I said I wouldn't cry... - $35K Abyss Headphone Setup

[Belgarathian]

5 hours ago, mmda said:

I have that problem with MQA as well. And honestly I don't even like the way it sounds. I'd rather wait for DSD which interests me more

That's because every bloody DAC decodes it differently (I think, I'm no expert on MQA)... I don't think I've ever had 2 DACs sound the same on MQA, yet PCM and DSD is perfectly bloody fine. 

 

3 hours ago, mmda said:

It comes down to how it converts digital-to-analog. R2R dacs convert each individual bit in the signal, whereas a delta-sigma dac converts only 1 bit and uses quantization signal processing to basically over-samples the rest of the bits. This allows the R2R conversion to be more accurate, and avoid a substantial amount of quantization noise which affects the high frequencies. 

Sure but I'm yet to see an R2R DAC measurably outperform a competently engineered DAC using AKM or ESS chips. 

[Lathlaer]

11 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

I'll bet... "The crystal resonance properties of the diamonds help diffuse surrounding sound improving noise isolation for a more pure and true to music listening experience.. Gold reduces EMI lowering the noise floor for the purist listening experience..."

AFAIK Focal never even pretended that those diamods are there for the sound improvement. It's just a showpiece, status symbol for them to be able to claim that they have the most expensive headphones in the world (as a counter to Sennheiser's Orpheus). 

 

Too bad they went about it in a very crude and barbaric way.

[Lathlaer]

2 minutes ago, amdorintel said:

linus is a man right? yes we agree on that

 

men shouldnt cry over headphones

I'm 99% sure he didn't. He had a reaction because they played him a perfect song to tear up a father of a young daughter.

[Belgarathian]

2 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

AFAIK Focal never even pretended that those diamods are there for the sound improvement. It's just a showpiece, status symbol for them to be able to claim that they have the most expensive headphones in the world (as a counter to Sennheiser's Orpheus). 

 

Too bad they went about it in a very crude and barbaric way.

What I would do for a Focal Stellia ...

 

My comment was also tongue-in-cheek

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

This actually touches a subject I'm extremely salty about.

 

I don't like precious metals or gems inflating the price of something.

 

It's fine for gear that required some intense engineering and was made in limited quantity to have high price that corresponds to the prestige, skills involved and exclusivity. 

 

But to just slap gold or diamonds and call it a day? It's like getting a regular Rolex watch and changing the bracelet to pure platinum and then encrusting the bezel with diamonds and then claim "look what an expensive watch we made!" - how does that compare to regular watches from Patek Philippe or Vacheron Constantin? It's a whole different level.

 

In culinary world edible gold and white truffles are those price inflation ingredients. Want to boast that you have the most expensive burger or pizza in the world? Slap white truffles on it and maybe some beluga caviar and voila, you've got it. Want the most expensive ice cream? Decorate with edible gold! 

Yeah. The fact that it was green-lit at all disgusted me. Then I laughed because I was judging someone's $120,000 headphones when someone thinks my $4k headphones are just as bad.

[amdorintel]

Just now, Lathlaer said:

I'm 99% sure he didn't. He had a reaction because they played him a perfect song to tear up a father of a young daughter.

i was joking

we all know linus loves to act and create drama

[Lathlaer]

1 minute ago, Den-Fi said:

Yeah. The fact that it was green-lit at all disgusted me. Then I laughed because I was judging someone's $120,000 headphones when someone thinks my $4k headphones are just as bad.

Yeah I don't have a problem with 120k headphones. In fact, I'd welcome the attempt but only if they showed real finese, creating an exclusive system similar to Sennheiser's, tapping into their speaker tech even more (if possible), engineering a kickass amp and dac to that etc. 

 

But that there? Common, give me 100k worth of gold and diamonds and I will superglue it to a $50 headphones, making a one of a kind, the only one in the world pair of $100000050 pair of cans.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Lathlaer said:

Yeah I don't have a problem with 120k headphones. In fact, I'd welcome the attempt but only if they showed real finese, creating an exclusive system similar to Sennheiser's, tapping into their speaker tech even more (if possible), engineering a kickass amp and dac to that etc. 

 

But that there? Common, give me 100k worth of gold and diamonds and I will superglue it to a $50 headphones, making a one of a kind, the only one in the world pair of $100000050 pair of cans.

Yeah. I'm all for R&D, not inflated metals.

[amdorintel]

you can sell off the bling for 115k and still be left with a 5k headphone thats really worth 5k

[mmda]

1 hour ago, Belgarathian said:

That's because every bloody DAC decodes it differently (I think, I'm no expert on MQA)... I don't think I've ever had 2 DACs sound the same on MQA, yet PCM and DSD is perfectly bloody fine. 

 

Sure but I'm yet to see an R2R DAC measurably outperform a competently engineered DAC using AKM or ESS chips. 

The only MQA compatible DACs that I am aware of are $1k+. They all sound mediocre at most.

You've never heard real DSD then. Converting the PCM master to DSD isn't real DSD.

 

Measurements don't tell you how a DAC sounds, only the flaws. Measurements can't tell you the sound characteristics of DACs. Using measurements as a form of validation on whether or not a DAC sounds good is ridiculous.

The Massdrop x Airist Audio R2R DAC measures like complete crap, yet is praised for its sound quality. It's almost like measurements isn't everything.

Just because you can implement delta-sigma DACs well doesn't fix the inherent problem it has with quantization noise. Even 'multibit delta-sigma' DACs only go all the way up to 5-6bits of conversion.. 

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, Den-Fi said:

Yeah. The fact that it was green-lit at all disgusted me. Then I laughed because I was judging someone's $120,000 headphones when someone thinks my $4k headphones are just as bad.

Need to just think that everybody has a different taste and life gets easier.

 

Like probably every audiophile would laugh at my choice of headphones. Superlux HD-330 with Bayerdynamics velour pads and I use them from playing guitar through my Royal RG1000 150W guitar tube amp (from the 60's-70's) to gaming. Sounds the same as AKGs and Sennheisers I used to use when I worked at my friends studio as sound technician, but I don't break a bank when the guitar amp decides to give it's loving embrace of Telefunken EL34x2 + ECC84x5 (originals) beauty without caring what's connected to it with full blast and I can say that old Sennheiser HD448s and now at least 5 Superluxes haven't survived that

 

But it's not what you have or how good it is, it's about what you like. I have got a chances to try out audiophile stuff, I actually was queuing to get to test Orpheus when there were pair for show in one hifi-store close by, but I remembered what happened last time I was testing "so great and ultimate" cans... I asked where the EQ is because I would like to make some tweaks and the guy nearly got an heart attack Just coming from the background where you mix the music to sound as you like to hear it instead of trying to listen the music as it was meant to be heard (and I might have lost a lot of my hearing these 26 years I have played guitar) because, what I think, the mixer of the song has done bad job if the song doesn't sound good with the 1$ ear-plugs just as well as with the 50k$ setup and that is completely what the listener likes to hear (just like the image adjustments on TVs aren't meant in normal use to get the most of the Adobe RGB -standard, but to make the image look good for the user, if that is Abode RGB -image good for them, they can easily get the good image from any screen that can be calibrated, as for me I like a bit more contrast and more saturated image turning a bit to reddish and it's a hassle to get a new screen to look good if it's for entertainment use).

[amdorintel]

3 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Like probably every audiophile would laugh at my choice of headphones.

mine are $9.99

stop laughing, you will hurt my internet feeling

yes singular

 

 

[Belgarathian]

3 hours ago, mmda said:

The only MQA compatible DACs that I am aware of are $1k+. They all sound mediocre at most.

You've never heard real DSD then. Converting the PCM master to DSD isn't real DSD.

 

Measurements don't tell you how a DAC sounds, only the flaws. Measurements can't tell you the sound characteristics of DACs. Using measurements as a form of validation on whether or not a DAC sounds good is ridiculous.

The Massdrop x Airist Audio R2R DAC measures like complete crap, yet is praised for its sound quality. It's almost like measurements isn't everything.

Just because you can implement delta-sigma DACs well doesn't fix the inherent problem it has with quantization noise. Even 'multibit delta-sigma' DACs only go all the way up to 5-6bits of conversion.. 

You’re correct, you can’t measure subjective opinions but you can measure objective performance against the source to determine if the dac and amp audio chain is producing an accurate reproduction of the source material. 
 

subjective listening is inherently bias and people will prefer different properties in their audio gear, this may include distortion which accentuates the high frequencies giving a dac an ‘airy’ or ‘spacious’ listening experience. the colour of audio gear and bias in A/B testing that isn’t blind has been proven to effect responses when reviewing equipment. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Thaldor said:

Need to just think that everybody has a different taste and life gets easier.

 

Like probably every audiophile would laugh at my choice of headphones. Superlux HD-330 with Bayerdynamics velour pads and I use them from playing guitar through my Royal RG1000 150W guitar tube amp (from the 60's-70's) to gaming. Sounds the same as AKGs and Sennheisers I used to use when I worked at my friends studio as sound technician, but I don't break a bank when the guitar amp decides to give it's loving embrace of Telefunken EL34x2 + ECC84x5 (originals) beauty without caring what's connected to it with full blast and I can say that old Sennheiser HD448s and now at least 5 Superluxes haven't survived that

 

But it's not what you have or how good it is, it's about what you like. I have got a chances to try out audiophile stuff, I actually was queuing to get to test Orpheus when there were pair for show in one hifi-store close by, but I remembered what happened last time I was testing "so great and ultimate" cans... I asked where the EQ is because I would like to make some tweaks and the guy nearly got an heart attack Just coming from the background where you mix the music to sound as you like to hear it instead of trying to listen the music as it was meant to be heard (and I might have lost a lot of my hearing these 26 years I have played guitar) because, what I think, the mixer of the song has done bad job if the song doesn't sound good with the 1$ ear-plugs just as well as with the 50k$ setup and that is completely what the listener likes to hear (just like the image adjustments on TVs aren't meant in normal use to get the most of the Adobe RGB -standard, but to make the image look good for the user, if that is Abode RGB -image good for them, they can easily get the good image from any screen that can be calibrated, as for me I like a bit more contrast and more saturated image turning a bit to reddish and it's a hassle to get a new screen to look good if it's for entertainment use).

You're preaching to the choir. I was just having a bit of fun with that comment.

[papajo]

  

18 hours ago, James said:

Buy Abyss Headphones on Amazon (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/WZ28

 

Linus is moved to tears when he tries out a true audiophile headphone setup - complete with amps and DACs - with special guest DMS!

 

 

 

For me the "audiofile" tag is worse than "gamer" tag... Yes it may have some small differences but its a total money grab trying to exploit a niche... I am not against companies making a profit ofcourse but considering the cost of the hardware components involved + the workhours/manufacturing process these are WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY overpriced.... even if its build to last forever (and that's just an opinion/statement with no actual metrics or test behind it) you have to take into account what its build of and whats its build for and generally how its build! the entire stack there hardware wise costs less than a few hundred bucks if you were to buy the components separately at small wholesale quantities from the individual manufacturers... yet they charge 35k for it...

 

And yes its surely better sounding than a cheap (and byitself for similar reasons overpriced ) dac and a pair of lets say audiotechnica headphones (again much cheaper compared to this setup but still overpriced for the same reasons) but the extra fidelity you get is like *marginal*

 

So to cut the long story short you pay 100 times the pricetag to get 0.25 times added value in terms of performance... and the thing costs 1000% (yes one thousand percent) more than the actual cost to manufacture it... Other luxury items such as a Ferrari supercar or a Leica camera do not have such crazy margins (although they still have crazy margins just lower than the stupidly crazy margins "audiophile" equipment has)

 

And frankly in our day and age we reached to a point where marketing should start to get regulated  to take ethics and human health into account. 

 

The situation gets worse year by year these "audiophile" companies simply exploit the weakness of particular people and sometimes their mental illness! 

 

Look at this guy for example 

 

 

 

He wasted HUGE amounts of money + man-hours for paperwork to get permits etc to get a separate electric pole into his house!!!! just to listen to music "better"!! And he is like 80 years old... scientifically speaking his eardrum listening frequency band is so narrow that he physically is incabable to be able to hear anything about 16Khz (and most like anything more than 10-12Khz due to his advanced age) yet he does stupid things like that .. why?

 

Because he is OBSESSED and I am not a doctor but I am quite sure that this level of obsession is intertwined with one or more mental illnesses (especially since it has no actual ground as I said the guy couldnt possible be able to tell the difference because he is so old but even if he could its still the same its just that the fact that he cant makes it more crazier) 

 

And companies due marketing get to exploit those people. 

 

Same in technology where companies exploit gullible children with rich daddy credit cards to spend ridiculous margins of premiums for small increments (or zero) of performance boosts...

 

(take the for example an ASUS Phoenix GeForce GTX 1660 Ti OC its the cheapest 1660 Ti you can find in europe it costs 244 euro - WAY above the MSRP which is still high as is for the position of this GPU and the experience you get by using it- and then you have the more "gamery"  EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti SC Ultra Gaming Which costs 386 euros! and what do you get for this 142 euro -or $157- or 45% difference in price? ZERO to 10ish FPS difference !!!!  while the next non "gamery" GPU costs 299 euro -RTX 2060-  and ofcourse the "gamery version of that RTX chip falls into the same pitfall costing 477 euro and so on and so furth) 

 

 

Its not just about the money those companies quote unquote steal from those consumers due to marketing tricks its about the disadvantage the rest of the consumers have to access basic technologies at an affordable price simply because by misguiding a small part of the guilible consumer-base those companies changed the market trends in general affecting everybody... 

 

You cant buy for example a "good" graphics with lets say $300 anymore... you buy the entry level one... before AMD started ryzen for years you couldnt buy a CPU with more than 4 cores (and for a long time without even HT on those cores) unless you paid the equivalent of a used car in dollars! 

 

Something needs to be done for that... 

 

"gamer" tag needs to be regulated so that companies cant just put "gamer" on some rehashed same sh!t and add $200 or much more to its pricetag just because of that! 

 

Atleast "audiophile" exploiting companies exploit a small amount of people technology companies (such as intel nvidia amd etc) control the landscape of technology in a global scale affecting EVERYBODY from your aunt that needs a small desktop for word and skype to the small business etc! Its unethical and its gotten derailed (also progress is hindered for the sake of rehashing and getting better profit margins) all because of marketing!

That is why it needs to get regulated! 

[greenhorn]

I would really like to disassemble their gear to see if there is anything in it that justifies those steep prices. I have my doubts, and as for the cables, those prices are a joke. The materials probably cost less than 10$ for that meter of cable and the technology behind it likely isn't super secret patented rocket science either. And by the way, the contacts don't seem to be gold plated, which should be standard from the mid-range and up.

[papajo]

26 minutes ago, greenhorn said:

I would really like to disassemble their gear to see if there is anything in it that justifies those steep prices. I have my doubts, and as for the cables, those prices are a joke. The materials probably cost less than 10$ for that meter of cable and the technology behind it likely isn't super secret patented rocket science either. And by the way, the contacts don't seem to be gold plated, which should be standard from the mid-range and up.

There are pictures online just google the model numbers you find a bunch of them... its not cheap hardware (in the sense of comparing the cost of a "normal" capacitor "A" to the capacitor "B" they are using) but of course the cost of materials involved is much much cheaper margins are more than 300-1000% .. its a steal. 

[Lathlaer]

3 minutes ago, papajo said:

There are pictures online just google the model numbers you find a bunch of them... its not cheap hardware (in the sense of comparing the cost of a "normal" capacitor "A" to the capacitor "B" they are using) but of course the cost of materials involved is much much cheaper margins are more than 300-1000% .. its a steal.

If only life could be so simple that a thing is worth the sum of it's components

[Derkoli]

3 hours ago, papajo said:

So to cut the long story short you pay 100 times the pricetag to get 0.25 times added value in terms of performance... and the thing costs 1000% (yes one thousand percent)

Well, diminishing returns sets in around the 5k mark I believe, and after that you pay alot more to get an increase in performance or fidelity, but there is still performance increases to be made, no matter how small.

 

And thats what audiophile chase; those tiny increases in performance, even if it is 0.5%, it's still more. But to about 99.5% of people, a bose soundbar is plenty plenty enough, even though it is flawed in so many ways, but audiophiles just want more out of music, hence why we spend incredible amounts of money on audio gear, room treatments, vinyl cleaning etc.

 

I definitley noticed a difference between my old setup, which we'll call 1 (McIntosh MA9000, Schiit YGGDRASIL DAC, B&W 803 d3 loudspeakers) and my new setup. which we'll call 2 (see my signature for full system run down, it's honestly too much to list in a post) and I also noticed a difference between my home theater, which we'll call 3 (15.2.5) and system 1.

 

 

However the change in fidelity was similar between each setup, however the price difference between 1 and 2 was 10 fold over the price difference between 3 and 1, for the same return, if only the price of parts was all we paid when purchasing products.

[Derkoli]

3 hours ago, papajo said:

Its unethical

Well, if people are willing to pay those prices, then let them. They're not forcing people to buy a pair of 50k mono amplifiers.

[m17xr2b]

As a hardcore PC fan and knee deep in audiophile things let me break it down for you guys:

I've owned the Abyss twice on a more expensive setup than this and many TOTL flagship headphones. 

 

1. The audio business is full of snakeoil and JPS labs used all the marketing tricks here to sell their product to Linus fans. 

The XI setup is pushed by JPS labs as built for the Abyss but the cold hard truth is that audio is not like graphics cards where you can assign a number to quantify. They have an interest to sell XI audio, there are far better setups than this, some at the same or lower price, some 2-10x more expensive. Calling it the best is very stupid as there is no best for everyone. I could get the 1266 TC but I prefer other headphones for ultimate listening such as MySphere.

 

2. I'm not sure Linus was even wearing it right. Abyss is the most fickle with fit, any other headphone you put it on and it's done, 1266 takes a few days to get used to and find the ideal fit, you need to have a small gap for the best response and Linus had them with a seal.  Also telling the person who listens what they should hear is totally wrong. 

 

3. Linus is not the most aware audiophile and why he preferred the cheap version of Diana, it takes a while, in my case years to find out what preferences are and hunt them down. Giving such a headphone to someone not aware of how all the other TOTL gear sounds is just plain wrong. 

 

I urge everyone not to buy it unless you know it's the end game you're seeking. At this level you have Abyss 1266, Hifiman Susvara, MySphere, Raal SR1A, Stax 009 etc. fans, everyone would say their preferred headphone is the best and all of them are right. 

 

Abyss has one of the best, either 1st or 2nd in low end response, 5th to 10th mid range quality, around 5th high end, 3rd soundstage. Myself where tone and midrange is the most important factor I wouldn't get them. 

[sub68]

when people make these songs they probably use a pair of sennheiser 280 pros good for mixing

 https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1253444-REG/sennheiser_hd_280_pro_circumaural.html

[papajo]

3 hours ago, Lathlaer said:

If only life could be so simple that a thing is worth the sum of it's components

You either didnt understand the post or miconstruct what I say ... 

 

I said (in the first line of my post) that you should pay attention to what a thing is build of (=the sum of its parts) what its build for (= the usecase and how it affects it pros cons etc) and how its build (all things considered to make it e.g logistics) 

 

And these rigs are ridiculously overpriced without any excuse other than some obsessed guy will feel pressed because probably may also have mental issues and he will give in and pay that sum of money needed to get that stuff.. surely they* find a dozen of such guys in the worlds population and that will make their year and feed their families and their cocaine addictions or whatnot

 

*by "they" I mean the guyz who put an audiofile tag on such rigs and do other marketing stuf as dancable cables and what not to sell you 35k something that should cost more or less 500-1000 (including more than genorous profit) 

[papajo]

1 hour ago, Derkoli said:

Well, diminishing returns sets in around the 5k mark I believe, and after that you pay alot more to get an increase in performance or fidelity, but there is still performance increases to be made, no matter how small.

 

And thats what audiophile chase; those tiny increases in performance, even if it is 0.5%, it's still more. But to about 99.5% of people, a bose soundbar is plenty plenty enough, even though it is flawed in so many ways, but audiophiles just want more out of music, hence why we spend incredible amounts of money on audio gear, room treatments, vinyl cleaning etc.

 

I definitley noticed a difference between my old setup, which we'll call 1 (McIntosh MA9000, Schiit YGGDRASIL DAC, B&W 803 d3 loudspeakers) and my new setup. which we'll call 2 (see my signature for full system run down, it's honestly too much to list in a post) and I also noticed a difference between my home theater, which we'll call 3 (15.2.5) and system 1.

 

 

However the change in fidelity was similar between each setup, however the price difference between 1 and 2 was 10 fold over the price difference between 3 and 1, for the same return, if only the price of parts was all we paid when purchasing products.

The point is that they shouldnt pay that much more.  To begin with unless you have what's known as a "musical ear" to be able to distinguish a note without having a reference note (which on itself like 90% percent of the people dont have, you either develop it in childhood or dont ) and an astonishing eardrum that can hear from 20hz to 18khz (which again most people dont) you are more than enough satisfied with gear that costs more or less 2k (including headphones,stereo speakers, dac, amp)

 

But that again is very expensive considering that e.g the headphones you pay e.g 300 and are capable to satisfy your musical ear and exceptional eardrums cost like 10-30 bucks to manufacture even if you add logistics and advertisement + a VERY healthy profit it should not cost more 150 or so. 

 

And everything above that is even more ridiculously overpriced only this time adding insult to injury it either: 

a) Doesnt give you anything meaningful in return e.g "biderectional noise containment"  

b) have only mildly better specs which you physically as a human wouldnt be able to know the difference of unless you are an X-men or a cyborg e.g 32bit vs 24 dac or frequency band from 10 to 32khz etc

 

or both the above

 

And the more tiny "a" like or "b"like bits they add the expodentially more the pricetag raises... 

 

Its just not ethical and a legal way to steal money from people. 

 

The "good" part is that this only affects a restricted minority of people (like the 80year old grandpa who paid to have an electrical pole only for himself next to his house which I added in a video in my previous post) 

 

The concerning issue for me though is that this kind of dishonesty is passing through the techworld and by giant corporations like intel or nvidia and that affects everybody and the history of technology it self (in terms of hindering achievable advancement each next year in order to capitalize even more out of current status quo) and that's a major issue.

[Derkoli]

4 minutes ago, papajo said:

The point is that they shouldnt pay that much more.  To begin with unless you have what's known as a "musical ear" to be able to distinguish a note without having a reference note (which on itself like 90% percent of the people dont have, you either develop it in childhood or dont ) and an astonishing eardrum that can hear from 20hz to 18khz (which again most people dont) you are more than enough satisfied with gear that costs more or less 2k (including headphones,stereo speakers, dac, amp)

 

But that again is very expensive considering that e.g the headphones you pay e.g 300 and are capable to satisfy your musical ear and exceptional eardrums cost like 10-30 bucks to manufacture even if you add logistics and advertisement + a VERY healthy profit it should not cost more 150 or so. 

 

And everything above that is even more ridiculously overpriced only this time adding insult to injury it either: 

a) Doesnt give you anything meaningful in return e.g "biderectional noise containment"  

b) have only mildly better specs which you physically as a human wouldnt be able to know the difference of unless you are an X-men or a cyborg e.g 32bit vs 24 dac or frequency band from 10 to 32khz etc

 

or both the above

 

And the more tiny "a" like or "b"like bits they add the expodentially more the pricetag raises... 

 

Its just not ethical and a legal way to steal money from people. 

 

The "good" part is that because this only affect a small minority of people (like the 80year old grandpa who paid to have an electrical pole only for himself next to his house which I added in a video in my previous post) 

 

The concerning issue for me though is that this kind of dishonesty is passing through the techworld and by giant corporations like intel or nvidia and that affects everybody and the history of technology in self (in terms of advancement each next year) and that's a major issue.

I'll agree there is a tonne of dis-honesty, such as multiple thousand dollar power cables, which claim to improve soundstage/detail etc. That is pure BS and nothing more, I've only got expensive cables because 1: they look nice, 2: they'll last for decades and decades, and have a lifetime warranty, I know they make next to no difference, But it is still legal, there is so much snake oil in the Audiophile world/industry that it is kind of worrying, but alot of companies are putting tonnes of money into R&D to improve things, such as DAC's having better power supplies, or power amplifiers having a better output stage. But alot of companies are just shoving snake oil down peoples throats.