I've been critical of modern recordings on many occasions, and I still
am, but I've come to believe that most post 50s music should be
listenable on a well-sorted system. The flaws in recordings will be made
obvious, yes, but also the music should be able to be enjoyed at the
same time.
Check
1. Massive wattage with unbridled amperage. (My LR speakers can dip
below 1 Ohm on the woofer side of the biamp.)
2. You cannot pay too much for a good tweeter.
3. Never underestimate a paper woofer. (SS 18W/8531G springs to mind.)
As a corollary: bass response is no longer pinned to driver
banned for life wrote:
10. Face it: a lot of source material is REALLY crappy.
First Corollary: All source material associated with anyone or anything
from American Idol is absolutely 100% crap.
Second Corollary: 99% of source material from any of TAS founder HP so
called Super Disc Lists may
About 3 cone area*linear travel is physics you don't get away from that
! so reasonable cone area ( can absolutely be more than one driver ,
that could be even better , more motors ) is worth something . Of course
in the boxes that the acoustics of the system require :) not what's
fashionable .
Archimago wrote:
Hey guys... Just thought I'd share what I'm rocking these days. Still
lots to do in the sound room - very bare walls and the rug's taking its
sweet time in arriving!
Nonetheless, lots of fun putting the pieces together and loving what's
coming out of my good 'ol
Hey guys... Just thought I'd share what I'm rocking these days. Still
lots to do in the sound room - very bare walls and the rug's taking its
sweet time in arriving!
Nonetheless, lots of fun putting the pieces together and loving what's
coming out of my good 'ol Transporter.
Have a wonderful
I have various ideas.
in my own playback , with digital system(s)...I strive for accuracy.
that is achieved, and has been possible for a long time. I Believe that
the room is the single most important factor in system performance. to
that end, my room is highly tuned, and has been to a large
Pneumonic wrote:
Given that not one of us has - identical systems, setup in the same
room, with the same music being played - any subjective comparison on
what any us can or can't hear lacks a true reference and is nothing more
than an exercise in futility as it is nothing more than a
Archimago wrote:
I was originally going to respond to the 24/192 discussion with this but
thought it more apt to start a new topic instead of tangential hijacking
:-)
I wonder if we've had a good / serious discussion here around the
question of what as audiophiles we're trying to
heisenberg wrote:
I was very saddened when I discovered that I can't reliably tell whether
the music playing is from a 320 kbps mp3 or from a lossless source.
Hence, I'm not into chasing after 24/192 -- like you've said, a complete
overkill.
Like Mnyb said, do not be saddened by this. I
heisenberg wrote:
I guess I was talking about the care engineers take when digitizing the
master tapes. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and different
teams will digitize the same master tape differently. That's what I
refer to as different 'pressings'.
Thanks, that was a good
Archimago wrote:
lots of good stuff
100% agree with everything you said there.
I did however have some older MP3 files (that I've since replaced with
FLAC) where I could tell an immediate difference, or at least I think I
could?
I really do think Lame has been improved quite a bit in the
heisenberg wrote:
I was very saddened when I discovered that I can't reliably tell whether
the music playing is from a 320 kbps mp3 or from a lossless source.
Hence, I'm not into chasing after 24/192 -- like you've said, a complete
overkill.
I wasn't saddened, I was impressed that the
jimbobvfr400 wrote:
I did however have some older MP3 files (that I've since replaced with
FLAC) where I could tell an immediate difference, or at least I think I
could?
I really do think Lame has been improved quite a bit in the later
versions, either that or I was an idiot and
Julf wrote:
I am not sure about what you mean with pressing when talking about
digital files. The differences tend to be down to different EQ and
compressing choices.
I guess I was talking about the care engineers take when digitizing the
master tapes. There's more than one way to skin a
heisenberg wrote:
Finally, even with digital downloads (hi rez or otherwise) you can
detect different 'pressing' quality.
I am not sure about what you mean with pressing when talking about
digital files. The differences tend to be down to different EQ and
compressing choices.
To try to
Speakers, speakers, speakers; if they are not right---nothing else will
ever be. Firm believer in point of diminishing returns pretty is as
pretty does. It doesn't cost nearly as much as many believe, to be 95%
of the way there it just takes careful, sound decision making.
Did I mention SPEAKERS
Archimago wrote:
I was originally going to respond to the 24/192 discussion with this but
thought it more apt to start a new topic instead of tangential hijacking
:-)
I wonder if we've had a good / serious discussion here around the
question of what as audiophiles we're trying to
heisenberg wrote:
I'm going to offer a belated reply for sure, but the topic interests me,
for some reason. Assuming that by 'our gear' you are open to including
the music carriers (i.e. LPs, CDs, FLACs, etc.), I'd say that my
philosophy boils down to chasing after the best version of music
heisenberg wrote:
I've found out that a well pressed album, be it analog or digital,
sounds great on wide variety of hi fi systems (even if they be entry
level systems). While an album from a lousy batch sounds horrible even
on the most sublime hi fi systems.
So true!
Sent from my Nexus 10
Mnyb wrote:
I with you there get the good recording regardless of format if
available in different formats just choose by practicalities I for
example consider everything above 24/96 complete overkill but i want a
lossles file .
I was very saddened when I discovered that I can't reliably
Nitpicking raised to the power 10!
Touch - Muse M50 EX TPA3123 T-Amp Mini - Acoustics Q10 speakers
Logitech Radio + remote
Logitech UE Smart Radio
Raspberry Pi + Squeezeplug LMS + Squeezelite - Logitech Mini Boombox
speaker
Cubieboard + Fedora 18 + LMS 7.8 + Squeezelite - Soundwave SW100
heisenberg wrote:
I was very saddened when I discovered that I can't reliably tell whether
the music playing is from a 320 kbps mp3 or from a lossless source.
Hence, I'm not into chasing after 24/192 -- like you've said, a complete
overkill.
Dont be that , it's just the limit of the ear
satkinsn wrote:
The SB3 is exclusively a radio tuner for me, and my big project needs to
be moving all the shiny spinning discs I think I'll want to hear over
the next 20 years to some sort of server - but I'm torn because of the
abundace of options: I ran Vortexbox for a year or so and
satkinsn wrote:
Ron -
I like your answer, though I'm starting to get the point that moving to
file-based playback is neither cheap nor without considerable work.
Question: what do you use to play back from your fitpc? I assume some
variety of Squeezebox Server/Logitech Media
satkinsn wrote:
Well, I don't want to drag the thread too far afield, but let me ask you
guys (and whoever else wants to play) about workflow and V'box
hardware.
When I ran it I just grabbed an old Dell that was a 3 gig something or
the other (probably a P4) and let it chug away in the
Ron -
I like your answer, though I'm starting to get the point that moving to
file-based playback is neither cheap nor without considerable work.
Question: what do you use to play back from your fitpc? I assume some
variety of Squeezebox Server/Logitech Media Server/whatever it's
currently
If cost is a big consideration then go ahead and use your Win8 laptop or
an old, re-purposed computer you may have lying around like you did
before. You already have the Squeezeboxes, right? So the financial cost
can be as low as zero.
Ripping and tagging CDs does take time. But once you start
I know it's an old thread, but I just stumbled into it last night while
reading through Archimago's brilliantly done blog.
Looping back to the original question, my take.
Like a lot of people, I wasted way too much time on dubious audiophile
claims, though my particular weakness lies in the
satkinsn wrote:
The SB3 is exclusively a radio tuner for me, and my big project needs to
be moving all the shiny spinning discs I think I'll want to hear over
the next 20 years to some sort of server - but I'm torn because of the
abundace of options: I ran Vortexbox for a year or so and
aubuti wrote:
If you don't like the tagging that comes with Vortexbox, but you're
comfortable with it as a music server, why not do your ripping and
initial tagging with dBpoweramp in Windows and then just serve it up
from another computer running Vortexbox? Imo, any fussiness of Windows
is
Well, I don't want to drag the thread too far afield, but let me ask you
guys (and whoever else wants to play) about workflow and V'box
hardware.
When I ran it I just grabbed an old Dell that was a 3 gig something or
the other (probably a P4) and let it chug away in the corner of my
rather noisy
satkinsn wrote:
Finally, if I'm going to the trouble of using a Win box to rip and tag
in the first place, is it really then sensible to move everything over
to V'box instead of leaving it on the Windows system and playing out
from there?
s.
I use a Vortexbox and am quite pleased with
Your windows desktop/laptop may not be the most stable LMS environment ,
but a dedicated Linux server is and it's probably Ethernet to not wifi
as an laptop usually are . Beside you could be doing other demanding
task with your pc that would break streaming .
For the server hardware, there are plenty of quiet, low energy
consumption x86 boxes available. I have one based on an Intel Atom CPU
-- it's not silent, because it has a fan, but it's quiet and it's
located well outside my listening areas. Running full tilt it draws 23w,
and using power
StridingEdge wrote:
For all that there's the Hoffman forum but, and it's a huge BUT, be
prepared for colossal levels of sycophancy towards the host and, as a
result, you will not get anything like unbiased opinions. In other
words, LP always beats CD for audio quality, early CD always beats
Archimago wrote:
Also check out the Computer Audiophile forum on Music Analysis:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f14-music-analysis-objective-and-subjective/
As long as you stay away from other parts of Church of Audiophile, and
ignore some of the more insistent regulars :)
Julf wrote:
As long as you stay away from other parts of Church of Audiophile, and
ignore some of the more insistent regulars :)
I had not taken a peak over at Computer Audiophile in quite a while
until the site was mentioned in this thread. When Computer Audiophile
was first introduced I
ralphpnj wrote:
Thanks Andy for the link to that most amusing video. Is that the same
Mr. Smith from the Matrix movies because they sure do look very similar.
Somebody posted that to the Stereophile forum a few years back, and I
enjoyed it very much. I haven't seen The Matrix, but I
ralphpnj wrote:
And I also saw this review linked in the above thread:
http://www.audiostream.com/content/audioquest-ethernet-cables - very
upsetting since Mr. Lavorgna now seems to have drank about 200 gallons
of very potent audiophile Kool-Aid. Too bad since in the early days of
andy_c wrote:
I've thought Lavorgna was on the fringe ever since reading
'_*this_article*_'
(http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/fragilesouls/fragilesouls.html).
Some discussion of the article at the Sterophile forum '_*here*_'
This is a matter of taste, I think.
Those who value accuracy, get a kick out of hearing the heterogeneity in
recordings and perhaps have less of a problem ignoring bad sound quality
in their favourite music. More left brain types.
Those who value subjectively good sound, get a kick out of
Archimago wrote:
Thanks for sharing Ralph. Didn't know you had such an extensive LP
collection!
Curious have you tried some LP needle drops through your gear?
Wondering if you ever thought that the analog better bass was
something inherent in the playback system or just the difference
darrenyeats wrote:
Those who value accuracy, get a kick out of hearing the heterogeneity in
recordings and perhaps have less of a problem ignoring bad sound quality
in their favourite music. The truth shall set you free. More left
brain types.
That sounds like me :)
To me the question is
Julf wrote:
I don't want to have everything autotuned...
No Super Bowl halftime shows for you.
ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827
View this thread:
ralphpnj wrote:
No Super Bowl halftime shows for you.
Or Presidential inaugurations ...
garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325
View this thread:
garym wrote:
Or Presidential inaugurations ...
Halftime = autotune
Inauguration = lip synch
Similar but not the same.
ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827
View this thread:
ralphpnj wrote:
Halftime = autotune
Inauguration = lip sync
Similar but not the same.
:-)
I like to hear exactly what is in the recording as well. Tubes seem to
take the leading edge out of recordings. This is not good, especially
for rock.
Even though I amplify the analog playback also
Vinyl fans rejoice! one can always create vinyl from their digital
files. ;-)
http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/21/3d-printed-record/
garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325
View this thread:
garym wrote:
Vinyl fans rejoice! one can always create vinyl from their digital
files. ;-)
http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/21/3d-printed-record/
Skip the needle past the break for a lo-fi (or is it warmer) demo
Love it!
Archimago wrote:
:-)
Speaking about Stadium Arcadium, the 4LP Steve Hoffman / Kevin Gray set
is without question the only decent mastering. It's times like this
where the desperate digital audiophile has no choice but obtain the
vinyl needle drops for the music server (DR12 vinyl vs. DR5
cdmackay wrote:
thanks! Shame about the clips being replaced with some silly DoJ
banner...
whilst we're on the subject: are there any good websites where they
review issues like:
- LP versus CD mastering
- CD mastering across different re-releases, re-masters, etc
- SACD/DVDA/DSD
StridingEdge wrote:
For all that there's the Hoffman forum but, and it's a huge BUT, be
prepared for colossal levels of sycophancy towards the host and, as a
result, you will not get anything like unbiased opinions. In other
words, LP always beats CD for audio quality, early CD always beats
SoftwireEngineer wrote:
@Archimago and Mynb - I have not bought much vinyl in recent years
either. Of course, the surface noise is bothersome too. Also, right now,
my turntable is packed up. My kids damaged the stylus and I dont want to
replace it till my kids grow up a bit.
We're in the
Interesting thread filled with very worthwhile posts! Hopefully this
post will be up to these high standards!
Thanks Andy for the link to that most amusing video. Is that the same
Mr. Smith from the Matrix movies because they sure do look very
similar.
I have a fairly good vinyl rig (one of
ralphpnj wrote:
Interesting thread filled with very worthwhile posts! Hopefully this
post will be up to these high standards!
Thanks Andy for the link to that most amusing video. Is that the same
Mr. Smith from the Matrix movies because they sure do look very
similar.
I have a fairly
Archimago wrote:
I also remember being annoyed when I used to buy new albums and finding
little scratches and warping upon opening the package :-(
As an aside, I think vinyl needle drops can sound fantastic! For
digital releases which are poorly produced like Red Hot Chili Peppers'
cdmackay wrote:
ho, this takes me back...
I remember in the 80s taking my vinyl copy of The Wall back to the shop
4 times because I couldn't get a copy without background noise in the
quiet passages on Is There Anybody Out There?.
I bought a CD player that year (a very early Philips,
Archimago wrote:
the intangible something that they identify as special about the
system.
Philosophically some audiophiles have finally come to terms with this
and do extensive ripping of cherished vinyl .you can have your cake
and eat it too as many times as you like , realising that this
I was originally going to respond to the 24/192 discussion with this but
thought it more apt to start a new topic instead of tangential hijacking
:-)
I wonder if we've had a good / serious discussion here around the
question of what as audiophiles we're trying to accomplish with our
gear. No
Archimago wrote:
Note that I'm not saying anything about one viewpoint being superior;
rather just wanting to hear the viewpoints.
Well, I don't really have anything to add to what you wrote - I am 100%
in agreement. But then I started out when it was Hi-Fi and not
audiophoolery
Julf wrote:
Well, I don't really have anything to add to what you wrote - I am 100%
in agreement. But then I started out when it was Hi-Fi and not
audiophoolery
Wow... On old timer.
Did they use wax cylinders back then? ;-)
My philosophy is similar to that of Mr. Smith in
'*_this_1957_hi-fi_video_*' (http://archive.org/details/HowtoLis1957).
andy_c's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3128
View this thread:
After decades of chasing audiophoolery, my personal philosophy is now to
relax and enjoy the music. It's not about how it sounds it's about
Can you dig it? I knew that you could. :)
dyohn's Profile:
Archimago wrote:
Did they use wax cylinders back then? ;-)
Worse. I remember all too well the failed 'Sony ELcaset'
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcaset)...
Julf's Profile:
andy_c wrote:
My philosophy is similar to that of Mr. Smith in
'*_this_1957_hi-fi_video_*' (http://archive.org/details/HowtoLis1957).
Thanks for the video, Andy! Fantastic :-) Just watching it right now.
By hearing them use the term high fidelity rather than generic terms
like audiophile
Julf wrote:
Worse. I remember all too well the failed 'Sony ELcaset'
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcaset)...
OT omg :) Sony does these things betamax ,video 8 and numerous pro video
formats ( u-matic , digit-beta ) and minidisc , they have an urge to
launch proprietary formats , how funny ,
Archimago wrote:
Thanks for the video, Andy! Fantastic :-) Just watching it right now.
By hearing them use the term high fidelity rather than generic terms
like audiophile quality makes the discussion seem more meaningful to
me.
My favorite part is the studio scene at 1:03. ...and
I think I am in the 'hi-fidelity' camp on this. Yes, the term audiophile
has become associated with 'euphonics', over a period of time. I do
think though that vinyl lovers do not necessarily fall under that
euphonic category. I have a MMF-5 turntable and I feel it is one of the
most transparent
dyohn wrote:
After decades of chasing audiophoolery, my personal philosophy is now to
relax and enjoy the music. It's not about how it sounds it's about
Can you dig it? I knew that you could. :)
I very much agree with this enjoy the music approach. With regard to
all things audiophile
SoftwireEngineer wrote:
I think I am in the 'hi-fidelity' camp on this. Yes, the term audiophile
has become associated with 'euphonics', over a period of time. I do
think though that vinyl lovers do not necessarily fall under that
euphonic category. I have a MMF-5 turntable and I feel it is
Archimago wrote:
Thanks for the comments SoftwireEng.
Good comments about the vinyl. Although I personally have not bought any
vinyl since about 1987, I can certainly appreciate how good it sounds
when I'm visiting a high-end vinyl room. To be honest, I don't know if
I've ever been able
@Archimago and Mynb - I have not bought much vinyl in recent years
either. Also, right now, my turntable is packed up. My kids damaged the
stylus and I dont want to replace it till my kids grow up a bit. (they
are fascinated by mechanical things and will surely mess it up). That
said, I have to
73 matches
Mail list logo
