RE: Hardware to room play the collection

Thank you Fred!

I lurk on a list for rigorous audio professional practitioners, which means they model and measure audio for/in acoustic environments for the purpose of design and optimization of electro-acoustic systems and the spaces they interact with, and these practitioners are in the business of _reproducing_ sounds as accurately as possible, without ‘artistry’.

Nothing on the list is derided more than the ‘audio phools’ who can’t validate any opinion with ABX testing, meaning you can’t actually demonstrate a perceptible difference. When they _can_ demonstrate a perceptible difference, it pretty much always seems to be the case that they’ve simply altered the sound in a way they like, which is fine, but if you do that, now you’re an artist, changing the sound that Miles Davis or Kanye West intended. Ultimately, the ‘audiophile’ community of today seems to be primarily about tribalism, and so the most important thing is to elevate their ethos above the unwashed masses. That’s why any form of ‘proof’ of claims is derided as unimportant and irrelevant, and rather substituted with florid descriptions that can’t be quantified. What you like is great for you, it’s just not science.

The purpose of that rant was simply to state that I’ve seen members of this group (synaudcon- funny name, very old organization) periodically post actual _measurements_ of various iphone models, and it turns out that they have been uniformly very good (meaning linear, with minimal phase distortion)- you really need to get into a DAC that’s in the $1,000’s per channel to beat them. This was the last time I checked- it might be that there are newer, more cost-effective DAC’s out there, but at that point I think you’ve got to get realistic- what is your listening space? Ambient noise? Your speakers? Are you sitting down to listing in the best position?


Gerry Pehl


From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2016 7:23 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [EAC] Hardware to room play the collection


On May 26, 2016, at 4:56 AM, [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [EAC] <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Apologies for the thread hijack, just singling out this bit:
>
> The audio quality problem depends on a number of factors, like how
> you're connecting your library play-out system (e.g. iPhone) to your
> speaker system (e.g., Bluetooth, headphone jack cable)
>
Supposedly the iPhone's internal DAC and other audio components are
not all that great - best to get an external DAC or a decent dock.
Just google "iPhone [model #] DAC/dock" and check review sites such as
head-fi.org<http://head-fi.org/> and whathifi.com<http://whathifi.com/>.
That’s simply untrue of the modern iPhones.  Here’s a very good, instrumented review of the iPhone 5:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/iphone-5/audio-quality.htm

In it, Ken Rockwell concludes:

"Confirming what I hear with critical listening, the iPhone 5 is a wonderful high-fidelity audio source. While publications funded mostly by advertisements from makers of expensive cables, power conditioners and outboard DACs don't want you to know this, the iPhone 5 is a better audio source than most DACs will be when connected to a computer or CD transport. The only difference is that the iPhone has a level 6 dB lower than a proper CD player, but the iPhone still has more output at 1 V full-scale than some outboard audiophile DACs!
…
Ignore those who confuse the iPhone with crappy MP3 players; the iPhone has wonderful audio quality for serious music listening either directly with good or great headphones or plugged into the rest of your high fidelity system.”

head-fi.org<http://head-fi.org> and whathifi.com<http://whathifi.com> are filled with “subjective” reviews authored by people standing in a circle trying to impress one another with their “refined taste” and “superb listening skills.”  If you secretly put an iPhone 6 inside of a case with a 1/4” thick milled front panel sporting a pretentious sounding name in cursive script and a $1700 price tag, many of the same “reviewers" who panned the iPhone 6 would be telling you how wonderful this “new” audiophile DAC sounds.  That’s because they are like so many of the “wine connoisseurs” with “refined palates” who praise $7 wines from grocery stores when they do blind tastings but call those same wines undrinkable dreck when they watch them poured from the labeled bottles before tasting them.

Sorry for the rant, but I’ve been into high-end audio since the 1980s and it’s disgusting how it has devolved into something akin to “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Regards,
  Fred