Ears On

I recently spent a few weeks exhaustively reviewing five headphone DAC-amps. They included the Schiit Fulla ($79), AudioQuest DragonFly v1.2 ($149), Oppo HA-2 ($299), Celsus Companion One ($595), and Sony PHA-3 ($1,000). Of course anyone who buys one of these products will find that the listening experience depends heavily on the headphones used with it, and there's no predicting which headphones an individual buyer may use, so I chose a varied selection: the Oppo PM-2 ($699), Sennheiser HD600 ($400), and Sony MDR-V6 ($110). Then I had to choose the demo music. That was fun—anyone who says a job like mine isn't fun should find another job—but it took some care and forethought. Just as associated gear affects perception of an audio product, so too does the music.

I ended up choosing a dozen items including four lossy audio files, four CD-quality lossless files, and four high-resolution lossless files—plus a DSD wild card. All five of the DAC-amps could play at least 11 of the files, though the 24/192 and DSD selections eluded the two USB-stick products, which were limited to PCM 24/96. These musical picks varied widely not only in encoding but in genre, mood, and recording or mastering quality. The one thing they all had in common was that I could listen to them endlessly without losing my mind—which was a good thing, because with five DAC-amps, three headphones, and 11 to 13 tracks, I had committed myself to 174 separate demos. And I played every track all the way through. And of course I took notes. Yes, actual work!

The roundup that will appear in our print edition disclosed the music as well as the headphones. But to save space, I listed them in boxes separate from the main text. Later I wondered if I shouldn't have said more about the music than just artist, track name, album name, and encoding details. So here is an expanded version of the music listing with more discussion of the music itself and why I chose it.

The Test Tracks: Lossy Audio
The Ramones: "I Wanna Be Sedated," Road to Ruin (MP3, 128 kbps): Being chosen as a lossy test track is kind of a booby prize because that kind of encoding doesn't show the music or the recording at its best. But this was a necessary evil; some readers listen to that stuff. So for this much-loved Ramones track, I used MP3 encoded at a low bitrate, which basically threw out a massive amount of audio data, with plainly audible results. This polluted both Johnny's exquisite wall of metal and Joey's charming vocal. So great is my love for this music that I enjoyed it anyway—all 15 times. But I pledged to myself that the next time I hear this song, I'll be playing my good old vinyl copy, the way the artists intended it to be heard.

Fotheringay (vocal by Sandy Denny): "Banks of the Nile," Fotheringay (MP3, 192 kbps): At a higher bitrate, MP3 becomes slightly less irksome, though the lossy format still subtly smears the sound, especially in its treatment of the vocal peaks in this beautifully recorded song. But I've always admired Sandy Denny's dynamic and emotional range in this electrified traditional ballad of a young man going off to war in the middle east and the girl who wants to go with him by disguising herself as a soldier. In addition to the voice, I listened for the resolution of the interlocking electric guitars of Jerry Donahue and Denny's husband Trevor Lucas; sometimes a DAC-amp that did a great job of controlling the voice also soft-focused the guitars. Fotheringay broke up after the release of its first album because producer Joe Boyd convinced Denny a solo career would be a better use of her talents. Folk-rock lovers consider this a tragedy: Fotheringay's first album ranks with the best of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. What would have become the second album was upgraded from demos to a formal release long after the deaths of Danny and Lucas; Fotheringay 2 is a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been.

Jorma Kaukonen: "Genesis," Quah (iTunes AAC, 256 kbps): I fell in love with this song when it was used in the soundtrack of the movie Transcendence though I've been a Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna fan a lot longer. Is this Adam speaking to Eve or just any two people at the hopeful beginning of a longterm relationship? Whatever the case may be, the vocal is affecting and recorded full and rich, the tasteful acoustic guitar has a snappy attack, and when the string section enters, I almost get tearful. One of my few iTunes downloads, this track has a bit of audible breakup in the guitar. I'm not sure if this is an extreme lossy artifact, a corruption of the file, or damage to the master tape or whatever master was used for this release. I've since added a vintage vinyl version to my library. Amazon sells the CD for $4.99, about what some people pay for a fancy cup of coffee.

Dvořàk, Vienna Philharmonic, István Kertész: "Scherzo," Symphony No. 9 (From the New World) (MP3, 320 kbps): One of the world's top orchestras records a crowdpleasing work. What's not to like? At the highest possible MP3 bitrate, this is not a bad-sounding file, though I still prefer to hear orchestras in lossless formats. A greater handicap may be the 1988 CD mastering, whose rough edges become apparent in high-level passages. This served as a tripwire for several of the amp-headphone combinations, though some navigated these tricky waters better than others. The best audio products tell the truth but make you like it with a subtle spin.

The Test Tracks: CD-Quality Audio
Yes: "And You and I," Close to the Edge (ALAC): There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love progressive rock and idiots. There, I've said it. Hailing from an album widely acknowledged (except by idiots) as a masterpiece, this track makes full use of the mellotron's quasi-orchestral sweep preceded by Steve Howe's lonely reverb-enriched soliloquy on 12-string acoustic guitar. The mellotron can sound a little hot through some equipment, though long experience tells me that's usually the fault of the playback gear. This track was ripped to Apple Lossless from the latter half of the Blu-ray/CD deluxe set remastered by Steven Wilson in 2013.

Teddy Thompson: "Over and Over," Bella (ALAC): Son of Richard and Linda Thompson, Teddy Thompson possesses one of the world's best voices and his latest album showcases it in a sophisticated variety of settings. This sinister waltz starts with a scraping violin and ends with psychedelic keyboard bells. Like a lot of pop music these days, the album is mastered loud and heavily compressed. That's a separate issue from the edginess of the vocal recording, which is not representative of the voice live and in other recordings, but did challenge the DAC-amps to produce an unfatiguing result, especially with the trebly Sony headphones.

Marianne Faithfull: "Strange Weather," Blazing Away (ALAC): Tom Waits wrote this chanson for Faithfull and she recorded this live version at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn, New York. The fine leathery voice and floating, twinkling, chiming accompaniment bounce off the stone church walls, as I remember well, having been there. This gave the playback a gear to show off its spatial virtuosity or lack thereof. I can't decide if my favorite couplet is "The rose has died because you picked it / I believe that brandy's mine" or "And I never buy umbrellas / Because there's always one around." Faithfull packs an emotional punch worthy of Linda Thompson.

Bach, Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki: "Concerto No. 3 (Allegro)," Brandenburg Concertos (ALAC): I probably needn't say much about the Brandenburg Concertos except that everyone should own a set, or two, or ten. This is one of my favorites (along with Karl Münchinger and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra) and is ripped from the CD layer of the SACD/CD set on the Bis label. The modern high-res digital recording is vibrant and realistic. The string section of an orchestra tells me a lot of what I need to know about an audio product's frequency response, imaging, texture, and potentially about listening fatigue. This recording quickly revealed the personalities of the products I was reviewing at the time. I've used another part of it before and I'll use another part of it again.

The Test Tracks: High-Resolution PCM and DSD Audio
Donald Fagan: "Maxine," The Nightfly (FLAC 24/48): Fagan has always had a good ear—so good that it can make even early digital recording technology sound beautiful. As I sampled tracks on his first solo album, I wondered how I could have overlooked the masterpiece that is "Maxine" on countless earlier plays. Its massed vocals are perfect audio demo material—most playback gear renders them colorfully, but the question is always how colorfully? The Nightfly is a concept album about a young man, perhaps not unlike the young Donald Fagen, a New York area suburban youth coming of age in the early 1960s, living in an era of hopes, dreams, and aspirations. This particular song parallels Jorma's "Genesis" as the young man addresses a young woman about a future that is still a few years out of reach: "Try to hold on, Maxine." It made me think of a picture of my now departed parents during their own era of optimism, though that was a couple of decades earlier.

Nataly Dawn: "How I Knew Her," How I Knew Her (FLAC 24/88.2): Dawn is one-half of the YouTube sensation Pomplamoose and this is the title track of her second album. It has been in heavy rotation ever since I first heard it. The song begins with diffident acoustic guitar, played by the multi-instrumental Dawn, with a string orchestra soon following. The entry of drums is striking for its powerful attack and tight reverb and I paid attention to how the products under review handled this dramatic moment. The track builds to a crescendo as the vocal pauses, the strings go berserk, and a slightly submerged guitar solo wails. If I tell you the song is about the pain of unanswered questions—as a woman addresses her mother whose mind has slipped away in a nursing home—you probably won't want to hear it. But that would be a major mistake on your part. The song, performance, and production form a riveting masterpiece.

Deep Purple: "Smoke on the Water," Machine Head (FLAC 24/96): This song had long been a metal classic by the time it became the obsession of Jake Harper on Two and a Half Men. It gave me a chugging hard-rock rhythm section to contemplate (for the first time since the Ramones track). I also paid attention to Jon Lord's eloquently dirty and rough-edged organ in the right channel. It's like having a lawnmower in your right ear (I mean that in a good way). And of course I played it loud. Such is the song's (and recording's) genius that it sounded great on everything. In retrospect, I might have learned more from a more challenging metal pick.

Saint-Saëns, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch: "Allegro Moderato, Presto; Maestoso; Allegro; Molto Allegro," Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony) (FLAC 24/192): This is as close as the symphonic literature gets to heavy metal, with a pipe organ thundering beneath the orchestra, augmented by two players at the keyboard of a grand piano. I've heard it performed by the Munich Philharmonic at the superb-sounding Munich Gasteig, so I have a good idea of how it can sound at its best (and loudest). This is not an easy work to record—it's like capturing lightning and thunder in a bottle. But this RCA Living Stereo recording of the Boston Symphony is a perfect storm. I listened for dynamics, of course, and for the textural interweaving of the orchestra, organ, and pianos.

Ali Akbar Khan: "Rag Hemant," Indian Architexture (DSD): This 28-minute raga features a virtuoso sitarist and tablas which enter late in the game. The ringing, buzzing, keening, dancing sitar was a good test of high frequency response and overall texture, and the tablas sometimes called to a product's rhythmic fluency. I used this track to unwind after many long days with headphones clamped onto my head and a notebook under my fist.

Audio Editor Mark Fleischmann is the author of Practical Home Theater: A Guide to Video and Audio Systems, now available in both print and Kindle editions.