Quit it with the Norah Jones shit

I don't care if it's a review of Final Audio's Opus 204 loudspeakers: quit it with the Norah Jones. Quit it with the Krall. Quit it with the Peyroux. 

On the DARKO diddy index, the above three, and their analogues, wouldn't even register among the rest. For indicating musical taste, they're a television jingle. Everyone knows them. Everyone's heard them. Every tone-deaf, would-be gigalo has Jones cued into his Pioneer HiFi. Jones, et al. just prove how little you care, or know, about music. They prove how much you read other useless reviews, and forums. They prove that you drink alcohol-free beer, not whisky, and that for you, cheese is the stuff that peels away like shoestrings and can only be purchased from Costco. 

I'll take this further: quoting Jones in a review of audiophile gear is like saying you love board games, and showing up to a board game geek fest with Risk, and asking for the dice in a game of Agricola. 

Unless in jest, bringing up the above divas does nothing more than cheapen your essay. And, the collateral damage is first: the product you're reviewing; second: the rest of us audiophiles. Yes, we audiophiles are snivelling snots. Yes, we're afraid of science. Yes, we believe in magic and faeries and stuff. But from Shanghai to San Salvador, we neither need, nor can we as a marginalised aberration of modern society afford to listen to the same goddam music.

Of course, I'm looking at myself, too. Each of us has been guilty. But it's time to start doing things right. It's time to find music that isn't an incestuous homily to a broken imagination. The most recent homily to broken imagination was written by Ryan Cheong, of Hifi Senses, whose review of the Lehmann Audio Traveller kicks off like this: 

Most striking are the mids, especially vocals, which are brought to the forefront and presented with incredible sweetness. Norah Jone's "Come Away with Me" had me shivering in its intimacy.

It's an easy read. Then again, most gushing audio reviews are. Most gushing audio reviews turn about on words like striking and intimacy. They might dare to note something ridiculously foretelling such: Accuracy sacrificed for musicality, under a Cons section. I can only imagine the next Cons section: Musicality sacrificed for accuracy.

Jones wept.

Related links:
Lehmann Audio Traveller
Darko DAC Index

Headfonics: Final Audio Heaven VIII review

Headfonics's review of the Final Audio Heaven VIII, about which I left a Brazilian strip of commentary, is a pretty good read, with which I mostly agree. That is, apart from the following:

“The treble of the Heaven VIII renders very well and typically has the great levels of extension and detail a balanced-armature driver provides. In drum and bass tracks, high hats decay fast and efficiently without being laidback in nature. In this sense, there is no spatial disconnect from the upper mids to the lower trebles which both share a sense of brightness in character. The sparkly clear highs make for an engaging presentation and truly satisfy those seeking extended highs without the compromise of rolled-off frequencies.”

Heaven VIII lacks the upper mid heat that has made a number of hi-end Final Audio earphones hard to listen to for long periods of time. VIII is smoother, and comparison to hitherto news-making balanced armature earphones from Final Audio, rolled off. It's got none of the dirty decay that accented some of the other mid-top end earphones. For that, I'm glad. 

The Headfonics review is a good, pithy review of a good, pithy earphone.

The Final Audio Heaven VIII

Disclaimer: Heaven VIII came through my studio for a few days thanks to a Headphone Book shoot.

Or, Lady Gaga's Final Heartbeats, whichever is easier to say, is Final's newest high-tier universal BAM! It sounds good. Very good. Strong, but linear bass, very slightly muted highs, and a detailed, but lush midrange. It is, in my opinion, their best-sounding balanced armature earphone. 

Unfortunately, it looks the way it does: like a smaller Beats by Dre Lady Gaga Heartbeats. The good news is that it is cool, heavy, and luxurious whereas the Beats isn't. Even Heaven VIII's flat cable is supple, soft, and resilient against microphonic noise. And I've never liked flat cables.

This is a nice earphone.

But the packaging: fake snake skin on the outside, fake beaver on the inside, is hideous. We Canadians love our beaver, but where there's muff, it's got to be real. Not that killing things in order to make an earphone is something I condone. I do not. But putting so much effort into faux materials, especially it at this price is, well... a little bit too Japanese for me. And, the fur shed all over my pine wood flooring. I'm still picking it out of the cracks. 

Heaven VIII goes for just north of 70.000¥, and despite its horrible packaging, it is an earphone that weighs heavy on my mind. 

NOTE: click images below to advance to the next frame.

dSp - not the answer to making your headphones sound better

If you want to hear your music in higher quality, get better headphones, or a better quality player - in that order. Adding a separate box, and another layer of interface that does nothing but give your ears warm (or cold) fuzzies, is just unnecessary complication. If you're really into the experience of portable audio geek, get a DAC, maybe an amp, and probably you'd not seriously look at a tiny box like the dSp. If you're not into that experience, the dSp is, and never will be on your radar.

That said, the dSp does boast some impressive spec. I just wish they'd go whole-hog and either make a DAP, or a compact accessory DAC, and not waste time on this stuff.

Thanks Mr. Pithy Shorts for spotting this. 

What companies make balanced armature speakers?

Cymbacavum's got a biz of a round up on balanced armature speaker manufacturers, from Sony to DTS. It's worth the read.

16-bit VS 24-bit, or: self-administering double-blind experiments

An Mac Observer article entitled, Digital Music: Can You Hear Above 16-bit/44.1kHz?, recently received a nudge from Daring Fireball, along with a veritable fireball of comments.

The question it asked: can you hear above 16-bit / 44,1 kHz? appears to be answered by a simple shake of the head. 

But audiophilia has never been about science. Nor has it been about absolutes. It is about experience. It is about enjoyment. And neither can be measured. 

I've tested and reviewed numerous amplifiers, DACs, headphones, etc., some of which measure well, some of which do not. In fact, every DAC, amp, and digital or analogue source that passes my desk goes through a modicum of benchmarks. I appreciate superbly-performing gear. But should performance itself be the final word? Is exploring the limits of what we hear more important than exploring the limits of how we perceive what we hear?

Several years ago, I began to cozy up to mild low-pass filters, and to a lesser extent, larger amounts of harmonic distortion. Mazel tov! I'm now a man in the vein of my pops, and his pops before him. And my veins are beginning to show. It's probably why I now enjoy a softer, easier-listening sound. Is that sound closer to the original recording? No, it is not. But do I prefer it? Yes, I do. 

Audiophile fora is populated by definitives that distill half-truths to the tune of to these ears. A review of X speaker or X DAC will glow with praise; the next will glower with invective. 'Good' sound is defined by personal terms. It is essential to use audiophile terminology. It gives you an edge. And so does dissing the scientists.

And why not?

Hi-resolution audio may have a theoretical mathematical advantage, but it doesn't pass a single scientifically-sound litmus test. It doesn't pass anything but the bean-bag test. (By the way, the bean-bag test is where you put on a hi-res album, doze in a bean-bag, then do the same thing with a 16-bit version of the same album.) Hi-res audio is tilted in favour of experience, and the moment. It has no rhyme or reason. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't offer a better experience for some people. 

In my experience, yellow is better than blue.

Is there an objective better? Of course there is. Equipment that tests closer to the original signal will always objectively be better than equipment that errs on the side of artefact and distortion. Mathematical proof can be brought up to support 16/44 as the be-all-end-all carriage. Ditto 24/192, or DSD. But putting those proofs to scientific testing and proving them in statistically valid numbers: well, that's the hard part. Hi-resolution audio hasn't made it that far. It's likely that it never will. And we have to live with that.

But there is no objective testing methodology which can prove, or disprove irrational tastes. If there were, we'd all be using Synergistic Research's Headphone Optimized Transducer. There are only ears. There is only desire. There is only experience. There is only blue. There is only yellow.

And damn you, lahaina52, a person can self-administer a double blind test if she wants to. And, in a world where experience sans proof rules the roost, “N” of 1 (one) is a statistically worthwhile sample size. And yellow is better than blue.

OHM AIR episode #013: Legally Inactive (Part 1)

John Darko joins OHM AIR for part 1 of Legally Inactive, a ridiculous rejoinder to CES, to monolithic reviews, and to the assumption that one is bred or born, or turned into an audiophile. We is what we is, is what I say. All the time. We tackle tough subjects such as: 1. Las Vegas Doughnuts 2. .NET 3. AC/DC's beards... or is it ZZtops's beards? 4. being born an audiophile 5. brand tribalism 6. the Aurender Flow And a hell of a lot more. Be sure to tune in to part 1 of this show. Be sure to be ready for part 2. Then, head to: http://www.digitalaudioreview.net to see the urbanest audio reviews the personal and home audio world has to offer. John is a soft-touching star. And that's why I like him.

John Darko (of DAR fame) joins OHM AIR for part 1 of Legally Inactive, a ridiculous rejoinder to CES, to monolithic reviews, and to the assumption that one is bred or born, or turned into, an audiophile. We is what we is, is what I say. All the time.

We tackle tough subjects such as:

1. Las Vegas Doughnuts
2. .NET
3. AC/DC's beards... or is it ZZtops's beards?
4. being born an audiophile
5. brand tribalism
6. the Aurender Flow (Nathan's headfonia review)

And a hell of a lot more. Be sure to tune in to part 1 of this show. Be sure to be ready for part 2. Then, head Digital Audio Review for the urbanest audio reviews the personal and home audio world has to offer. John is a soft-touching star. And that's why I like him. 

Camera guru, Thom Hogan, describes audiophilia

I couldn't have said it better:

“The High Fidelity makers discovered this the hard way. Far too many folk stopped buying the minute they had something that they felt was good enough for their needs. Only a smallish group of die-hard audiophiles kept buying, and they bought only the top end. For them to buy, the new thing had to be demonstrably better than their current thing. Things got so ridiculous that some started hearing things that weren’t probably there. (Note that I’m not dismissing “golden ears”, but that many who thought they had such ears were just imagining things, not actually discriminating them.)”

Of course, Thom's most recent essay is about camera manufacturers not understanding the market. Still, the premise stands: "some started hearing things that weren't probably there".