Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
spookygonk
Apr 3, 2005
Does not give a damn

Ooh, 'ello.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
hi-fi just got a lot sexier

ssb
Feb 16, 2006

WOULD YOU ACCOMPANY ME ON A BRISK WALK? I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH YOU!!


just lol if you need visual instructions on how to sexually assault your speaker

GonadTheBallbarian
Jul 23, 2007


Audiophilia is a crime

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
Genelec generally makes excellent stuff but I have no idea if this promo is supposed to be a joke or what

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89PllPRg64A

HandlingByJebus
Jun 21, 2009

All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world, so there was only one thing I could do:
was ding a ding dang, my dang a long racecar.

It's a love affair. Mainly jebus, and my racecar.

Panty Saluter posted:

Genelec generally makes excellent stuff but I have no idea if this promo is supposed to be a joke or what

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89PllPRg64A

This is not a joke. :wtf:

Elentor
Dec 14, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ2A4HDUB8U

I like the incredibly creepy room.

Imagine going to someone's house and they have a room and a computer set up like that.

GonadTheBallbarian
Jul 23, 2007


Gotta say, I'm really excited to see the audiophile backlash against 3D sound

Elentor
Dec 14, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikiIidF5x2s

"No no no, that looks too natural! You need to keep your eyes wide open when you smile. Yes, yes, good. Cut!"

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Genelec is a Finnish company, so none of this seems particularly weird.

Just be glad they didn't start swearing profusely, chugging vodka, rolling around in the snow and stabbing each other :finland:

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

GonadTheBallbarian posted:

Gotta say, I'm really excited to see the audiophile backlash against 3D sound

What makes you say that?

GonadTheBallbarian
Jul 23, 2007


Panty Saluter posted:

What makes you say that?

Computer generated soundstage, tailored to every individual ear. No more insane bullshit about "imaging" carrying any water. Completely upends some audiophile bullshit

It owns owns owns, especially Sony's version that works on just about any headphones

GonadTheBallbarian fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Oct 7, 2019

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

All Finnish advertising is incredibly pathetic.

Nice pun though.

Zhumma
Aug 5, 2006
title text
I don't get it, what's so bad about the Genelec ad?

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

GonadTheBallbarian posted:

Computer generated soundstage, tailored to every individual ear. No more insane bullshit about "imaging" carrying any water. Completely upends some audiophile bullshit

It owns owns owns, especially Sony's version that works on just about any headphones

Eh, you're still gonna need good phase behavior from your speakers to take advantage of the DSP effects

qirex
Feb 15, 2001

Zhumma posted:

I don't get it, what's so bad about the Genelec ad?
genelec is widely regarded as one of the best monitor manufacturers in the world and those are no more pretentious than any luxury car commercial

don't you guys routinely row across a fjord with your speakers?

Zhumma
Aug 5, 2006
title text
Yeah I know Genelec pretty well, what with owning a pair and working in a hifi store selling them. I actually talked to their ceo last week at an event here in Finland and the ad came up. Basically the idea behind it was to celebrate their heritage and it was all filmed around Iisalmi where they're based. Anyway Genelec doesn't really belong in a thread about audiophoolery since they're anything but. Welp, that's my story.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
I prefer to take my monitors whitewater rafting. Rowing across a fjord is just so...frou-frou

Zhumma
Aug 5, 2006
title text
I routinely dump mine in the river to keep them nice an clean.

strtj
Feb 1, 2010
When I got to college many years ago I met a couple of guys who swore buy using Cat5 ethernet cable twisted all together at both ends as speaker cable. So sort of the poor man's Kimber Kable I guess. I think I might still have a pair somewhere that I made when I was hanging out with them. From what I can find online Cat5 is 24 gauge, but is that for each strand or the whole thing? And how would that math work, my brain is fuzzy after all these years, we're summing volumes of cylinders...

I also have two runs of Kimber 4PR that one of the guys gave me, and I use it to this day. I have no reason not to use it, it's held up just fine and if I wasn't using it'd be using 12 gauge oxygen free copper from Monoprice or wherever. Is there any science to the stranding at all or does it just look pretty?

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


No, it's pointless. Just use ordinary 12 AWG speaker cable. Done.

Malcolm XML
Aug 8, 2009

I always knew it would end like this.
Twisted pair and star quad are genuinely better for noise rejection but you could equally remove the iPhone charger from your cable

strtj
Feb 1, 2010

Malcolm XML posted:

Twisted pair and star quad are genuinely better for noise rejection but you could equally remove the iPhone charger from your cable

So the sort of noise that was being rejected was primarily noise from active close-contact sources? That makes total sense to me, I just want to confirm. And it would have made much more sense in a dormitory environment than it does in the real world.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
I think speaker level outputs run enough voltage to be self shielding in most cases

BobHoward
Feb 13, 2012

The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull

strtj posted:

From what I can find online Cat5 is 24 gauge, but is that for each strand or the whole thing?

Each twisted pair in cat5 is two 24awg solid copper wires, and there are 4 pairs.

quote:

Is there any science to the stranding at all or does it just look pretty?

Nth-ing that at audio frequencies there is no scientific or engineering reason to use Kimber (or cat5) over equivalent gauge lamp cord.

On the other hand, that particular Kimber cable looks unlikely to be actively detrimental to sound quality (not a given for all audiophile products), so I am not going to tell you to go buy a roll of generic wire from Home Depot to improve your system. You can keep using it while feeling smug that it wasn’t your money that was wasted.

Panty Saluter posted:

I think speaker level outputs run enough voltage to be self shielding in most cases

If by “self shielding” you mean the coupled noise is just too weak to move speaker cones around? There isn’t really a shielding effect, it’s just hard for noise many dB below the output of your power amplifier to do anything worth worrying about.

The analog signal input to the power amplifier is where you get into trouble with noise, since the PA is happy to amplify the noise along with the signal.

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.
Stupid noisy PAs. Always go with an SET.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KKhDG2GSvo&t=393s

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

BobHoward posted:

If by “self shielding” you mean the coupled noise is just too weak to move speaker cones around? There isn’t really a shielding effect, it’s just hard for noise many dB below the output of your power amplifier to do anything worth worrying about.

The analog signal input to the power amplifier is where you get into trouble with noise, since the PA is happy to amplify the noise along with the signal.

Maybe? I remember hearing someone talking about higher voltage providing a sort of shield, although this was in reference to power supplies for RF tuners so not really the same application. :v:


Class A all the way :colbert:

edit:

quote:

Martin Tousignant
1 year ago
How a tube distorts when overloaded goes a long way to explain its sound, just ask any guitarist. But below that level triode distortion closely mimics the human ear's, as Harry Olson established in the early 1950s.

:biotruths:

Panty Saluter fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Oct 15, 2019

Malcolm XML
Aug 8, 2009

I always knew it would end like this.

strtj posted:

So the sort of noise that was being rejected was primarily noise from active close-contact sources? That makes total sense to me, I just want to confirm. And it would have made much more sense in a dormitory environment than it does in the real world.

You can measure significant reductions in noise coupled into your cables if they are twisted pair and even less for star quad since it also rejects magnetic fields more effectively


But it basically doesn’t matter unless you have a noise source nearby (smps like chargers are common) or your signals are sensitive like microphones


If you have a ton of cat5 sitting around sure knock yourself out

GnarlyCharlie4u
Sep 23, 2007

I have an unhealthy obsession with motorcycles.

Proof

Malcolm XML posted:

You can measure significant reductions in noise coupled into your cables if they are twisted pair and even less for star quad since it also rejects magnetic fields more effectively


But it basically doesn’t matter unless you have a noise source nearby (smps like chargers are common) or your signals are sensitive like microphones


If you have a ton of cat5 sitting around sure knock yourself out

Cat5 and cat 5e don't make a great speaker cables.
The gauge is too thin to be used over long distances. Also they're fairly high capacitance and that could gently caress up your amp or at the very least, cause high frequency loss. (not likely to be noticeable unless you have supersonic hearing.)
If you try to remedy this by twisting all the white pairs together and the solid color pairs together, then you've got a problem because the number of twists per inch varies between each pair. This is done to reduce crosstalk between the pairs, but the result is that each pair will have a different impedance.

Besides, after all that work you would only wind up with an 18 gauge wire anyway, which means you still can't use it for a very long run. For optimum performance 10 feet would be the max on an 8ohm load, half that for a 4ohm speaker.

KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD
Jul 7, 2012

I bought terminated banana plug MediaBridge cables off Amazon. Great quality, clean setup, I don't think about speaker cables anymore.

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!
Are there any actual 100% copper cables anymore? Seems like every time I search all that shows up is CCA

e: seems mediabridge is. welp :v:

Panty Saluter fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Oct 15, 2019

taqueso
Mar 8, 2004


:911:
:wookie: :thermidor: :wookie:
:dehumanize:

:pirate::hf::tinfoil:

Panty Saluter posted:

Are there any actual 100% copper cables anymore? Seems like every time I search all that shows up is CCA

e: seems mediabridge is. welp :v:

You can just use normal copper wire, it doesn't need to be audio specific.

e: oh it's this thread

copper is out, graphene is in

strtj
Feb 1, 2010

Malcolm XML posted:

You can measure significant reductions in noise coupled into your cables if they are twisted pair and even less for star quad since it also rejects magnetic fields more effectively

But it basically doesn’t matter unless you have a noise source nearby (smps like chargers are common) or your signals are sensitive like microphones

If you have a ton of cat5 sitting around sure knock yourself out

I do actually have a ton of cat5e right now, a contractor bought a 500 foot reel for a project at work and ended up using less than half of it so I got the rest. I make myself regular ethernet runs for use at work/home when I need it but that's maybe 10 feet at a time max.

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

Cat5 and cat 5e don't make a great speaker cables.
The gauge is too thin to be used over long distances. Also they're fairly high capacitance and that could gently caress up your amp or at the very least, cause high frequency loss. (not likely to be noticeable unless you have supersonic hearing.)
If you try to remedy this by twisting all the white pairs together and the solid color pairs together, then you've got a problem because the number of twists per inch varies between each pair. This is done to reduce crosstalk between the pairs, but the result is that each pair will have a different impedance.

Besides, after all that work you would only wind up with an 18 gauge wire anyway, which means you still can't use it for a very long run. For optimum performance 10 feet would be the max on an 8ohm load, half that for a 4ohm speaker.

Okay, that's exactly what I wanted to know. I was thinking about using it for a pair of these ridiculous huge things that I inherited and don't intend to have anywhere near the amp: http://www.humanspeakers.com/e/epi201.htm but even with the 16 ohm setting I think I don't necessarily trust the cat5 so I won't be a tightwad and I'll just buy regular 12 gauge speaker cable.

strtj
Feb 1, 2010

Panty Saluter posted:

Are there any actual 100% copper cables anymore? Seems like every time I search all that shows up is CCA

e: seems mediabridge is. welp :v:

I was looking at buying this: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=2747. They also sell fancier stuff that is pre-terminated.

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Discogs posted a $200k turntable for turntabletuesday and someone commented "imagine paying $200k to hear plastic discs being scratched by a needle"

A wild reply:

quote:

imagine people buying cars for 200k+ and more just to drive on a few days a year from point a to point b when a car for 10k or less does the same..

Fair comment I suppose except that you can objectively measure the performance of cars and compare them whereas a fuckin' turntable sold by a company jerking you off telling you it's the best thing in the world ever and you'll not find anything better because it's got 80kg of weight hanging off the arse of it is a little bit different. $200k to scratch your loving vinyl up in a classier manner...

qirex
Feb 15, 2001


The funny thing about that turntable is if it broke while it was running it could genuinely gently caress up your room, 175 pounds spinning at 33 rpm is a lot of energy for your floor, walls and the rest of your six figure hifi system to absorb.

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are
Wait, it's even not the laser turntable that doesn't touch your vinyl? :frogout:

Panty Saluter
Jan 17, 2004

Making learning fun!

Dirt Road Junglist posted:

Wait, it's even not the laser turntable that doesn't touch your vinyl? :frogout:

Unfortunately those kind of suck, especially for the price

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/elp-lt-1lrc-laser-turntable/

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are

Panty Saluter posted:

Unfortunately those kind of suck, especially for the price

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/elp-lt-1lrc-laser-turntable/

Hah, that's a bummer. It'd be cool to be able to, say, clean and scan a platter and have that converted into a digital file (I mean, I used to run the tech side of my dad's LP/cassette tape digitizing business in high school, and not having to do everything in realtime would have been a huge resource saver), but I can see where tracking with a no-contact method would be difficult. Still, if someone threw $200k at the problem...

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Dirt Road Junglist posted:

Hah, that's a bummer. It'd be cool to be able to, say, clean and scan a platter and have that converted into a digital file (I mean, I used to run the tech side of my dad's LP/cassette tape digitizing business in high school, and not having to do everything in realtime would have been a huge resource saver), but I can see where tracking with a no-contact method would be difficult. Still, if someone threw $200k at the problem...

Scanning a record to make a clean audio file out of is already a thing that's been possible for many years. You only have to do it once is the thing, so you skip out on the issues you get with a laser player where you need to deep clean the record every time you want to play it.

For that matter, with either some nice magnification or simply a very high quality scanner, you can scan in a CD and decode all its data since the pits and lands that encode are plainly visible - often discs that have been damaged in some way but haven't completely been damaged through to the actual data layer can have all the data recovered by a careful high quality scan.

Both of these are somewhat awkward things to pull off and there isn't typically an easy ready-to-run program around, but various researchers and companies have the capabilities.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply