Synergy definitely plays into this hobby. Headphones make a huge difference, and the amp that drives them surely needs to be a good match to obtain optimum performance.
The thread is primarily about DACs and the observations that the DAC portion of the playback chain, assuming its a more recent vintage, does not make a noticeable difference under normal listening.
The comment regarding the headphone amp was in reference to the DX9. Whilst its a good amp, the DX9 sounds somewhat better as a stand alone DAC with a high end headphone amp, such as the Schiit Mjolnir 3. As a DAC, to me it is as good as DACs costing much more. The AKM 4499EQ is a outstanding DAC. The measurements from the DAC are amongst the best available.
@Rhodey, you know from my long string of thoughtful, well reasoned and mature posts that I never engage in, nor recognize sarcasm. I am not some pink frog.
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Looks interesting, but I have to confess, I hadn’t seen that.
At the time I got the Mojo ii though, I was kinda up against time constraints - going into hospital, and needed something, like right now, and the shop I was in happened to have the Mojo II in stock, and at a very good price. It seemed serendipitous.
Besides, flashing colour lights. 
Of course, given that the sound will be identical, or close enough that we can’t tell the difference (per the video) then buying decisions have to be based on something else, I guess. Like coloured balls. Or the slightly better factor of, they had one in stock.
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Are measurements meaningless then?
Your point about synergy is a fair one. Though to be honest, I’ve never really thought about using a DAC in that way. And probably wouldn’t (unless it had its own built in EQ?). I’m interested in trying tube amps with my headphones though to see what the difference is. It’s not really about synergy though, just curiosity. 
For me, for the purpose of me decidiing what to buy, close to it, yes.
I have used FR to narrow the range of purchase options, mainly because it has to be narrowed quite a lot to make the job of auditioning equipment, by which I mean mainly headphones, even feasible. I can’t realistically listen to several hundred pairs of headphones that happen to be on the market at the time I’m looking for something. Especially when some brands seem to release new variants every five minutes.
But once I get to the point of listening to some candidates, I either like what I hear or I don’t, and if I don’t, then why would I care how they measure?
But note, I’d stress the first two words of this answer. “For me”.
I’m not claiming they’re meaningless to anybody else. I said in one of my very first posts here that for me, my interest in headphones is utilitarian, not a hobby. It is purely about my enjoyment of music, not an interest in either the gear, or audio theory, for it’s own sake.
And as such, I’m not willing to spend the time necessary to understand all the intracacies of design, or audio theory, or reading academic papers or studies, even enough to understand the particularr quirks and aspects of how my hearing fits a given FR.
I’m not even necessarily looking for some mythical “best” headphone. What I am looking for is something comfortable to wear, not too heavy, with decent build quality, and where for the particular purpose I’m buying for, where the sound is good enough, at a given price.
As for what price that would be, it depends on the use case I’m buying for. For instance, I’d spend a lot more time listening to music with over-ears than I ever would with in-ears, so simple value for money dictates my over-ear budget is higher than my in-ear budget. And then it’s a case of looking at marginal improvement in my perception of sound quality, compared to the price needed. If headphone B is 1% better (to my ears) than headphone A, will I pay £1000 more to go to B? No.
I also put sound quality some way down the list of what I expect in a headphone for a reason. If they’re too heavy, or too uncomfortable, how good they sound won’t matter because I won’t want to, or in some cases, be able to use them for very long.
And measurements tell me nothing about comfort, how heavy they feel on my head or how well-built they are. For that matter, measurements don’t tell me much, after that narrowing down filtering process, about how much better or worse A will sound than B.
Measurements may help you, or others, with that, especially if you understand them, and your own ears, better than I do.
So are they meaningless to me. Not quite, but pretty close.
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Given that most equipment is measured to death during development and that everyone’s personal taste/hearing differs, measurements are mostly a way to guess about performance when one lacks either experience or the budget or the time to test directly. That’s fine for many people, as listening shouldn’t require work. Many tube amps that test horribly sound great to my ears, while my amp that tests best (Drop THX AAA 789) sits boxed up in my closet.
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That’s pretty much what I meant by using them to narrow down the final list. I guess in a ideal, utopian world, and one that will maybe exist in the future, I could pop into my local hifi dealer, pay my $10 (or whatever) and have my ears ‘profiled’. Then, I could plug that profile into a database, and give it a few criteria (max price, max weight, etc) and have it pop out with an ‘ideal’ set of headphones, and just buy them.
Maybe we’ll get there. But I doubt it’ll be anytime soon.
Until then, my feeing is that even with measurements, buying a set of headphones without hearing them is a bit of a punt. So … some retailers offering a good returns policy is a very good reason indeed for buying from there. Here (UK) we also have consumer protection legislation that means, with some caveats, a consumer can try goods (for a fairly brief period) and just send them back if they don’t meet expectations.
But doing that whole “buy it, try it, send it back” cycle say, a dozen times to find the headphone I like enough to keep, it a right PITA. Fortunately, I have a pretty relaxed local dealer that will book me a session and a room, and let me try pretty much anything. With some headphones, about a minute (or less) does it, but with others it requires quite a bit more time. And where it gets really tricky (for me) is when there are several models I might consider, at substantially different price points. It can be tricky deciding if a more expensive model is better (sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t), and worse yet, sometimes they are better but is it by enough of a margin to justify the extra cost?
I really wish I could just examine the measurements and answer that question. I’d probably even be willing to take a punt on the unit a reviewer measured and the one I might buy not suffering from enough unit varations to sound (to me) dfferent.
But I just don’t see any alternative, for me, to doing the work of going to the shop and having a fairly lengthy, calm listen. It’s less … hassle, to be honest, than using that consumer law right to return products (bought at a distance, not in the shop).
Well-stated, Saracen. I find myself agreeing with much of what you say in your full post, with a few exceptions. I do pay attention to measurements, and I do enjoy the ‘hobby’ aspects of learning about headphone and equipment design in general (I draw the line at circuit diagrams!).
What is considered more recent vintage?
Please elaborate on “does not make a noticeable difference under normal listening” please?
Are you comparing to other DAC topologies, or only DS chips? Do you listen to measurements or listen to music?
Pretty meaningless as they are a small snapshot of the whole picture.
Headphones have sound signatures, amps have sound signatures, and DACs have sound signatures. Oh and even tubes have their own sound signature too.
It takes time and effort to mix stuff up around to find the best combos for one’s taste.
Why do you require a built in eq for a DAC?
This topic and discussion is quite the head scratcher, while there is nothing wrong with having diverging views there seems to be little attempt to understand the why behind those who think DACs sound different, or have the ability to provide better performance.
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Modern DACs are those who were developed over the past 5 to 10 years.
I honestly think whatever differences perceived with DACs are more psychological than not. There are many examples of testing between DACs where people could not distinguish differences, regardless of DAC topology.
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I still like it, and still use it.
Haven’t found a dongle DAC/amp I like better.
Am intrigued by the little iBasso Nunchaku … haven’t tried one (probably will if it shows up on Amazon). I liked the Woo TUBE Mini too … except for the ergonomics.
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Sure. Some cables too, probably. And I don’t mean that sarcastically.
It seems to me that this has been the topic of most of the thread! If you have a different take though, then please feel free to share it. We are all here to learn from one another.
For some folks, fidelity is more important than euphony. Or they believe that the best euphonics derive from fidelity. If you happen to fall into this category, then you probably don’t want any of your source gear (including cables) to have an audible signature. You want the audio signal transmitted with as little noise and distortion as possible. And the flattest response. (Iow, you want it to be “transparent”).
If you fall into the Floyd Toole camp, then you may also believe that should extend to the direct acoustic signal in a room. And by extension, something with similar sounding characteristics in a pair of headphones.
I don’t necessarily. But I happen to fall in or pretty close to the camp above. And an on-board EQ is about the only way I could imagine employing a DAC to synergistically tweak a pair speakers or headphones to a better and “flatter” response.
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Yes, the differences are small, but not yet so small that they can be ignored outright. Yes, most of them have to do with the reconstruction filter, but pointing that out is meaningless - the filter is part of the DAC, without it the DAC is incomplete. Any defect of that filter is a defect of a DAC in its essential performance as a DAC.
No, there aren’t, if I count only those times I was provided actual evidence to go with this statement. 
Per my observations of the participants on another forum, many people who focus on nominal transparency conflate electrical measurements with fidelity. Electrical devices tested with electrical devices remain in the electrical realm, even as vocals and acoustic instruments are never electric. Now, if one listens to electronica and heavy metal made with electric guitars using active pickups and Mesa/Boogie amps then electronic reproduction may be transparent (i.e., there is no acoustic source).
The question is, at least for acoustic sources, whether one type of electronic reproduction better simulates or models the source than another one. A substantial percentage of a live experience comes from semi-audible vibrations (e.g., a piano body) or idiosyncratic directional sound (e.g., the air from the violins on the left half of the stage with an orchestra).
Real-world transparency might best be assessed by comparing the sound of a live performance to electric speakers set up in the same space. And as you mention Floyd Toole, I see NO WAY to reproduce many musical experiences without marrying the system to the room/environment. This is relatively easier with open headphones, but IMO, it cannot be done with any box speaker I’ve ever heard. Open baffle and panel speakers can do this.
Returning to DACs and amps, some devices might better model the source than others. This might also include specific DACs, or analog tube amps with loads of harmonics. Distortion may either compliment or detract from the source, and human perception could either emphasize or render inaudible some source content (i.e., measurements literally do not matter when auditory masking occurs). Perceptual factors are the bottom line for perceived transparency, not electrical factors.
EDIT: Takeaway message (and it should be in my profile)
- Audio ‘subjectivists’ are often ignorant of science and driven by experience. They are generally harmless and enjoying themselves, but beware of their flowery reviews and idiosyncratic advice.
- Audio ‘objectivists’ are half aware of science but tend to focus on simplistic, absolute answers. This culture attracts engineers and the low-cost dragon slayer mentality. They try to listen with their eyes and charts rather than listen with their ears. They can be wildly overconfident/arrogant, and steer listeners in the wrong direction (waste money on irrelevant measurements).
- Audio ‘perceptualists’ are aware of both electrical science and human factors (bio-psychological) science. They incorporate all sources of relevant evidence, and give both #1 and #2 serious consideration. Skeptically.
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The video at the start of this thread is a prime example of people being unable to reliably discern differences between DACs under controlled test environments. There are numerous other examples that are quickly uncovered via an internet search. The subjective crowd does not like to admit this, even when they participate in these tests and are unable to pick out differences. I was a member of the subjective crowd, and it’s been a humbling experience when it comes to DAC performance.
Reviewers have a hard time discerning the various filter options with the DACs. The one area where I think a difference could be heard are the NOS DACs. I’ve owned a lot of DACs over the years, and it seems they have gotten to the point where they are all very good. It was a bit of a shock to me that the Topping DX9 as a DAC was as good as the other DACs on hand from Chord and PS Audio. Look at the reviews on Stereophile on the Eversolo A8. It’s an amazing product that would satisfy the vast majority of audiophiles for a streaming based setup.
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That’s a prime example of a proper study to you? First of all the older video doesn’t study anything or show any results, it only pontificates for some minutes and then provides an audio sample that has been compressed at unknown quality by a YouTube algorithm. This is the closest he got to making it an actual study: Persistent Belief in Qualitative Sonic Differences Among DACs Without Objective Auditory Detection.pdf - Google Drive (but he spends a lot of paragraphs pushing opinions, so I doubt it would be accepted in any actual journals).
Controlled test environment? Sorry, do you even know what those words mean? Not only was there no control on what equipment the random participants off the Internet would use to listen to the sample, nor on the conditions in their listening environment, there wasn’t even a control for the actual audio material each of them listened to before responding, with the author making no attempt to separate those who listened to the unknown-quality YouTube version vs. the linked WAV file (hint: he should have only provided the WAV file, like Archimago did for his test).
Since we already know the most frequent defect in DAC performance these days is high-frequency roll-off due to the choice of reconstruction filter, the last thing you want polluting an experiment like this is some psychoacoustic codec compressing out treble information because of too low of a bitrate + preconceived notions about what treble differences are audible, baked into the codec design. This alone is enough to invalidate these results.
But more importantly, since you already know the Archimago results exist, it should already tell you where the real fatal flaw is in this line of argumentation: people not hearing the difference betwwen DACs D1 and D2 doesn’t prove they won’t hear the difference between any of the other (let’s say similarly priced) DACs in the world. You can’t generalize from such a ridiculously small sample.
The problem is you’re trying to support an extraordinary claim (approx. “no DAC differences can be heard by anyone”) and that requires extraordinary evidence. Meanwhile some of us are saying something far less ambitious, i.e. some differences between some DACs can be heard by a considerable proportion of audiophiles (double-digit percentage), and at this level the statement is already adequately supported even by a semi-professional online-recruitment study like the one by Archimago. For all his talk of what it means to misunderstand statistics in his second video about this, the AP Mastering guy also seems to be missing this gaping hole in his position: his burden of proof is co-los-sal compared to that of his opponents, and he hasn’t even gotten close to meeting it.
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Again, an internet search with DAC testing will show people do indeed have trouble discerning differences between DACs when conducting controlled testing with outputs level matched. That’s the reality of the subject.
I’m not saying all DACs sound exactly the same. The larger point is that whatever differences exist between modern DACs performance are very minor compared to Headphones and Headphone amps. Those differences are readily noticeable. The costs differences with DAC’s are more aligned to the design approach used (R2R vs Delta/Sigma). Cost of a given DAC does not correlate to performance. Just because a DAC A costs more than DAC B does not mean DAC A will necessarily be better.
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Are 3 enough? Schiit Mimir.
So do the search and report back. You’re the one making the extraordinary claim. You think those who don’t currently believe the claim are the ones who should research it? That’s not how the burden of proof works.
No disagreement here.
It’s hard to tell what your point is if you’re going to keep shifting the goalposts. We can always try to refer back to the thread title for some clarity: DAC quality myths. What exact beliefs about DACs are you trying to say are myths?