|
Megiddo posted:He's referring to a phenomenon called skin effect: Maybe. Still doesn't fly. The Internet posted:Speaker cables are normally made with stranded conductors but bare metal strands in contact with each other do not mitigate skin effect; the bundle of strands acts as one conductor at audio frequencies.
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2012 13:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 19:07 |
|
|
This is slightly off topic but this is the closest the A/V arena has to a general "laugh at stupid A/V stuff" thread. I found this in the wall of one of our classrooms we're renovating.  This 50' cable went up the wall, over to near the projector, where it plugged into a 3-foot 5BNC-VGA cable, which was attached to a 6 footVGA cable, which was attached to a 3 foot VGA-5BNC adapter, which was attached to a 3 foot 5BNC-VGA cable, which was plugged into the projector. Only the 50' cable was plenum rated. The total distance from wall plate to projector was maybe 30' That might explain the tearing when running at resolutions above 800x600, although frankly I'm amazed the projector recognized the vertical sync at all. GWBBQ fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jul 14, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2012 19:52
|
|
|
Megiddo posted:He's referring to a phenomenon called skin effect: I'm glad to read that and see even Wikipedia agrees with me that for low power home use ordinary 0.75mm^2 lamp cord is literally as good as "speaker wire" of the same thickness. Roger Russell wrote a big article on speaker wiring that's probably worth reading.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2012 09:08
|
|
|
Opus125 posted:You should ditch your circle of friends because they sound like douchebags. edit: You know what - who cares anymore, let's move on. If we're posting in this thread we're probably all douchbags anyway. Gromit fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jul 18, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2012 03:29
|
|
|
longview posted:I'm glad to read that and see even Wikipedia agrees with me that for low power home use ordinary 0.75mm^2 lamp cord is literally as good as "speaker wire" of the same thickness. "Inaudible difference? Inaudible for some perhaps...  "
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2012 17:25
|
|
|
Cpt Thorne posted:"Inaudible difference? Inaudible for some perhaps... My favourite one is: oh these you would hear a difference with, you wouldn't not hear a difference when they were that expensive.  I also liked it when someone told me how they used normal grade speaker wire but bought a Monster optical cable, congratulations on spending money on the single component in your entire setup that doesn't need it I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2012 21:57
|
|
|
longview posted:My favourite one is: oh these you would hear a difference with, you wouldn't not hear a difference when they were that expensive. I'm having a really hard time parsing this. VVV Oh thanks. I was really tired when I read that first and my brain just wasn't quite up for double negatives. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Jul 30, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2012 22:23
|
|
|
Jerry Cotton posted:I'm having a really hard time parsing this. They sound better by virtue of being expensive speaker cables, you wouldn't know about these cables, they're way better than what you've got and you'd totally hear the difference if you could afford them. It's a way of elevating yourself, and implying that the other person is a pleb. Don't even try asking how they are different, they just are.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2012 15:12
|
|
|
I want to thank everyone involved in posting in this thread; it has been a most entertaining read. I lost it at "Discussion of double blind trials is banned." I used to convince myself I could hear the difference between 320kbs MP3 files and the CD - in fact I convinced myself the difference ruined the ability to listen to them.  I then conducted a series of ABX tests on myself, and found that good ABR codecs were mostly transparent to me at 128ABR - I would reliably get about 70% right on the ABX between source and CD when listening very closely. Bumping it to 160, I would need to "cheat" and find tough samples. At 196 I couldn't even do that. Welp. If anyone wants a good audio discussion, the Hydrogen Audio forums are pretty good. Audiophiles, as ridiculed here, are basically banned. It's a forum where people will recommend <$200 headphones without caveats like "the soundstage is too close." I remember there was once a comical thread on there where they did listening tests on various lossless codecs, and there was a general consensus that FLAC gave a warmer sound than MONKEYAUDIO and Apple Lossless was "clinical sounding." The participants refused to ABX trial their results because "a testing environment is not natural and has the effect of making all the samples sound the same" 
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2012 17:02
|
|
|
I'm fairly certain (never bothered to to ABX) that I can reliably differentiate 128 kbps MP3 and higher bitrate MP3/lossless, provided the music is familiar and the equipment is adequate. Most Bluetooth Audio equipment sounds like poo poo. I like having FLAC since I can transcode for mobile without feeling bad, but I could probably transcode all the music to V0 MP3s and not notice the quality difference. The only time lossy compression actually bothers me is SD-quality Youtube and Bluetooth gear.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2012 19:22
|
|
|
Yeah, I agree. I can ABX 128 reliably, and can ABX 160 with certain samples, but will quite often use apple lossless as my time is worth more to me than the cost of storage space; time I'd need to spend reripping CDs to avoid lossy to lossy transcodes if I changed some requirement. Note, however, that "can ABX" means sitting in a silent room with headphones on, playing the same few seconds of music over and over and trying to hear minute differences. It's worth crushing your own ego by actually setting up a double-blind trial and really seeing if you can tell the difference, as the placebo effect hits is all, audiophile or not. This is why they don't want to dbt/ABX their stuff - they prefer living in ignorance.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2012 19:51
|
|
|
back in the day I could tell the difference between 128 and 192 mp3's but usually only in snare and high hat. Now I don't listen to anything less than 320 or lossless so it doesn't really matter.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2012 22:09
|
|
|
Even Mike Nelson is an audiophile! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THbKEXBk8X0
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 01:18
|
|
|
A lot of us here that can hear the difference between 128 and 256 are probably geeky enough to know at least to some extent what the technical effect on the audio is and use it as a roadmap in those blind tests. The fun question you've gotta ask yourself is- if I didn't know, which one would I identify as sounding better? The answer could differ from record to record. I might hear a difference between a 96khz wave file and a 256kbps mp3 but I almost never feel its worth it to track down and playback a loving DVD-A or SACD anymore.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 01:46
|
|
|
If getting better equipment has taught me anything about music it's that a lot of stuff was recorded/mixed really badly.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 02:04
|
|
|
SoyPancho posted:A lot of us here that can hear the difference between 128 and 256 are probably geeky enough to know at least to some extent what the technical effect on the audio is and use it as a roadmap in those blind tests. The fun question you've gotta ask yourself is- if I didn't know, which one would I identify as sounding better? The answer could differ from record to record. I don't think anyone would prefer lovely hi hat sounds - which are the main problem that low bit rate MP3s usually have.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 08:28
|
|
|
qirex posted:If getting better equipment has taught me anything about music it's that a lot of stuff was recorded/mixed really badly. When I got my current headset I noticed immediately how poo poo my old amplifier was, so when I built the amplifier to drive it properly I started noticing how lovely a lot of TV sound-mixes are wrt. background noise. I'm convinced all TV sound engineers are like 70 and can't hear anything above 10 kHz, considering how often you hear the 16 kHz whine right when a characters ADR track is un-gated. This happens a lot on Star Trek TNG.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 08:58
|
|
|
It's not audiophile gear, but it sounds like the description was written by someone who's used to writing for BS audiophile stuff. http://performanceaudio.com/buy/K_Array/Ecodock/30303 "Meet the Ecodock Eco-Amplifier for iPhone 4 & 4S from K-Array, a wireless amp that relies on the natural laws of physics to boost the speaker output of your iPhone 4 or 4S by up to 10 decibels. This added sound makes it loud enough to enjoy your tunes with friends. You can also use it as a hands-free docking and voice calling station. For added convenience, you won't need any batteries or power source. The Ecodock lets you increase the volume without increasing power use, which also saves the battery life of your iPhone." Or, in sensible terms, it's a resonator. You can get the same effect by cupping your hand behind just about any smartphone. qirex posted:If getting better equipment has taught me anything about music it's that a lot of stuff was recorded/mixed really badly. Khablam posted:I used to convince myself I could hear the difference between 320kbs MP3 files and the CD - in fact I convinced myself the difference ruined the ability to listen to them. GWBBQ fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Aug 1, 2012 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 14:38
|
|
|
Jerry Cotton posted:I don't think anyone would prefer lovely hi hat sounds - which are the main problem that low bit rate MP3s usually have. Modern codecs are very good, and the designers are completely aware the highhats can lose detail and sound terrible, so bandwidth gets put to them to prevent it happening. A lot of bad highhats are just bad mastering, and if you ABX'd the source to the 128ABR you would struggle to tell them apart. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you really have to strain to do it. When you get down to DBT-listening tests, most people find AAC transparent at 128-160 and MP3 at 196kbs. Back in 2008 CODECS @128 became largely transparent, so much so that testers decide d testing at this bitrate was mostly pointless. http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/sebastian/mp3-128-1/results.htm Most CODECS are now evaluated at either 64 or 96kbs since it allows differences to actually appear. If you're convinced you can always tell the music you're listening to is compressed, you're probably on the path to audiphillia and an ABX test on yourself would be a good cure.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 15:22
|
|
|
Khablam posted:When people think of this, however, they're thinking of a 128CBR MP3 they downloaded on Napster in 1999. Well of course I am (apart from the Napster bit, I ripped them from CDs). You want to know what codec and bit rate I use these days? Well, so do I, I just left Itunes at whatever the default settings are. I'm not even sure they're MP3.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 19:32
|
|
|
Jerry Cotton posted:Well of course I am (apart from the Napster bit, I ripped them from CDs). You want to know what codec and bit rate I use these days? Well, so do I, I just left Itunes at whatever the default settings are. I'm not even sure they're MP3. Default AFAIK is 128CBR AAC. You want to stick it on 160 and tick the variable bitrate option. After that, if you're telling me you can always tell it's compressed music then you need to DBT/ABX yourself before you audiophile yourself.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 21:16
|
|
|
The AAC codec is pretty good at masking artifacts, because it injects noise in the appropriate areas, to prevent ringing a la MP3. At 128kbit, you'll have to deal with examples that break the codec to notice them casually on normal systems. Or you need headphones to make the artifacts out. That said, with the prevalence of compressed audio everywhere, it also remains to be seen if the effect isn't just a placebo (by knowing you're listening to compressed audio). I've had plenty examples in the past, where I thought the MP3 codec hosed up the sound, just to find out the original CD sounded the same. --very late edit: Masking, not making. Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Aug 2, 2012 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2012 22:08
|
|
|
Khablam posted:When people think of this, however, they're thinking of a 128CBR MP3 they downloaded on Napster in 1999. The reality is, that without the source for comparison you would be in a significant minority to be able to say "this is a compressed version" reliably. To be honest when I stated I could tell the difference, I havent really listened since the 90's to a low bitrate mp3. I was unaware that there had been any advancements in mp3 since that time.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2012 00:07
|
|
|
Jerry Cotton posted:Regarding recorded music, there are some records where one needs to turn up the <gasp> loudness knob just to hear all the instruments being played at sensible volumes. If you don't, you'll end up asking the band "hey when did you get a horn section?" after the first live gig you attend and the answer is: "We've always had them". These are almost always self-produced, of course. I have an LP of the short-lived Metropolis stage musical, and the vocals (both sung and spoken) are mixed really low, to the point that there were parts I just couldn't understand. (The lyric sheets had pages missing.) I have no idea how you manage to neglect something that important.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2012 17:51
|
|
|
There are worse examples, like an album being virtually unlistenable from beginning to end - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regarding_productionquote:The album has been criticized for having compromised sound quality, due to an overly compressed dynamic range, during a process called peak limiting leading to audible clipping and distortion.[69] Sean Michaels of The Guardian explains that "the sound issues are a result of the 'loudness war' – an ongoing industry effort to make recordings as loud as possible".[70] A Rolling Stone article states that Rubin was "overseeing mixes in Los Angeles while the band is in Europe, headlining shows" and only communicated with him by conference calls.[71] Fans have noted that these sonic problems are not present in the Guitar Hero version of the album, where the tracks are present separately because of the game mechanics and the tracks were sent to the game publishers before the process was made.[72][73] MusicRadar and Rolling Stone attribute a quote to the album's mastering engineer Ted Jensen in which he claims that "mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived" for mastering[74][75] and cite a petition from fans to remix or remaster the album.  Ironically, Metallica were a leader in the "war against music piracy" regularly spouting the "I can't believe a true fan would download a lossy-encoded copy instead of the real thing"
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2012 18:05
|
|
|
Good quality mixing is one of the reasons I listen to a lot of 70s prog rock, Supertramp records were all supremely dynamic, and sound really good when turned up loud (assuming you like Supertramp). In general concert DVDs are good too, good quality LPCM or DTS soundtracks.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2012 19:15
|
|
|
Its going to take a lot more than dynamic range to fix that Metallica album. They haven't been good since their only talent left to form Megadeth.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2012 18:28
|
|
|
qirex posted:If getting better equipment has taught me anything about music it's that a lot of stuff was recorded/mixed really badly. This, a thousand times this. It's why you'll find a lot of excruciatingly boring (but well recorded and mixed) music in an audiophile's music library. You also have to remember that most popular music is produced for the lowest common denominator in terms of sound quality. It's also interesting to hear the differences in what the lowest common denominator was at different times. I was listening to a bunch of pop songs from the sixties and they were naught but midrange. Vocals and strings heavily dominated the mixes, bass and drums were often so far back that they were barely audible, even when I had the volume cranked and the bass control turned up a good amount. I would imagine this was partially due to the tastes of the listening audience of the time and partially due to the playback equipment (small mono radios were common and only produce distortion with bass anyway). Then I switched to pop songs from the 90s and holy poo poo what a difference a few decades makes. Now the kick drum totally dominates everything and the bass isn't far behind. Most songs sound like there's a high shelf at about 8k with the levels cranked to hell and back. It's fun for a few minutes but guess what's better for extended listening, even with its positively wacky instrument balance? I'll grant that I'm old and have questionable taste at the best of times, but if music is a reflection of the culture we've become much more aggressive and wound up as a people. It's not like the 60s were idyllic either. Anyway, where was I going with this? PROTIP: if you want to reliably tell the difference between high and low bitrate stuff and/or lossless, listen to the background hiss and the tail end of reverbs. Both get muted when a lossy codec is introduced. It's not a 100% thing, and if anything it illustrates how little lossy encoding means to normal listening. longview posted:When I got my current headset I noticed immediately how poo poo my old amplifier was, so when I built the amplifier to drive it properly I started noticing how lovely a lot of TV sound-mixes are wrt. background noise. That has a lot more to do with mixing for a tiny, lovely TV speaker than the engineer's ears. They deliberately use a small, limited range speaker so the mix will still be clear on the worst case scenario (which is every TV speaker ever). As a result it sounds like unwashed rear end smells on any halfway decent setup. Panty Saluter fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Aug 11, 2012 |
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2012 14:42
|
|
|
Detroit Q. Spider posted:That has a lot more to do with mixing for a tiny, lovely TV speaker than the engineer's ears. They deliberately use a small, limited range speaker so the mix will still be clear on the worst case scenario (which is every TV speaker ever). As a result it sounds like unwashed rear end smells on any halfway decent setup. Plus the move to MP4 based digital broadcasts has seemingly reduced the overall audio bitrate compared to the old school analogue signals, particularly in the UK - most apparent during commercial breaks where the compression level is increased even further (usually 10dB average over the normal programme) to compensate for people leaving the room to make a cup of tea.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2012 20:16
|
|
|
Khablam posted:There are worse examples, like an album being virtually unlistenable from beginning to end - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regarding_production Looking at that picture- I wonder if the problem is more and more bands want their waveform to look like a giant dick.
|
|
#
?
Aug 21, 2012 00:18
|
|
|
Khablam posted:When people think of this, however, they're thinking of a 128CBR MP3 they downloaded on Napster in 1999. The one that I remember to this day is "xing" - it was really popular due to several easy to use programs using it, unfortunately it spat out mp3's that were often so badly distorted they were actually uncomfortable to listen to through headphones/earphones at all but the lowest of volume levels. Bitrate made no difference either. Things are a lot better now, though I will say that I can still hear the difference between a lame encoded 128kbps mp3 and -V 3 VBR pretty easily in most songs, not that the 128kbps mp3 is bad, but the difference is there and you don't need the best of audio gear to hear it (I personally have a lot more trouble trying hear the difference between -V 3 and the source, most of the time I cant).
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2012 06:29
|
|
|
Xing was infamous in being terrible. A lot of people heard Xing-made MP3 files then pretty much just abandoned the format. Xing was what everyone used to stick their crap onto Napster (back when LAME didn't have any pre-compiled downloads) so a lot of people learned that lossy compression is terrible because of it, and held back the idea that you would want to pay for digital media (iTunes) as a result. To get a modern equivalent to the quality you need to encode at about 32kbs and force 44.1khz. It was so bad because it didn't apply a proper psycho-acoustic model, it just simplified the waveform unilaterally. It was the encoding backend of the very popular and free MP3 Grabber and was stuck in the other ripping software back when automating it was a new thing. Modern LAME on V3 (175abr) is considered transparent for most uses, and V2 is considered transparent (exempting choice samples). Audio compression is stupidly cool, when you think about it - 90% compression and we can only hear the difference if we strain ourselves. In audiophile news, I just got told by a guy in a record store that you shouldn't listen to music in a thunderstorm, as the air is too electric and ruins the sound. TOO ELECTRIC.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2012 15:24
|
|
|
jonathan posted:Its going to take a lot more than dynamic range to fix that Metallica album. They haven't been good since their only talent left to form Megadeth. Lemme correct that for you, jonathan meant to say posted:Its going to take a lot more than dynamic range to fix that Metallica album. They haven't been good since their only talent was crushed under a tour bus.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2012 15:38
|
|
|
My brother told me about a double-blind study showing that people can't tell the difference between 192 and 320 kbps MP3s, and that if anything, people tended to prefer the lower bitrate. Anyone know what study he might be referring to (or even a similar one)? Because I bring it up all the time, but can't find it anywhere.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 18:27
|
|
|
Babylonian posted:My brother told me about a double-blind study showing that people can't tell the difference between 192 and 320 kbps MP3s, and that if anything, people tended to prefer the lower bitrate. Anyone know what study he might be referring to (or even a similar one)? Because I bring it up all the time, but can't find it anywhere. - people can tell the difference between source and low bitrate better than supposedly transparent samples vs low bitrate. - transparency is largely achieved at 192 on an mp3, and 160 on an "mp4" - when simply asked what samples they preferred, a lot of listeners preferred lower bitrates. The general theory on this is people are selecting what sounds closer to their existing listening experience, and precludes the users being mp3 users. - if a DB trial proves you wrong, you're only an audiophile if you can imagine reasons why you know better anyway. I can't think of the specific tests on these, as truth be told, there's a lot of them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 18:49
|
|
|
We actually have a rule against double blind test discussion in this thread. I will be reporting you. as a side note, the higher the bitrate and the larger the frequency range and dynamic range, the more possibility for ultra low and high tones to be retained. Some tones are linked to being fatiguing to listening. In particular, "inaudible" frequencies recorded during cymbal crashes. So, I guess it's possible that some samples in certain conditions may be "unpleasant" in their uncompressed full range states. Thats one quasi-scientific explanation. jonathan fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Sep 20, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 19:02
|
|
|
Yeah, I'd figure something like this. Your ear is getting hammered with less varying frequencies, since the psycho-acoustic model drops about everything it deems your ear or brain would not pick up anyway.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 21:53
|
|
|
Holy poo poo, that USB thread on head-fi is fantastic. I'm half convinced that the make up of that forum is 60% manufacturers/shops, 30% suckers, and 10% regular humans. And they kick out people in the 10% on a regular cycle, for daring to ask that something be proven. edit: wow, I dug this thread up, didn't I? Apologies.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2012 18:14
|
|
|
frankenbeans posted:edit: wow, I dug this thread up, didn't I? Apologies. Nonsense! Gives me an excuse to post these pictures that I also posted in the PYF Funny Pics thread.   The Audiokarma forums are a goldmine for this kind of stuff. I used to have a decent picture collection of "Over $5000 systems in Under $5000 homes" folder that I lost when migrating to Windows 7. Entire trailer/dive walls covered in high-end audio equipment, and letters from social services littering the place. I have not delved any deeper into the community, but I think it's the kind of place where "magic pebbles" proponents are openly mocked.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2012 03:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 19:07 |
|
|
The gently caress is the metal sphere and look at the legs propping the PS1 up. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2012 03:36
|
|
