Audiophile nerd thread

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:13 pm

Plenty of arcade hardware elitists around here, let's get a discussion going for all the audio hardware elitists :D

I recently got my hands on these ..
http://www.audiophileproducts.com/cutebeyond
http://www.audiophileproducts.com/supplier

Have tested with Sennheiser 570, 600 and 650. Sounds great on all of them, but of course the 650 sounds best.

Haven't got a decent speaker setup because it costs around 10x as much as a headphone setup .. I know someone who spent $6,000 on a sound system and it's absolutely amazing, but I'm not gonna spend that much .. :S

D · Post by D » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:23 pm

You don't buy speakers because headphones are cheaper.
I'm sure it because you cannot play loud music in your current living space. Nobody likes to wear heapdphones.
A friend of mine recently bought Focal speakers. Apparantly these are relatively cheap, but have awesome sound quality. I want some of these too, they kill my Dali's!!!!! Headphones?

I got some stupid headsets at home and work for Skype!

Stormwatch · Post by **Stormwatch** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:29 pm

Sound quality? What the point of even trying...

...when everyone masters like this shit nowadays?!

oli_lar · Post by **oli_lar** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:39 pm

I'd be a bit wary of PSUs etc that say they will upgrade your sound quality. In theory they might, but the audible difference will be negligable, especially unless your listening space is set up properly. With audiophile stuff its easy to spend hundreds of pounds and not actually get any benefit.

My current set up is a Cambridge Audio 340r AV reciever, CA DVD99 DVD player, CA surround sound package and a pair of Bose Interaudio 4000XLs as main speakers. Not particularly great on CD audio or digital compared to my old set up (CA 340a SE amp, CA 540C CD player, CA Dacmagic mk2 ii DAC connected up to the 4000XLs) but I don't have the space or money to afford both a music and film set up atm.

trivial · Post by **trivial** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:53 pm

Seconding Stormwatch's comment. I think the first time I noticed was with a Foo Fighters song. I thought I liked it, but it turned out my brain was lying to me--piecing together something with overdriven amps rather than digital clipping.

Peace!

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:03 pm

Stormwatch: Abominations such as that are easy to avoid if you stay away from the major labels. I have plenty of CD-quality audio that isn't compressed and mashed into oblivion with ProTools.

Wiki to the rescue .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:17 pm

Yeah, my first thought reading the OP was 'why not invest in a good receiver'?

As far as CD decks go...obviously it is getting harder and harder to get a good deck. I ended up going with a pro-audio tascam but a friend of mine went the other direction--apparently the Oppo dvd players have amazing audio quality and lots of options for outs. I've never tried it though so I can't give a personal recommendation. However I did notice they were all region free units!

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:30 pm

D wrote:You don't buy speakers because headphones are cheaper.
I'm sure it because you cannot play loud music in your current living space. Nobody likes to wear heapdphones.

Not true at all, I love wearing headphones. Depends on the model though .. Sennheisers are very comfortable, I've found. Grados made my ears hurt after just half an hour. I can wear Sennheisers all day.

It is nice that I can play loud music any time of day with headphones though. If I had thousands worth of sound equipment I couldn't even use because everyone was asleep, I'd be pretty sad .. :p

clp · Post by **clp** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:43 pm

D wrote:You don't buy speakers because headphones are cheaper.
I'm sure it because you cannot play loud music in your current living space. Nobody likes to wear heapdphones.
A friend of mine recently bought Focal speakers. Apparantly these are relatively cheap, but have awesome sound quality. I want some of these too, they kill my Dali's!!!!! Headphones? I got some stupid headsets at home and work for Skype!

definitely not true i wear top end headphones to 1 fully zone into what im listening to 2 i guess it kinda depends on what you listen to but i want to hear every detail of the music .

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:45 pm

Udderdude wrote:I love wearing headphones. Depends on the model though .. Sennheisers are very comfortable, I've found. Grados made my ears hurt after just half an hour. I can wear Sennheisers all day.

I second every word. Having spent weeks in my friend's HD600s, I loved every minute of it. I tried several Grados (not the GS series, though) in a headphone shop, and they weren't even nearly as comfortable. I like Grado's design, but it shouldn't overdrive basic ergonomics.

brokenhalo · Post by **brokenhalo** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:22 pm

another vote for headphones. i like my sennheiser hd200 headphones for listening to music. great sound at a budget price. and the best part about headphones is you don't have to worry about how the room you are in is going to affect the sound.

TodayIsForgotten · Post by **TodayIsForgotten** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:41 pm

I'm a headphone guy too. I use to have a Klipsch 5.1 system for my PC, but i have since switched to AKG 701s with a microdac and heedcanamp. Although, i hardly use the canamp. I guess its nice to know its there when i really want to experience the music.

kernow · Post by **kernow** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:45 pm

Nice thread, I have a quad 99 system and I love it. It would be the last thing to go if I had to sell everything. it sounds amazing even after a year or two of ownership, constantly impresses me.

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:39 pm

What would you guys recommend for an up-to-date & current home theater surround sound reciever setup? I notice that most Blu-ray movie discs support the Dolby True HD, DTS-HD, and Digital Dolby Surround Ex formats in either 5.1 or 7.1 outputs. So, naturally, that means upgrading my current reciever play any of those three major digital audio formats and going with the HDMI 1.3 spec route (instead of the traditional 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround or DTS Digital Surround formats via digital optical cable medium from a few years back -- this was considered the "gold standard" for top-end standard definition DVD players back in the day).

I've noticed that with the latest dedicated Sony Blu-Ray players, they have built-in support for Sony's BD-Live functionality + any downloadable firmware upgrades released in the future -- meaning one connects the player to the internet via ethernet. Same can be said with a PS3 console with the latest firmware with BD-Live functionality included at no extra charge. Can't say that about with the Xbox 360's add-on HD-DVD-player accessory though as the HD-DVD format is obsolete by today's standards. The very first Blu-ray player debuted at a whopping $1,000 USD, at least for the U.S. A/V market back in the day. ^_~

I keep hearing talk about that A/V manufacturers might be rolling out the new 1440p (1440 progressive scan output) HD monitors: means having to upgrade all the A/V gear all over again. ^_~

And wil Cave break tradition with it's upcoming Death Smiles 2 PCB and present it in true stereo output this time around or will they be the usual cheap-ass and resort to mono sound output only?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:25 am

PC Engine Fan X! wrote:I keep hearing talk about that A/V manufacturers might be rolling out the new 1440p (1440 progressive scan output) HD monitors: means having to upgrade all the A/V gear all over again. ^_~

If they want to alienate consumers even more, they will. Things are confusing enough as it is allready.

PC Engine Fan X! wrote:And wil Cave break tradition with it's upcoming Death Smiles 2 PCB and present it in true stereo output this time around or will they be the usual cheap-ass and resort to mono sound output only?

It's pretty embarrasing that the soundtrack CDs sound better than the actual game. Come on.

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:32 am

Udderdude wrote:
PC Engine Fan X! wrote:And wil Cave break tradition with it's upcoming Death Smiles 2 PCB and present it in true stereo output this time around or will they be the usual cheap-ass and resort to mono sound output only?
It's pretty embarrasing that the soundtrack CDs sound better than the actual game. Come on.

Haha, yeah, fucking MONO

Maybe it doesn´t make a difference in a noisy arcade...

Post by **system11** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:42 am

trivial wrote:Seconding Stormwatch's comment. I think the first time I noticed was with a Foo Fighters song. I thought I liked it, but it turned out my brain was lying to me--piecing together something with overdriven amps rather than digital clipping.

Peace!

Thirding, so much music is absolutely ruined - and what's worse is the remasters they push are often rubbish compared to the original versions. For example some of the ELO remasters - they cleaned the sound up, really brough out parts you couldn't hear before, then threw all that work away and clipped the hell out of it with a mega volume boost.

Edit: pro-tip - these are awesome:
http://www.gearcrave.com/2007-11-06/pan ... ro-phones/

null1024 · Post by **null1024** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:07 am

Stormwatch wrote:Sound quality? What the point of even trying...

...when everyone masters like this shit nowadays?!

Man, that must sound bad, it's all clipped and stuff...
People who compress the waveform like that should be shot.

Also, speakers SUCK. Seriously, get some really good headphones, because so much is lost with speakers [listening to some of the music I've made sounds quite a bit worse with [most] speakers, however I don't master. However, considering that picture up there, you may not even need to care, and you can get speakers, without it sounding so bad, as the terrible clipping and stuff sounds worse with the better output of headphones.]

PS: Very informative GIF:

Post by **system11** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:10 am

A good set of speakers will leave even the best headphones in the dust - there's really no comparison.

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:22 am

bloodflowers wrote:A good set of speakers will leave even the best headphones in the dust - there's really no comparison.

I think it's a matter of preference. It's definitely a fact that you can spend less on headphones and get better quality. Really high quality speakers in a specially designed listening room will always trump headphones, though. There's a limit to headphone technology.

Post by **system11** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:33 am

Udderdude wrote:
bloodflowers wrote:A good set of speakers will leave even the best headphones in the dust - there's really no comparison.
I think it's a matter of preference. It's definitely a fact that you can spend less on headphones and get better quality. Really high quality speakers in a specially designed listening room will always trump headphones, though. There's a limit to headphone technology.

A tiny full range speaker can't reproduce sound as well as something with multiple drivers, it's pretty fundamental. Now some of the late 70s/early 80s speakers were pretty good but they don't really suit driving basslines if you're into technocrap. They're incredibly cheap in any second hand shop, we're talking names like Kef, Mordent Short, Wharfedale and so on. If I had space for a decent pair (space is something I just don't have with all the machines..), I'd pick up a used set of Mission 753s - astonishing quality, and you can pick them up for $300.

kernow · Post by **kernow** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:50 am

I have a set of 25yr old mordaunt shorts, they were $1500 at the time and in near mint condition, they sound amazing to me, they are probably the weakest link in my system, yet I feel no need to change them. I love em to bits.

and yes, good speakers > headphones, absolutely no contest.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:56 am

Udderdude wrote:
D wrote:You don't buy speakers because headphones are cheaper.
I'm sure it because you cannot play loud music in your current living space. Nobody likes to wear heapdphones.
Not true at all, I love wearing headphones. Depends on the model though .. Sennheisers are very comfortable, I've found. Grados made my ears hurt after just half an hour. I can wear Sennheisers all day.

+25 to this, except my Sennheisers needed a while to break in. I have been wanting to take up a local professor on an invitation to check 'em to see if the sound reproduction is still as good as it used to be. It probably is. Been using them almost daily for half a decade now, if not more.

HD280 pro is the model. Don't know if they've bettered these yet at this price range. Only thing I can say is that they put out a lot of base so I have to make sure I don't hurt my ears.

I don't have one of them fancy listening rooms or speakers set up, and I like my privacy / not annoying people. Plus I find that the headphones really help for spatial awareness in gaming; I've never felt the need for a 3D audio setup.

I use them on everything except really noisy sources like the MSX2 where I just use an old taped-together Sony set.

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 4:40 am

I have an old trusty Technics RP-HT6000 series made stereo headphones with built-in bass ports. It does crank out some bad-ass bass. It still works like a charm. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 5:25 am

PCE Fan, does they look like this:
rinku

Also, are they beaten up or holding in pretty well? Most of the trim plastic on the sides of the headband of my HD280 is gone, just some little bits sliding around. The thing has taken a fair amount of abuse though.

I'm almost surprised to see new Technics stuff...I thought that brand went under some time ago. They were legendary in the days of yore but I thought that was over.

Grado is pretty well-known but I understand they're open-ear phones and I imagine that blasts some noise out the sides. Could be embarrassing! ;)

Domino · Post by **Domino** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 5:54 am

I should upgrade my sound receiver. I'm running the BD player HDMI for video and Toslink for audio. If you run it via Toslink the best you can do is 5.1 and no Dolby TrueHD and I think no DTS HD (if you try to run them thru Toslink it'll come out regular Dolby Digital and DTS). The only way for TrueHD and DTS HD is via HDMI cable (and my sound receiver is four years old, but still works like a charm).

Speaking of home audio I got this to say:

DTS > Anything Dolby.

PCM uncompressed audio that has 5.1 (Terminator BD for example) ≥ DTS.

KBZ · Post by **KBZ** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:37 am

speakers just aren't happening in my tiny apartment =/

Currently I have...

FLAC>PCIDelta44->chinese diy amp kit(woot!)> Aurvana Live (Denon 1001s) or Jays Q-jays

I spend about 2 hours a day on the bus, so The Q-jays iems are an absolute must for me. People talk so loudly on their cellphones these days!

I use them with a Cowon D2 and fiio E3 amp. Most files are 256kb/s Ogg Vorbis.

Post by **system11** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:14 am

Oh, best amp I ever heard was this:

http://www.thevintageknob.org/VICTOR/PL10/PL10.html
http://www.thevintageknob.org/VICTOR/ML10/ML10.html

I foolishly sold it to a friend many years ago, recently I found out they're incredibly rare, and changing hands for much more money than I sold them for. Even had signed test certificates. The friend who bought them had some Mission 753s, and the sound was absolutely top notch (and if you wanted, very loud).

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:23 am

My amplifier is a sony TA F222 ES, anyone knows the model? It's pretty old.