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strtj posted:Well recorded synth stuff is actually great for testing a full range of frequencies. This is a big reason I love almost anything 'Neurofunk'. It's a nebulous term for a genre that's mostly all Drum & Bass, but it's full of producers who really cracked the code on exploring space and texture. Lmao I actually didn't figure ignoring room acoustics was a part of audiophile 'culture' but of course it is. I don't have the best sounding room or system, but the best investment I made in making it sound better was like $200 of foam panels.
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Dec 13, 2022 05:04
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strtj posted:Well recorded synth stuff is actually great for testing a full range of frequencies. classical music, too!
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Dec 14, 2022 17:40
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A good recording of Scheherazade or something similar of the late Romantic period will definitely put a sound system to the test. Everything from the rumble of the tuba/double basses, all the cellos and woodwinds in the mids, the violins in the treble range and then the room ambience of the hall, on top of all the dramatic dynamic changes and timbral differences between everything. ~~tRaNsIEnTs~~
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Dec 14, 2022 18:58
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Yeah but an early-2000s Warp Records release of glitched sawtooth sweeps and drill snares over giant waves of sub bass gets right to the point about it.
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Dec 14, 2022 19:05
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They both have their merits. You're not going to get an accurate picture of a system's dynamic range if you just play Noisia through it, and you're not going to see how much it can flex and pummel you with harmonic textures that make you feel every part of your sinuses with just some Wagner records. There is such a joy in hearing that kind of music on huge systems though. Some of my fondest memories from raves are taking newbies (who had only ever heard Drum & Bass through my tinny Bluetooth speaker in the kitchen at work) to them, and having them come up to me an hour in and go "dude... I get it."
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Dec 14, 2022 19:16
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I think you’ll find that nothing exposes the deficiencies of your system like a 96kbps version of whats_my_age_again.mp3. If it can’t reflect the shortcomings of the format then is it really truly transparent?
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Dec 14, 2022 19:18
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Jeherrin posted:I think you’ll find that nothing exposes the deficiencies of your system like a 96kbps version of whats_my_age_again.mp3. If it can’t reflect the shortcomings of the format then is it really truly transparent?
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Dec 14, 2022 19:28
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It's interesting going back in our music collections to see the kind of poo poo sandwiches we put up with in the early download age. I mean I've probably still got my Chemical Brothers CDs somewhere in a box at my Mom's place, but as soon as I could digitize that poo poo (and find more of it on Kazaa) I was listening to 128kbps everything. Going back and trying to play it that way is so offensive to me now. Same with movies. I've been bored and digging deep into my Plex server and even 1080p rips I downloaded back in 2010 look like utter trash now. That's probably got something to do with converter quality, same as MP3s - I've heard 320s that may as well be 128s because of the potato they were encoded on.
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Dec 14, 2022 19:35
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A 64kbps MP3 of "Bück Dich" by Rammstein is probably the worst-quality track that I regularly listened to. It sounded mostly okay on my crappy PC speakers.
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Dec 14, 2022 19:38
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I've managed to track down CDs or vinyl of most of what I downloaded during those days but there's a firm cap on how good my huge collection of early 90s rave tapes can sound.
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Dec 14, 2022 19:49
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Now is as good a time as any to link the Harman audition tracks: https://artoflistening.harman.com/professional-reference-songs They may not be your taste, but they have definitely been proven effective for testing speakers. The Spotify link is missing 5 tracks. The Tidal link has all of them.
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Dec 14, 2022 20:47
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A lovely pair of PC speakers is the wisest sound system investment. There is literally no difference between FLAC and 64kbps MP3 on a properly blown out set of tweeters.
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Dec 14, 2022 21:17
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strtj posted:Well recorded synth stuff is actually great for testing a full range of frequencies. back in my day working at audiostore selling consumer level poo poo (not high dollar audio poo poo, that was down the road a bit), my go-to was Money by pink floyd for speaker testing. It had a good amount of range, and was repetitive enoguh you could fire it up and swap between sets of speakers for ppl to hear. Again though we were talking about the $79 specials to the $500 polks. There was usually some higher end poo poo in there, and bose paid us for floor space but no one ever bought them after hearing a range of speakers.
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Dec 14, 2022 21:34
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Ah, we should test them on this: https://www.line-magnetic.eu/en/products-line-magnetic-en/speakers-line-magnetic-en/lm-3-3-way-speakers-lm302-22a-lm555w-ba-18-detail Speakers well north of $30k, and probably into the $50k range. Is the frequency range 150-13k or 23-20k? That's not important. What's important is how cool they make your house look, and how accurately they reproduce technology from the 1930s.
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Dec 14, 2022 22:36
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They don't even look good.
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Dec 14, 2022 22:38
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Loudspeaker or fire suppression equipment?
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Dec 14, 2022 23:50
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don't waste your money on a new set of speakers, you get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers
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Dec 15, 2022 00:02
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Ok Comboomer posted:don't waste your money on a new set of speakers, you get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers I strapped a pair of Genelec monitors onto a couple of Boston Dynamics robots so that they can follow me around at all times. With the $20k optional tongue upgrades it's like Diana Krall is actually licking my face.
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Dec 15, 2022 00:45
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Mister Speaker posted:It's interesting going back in our music collections to see the kind of poo poo sandwiches we put up with in the early download age. I mean I've probably still got my Chemical Brothers CDs somewhere in a box at my Mom's place, but as soon as I could digitize that poo poo (and find more of it on Kazaa) I was listening to 128kbps everything. Going back and trying to play it that way is so offensive to me now. Depends on the encoder. 128kbps VBR MP3 done on post 2007 Lame is pretty good
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Dec 15, 2022 01:06
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strtj posted:With the $20k optional tongue upgrades it's like Diana Krall is actually licking my face. I don't think Elvis would like that very much
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Dec 15, 2022 01:57
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Ok Comboomer posted:I don't think Elvis would like that very much Elvis Costello can, should, and will lick my rear end clean. (I honestly had no idea they were married.) On a lighter note, please enjoy the finest in helping a tube from 1931 rip you off as hard as possible: https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisa7cf8-david-berning-co-845-zotl-tube
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Dec 15, 2022 17:50
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Mister Speaker posted:There is such a joy in hearing that kind of music on huge systems though. Some of my fondest memories from raves are taking newbies (who had only ever heard Drum & Bass through my tinny Bluetooth speaker in the kitchen at work) to them, and having them come up to me an hour in and go "dude... I get it." That’s how I got my nickname. The other dnb heads in the IRC scene I belonged to told me I couldn’t appreciate the music outside of a club system, so I built the loudest system I could in my car and drove around the woods listening to neruofunk on it. Garbage’s “Push It” is my go to demo song. They allegedly used all 256 available tracks in their DAW (Sonic Foundry ACID, IIRC) just to see what would happen, and the better the setup, the more individual sounds you can hear. Plus it’s a song I’ve heard so many times I know if something is missing.
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Dec 15, 2022 18:43
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I am friends with musicians and took one to this hifi shop here in Vegas where the shopkeeper sat him down to listen to $250k of equipment and the shopkeeper wouldn't even play music he liked. It was just Norah Jones and Buble; I asked "oh is this your preferred music?" "No I like rock, heavier stuff..." "Oh like Death From Above or Igorrr?" (I was being a stinker) "More like British invasion." "Oh cool, I just loaded out The Who recently!" Long pause "... Can we hear some?" "Oh we're breaking this system in right now." I had to explain to my professionally recorded friend that this man was 100% serious after we left. Wasabi the J fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Dec 15, 2022 |
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Dec 15, 2022 18:54
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As far as I can tell very few musicians are audiophiles. I will always love the idea of Henry Rollins listening to beat up Cramps 7" on his half million dollar Wilson Audio system, though.
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Dec 15, 2022 19:13
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The most successful musicians I personally know loving love Bose and soundbars, mostly because the Bose linear array tower are their workhorse gigging soundsystems.
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Dec 15, 2022 19:47
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https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/furutech-ncf-clear-line-ac-conditioner.1108097/ very normal people and their infinite veils lifted by a glorified power socket cover Palladium fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Dec 16, 2022 |
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Dec 16, 2022 10:22
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Palladium posted:https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/furutech-ncf-clear-line-ac-conditioner.1108097/ quote:I like the tightening of focus it brings and the touch of perceived dynamic contrast. quote:Now, after weeks in my system, plugging and unplugging it brings a clear and noticeable change that anyone could hear. The sound stage becomes so flat without it in. Demonstrably time after time. And of course they're just so thrilled it's $250. I assume that it's just a ferite wrapped power cord with fancy rear end sheathing fabric and gold ends. tater_salad fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Dec 16, 2022 |
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Dec 16, 2022 12:43
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 i'm the special T10 tamper-proof stainless steel self-tapping screws and washers
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Dec 16, 2022 17:33
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Wouldn't want those pesky audio reviewers opening it up and exposing their charlatanism
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Dec 16, 2022 17:57
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Holy crap that thread is goldquote:
I know when I want to test something’s efficacy, I make sure to change as many variables as possible. Baseline management and control groups? Sounds like a liberal conspiracy
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Dec 16, 2022 18:25
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Let's break that down real quick:audiophile posted:I played it louder than usual and was absolutely dumbfounded at the ease... I was hearing. WTF does that even mean?
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Dec 16, 2022 18:59
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bigman.50grand posted:Let's break that down real quick: whatever you want it to
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Dec 16, 2022 19:00
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These guys could save a lot of money if they realised a little weed is going to make their systems sound wayyyy better than any of this stuff
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Dec 16, 2022 19:07
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Teaching everyone about fletcher munson curves, room correction, and double blind testing would bankrupt most of the Audiophile industry overnight. This poo poo will never not be hilarious. This company rocks. This jawn "features a special crystalline material that has two 'active' properties. First, it generates negative ions that eliminate static. Second, it converts thermal energy into far infrared." Only $125! Did I mention it's a goddamn outlet cover? https://www.furutech.com/2020/01/06/19149/ Gramps fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Dec 16, 2022 |
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Dec 16, 2022 19:46
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Also just lmao at choosing a 60s rock band debut album for your mind shattering experience. I cannot stress how much time pressure and other budget issues would make that record sound like poo poo from a technical perspective, and that's assuming they had a recording engineer who knew what he was doing and wasn't bullied into making bad choices by the band. Even assuming that the snake oil works, it's basically upsampling a 00s mp3.
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Dec 16, 2022 20:26
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I'm going to guess they're called "Furutech" to piggyback off the reputation of Furman, who makes actual power systems.
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Dec 16, 2022 20:32
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Gramps posted:Teaching everyone about fletcher munson curves, room correction, and double blind testing would bankrupt most of the Audiophile industry overnight. This poo poo will never not be hilarious. The entire audiophile circle is obsessed by either blatant snake oil or stuff that are piss poor engineered to justify addon "tweaks". For the latter it would be like Seasonic purposely made a PSU with bad output ripple, so they can sell you a "ripple smoothing cable" full of capacitors with the claim that it make your GPU go faster. Would the cable improve the ripple? Yes. Is the claim correct? Doubtful. Is the whole thing entirely stupid to begin with? Yes. Palladium fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 03:09
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qirex posted:Loudspeaker or fire suppression equipment? Something from a 1940s sci-fi movie.
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Dec 18, 2022 02:06
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the best product I've seen was a cable lead that you were supposed to hold to ground yourself while listening, to prevent interference from your own static energy. The tag line was "put yourself into your system"
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Dec 18, 2022 19:45
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lmao of course its Synergistic Research https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/hd-sx-metaground/  it's $495. to be clear it's $495 for what amounts to an anti-static wristband. the ground block is $8,000. quote:And this got Ted to thinking, “What if I grounded myself along with the system to the Galileo Ground Block SX? Would this carry a similar benefit?” We built a prototype ground strap the following day and connected a listener to the Galileo Ground Block SX, where we grounded the rest of our reference system, including Tranquility Bases, Cables, Racks, and the frame of our listening room; and guess what? Our reference system got better when we were grounded. Grounding yourself to your system delivers improvements that start with more natural sound. Soundstaging is more realistic, with individual instruments and vocals taking on precise placement with improved high-frequency decay and smoothness. Even the bass is improved. We realize this may be a stretch for many people to accept, so we make it easy for you to try before making a final decision. Feels Villeneuve fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Dec 18, 2022 |
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Dec 18, 2022 19:50
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