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Pono and the Ayre Codex

Hi everyone, a recent review over at Audio Science Review made me put a few things together.


The review from 4/11/2019 is here:


https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-ayre-codex-dac-amp.7282/

Couple of things I have to wonder about. First, what’s interesting to me is how close the distortion and output impedance measurements are to the Pono, measured by Stereophile here:


https://www.stereophile.com/content/pono-ponoplayer-portable-music-player-measurements

The ASR reviewer (amirm) unfortunately measured the Codex before listening to it. I say unfortunately because honestly to my ears the Pono was one of the best headphone amps / DACs I’ve ever heard. In particular, I’ve never heard my Shure E4s sound as good as they did with the Pono, so the Codex has always been kind of interesting to me, now that the Pono is gone. I never ended up buying a Pono for user interface and size issues, but I have always kind of wistfully remembered it. Instead I’ve gone with Fiio.


It is impossible to tell if Amirm would have come to the same conclusions about the quality of sound if he/she had listened first.

As it turns out I’ve kept my desktop setup cheap and used a Topping which is quite nice.. but I wonder now and then if my memory of the Pono was wrong, or whether Ayre would ever make another portable amp, like say a module for the Fiio portable.


Sorry, this is a bit of a ramble, especially since I’ve not heard the Codex, and my time with the Pono was years ago.


For those of you who have heard either or both, what are your thoughts??
erik_squires
erik_squires OP
16,123 posts
 
@cortes 

I haven't heard the Codex, but the reviewer's methodology is backwards.


Measuring, and then listening, is the wrong way to do things. By the time you listen you are pandering to confirmation bias. Best if two different people do each.


Without knowing why, the Pono, which measured similarly to the Cortex by Stereophile, was one of the very best headphone amps I have ever heard.


The Oppo desktop DAC/headphone amp on the other hand one of the absolute worst. I think I posted about ASR's' review a couple of weeks ago.


The point is, measurements are not the goal, listener satisfaction is, and this sequence is the wrong way to go about finding out what that is.



Best,

E
vfrpilot
13 posts
 
i agree. it was my unit reviewed on asr. i also now have a burned in khadas tone board at home. side by side i much prefer the codex. it just sounds more real. maybe not the same depth of bass and detail but everything has real meat and bones on the body. the khadas sounds like frequencies or harmonics are missing.

either the sounds of ‘distortion’ makes it sound more real or we don’t yet know what to measure to show why something sounds more real. i’m tending toward the latter even though i want to follow measurements as an engineer oriented person. i’m not so sure we know what to measure and it bothers me a little that a lot of people on asr are militantly sure that they do and the rest of us are just delusional. why people have to be so rigid and pick absolute sides i’ll never grasp. feels a bit desperate trying to convince themselves of something...

that said i like the site and appreciate the measurements they produce, i just wish they continued the search for new knowledge and new understanding vs dismissing subjective experience and entrenchment in rigid ideas. that’s not really how intellectual curiosity should work. IMHO...
beetlemania
834 posts
 
I have a Pono and have heard a Codex. I suspect the asr review is a case of confirmation bias. 
erik_squires OP
16,123 posts
 
Hey @beetlemania -

How close do you feel they are in sound quality??
erik_squires OP
16,123 posts
 
It is also possible that Amirm is doing something I’m a little afraid I am doing.


He’s training his ears with his scope.


I’m much more sensitive to, and more accurate, than other audiophiles, when it comes to frequency response aberrations. This has to do with me using a measuring microphone as much as I have. Kind of like how working at a sandwich shop you end up learning to weigh exactly what 2 ounces of meat feels like. Use the scale enough times and you’ll be dead on.


It may also be that having Parasound and Class D amps I've trained my ear out of distortion which Pass and fanatics love. Maybe this is why my taste in amps and my utter dislike for Pass comes from. Ear/brain training.
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