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ZeosPantera
1246
Aug 19, 2016
Review out and still 7 days to go.
fjrabon
456
Aug 21, 2016
ZeosPanteraYou have no idea how power works in amps do you? For every doubling of power the amp is only 3dB louder. And the volume control is decibel attenuated, meaning that the display units SHOULD be the same regardless of power mode. So, for example, if the amp is at 90, and (just to make the math easy) 200mW, at 98 it would be using 600mW.
An amp with 8X more power is only 9dB (slightly less than twice as loud) before clipping.
One of the great myths of quasi-audiophillia is that you need tons of milliwatts to power headphones.
You said "it doesn't get louder" but you didn't turn it up? You said you want more power but you didn't even come close to using all the power the m9XX has. Literally the only thing additional mW would do is make the amp louder without clipping.
Detomaso2
54
Aug 21, 2016
ZeosPanteraI'm tired of seeing narcissic people such as Z... I learned nothing!
fjrabon
456
Aug 21, 2016
Detomaso2I like Z most of the time. It's just a very uninformed review that makes a big deal of something for like 4 minutes based on him not understanding how power in an amplifier works or how the volume stepped attenuator works.
If he'd complained about the sound quality, sure, fine, whatever. No accounting for taste. But his main criticisms were based on his own lack of knowledge about basic facts of amplifiers.
fjrabon
456
Aug 21, 2016
Detomaso2It's also telling that at one point he thinks he's volume matched the m9XX before and after the high power mode change by shifting the volume knob 3dB. That means it was off by 3dB (since it's a decibel attenuated unit), which probably indicates for all of his reviews he's poorly volume matched the gear since he doesn't do it with a meter and his ear is obviously not good at volume matching if he was off by 3 dB in this video. Since volume matching is probably the most important task of a critical reviewer, it REALLY makes me doubt the actual accuracy of any of his reviews if we are probably getting a lot of 3-5 dB discrepancies in gear he's attempted to volume match.
Detomaso2
54
Aug 21, 2016
fjrabonI'm tired of seeing people who just relied on others people's word: what's the goal of buying tons of audio equipment just based on people's review? A collector? My @$$! It's just plain narcissism! That's the BIG problem on Massdrop: because of the exclusivity, no one can look, touch, feel and listen to the product before buying....So the best way to justified a "bad buy", is to say: "Oh!this one sound different than the other one"... It hurt less...
fjrabon
456
Aug 21, 2016
Detomaso2Yeah, that's an issue for sure. I'm lucky to be involved in a pretty vibrant hi-fi scene in Atlanta, so I get to try out a lot of gear. But of course others aren't as fortunate to have a dozen or so local audiophiles locally that you can exchange gear with or hear at local meet ups.
The next best thing is probably to try to find people you trust and follow their advice. Which is my big issue with how unknowledgeable Z is about fairly basic things regarding audio equipment, since so many trust his reviews.
My issue wasn't at all that Z gave a mixed review, preferences are preferences, it's that about half of his video was spent making critical comments based on a basic misconception of how power works in amplifiers generally and how the m9XX works specifically.
Uzuzu
1431
Aug 21, 2016
fjrabonI know we agree on some things and not on others, but I wasn't very fond of Z bashing the m9xx as bad as he did either. He didn't really talk about anything other than its power specs, I mean it's class A and has very low floor noise and beautiful amplification that wasn't really mentioned. It is by no means an end-game amp but it is good for 500 dollars. And he shot it down... Oh well!
fjrabon
456
Aug 21, 2016
UzuzuYeah, and again, I don't actually mind that he didn't like it as much. There can be reasonable disagreement on how it sounds. It's just annoying that nearly half of his review was based around various misconceptions he has about amps, mW specs and the m9XX.
Uzuzu
1431
Aug 23, 2016
fjrabonyeah, I don't really mind he dislikes it either, just that part. =\ at least throw all the info and gritty details out there, or your bias is going to affect others' opinions. That is how I felt anyways.
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