Audio Science Review Review

Discussion in 'Audio Science' started by purr1n, Aug 30, 2020.

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  1. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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  2. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    The Apple dongle is much worse than the old iPhones and iPods sound quality wise. The ear pods are cancer.
     
  3. Tekker

    Tekker Facebook Friend

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    A respected member over there, just said headphone resolution is based on a balanced fr response... Though he also said he was surprised that he heard differences in sound when he EQ’ed 3 headphones to sound the same, through measurements ofcourse.

    Just as big of a noobs as head-fi, only difference is their hard-on for graphs.
     
  4. Degru

    Degru Facebook Friend

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    Not sure what you're getting at here. I'm only describing what I heard. The ER4 driver pushing a +12db bass boost sounded absolutely horrible. I've done similar EQ on some DD iems like ex1k and er2se for fun with totally listenable results. Even HD600 with a Harman eq didn't sound as absolutely horrendous as the harman EQ ER4 did, and that's a driver with ~5% distortion in the lows to begin with. Just goes to show that THD figures can be misleading and not really relevant to what we are actually hearing.

    FWIW, I'd be curious if someone with a suitable rig took distortion measurements of different headphones/IEMs stock and with oratory harman EQ applied :)

    > 1990 explained to you three times

    I don't recall this happening. Are you mistaking me for someone else? Anyway, curious to know about the XR venting thingy anyway.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2020
  5. soekris

    soekris MOT - Soekris Engineering

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    I think there is a place for ASR, as long as you understand what he's doing..... He is doing a lot of work measuring all those piece of audio equipment, you just need to understand the measurements are just one part used to evaluate performance.... Just like I read the reviews here, I read the measurement articles (I wouldn't call it reviews) at ASR, and look at the often nice internal pictures....
     
  6. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Yes but you are sane and intelligent ;)
     
  7. Mont789

    Mont789 Acquaintance

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    Reddit thought PC motherboard audio was enough for a HD650, that place is a joke at best.



    ...Your Reddit posts are a 12 sec search?. Your EQ bit makes zero sense you act like the ER4 melts the moment it does 5 ~ 12db, But you borderline shill the LCD/Stax that have the same bass tonality/decay and have had horror stories of the drivers fail from getting stuck on the magnets when pushed. I remember you years ago sore that my profile was 6db bass shelf when i switched from 4XR to 4SR, but this getting a bit off topic.

    Nice how you shifted from it "high THD" to bashing it fast decay or different bass timbre/tonality.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2020
  8. robot zombie

    robot zombie Friend

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    Mmmm... Reddit is a different animal still. The upvote/downvote priority system ensures that one idea rises while the rest are buried. If only I had a nickel for every time the one actually unique post was at the bottom with -10 and zero replies. The more you scroll down, the more interesting it gets.

    @Lyander Well said, all of it. And yes, corporate culture really can be like that here. Retail culture is like a mini-model of it, sometimes worse because with eyes on you, you can't ever break code. The reason the offices are always clean is because they're start-ups! Software, man. That's where the fun-ocalypse stories tend to be. Hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars of 'fun' that could've been used on wages. I don't want a fuckin weekend event. Please god no! Just give everyone $500 cash and call it a day. I'll go party with that on my own! Nobody is excited about getting dragged to a convention room full of inflatables and confetti. You want your employees to smile at work? Have you tried paying them more? o_O It just baffles me that they spend all of this money on trying to make everything fun and cheerful when that same money counts for more in pretty much anyone's pocket. There's some delta out there where this all came from, but I'll never understand it. Nothing is less fun than pretending to have fun.

    That Einstein quote is a classic. Interesting how even a guy deeply entrenched in a world of physics and numbers could succinctly pin down the transcendent nature of language. It gives you the power to transmute concepts and even form entirely new ones, but only with a sufficient command of the both the words and the meanings. It's not simply a means for conveyance. There's a difference between actually thinking with words and simply recalling them. Synthesis is very difficult. It essentially requires the opposite form of thinking that affords you the logic to organize words in the first place. I don't recall having too many English teachers who bothered to so much as try to teach kids how. You did, however, get good marks for using cliches. Something I'm still trying to shake :p

    Back when I was in school (2000's, mind you,) kids were brutal to each other. The internet was craaaaazzzzy back then... the shit that flew honestly was much worse than anything you see now. But you saw that reflected elsewhere, too. I think people forget their social graces online and say things they'd never dare say in person. But the qualities of it aren't distinctly different. It's just been stripped of the masking subtleties that would otherwise be included for protection. And conversely, people often pretend not to recognize what people actually mean out in the world. We're not as civil as we all pretend to be.

    I think my definition of "chill" is a little different. I grew up in a rougher neighborhood. I hung out with all sorts of different people. The thing to realize about people who are blunt, is that you always know the score. If they're smiling and being cool with you, it's because they're actually cool with you. You can have a real connection and it doesn't feel like work because you don't have to sift through those facades. I find that a lot less stressful than being in a place where nobody ever expresses a negative emotion. People just aren't like that. I see that, I know I'm not seeing the person, and it makes me more guarded. Not to mention, maintaining that vibe comes with its own stress. The breaking point there is far worse than the natural one. Like water downhill. I'd rather there be no surprises later.
     
  9. Degru

    Degru Facebook Friend

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    I'm confused. Why bring up my Reddit posts? In this case I am describing what I was hearing, which is that ER4 with +12db bass sounds horrible. I am deliberately trying to avoid questioning the distortion measurements themselves, merely saying that the harmonic distortion figures here may not be relevant to what's actually going on to produce what I am hearing.

    I don't know where bass tonality/decay entered the conversation. Flat bass is good, fast bass is good. But it also needs proper dynamics to back it up, which the ER4 lacks IMO.

    I actually had quite a fun time last night adding a +10db bass shelf to my modded LCD2C and listening to some bassy tracks. It didn't get muddy and sounded almost overwhelmingly impactful even at relatively low volumes. Yet another example of a driver managing what the ER4 completely shits the bed trying to do, despite the ER4's seemingly low harmonic distortion and fast decay.

    Do I have to say it here, of all places? Limited measurements such as FR and THD don't show the whole picture. They show symptoms, not the cause.

    FWIW, the reason I eventually sold my ER4 was actually because of the distortion in the mids ruining clarity in metal tracks. Heavy bass is just a fun side fling for me.
     
  10. Mont789

    Mont789 Acquaintance

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    The ER2XR is 0.75% at 100db(1KHz) but somehow you can tell the ER4's distortion?. Nice argument fail there. lol
     
  11. shotgunshane

    shotgunshane Floridian Falcon

    Staff Member Pyrate Flathead IEMW
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    Tempted to lock this thread while there is still useful information before it gets buried in noise.
     
  12. Degru

    Degru Facebook Friend

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    Audibility thresholds are much lower in midrange frequencies. ER2 is below 0.1 at listening volumes, and sounded cleaner to me than ER4. I guess it would also be more accurate to say I heard unsatisfactory clarity in the ER4's mids and not try to correlate it to any objective measure. Sorry.

    Also, why are you avoiding trying to counter the main point of my whole argument here?
     
  13. jexby

    jexby Posole Prince

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    Both of you get time off for wasting electrons on the interwebs with off topic pee fighting.
     
  14. GiantHeadphoneSquid

    GiantHeadphoneSquid New

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    Amir really getting off to a great start on his Headphone reviews. Today his review of the Senn 800s went up. The review itself is predictably stupid, but the subsequent thread discussion he talks about his crazy listening levels. We all knew Amir likes it loud, but the guy is positing that he thinks 94 dB SPL @ 425 Hz is QUIET.

    Apparently, his eminence of scientific excellence believes that 300 ohm headphones should be listened to at 2 Volts. Assuming the Senn sensitivity spec of 103 dB/V that's close to 110 dB.

    It's one thing to have hearing damage at his age, in the audio industry. . . but to post that 110 dB is a reasonable listening level in a 'scientifically oriented community' is just hilarious.

    https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ser-hd800s-review-headphone.18424/post-602066
     
  15. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    I turned up my 2 channel rig to 100db (at the listening position) once, it was insanely loud. Doing critical listening at 110db would leave your ears ringing for hours. Any extended exposure over 85db will permanently damage your hearing.
     
  16. Mont789

    Mont789 Acquaintance

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    On Reddit seems like most ASR users are doing damage control, Either amir is stupid or lying about having broken ears?. And as usual there trying to go how a HD800S with 12db of bass under 80Hz is neutral and how DF flat is broken. It like there trying to be a parody of objective reviewers.
     
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I didn't say anything about the headphones measurements - figured I would let him destroy himself via too much reliance on instruments. If anything, it's only proven that Amir is more or less deaf, or at least highly untrained in terms of being a listener. At this point, I really don't care as I've already said what needed to be said. Like what @soekris mentioned, ASR remains a good resource for measurements, which are a form of sanity check. I simply regard the commentary as the ravings of a lunatic or religious zealot.

    As for the fun part, SBAF is an extension of the personalities of this site. Who else but yours truly would use a super high resolution 1-bit image of Alexis Texas to demonstrate how sigma-delta DACs work? Fun can't be mandated. Only cults led like Mao, Kim Jong Un, or the Taliban mandate what must be fun.
     
  18. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    Eventually, Jim Jones Amir and Audiophiles People's Temple ASR is going to get caught in enough lies that he freaks out and starts passing out Kool Aid to the members. I'm just waiting for it. Have my popcorn ready.
     
  19. Mont789

    Mont789 Acquaintance

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    They're already struggling hard to hide how Amir did 100db on many of his DAC tests. /r/headphones is already using "It just misunderstanding, they're maximum peaks" excuse while downvoting everyone as haters.
     
  20. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    "For now, let me assure everyone that 94 dB (SPL) as tested was not loud at all. Not only did I think music was too soft, I could listen to the full sweep with almost no discomfort. With speakers and at much longer distance, I have to wear hearing protection." - Amir.

    @Solderdude, is making a case with dynamic range. But what is the DR of a tone sweep again?

    And how is 94 dBSPL from a headphone quieter than 94 dBSPL from speakers heard at distance?

    OMG LOL!
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2020
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