|
Olympic Mathlete posted:Which musician had stake in that Toblerone looking ipod which had its own music store where you could buy tunes from? As I remember the music player had a little LED that lit up when it was playing music at the highest quality possible from the store but it turns out the only difference between the lossless music sold elsewhere and the music sold in the specific store was that it had a bit of code or whatever in the tag which made the LED light up. Hey, don't poo poo on the blinky lights. Blinky lights are cool.
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 19:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 16, 2024 13:23 |
|
|
grack posted:Hey, don't poo poo on the blinky lights. Blinky lights are cool.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 19:24
|
|
|
One of the base fallacies of audiophilia is that 70 year olds have good hearing, to compound the whole Pono thing 70 year olds who have been amplified playing concerts for 50 years apparently also still have excellent hearing. In ~10 years of it being a thing I've seen exactly one actual test where people could distinguish high res from 16/44 and it was sine wave test tones, not music.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 19:38
|
|
|
There are a bunch of sites with blind tests of lossless vs lossy music as well as uncalibrated tests of hearing loss. I definitely don't have golden ears but I've known that for a long time. I bought a Sony ES series SACD player when they first came out and I couldn't distinguish SACDs from CDs even on non-blind testing although my musician friend swore he could hear minor differences. I used to have excellent high frequency hearing but now that's all gone and I have moderate high frequency hearing loss. On Amir's thread on the Gustard X16, there are some people claiming to hear the difference between a Topping D90 and the X16 which I cannot believe as well as people asking if they should upgrade their 112 dB SINAD E30 for the 121 dB X16.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 20:01
|
|
|
The only benefit I ever got from SACD was the very few I had that were actually mastered in 5.1. But poo poo, the only one I know for sure was mixed that way was Blue Man Group. And it sounded awesome, but the gimmick wasn't worth the extra. If it was a night and day difference, like going from mono to stero, then sure. But it wasn't. At least for me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 20:07
|
|
|
Agree with both of the above. Also to those who can tell the difference, if it's not night and day and you're relying on A/B testing to pick out minor differences... is it even really worth it? In the video world, HDR has definitely been the saving grace of the new generation of formats as 1080p -> 4K really isn't that astonishing on its own. For me personally, the advances in compression and retaining as close to indistinguishable quality differences is far more interesting and awesome.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 20:10
|
|
|
I was talking about comparing CD-quality [16/44.1] vs high resolution music, it's shown to be literally impossible for humans and especially not male humans over 40 which is most of the audiophile market. 16/44 PCM was an excellent choice way back in the 1982 and it's still good enough today. I think the thing your average listener struggles with the most and why so many of these myths are so pervasive is that the expectation of it sounding better can actually change your perception. Of course this SACD sounds better, there's more data and this player was extremely expensive. And I'm not saying it sounds the same and you back-justify it sounding better, it literally sounds better. This has been shown multiple in listening tests where the tester pretended to upgrade one component of a system like a cable or CD player and people legitimately heard a difference. In the audiophile world reviewrs are apparently immune to this phenomenon because they have so much experience and expertise [which may just end up making their preconceptions stronger]. Of course the other thing is true like you said where people are freaking out over a 9 dB difference at over -100 noise floor. Sufferers of Amir's Disease are just as susceptible to hearing a difference out of nothing as the "put tiny wooden cubes on my wall" types. MQA [which is lossy high res at its heart] has a secret sauce which is the files can have an embedded EQ curve which does make them sound different than the same recording elsewhere plus most of the early releases were remastered anyway so there was no 16/44 version of that to compare it to. It's diabolical.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 20:16
|
|
|
grack posted:Hey, don't poo poo on the blinky lights. Blinky lights are cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suFMi8VHopQ
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 20:16
|
|
|
EL BROMANCE posted:In the video world, HDR has definitely been the saving grace of the new generation of formats as 1080p -> 4K really isn't that astonishing on its own. yah whenever i see a movie in 4k and it's not HDR I catch myself thinking "then what's the point" lol. some poo poo looks really bad in 4k though, you can see all the special effects like where they paste in smoke or fog around the edges of the scene to make it look more eerie. the witcher on netflix comes to mind.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 20:48
|
|
|
AlexDeGruven posted:The only benefit I ever got from SACD was the very few I had that were actually mastered in 5.1. But poo poo, the only one I know for sure was mixed that way was Blue Man Group. And it sounded awesome, but the gimmick wasn't worth the extra. 5.1 is really, really effective for classical music. Can't say I've cared for it too much with any other genre.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 20:53
|
|
|
TheMadMilkman posted:5.1 is really, really effective for classical music. Can't say I've cared for it too much with any other genre. I could see that with the very heavy caveat of the original recording and subsequent mix.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 21:12
|
|
|
njsykora posted:Neil Young, and it was the Pono player which has become semi-legendary among us weirdos who love old mp3 players. It came in a wooden box because audiophiles loving love themselves a wooden box. Also get a load of that ego stoking model number. I remember when you could grab one of those cheap, but  one day I’ll become the guy collector-me wants me to be
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2021 22:42
|
|
|
TheMadMilkman posted:5.1 is really, really effective for classical music. Can't say I've cared for it too much with any other genre. surround music can be great but it's a lot of work to mix and very few people have 5+ identical speakers
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2021 00:14
|
|
|
AlexDeGruven posted:I could see that with the very heavy caveat of the original recording and subsequent mix. Oh, absolutely. But you can find some great modern recordings that are recorded with the surround mix in mind, and those can be incredible. With the very best of them you don’to even realize the surround channels are active. They just add the decay and ambiance you would hear in the hall. But it is definitely a niche that I would love to see replaced by Atmos- based encoding. Object-based encoding that automatically decodes and places sound based on the number of speakers you actually have? Heck ya.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2021 01:00
|
|
|
Apparently playing brickwalled corporate metal at whiskey makes it taste betterquote:THE 
xarph fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Mar 5, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2021 04:23
|
|
|
njsykora posted:Neil Young, and it was the Pono player which has become semi-legendary among us weirdos who love old mp3 players. It came in a wooden box because audiophiles loving love themselves a wooden box. Also get a load of that ego stoking model number. UFOPONOO!!!
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2021 07:42
|
|
|
TheMadMilkman posted:Oh, absolutely. But you can find some great modern recordings that are recorded with the surround mix in mind, and those can be incredible. With the very best of them you don’to even realize the surround channels are active. They just add the decay and ambiance you would hear in the hall. You mean this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-H_3D_Audio Tidal & Sony’s “360 Reality Audio” is using this to do spatial decoding. They also have some form of machine learning to generate individualised HRTFs, but being Sony the entire process and the technical stuff behind it is obfuscated to death. It’s what PS5’s 3D audio is using too. Neurophonic fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Mar 5, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2021 21:59
|
|
|
I had a demo of that way back when. It's pretty cool when done correctly, but the app is a no go for me
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 05:26
|
|
|
That, Atmos, or some other object-based encoding, ya. It just makes so much sense to mix based on objects and then allow the player to determine how to split that based on the user’s own system. Being realistic, though, it will never be more than a niche product like every other surround music format had been.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 21:30
|
|
|
Combat Pretzel posted:Apparently Spotify is gonna release a subscription level serving uncompressed audio. Gonna be fun to see how these audiophools are gonna poo poo on it. I wonder if there are any audiophiles out there which believe that the technology used for the last-mile of your terrestrial internet connection can affect audio quality. I'm imagining an audiophile moving house to an area that has FTTP because it really airs-out the mids and improves soundstage depth compared to their DSL or HFC connection. Maybe some rich audiophile would pay tens of thousands of dollars to install a P2P 10Gb link between their house and an IX and then thousands more for a peering connection all so that their traffic isn't mixed-in with other customers which reduces clarity. Maybe I could start an audiophile ISP and charge people thousands for bespoke signature last-mile internet service delivery.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 08:46
|
|
|
Pile Of Garbage posted:I wonder if there are any audiophiles out there which believe that the technology used for the last-mile of your terrestrial internet connection can affect audio quality. I'm imagining an audiophile moving house to an area that has FTTP because it really airs-out the mids and improves soundstage depth compared to their DSL or HFC connection. Maybe some rich audiophile would pay tens of thousands of dollars to install a P2P 10Gb link between their house and an IX and then thousands more for a peering connection all so that their traffic isn't mixed-in with other customers which reduces clarity. Audiophiles have been known to buy new power poles so it wouldn't surprise me. The constant rot of basic analog signal concepts into increasingly absurd digital contexts will never end, from USB to ethernet to basically everything physically touching a component
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 11:36
|
|
|
I won't be happy until an audiophile buys their own private satellite to stream ripped Beatles vinyl from their living room to their bedroom. The space age solar panels really bring out the harmonic inducer reonances in the guitar, you know? It's got to be a satellite built to USSR specs though, using old copper from closed soviet bases. It sounds more euphoric compared to those clinical digital satellites made with Japanese capacitors salvaged from old Game Boys. I'm sensing a business opportunity here. Elon Musk give me a call. DancingShade fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Mar 7, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 13:03
|
|
|
DancingShade posted:I won't be happy until an audiophile buys their own private satellite to stream ripped Beatles vinyl from their living room to their bedroom. https://twitter.com/GarbageDotNet/status/1368482535127228419
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 13:21
|
|
|
DancingShade posted:I won't be happy until an audiophile buys their own private satellite to stream ripped Beatles vinyl from their living room to their bedroom. Are you suggesting over several hundred ms of latency???
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 14:22
|
|
|
Wasabi the J posted:Are you suggesting over several hundred ms of latency??? Gotta age those bits in the unfiltered sunlight of space so the right parts mellow for that perfect warm sound
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 15:58
|
|
|
I have in fact seen audiophiles claim that they can hear differences between ISPs when streaming Tidal. I’ve also heard them claim that magnetic hard drives sound superior to SSDs (they’re more analog because they move). Confirmation bias is an amazing thing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 20:11
|
|
|
I wonder if they're aware that things like sinus pressure, or musclular tightness, or just straight up moods probably have a bigger impact on the way you interpret sound than a lot of the tweaks. Looking forward to finding serious posts about people meditating and getting a massage before firing up their record players.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 23:48
|
|
|
Qwijib0 posted:Gotta age those bits in the unfiltered sunlight of space so the right parts mellow for that perfect warm sound The earth's magnetic sphere is always shifting! The only way to replicate the sound is to have a machine travel back into time and capture the actual event. Wait wasn't doc brown building a huge speaker system in back to the future?
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 23:56
|
|
|
Other than changing my speakers and adding a subwoofer, the biggest change in sound to my system came from putting my speakers on stands. Not because of any special acoustic properties of the stands but because they brought the speakers in line with my ears and not much lower as they were before. In comparison, the component changes made little if any difference.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2021 00:04
|
|
|
Clearly the next step is to argue over which endangered African hardwoods are the best for your speaker stands. If you didn't buy your speaker stand wood from I don't know, Burma Valley in Zimbabwe, then you're missing out on the magno-electro resonances being naturally harmonised by the bobinga. Basically if your rare African hardwoods didn't cost you blood diamonds they're going to be harsh and make your latest Styx album sound like it was recorded in a high school gymnasium. If any of this sounds geographically innaccurate or otherwise ignorant that's because you're a hater who only clearly only uses samsung mp3 players made before 2010. I'm still waiting for that call from Elon Musk regarding satellite streaming. Any day now, I'm sure. DancingShade fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Mar 8, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2021 06:47
|
|
|
No, you have to go a step farther. Rare wood seedlings from Africa, grown inside a geodesic dome situated on a place where the earth’s leylines harmonically converge. Surrounded by natural quartz that has been tuned to 432 Hz to best take advantage of nature’s own perfect harmonies. I can picture the 6moons article already.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2021 08:07
|
|
|
Wasabi the J posted:The earth's magnetic sphere is always shifting! The only way to replicate the sound is to have a machine travel back into time and capture the actual event. Literally what the Italian underfloor subwoofer guy claimed years ago. If you view his site today you can see he has fully lost whatever marbles he had but I looked on wayback and found a link to the page for his time machine device: https://web.archive.org/web/20110401011107/http://www.royaldevice.com/Risuonatori%20Quantici.htm Badly google translated: quote:an DIMENSIONAL ACCELERATOR and an ETHERIC EXCITER The link into that page has a scrolling banner which says the following: quote:Roberto Delle Curti, for the first time in the world, introduces a sub-atomic particle accelerator for SPD-IF data trasmission. The end of reproduction of distortion of the recording section. A time machine that recovers the past errors In some other text it basically claims the thing goes back in time to the point of recording. Quite a thing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2021 11:59
|
|
|
Literal old timey mad professor madness. The Dr Bronner of audiophilia.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2021 20:04
|
|
|
I've got the miniDSP SHD set up now (but no Gustard X16 yet) and the SHD is pretty awesome for trying out different combinations of crossovers, LPF, HPF, PEQ, DIRAC etc. I have one preset with just a standard 80 Hz crossover with no eq, another with 80 Hz crossover and DIRAC eq and a third with full range to the speakers with a 60 LPF on the subs and no eq.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2021 23:20
|
|
|
Yuns posted:I've got the miniDSP SHD set up now (but no Gustard X16 yet) and the SHD is pretty awesome for trying out different combinations of crossovers, LPF, HPF, PEQ, DIRAC etc. I have one preset with just a standard 80 Hz crossover with no eq, another with 80 Hz crossover and DIRAC eq and a third with full range to the speakers with a 60 LPF on the subs and no eq.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2021 01:00
|
|
|
qirex posted:I forgot to ask earlier you why you need a second DAC. EDIT: I forgot to add that I didn't realize that neither the SHD nor the X16 have a headphone jack. So all that effort and I'm still missing a feature. Yuns fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Mar 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2021 01:28
|
|
|
TheMadMilkman posted:No, you have to go a step farther. So can I, magnificent marketing work! Really shows how important knowing the target audience is. Oh - we need to add that the wood is only harvested on a rare equinox eclipse too. For extra euphoria expressed through breadth of soundstage owing to how the wood knurls are affected by ethereal gravitics due to unique planetary alignments channelled by the ley lines. They'll really notice the difference as the music resonates off their plasterboard gyprock. Also we need to start selling audiophile approved plasterboard but not until we've sold out of this special African hardwood. DancingShade fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Mar 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2021 03:47
|
|
|
I'm thinking the audiophile plasterboard will look like the walls of Dr Who's TARDIS with round sci-fi things on them. For resonance and dampening obviously. We'll change the marketing tactics from natural themed to hyper-advanced and talk about nano design, using terms from rocketry or anything magnetic and trendy. Absolutely no natural materials, it'll be all slapped together at bottom dollar by a Chinese factory. No wait, it'll be Indian. We can work in a spiritual aspect there to do with Kali or something and have some Veena music playing in the background on the sales website. We'll engage an out of work B-movie prop designer to make the actual plasterboard though, at least the initial run. No need to waste money on an actual audio engineer. "Listening to Blue Oyster Cult it was so realistic it was like I travelled back in time to a live concert" - some person who definitely exists. Or a friend at the pub. DancingShade fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Mar 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2021 04:42
|
|
|
This is all nonsense, everyone knows audiophile components need to be made out of a specific brand of German plywood. They use technical terms and have graphs so you know it's better! 
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2021 08:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 16, 2024 13:23 |
|
|
I got the Gustard X16 and now have my system fully set up. It works fine and sounds great BUT the Gustard X16 is a perfect example of why you shouldn't chase max SINAD. The lure of a 121 SINAD for only $499 is really seductive but there are much better choices. The sound quality is of course excellent but there is no audible different between it and lesser rated top tier DACs. While the objective performance is excellent, the features are poor. There is no headphone amp/jack. You can chose the input but you can't choose the output. It always outputs to all the outputs RCA/XLR/digital all the time so you can't set up alternative outputs to play separately. The manual claims there is a DAC mode i.e. fixed output, but there is none. You just have to set it to 00 dB. The only menu options are a few filters, bluetooth control, oversampling on or off, phase invert, and screen brightness. The screen is tiny and hard to read. All in all the feature set is poor and the Topping and SMSL beat it on features even as bare bones as they are. The RME ADI and miniDSP SHD crush it on features and utility in return for a loss of a little performance which is totally inaudible. Even my Monolith balanced desktop DAC/Amp kills it on features. I'm still keeping the Gustard as I'm using it for high res and bluetooth but I could live without it. EDIT: Volumio on the SHD has been pretty useful. The Astell & Kern players have AK Connect which makes the player a DLNA server which Volumio recognizes and so I can stream music from the A&K SR25 to the SHD wirelessly so I don't have to deal with bluetooth and its codecs. Yuns fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Mar 11, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2021 01:05
|
|