The Audiophile Thread

[Jerjo]

Wife ?

Wife, apartment living, personal preference, etc. I have a friend who has this massive vinyl classical library - no speakers in his system at all. In theory, my wife would love me switching to headphones. But then I couldn't hear her numerous complaints and requests. Hmm, I see the appeal now.

[ssully]

Is they're really that much variation in DAC's?

Audibly? No.

[ssully]

"very good" is not high end or audiophile grade.

Also, I did not say "objectively expensive" ("expensive" is a subjective term anyway). I said "objectively costs more."

You can find an excellent speaker for $1000, but just about any well-made speaker costing $10,000 is better. Most are a lot better.

According to what metric?

[ssully]

'Audiophile' (sound lover) was co-opted long ago by superstitious knobs who believe that everything they 'hear' is real, despite plentiful evidence that 'sighted' evaluations are hopelessly flawed. Couple that with the tendency to believe that if a product looks classier/more esoteric, and/or costs more, it must sound better, and you have the 'high end', which is a thoroughly decadent culture wedded to belief over reality.

Meanwhile science moves on. Stereo is a quaint antique and was *never* going to provide great 'realism'. Vinyl is steampunk. The real areas for home audio advances are loudspeakers (both their design and deployment) and room acoustics compensation.

Unfortunately, no matter how excellent home audio repro gets, the too-often heinous and ignorant practices of recording, mixing, and mastering engineers in the studio will be a bottleneck to delivering highest-quality audio.

See Floyd Toole's "Circle of Confusion"

[ssully]

Do they make DACs with tubes? Really???

Never underestimate the ridiculousness of the high end.

[ssully]

Oh yeh, what have you designed? What technical point of view? I’m not reading technical here. However the greatest advance was the delta sigma convertor. It’s accuracy however is determined by the digital clock that clocks out pulses that have width proportional to the signal. When representing a highly oversampled signal, only a linear phase filter is needed to integrate the pulses into the analog signal. The rest of the design is of electrical consideration, with high quality tubes being a great way to handle the dynamic range. Tubes drive cost.

BWAHAHAHA

oh wait, you're serious

Ask Bruno Putzys what he thinks of incorporating 'high quality tubes' into the downstream of a quality D/A conversion

[ssully]

Why bother with an OPPO or any other hardware player these days? You can rip basically anything you buy on hard media (even SACD, if you're willing to hunt for the right player to serve as a ripping platform) , to lossless files, and play them in whatever way you choose.

[moecurlythanu]

So, is this The Audiophile Thread or the Anti-Audiophile Thread?

[rcarlberg]

So, is this The Audiophile Thread or the Anti-Audiophile Thread?

Both?

It started out discussing high-fidelity, and occasionally slips back into that mode -- in between being hijacked by woo merchants.

[rcarlberg]

Unfortunately, no matter how excellent home audio repro gets, the too-often heinous and ignorant practices of recording, mixing, and mastering engineers in the studio will be a bottleneck to delivering highest-quality audio.

Absolutely spot on. See post #2.

[Firth]

'Audiophile' (sound lover) was co-opted long ago by superstitious knobs who believe that everything they 'hear' is real, despite plentiful evidence that 'sighted' evaluations are hopelessly flawed. Couple that with the tendency to believe that if a product looks classier/more esoteric, and/or costs more, it must sound better, and you have the 'high end', which is a thoroughly decadent culture wedded to belief over reality.

Meanwhile science moves on. Stereo is a quaint antique and was *never* going to provide great 'realism'. Vinyl is steampunk. The real areas for home audio advances are loudspeakers (both their design and deployment) and room acoustics compensation.

Unfortunately, no matter how excellent home audio repro gets, the too-often heinous and ignorant practices of recording, mixing, and mastering engineers in the studio will be a bottleneck to delivering highest-quality audio.

See Floyd Toole's "Circle of Confusion"

Well you are the first here to recognize Room compensation as important here. That’s why Players with DACs are useless to me because I want to keep the info digital until after Room compensation which can be done in a processor, receiver or a speaker with processing.

[Facelift]

Unfortunately, no matter how excellent home audio repro gets, the too-often heinous and ignorant practices of recording, mixing, and mastering engineers in the studio will be a bottleneck to delivering highest-quality audio.

That's very true, and something that really can't be overstated.

[Firth]

That's very true, and something that really can't be overstated.

That said, there are lots of very well recorded works in HD formats.

[Firth]

I went to Gramophone to audition the GoldenEar Triton towers. I brought the DVD-Audio of Yes Fragile. They could not set them up in a surround configuration and they had an Oppo 205 which was not connected to a display. They couldn’t figure out what layer, 5.1 or stereo it was playing. However the salesman claimed it playing the stereo track. It sounded bad. McKintosh integrated amp even. He left, I played with the remote. Trues the audio button which worked, but had a extreme delay before it would switch off multi to stereo. Surprise was that the stereo track of that DVDaudio doesn’t have the enormous deep and loud notes on Cans and Brahms that I have heard on the surround track. I thought it was the speakers but I came home and listened to both the 5.1 and stereo layers, and sure enough the stereo layer doesn’t have the powerful low notes. Perhaps the 0.1 channel is needed to not saturate the stereo channels. This demonstrates the true potential of 5.1. However the stereo track was 24 bits 96 kHz.

I can’t say how much I was disappointed in those speakers, and this so called high end audio dealer. Pure arrogance. And the interface to the Oppo 205 was abysmal.

[Jerjo]

this so called high end audio dealer. Pure arrogance.

That, in a nutshell, is too often the case with niche retailers. Ever try to get help at a bike shop? Too many times you'll get arrogance (or stoned indifference).

[rcarlberg]

Although Fragile is a fine recording for its time, it is 46 years old now and hardly state-of-the-art anymore.

[Firth]

Although Fragile is a fine recording for its time, it is 46 years old now and hardly state-of-the-art anymore.

Of course this wasn’t a mix of 46 years ago. It was a mix using the original multichannel tapes and the high end was very sweet on the ribbon tweeters of those speakers. The problem with the speakers is that they were boomy, which someone else who had never listened to Fragile on them said, before I told him that this is what I heard.

[Shadowfax]

Sorry to break up the Audiophile debate and derail this thread, but I just recently joined the bandwagon of After Market Power Cables make a difference crowd.

I have been reading and interacting on several boards about PCs and always wanted to try them out in my system. I didn't want to break the bank and really thought I would be sending them back after a 30 day trial. But, I was surprised from the start.

I ordered 2 Pangea AC14SE MKII cables for my Pre and CDP along with a PS Audio AC3 for my Amp. The AC3 was on back order when I got the 2 Pangea cables. Decent construction and flexibility for $50 bucks. Upon swapping them in, I immediately noticed less noise, or grunge and lots more detail and grip of bass lines. My wife asked me from the kitchen if I was playing some other version of Primus - Mr Krinkle. A week later the AC3 came, they sent me a 1.5M for same price as a 1M due to length of back order. Dropping that cable in play again improved the grip on bass, vocals much clearer along with instruments and notes sounding the way they should.

This is not foe everyone or every system, but if yours is revealing enough to show differences in ICs, it will more than likely prove positive using after market PCs.

[BobM]

Thanks Shadow, and welcome to the "I have tried it and I can hear it" crowd. Unfortunately you probably opened a can of worms with the "I am an engineer and I didn't try it and it can't be so" crowd.

Hopefully the discussion veers into another direction. How about ...

- Why doesn't everyone list their favorite new CD's or albums or music they discovered in 2017?

[Shadowfax]

Thanks Shadow, and welcome to the "I have tried it and I can hear it" crowd. Unfortunately you probably opened a can of worms with the "I am an engineer and I didn't try it and it can't be so" crowd.

Hopefully the discussion veers into another direction. How about ...

- Why doesn't everyone list their favorite new CD's or albums or music they discovered in 2017?

Well this year I discovered Quidam while looking up the replacement for Piotr Grudzinski of Riverside. The SQ of the live Stronger Together is friggin awesome. I have been using their cover of Wish You Were Here and Sanctuary to demo the sound with my new PCs.

Revisiting my PC post, it is highly possible that the cables did not change the sound of the music itself, but maybe removed what should not be there so you hear what should be there much clearer. If that IS the case, then those who claim that the 16G barely shielded stock cords are adequate should try it out and re-think the mindset.

[Facelift]

I went to Gramophone to audition the GoldenEar Triton towers. I brought the DVD-Audio of Yes Fragile. They could not set them up in a surround configuration and they had an Oppo 205 which was not connected to a display. They couldn’t figure out what layer, 5.1 or stereo it was playing. However the salesman claimed it playing the stereo track. It sounded bad. McKintosh integrated amp even. He left, I played with the remote. Trues the audio button which worked, but had a extreme delay before it would switch off multi to stereo. Surprise was that the stereo track of that DVDaudio doesn’t have the enormous deep and loud notes on Cans and Brahms that I have heard on the surround track. I thought it was the speakers but I came home and listened to both the 5.1 and stereo layers, and sure enough the stereo layer doesn’t have the powerful low notes. Perhaps the 0.1 channel is needed to not saturate the stereo channels. This demonstrates the true potential of 5.1. However the stereo track was 24 bits 96 kHz.

I can’t say how much I was disappointed in those speakers, and this so called high end audio dealer. Pure arrogance. And the interface to the Oppo 205 was abysmal.

I've not been impressed with that brand. I've only heard in-store, but IMO, the music sounded castrated.

[moecurlythanu]

Hopefully the discussion veers into another direction. How about ...

- Why doesn't everyone list their favorite new CD's or albums or music they discovered in 2017?

Umm...Because this is the wrong thread for that, and there are other threads for that purpose?

[rcarlberg]

Sorry to break up the Audiophile debate and derail this thread, but I just recently joined the bandwagon of After Market Power Cables make a difference crowd.

I have been reading and interacting on several boards about PCs and always wanted to try them out in my system. I didn't want to break the bank and really thought I would be sending them back after a 30 day trial. But, I was surprised from the start.

I ordered 2 Pangea AC14SE MKII cables for my Pre and CDP along with a PS Audio AC3 for my Amp. The AC3 was on back order when I got the 2 Pangea cables. Decent construction and flexibility for $50 bucks. Upon swapping them in, I immediately noticed less noise, or grunge and lots more detail and grip of bass lines. My wife asked me from the kitchen if I was playing some other version of Primus - Mr Krinkle. A week later the AC3 came, they sent me a 1.5M for same price as a 1M due to length of back order. Dropping that cable in play again improved the grip on bass, vocals much clearer along with instruments and notes sounding the way they should.

This is not foe everyone or every system, but if yours is revealing enough to show differences in ICs, it will more than likely prove positive using after market PCs.

Any difference you can hear is a wonderful addition. Just for comparison though, what did you have before for cabling?

[Shadowfax]

Any difference you can hear is a wonderful addition. Just for comparison though, what did you have before for cabling?

All the stock 16 gauge string cheese that came with the gear originally.

[BobM]

Hey I heard that if you buy 4 Bitcoins and use them under your equipment feet the sound will forever keep changing as the value of the Bitcoins goes up and down.