Today, I give a few updates on my “mostly dormant” audio hobby. This is mostly for others who are interested in getting good sound from machines, so they can stop chasing rainbows and just go directly to the pot of gold and the end.
The most interesting development has been the Sonnet Audio Pasithea DAC, which I mentioned last year as it was nearing release. I haven’t heard this, but it is designed by the same designer who did the Metrum Amethyst that I have been listening to for some years. It is something of a “maximum effort” with the R2R “resistor ladder” format, with no output stage. It looks like you can hook up headphones directly to the XLR outputs, eliminating all amplification stages. I am listening to something similar with the Amethyst. The Amethyst is getting a new “DAC3” upgrade, so I would wait for that. The Amethyst requires a not-sold-in-stores line-level autoformer volume control, available at Intact Audio as the “$300 autoformer.” If you don’t want to do a lot of wiring, just use the “23 Position Autoformer.” This is very easy to do, but nevertheless it requires soldering and drilling. By the time you do all that, you are going to have about $550 into the autoformers alone. Add $1300 for the Amethyst and you might consider just going all-out and getting the Pasithea.
No, I haven’t bought the Pasithea, although I did think about it. But, since I already have the similar Amethyst here, and it is already all up and running, and since I expect that the Pasithea would be better but maybe not that much better and probably rather similar, I haven’t done anything.
These are all headphone solutions. Today, I recommend headphones as a first, best option for people looking for good sound. There are some reasons for this:
Headphones are cheap, and it is not hard to set up a very, very good headphone system. Even if you go “all out” with the Pasithea, just add some Sennheiser HD650s (still available from Massdrop, $225), and maybe a maxxed-out balanced silver headphone cable (about $250), and you’re done for $5000. This might still seem like a ridiculous expenditure for listening to music (actually it is), but this is very close to the state-of-the-art today. You could listen to it for the next ten years very happily, and have a better system than people who swap gear every six months.
Headphones are very simple, typically with a single driver, either of the dome/cone/coil kind, or perhaps a planar magnetic or electrostatic membrane. In all cases, this vastly simplifies the conversion of electrical signal into physical sound waves, compared to the multiple drivers and crossovers necessary for nearly all speakers, or the rather severe limitations of single-driver speakers. Headphones also do not have any meaningful enclosure, especially “backless” headphones as are common among audiophile efforts. A lot of speaker building consists of either managing the enclosure, or, in the case of planar or open-baffle speakers, managing the lack of enclosure.
Headphones are also easy on many other levels. You aren’t going to bother the neighbors, or others living with you. It doesn’t mess with your decor. You don’t need things like room treatments. You can buy and sell them online easily, if you like to try new things.
But, headphones are “virtual music.” It doesn’t have the engagement of real sound in real life, as from a speaker or live music (a lot of “live” music now comes through speakers, as at any pop concert).
So, let’s talk about speakers.
The most important things for speakers are:
The listening room. Are you in a small urban apartment? A detached house in the suburbs? A detached house in the country? How big is the room? Small speakers work well with small rooms (200sf), but can sound very small in a big room (600sf). Big rooms need big speakers, unless you are willing to make big compromises on output levels.
Your listening expectations. What do you want to do with these speakers? Do you just want some low-level ambient music that you can talk over? Or, do you want to listen to music as if it was a live concert (this is what you should do)? “Low level” music is often about 75db at the listening position. “Active” music is more like 85db. “Background music” is maybe 60db or 65db. Plus, if your listening position is twice as far away (big room vs. small room), that would require 4x the amount of sound output power to reach the same level at the listening position. Since 10db is 10x the amount of power, and there’s another 4x for listening distance, we find that full-scale music in a large room requires 40x more sound output (I mean vibrating air not electric power) than soft music in a small room. That is why I like twin 15″ woofers for my “turn it up”-type speakers (as with the Yorkville 215s in my “garage system”). Plus, if you want full dynamic range, 20db or even 26db of headroom above average track levels, that means 85+20=105db or even 85+26=111db at the listening position. 20db is 100x more power, and 26db is 400x more power. (Most speakers can’t do this, which is why a lot of music has been dynamically compressed to about 10db peaks in the recording studio, in part to make it sound better on modest car audio systems.) “Concert” levels can reach about 95db average/115db peaks at the listening position (this is the “you have to yell to talk to someone next to you” level), either for amplified rock or unamplified orchestral, with some rock concerts well above even this. I don’t recommend that you listen at these levels, but sometimes it is nice that you could, if you wanted to.
Your ambitions. Do you want something easy and plug-and-play? Or, is part of the fun having something amazing? Can you live with “small scale”? Or, do you want full scale power, dynamics and deep bass performance? Do you want something that is not so visually imposing, so your living room looks like other peoples’ living rooms? Or, would you like something big that dominates the room, like a grand piano? When you see this, do you think: “Yes!” or, “No!”?
Basically, I have found that: If you are in a dorm, apartment or other multifamily-type situation, you should not own speakers at all. Forget about it. Use headphones. We can make an exception for some little shoebox speakers to provide occasional low-level background music. In this case, you should still have headphones for serious listening.
If you live in a detached suburban-type situation, you probably will still be sensitive to bothering the neighbors. You can have speakers, but you might have to limit what you can do with them somewhat. A lot of audiophiles find that they are limited to “girl and guitar” music for these reasons. This can become irritating after a while. It is like driving a 450hp Corvette on public roads. It never goes beyond 25% of its capabilities.
If you have a listening room where you can actually turn it up, then you can have fun with speakers and not feel held back. However, these kinds of speakers are big and complicated. Small, simple speakers, like the typical two-way shoebox, are like bicycles. Maybe just right, if you don’t expect too much of them. But, if you want more, it gets complicated. Optimizing them can be a multi-year process, and it can get expensive. Personally, I like multi-amped horn systems, with handmade amplifiers throughout. Like this speaker system that I owned in the past:
The big black bass bins (they were designed by RCA for use in movie theaters in the 1950s) are 50 inches wide. The horns are from the 1930s. You can see all the electronics on the table behind. These include a preamp based on the 01A and 71A DHT vacuum tubes from the 1930s, into an amplifier based on the 10Y and 45 DHT tubes, using line-level crossovers. Everything is powered from 12V lead-acid batteries (the battery box is on the floor with the big gages). This is fun … but … a pain in the butt. The 1930s horns might look old and silly, but they sounded really good. Really, really good. They use the Western Electric 720a driver, which is a sort of 1940s permanent-magnet version of the legendary 555.
People today still oooh and ahhhh over stuff like the Altec 288s common in movie theaters in the 1950s, mated with some big multicell horns from that era.
This really does sound good, and remains today a benchmark of good sound. Is today’s stuff really any better? Listen and find out. But, I owned some Altec A5s in the past, with 288s and 1005 multicells, biamped using a tube crossover from Marchand, and I did not find them to be as good as my 1930s horns with 720As. The horns ended up in Russia.
Today, I would consider building out a speaker system in somewhere like a basement, where you can just go wild and not have to worry about neighbors or how ugly the damn thing looks. This would be fun.
But, since I don’t have either a big factory (where the horn system was set up), or a usable basement, and have other things to do anyway (children), I just listen to headphones.
If I was going to delve into speakers-in-the-home again, with something that makes a good compromise between domestic happiness, cost and complexity, I would look into the Magnepan LRS, Magnepan’s newest “entry level” offering. Magnepan makes planar magnetic speakers (weird and fun), and they are a great value across their lineup. Planar magnetics need huge amounts of power, however, so no tube electronics here. Also, they tend to have limited dynamics and bass. So, the entry-level Magnepan (or “Maggie” among fans) in a small room at modest levels might be a big winner.
Tom Danley seems to have withdrawn his speakers for the home market, which I mentioned last year as they seemed to be nearing release. But, you can get most of the same thing with some Danley SM60Fs (for the pro market) and some subwoofers.
I think most people do a lot of their listening in the car. For one thing, they are in the car often, and since they have nothing else to do but drive, they listen to music. Also, you can turn it up in the car and not worry about the neighbors. You might just forget about speakers in the home, and focus on audio in the car. This is easy if you are already driving a better sort of vehicle, especially a luxury car of the sort that is very quiet inside. Car manufacturers have been offering some very impressive systems in their vehicles recently, although this is usually an added option. As one example, here’s the Acura MDX (a large luxury SUV) with the “ELS Studio 3D32 Premium Audio System with 16 speakers” on the “A-spec” package. Anyway, speakers in the car, and headphones at home, might work very well for you. I think I would stick with the manufacturers’ installed systems, and not try to do something custom in the car, unless you are willing to have something very big and ugly in your vehicle.
If you aren’t ready for a $5000 or $2000 headphone system, and maybe want something portable as well, my recommendation is unchanged: The Fiio M11.
The Fiio M11 has been upgraded to the M11 Plus, with some big changes to the electronics. My older M11 went kerflooey. I sent it to China to be repaired, and it actually came back! But, that took weeks, so in the meantime I got the M11 Plus, which is also good. The main improvement is not the sound (different but not necessarily better), but the Android operating system. The first M11 was terribly laggy and slow. The M11 Plus is still laggy, but not nearly so bad.
For headphones (or actually earbuds), I continue to recommend the Etymotic ER3SE, now available for a bargain price at Massdrop (now called Drop). The Etymotics’ triple-flange ear gasket probably doesn’t look too comfortable, but I find it fine for long listening. It also provides a lot (29db) of isolation, which is great on planes and trains. If you still don’t like sticking these things deep in your ears — most people don’t — then try the Fiio FD1, a simple dynamic driver IEM from FIIO. I prefer the simple, single-driver designs of the ER3 and FD1 to alternatives with multiple drivers and other complications (justifying higher prices). Try these and listen to them for at least a year. Then, if you like, try some alternatives. You might find something you like better, or maybe you won’t.
The M11 and ER3 combo would be about $800. Yes, there are cheaper alternatives, but you might as well put up some money and get something good. If $800 really is too much, then consider the Fiio Q3, which, at $139, gives you decent sound when plugged into your smartphone, tablet or laptop. (As you can tell, I am a fan of Fiio’s lineup, which delivers a lot of value.) Pair with the FD1 and you are done for about $200 all-in.
We now have “audiophile wireless earbuds,” which might work for you. I’ve tried some and was very not-impressed (Jabra 75t). You have to make some big compromises to get something small enough and also with low enough power requirements, to fit into an earbud enclosure. The M11 is big for a reason (it is about 4x bigger than a similar Android smartphone), and the reason is: A big battery for power-hogging DAC and amplifier stages, which are used because they sound better. Also, I decided to swear off having those microwave transmitters so close to my head. But, if you aren’t so particular about microwave transmitters, it’s worth trying out.
The M11 is nice because it is an Android-based all-in system that can run apps like Tidal or Roon (online hi-rez music streamers). But, if you want something you can plug into your smartphone instead to take care of all the app-type stuff, and that just serves as a portable DAC, I would look into the Chord Mojo 2. Chord is a maker of much-more expensive ($10K) DACs, but the Mojo 2 has a lot of the same special ingredients. The original Mojo was a top favorite a few years ago. I was thinking of getting one to replace my kerflooey M11, and using it with an iPhone 11, which would be a lot less laggy than the M11. However, since I like to download hi-res music so that I can listen without being connected to the internet, that would take more memory than I had on the iPhone. The M11 Plus works with standard micro SD cards, which you can get in 256gb size for not much money.
So, today’s message for newbies is mostly: Go with headphones UNLESS you really want speakers, because you want “real live sound,” or maybe just because your idea of an “audio system” includes speakers. But, I would still shy away from speakers if you are in any kind of multifamily residence, or even in a detached suburban situation where neighbor and co-resident happiness is a concern.
