high end audio

[Edmond Dantes]

i wanna see linus review some high end audio stuff like from MSG technology or chord. i remember he did that video with those abyss headphones. that was a awesome video. i would like to see some other high end headphones like form mr speaker(dan clark audio) or staxx and compare them. some high end tube amps as well. unobtainable stuff. since we can never get it it would be dope to see a video about it. what yall think who wants to see that.

[Blue4130]

27 minutes ago, Edmond Dantes said:

i wanna see linus review some high end audio stuff like from MSG technology or chord. i remember he did that video with those abyss headphones. that was a awesome video. i would like to see some other high end headphones like form mr speaker(dan clark audio) or staxx and compare them. some high end tube amps as well. unobtainable stuff. since we can never get it it would be dope to see a video about it. what yall think who wants to see that.

What can Linus offer that isn't covered by other more qualified reviewers?

[VoidX]

3 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

more qualified reviewers

Those are usually sellouts or heavily biased voodoo believers with a complete disregard for science/measurements. It's very rare that someone actually measures and reaches out to engineers (like Audioholics), and it's even more rare that they have the money or equipment for quality reviews (Amir, Erin). Things like the Meridian tour are only possible with the reach of Linus.

[cmndr]

I believe Linus is working on building out that capability in the lab. 

As stated by @VoidX Audioholics and Audio Science Review (Amir) + ErinsAudioCorner (Erin) are good go-to sources for the time being. 

ASR and EAC both have klippel machines and do thousands of measurements on a given speaker to assess sound output and radiation patterns. They also actually listen to the stuff. There's also cases where they discover that one revision of a product is a downgrade from the launch version (Erin saw that the JBL A130 and Polk R200 seemingly got downgraded) since they sometimes review at different times. 

[Edmond Dantes]

13 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

What can Linus offer that isn't covered by other more qualified reviewers?

most others that i have seen are mostly shills for the product they are reviewing. the one guy that does audio stuff that i kinda trust, doesn't show any data just listens to it and says its good or bad. also i haven't seen do any in depth reviews of really high end stuff like that 100,000 $ MSB dac. or that 10000 $ chord dave dac. how much better is that 10000$ chord dave than a sound blaster x7 that is 300$. that's the stuff we wanna see. i hope this lab comes thru quick.

 

[cmndr]

38 minutes ago, Edmond Dantes said:

most others that i have seen are mostly shills for the product they are reviewing. the one guy that does audio stuff that i kinda trust, doesn't show any data just listens to it and says its good or bad. also i haven't seen do any in depth reviews of really high end stuff like that 100,000 $ MSB dac. or that 10000 $ chord dave dac. how much better is that 10000$ chord dave than a sound blaster x7 that is 300$. that's the stuff we wanna see. i hope this lab comes thru quick.

 

ASR + Erins

 

ASR is run by a retired director from MS that already made his millions... 
Erin is just an enthusiast with some good measurement gear. 

The measurements from the 2 usually match up fairly closely and when they don't it causes a minor stir because it's usually due to the manufacturer swapping components out. 

[VoidX]

1 hour ago, Edmond Dantes said:

how much better is that 10000$ chord dave than a sound blaster x7 that is 300$.

That is exactly what Amir measures on ASR.

 

3 hours ago, cmndr said:

ASR and EAC both have klippel machines and do thousands of measurements

Which are available on Spinorama.org.

[Edmond Dantes]

1 hour ago, cmndr said:

ASR + Erins

 

ASR is run by a retired director from MS that already made his millions... 
Erin is just an enthusiast with some good measurement gear. 

The measurements from the 2 usually match up fairly closely and when they don't it causes a minor stir because it's usually due to the manufacturer swapping components out. 

 

24 minutes ago, VoidX said:

That is exactly what Amir measures on ASR.

ill scope them  out

[Edmond Dantes]

@VoidX , @cmndr . i scoped out the asr guy, very informative stuff. but what i would like to see a linus style ( entertaining, while informative ) video with side by sides and blind tests. that would be sweet. like i would like to see a schiit audio 150$ setup vs a msb reference dac with the same headphones see if there is a difference. and try different file types like flac vs 380 mp3. stuff like that. tube amp vs solid state, different types of tube amps, woo audio next to a 600$ tube amp. ect ect ect. and do bline tests and rate them on a chart like top gear did with lap times. that would be sweet

[cmndr]

15 minutes ago, Edmond Dantes said:

@VoidX , @cmndr . i scoped out the asr guy, very informative stuff. but what i would like to see a linus style ( entertaining, while informative ) video with side by sides and blind tests. that would be sweet. like i would like to see a schiit audio 150$ setup vs a msb reference dac with the same headphones see if there is a difference. and try different file types like flac vs 380 mp3. stuff like that. tube amp vs solid state, different types of tube amps, woo audio next to a 600$ tube amp. ect ect ect. and do bline tests and rate them on a chart like top gear did with lap times. that would be sweet

Tube amps don't measure well. Some people like how they sound but they are objectively less accurate at spitting out the same signal that they receive. 

If you care about accuracy, it's basically very high end class D amps these days. 

Most of the time though, amps and DACs BARELY matter compared to the speakers and the room they're played in. Similar story with headphones. The things MAKING the sound end up mattering 10-100x as much when measuring the sound.

Amps and DACs mattered WAY WAY more 50 years ago. These days, pretty good is pretty cheap. 

[Edmond Dantes]

7 minutes ago, cmndr said:

Most of the time though, amps and DACs BARELY matter compared to the speakers and the room they're played in. Similar story with headphones. The things MAKING the sound end up mattering 10-100x as much when measuring the sound.

yes i agree. before you look into dacs and amps, you need to already have good headphones and speakers. in the near future, im looking to get some high end headphones.  im a headphones guy myself. in the near future, im looking to get some high end headphones, when i get that first i;ll be looking at amps then dacs. but as im looking at what is available, im seeing stuff like dacs and amps up to 100 grand. and im thinking how much better can that be then a sound blaster x7 which i have. assuming you have some high end headphones.

[Heats with Nvidia]

40 minutes ago, cmndr said:

If you care about accuracy, it's basically very high end class D amps these days.

It finally came to that? I don`t follow the high end, but so far i haven't seen a class D amp that comes even close to the low distortion of a better 80ies or 90ies hifi amp. Almost all of them can't even hold a candle to the cheaper, old hifi amps that you can get well under 100€ used. Dont get me wrong. I like class D amps, when their efficiency, weight and extreme output power for a fairly low price are important, they are unbeatable. And some of the ones, i heard, even sound decent. But almost all of the ones, i have been working with and heard, are PA amps with output power in the KW range and not exactly Hifi. So my information regarding hifi and high end, might be out of date.

[Heats with Nvidia]

36 minutes ago, Edmond Dantes said:

yes i agree. before you look into dacs and amps, you need to already have good headphones and speakers. in the near future, im looking to get some high end headphones.  im a headphones guy myself. in the near future, im looking to get some high end headphones, when i get that first i;ll be looking at amps then dacs. but as im looking at what is available, im seeing stuff like dacs and amps up to 100 grand. and im thinking how much better can that be then a sound blaster x7 which i have. assuming you have some high end headphones.

I second that. The actual transducers are way more important than the amplifiers and DACs. A good DAC and amplifier on bad speakers will sound terrible, but even a used 1990ies amp for a couple of bucks from ebay, as long as its still functional, on the integrated output of your mainboard connected to very good loudspeakers will sound good. Not very good, as with a quality signal chain, but still far better than the other way around.

[VoidX]

1 hour ago, Edmond Dantes said:

and blind tests

Now this is something Linus did poorly multiple times, like in the switch video. Yes, it's bullshit, but if you go up against snake oil, the cultists will hang on small things like this. Blind test is not "hey, do you hear something better?", but "here's A, here's B, here's something - which one does it match?".

 

1 hour ago, cmndr said:

Most of the time though, amps and DACs BARELY matter compared to the speakers and the room they're played in.

This is true, but we still have great issues with noise levels, even more so after heavy EQ.

[cmndr]

1 hour ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

It finally came to that? I don`t follow the high end, but so far i haven't seen a class D amp that comes even close to the low distortion of a better 80ies or 90ies hifi amp. Almost all of them can't even hold a candle to the cheaper, old hifi amps that you can get well under 100€ used. Dont get me wrong. I like class D amps, when their efficiency, weight and extreme output power for a fairly low price are important, they are unbeatable. And some of the ones, i heard, even sound decent. But almost all of the ones, i have been working with and heard, are PA amps with output power in the KW range and not exactly Hifi. So my information regarding hifi and high end, might be out of date.

 

This is what you could get from an entry level class-D amp 3 years ago. 
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/aiyima-a07-tpa3255-review-amplifier.18984/

The next thing on the ranking is a class A/B AVR that costs 20x as much. 

 

The class D stuff is only going to get better/cheaper with time. It's a race to the bottom in terms of price and quality will likely only go up as more/better measurements and reviews propagate. 

I don't obsess over high end amplification (not spending $3000 on an amp when my $1500ish AVR is good enough and I don't have $3000 L+R speakers) but yeah... class D is the future. 

[Heats with Nvidia]

30 minutes ago, cmndr said:

 

This is what you could get from an entry level class-D amp 3 years ago. 
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/aiyima-a07-tpa3255-review-amplifier.18984/

The next thing on the ranking is a class A/B AVR that costs 20x as much. 

 

The class D stuff is only going to get better/cheaper with time. It's a race to the bottom in terms of price and quality will likely only go up as more/better measurements and reviews propagate. 

I don't obsess over high end amplification (not spending $3000 on an amp when my $1500ish AVR is good enough and I don't have $3000 L+R speakers) but yeah... class D is the future. 

Good to hear. That entry level class D reaches the distortion levels of a good, but not exceptional 80ies or 90ies amp that you can get in the same price range and has more features, but the class D amp has one huge advantage. Its new and so shouldn`t have the now developing problems of the older gear. Thank you for this information! It seems to come even close to my beloved TDA7293 in that regard.

[cmndr]

17 minutes ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

Good to hear. That entry level class D reaches the distortion levels of a good, but not exceptional 80ies or 90ies amp that you can get in the same price range and has more features, but the class D amp has one huge advantage. Its new and so shouldn`t have the now developing problems of the older gear. Thank you for this information! It seems to come even close to my beloved TDA7293 in that regard.

The other advantage... it sucks WAY less power. 
There's also stories of people tossing I think like 600W power supplies on that budget amp and it not blowing up (can't speak to its longevity though) which is absurd overkill and truly insane. 

And yeah there's good high end units like the NAD M33 and NAD M28 that are based on solid state (only $5000+) that have excellent distortion profiles. 

At that cost level you should probably be insulating the walls and windows of your home and doing tons of sound treatment though. The gap between "the best" and "pretty solid" is very small relative to things like background noise and room reflections. 
 

[Edmond Dantes]

you see, this is why we need ltt style videos on this stuff

 

[Heats with Nvidia]

7 hours ago, cmndr said:

The other advantage... it sucks WAY less power. 
There's also stories of people tossing I think like 600W power supplies on that budget amp and it not blowing up (can't speak to its longevity though) which is absurd overkill and truly insane.
 

It is overkill, but it will only ever damage anything in case of a catastrophic failiure of a component that would cause the normal power supply to switch off while the overkill one will burn that part to pieces. Otherwise, it changes pretty much nothing. Its like plugging a phone charger that can handle a couple of watts into an outlet that can handle KW and we all do that on a daily basis.

[cmndr]

8 hours ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

It is overkill, but it will only ever damage anything in case of a catastrophic failiure of a component that would cause the normal power supply to switch off while the overkill one will burn that part to pieces. Otherwise, it changes pretty much nothing. Its like plugging a phone charger that can handle a couple of watts into an outlet that can handle KW and we all do that on a daily basis.

It's overkill in the sense that in a normal room, 600W of output will probably cause severe and permanent hearing damage. 

From 2 meters away you'll be getting around 105dB of sound pressure. 

https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/hearing_loss/what_noises_cause_hearing_loss.html#:~:text=Noise above 70 dB over,immediate harm to your ears.

Quote

Noise above 70 dB over a prolonged period of time may start to damage your hearing. Loud noise above 120 dB can cause immediate harm to your ears.

 

Quote

The maximum volume level for personal listening devices; a very loud radio, stereo, or television; and loud entertainment venues (such as nightclubs, bars, and rock concerts)

105–110

Hearing loss possible in less than 5 minutes

 

[Heats with Nvidia]

4 hours ago, cmndr said:

It's overkill in the sense that in a normal room, 600W of output will probably cause severe and permanent hearing damage.

I think you confuse input and output power of the amp. Connecting a more powerful power supply to an amplifier only affects the power available to it. When the original power supply isn`t total garbage, it wont change the maximum output power of that amp at all. Its like offering you way more water than you can drink. You just won`t drink it.

 

Also yes, 600W output power will in most rooms and speaker setups be way too much, but i know some people that have setups at home that have way more power than that. Just because its available, doesn`t mean it needs to be used at full potential. Also the frequency range its used in, the efficiency of the speaker and so on, are really important factors. 600W on a sub with low efficiency in a big room won`t damage your hearing at all, but on a high efficiency tweeter next to your ear and you are deaf.

[cmndr]

2 hours ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

I think you confuse input and output power of the amp. Connecting a more powerful power supply to an amplifier only affects the power available to it. When the original power supply isn`t total garbage, it wont change the maximum output power of that amp at all. Its like offering you way more water than you can drink. You just won`t drink it.

 

Also yes, 600W output power will in most rooms and speaker setups be way too much, but i know some people that have setups at home that have way more power than that. Just because its available, doesn`t mean it needs to be used at full potential. Also the frequency range its used in, the efficiency of the speaker and so on, are really important factors. 600W on a sub with low efficiency in a big room won`t damage your hearing at all, but on a high efficiency tweeter next to your ear and you are deaf.

https://www.amazon.com/AIYIMA-A07-TPA3255-Amplifier-Digital/dp/B08CJZGT6H

Quote

300W+300W Max Power Output

It can peak at 600W total output, which is absurd. There's reviews on it. It needs a better PSU than the stock one. 

As stated, absurd. 

"only" 300W would only be 3dB lower, assuming linearity for speaker efficiency. 

[Heats with Nvidia]

You would need to so seriously modify that little amp to get even close to sustained 600W output power that almost nothing of it will be left. You need to start with the power supply and then you need to replace most of the capacitors because they aren`t rated for the voltage you need to achieve that much power. The next is, you need a lot of cooling. The best efficiency this chip can give you, is 90% and it won`t have that at the full 600W on 2 Ohms. So you will need a huge heatsink to deal with that. Now you built a much bigger box with a heavily modified PCB, a different power supply and a huge heatsink inside. At this point you basically built another amplifier. If you just replace the Power supply, yes, it can deliver 600W, but only as a short impulse.

 

By the way, my favourite class D amp i have worked on and with, is the Powersoft Digam K6. This thing needs to be software limited to only consume the 16A at 230V we have here and works reliably for at least a decade even in daily use in warm and moist clubs. You should have a look at pictures how this beast looks inside and compare that to the TPA. The size of the power supply, the heatsinks and the amount of capacitors show quite nice what you actually need for this amount of power.

[cmndr]

On 8/2/2023 at 3:21 PM, Edmond Dantes said:

yes i agree. before you look into dacs and amps, you need to already have good headphones and speakers. in the near future, im looking to get some high end headphones.  im a headphones guy myself. in the near future, im looking to get some high end headphones, when i get that first i;ll be looking at amps then dacs. but as im looking at what is available, im seeing stuff like dacs and amps up to 100 grand. and im thinking how much better can that be then a sound blaster x7 which i have. assuming you have some high end headphones.

A $100ish amp is probably good enough for a $1000+ set of headphones. 

 

Pretty good is pretty cheap for amps and it has been for a while. 

12 hours ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

You would need to so seriously modify that little amp to get even close to sustained 600W output power that almost nothing of it will be left. You need to start with the power supply and then you need to replace most of the capacitors because they aren`t rated for the voltage you need to achieve that much power. The next is, you need a lot of cooling. The best efficiency this chip can give you, is 90% and it won`t have that at the full 600W on 2 Ohms. So you will need a huge heatsink to deal with that. Now you built a much bigger box with a heavily modified PCB, a different power supply and a huge heatsink inside. At this point you basically built another amplifier. If you just replace the Power supply, yes, it can deliver 600W, but only as a short impulse.

I'm prefacing this with "you shouldn't be using a $60 amp with a $100 power brick to hit 600W" - it's the wrong use case. It's more of a "look how far the tech has come" comment. Pretty good is pretty cheap now. $60 gets you something generally better than $1000 got you in 1980 (inflation adjusted).
 

No one is going to sustain 600W unless they're like... 50 feet away. At that distance you probably shouldn't be using passive speakers. 
In theory that amp IS rated for 600W peak (300W per channel) so there shouldn't be much modification if any needed. Not saying it'd be GOOD or not-distorted but... 

[Heats with Nvidia]

1 hour ago, cmndr said:

A $100ish amp is probably good enough for a $1000+ set of headphones. 

 

Pretty good is pretty cheap for amps and it has been for a while. 

I'm prefacing this with "you shouldn't be using a $60 amp with a $100 power brick to hit 600W" - it's the wrong use case. It's more of a "look how far the tech has come" comment. Pretty good is pretty cheap now. $60 gets you something generally better than $1000 got you in 1980 (inflation adjusted).
 

No one is going to sustain 600W unless they're like... 50 feet away. At that distance you probably shouldn't be using passive speakers. 
In theory that amp IS rated for 600W peak (300W per channel) so there shouldn't be much modification if any needed. Not saying it'd be GOOD or not-distorted but... 

Peak ratings for amplifiers are pretty much useless, because it can mean that the amp is capable of pushing that amount of energy into a resistor for 1mS without burning when you let it cool down for a couple of minutes afterwards.

 

And like i said, 600W for a subwoofer with a low efficiency is very tolerable just 2 to 3m away. On the other hand 10W in a high efficiency tweeter can really hurt even 10m away. And not only when you calculate that. I experienced this and much more and think my hearing still is quite good and even better than that of many of my peers in my age group.