, type of core shape, or winding techniques can influence sound. My friend has a Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor (for recording) which has 3 selectable types of built-in output transformers that can affect the sound:

    “Choose from steel, nickel, or iron output transformers to get the iconic sound of different styles of analog consoles. The nickel transformer gives you a natural low end with smoothly enhanced high frequencies, outstanding for intimate acoustic recordings. The iron transformer has a natural high end with a slight boost around 110Hz, and has a Class-A output stage that only passes even-ordered harmonic distortion - very musical. The steel transformer sounds very open with a detailed and fast response, with a very subtle boost around 40Hz that helps provide rock-solid low frequencies.”
    Screen Shot 2022-05-22 at 10.02.24 PM copy.jpg Screen Shot 2022-05-22 at 10.05.11 PM.png

    Both things that record and play back sound have an effect on the sound.

    I’ve owned the same amp with different output transformers and it made an important difference. My favorite amp uses output transformers and I plan to roll some other proven transformers. Makes sense to me at this point to hot rod my favorite amplifier rather than continue searching for another entire amplifier to replace it (for just some additional low end extension and performance without changing other things).

    But finding good windings is not easy.
     
  16. CEE TEE

    CEE TEE MOT: NITSCH

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    Some of my thoughts about the hobby…

    The headphone audiophile path can differ but basically:
    What do you want to play: Use cases, lifestyle, budget
    Pick your character class: Dynamics, Planars, Electrostats, Balanced Armatures
    Primary weapon: Portable in-ears or big headphones or speakers
    Attributes to monitor/side-quests: Sources, DACs, Amps, Cables(nod to @k4rstar ), Wireless, DIY, Modding

    Today you can fully grid and breakdown the above across price points and categories.


    At the low end, it mostly used to suck a decade ago. Especially if you did not DIY.

    We could argue that the high-end quality has not changed quite as much, but what has really improved is the lower level stuff and availability/choices.

    At the lowest investment level most people will see huge gains simply by getting a Moondrop Starfield or the AirPods3.

    And now you can get a dongle or Bluetooth DAC/Amp and even use big, harder to drive headphones easily.

    So much easier to build a great system today.

    And by “build a great system”, I mean work within your current means to hear music/movies/gaming at an adequate volume level across the audible frequency range so you can enjoy content.


    At Massdrop we tried to take care of everyone (up to about $1,000).

    Sensitive, easy to drive right-out-of-the-jack headphones? Just at Massdrop there was:
    $5 Monk Buds
    $25 KOSS KSC75
    $35 KOSS Portapros
    $75 E-MU Purplehearts with biodynamic drivers and wood cups
    $100 NuForce EDC3
    $120 Senn PC37X
    $150 Senn HD58X (150ohm but great out of $9 iPhone dongle)
    $200 Meze 99 Noir (use the remade old pads for a cleaner sound).
    $350 Beyer DT 177X GO (with extra sheepskin pads, re-tuned for more linearity, and lower impedance of 32 ohms)

    Everything else is a journey and “Choose Your Own Adventure”.

    Yeah I have KOSS Portapros and KSC75. But I do like the KOSS ESP950 better. :)

    An HD600/650 + Bottlehead Crack w/Speedball (with any DAC) is still an amazing system to most people.

    But now you can get an awesome, ready-made Vali2 for half of the Bottlehead price. Or an SW51+.

    If you don’t hear “better” or different or expensive and don’t want it, not a problem today to enjoy lower-priced options.


    Still room to grow:

    Better modded versions of expensive headphones show me that there are still improvements (objective and subjective) that can be made across some headphone lines.

    That performance can trickle down and hopefully everything will keep getting better.


    If you do go down the Amplifier Path:

    Long live Donald North! I personally think that there is a shortage of higher-end headphone amp options after the loss of Eddie Current, Cavalli Audio, and Apex Audio (Pete Millett).

    (Cavalli’s Liquid Tungsten never even went into production and I didn’t get to hear the prototype.)

    I haven’t spent time with Decware or most of the ampsandsound amps (have only heard one). I hope they have some great amps.

    I hope the Cayin 300B is a great tube amp (ZMF is selling them so I think they should be pretty good).

    Otherwise, people have to somehow hear a great tube amp or be so inspired by reading that they build their own (or buy a used one that may need work).

    We need more choices as many are disappearing. The people who design and make and can service them are disappearing.


    What are the expenses of the hobby at the end of the day? Time, money, effort, going in circles. Also, time spent away from just listening to music.

    Along the way, I tried to budget myself and get things that were <less expensive> but were close to the sound of what I fell in love with at meets.

    I spent a LOT of time and money trying NOT to spend a lot of money.

    Eventually, I got the actual things. Then I sold some of it and had to re-buy it.

    I guess I am very <low efficiency>. I spent a decade getting my system together, but I do plan to enjoy it for the next 3 decades.

    Bonus of my personal tube amps? They can serve pre-amp or big-woofer club speaker amp duty too. BWC is in my future.



    This is why I believe that meets are important. Micro, Mini, or bigger. Get some questions answered.

    If you are interested enough in good music and good sound to be reading on forums and trying to upgrade your <experience>, then it is great if you can go to a meet.


    Here on SBAF and with COVID, there is a loaner program. Cheaper stuff and spendy stuff.

    People get to participate, stay current, and see if stuff is better or worth it to them and contribute to the conversation.

    Yeah, loaners cost money/hassle/time. OK, you don’t get to hear someone’s fully baked total system with the loaners.

    But you do get to hear interesting stuff in a quiet environment and see how it matches up with your gear.

    And to see if it is worth it (to you).
     
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  17. Garns

    Garns Friend

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    Insert obligatory TS Eliot quote:
    I actually agree with the spirit of a lot of what you say and I think this perspective is a kind of audiophile High Level Ability.

    Recently, I spent some time attempting to listen to music without any kind of conceptual veneer, so just hearing raw sound percepts. The lesson I learned from this is that music is highly conceptual at a very fundamental level. Most music sounds like garbled meaningless nonsense when perceived in this way, except for some things like Coil or La Monte Young or Thomas Koner which are to some degree a deliberate attempt to undermine this perceptual superstructure.

    What I also learned is that the properties of sound that we commonly talk about here, microdynamics, macrodynamics, tonal balance, plankton, speed, are just as conceptual and completely vanish when you make the effort to leave unprocessed the sound-inputs you hear.

    The lesson I draw from this is that the act of training ourselves to perceive these specific attributes of sound fundamentally changes the way we interact with music. I think what happens is that as we first develop these skills, everything stands out so that glaring flaws in some area will overpower your perception of a piece of gear, leading to restlessness and a tendency to gear-cycle. As your skills become more and more refined you gain the ability to totally ignore those specific technical attributes you find unimportant, basically re-configuring the way you conceptualise sound inputs to make it maximally interesting and engaging to you. For example I have realised that I don't really care about overall tonal balance and I can largely ignore the way something is tuned if its other characteristics fit my tastes. Ergo:

    I think the true endgame in this hobby is that you reach a state of equanimity where even incredibly basic chains that mesh only reasonably well with your highly refined conceptual understanding of sound will be extremely interesting and engaging. If you want to, you can perceive the ways in which the reproduction is sub-standard but this has no bearing on your enjoyment. So to some extent you end up back where you started but the difference is that you get 100x more out of it.
     
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  18. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Endgame is a state of mind. All the rest is bullshit. People looking for differences in sound between OSes, trying to figure out why the move from a particular audio HAL to udev changed something, etc are bonkers and their perspective should be dismissed. Everyone wants to say they have found the secret truth and some of those increasingly complicated and obscure rabbit holes are just this hobby's equivalent of trying to find truth in qanon bullshit.

    Find what makes you happy and pursue that. Whether it's a particular chain of audio gear or whatever, pursue this hobby if it enriches your life in some way. If you feel like you're chasing something intangible and frustrating, step away and figure out why. I don't have good advice other than to chase your happy. If that's a pair of airpods or Sony's latest ANC headphones, that is awesome. If it's a TOTL pair of transducers in front of $50k of gear, I salute you if that truly makes you feel fulfilled and happy.
     
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  19. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    nothing wrong with your second paragraph but this first one is a weird take and oddly dismissive. sure, endgame is a state of mind, one that is made difficult for many to reach because of arbitrary dogmas and rules people set up for themselves like 'don't worry about the sound of an OS/cable/USB port and ignore people who do but otherwise do what makes you happy'.

    for the record, I never went looking for differences in sound between operating systems, it happened by complete accident. In 2020 a friend gifted me a 2008 Mac Pro which was retired from service at a recording studio here in Toronto. I took it in expecting to use it for CD ripping/burning thanks to its dual drive bays, but on a whim decided to use its USB output to my DAC. the SQ difference between it and the regular HP laptop I was using was massive. Before this experience I knew different USB ports could have different performance as a function of power management but never thought about it much beyond that. I chalked it up to the high physical build quality of the Mac and let it go.

    Fast forward a year and an obscure driver issue meant that the version of OSX that came with the Mac no longer worked with my DAC. No big deal I thought, I'll just use a different version. wrong! Every single version of OSX I tried had a slightly different flavour, as much as I desperately wished for the opposite to be true. I pulled my hair out fixing the driver issue and returned to the version I preferred.

    This is all to say that ignoring these things doesn't make them go away, at least not for me. I cannot cheat my own perception. Not sure what qanon has to do with literally anything in this thread...
     
  20. k4rstar

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    thank you for this post, I think you hit it on the head and put it really eloquently. Your explanation goes a ways toward answering the chicken and egg question of experience and preference. bravo!
     
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