I'm finding this a lot more difficult than i expected, the first pass i made notes on my inital impressions, same for the second pass then compaired them to find i had basically contracticted myself. I'm still not 100% convinced your not trolling us 😛
OK, we have another poll where you can add a vote for the worst opamp too,
Click here to vote for the WORST sounding opamp
A link to this has been added to the top of the first post 🙂
Click here to vote for the WORST sounding opamp
A link to this has been added to the top of the first post 🙂
It IS difficult. I have tried something similar a long time ago with AKG headphone. My conclusion was that the source and the system was not good enough for me to be able to find out which one was best.
I think I need a criteria, but there are many possibilities. A calm sound may be relaxing but it is not transparent. Dynamic is another criteria. I have download the MP3s and listened to 7 of them quickly (only the beginning 20% of the files) with a $5 headphone, and I prefer the banana.
I will bring the files home tonight and listen through my speaker. My speaker is quite capable of showing details. High dynamic contrast is possible with my speaker. Cymbals, drums and such. I'm curious because I have no expectation. My only expectation is that they all will sound terrible 😀
It could be very difficult, if you are doing playback thru a couple of 741s. 😉
But finding the original should not be difficult - it should stand out from all the rest.
Why wait 😀
Here is the 741 vs one of the others. 20kHz and 6 volts peak to peak output (which is actually a little below the Marantz max output).
Well, you would think so 😀 When you see how "poor" the 741 is then surely it must stand out by a country mile 😛
Member
Joined 2006
Hmm...from my headphone with the mp3s I could only detect one single file being superior..rest quite similiar...😉
Member
Joined 2006
I have not yet listened.
But in the past I received an ABX disc from a certain un-named "famous" ABX advocate. Quite correctly he claimed that you could not hear the difference between the DUTs. In this case he had messed with the bit depth, iirc. The reason was essentially in the selection of the source (music) that he had picked. That selection was such that differences would be readily masked.
In an odd way it was a funny experience.
Along these lines I have an instrumental cut by Pierre Bensusan which is eery, no matter what you play it on, it just sounds tremendous. Truly. It's almost impossible to play this back and make it sound bad. So, a great choice for impressing visitors, but a terrible choice for hearing flaws or limitations in my system.
Just a thought.
_-_-
But in the past I received an ABX disc from a certain un-named "famous" ABX advocate. Quite correctly he claimed that you could not hear the difference between the DUTs. In this case he had messed with the bit depth, iirc. The reason was essentially in the selection of the source (music) that he had picked. That selection was such that differences would be readily masked.
In an odd way it was a funny experience.
Along these lines I have an instrumental cut by Pierre Bensusan which is eery, no matter what you play it on, it just sounds tremendous. Truly. It's almost impossible to play this back and make it sound bad. So, a great choice for impressing visitors, but a terrible choice for hearing flaws or limitations in my system.
Just a thought.
_-_-
Non of the files or the circuits were manipulated in any way at all. All that changed was me swapping the opamps in the test circuit. The "wild card" selection was done later and as such is the odd one out 😀
The music samples were just chosen as being well recorded examples (well to me anyway).
The music samples were just chosen as being well recorded examples (well to me anyway).
Do you think that Mooly's selections are well enough recorded that even a bad opamp won't be noticeable? If so, what would make it noticeable?
I have not yet listened to Mooly's stuff...
I guess I have to go and download it. I guess.
Time is not on my side.
The idea is simply that some program material simply is "forgiving" (a better way to put it) of system issues/deficits/problems. Other program material is inherently better at showing these things to the human ear/stressing the playback chain.
No, I don't have a scientific way to make this sort of determination a priori. 🙁
_-_-bear
I guess I have to go and download it. I guess.
Time is not on my side.
The idea is simply that some program material simply is "forgiving" (a better way to put it) of system issues/deficits/problems. Other program material is inherently better at showing these things to the human ear/stressing the playback chain.
No, I don't have a scientific way to make this sort of determination a priori. 🙁
_-_-bear
I might try this, despite high fidelity and 'what sounds good' bearing little relation to each other ��
Please don't reveal too early, Mooly!
Give time for the apologists to perfect their rationales ...!
Give time for the apologists to perfect their rationales ...!
Lol I give myself 0% chance on hearing the difference.
Daft me anecdote: I built the P3 amp for my HNC. It took me 2 days of solid listening to realise something wasn't quite right. Id checked the waveform with sine to trim the bias and tweak out the crossover distortion Kink, and the HF response was slightly triangular looking, took a frequency response. Hmmm. After a couple of days checking the pcb layout, i checked the component values.
Id put 0.1u instead of 10n for the miller cap...surprisingly as severe as the issue was, it took me far too long to notice.
I suspect this test is akin ��, soon as i can bear to sit at a desk ill download it and try. But in not hopeful -_-;;
Daft me anecdote: I built the P3 amp for my HNC. It took me 2 days of solid listening to realise something wasn't quite right. Id checked the waveform with sine to trim the bias and tweak out the crossover distortion Kink, and the HF response was slightly triangular looking, took a frequency response. Hmmm. After a couple of days checking the pcb layout, i checked the component values.
Id put 0.1u instead of 10n for the miller cap...surprisingly as severe as the issue was, it took me far too long to notice.
I suspect this test is akin ��, soon as i can bear to sit at a desk ill download it and try. But in not hopeful -_-;;
Well,
Its easy if the source signal is present as one of the selections. No matter how bad the recording is/isn't. IF there is a difference the THD/smear will change or be different. The question is not can you identify the chips but can you hear a change and which selection do you prefer. Now theoretically you should prefer the source signal, however that might not be the case if you prefer some added THD and distortion or blurring of instruments and content.
Then again is there a difference or do we just think there is and all the selections are just a 741. 😀
Regards
M. Gregg
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The other thing is,
All the chips should be able to reproduce audio its not HF or RF so how hard can it be 😀
Regards
M. Gregg
All the chips should be able to reproduce audio its not HF or RF so how hard can it be 😀
Regards
M. Gregg
I once did a couple of sound clips to test myself WRT this sort of pyscho acoustic thing.
Basically a sine and a single harmonic at various attenuation if the harmonics to get an idea of thresholds. It wasn't technical in a traditional sense, i used a nice musical harmonic 5th or 3rd chord, and a dissonant one.
It surprised me how relatively they differed in my ability to hear them. In the end i reasoned it ws the beat frequency giving the dissonant chord away at greater attenuations than the Nice chord.
Is dissonant the right word? Not sure it is......
Basically a sine and a single harmonic at various attenuation if the harmonics to get an idea of thresholds. It wasn't technical in a traditional sense, i used a nice musical harmonic 5th or 3rd chord, and a dissonant one.
It surprised me how relatively they differed in my ability to hear them. In the end i reasoned it ws the beat frequency giving the dissonant chord away at greater attenuations than the Nice chord.
Is dissonant the right word? Not sure it is......