Audio DAC discussion

^Regarding your second query ,I had already mentioned that the DAC sounded better with all different IEMs I have. It includes RE-0 which is neutral,Quattro's which are slightly dark and PL-50, RE-252 which are upfront /forward. I wouldn't draw any conclusions based one one single earphone sounding better with XYZ.Overall the uDAC sounded best with the RE-0 which are neutral.

Regarding the speaker vs earphone query ,I don't have much to say as I haven't heard a lot of good speaker systems nor can I afford one right now. My modded MX-5021 serves the purpose for me and I appreciate the sound it produces :)
 
FaH33m said:
Overall the uDAC sounded best with the RE-0 which are neutral.
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Right, thats your baseline right there, neutral phones. Once you stray beyond that it becomes more about taste tho stil helpful to those who have those phones and wanted to know what the DAC sounded like with them.

Are neutral phones the same as monitors in the speaker world ?

FaH33m said:
Regarding the speaker vs earphone query ,I don't have much to say as I haven't heard a lot of good speaker systems nor can I afford one right now. My modded MX-5021 serves the purpose for me and I appreciate the sound it produces :)
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Ok, so did this DAC make a perceptible difference with your speakers ?

Was the difference as much as you felt with the phones.
 
viralbug said:
As you mentioned, the DAC is like an alternative sound card.
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Totally misleading...
So a Lavry could replace my ST? lol
^Sound is so subjective, and depends on your benchmark, which is the best you've heard. It also depends on the music, have you listened to a studio recording with monitor speakers for example. That is an example of true neutrality. Neutral music isn't enjoyable for the most. All headphones and speakers are biased, just the amount of bias differs.
 
Vandal said:
Totally misleading...
So a Lavry could replace my ST? lol
^Sound is so subjective, and depends on your benchmark, which is the best you've heard. It also depends on the music, have you listened to a studio recording with monitor speakers for example. That is an example of true neutrality. Neutral music isn't enjoyable for the most. All headphones and speakers are biased, just the amount of bias differs.
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True couldnt agree more, the music sounds less engaging to some with neutral speakers. Most of us settle down to a particular sound signature we like. :)
 
Neutral sound gets tiring after a while, all its good for is for spotting flaws in the sound which is why studios use them mostly.

But in the context of comparing different DAC's or equipment aren't they suitable ?
 
FaH33m said:
Also the EF2A has the advantage of tube rolling to get better sound.Right now I am using Mullard CV4010 tubes which have a slightly dark sound signature which I like.The stock tubes were too bright , so didn't like it :p.Ive given the EF2A to Brendon to learn about his impressions of the sound with HD 650.
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where did you source the tubes from??
 
^ ebay.com -Some seller from Taiwan :).Recently came to know that there's a guy near my place as well who sells tubes and tube based amps for reasonable pricing.
 
blr_p said:
Neutral sound gets tiring after a while, all its good for is for spotting flaws in the sound which is why studios use them mostly.

But in the context of comparing different DAC's or equipment aren't they suitable ?
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even if thats true, how do will you figure whether the sound of the dac matches your headphone?...it will be the combo you will be interested in right

FaH33m said:
^ ebay.com -Some seller from Taiwan :).Recently came to know that there's a guy near my place as well who sells tubes and tube based amps for reasonable pricing.
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you should be in nerul then :) .. what is the price there like
 
blr_p said:
Neutral sound gets tiring after a while, all its good for is for spotting flaws in the sound which is why studios use them mostly.

But in the context of comparing different DAC's or equipment aren't they suitable ?
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I couldn't agree with you more. Even though I'm a noob in these matters. For me I'd prefer someone doing a review with neutral/monitor headphones/earphones/speakers and then comparing the DAC's as dark (what does this mean?), bright (i think this means the upper range is more pronounced), or whatever the audiophiles tag them as.

It would give me some data as to what to choose compared to the reviewer. Example, If I buy a pair of neutral earphones and listen to the same song from the same piece of equipment that Faheem was listening to and come to a different conclusion, based on that conclusion of mine and Faheem's review, I could in future choose an audio item of my choice just by looking at Faheem's review, provided he reviewed it.
 
jith77 said:
even if thats true, how do will you figure whether the sound of the dac matches your headphone?...it will be the combo you will be interested in right
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The idea was to cut out the extra variable in this case the earphone.

Now if the review was on neutral earphones then what the reviewer says about the DAC tells us more about it rather than the combo, if its too bright or dark (thats as far as my vocabulary on this subject goes so far :ashamed: )

It tells one that does not have the phones what the DAC on its own is like or as close as its possible to do so.

Now if your earphones are 'bright' and the DAC is also 'bright' or vice-versa, what does that give you, I do not know :S

So he tested with other phones as well and then described the result. But this matters only to those that have the phones as that's their frame of reference.

Hope this clears things up :)
 
FaH33m said:
Overall I didn't find the 650 sound to suit my taste.Its slightly laidback/veiled.Actually proves that it's not necessary that a expensive & well recognized cans can guarantee personal satisfaction .It all comes down to personal choice and taste of the sound.
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Agreed. I had a change to audition the HD650's at Jaben, and I didn't like the way it sounds at all. Prefer the K701 and the AT's.
BTW, is Head-Direct a chinese company? I was under the impression its originally a US based company.
 
Superfrag said:
So it is manufactured in China, and sold out of NY? Hmm..
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They started selling in china some months back :rofl:
they still dont have any distributor or reseller in china though. Its direct sale from the factory in china atleast.
 
What's dark or bright sound? or purple or yellow...

Try as I could, seems this is the only place that could explain the use of colors to a sound characteristic. Everyone else just seems to throw some hard to know facts like bright means a clarion etc. Hard to know if you haven't heard a clarion yet.

Link below is in respect to help us lesser known mortals clear the mystery.

That Nice Dark Sound

Some interesting quotes from the link:

"Virtually all terminology that I have ever heard musicians use when discussing sound is subjective; its meaning comes from consensus. Most acousticians would regard an unambiguous, scientific and objective description of what they usually call tone color as requiring the use of numbers rather than words. Given the two distinguishable tonal characteristics that I personally would differentiate in terms of lightness and darkness, I know on the basis of having done the spectral analysis that the brighter sound is the one having greater relative amplitudes of higher partials. All other things being equal, this could be directly related to nothing other than the reed. If you like, an infinitely thick reed will produce an infinitely dark sound, and an infinitely thin reed will produce an infinitely light sound (where decreasing thickness provides an increasing ability to excite higher partials in the air column)."

"In my experience instrumentalists - not just clarinetists or wind players, but all instrumentalists - frequently comment on tone color. They do so by making analogies with color or texture.

"[X] suggests that color descriptors are useful. I suggest that to be true only if all agree that the words describe the thing that they are trying to describe uniquely. I know what I mean by dark sound. You know what you mean by dark sound. But what each of us has in our head may be quite different. For some, their concept of dark sound would be thought of by others as bright, and vice versa. What good is served by the use of a term that is so non-specific and non-descriptive? I think that is false to say that everyone knows what a dark sound is. Each person knows what a dark sound means to him or her. That is about as far as the usefulness of those terms extends."
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My views on all this sound classification: Its just one of those marketing gimmicks IMO. Each one has his own way of describing sound. In a nutshell for the noobs like me,

colors are used to describe the various sound frequencies. I'm guessing there is no universal understanding on how the classification is done though.

So instead of just telling that the sound is more pronounced in the lower frequencies, a marketing person might say it sounds dark. For something that is more pronounced in the upper frequencies like > 1Khz or so it may be called as bright. Hope you get the drift now.
 
Nice article :)

Now does dark & bright in the context defined matter when pairing with the genre of music ?

I'd like to think if you're into vocals, classical, jazz etc that brighter matters more than if you're into more bass heavy stuff, any modern dance, hip-hop. Getting one that favours either means it only sounds good when mated with the right genre.

So are there all rounders, what if one's taste in music spans vast gulfs soundwise ?
 
Get multiple headphones :p .

Also.. people might be liking a certain genre in a different manner. For eg, hip-hop is bass heavy, but there are people who prefer to have less bass when listening to hip hop. Thats why there are so many choices for headphones.
 
blr_p said:
Nice article :)

Now does dark & bright in the context defined matter when pairing with the genre of music ?

I'd like to think if you're into vocals, classical, jazz etc that brighter matters more than if you're into more bass heavy stuff, any modern dance, hip-hop. Getting one that favours either means it only sounds good when mated with the right genre.

So are there all rounders, what if one's taste in music spans vast gulfs soundwise ?
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If one's music spans vast gulfs, then isn't he better off getting a neutral pair of earphones/speakers? Then he could use the equalizers (yeah, I know it sacrilegious to some out there) to make the music match his taste.
 
jith77 said:
even if thats true, how do will you figure whether the sound of the dac matches your headphone?...it will be the combo you will be interested in right

you should be in nerul then :) .. what is the price there like
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Yeah ,I am live in Nerul /Seawoods .Don't have an idea of exact pricing but just recently heard from someone that it's cheaper than importing. Need to try it out.

Also the seller from whom I had bought my Mullard tubes ,shipped them twice ,so now I have 2 sets of the same tubes.:eek:hyeah:

6pack said:
I couldn't agree with you more. Even though I'm a noob in these matters. For me I'd prefer someone doing a review with neutral/monitor headphones/earphones/speakers and then comparing the DAC's as dark (what does this mean?), bright (i think this means the upper range is more pronounced), or whatever the audiophiles tag them as.

It would give me some data as to what to choose compared to the reviewer. Example, If I buy a pair of neutral earphones and listen to the same song from the same piece of equipment that Faheem was listening to and come to a different conclusion, based on that conclusion of mine and Faheem's review, I could in future choose an audio item of my choice just by looking at Faheem's review, provided he reviewed it.
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Very true and that's one of the reasons why I usually prefer using the Sansa Clip to audition the IEMs.It has a very neutral sound,due to which you know what the earphones sound signature is like. Also if you go through some of my previous reviews , you can see that I try out the earphones with as many sources as possible and mention how they sound with each of them and which kind of source is the most/ least favored for that particular IEM.;)
 
faheem said:
I usually prefer using the Sansa Clip to audition the IEMs.It has a very neutral sound,due to which you know what the earphones sound signature is like.
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Argh !

I thought when auditioning these DAC's you managed to bypass the player's DAC :huh:
 
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