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A Lone Girl Flier
Sep 29, 2009

This post is dedicated to all those who fell by the forums, for nothing is wasted, and every apparent failure is but a challenge to others.
It also depends on your level of DIY ability and if you have One Who Must Be Obeyed.

Let's assume you're going to DIY, you live alone and you want to use absorbers. Find out what rigid rockwool products are in your area and approach the manufacturers requesting data on flow resistivity in Pa.s/m^2. Plug the numbers into this calculator - http://www.acousticmodelling.com/porous.php to determine the thickness of the panels/distance set out from the wall you'd need to absorb 1kHz (anything higher will be absorbed too). Then go and make a panel and install it. Need more absorption? Make more panels!

Have you measured the room yet? You're probably better off spending money on that to get a baseline, then start with the treatments.

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A Lone Girl Flier
Sep 29, 2009

This post is dedicated to all those who fell by the forums, for nothing is wasted, and every apparent failure is but a challenge to others.
Regarding the IMD in speaker wire, here's a pretty good example of IMD and how to reduce it. It's basically biamping taken to an extreme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO3XZnDkYfE

Hey hey, one two!

Edit: found what you're looking for - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodulation#Passive_intermodulation_.28PIM.29

A Lone Girl Flier fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Feb 11, 2016

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

Neurophonic posted:

Specific recommendations will be specific to your room so it's kind of hard to say without being in it.

You could try calculating axial room modes from the dimensions of the room and adding bass traps at those frequencies IF you feel the bass response is peaky or smeared across an extended period of time / reverberate.

Otherwise do absorber or diffuser panels on the roof above your listening position and off to the sides for first reflections as already mentioned. To do better than that if speakers are aimed properly you're going into measurement and real maths plus expensive kit which is often the very definition of diminishing returns - unless you're making fat stacks of cash in a studio for example.

As in specific product lines that are neither super-expensive or especially ugly. So unicorn land.

Waldo P Barnstormer posted:

It also depends on your level of DIY ability and if you have One Who Must Be Obeyed.

Let's assume you're going to DIY, you live alone and you want to use absorbers. Find out what rigid rockwool products are in your area and approach the manufacturers requesting data on flow resistivity in Pa.s/m^2. Plug the numbers into this calculator - http://www.acousticmodelling.com/porous.php to determine the thickness of the panels/distance set out from the wall you'd need to absorb 1kHz (anything higher will be absorbed too). Then go and make a panel and install it. Need more absorption? Make more panels!

Have you measured the room yet? You're probably better off spending money on that to get a baseline, then start with the treatments.

Haven't bothered measuring yet, but I have noticed that the mids will make you stick icepicks in your ears at high levels. It's as good a baseline as I need for now. :v: I do have an SPL meter.

These are good links, danke :tipshat:

Panty Saluter fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Feb 11, 2016

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Get a UMIK-1, download REW, and do some measurements.

You can probably tame that midrange with some EQ.

A Lone Girl Flier
Sep 29, 2009

This post is dedicated to all those who fell by the forums, for nothing is wasted, and every apparent failure is but a challenge to others.
Heck, even putting the speaker grilles back on, or a stocking or something over the tweeter should be enough to take the edge off.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

KozmoNaut posted:

Get a UMIK-1,


:stare: now THAT is cool, and dirt cheap too. I have a living room pc that is just collecting dust ATM.

Also, i already have the grilles on :unsmiggh: Aside from a live room, the speakers are hanging on the wall (cats) and my couch is against the facing wall. The golden ratio has no home here.

I could EQ it (and my receiver has pre out/main in) but then you have another analog domain step and decent EQs with a better than -50 noise floor are none too cheap. Worth considering though.

Unity Gain
Sep 15, 2007

dancing blue
Hmm... HiFiMAN is coming out with some new headphones... http://stereoexchange.com/latest-news/hifimans-new-shangri-la/

Might be nice to go hea...$9,999?!?!

nope.
nope nope.
nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Minidisc: The one true audiophile format.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkz5EHC-2pc

A Lone Girl Flier
Sep 29, 2009

This post is dedicated to all those who fell by the forums, for nothing is wasted, and every apparent failure is but a challenge to others.
Hehe it's like a troll because he doesn't realise atrac is lossy. Also, drat those musical casuals listening to their songs the wrong way.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


I do get his point about listening to whole albums instead of just shuffling through a gigantic collection randomly.

But that just takes a tiny bit of discipline, not an obsolete disc format with lovely lossy compression.

Minidisc would have been awesome if it didn't have DRM, supported PCM and MP3, and worked as a normal data disc. But it didn't, so it sucked and died.

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

It also takes albums which you want to listen to back to back.

Wandle Cax
Dec 15, 2006

KozmoNaut posted:


But that just takes a tiny bit of discipline, not an obsolete disc format with lovely lossy compression.

Minidisc would have been awesome if it didn't have DRM, supported PCM and MP3, and worked as a normal data disc. But it didn't, so it sucked and died.

For what it's worth all those things were added at various stages in the long history of the minidisc but of course eventually the ipod existed.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Wandle Cax posted:

For what it's worth all those things were added at various stages in the long history of the minidisc but of course eventually the ipod existed.

Minidisc never got MP3 support, the lovely Sonicstage software just converted it to Atrac, so you were actually converting a lossy codec to a significantly worse lossy codec.

There were actual internal SCSI-based data MD drives from the start, but they used incompatible discs, and you couldn't use them to sync your music or anything, you still had to record in real-time like cassette tapes. The data support that was eventually added to audio MDs when Hi-MD was introduced didn't allow you to touch the music at all, only a special data partition. You still needed the special software to handle the music.

It was a real clusterfuck, including the record company branch of Sony actually suing the technology branch at one point. If only the cool tech part of Sony had been a completely separate company free of record label executive meddling, MD could have been a winner, because the hardware and basic design were both amazingly good. Really well-built compact portable players with amazing battery life and great anti-skip right from the start, robust caddy-protected archival-grade magneto-optical discs that could take a beating and still work perfectly, it could have been the perfect cassette tape and floppy disc replacement. Hell, with ~90 minutes of full uncompressed CD-quality PCM on a Hi-MD, it could even have been the perfect replacement for the CD. And being rewriteable 1 million times according to Sony, it could have killed off CD-Rs and CD-RWs, too.

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Feb 14, 2016

Foxtrot_13
Oct 31, 2013
Ask me about my love of genocide denial!

KozmoNaut posted:

Minidisc never got MP3 support, the lovely Sonicstage software just converted it to Atrac, so you were actually converting a lossy codec to a significantly worse lossy codec.

There were actual internal SCSI-based data MD drives from the start, but they used incompatible discs, and you couldn't use them to sync your music or anything, you still had to record in real-time like cassette tapes. The data support that was eventually added to audio MDs when Hi-MD was introduced didn't allow you to touch the music at all, only a special data partition. You still needed the special software to handle the music.

It was a real clusterfuck, including the record company branch of Sony actually suing the technology branch at one point. If only the cool tech part of Sony had been a completely separate company free of record label executive meddling, MD could have been a winner, because the hardware and basic design were both amazingly good. Really well-built compact portable players with amazing battery life and great anti-skip right from the start, robust caddy-protected archival-grade magneto-optical discs that could take a beating and still work perfectly, it could have been the perfect cassette tape and floppy disc replacement. Hell, with ~90 minutes of full uncompressed CD-quality PCM on a Hi-MD, it could even have been the perfect replacement for the CD. And being rewriteable 1 million times according to Sony, it could have killed off CD-Rs and CD-RWs, too.

I hate to be spergy but the 2nd generation Hi-MD minidisc players did get native MP3 support so that you could load up your 1 gig minidiscs with MP3's but you had to use Sonicstage to move them onto the disc.

I was looking into getting a Hi-MD minidisc player as a music player as the portable mp3 cd players were not great but by the time they reached Britain and you bought a few discs the price wasn't much less than an iPod and the iPod was the better solution.

I do agree though that the minidisc could of been the device to kill the portable tape/cd market but Sony seemed to actively sabotage any chance it had. With a big install base it could of also fought a good fight against flash based mp3 players as well.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Foxtrot_13 posted:

I hate to be spergy but the 2nd generation Hi-MD minidisc players did get native MP3 support so that you could load up your 1 gig minidiscs with MP3's but you had to use Sonicstage to move them onto the disc.

Well, I learned something today. It was obviously too little, too late for the Minidisc to survive, though.

And gently caress Sonicstage forever.

Khablam
Mar 29, 2012
RIGHT OR WRONG, I CAN’T HELP BUT EXPRESS MYSELF LIKE A BRATTY CHILD. DON’T LISTEN TO ME.
Honestly, the file-formats et al didn't really affect the MD format at all. It just got killed dead the moment iPod was a thing.
At least here in the UK, they were very much the go-to must have audio thing for a bracket of years just before the iPod came out. Sure, people weren't buying music on the format, but people were ripping their CDs to them, and at 1x recording Atrac sounded better than MP3 of the day by far.
Soundstage was kinda crappy, but I remember going :filez: on a couple of Metallica albums on principle and sticking them on there, and dang if it was the first glimpse of how audio consumption would rapidly shift over the next few years.
If they'd have beaten Apple to the punch and distributed digital files to sync to the discs, instead of going :sony: and beating a physical format over people, they might just have made it.

e: I had one of these


The bottom was a dock, connected via USB to sync and charge. It was glorious to me.

Khablam fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Feb 14, 2016

EL BROMANCE
Jun 10, 2006

COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬



In fairness, Sonicstage was more likely to bake you a pizza that copy your music to the disc without crashing. I even completely reinstalled my machine just to see if it performed any better on a fresh system (answer: no), and finding versions of it online that differed to the official version that shipped with my player just in case they worked. I think I used a version that wasn't supposed to support my Net MD but crashed that little bit less.

For those who never used Sonicstage but complain about iTunes... you don't know what it was like man. You weren't there.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

KozmoNaut posted:

I do get his point about listening to whole albums instead of just shuffling through a gigantic collection randomly.

But that just takes a tiny bit of discipline, not an obsolete disc format with lovely lossy compression.

Minidisc would have been awesome if it didn't have DRM, supported PCM and MP3, and worked as a normal data disc. But it didn't, so it sucked and died.

The only thing that sucks about trying to listen to whole albums in 2016 is A LOT of players don't properly support gapless playback. That tiny hitch is way more off-putting than it has any right to be. If there's one definitive step back that has to be it. :smith:

Foxtrot_13
Oct 31, 2013
Ask me about my love of genocide denial!

EL BROMANCE posted:

In fairness, Sonicstage was more likely to bake you a pizza that copy your music to the disc without crashing. I even completely reinstalled my machine just to see if it performed any better on a fresh system (answer: no), and finding versions of it online that differed to the official version that shipped with my player just in case they worked. I think I used a version that wasn't supposed to support my Net MD but crashed that little bit less.

For those who never used Sonicstage but complain about iTunes... you don't know what it was like man. You weren't there.

God yes.

I can remember when iTunes first came out on windows and how much easier it was to use than anything else that was out there. Then i got an iPod (the last of the monochrome hd based ones) and it was just plug and play. Stuff just working is commonplace now but mind blowing at the time.


KozmoNaut posted:

Well, I learned something today. It was obviously too little, too late for the Minidisc to survive, though.

It was the right idea but far too late. By the time the Hi-MD players came out with most of the Sony idiocy removed you could either get a iPod or a Hi-MD minidisc player for the price or for half thate a 512mb flash based player. The windows iPod was the death warrant of the minidisc

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002
There was a brief window where minidiscs were really useful for going from DAT>Audio CD and adding tracks along the way. I'm thinking this was the late 90s

Khablam
Mar 29, 2012
RIGHT OR WRONG, I CAN’T HELP BUT EXPRESS MYSELF LIKE A BRATTY CHILD. DON’T LISTEN TO ME.

Panty Saluter posted:

The only thing that sucks about trying to listen to whole albums in 2016 is A LOT of players don't properly support gapless playback. That tiny hitch is way more off-putting than it has any right to be. If there's one definitive step back that has to be it. :smith:

I honestly can't think of a player that doesn't, actually? Even iTunes has had it for just under 10 years at this point and they were a holdout.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
Plex, most phone players I've used. Foobar does of course and I really wish they would make an Android player. I recall hearing about it but it seems to be dead in the water.

Khablam
Mar 29, 2012
RIGHT OR WRONG, I CAN’T HELP BUT EXPRESS MYSELF LIKE A BRATTY CHILD. DON’T LISTEN TO ME.
I can only assume if you look, there are many options for you. Stock music.app has on iOS since it's inception, so I can't imagine various Android players don't also.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
I haven't looked much because :effort: but neither Samsung nor Amazon's players do it. Also it's less of an issue on the phone because I'm usually shuffling.

Plex not doing it right is an annoyance for sure though.

GutBomb
Jun 15, 2005

Dude?
Google play music is gapless out of the box even with all of my stuff streaming from the Google music library.

Unity Gain
Sep 15, 2007

dancing blue
Audirvana+, JRMC, Swinsian and Vox all have gapless playback support. You scrubs with your consooomer players and low bitrate streaming services :smug:

I kid, I kid.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

GutBomb posted:

Google play music is gapless out of the box even with all of my stuff streaming from the Google music library.

Oh word? I keep on looking at it and not using it. Welp.

E: Passed the Young Lust/F.I.N.E. test with flying colors :hawaaaafap:

Panty Saluter fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Feb 15, 2016

Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

Khablam posted:

I honestly can't think of a player that doesn't, actually? Even iTunes has had it for just under 10 years at this point and they were a holdout.
Windows Media Player has this funny bug related to crossfading because it pre-renders the crossfade and tacks it onto the end of the song. So if you have songs A, B and C in a playlist, then put song C in front of B while A is getting close to the end, when A ends it will crossfade into song B before abruptly switching to C.

Wasabi the J
Jan 23, 2008

MOM WAS RIGHT

Panty Saluter posted:

Oh word? I keep on looking at it and not using it. Welp.

E: Passed the Young Lust/F.I.N.E. test with flying colors :hawaaaafap:

And no ads on that or YouTube when you subscribe!

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Sheesh, now the fancy-pants phono preamp dudes are claiming that the fancy-pants ridiculously over-componented preamp in question is much better than preamps that adhere to the RIAA spec 100%.

I wonder what they think a specification even means :rolleyes:

Unity Gain
Sep 15, 2007

dancing blue

KozmoNaut posted:

Sheesh, now the fancy-pants phono preamp dudes are claiming that the fancy-pants ridiculously over-componented preamp in question is much better than preamps that adhere to the RIAA spec 100%.

I wonder what they think a specification even means :rolleyes:

First they came for my monoblocks, but I did no speak out
because I used a crappy class D integrated.

Then they came for my cables, but I did not speak out
because I hadn't unplugged my Hosa interconnects in twenty years.

Then they came for my ladder DAC, but I did not speak out
because I used an ancient Wolfson chip.

Then they came for my RIAA curves, but there was nothing left to play.

Alan_Shore
Dec 2, 2004

This is such a weird coincidence, I came in here specifically to post about minidiscs and you just started talking about them!

For some reason the last few days I've become obsessed with owning a minidisc player again (I think it's because I want to live in an 80s future). I don't know, the idea of rocking out to a minidisc is just cool. I used to own one years ago and loved recording albums and then slowly and methodically inputting the titles of tracks in. Spin-click. Spin-click. TWO HOURS LATER

Anyway I've been doing research for the lols and it's funny even back in the day people were getting all superior about how great minidiscs sounded over CD-Rs and MP3s. One person even talked about burning your music onto a CD, then taking that to a stereo with an optical out and THEN recording it onto your minidisc. For maximum quality. Also maximum ballache.

Anyway I've bought a Sharp minidisc player and even a car minidisc stereo. Why. Why have I done this.

Anyway any and all cool minidisc facts are welcome. I totally think they should have taken off more, but like it's been said it was wrong time wrong place really. Like zip discs.

Alan_Shore fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Feb 17, 2016

AlternateAccount
Apr 25, 2005
FYGM
Yeah, I still have an old Sony Minidisc deck, the very last one the local Best Buy sold. $200, and man, why the poo poo couldn't they have put in a keyboard to put in names and titles? The little knob system is so utterly terrible.

Dubstep Jesus
Jun 27, 2012

by exmarx

Khablam posted:

I honestly can't think of a player that doesn't, actually? Even iTunes has had it for just under 10 years at this point and they were a holdout.

Android was pretty late to the game in supporting it natively. I remember having to use a third party app with it's own sound library for gapless playback on Android until the feature was finally introduced in like...4.1 I think? Even then the default music player lagged in actually supporting it, because of course it did.

evobatman
Jul 30, 2006

it means nothing, but says everything!
Pillbug

Alan_Shore posted:

Anyway I've bought a Sharp minidisc player and even a car minidisc stereo. Why. Why have I done this.

Because you want to be the Last Action Hero.

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.
$720 battery pack for Nagra's $10,000 8-channel audio recorder fails, and is opened up to reveal about $40 worth of Sanyo battery, $5 worth of charging circuitry, and apparently $675 worth of foam.

http://www.geek.com/chips/720-nagra-vi-battery-pack-opened-to-reveal-32-worth-of-batteries-1647843/

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


And everyone was very surprised, indeed.

Cue audiophools flocking to justify the pricing, because it's "specially hand-selected and hand-crafted" or whatever.

Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

Hand-selected and hand-crafted foam?

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


From only the finest artisinal foam caves of Switzerland.

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Unity Gain
Sep 15, 2007

dancing blue
The only legit explanations I saw were that (a) they expected to sell so few that they had to recoup the investment somehow; and (b) because they could --selling mostly to production companies, film studios, TV stations, etc. who would pay whatever.

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