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Do AMPs actually vary in sound signature or is that snake oil? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by General-Wrap-7858@alien.top to c/headphones@hi-fi.community

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I've seen people state both that they so not influence the tuning as long as they deliver the same power and others stating that they can make headphones "sound warmer" or "brighter". I don't see how that would happen though and a lot of audiophiles just hear things that I feel aren't there, like some noise difference between the Apple DAC Dongle and a 500 EUR DAC using an off the rack chip.

Take this comment from ASR:

Amps are more likely to make an audible difference than most DACs, but that certainly doesn't mean there are audible differences between most amps

I'm talking purely about AMPs here, not a DAC combination.

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[–] FrankieLyrical@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I've done a ton of reading of opinions since getting into this hobby. I couldn't disagree more with people who say that all dacs and amps essentially sound the same. For a long time, I had exclusively "entry level" AMPS (Schiit Magni/Modi, JDS Labs Atom+ Stack). I recently pulled the trigger on a topping a9o and the difference was insane. The details on songs that I've heard a million times, the sound stage... almost everything sounded different (in a good way).

[–] giant3@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Sir, Do you have a degree in any STEM field?

[–] AnOldMoth@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Unless you can tell them apart in blind, level-matched tests, the differences could extremely easily be imagined due to expectation bias, or due to slight differences in volume. And no, you cannot use your ear to level-match, it's not precise enough, you need a multi-meter.

I'm not sure why everyone seems to believe that their hearing is so accurate, it's really not. It's almost entirely in your brain, making sense of vibrations, but what you EXPECT to hear, or what you THINK you're hearing changes what you actually hear. All the time.

The McGurk effect is an obvious one, but your entire range of hearing works this way. Human hearing is incredibly unreliable and fallible, this is irrefutable fact. Perceiving a difference doesn't mean there actually is one.