Do DACs and Amps ACTUALLY matter? Reviewers weigh in.

Comments · 616

• WE

  @westarrr · 8 months ago

  That was the longest "Not really" I've heard in a while

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• TS

  @Tssukiii · 8 months ago

  Please do an absolute EQ beginners guide in a long format, 1-3 hours even<br>The short ones never worked for me and I never felt like I had enough to get started<br>It would also be great if you could cover different options, not only APO, but maybe also the JDS EQ, the Fiio EQ, the Crongle EQ, Mojo 2 etc.<br>I know it’s a very big piece of work, but just a wish from my side <br>Maybe more people would be interested <br><br>I genuinely believe EQ can make a huge positive difference, but I have not been able to fix items with EQ yet and a good starting point would encourage more people to try harder, get the results and save their money and bs in the future

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• FA

  @Farpun · 8 months ago

  I&apos;d love to see a discussion with John Seaber from JDS Labs.

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• SH

  @shunpillay · 8 months ago (edited)

  I really appreciate the critical thinking and healthy skepticism evident in the audiophile hobby these days - particularly in the Headphone and IEM scene. Quality discussions like this was unheard of just a few decades ago.

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• DA

  @danielaxelsson8881 · 8 months ago

  the real answer is how to detect defective units

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• GO

  @Gooseys11 · 8 months ago

  Looking good GoldenSound. Very impressive, love to see it

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• KI

  @kilarcam · 8 months ago

  I would love to see you guys do some solid blind tests with easy comparisons you can jump back to back and see what happens.

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• SU

  @sunvalleydrivemusic · 8 months ago

  This is such a great and healthy discussion. &nbsp;I’m glad you guys tackled it outside of livestreams!

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• OM

  @omeee · 8 months ago

  I have the mobile dac Fiio KA17 and I tested it against the topping dx5 ii. I used high end Genelec monitors, Focal Clear and Denon AHD 7200. I couldn&apos;t hear a difference. Even something cheap like small m300e sounds the same on a quick comparison but I didn&apos;t proper A/B test. I have an older IFI product and that thing is sounded with more low end and less treble but you can do that easily with a low and high shelf

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• YA

  @yatsenkoanton · 8 months ago

  For me the biggest change was when I switched to a R2R DAC. That&apos;s what felt like an endgame for me. With some headphones DACs and amps to make a major difference to a certain point, after which there is little change. For IEMs that point is even lower: the last major quality jump that I experienced was when I switched to cx31993 max97220 combo. After that, I don&apos;t feel any difference anymore (for portable audio).<br><br>I wonder what is that threshold for other people though, but I was honest with myself and I found mine. If you are honest with yourself and have a shop that lets you try out &nbsp;everything, the answer will be clear as day.

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• PO

  @pointofresonance · 8 months ago

  Golden Sound, I have one question for you: How does this apply to electrostatic energizers? I personally think they also make an incredibly minor difference (if designed well). But, there seems to be a lack of measurements and research in this area. I would love it if you made a future video on this!

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• PA

  @PawnSacrifice · 8 months ago

  On EQ, I know it&apos;s, &quot;just change to your preference&quot;, but parametric especially is daunting starting out and despite the dismissal of Auto EQ, I think there are some benefits if you&apos;re new to this world... it is easy to use, with Peace I was able to select my headphone and a target, great - I know this won&apos;t give me the same result as for the person that made it, but it&apos;s a better starting point than being at 0DB. It is a good way to experiment with different frequency targets to see which one prefers. This was excellent for gaming, taking ARC Raiders as an example, I did an auto EQ and it sounded far better in game, but I notice I couldn&apos;t hear the ticking of raider caches, I went back and tried another profile (sorry I forget which) and with the second, the in game audio was improved and I could pick out the audio cues the first was missing, I assume this was a change at a specific frequency. With the authority this channel carries (some may scoff at that, you can&apos;t please everyone) I think you need to be mindful of just dismissing something for everyone.

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