Anyone catch 7 Myths of Digital at AXPONA?


Did anyone see Arjuna Das at AXPONA yesterday?  His talk 7 Myths of Digital Audio Dispelled?

He gave such insights as "ALAC sounds better on Mac, FLAC sounds better on Windows" and "streaming sounds the worst." (Paraphrasing on the latter).

He seemed to have a handle on DAC engineering, so some of these superstitions seemed odd coming from him. Seemed like a nice enough guy so I didn't want to debate during his talk. 

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I reached out to Ben today. Ben is still the owner of Mojo Audio, but he recently changed his name to Arjuna Das.

Mojo wasn’t sold or isn’t going out of business. He’s stated he’s expanding his operations.

I wish him luck. I had his v3 Mystique, and have had the EVO BVB for a while now. I love it. His next gen dac is launching soon and I will probably give it a try.

 

Yes their website is full of references to cancelled products. They make it sound like it's due to great demand, but not sure how that correlates. 

I suspect Benjamin sold to Das. I had previously noticed they were ending direct sales model, moving to dealer model. Also, recently spoke with Benjamin in regard to possible purchase of Deja Vu server, he stated there were no plans for future production. These changes led me to suspect changes were afoot there, this seems to confirm that.

I can't say I know.  This company is from ABQ New Mexico.  All the blogs on their website are by Mr. Das. 

I'm sure those myths were designed to sell product.  I actually found it hard to be interested, not because of the content but because he basically stood and read this out loud:

 

It wasn't really a "presentation" as much as a "reading."  

On the content, you can read from the above as to what would be controversial.  I had to get up and leave after he said that ALAC sounds better on a Mac and FLAC sounds better on Windows.  He didn't seem to understand how Roon works either.  

Just in general, I wasn't into his presentation as an expert when he seemed more of a DAC circuit guy than someone who understood the whole topology.  Spewing a lot of his own dogma. I guess we all do...we don't all use a podium. 

I was seated at this presentation and found it very interesting! I immediately knew much of this would be very controversial though. IMHO you have to remember this is coming from the owner of Mojo Audio and his bottom line is to sell you equipment! I'm sure these 7 myths were developed to line up with his product lines!

True, plus the primary purpose to my understanding is for dealers to meet manufacturers and there would be no point in that given Tekton only sells direct.  But if their speakers are as great as some people say, why not take a burned-in pair and show them off?  That might have generated some sales!  

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Not knowingly anyway.  I'm not a regular of these shows and mostly I was interested in hearing the various listening rooms just so that I could get a sense of where my own system is in the pecking order.  We didn't go to the upper floors and I don't recall being in a Krell listening room.  

It was cool to see/hear Wilson's first set of speakers.  

I'd post a full review of AXPONA but I'm not qualified.  It looked like attendance was good and people were happy to get out.

I was looking to see if there might be some Tekton products there as I was curious about them, given all the talk on this forum, but I didn't find any. Seems like a missed opportunity for a company that doesn't sell through dealers so impossible to hear them without buying.  

Well, there was some knowledge there but it was laden with BS, including that old trope about uncompressed wav sounding better than FLAC or ALAC.  I asked if that was true with Roon's architecture of decoding on one machine then streaming to another, and that's when he dropped that "streaming sounds the worst."

I got the sense that he may know DACs but didn't understand the rest of the digital environment.  I was just a bit surprised by the either the lack of knowledge or the willingness to spout untruths.  I guess that is high end audio...about as much truth as a Kremlin press conference.  

He said it would be on YouTube since no PA hard to hear.

I haven't looked for it yet, Mojo Audio.