how important is HU for total SQ?

[Aurorav8 10+ year member]

There is NO difference between a HU's SQ. Which has probably already been established, but I'm too lazy to read the whole thread.

You set HU1 flat with none of the special features turned on (i.e. BBE, loudness) and HU2 flat there will be NO difference.

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

Frequency response, distortion, DAC accuracy, S/N ratio... none of these things affect SQ?

I guess the audio world has been duped for a long time.

 

[paikiah 5,000+ posts]

oh no...and i've got two sets of sony c90 (20 bit burr-brown) on the way here....//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[BoxsterBoy 10+ year member]

HU is just as important as your heart...

No matter how strong your muscles are, without a good heart, that's nothing...

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

Frequency response

All go below, and above what we can hear.

distortion,

None even approaching audibility

DAC accuracy

How can it be inaccurate?? It's 1's and 0's.

S/N ratio...

Humans can't tell the difference between 50 or 60, and 100. Forget about 90 and 105.

none of these things affect SQ?

Not IMO.

Get a decent HU, powerful amps, nice speakers, and install it all well. Add some processing if you like. A high dollar hu might look cool and give you a lot of eq curves and x/o settings to play with to make it sound good to YOU, but in the grand scheme that's not what SQ is about.

I guess the audio world has been duped for a long time.

Has been, IS, and WILL BE.

 

[JLCivic 10+ year member]

All go below, and above what we can hear.

None even approaching audibility

How can it be inaccurate?? It's 1's and 0's.

Humans can't tell the difference between 50 or 60, and 100. Forget about 90 and 105.

Not IMO.

Get a decent HU, powerful amps, nice speakers, and install it all well. Add some processing if you like. A high dollar hu might look cool and give you a lot of eq curves and x/o settings to play with to make it sound good to YOU, but in the grand scheme that's not what SQ is about.

\

That's the best point you made.

When frequency response was mentioned, he could have been referring to the smoothness of it, not how far it extended on the low end and high end. I don't believe the s/n ratios, etc are audible, but I have heard differences among head units, set flat. I don't know what exactly accounts for those differences but it could be a combination of things such as quality of the components of the deck used, overall design, better(not necessarily higher voltage) pre outs, etc.

 

[paikiah 5,000+ posts]

ok, so a 1 bit DAC, a 20bit burr brown, and a 24bit alpha processor.... no diff? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

There are people in some forums that are arguing about which brand of blank CD's sound better, and their conclusion: TDk sounds better with vocals, and some other brand sounds better with guitar. go figure

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

There are people in some forums that are arguing about which brand of blank CD's sound better, and their conclusion: TDk sounds better with vocals, and some other brand sounds better with guitar. go figure

lol!

...I think memorex has better bass

 

[ss3079 5,000+ posts]

HU is just as important as your heart...
No matter how strong your muscles are, without a good heart, that's nothing...

I like this analogy //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

- Steve

 

[cdr 10+ year member]

There is NO difference between a HU's SQ. Which has probably already been established, but I'm too lazy to read the whole thread.
You set HU1 flat with none of the special features turned on (i.e. BBE, loudness) and HU2 flat there will be NO difference.

now that is a a crock of .... in a perfect world HUs would all be the same with cristal clear transparent reproduction of sound but that is a bunch of BS too every HU adds its own flavor to the mix the goal is for a person to get what IMO is the definition of SQ COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT, that is SQ sure some people like the warmth or tone a HU adds but that is an imperfection, I want to listen to the music as it was made not as my HU thinks I should listen to it, I want true sound at least from my HU I will battle with speakers later but my audio can only get as good as my source. So in short NO HU_JOE_1 and HU_GOOD_ 2 will not be the same units if you turn off the frills and whistles.
And also couldnt agree with the following more:

Frequency response, distortion, DAC accuracy, S/N ratio... none of these things affect SQ?
I guess the audio world has been duped for a long time.

Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally Posted by BoxsterBoy

HU is just as important as your heart...

No matter how strong your muscles are, without a good heart, that's nothing...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like this analogy

- Steve

couldnt agree more great analogy, a HU is the starting point of your signal, Its like when people pull out that phony golf analogy: "Drive for show, putt for dough" well you sure as hell cant putt if you never get to the green can you.

 

[GSteg 10+ year member]

If the headunit is adding it's own "flavor" to the music, its broken. That is not sound quality. That is what you, as an individual like. If it sounds good to a person, great. But thats not the point when it comes to SQ comps. To the user, their system will always be number one because that person likes it. The point of SQ is to reproduce music as accurate as possible. Nothing should be added or taken away. If a headunit adds "warmth", there goes sound quality because there shouldn't be as much "warmth" from the beginning. Your ears like it, but that isn't the definition of Sound Quality.

Frequency response can be altered through the use of an Equalizer and a crossover.

Before clipping, there are less than 1% THD being put out, thats is impossible to hear with music.

S/N ratio, above 85db (A-weighted), you cannot hear any difference. If you can, I take it that you can hear 45352345 miles away too. Just impossible. 85db is already good, even great. Over road noise, panel resonating, speaker distortion, one in a million that you'll hear a difference in S/N ratio.

DAC convertors, there isn't much importance in that. Different methods to convert, yet end result will be the same. After the conversion, its going straight to the LPF filter anyways. Anyone hear a difference in DAC, you have just won yourself $10,000.

Sounding different and Sound quality are two different things. Most people adjust their system to what they like, but that isn't Sound quality. That is what they like and the whole world doesn't revolve around themselves. Most like to spend excessive amount for the "sound quality", and thats fine. Physco acoustic does wonder.

 

[cdr 10+ year member]

If the headunit is adding it's own "flavor" to the music, its broken. That is not sound quality. That is what you, as an individual like. If it sounds good to a person, great. But thats not the point when it comes to SQ comps. To the user, their system will always be number one because that person likes it. The point of SQ is to reproduce music as accurate as possible. Nothing should be added or taken away. If a headunit adds "warmth", there goes sound quality because there shouldn't be as much "warmth" from the beginning. Your ears like it, but that isn't the definition of Sound Quality.

If you are telling that to me I would agree with you as can be seen by this:

in a perfect world HUs would all be the same with cristal clear transparent reproduction of sound but that is a bunch of BS too every HU adds its own flavor to the mix the goal is for a person to get what IMO is the definition of SQ COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT, that is SQ sure some people like the warmth or tone a HU adds but that is an imperfection, I want to listen to the music as it was made not as my HU thinks I should listen to it, I want true sound at least from my HU

but I dont think any HU will be transparent only a good HU will be transparent most budget low quality ones are bound to add some flavor or tone to the signal its that simple. The sign of a good HU is not being able to tell that it is there it should be completely and fully transparent, adding no noise, tone, or distortion. I dont see how you took that as me saying that warmth or tone added by a HU was sq, I said some people like that warmth or tone but that can get gained by a better third-party processing component, by no means do you want a HU to just randomly add its own take of what the music sounds like.

 

[Mark_ab 5,000+ posts]

Marketing voodoo prevails again over common sense and rationality.

No sense in trying to argue the point to most, willful ignorance is the name of the game in this industry.