Top all-time · #2747
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NwAvGuy
Personal blog · nwavguy.blogspot.comhardware
NwAvGuy is a personal blog at nwavguy.blogspot.com about hardware. Since 2012, 28 different Hacker News readers have linked it 36 times, most often “Headphone and Amp Impedance (2011)”. The last post was in 2012, but the archive is still widely read.
36mentions?
28HN people?
2012–2024first – last linked?
Too few sampled comments (26) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this audio blog for measurement-based analysis of headphone amps, DACs, op-amps and audio myths, and for open, low-cost amplifier designs such as the O2.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 26 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Northwest Audio & Video Guy
Most-linked posts?
- Headphone and Amp Impedance (2011)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-01-18
- /2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-07-27
- /2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-01-04
- /2011/05/virtual-grounds-3-channel-amps.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-01-24
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-06-23
- /2011/05/subjective-vs-objective-debate.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-01-23
- /2011/02/sansa-clip-measured.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-04-14
- Jitter – Does It Matter? (2011)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-07-21
- More Power? (2011)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-06-22
What Hacker News says?
The root is that at some point (late 20th century) the cheap wine became as good as the good wine. So the key differentiating metric for most of the space turned from performance to marketing. The high-end got pushed into the stratosphere (I'll never own a pair of electrostats) and everything else is good enough (hopefully, sometimes there is incompetence). So if it's all good enough for the mass market then the aud…
Comment linking /
on ““Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting”Submitted Headphone and Amp Impedance (2011) as a story · 243 points
HN discussionI don't know much when it comes to audio amp design, but this reminds me greatly of the O2 headphone amp[0] - that anecdotally a few of my friends have soldered for their personal use. [0] http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html
Comment linking /2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html
on “Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap”Submitted Headphone and Amp Impedance (2011) as a story · 117 points
HN discussion>16 bit enough It is so believed (although there's a lack of supporting evidence, and knowledge that human hearing has excellent dynamic range), but only as long as the mastering work was well done. 24bit allows for much less destructive human error and is very welcome. Much more so than absurdly high sample rates (96KHz, reproducing sounds up to 48KHz as per Niquist), which are of dubious value. >my sennheiser hd60…
Comment linking /2011/09/more-power.html
on “3K, 60fps, 130ms: achieving it with Rust”Submitted Jitter – Does It Matter? (2011) as a story · 37 points
HN discussionIf he's able to get that much of an improvement with 5532s, I'm curious what he could get if he used modern opamps. Granted, the 5532 has been the opamp to beat for sound quality for decades, but someone posting by the handle NwAvGuy dis a shootout of opamps comparing and measuring the specs that actually matter for quality audio use back in 2011[1]. That was 7 years ago, and the various component vendors have relea…
Comment linking /2011/08/op-amp-measurements.html
on “Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?”Submitted Amplifier Impedance Explained as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe duplicated amplifier as ground design is pointless and pretty much strictly worse than using a normal ground, but has somehow become semi-popular among certain misguided parts of the audiophile community. Good article about it here[1]. The problem with just using the middle of the batteries as ground is that it creates a potentially headphone-damaging DC offset if the batteries drain unevenly for whatever reason…
Comment linking /2011/05/virtual-grounds-3-channel-amps.html
on “Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?”Submitted More Power? (2011) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAmazing blog, glad I found it and the other articles look great too! Very interesting history of computing. Can you use an arbitrary waveform generator to make these sounds accurate or differences nonexistent? Do you think that good audio can be “solved”? I’ve heard of Harmon tuning and people’s preference for it, and how good speakers are all tuned the same but high end headphones don’t. I remember this person who…
Comment linking /
on “Reverse-engineering the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer's sound chip from die photos”Submitted Headphone and Amp Impedance (2011) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe rules of thumb about "60% of maximum volume for 60 minutes" and "if you can't hear your surroundings, it's too loud" are nonsense. Dangerous volume settings depend on a headphone's sensitivity, the output device power, the headphone's isolation ability, and the recording. These parameters vary. Wildly. A well-fitting isolating IEM can slice off 25dB of noise, more than enough to (mostly) eliminate background con…
Comment linking /2011/09/more-power.html
on “Just Wear Headphones”If you're on a mac, you can obviate a lot of bit depth issues by opening /Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup.app. From there you can see all your audio input and output devices, and set their frequency and bit-rates. Most default to 44kHz/16-bit, but a saner setting is 44kHz/24-bit. You can see the objective differences between 16-bit and 24-bit output in NwAvGuy's measurements of the 2011 MacBook Air's DAC: ht…
Comment linking /2011/12/apple-macbook-air-5g.html
on “Is it better to turn up the volume in the software or on the speakers?”The double-blind scientific approach to audio testing ("ABX") has long been a major point of contention between "objectivists" and "subjectivists"[1]. This has been a godsend for the marketing marketing of some snake-oil companies in audiophile circles. Really glad to know Spotify is on the side of science, here. [1]: This blog has got to be the most interesting I ever read on whatever topic it touches, including th…
Comment linking /2011/05/subjective-vs-objective-debate.html
on “Loudness war”The experienced and mysterious audio engineer "NwAvGuy" [0] praised the virtue of using two gain stages and moving the volume control away from the first input to reduce Johnson noise in audio amplifier designs [1]. It's a good example of how the basic principle applies both to mundane audio and cutting-edge science: the system noise is dominated by the first amplifier stage. Adding some noise before the first stage…
Comment linking /2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html
on “Resistor Noise Can Be Deafening, and Hard to Reduce (2007)”For context, the NwAvGuy O2 amp[0] design is pretty famous now. The dude even lays it down right there[1] in the comments of the linked article. And then soon after that iirc he just disappears? [0]: https://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html [1]: https://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/headphone-amp-impedance...
Comment linking /2011/02/headphone-amp-impedance.html?showComment=1323051662721
on “Headphone and Amp Impedance (2011)”My favorite audio resource for those designing or evaluating audio amps and DACs is NwAvGuy's blog[0]. The blog posts explain what performance parameters matter, what don't, and evaluates the performance of various products and components. Equally interesting is the mysterious story about the anonymous author himself [1] [0] http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/ [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/n…
Comment linking /
on “DIY Amps: A Roadmap for Beginners (2017)”> I noticed a difference in clarity using Audio-Technica ATH-M50s and Beyerdynamic DT 990 250Ω. Specifically, the Beyerdynamics could be driven "good enough" for me with the iPhone SE jack, but I wasn't happy with how they sounded on the Lightning dongle. Scientifically speaking, it should be noted that the adapter performs exceedingly well to the point of audible transparency[1]. You are not going to hear the disto…
Comment linking /2012/04/what-we-hear.html
on “Apple’s $9 engineering marvel no one wants (2017)”Very interesting, could you use this to build a good analog amplifier? http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html Is there any way from genetic algorithms to learn from good human designs as starting points and breed the together? What about genetic algorithms for battery and solar cell design?
Comment linking /2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html
on “Evolutionary algorithms and analog electronic circuits”NwAvGuy has some not-very-nice things to say about Schiit. Basically, that they don't know how to design audio gear. He discovered that one of their amps could damage your headphones. For this warning, he was banned from the Head-Fi forums: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html
Comment linking /2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html
on “Headphone and Amp Impedance (2011)”This guy is fantastic. Having spent a little time around professional audio, it doesn't surprise me that he did amazing stuff for 18 months (anonymously) then vanished from the web. This piece on his site has lots of interesting insight into the audio industry. It also relates to objective, critical thinking in general. http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/subjective-vs-objective-...
Comment linking /2011/05/subjective-vs-objective-debate.html
on “Headphone and Amp Impedance (2011)”We'll never have the luxury of laser-trimmed resistor or matched transistor, an integrated opamp usually outperforms discrete designs, at least for low-power applications. But yeah, it's much fun to build an integrated component from scratch and see how it works. BTW, NwAvGuy, the audio guru who have vanished, has some interesting criticisms on the dismissal of opamp in the audiophile community. https://nwavguy.blog…
Comment linking /2011/08/op-amps-myths-facts.html
on “Reverse-engineering precision op amps from a 1969 analog computer”Some of their products are worse than snake oil. When powering off, Schiit's Asgard amp can output enough DC to damage some headphones. One Head-Fi user recorded a video of this happening. NWAvGuy tried to get answers from Jason Stoddard and ended up being banned from the Head-Fi forums. The whole fiasco is summarized on NWAvGuy's blog.[1] Of course NWAvGuy isn't the most tactful person, but Head-Fi's reaction seems…
Comment linking /2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html
on “The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)”We begin with Pulse Width Modulation. In PCM, an analog audio signal is digitized by an ADC, which performs digitization by measuring its instantaneous voltage, and convert it to a n-bit integer that represents this voltage level, such as 16-bit, at a fixed sampling frequency, such as 44.1 kHz. This process is reserved to playback the audio. "To properly digitize and re-construct digital audio it's relatively import…
Comment linking /2011/02/jitter-does-it-matter.html
on “Living Without Atomic Clocks (2016)”If anyone is looking for a low cost, open source, high quality Headphone amp + DAC combo which rivals gear costing 16 times as much, take a look at NwAvGuys stuff. Headphone amp: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/08/o2-details.html#resource... DAC: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2012/04/odac-released.html
Comment linking /2012/04/odac-released.html
on “What Data Compression Does to Music (2012)”There's the minor issue of them not actually testing their designs perform as expected, at least one amp damaging some people's headphones as a result, and them denying the issue existed: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html Though that's not really a problem with manufacturing in the US, it's more of a general audiophile industry problem.
Comment linking /2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html
on “Hardware startups should consider local manufacturing”The CMoy can affect the sound, which is a hazard if you're a purist and fun if you're not. It's biggest win is being a fun and accessible (cheap and simple) entry into electronics. A good audio circuit should have low output resistance. Granted you can get that with a CMoy, but the popular/expensive models don't meet that criteria. https://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/08/op-amps-myths-facts.htm... https://nwavguy.blogs…
Comment linking /2011/05/cmoy-ebay-headphone-amp.html
on “How to Build the CMoy Pocket Amplifier (2016)”Section 2-29 of: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/o2-design-process.html And the entire article at: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/virtual-grounds-3-channe... Its easy to make something that amplifies, but he's trying to make something that provides specs maybe 10x to 10000x better than human hearing can detect, which is much harder. You can build something that outputs 0.1% THD and you won't be able to hear…
Comment linking /2011/05/virtual-grounds-3-channel-amps.html
on “NwAvGuy: The Audio Genius Who Vanished (2014)”Although more complicated and expensive, another interesting amplifier project is the open source O2 amp: http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html
Comment linking /2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html
on “How to Build the CMoy Pocket Amplifier (2009)”
