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Bust Rodd posted:
That looks like it has an 8" driver. Anything that size won't give you great bass no matter how much you spend. Polk PSW505 is pretty much the absolute floor as far as anything decent goes (and it is decent, to be sure), but you have to wait for them to go on-sale for <$200 to be really worth it. https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B000092TT0?context=search SVS are the gold standard and they have tube subs to help with the floorspace issue, but  https://www.svsound.com/products/pc-2000-pro In general, you don't want to buy packaged speakers and subs, no.
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Jul 19, 2020 20:07
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I agree that 8” woofers are a bit of a waste but SVS, REL, RSL, and Hsu make 10” woofers that are more than enough for an apartment living room.
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Jul 19, 2020 20:40
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I'm looking for something up to $200 that I can use around my computer in my home galley office. The space is a meager 6x8 area, and I'm not particularly interested in the doof doof doof. I am however interested in not getting more wires crawling all over my desk. It's already saturated between my work laptop connections, keyboard, mouse, two monitors, and my home PC. My cats find any particularly stray cable scrumptious. Wires are not completely out of the equation but I preferably can route them along with everything else I'm combining together. I am using an adjustable desk with a shelf overhead. I was thinking of something I can mount left and right under these shelves, but the one wire running up will get gobbled up. An under-monitor thing could work with wires since I can run it with the monitor cables. Mounting under the desk might be a thing, I guess, but I'm assuming I lose a lot of the higher end. I can't mount behind me. I've lived this way for years using headphones--ultimately switching to a good Sony Bluetooth set. However, I've been coming in for breaks during the summer and messing with the headphones has been making my ears break out like I am a teenager again. It's gross.
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Jul 19, 2020 21:17
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wormil posted:Most of those review sites these days are just trying to get you to click their Amazon links so they can get paychecks, the reviews themselves are shallow. Unfortunately Amazon encourages that behavior because of all the rules they have for affiliates. This is the wirecutter’s revenue model, but I think they actually do a reasonable job of testing and recommending things. The sites that really annoy me are ones where it’s just like... they read the spec sheet and come up with some possible pros and cons and have never so much as touched the product. It’s not perfect or anything but the Bluetooth Speaker review Binary Badger is referencing is a lot more comprehensive that a lot of the list of affiliate link reviews sites: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-bluetooth-speaker/
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Jul 20, 2020 00:07
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The problem with the wirecutter is they tend to look for features first and eliminate a lot of stuff just so they can narrow it down to a reasonable number to actually test.
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Jul 20, 2020 00:25
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A good tip to make cables less enticing to cats is wipe them with some citrus juice with cayenne or hot sauce and some water. If they aren’t repelled by the citrus the hot pepper will teach them a lesson. It also works well with plants.
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Jul 20, 2020 01:07
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Josh Lyman posted:I agree that 8” woofers are a bit of a waste but SVS, REL, RSL, and Hsu make 10” woofers that are more than enough for an apartment living room. The SVS 10" box takes up more floor space than the 12" tube, I think. KillHour fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 04:07
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Djarum posted:A good tip to make cables less enticing to cats is wipe them with some citrus juice with cayenne or hot sauce and some water. If they aren’t repelled by the citrus the hot pepper will teach them a lesson. It also works well with plants. I was going to ramble about having done this already to no effect, but I realized that was a long time ago with a completely prior generation of cats. So who knows.
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Jul 20, 2020 06:53
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:I was going to ramble about having done this already to no effect, but I realized that was a long time ago with a completely prior generation of cats. So who knows. I am lucky that my cats don't have any interest in wires or electronics lest I would be hosed but I recently got some plants to try making the being stuck inside for the last 6 months more tolerable. The first two nights I woke up to plants and soil on the ground. I sprayed them with the mixture and for some added measure put a little zest in the pot. They haven't gone near them since.
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Jul 20, 2020 07:03
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more of a software question, but can I downmix 5.1 to 2.1? A couple of games on steam seem to output as surround sound and it gets really quiet on a stereo setup
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Jul 20, 2020 21:19
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Honest Thief posted:more of a software question, but can I downmix 5.1 to 2.1? A couple of games on steam seem to output as surround sound and it gets really quiet on a stereo setup Check the game/steam settings? Almost always yes. But it’s not called 2.1, it’s called stereo, because we don’t tend to mix out signals for two speakers + a sub unless we know exactly which speakers/sub are being mixed for (or at least their dimensions and specs)
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Jul 20, 2020 21:38
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Ok Comboomer posted:Check the game/steam settings? Almost always yes. But it’s not called 2.1, it’s called stereo, because we don’t tend to mix out signals for two speakers + a sub unless we know exactly which speakers/sub are being mixed for (or at least their dimensions and specs) nope, only volume settings 
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Jul 20, 2020 21:53
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Change it in your Windows settings? If your motherboard has outputs for 5.1 but they aren't being used, your game might see that and try to automatically select for you.
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Jul 20, 2020 22:41
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There's nothing wrong with a good ported 8" sub, they're great for a computer setup or a small/apartment living room. Av123 used to make a nice ported 8" called the X-sub which was great. I'm sure the ones made by Klipsch/PSB/Polk/etc are decent they're just not cheap. When most people think of small subs they think of the $20 2 pound piece of poo poo that came with their Creative Labs 2.1 system they don't think of $300 home theater 8".
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Jul 22, 2020 16:11
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Diminishing returns start at 10" and hit hard at 8". You can make an okay 8" sub, but they'll need to have a ton of excursion (expensive), use a lot of power to get below ~40hz and they aren't going to sound good doing it. You also really need to corner load them. I just don't think it's worth it at that point to save a tiny amount of floor space. Get a 12" tube and don't look back.
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Jul 22, 2020 16:27
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Not related to subs at all, but I just got the Dell AX510 soundbar that fits on my U2713HM monitor (and a bunch of other Dell monitors/all-in-one PCs). The monitor has a 12V output and 3.5mm jack specifically for that purpose. I mostly just needed some speakers for Youtube videos and such for when I don't want to put on headphones, and they should be as compact as possible. For $25 I wasn't expecting anything crazy, but I was genuinely impressed. There's a nice heft to it and it seems well built, it clips solidly to the monitor and the knob feel is outstanding. I'm not a fan of the bright power LED right in the middle, but a thin strip of tape took care of that. Sound quality-wise the quoted frequency response is 135-20.000Hz and the "woofers" are 1,25" drivers, so there's not much bass to be had. It's still leagues ahead of any laptop speakers or PC monitor built-in speakers I've heard, there's great voice clarity and they go surprisingly loud without breaking up, certainly more than loud enough when I'm sitting at the desk. Even with the volume at 100% there doesn't seem to be any noticeable noise. For $25 I am very pleased. If you're in the US, Amazon have a few in stock for ~$12 right now. KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 20:10
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Didn’t they go out of business cause the founder somehow ran fundraisers for kids with cancer and then just kept the money? I have a pair of bookshelves from them I really liked and then they disappeared.
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Jul 24, 2020 23:09
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powderific posted:Didn’t they go out of business cause the founder somehow ran fundraisers for kids with cancer and then just kept the money? I have a pair of bookshelves from them I really liked and then they disappeared. He was doing all sorts of sketchy stuff, his main thing was taking preorders for speakers months and months in advance of when he could ship them. The fake charity thing was only found out after people started really putting pressure on him IIRC.
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Jul 25, 2020 01:54
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powderific posted:Didn’t they go out of business cause the founder somehow ran fundraisers for kids with cancer and then just kept the money? I have a pair of bookshelves from them I really liked and then they disappeared. YEP. Mark Schifter. He ran a ton of fundraisers for all kinds of poo poo and none of them (or nearly none of them) ever saw a dime, it all went into maintaining the company and his lifestyle. IIRC one of the few charities that actually ended up getting the money (like the very first one or two he did) it turned out he deducted and kept the full retail price of the speakers he raffled off. One of them was for a dude that posted on the forums whose daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and he never got any of the money but also I don't think he ever really spoke up about it until the whole shitshow was already crumbling down, thinking he'd get the money sooner or later. I asked him "Why'd you even let him do the raffle you're upper middle class what's the worst situation you coulda been in you're out 5 grand for a yearly out of pocket insurance max isn't it kind of gross to be an upper middle class charity case?" and he was like "I never asked him to do the raffle." The total amount of charity fraud ended up being way into 6 figures IIRC. The amount the he stiffed suppliers and advertisers and component manufacturers was probably into the 7 figures. Made some pretty good equipment for a while though. I used one of their small 5.1 systems as my PC setup for a while. They also had a poo poo ton of QC problems late in life though. Tons of subwoofer amps making GBS threads the bed within weeks or months of delivery. Tons of B stock because the south american place they switched to couldn't figure out how to apply veneers right, after nobody in China would deal with him because he wouldn't pay his bills. Stuff that people had preordered and prepaid thousands of dollars for just never materializing for years. A poster on Audioholics named Chu Gai was a big part of taking him down IIRC. bird with big dick fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Jul 25, 2020 |
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Jul 25, 2020 03:11
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A search of chu gai and audioholics has this at the top of the results. This is nowhere near the start of the saga but probably encompasses the end. I'm sure there are posts from me in the thread but it was so long ago I don't really remember all that the thread contains. https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/updated-mark-l-schifter-pleads-guilty-to-suspicion-of-charity-fraud.63537/
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Jul 25, 2020 03:17
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I see I'm not the only one returning Logitech crap. Been posting around asking for a decent modest set of PC speakers. To crosspost from another thread: Anything around the $50-$150 AUD range. I've got very little experience outside plug-and-play as audio equipment goes. Would prefer something with an external amp, though.
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Jul 28, 2020 10:27
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I see I'm not the only one returning Logitech crap. At that price range maybe shop used? You could probably get a Chinese T-Amp and some used small bookshelf speakers for that much. I don't know much about Australian pricing.
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Jul 28, 2020 18:13
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Going to go ahead and say that budget is completely unrealistic even used for anything but some kind of low-end consolidated system, without an external amp. You could probably get some powered monitors for that price though, if you're willing to go towards the upper bound. Electronics are fairly pricey in AUS and the dollar there isn't especially strong (in USD that budget is like... $35-110 or something like that even before inflated AUS pricing). Taima fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jul 28, 2020 |
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Jul 28, 2020 20:04
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For that kind of price I would just get these and call it a day. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Edifier...&frcectupt=true
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Jul 28, 2020 23:29
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Given my desk setup those seem a little overkill. Looks like Edifier might be getting into the market niche, given these are for pre-order? https://www.pccasegear.com/products/33390/edifier-m1360-2-1-speaker-system-black
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Jul 29, 2020 10:19
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What makes you think those are overkill? The 4 inch woofers? Spending $45 for a sub and two satellites is how you get more Logitech crap.
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Jul 29, 2020 12:27
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Filthy Monkey posted:For that kind of price I would just get these and call it a day. Yeah, I've got the Bluetooth 1700's for about the same price on sale. Solid stuff.
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Jul 29, 2020 15:05
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Buy cheap, buy twice. Why skimp on something you're likely going to use a lot? Good quality gear lasts forever.
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Jul 31, 2020 04:53
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bird with big dick posted:What makes you think those are overkill? The 4 inch woofers? Hahahaha even better- the subwoofer is the 4” driver. Hahahaha get that poo poo out of here OP, you’re better than this
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Jul 31, 2020 06:33
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If you must have 2.1, get a set of Soundsticks III (not the Bluetooth- you’re better off with a $20 Amazon Bluetooth dongle if you want Bluetooth) for like $99 (refurb, I think. Currently a bit pricier new probably due to covid).
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Jul 31, 2020 06:48
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Just presume here I know literally nothing about audio equipment. A volume knob and a headphone jack are key features for me.
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Aug 1, 2020 11:22
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$150 Australian will get you a set of edifier R1280DBs - those are actually pretty decent as far as entry level stuff goes and probably far better than anything else you're going to get at that price range. No sub but it's still going to do better than the lovely cheap 2.1 systems at that price point. you don't need a headphone jack on your speakers - your PC has a headphone jack. My Edifier S3000pros arrived today and they are every bit as good as I could have hoped for; although the included USB cable is too short - I had to buy a longer one.
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Aug 4, 2020 09:11
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The Lord Bude posted:$150 Australian will get you a set of edifier R1280DBs - those are actually pretty decent as far as entry level stuff goes and probably far better than anything else you're going to get at that price range. No sub but it's still going to do better than the lovely cheap 2.1 systems at that price point. What do you think about the Edifier S2000MKIII? Those are within my budget and I'm looking for some speakers of this type. Want to pull the trigger but gun shy atm.
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Aug 19, 2020 23:15
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I am sure they are very nice, but there is more competition at that kind of pricepoint. Make sure you have enough deskspace if you plan to use them as computer speakers, as those are going to be quite large. If we are talking strictly as computer speakers for nearfield listening, I can really recommend the vanatoo T0. They look ugly, but their sound is super detailed. If your goal is to fill up a room though, they won't do as good of a job. The T0 drivers are only 4", compared to the 5.5" on those Edifiers. https://www.amazon.com/Vanatoo-Tran...97878221&sr=8-3
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Aug 20, 2020 00:10
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HexDog posted:What do you think about the Edifier S2000MKIII? Those are within my budget and I'm looking for some speakers of this type. Want to pull the trigger but gun shy atm. They're really well regarded and have very good base for their size. Do a google search to check how much various places are selling them for. I was originally intending to buy those, but ended up splurging on the S3000pros when I discovered I could buy them for $800 instead of the $1150 that they were listed at on the edifier website. Speaking of which, I use the S3000pros at my desk, and they are bigger than the 2000s.
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Aug 20, 2020 04:30
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Just presume here I know literally nothing about audio equipment. A volume knob and a headphone jack are key features for me. Speakers work by moving air back and forth. The more individual molecules of air that you move at once, the louder it is. The longer you go in a single direction without turning around, the lower the frequency. Being able to move a lot of air and move in a single direction for a long time requires a larger physical thing vibrating back and forth (It's why a gong is both lower pitched and louder than a cymbal). Bigger speaker = more bass and louder. Smaller speaker = less bass and quieter. When you try to make small speakers play loud and low, you get a physical phenomenon known by the technical term "sounding like poo poo." Letting your audio equipment "sound like poo poo" for long enough causes it to "break" and "sound even more like poo poo." This is convenient, because it gives a shortcut to determining the minimum possible shittiness (MPS) of a given set of speakers: Definitely poo poo  Possibly not poo poo  Probably not poo poo  My line for "possibly not poo poo" starts at 4" drivers for satellites and 10" for a sub. KillHour fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Aug 20, 2020 |
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Aug 20, 2020 05:02
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For its own dumb reasons I don't have a convenient headphone jack on my PC. I'm open to around $200-$300AUD range for speakers that work decently and won't break quickly, but still have no idea what's actually good.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:08
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The only thing I can find in that price range available in Australia are Edifier, but I have no idea how good they are. However... https://djcity.com.au/product/mackie-cr4-xbt-4-inch-multimedia-monitors-with-bluetooth/ Can you stretch your budget? In theory, the CR4-X (the non-Bluetooth version) is cheaper, but I can't find it for sale in Australia. Maybe dingoes ate them all. KillHour fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Aug 21, 2020 |
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Aug 21, 2020 15:40
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Edifier are excellent; I can highly recommend. I bought the S3000pro recently. Your budget would require one of their cheaper products but all their stuff is amazing value.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:51
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Edifier did look good. Thanks, I'll look around their stuff. Everything seems to have Bluetooth in the title, but on a closer look that's just one option among others.
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Aug 23, 2020 15:21
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