To make myself clear, when someone is raving highly about a product. Like reviewers on YouTube, which is also while I really like the headphone show. He provides those details. Joshua Valor. Hans Beekhuyzen. You name it. Hans swears by SMSL. Maybe it’s perfect for him. You got the British Audiophile Tarun.
When you got these guys telling you things, you want to weary as it maybe to keep their business going and could deceptive.
Measurements do not hold sonic characteristics, and even more possibly.
Not everything everyone suggests do I just jump to ASR.
But at the same time certain things like headphones or speakers you would probably want to get realistic measurements.
Audioquest for example doesn’t publish and cannot publish measurements and have even themselves rigged demonstrations to deceive customers.
Second, sometimes they publish information incorrectly. Paradigm has done this with their lower end speakers. Or receivers will tell you 150 wpc at 1 channel driven at 4 ohms.
I mean to take about 2 mins to run through ASR post is not a damning process.
You see I mentioned that in my post above last night.
But thing that gets me is if I suggest something, if you never tried it than how can your opinion not be just as biased as simple measurements. This goes two ways. Even further, it’s biased to go by your experience/ears vs mine. You may not like it and it’s my favorite.
Like I said ASR is just looking into what we got. If ASR was my bible I would just bought a whole bunch of crap. It doesn’t dictate my decisions for the reasons mentioned above and also the same reason why when you guys give me suggestions the same principles apply.
That’s why for me the dac has been the most difficult factor in choosing.
Even above, as the Elegia is my first headphones I would definitely say the ifi to my ears is better than Schitt. But even that is probably just placebo. I can’t recall what I heard at Schitt vs ifi which were probably more than weeks apart for me to compare.
You guys were telling me about my dac on my PC prior to that, amplification wise I’m certain you were right, but I actually really like the way they sound. I mean the difference is so nominal and I don’t have the experience to really pick anything out.
Same reason why I went with the HE6, it may as well be the best thing I’ve ever experienced because I have none.
Disdain for science? If all that mattered to us about the Sun was it’s luminosity, we’d still be in be Bronze Age. That’s my take on the “science” done at ASR with its near useless snaid ratings. That, and the People’s Temple style of leadership are a pretty big turn off for a great many of us who have been in this hobby for longer than ASR has been around. My advice: don’t drink the kool aid.
You’ve made my case for me. Without scientists utilizing scientific methods we’d have the understanding of Neanderthals re: the sun. I never said I think measurements are the only factor in deciding what products to buy- that’s your inference. I was simply pointing out the rather high number of times I see disparaging remarks toward ASR.
No disdain for science. Quality designs of equipment and systems require good and smart engineering and science. Disdain for overemphasis on measurements and science. Music for me is more a matter of enjoyment, pleasure, and emotion – where measurements aren’t as important as sensory perception. There isn’t an equation or algorithm or measurement that guarantees enjoyment. I have gone down the measurements road and it didn’t lead to satisfaction.
A disparaging remark isn’t invalid if true. A high frequency of remarks, even if disparaging, suggests that such remarks are true (corroboration).
The very first thing you did was set up a straw man argument by stating we have a disdain for science, and another inferring I misquoted you about measurements or what products to buy. I have made no inferences at all, just an analogy. Let’s get something straight: Not liking ASR is not a dislike for science, as the two are most certainly different things altogether. That’s exactly like saying because I don’t like Popular Mechanics magazine, that I must have a disdain for engineering. Or because I don’t like Motor Trend, I must hate cars. The complete lack of critical thinking required to draw that conclusion is stunning.
Second, the only one putting words in somebody’s mouth is you. Where in my reply did I say that you said anything or even mention products or purchases? I didn’t.
This type of debate or argument is futile, and I’ll not waste my time with it. I’ll happily agree to disagree rather than contend with sophism and logical fallacies. Have a good day.
Wow-excuse me for making an observation based on reading comments on this site. Agreed- life is too short to debate such insignificant issues. Curious- what did you mean by your comment “People’s Temple style of leadership”?
Here’s my take on the topic, based on my own views, so this may not be representative of the other members of this forum.
I write disparaging remarks about ASR, not about science or measurements. I actually do look at ASR reviews from time to time, because measurements are an important data point. In some cases (for instance, when I was looking for a switch that didn’t affect the signal), measurements are the most important data point, and ASR was very useful. But I consistently see people shut down on ASR for stating views without measurements to back up those views. I don’t agree with that very rigid perspective.
Are we doing the same thing on this forum, shutting down people who state views based on measurements? I can see why someone could come to that opinion, but I actually think we’re saying that you should not base your purchase based only on measurements. You should also use your ears to give yourself another data point (i.e. how does it sound).
In this forum, listening to equipment has a higher priority than measurements, but there is room for both. And if you look at the headphone reviews on this site, they often go into huge amounts of detail on measured frequency response, which I find very useful. That’s the difference between this forum and ASR, where there is only one very rigid philosophy that everyone is expected to follow.
To re-use the car analogy stated above, when I buy a car, I look at the data (mileage, reliability etc) and I also take a test drive. I wouldn’t buy it without doing both.
I think what’s going on is some people know the unpleasant backstory of Amir at ASR and some of his followers. He’s been banned from various sites, and merely mentioning him can start a fight. The story involves making absolute statements as to what determines preferences, and relying on narrow data to reach absolute conclusions. He’s a bit softer now, but I stopped visiting ASR.
I previously defended ASR and linked to his reviews from this site. However, I’ve concluded he’s a net negative force because he misleads novice buyers in a generally unpleasant direction. Per his reviews we should all love THX and Topping amps. I own a THX AAA 789 and like it with maybe half the headphones I’ve tried. It’s way way way too brittle and edgy with some headphones. That’s against Amir’s cleaner-is-always-better rule. But, he tests with an HD650 and talks about his shaking earlobes…and those of us with other or better headphones should comply?
His followers use recordings of amps to compare performance in blind tests. This is broken from the start, as it conflates the source system with a microphone and the playback system. Failing science 101…
What ended it for me is his sloppy test resulted in bad charts for one item, and he effectively said “Oh well” in the comments but left the garbage data in place. What would a new buyer think? Good product? Bad product? Well, just sucky methods and analyses.
Yes! Figuring out what you like IS a lot of the fun. And doing the journey as you plan will get you much more knowledge and experience than jumping into someone else’s end game.
Did you mean the Grado RS2e? If so, I’d pass that up for a used RS1e. The larger driver makes a huge difference- it’s a better balanced headphone. You might consider a venture into electrostatics. The Drop version of the Koss estat is reasonably priced and has a good resale value.
That’s a very good argument, @HeadphoneNoob. You’re agreeing with us. There will be things that are nominal differences for me that will be dealbreakers for @ProfFalkin or @generic, or someone else. And you are experiencing something that doesn’t measure good by sounds really good to you. We say that’s fine, and support your observations.
You mention deception. That’s really, I think, a lot less common than you might think. It was probably more common in the 60’s and 70’s when there were a lot of different and ill-explained ratings of things like “distortion” or “watts”, and some companies would go for a number, if it it was an apples to oranges number, but they could advertise it.
I do like some reviewers, @Resolve comes to mind, where he tries for consistency in measurements. When you find that, you can look at his measurements and if you are lucky enough to have some of the same equipment being reviewed, begin to understand how his measurements relate to what you hear.
Others have a gift for being able to consistently describe what they hear (@SenyorC comes to mind, if you can get through that Castilian accent) which can help you do the same thing.
The concern that people here have with ASR is that they try to argue using measurements, and have, on occasion, become so ego-involved, that they quietly moved some of the goalposts and standards so that you don’t get the consistency that you can count on with an @Resolve review.
ASR generally take that one reviewer’s word as holy gospel. According to measurements, no tube amp is worth owning and that one reviewers is “gonna have words with you” if blah blah tube amp. So are the people who enjoy the BH crack or Darkvoice living in a fantasy? And if someone says they are, why does ASR seem to take it personally? Many prefer Schiit Amps over THX ones. Go say that over there and you better bring your own cross and nails.
Anyway, just my maybe-not-so-humble 2 pence. I tired ASR… yes I have an axe to grind with them now.
I never knew the backstory to asr, and like I said anything besides your own ears seems to present some type of bias.
Which then would lead to buy and try it all, and that’s not reasonable in numerous ways.
However, even when I consider that I ask for advice. Because I do not know where to go directionally. I posted my question on the HE6 for people who own to provide feed back, but it got moved over here. At least we had one participant who owned it chime in. ProfFalkin chimed in on his experience. All is much appreciated, but unfortunately there’s never going to be an absolute.
I can’t go by my own decisions, so you try to utilize whatever you got. Reviews and basically ASR. I never knew about ASR until coming here. So go figure you should assume that I would accept that information. But I never allow that to dictate my purchases.
As you guys have seen prior, I see the info on ASR and ask you guys well what you think about that. Topping being one of the subjects.
Just to help further get that across. Also, to get a better grip on the situation I face is not having available funds and steady income as of now. Extra questions and more over thinking than what I already do. Bifrost is great, but that’s 700. Much harder to be in this rabbit hole on a tight budget, but I love what I am experiencing and want more
Nice gear. Glad you’re enjoying the music and journey, and your proposed approach is sensible. Enjoy the exploration and your adopted approach allows you get your ears on more gear and observe incremental upgrades/differences.
Likewise.
As others have stated, I’d start with identifying your intended headphone(s), with the “known” headphone(s) influencing your amp and DAC selections, where the amp selection/pairing is more critical than the DAC selection.
In addition, perhaps consider also having a total current budget in mind for headphones/amp/DAC as it is often more favorable to build a system rather than discrete gear selections, and then your realistic intended budget/timeline for future upgrades, which may impact near-term selections/purchases.
Finally, check out the L-cushion tape mod for your Grados and Yaxi pads for your Porta-Pros. Good luck!
hello,
can i connect the audeze mobius with the 3,5 mm analog input to the yamaha cx- a 5100 surround processor headphone output and listen to dolby atmos ? if not, what will i hear ?
best regards,
frans callebaut
You won’t get Dolby Atmos output - it cannot be sent over a a 2-channel analog connection as there is no standard for encoding/decoding it.
Instead, the CX-A5100 can apply its own “fake” surround processing to its headphone output, regardless of what headphone you were to use. How realistic it is, I can’t say - but generally I’ve never found this type of feature particularly convincing - usually it just buggers up the tonality of the output.
The Aux (3.5mm input) on the Mobius only accepts a stereo input. It can, from there, apply its own “fake” 3D/surround processing. Which will probably not be a good mix with the “fake” surround output from the Yahama unit. So you’ll either want to turn off headphone processing on the CX-A5100 or not use the 3D mode(s) on the Mobius.
