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Devian666 posted:The gently caress is the metal sphere and look at the legs propping the PS1 up.
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Nov 19, 2012 03:43
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Zereth posted:It's probably an unnecessarily fancy audiophile-y thing to hold down the switch telling the PS1 that the lid is closed. Probably the $500 version that depends on black body radiation to work. I was hoping it was for a stylus to go with analogue vinyl CDs.
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Nov 19, 2012 03:45
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Devian666 posted:Probably the $500 version that depends on black body radiation to work. I was hoping it was for a stylus to go with analogue vinyl CDs. What's the best kind of aftermarket stylus to go with my 1979 (first issue) Sony Walkman cassette player? I know that Duracell delivers the warmest sound, and I have low-thetan earphones, but I'm at a loss on the brand of stylus to use. Seriously though, what's the Audiophile community's opinion on laser turntables? I'm guessing that the digital reading of the groves loses a lot of the richness due to the pure analog waves being turned into soulless 1's and 0's Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0_uEQp2Vg8 My current turntable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDyMe-KtDbE&feature=fvwrel
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Nov 19, 2012 04:18
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Blistex posted:I'm guessing that the digital reading of the groves loses a lot of the richness due to the pure analog waves being turned into soulless 1's and 0's There was a reviewer who blasted it for its lack of "air" - digitization aside, the laser turntable eliminates surface noise due to the lack of physical interaction. He hypothesized that the lack of high frequency detail (probably the lack of surface noise) was due to the limitations of the optics' resolution. While that might have some bearing on the laser turntable, he further extended this hypothesis as a possible reason why CDs lack high frequency air and detail...because the laser simply could not pick up the fine details in the pits of the disc. 
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Nov 19, 2012 04:30
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We all know those laser beams that are no wider than their wavelength are wider than grooves on a record. I do have a stylus recommendation though from when one of my friends had a gramophone. When he was low on the styluses he'd just cut the end off of a nail and use that instead. The only thing I noticed is that the nails were better quality (I'm not joking).
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Nov 19, 2012 05:04
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Devian666 posted:We all know those laser beams that are no wider than their wavelength are wider than grooves on a record. I'm not saying that the laser turntable is without its drawbacks (I assume this means that a laser would have a helluva time picking up every undulation on a record), just that extending that logic to CD players is stupid.
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Nov 19, 2012 05:32
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In the future Audiophiles will be scanning their records into a hologram matrix and playing a virtual master-copy from a perfect 3D rendered model, scanned by virtual lasers. This will be awesome, as we can re-brand FreeWare RAM cleaners as "Audiophile-grade RAM preparation" with lots of  and make millions.In fact, this is almost worth trying today.
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Nov 19, 2012 11:19
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:There was a reviewer who blasted it for its lack of "air" - digitization aside, the laser turntable eliminates surface noise due to the lack of physical interaction. He hypothesized that the lack of high frequency detail (probably the lack of surface noise) was due to the limitations of the optics' resolution. While that might have some bearing on the laser turntable, he further extended this hypothesis as a possible reason why CDs lack high frequency air and detail...because the laser simply could not pick up the fine details in the pits of the disc. Do you have a link to that review? It sounds hilarious.
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Nov 19, 2012 11:45
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Oh god, I thought that all the threads I read about the low serial Playstations having an OUTSTANDING D/A chip only found in $8000 CD players was just a bad dream. It's all coming back!
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Nov 19, 2012 12:41
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To be honest, that would be a cool-looking CD player (without the tacky knob). I would be willing to pay 20-30 € for one (my PS doesn't have RCA out even though it's rear end-old  )
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Nov 19, 2012 12:45
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Ron Burgundy posted:Oh god, I thought that all the threads I read about the low serial Playstations having an OUTSTANDING D/A chip only found in $8000 CD players was just a bad dream. It's all coming back! It's even better than that. The Playstation is a mediocre CD player at best. You have to use the game controller or an addon DVD remote kit to control it, you have no track or time information unless you hook up a TV and frequency response rolls off on both low and high frequencies. But because some whack-job audiophile once proclaimed it to be the bestest CD player EVAH, people are going crazy for 1st-generation Playstations with the RCA outputs.
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Nov 19, 2012 13:17
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cheese-cube posted:Do you have a link to that review? It sounds hilarious. I'll have to look for it more tonight - and in fact it may be a real uphill battle since the review was in a Stereophile from 2000. It wasn't the review itself but a sidebar by Robert Harley, who has a reputation for embarrassing himself with his amateur electronics knowledge but still has caché in the audio community. You'll be relieved to know the laser turntable does not digitize the input...it's using continuously variable lasers and such.  http://www.audioturntable.com/customer/stereophile.pdf
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Nov 19, 2012 13:39
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KozmoNaut posted:But because some whack-job audiophile once proclaimed it to be the bestest CD player EVAH, people are going crazy for 1st-generation Playstations with the RCA outputs.
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Nov 19, 2012 15:13
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Khablam posted:I actually have 2 of these ferreted away at my parents place. What are they going for? I was going to get them recycled, but if I can make money off lunatics instead, I'll chose that option. I bet you could get at least $50, according to eBay. Probably more if it's modded: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Twilmods-PS...=item416dfe7804  SCPH-1001 and SCPH-1002 seem to be the magic models.
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Nov 19, 2012 15:27
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KozmoNaut posted:I bet you could get at least $50, according to eBay. Probably more if it's modded: Back in '99 when I worked a new/used video game store we would not take those early models under any circumstances because they were known chiefly for unreliability. On the other hand, there's not much need to mod them as you can disk swap(put in native game version, wait for logo, switch disk to foreign disk).
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Nov 19, 2012 21:36
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Interesting how these "audiophiles" always have pussy speakers and untreated walls. Lose the fancy cable separators and buy a crown amp or two. Pussy.
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Nov 19, 2012 22:41
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That's because it's cheaper and easier to spend $1000 on magic pebbles to maximise the chi of the soundstage.
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Nov 19, 2012 23:30
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jonathan posted:Interesting how these "audiophiles" always have pussy speakers and untreated walls. Lose the fancy cable separators and buy a crown amp or two. Pussy. I don't know about "pussy speakers" since there are some really awesome monitors out there but that's just a matter of personal taste. The untreated walls thing is huge - your average living space is an acoustical nightmare with all sorts of slap echoes, strong nodes and anti-nodes (I once measured my room with 1/3 octave warble tones from 20-200 Hz and can you say +/- 20dB?) that will smear out detail and tonal accuracy way more than your lovely power outlets ever could.
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Nov 20, 2012 01:14
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KozmoNaut posted:I bet you could get at least $50, according to eBay. Probably more if it's modded: I have 2 SCPH-1002's ... thanks 
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Nov 20, 2012 12:10
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:I don't know about "pussy speakers" since there are some really awesome monitors out there but that's just a matter of personal taste. The untreated walls thing is huge - your average living space is an acoustical nightmare with all sorts of slap echoes, strong nodes and anti-nodes (I once measured my room with 1/3 octave warble tones from 20-200 Hz and can you say +/- 20dB?) that will smear out detail and tonal accuracy way more than your lovely power outlets ever could. How come they always manage to ignore legit science and just run with 'magic' science like darkwaves and quantum bollocks and other such bullshit?
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Nov 20, 2012 14:29
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I just don't see the point in spending a bunch of time worrying about small things like a power cord and running your system from isolated car batteries when you've got tiny 5" woofers in tiny bookshelf cabinet speakers. Music sounds good played loud, that's how our ears brains and bodies work. A small inefficient bookshelf speaker is never going to move you like a big speaker in a large cabinet.
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Nov 20, 2012 16:14
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jonathan posted:I just don't see the point in spending a bunch of time worrying about small things like a power cord and running your system from isolated car batteries when you've got tiny 5" woofers in tiny bookshelf cabinet speakers. Music sounds good played loud, that's how our ears brains and bodies work. A small inefficient bookshelf speaker is never going to move you like a big speaker in a large cabinet. That's because your personal preference is loud music whereas some people might rather have a more accurate representation of the mid and upper ranges at the expense of very low bass. You can have both of course but that runs into money. Also a good two-way monitor is nothing like the $99 Sony bookshelves you find at Best Buy. If you've spent thousands on power cables instead of better speakers or acoustic treatments...well, those are the hosed priorities we've been making fun of for this whole thread.
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Nov 20, 2012 19:13
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88h88 posted:How come they always manage to ignore legit science and just run with 'magic' science like darkwaves and quantum bollocks and other such bullshit? Copy any of the 'real science' terms into a search engine and you'll invariably find a Wikipedia article which will dispel a lot of myths; myths that are used to make you go 'ooooh!' and buy it. Stick anything 'Quantum' into a search engine, and you'll find a lot of people whose qualification is 'Read the first 2 chapters of a Hawking book' creating nonsense science out of loosely worded theoretical Physics. There's a certain irony in the amount of pseudo-science that exists purely because it's based on people's interpretations of thought experiments and allegories written to help the layman understand the Physics at work; theories that are proven wrong by the very theorem they base themselves off of. Anyone who has ever written anything based on Schroedinger or Heisenberg are particularly egregious examples. No, your "what if" makes exactly zero sense, here's the actual math, go gently caress yourself. tl;dr - it's deliberate obfuscation from actual scientific terms that would prove their nonsense to be bullshit.
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Nov 21, 2012 02:48
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:That's because your personal preference is loud music whereas some people might rather have a more accurate representation of the mid and upper ranges at the expense of very low bass. You can have both of course but that runs into money. Also a good two-way monitor is nothing like the $99 Sony bookshelves you find at Best Buy. I'm well aware of this, I consider myself an Audiophile, I'm just not a gullible idiot. I've heard a lot of near field powered studio monitors as a friend of mine has a small studio and does session guitar work for a lot of small metal bands who can't play solos well. I've also heard a lot of bookshelf speakers from some good brands and I've just never felt that they sounded good on their own. I don't feel that you can get a good sample of what the artist intended if your speakers roll off at 55hz. My preference is somewhat loud but accurate playback, with a frequency response that mimmicks a studio. To me, Audiophile quality = Reference. You don't have to spend a lot to get great accurate sound, but you do have to spend your money in the right places. I feel a properly set up listening room, speakers and quality source material are most important, followed by a decent amp (way less important that most people make it out to be) and a decent player. I also don't think there should be a compromise between music styles. A good setup should play back a lovely Bad Brains bootleg just as well as it can play back a reference quality modern Jazz piece, just as well as it can play back Battleship Blu-Ray directors super bro cut. I'm not sure what exactly my point is, other than it seems some of these really expensive looking setups could get stomped on by some used craigslist deals, some acoustic treatments and a laptop with a microphone to analyse the room acoustics.
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Nov 21, 2012 04:21
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Khablam posted:Anyone who has ever written anything based on Schroedinger or Heisenberg are particularly egregious examples. I misread this as Schroeder and was about to reply with "Hey his papers are discussed all the time and generally well understood in the audio community!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_R._Schroeder
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Nov 21, 2012 04:43
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Has anyone ever met an "audiophile" (guy who overspends on poo poo that doesn't help) who actually listens to music other than "THX/Dolby/Quadraphonic Test Record #32" or who doesn't have the most bland/mundane and limited tastes imaginable? "Oh, you only listen to a first pressing Sgt. Pepper record and you Best of the Beach Boys 8 Track? Good thing you have a $10,000 triple redundant battery backup and a $900 weight for your LP's."  Seriously, anytime I see someone with a $5000+ turntable (always on Audiokarma, never in real life), his shelves are wall to wall Acoustic test albums and calibration records, with a few inches dedicated to Top 40 pop hits of the 60's. The only good audiophile I know in real life believes in Chemtrails, NEW WORLD ORDER, and alien manipulation of humans, but his turntable is sub $1000, his stereo is a stock, high end Pioneer from the 80s, he has set up a room in his house to be not only stylish, comfortable, and usable, but acoustically sound as well. His music collection spans several genres, 80 years, and are well organized and set up in a manner that prevents damage from sun and moisture. The vast majority of his LP collection has only been played twice. The first time was when he transfered them over to reel, and the second time when he transfered them over to digital. Despite the conspiracy stuff, he's the only Audiophile that doesn't make me want to roll my eyes outside my skull every time he talks about his setup.
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Nov 21, 2012 15:23
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This is usually very true. Although I have personally spent over $1000AUD on a turntable and don't consider myself an audiophile. (It was a very clean example of a rarish turntable in the most desirable trim)
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Nov 21, 2012 19:49
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88h88 posted:How come they always manage to ignore legit science and just run with 'magic' science like darkwaves and quantum bollocks and other such bullshit? People who understand how digital audio works wouldn't question why copper, gold and iron make equally good leads. I also like to think that the people who want to believe in pseudo-science are the same people who believe in creationism. The easy way out.
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Nov 21, 2012 20:29
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Blistex posted:Has anyone ever met an "audiophile" (guy who overspends on poo poo that doesn't help) who actually listens to music other than "THX/Dolby/Quadraphonic Test Record #32" [......] calibration records, with a few inches dedicated to Top 40 pop hits of the 60's. Hmmm, yeah, you're touching on something that gets expressed in quite a few different ways I think. I don't know how it goes down in the rest of the world, but in the UK it is extremely common for social groups, during your teenage years, to sit on a fabric of common musical tastes. It goes way beyond stereotypes of "goths", "metalheads", "club goers (trance)" and so on, too. Pretty straightforward, right? Well yes, but there's also a group who, for whatever reason, will reject any such affiliations, and will often put up a defensive line which almost seeks to rout any attempt to define them by musical taste. They're the people who, when asked for a favourite song or artist, will say something like "The Ghostbusters themesong" -- you know the type I'm sure. They're often vocal about disliking any and all music, too. They only like a particular music ironically - more accurately, I assume they'll only be seen to like a particular song ironically. There's probably a decent cross-over of people who have been bullied, and seek to essentially hide possible ammunition from would-be mockery, even if the chance of that only now exists in their head. Well, these people grow up, and invariably people tend to listen to music. What then, do you listen to? My theory, is they gravitate towards very safe choices; albums and artists that have remained critically acclaimed for a generation (basically, what they know from childhood). It's your Dark side of the Moon (notice, the more controversial Floyd albums (the ones with less consensus on) are never there), Sgt. Peppers/The White Album, Exodus ... you know the common culprits, I'm sure. They'll often name-drop the albums in the Audiophile forums, as they know the only comments they'll ever hear are positive, and anyone who says something negative about them is rebuked, as "everyone knows its one of the best albums ever made, I cannot be wrong." They're basically enormous cowards at expressing themselves. It seems almost logical, to me, that they'd go on to express how they listen to those acceptable albums, rather than introduce 'non-sanctioned' elements (music choices) instead. It's a socially awkward form of self expression; rather than express themselves through the music they chose to listen to, they express how much they love the music they do listen to by the way they listen to it. You're right, Blistex, head over to any audiophile forum and there's little to no discussion about music; how can they claim to love listening to music, and yet they don't enthuse over the latest artist/album that their $10k setup doesn't make them want to weep over? It makes little sense. Another way of looking at it, is they're the diametric opposite to hipsters, who will be 100% about what they're listening to, and will actively seek out ways to do it wrong (the latest artist no one has heard of, played on a single-speaker mono soundsystem). Reading the above back, it comes out as a little jumbled, but hopefully you see the gist of what I'm trying to say. I'm sure there are Audiophiles out there who love all types of music (I know there are, in fact) - but there are a good many, if you look, who have chosen the how instead of the what as a means of expression.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:40
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/\ You summed up pretty much every "audiophile" (notice the quotations) I've ever had the (mis)fortune to talk to, and also given me some very plausible (probably dead on) explanations for their behaviour. I also like Dark Side of the Moon, but usually skip over the clanging clocks or cash register clinking for 3 minutes. I like a lot of their later stuff, as I find their early stuff sounds a little too "Beatles-esq" and I've long since been burned out on that stuff since it gets played non-stop on any classic radio station I've heard. Despite not liking the Beatles because they get too much airtime, I cherry-pick favourites from Elton John, Bowie, Kansas, Boston, and Chicago, and any 70-90's music that strikes my fancy. My current setup is a Sansui 881 I found in the dump and re-capped, a Dual 510 turntable that I made out of two broken units, a pair of no-name 70's era speakers I got in the dump, and two Polk bookshelf speakers I got with airmiles. It's set up in a room with horrible acoustics, and I'm pretty happy with that and honestly don't see any reason to change or upgrade. Did I just lose my, "ridicule audiophiles ticket", or do I have to stick with only berating them for magic pebbles and $4000 cables?
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Nov 21, 2012 23:02
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Khablam posted:Another way of looking at it, is they're the diametric opposite to hipsters, who will be 100% about what they're listening to, and will actively seek out ways to do it wrong (the latest artist no one has heard of, played on a single-speaker mono soundsystem). Oh god I'm some sort of hipster. This is a terrifying discovery. I often play music through my DVD player using pro logic II to get 5.1. On the opposite side of lounge I have two ipads and a computer connected to a 1980s video mixer which outputs to a 200W guitar amp. That even excludes the times I spent at large outdoor dance parties where we'd be listening to a gramophone where we were camping.
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Nov 22, 2012 01:40
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That was a well written summary. I think that exact person could be identified in a lot of different hobbies.
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Nov 22, 2012 01:47
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jonathan posted:That was a well written summary. I think that exact person could be identified in a lot of different hobbies. It makes me think of stamp collectors in both the literal and figurative meanings. Collect (or hoard) things and never use them.
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Nov 22, 2012 01:59
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I'm looking through a pictures thread on head-fi because I'm bored and my god you wouldn't believe the weird poo poo that pops up. There's lots of posts of people's normal setups with mid to high budget headphones and decent amps/DACs going to their computer and a few of headphones just plugged in to like iPods and stuff. And then you get the weird posts of people boasting about their $1k power cables going in to some crazy audiophile vague-speak boxes, and this one guy who put these spikes on the bottom of his Mac Mini that's on top of a solid block of wood that's resting on foam feet sitting next to some massive tube amp, I have no idea what the gently caress he thinks this is doing but he says it helps the "sonic presentation". I honestly don't know how these people exist, it's not even going crazy in to speakers, it's going crazy in to something that in the end won't sound anywhere near better than the $500-1000 setups that would justify the price.
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Nov 22, 2012 05:39
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^^^^^^ My god man, don't tease us, post!Blistex posted:I also like Dark Side of the Moon, but usually skip over the clanging clocks or cash register clinking for 3 minutes. I like a lot of their later stuff, as I find their early stuff sounds a little too "Beatles-esq" and I've long since been burned out on that stuff since it gets played non-stop on any classic radio station I've heard. Dark Side will endlessly be held up as a "benchmark of music production", but there's nothing special about it in 2012 that warrants all the adoration it receives today, not when progressive artists have since far surpassed the audio quality of the work, let along Floyd themselves doing so. As a related piece of irony, Alan Parsons (producer of DSoTM) has previously claimed that Audiophiles waste money chasing diminishing returns on equipment (and don't know what they're doing WRT room acoustics), that Vinyl sound-quality falls behind a well mastered CD, and that high-street-bought sound systems are usually "good enough." On the plus side, people make decent money marketing music based on the quality rather than the content: http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7114434&style=music (theres loads of examples) - which must be nice. Khablam fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Nov 22, 2012 |
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Nov 22, 2012 12:26
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Khablam posted:Dark Side will endlessly be held up as a "benchmark of music production", but there's nothing special about it in 2012 that warrants all the adoration it receives today, not when progressive artists have since far surpassed the audio quality of the work, let along Floyd themselves doing so. Personally, I consider Boston's first album as much more important in the context of music production. Not necessarily as a benchmark today, although it still sounds pretty drat good. More as a significant milestone and an example of what you can achieve with the right equipment and a good understanding of multitrack recording and overdubbing (and Tom Sholz at the wheel). It's a shame it's been so severely overplayed on classic rock radio, though. quote:As a related piece of irony, Alan Parsons (producer of DSoTM) has previously claimed that Audiophiles waste money chasing diminishing returns on equipment (and don't know what they're doing WRT room acoustics), that Vinyl sound-quality falls behind a well mastered CD, and that high-street-bought sound systems are usually "good enough." Wasn't it Alan Parsons who said that audiophiles listen to their equipment, not the music? I've always liked the production on his albums, they're slick without being overproduced and it's easy to pick out every instrument in the mix. That's another thing stuff like Black Sabbath got right. The music is heavy, but the mix is perfectly balanced so you can actually hear the drat bass guitar. Most modern rock/metal records fail that test and it sucks. quote:On the plus side, people make decent money marketing music based on the quality rather than the content: http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7114434&style=music (theres loads of examples) - which must be nice. As a previously-aspiring musician, and roadie/sound technician for my dad's spare time rock band, I think it's perfectly OK to listen to a piece of music purely for the quality of the recording and production. I like picking out the bass lines and rhythms in music I might otherwise not listen to. I admire the ultra-slick production of modern pop music, but it's not something I'd be able to lose myself in. It ceases to be a piece of music as art and more of a technical exercise. I guess you could call me an audiophile because I tend to pick out certain little soundbites and passages in music and focus on them because they just hit me in a certain way, even if I find the rest of the song a bit meh. KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Nov 22, 2012 |
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Nov 22, 2012 12:40
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piratepilates posted:I honestly don't know how these people exist, it's not even going crazy in to speakers. I read that as not even going into speakers, and I realised that's the endgame here. Why compromise your perfect soundstage and signal reproduction by physically recreating it in the air, which as we all know is subject to inferior transmission qualities and signal interference? The true audiophile knows better than to taint the experience by attempting to listen to the music. In fact you can attain another level of depth and frequency enclosure by sealing your output connectors with depleted uranium caps, so it's a no-brainer baka kaba fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Nov 22, 2012 |
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Nov 22, 2012 12:47
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I have skimmed over the thread and seen cables for a couple of thousand bucks mentioned. Pshaw, I say. How does 25+k for 6" of 99.9999999999999999999% pure oxygen free copper wiring sound? http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Nordost%20ODIN%20Speaker%20Cable.htm
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Nov 22, 2012 20:00
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Homeopathic levels of purity.
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Nov 22, 2012 20:47
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Don't forget to burn your cables in!
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Nov 22, 2012 21:24
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