this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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If your view of amps is that they should transparently reproduce the input, the state-of-the-art here starts at less than $200. There’s no obvious way from an electrical engineering point of view for an amp to be meaningfully better at this than the last few generations of the Schiit Magni, for example. The huge wrinkle here is that human hearing is really bad at hearing that two things sound the same if there’s any volume difference or bias.
Not all amps are designed to be transparent of course. There’s evidence people like small amounts of certain kinds of distortion.
Totally disagree..haven't heard a good amp under 300. Have heard magni and it sounds like shit. It's very congested sonically. Even half deaf person would hear a difference between magni in somethingthing like Holo Audio Bliss. But I I would say you don't need to spend fortune - mojo 2 is great DAC and amp combo and for an amp Aune s17 Pro is something to beat under 1k.
Half this industry is built on people overestimating the objectivity of their hearing and underestimating their imagination. I’ve done enough blind testing to put infinitely more trust in extremely sensitive lab instruments than casual, uncontrolled listening tests.
You're right as there is no audible difference between magni and my MacBook Pro 14" 3.5mm output, lol.