Tracks that can take advantage of my new Grados?

firepelt · 2012-05-24T10:45:18.637710+00:00

A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (Panic! At the Disco) doesn't sound much better than it did before on a pair of $40 headphones (both albums are in FLAC).

I was about to suggest an amp (and I still do, because I think those Grados may be worth the investment), but I wanted to hear why you couldn't hear the difference, and randomly started playing that album from track 6 on Spotify. No wonder you can't hear a difference - that album is mastered for absolute loudness - I had the volume knob at my usual level, which provides for spoken voice soundtracks at a bit lower than a "normal" voice would be, and nearly had my ears ripped off clean.

ZeosPantera is right, though. Side bar and search is your friend. Also, music was better mastered before the iPod, so 90's and earlier.

cuborubix · 2012-05-24T10:18:19.335860+00:00

Interesting. Does anyone have a teardown of these, or own multiple sets? If so, I have a few questions.

When two amps are connected, is there any detectable time offset between the two amps. A quick way to test is to connect the left channel of each amp to a set of speakers, placed at the same distance from you, and play anything. If the signal sounds like actual mono, or does the signal sound like one speaker is slightly out of phase?
While the Q&A states that the amp is not (externally) bridgeable, is the construction internally rewireable? In other words, can you rewire it so that both channels drive the left, or the right channel only?
If the answer to the previous question is no, does anyone know if the output power of this amp changes appreciably when only one channel is driven?

(Yes, in reality I'm asking if this can be used to DIY wireless, battery-powered speakers)

treos33 · 2012-05-24T09:52:07.696650+00:00

Furthermore, at least 5 of the 24 individual plugs didn’t fit tightly into the sockets and fell out a few times during set-up.

That's a design problem with banana plugs in general, and not something where Monoprice is to blame. If you want banana plugs that stay in place, you need a locking type, such as this. Note that I haven't personally tried these - on most European products, you will find that the banana socket is sealed for electrical safety reasons, as it is possible to insert the banana plug into a Europlug type socket (and in many cases, it would be possible to plug electrical equipment into the banana socket on an amp or speaker).

I prefer spades, btw, but I guess this isn't an option for you, since you have a 7.1 system - most of the A/V receivers I've seen have protruding plastic shielding, so it will only accept bare wire, pin-type plugs or banana plugs.

I quickly found out the plugs don’t actually fit over the plastic coating on the speaker wire and I had to strip over an inch of plastic off each end of the wire which was not easy with this beefy wire.

Buy a wire stripper. If you have a decent one, it should be no more difficult to strip a wire than it is to cut it (not all wire strippers are decent though - my own is 25 years old, and positively terrible).

Also, whenever you build or machine anything, there are tolerances in the production. If the size on an object is described as "1/8 inch" or "4 mm" it may be a bit smaller or larger, which is entirely normal - this applies both to the binding posts on your speakers and on the amp, which is why you'll find that some connections are looser than the others. When setting up, try each plug in each socket, and try to get the best match.

Blumphy · 2012-05-23T18:03:30.188404+00:00

If the goal is high-fidelity reproduction, most people should just leave the EQ alone, and keep it all flat.

In home audio, EQ can, theoretically, be used to compensate for uneven frequency response in the loudspeakers, or to compensate for resonances in the room that will attentuate or zero out frequencies at certain positions in the room. As such, the EQ settings that are right for me, on my speakers, in my room will be incorrect in any other room. This also means that if you apply one EQ setting for listening with loudspeakers, it will be incorrect if you put on headphones.

If you want to use EQ, you should, unless you have extensive experience (and/or perfect pitch), in which case you would probably be working with pro audio, so you wouldn't come here to ask, use an SPL meter and use a set of prerecorded test tones and ensure that when you play at a given volume settings, all tones are the same level. Unless you are willing to make that investment (SPL meters can be found from 50 dollars and up), and are willing to spend half an hour to an hour playing test tones, then the EQ you apply is mostly pointless.

I say "mostly", because some people set EQ by preference - and they have every right to do so, but if you set it by preference, and by tuning it randomly until you like the sound, it's no longer about high-fidelity sound reproduction.

notafailure · 2012-05-23T16:23:33.980337+00:00

An audiophile is someone who enjoys the reproduction of sound, most of them are concerned with the accuracy of the reproduction. Keep in mind that "accuracy" may imply that they prefer some types of coloration over others - tubes vs. transistors, horns vs. domes, and so on.

So, the answer is that no, a blind person isn't automatically an audiophile.

However, in some respects, I believe a blind person may very well be a more trained listener, perhaps especially with regards to positioning of sounds.

Arve · 1 day

If the lid points at you, you'll drastically increase the number of standing waves inside the tube.

If you assume that the rear wall of the enclosure is flat, then that might be true, but it should still not be any worse than any rectangular box. By having a concave or convex rear enclosure wall, that would be taken care of, no?

Also, keep in mind that the tube is going to be fairly shallow - depending a bit on what size tube I can source, it will be 15-19 cm long.

Arve · 1 day

Rather than spend hundreds of dollars in a legal battle that held absolutely no gains for him, Jude decided it the simplest and easiest route was to ban NwAvGuy but to keep the posts for the future reference for all head-fiers. There is no point losing any sponsorship or anythig like that.

If you read Head-Fi's Terms of Service (that doubles as a privacy policy), the policy does not at all state how a user's submitted data will or may be used, which makes it reasonable to believe private messages are private. (There are many other things wrong with the terms of service on Head-Fi, but those aren't really relevant to this discussion). It's like with GMail. Short of massive violations of Google's Terms of Service - for instance spam or phishing, I don't expect any Google employee, be it a random employee or Sergey or Larry to read the mail I send and receive. The only time I would expect my mail to be read by anyone but me was if someone requested the data through a court order.

On the other hand, Head-Fi is a web site accessed over an insecure connection, so it's reasonable to believe that literally anyone with bad intent are able to read any page you access on the site.

TL;DR: Head-Fi's ToS gives NwAvGuy reason to be angry if they read his personal mailbox, given that the ToS/Privacy Policy does not indicate that the site administrator reserves the right to access such data to ensure that the site is being run in a timely manner. On the other hand, assuming that this does not happen is a bit naive.

Arve · 1 day

No. It's not a tool for discerning between different gear. It's a tool to improve your listening abilities so you will know better what to listen for when you are evaluating gear and setups.

Arve · 1 day

Will it be a Pringles can with the speaker placed where the Pringles "face" goes?

Pringles can where the lid of the can is replaced by the coaxial Seas driver.

Arve · 1 day

Note, I'm just after building a traditional vented enclosure in an untraditional shape - I primarily intend to use it as a near-field speaker. With a volume of about 2.5 L, the speaker should not be much over 15-20 cm (6-8") deep.

One of the listed butt-uglies was just a big ass tube with MTM smack dab in the center.

I was the one who posted that link :-). The Jamo Oriel isn't really all that untraditional, because as far as I know, only the external shape is tube-formed - inside that huge cabinet, you'll find two fourth-order band pass subs, each driven by an 8" driver.

Sonotube is much more usable than aluminum or PVC because of resonance problems

Source? The driver I have in mind is aluminium.

Arve · 1 day

Reddit isn't really suited for organizing and classifying a lot of gear and make it searchable, nor does it accomodate building personal directories of gear for the users.

The same applies for the code behind reddit - it's not really a viable starting point for creating something like this.

Arve · 1 day

I don't think it matters at all. Practicing producer, studio techs, musicians, composers or conductors are probably more trained listeners than most people, but that doesn't mean they enjoy music any more or less than a pure consumer of music.

Arve · 1 day

This story has me more or less convinced that the web needs a different audiophile user review site/forum/gear index that doesn't depend on direct sponsorship from vendors. The difference is in financing such an effort, as I have a gut feeling that vendor-neutral affiliate programs like Amazon's won't be enough to break such a site even once it gets popular.

sammcj · 1 day

Here. Active (digital, in fact) crossover, with attentuation from 0 to -12 dB and crossover frequencies between 40 and 200 Hz. As an added bonus, there is (or rather, will be) Room EQ, even if you have to set the filters manually in your listening position using a SPL meter, so you can fine-tune considerably more than a simple gain pot at the back of your sub. Start saving :-).

I just wish they had gone all the way and implemented automated room EQ, but for that, you'll have to shell out something like the Lyngdorf Millenium MkIV.

heldain · 1 day

Unless you have special shielding requirements due to EMI/RFI, and you don't plan on plugging/unplugging on a frequent basis, or you have esoteric gear (you don't, btw) . just about any cable will do, so there is no real reason to order one and have to wait days to enjoy your system. Go to any store that sells AV gear, and buy the cheapest one that appears to be of a quality that won't break on the second connect/disconnect cycle.

Likely, that cable won't have "Monster" printed on it, or be nearly as expensive (even if I own a bunch of Monster interconnects that I paid 3-4 dollars for per pair - they were cheaper than noname/equipment-provided cables, and had slightly more durable connectors).

heldain · 1 day

I'd rather pay £50 than £4 for a cable, knowing it's not going to fail as soon as a gentle breeze touches it and there would be some improvement.

Even the 50 cent cables that come with $30 DVD players aren't that brittle.

My only bad experience with a cable was a so called audiophile cable from Tara Labs. When I was disconnecting it from the CD player it was attached to, the clamping force of the ring on the cable connector was so strong that it ripped the RCA socket from its mount (and no, I wasn't applying much force, but the cable clamped so tight that every movement and connection/disconnection cycle caused fatigue.

ssman · 2 days

the MacBook Air's DAC is already pretty horrible

Source?

Arve · 2 days

The double blind only proves people can't predicably prefer one setup over another, not that they all sound the same.

That's not how an ABX test works, I'm afraid. An ABX test is used to determine whether a test subject can confidently tell two things apart without guessing. "Preference" only comes into play if the result of a properly performed ABX test determines that the listener can hear a difference.

You sound like you have no experience in this matter. I suggest you go listen to some high end setups before you start saying you cant hear a difference.

This line of argumentation is known as an abusive ad hominem attack, and discussions are better without such attacks.

Arve · 2 days

That's applying analog logic to digital systems.

Arve · 2 days

There is no error correction in S/PDIF (or rather AES3, which defines the protocol). There is a parity bit per 32-bit subframe, which will detect an odd number of bit errors, but there is no resend in the protocol. However, S/PDIF is reasonably electrically robust, and in researching this reply, I found this - the guy used a 150 GBP Kenwood CD player, and got a bit-perfect stream. He then cut the cable in half, and used it by either twisting together the cable ends, and he also inserted a wire coat hanger in the signal chain.

When he twisted the wire ends together, he got a total number of two errors in the file, and one error in the coat hanger patch, in a file of 23 megabytes.

Arve · 2 days

Unless the CD players, cables, and/or the DAC are malfunctioning or badly designed, they will not sound different. 1101 1101 0010 0100 is 1101 1101 0010 0100, regardless of the source used to arrive at that sequence of bits. Saying that two digital transport produce a different audio output is tantamount to saying that two PC's of different brands (but otherwise following the same standards) will produce different output when you use it to add two and two.

robotevil · 2 days

Another hint for the volume keys is that you can press shift+volume key to avoid the bleep sound when changing volume.

hahavaffan · 2 days

Disagree. If I found a Dalek-shaped speaker I might just want to have it, sound-quality be damned. You couldn't pay me into putting a pair of Wilsons in my living room.

mail2345 · 2 days

Are Harmon Kardon speakers transparent enough for a DAC? Or should I just try to find new speakers/use my earbuds.

I'm prone to saying that no active 2.1 system below $220-230 will justify an external DAC - unless there are significant design problems with the internal sound card, such as excessive noise or interference problems.

I don't know precisely which H/K speakers you have, so recommending an upgrade, or whether to upgrade at all would make sense for you, but in my world, I would never opt for a 2.1 system. For desktop use, I would continue upgrading to better and better standmount/bookshelf speakers or studio monitors, and for non-desktop use, I would either choose a 2.0 system with bookshelf speakers or floorstanding speakers if the room was large enough to justify it, and the bass was really required. The only time I would really look at a sub was for a pure home theater setup, and I would probably opt for two subs, not one.

burninrock24 · 2 days

From what I found when Googling, they have been as low as $39 or so.

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