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hurtyewh t1_ituf2jc wrote

Reply to comment by ultra_prescriptivist in I cannot hear a sonic difference between sources. by porscheboy919

In my experience speakers are very different in this sense. I wouldn't pay a penny extra for headphone amps as long as I get enough of clean power, but with speakers I'd much rather take many amp = 2-3 times the price of the speakers than the other way around.

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ultra_prescriptivist t1_ituogg5 wrote

Fair point.

I'm a headphone guy, so was thinking about it more from that point of view.

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hurtyewh t1_ituosgj wrote

Yeah, I only realized this myself in the last year since my assumption followed from speakers and and speaker amps that I have a longer history with. I still wonder why such a difference exists or could my experience just be skewed.

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ultra_prescriptivist t1_itupaq2 wrote

I pretty much assumed the speaker world would work the same way - that better engineered drivers have more impact on resolution, imaging, etc. than the source.

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hurtyewh t1_ituq5no wrote

That could and likely is through, but where as with headphones and IEMs my most common amp/dac recommendation is a Apple dongle or iBasso DC05 is we want to get fancy and I can barely hear any difference when comparing to a $500 stack or even the $2k Hugo2 etc. When I recommend speaker amps I go for Hegel H190 or Supernait 3 which sound absurdly good even compared to the step down models from the same brands. Those cost $4-5k and their benefits are very clear with a $1000 pair of speakers like Revel M16's to the point that I can't think of a better set for $5-6k. Would be nice to hear some non-seller expert talk about this.

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