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my apartment is hard tiled and i live in it barefeet, so touching anything conductive that uses 2-pin AC and also isn't grounded somewhere else gives me a perfectly safe but annoying 120V shock
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Apr 23, 2023 11:54
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Palladium posted:my apartment is hard tiled and i live in it barefeet, so touching anything conductive that uses 2-pin AC and also isn't grounded somewhere else gives me a perfectly safe but annoying 120V shock That's not how it's supposed to work. That's a red flag and a safety hazard that you're house is wired wrong, or your appliances are shorting out
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Apr 23, 2023 12:08
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M_Gargantua posted:That's not how it's supposed to work. That's a red flag and a safety hazard that you're house is wired wrong, or your appliances are shorting out nah its perfectly safe because that's how the Y-capacitors of the EMI filter in 2-pin power supplies reject unwanted AC noise when operated without a ground connection even my $1500 LG C2 OLED does this HP, Dell, Lenovo, Apple etc all had advisories regarding their laptops with 2-pin power adapters saying the same thing. they wisened up and changed to 3-pin adapters anyway
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Apr 23, 2023 12:34
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BrainDance posted:Yeah we hired an electrician. He came something like 11 in the morning, an hour late, on a Saturday no tools or anything and pretty clearly drunk looked around for a while and eventually just said "I can't do this" and walked out. We didn't pay him. A friend I got who's an electrician (on the other side of the world or else I'd totally just pay him to do it) said that's the most electrician thing. The earth-leakage circuit breaker is not to save your electronics or to stop a fire from happening, it's to prevent you from getting killed in case any of your appliances shorts out and you touch it. Funny story about the electrician, much appreciated! My Denon receiver has a 3-prong plug (ie is grounded), but I guess they make 'em both ways? Generally, consumer equipment which does not connect to ground is required to be designed with somewhat stricter requirements called "double insulation". You can read about them here: https://www.draelectricals.co.uk/double-insulated-electrical-appliance/ quote:The basic requirement is that no single failure can result in dangerous voltage becoming exposed so that it might cause an electric shock and that this is achieved without relying on an earthed metal casing. This is usually achieved at least in part by having two layers of insulating material surrounding live parts or by using reinforced insulation. Presumably a genuine Denon would follow all such best practices and should be safe to touch at all times. Even in case it has a failure, it should never lead to the casing becoming "live" and dangerous to touch. There is no need to modify it. As for your counterfeit power strip, I'd just replace it. If the projector has a grounded connector, it should be grounded if possible. It might have prevented killing your receiver so it should be a no-brainer.
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Apr 24, 2023 13:22
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Hey I don't post in here but wanted to pay it forward to my fellow goons. Best Buy is closing out their KEF R3s to make way for the new updated R3 meta. By all accounts the updated version is better, but hooooly poo poo. You can get a crazy deal on the "old" ones if you're willing to roll the dice on Open Box Fair display models that they're trying to offload. I was able to grab a pair for $644. They have some visual damage... worn corners... a dent on one of the woofer caps (which is unfortunately a huge issue for these speakers; they have extremely thin aluminum on the woofer caps). Nothing appears to affect the sound though and the damage is minor enough that I doubt anyone would notice in practice. It's subtle damage. https://slickdeals.net/f/16609676-kef-r3-series-passive-3-way-bookshelf-speakers-pair-various-colors-1430-more-free-shipping Anyways. This is as YMMV as it comes but there are lots of units nearby to me at least (all with exactly one unit in stock; so, display models). You can easily go to the store and check it out before you commit - or in my case I just reserved a few; they may put a hold on your card but they don't actually charge you until you commit to the pickup- and see what you can find. The return exchange is easy if you decide to return as well. I totally get that this kind of thing will only appeal to a certain kind of person, but I think this is an incredible opportunity to get into your first "nice" audio system if that's where you are at in your life right now. There are also some higher quality open box models if you don't want to roll the dice quite so hard, but those seem a little harder to find. 
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Apr 28, 2023 14:09
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I wonder if you could pull the dent out using something sticky enough
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Apr 28, 2023 15:03
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bird with big dick posted:I wonder if you could pull the dent out using something sticky enough There are whole YouTube videos on woofer and tweeter repair. I think on a woofer you do something like pop a dent on a car.
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Apr 28, 2023 16:05
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I would consider pulling the trigger on this but none available in my area. Thanks for the heads up in any case.
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Apr 29, 2023 00:52
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Dogen posted:There are whole YouTube videos on woofer and tweeter repair. I think on a woofer you do something like pop a dent on a car. depending on the material, I’ve even used the tip of a pin to pull the tweeter cap back into form.
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Apr 29, 2023 01:02
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In my case it's actually like, an indented scratch that cut into the aluminum. When I say the woofer cap is soft, I mean like, you can permanently damage it easily by just putting your finger on it. Absolutely despicable design choice, but the speakers themselves are fire and acoustics don't seem to be affected if you do scratch/dent the cap. e: sorry I wasn't clear- point being that fixing a dent like that relies on the material being more sturdy, so it pops back out. Soft aluminum doesn't snap-repair like that, too soft. It's the only real flaw on what is an incredible set of speakers, and if you manage to get a $600 pair, you are living good. Ok Comboomer posted:depending on the material, I’ve even used the tip of a pin to pull the tweeter cap back into form. Do you have a technique for soft metals? aparmenideanmonad posted:I would consider pulling the trigger on this but none available in my area. Thanks for the heads up in any case. Oh dang sorry to hear that. There was like 5-10 pairs within my area (Seattle) granted, there are also several best buys, so. Bear in mind that they do a mile radius- if you are willing to go drive a little longer to get them, try casting a larger net. it could be worth it. Taima fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Apr 29, 2023 |
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Apr 29, 2023 12:29
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Taima posted:Oh dang sorry to hear that. There was like 5-10 pairs within my area (Seattle) granted, there are also several best buys, so. Bear in mind that they do a mile radius- if you are willing to go drive a little longer to get them, try casting a larger net. it could be worth it. Yeah I'm in the Philly suburbs and the search is hitting pretty much everything from DC to NYC so I think they're probably just gone over here already. There are some screaming good deals on R7s and R11s too but I have no place to put them.
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Apr 29, 2023 14:23
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Taima posted:Do you have a technique for soft metals? I mean, at worst you make a tiny pinprick hole in the material. I’ve done it with fabric and paper/cardboard caps just by carefully working the tip of the pin into the fibers/weave of the material and pulling the dent out. Sometimes I’ve left an insignificant hole, most of the times not. Probably not suitable for your material. Another possible avenue, if the speaker’s construction and materials allow it, would be to remove the cap altogether, reshape it, and then glue it back in place, but that’s much more work to do right, and a lot of drivers simply aren’t built in such a way, they’re too delicate, made of one single piece, etc.
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Apr 29, 2023 17:28
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Thanks for the comments all, I appreciate it. A couple more, if yall don't mind. The KEF R3 can suck down tons of power, and can get as low as 3-4 ohm. I have a Klipsch SPL-150 subwoofer in my system paired with a pretty low end receiver (Denon S760H). I mostly got the receiver because I needed 8K capabilities, and I run it with JBL 530s which are not hard to drive. It's been fine so far but I am considering adding my recently purchased KEF R3s as the left and right fronts. My questions: 1) Can I get away with my current, less powerful receiver for the R3s since I'm offloading all the low frequencies to the sub, which is of course self-powered and thus doesn't need any help in that way from the receiver? 2) Do home theater receivers allow more juice per speaker when there is less speakers overall? I'm wondering if running at 4.1 instead of 5.1 or 7.1 would allow the R3s to receive more juice? Thanks yall.
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May 3, 2023 13:15
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Taima posted:Thanks for the comments all, I appreciate it. A couple more, if yall don't mind. The KEF R3 can suck down tons of power, and can get as low as 3-4 ohm. 1. Yes but also that (running a sub) is kind of already the default 2. Also yes but iirc amp power is already nearly universally published as driving only 2 speakers at 8 ohm so it’s not so much that running less speakers makes your situation really better it’s just avoiding making it worse kinda. Center channel definitely will soak up a lot of power but I question how much surrounds do since they’re largely used for sort of lower volume Ambiance sounds The biggest factor is probably listening habits. 1w can make quite a bit of sound but you also need headroom and If you like to crank it you’re gonna want as much power as you can get. If you really like volume it probably won’t be enough, if you’re a more average volume type person (like my wife) then it will be. I bought an emotiva 200x5 amp like 15 years ago and it’s been a great investment. On its third receiver pairing and I never worry about power and also never worry about having enough amp channels since I’m adding 5 to whatever the receiver comes with. Currently driving front 3 off the emotiva and the 4 surround off the Denon. It was also on sale for $599 then though IIRC and I bet the same amp now costs $1500. E: it’s 250x5 now and $1799. bird with big dick fucked around with this message at 13:47 on May 3, 2023 |
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May 3, 2023 13:41
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The answer about listening habits is correct. Connect them, see how you like them. If you don't think they sound good, take home a more powerful amp on trial, but not until then.
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May 3, 2023 15:18
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bird with big dick posted:I bought an emotiva 200x5 amp like 15 years ago and it’s been a great investment. On its third receiver pairing and I never worry about power and also never worry about having enough amp channels since I’m adding 5 to whatever the receiver comes with. Currently driving front 3 off the emotiva and the 4 surround off the Denon. It was also on sale for $599 then though IIRC and I bet the same amp now costs $1500.
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May 3, 2023 16:50
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qirex posted:The problem with this is it puts a huge damper on receiver selection. The cheapest new receiver with pre outs is over a grand, and that number will probably keep going up as the AVR market shrinks further and they try to capture more money from the high end/custom install customers. Amazing thing I found out putting together my absurd system - at least with Denon receivers with 2 subwoofer outputs, if you set your subwoofer range to full, the two sub outs act as a stereo preamp. You'll need to do your own crossover downstream, but it does work.
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May 3, 2023 18:53
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I have faith that somebody, someday, will make a compact surround processor that is $500 or so. Even if it's just 5.1 and not Atmos/DTS-X it would be such a boon to the market. Of course that is why such a thing will never exist, Dolby and DTS want their licensing dollars and electronics companies don't want someone using external amps to pay less than three grand.
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May 3, 2023 19:27
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qirex posted:I have faith that somebody, someday, will make a compact surround processor that is $500 or so. Even if it's just 5.1 and not Atmos/DTS-X it would be such a boon to the market. Of course that is why such a thing will never exist, Dolby and DTS want their licensing dollars and electronics companies don't want someone using external amps to pay less than three grand. This isn't out yet but I think it might be exactly that https://www.minidsp.com/products/minidsp-in-a-box/flex-ht https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/coming-soon-minidsp-flex-with-hdmi-input.43201/
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May 3, 2023 19:39
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KillHour posted:This isn't out yet but I think it might be exactly that It looks like it at first glance but it’s not. It only supports multichannel PCM not Dolby/DTS and the list of devices that decode surround to multichannel PCM is basically “a PC.”
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May 3, 2023 20:24
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qirex posted:I have faith that somebody, someday, will make a compact surround processor that is $500 or so. Even if it's just 5.1 and not Atmos/DTS-X it would be such a boon to the market. Of course that is why such a thing will never exist, Dolby and DTS want their licensing dollars and electronics companies don't want someone using external amps to pay less than three grand. I mean there’s that new $400 Schiit thing that uses 90s tech but lol
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May 3, 2023 21:09
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Ok Comboomer posted:I mean there’s that new $400 Schiit thing that uses 90s tech but lol I hadn't heard of that and wow, it's an analog virtual surround "processor." I'll say this, they know their market. Still surprised they haven't done an analog crossover yet. One funny thing, Andrew Robinson bleeped out their name in his last review of one of their products so it wouldn't set off the YouTube swear filter and demonetize it.
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May 3, 2023 22:08
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qirex posted:I hadn't heard of that and wow, it's an analog virtual surround "processor." I'll say this, they know their market. Still surprised they haven't done an analog crossover yet. One funny thing, Andrew Robinson bleeped out their name in his last review of one of their products so it wouldn't set off the YouTube swear filter and demonetize it. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 22:35 on May 3, 2023 |
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May 3, 2023 22:27
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Taima posted:Thanks for the comments all, I appreciate it. A couple more, if yall don't mind. The KEF R3 can suck down tons of power, and can get as low as 3-4 ohm. You will be fine. People really overestimate how much power they need. You won't be running out of power / clipping unless you are listening at THX certified levels in a huge room(iirc it's 85dB average with peaks of up to 105dB). The speaker sensitivity is how loud it can play with 1 watt of power at 1m listening distance. For the R3 that's 87dB. Every 3dB increase in volume needs double the power. So 2W would get you 90dB, 4W for 93dB, 8W for 96dB, etc. And that's starting to get into hearing damage territory if you listen for over an hour. But the inverse is also true. Every time you double the distance you lose roughly 6dB. So 87dB at 1m becomes 81dB at 2m, 75dB at 4m, 69dB at 8m, etc. So assuming you sit 4m away and want to listen at 75dB, you would still be using only 1W of power. The S760H is rated for 75W into 8 ohms with 2ch driven, but it will probably have like 25W+ available when all channels are driven. Someone correct me if I messed up the math or something else.
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May 3, 2023 23:32
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qirex posted:It looks like it at first glance but it’s not. It only supports multichannel PCM not Dolby/DTS and the list of devices that decode surround to multichannel PCM is basically “a PC.” You said it yourself - Dolby likes their money printing machine. They're not going to license anything that might interfere with that, and the licensing costs would probably be prohibitive anyways.
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May 3, 2023 23:56
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bird with big dick posted:1. Yes but also that (running a sub) is kind of already the default I like crankin' it so yeah, good driving is essential. I ended up seeing a Pioneer VSX-LX305 on open box for around $600 which has the 8k hookups I want along with full (not Lite) Dirac Live and it explicitly supports 4 ohm mode. It's fire. Kef R3 fronts, JBL 530 surrounds, Klipsch SW 15 inch sub, VSX-LX305 amp. drat, poo poo slays. I'm super impressed how much Dirac was able to get my sub in line and it sounds loving amazing now. Dirac is the business. I wasn't going to drop 1200 on an amp either so thank god best buy has been killing it on the open box (which was basically new). Anyways chalk one up for money solving all problems. Thanks for bein' real that my amp wouldn't cut it at loud listening habits. I tried this setup with my old Denon 8k amp and it sounded like absolute poo poo compared to the pioneer. Honestly I knew a nice amp would help but I had no idea it would help this much. The mancave is on one... e: btw if anyone also wants this amp you can get it open box shipped excellent for $678 which as far as I can tell is ridiculously cheap, or there's in-store open boxes for $578 and up. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/pioneer-elite-vsx-lx305-9-2-channel-network-av-receiver-black/6405450.p?skuId=6405450 Taima fucked around with this message at 11:27 on May 5, 2023 |
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May 5, 2023 00:50
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So, this Pioneer VSX-LX305 is very clear that it supports 4.1 Dolby Atmos (I prefer a virtual center to a real one), and even virtualized Dolby Atmos which is supposed to be really good. However I can't get it to actually play in Atmos, whether that's virtual or otherwise. The only options are stereo, Dolby Digital, and some DTS options. This isn't a huge deal, I think it sounds great, but I like listening to Apple Music lossless Atmos music and it's just kind of weird that it's not actually playing in Atmos despite being an Atmos supported track. Thoughts?
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May 5, 2023 12:21
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If you don’t have height speakers there’s no Atmos to play back, that’s just surround.
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May 5, 2023 15:24
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I'm with you- like I get what Atmos is of course, but this chart is in the manual and I don't know how to read it: Maybe when it says, for instance, Atmos 4.1, it means 4.1 with 2 height channels or something? It's not clear. The Pioneer also emulates height speakers in a way that has been talked about favorably and I don't know the interaction there either. e: also can I take another second to give massive props to Dirac Live? It's like magic, it really is. I was one of those assholes who was worried about a surround receiver being able to properly drive passive 2 channel speakers, even though the receiver even has a 4 ohm mode. The Audessey or whatever it's called correction solution on the Denon I have is underwhelming at best. If you had asked me a month ago, I would have told you that something like the Aiyama A07 with a nice DAC would be a better overall choice than using even a 4 figure receiver, for 2 channel music. That's how low my opinion of receivers was for that task. Stupid, but there it is. This is a situation where the audiophile community is biased, hard. The stance most old heads have on receivers is just old news at this point. People will go to any lengths to gatekeep their precious hobby and are unwilling to admit that a $1000 receiver (under $700 in this case) is going to do 95% as good as a $2000+ 2 channel amp/dac combo. Except the receiver also handles 8k/4k 120 sources, has incredible room correction, and does a million other things. And just to be clear, it's obvious why this is happening; audiophile junk has a super small fan base, and so the companies involved in it charge insane prices. Receivers are a much bigger market and therefore can afford to put in all the good poo poo at a way lower price. It's also a past time frequented by older folks who are willing to drop frankly obscene amounts of money on the hobby which further encourages gigantic margins at the top end. If you actually have lovely acoustics in your room, I would argue the receiver is objectively better. Like, a lot better. My man cave (which is basically just the first floor of the house, so its big and has weird acoustics) has been near impossible to dial in. Maybe I just suck, in fact that's very likely, but not only can the Pioneer power the KEF R3s in a 4.1 setup, it sounds loving amazing. My subwoofer, which I've spent hours trying to tune on my own, was immediately just... right. And this is just the 3-point "quick" setting, they offer a 9 point setup that people say is a lot better. You can even use the full Dirac program on your pc which is pretty insane for the cost of the unit. Dirac has come down in price a ton recently, from what I've read, so it's beginning to show up on relatively cheaper products. Something to be wary of here is that a product called "Dirac LE" exists on some mid tier receivers which lacks key functionality. Fortunately this amp includes the full version. Sounding like a fuckin shill here but I'm just so glad I put away my old notions. Room correction is a total, utter game changer, and in the 4ohm mode, this receiver actually slaps. You do need to set the volume pretty high if you really want to blast it, but there is no distortion or anything no matter how high you put the volume pot in my experience so it's been fine. For that reason, I think this receiver could power most speakers but not the most demanding ones. You'll need more power for that still, but the R3s are notoriously hard to drive correctly, so it probably covers 90% of speakers in my uneducated opinion. It really has completely changed the mancave, and I'm amazed how good Best Buy has been coming through because the Kef R3 for $600 and the Pioneer vsx-lx305 for $600 as well, that's crazy. I figured it would be years before I was properly ready emotionally to spend that kind of change on audio equipment, but here we are
Taima fucked around with this message at 13:17 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 6, 2023 10:36
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Room correction EQ software has been the biggest advancement for audio in a while. And Dirac is by far the best one.  I think most purists / audiophiles dislike it because Leave the receiver in 8ohm mode. All the 6ohm / 4ohm modes do is limit the maximum power available. There isn't any secret sauce or power matching happening. Any audio improvements you hear from changing the ohm setting are purely placebo or from Dirac. Audioholics had an article and video about this along with their test data. And you can't actually fry your receiver doing this. It has other safeguards in place. The ohm setting is just a self inflicted power limiter. CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK fucked around with this message at 15:12 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 6, 2023 13:33
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Taima posted:I'm with you- like I get what Atmos is of course, but this chart is in the manual and I don't know how to read it: I’m pretty sure the last digit is height. So you have a 4.1.2 if you put two height speakers up, and hence you'd follow that 4.1.2 column down to see which listening modes your system would support, I guess? Edit: You don't have height speakers, do you? So you'd look at the 4.1 column, follow it down and notice it doesn't support "real" Dolby Atmos but does support something called "Atmos 4.0/4.1". But what the heck is that? Isn't that some "virtual height" mode after all? Looks to me like virtualized Atmos certainly should be an option for you. Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 22:22 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 6, 2023 14:18
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I’m pretty sure the last digit is height. So you have a 4.1.2 if you put two height speakers up, and hence you'd follow that 4.1.2 column down to see which listening modes your system would support, I guess? Thanks, I am interpreting the chart the same as you, which is why I'm kind of "???" that's it's not available, so that's really the main point of my question. And yeah- I actually do have height speakers around, maybe I should get around to installing them. Does Atmos make a big difference in general? Beyond that, does lacking a center channel hurt Atmos more than "normal" listening? Right now I don't use a center on purpose, and that's fine because it's 4.1... but how does it interact with Atmos? CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Room correction EQ software has been the biggest advancement for audio in a while. And Dirac is by far the best one. Wait what really?! Honestly I never even compared them, so placebo wasn't a thing in my case; I just assumed that a 4 ohm mode would, like, uh... be good for 4 ohm speakers, so I set it to that without thinking twice. That's an incredible revelation, thanks! You have to be so careful in this line of business... It is so difficult to parse anything in the audio world. If I had paid attention to the "experts" I never would have purchased a Dirac receiver, because most audiophiles will knock down your front door to yell that the only way to listen to music is with a 2 channel setup. Luckily other audio people had a differing opinion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcxBOlroZ_Q But I don't know what's the real truth here, or if this guy in the video above is even correct/credible. I'm very happy with the pioneer receiver though. I'm an idiot, so the room correction offers infinitely more to me than some super-expensive bespoke 2 channel setup that, admittedly, is probably slightly "better" if you are willing to put in the work doing your own corrections. I'm not, and will never be, that person, so this receiver has completely changed how I listen to music. Maybe it's an exposure thing; Dirac only very recently started dipping into reasonable price points from what I can tell, especially the non-Lite version which used to be only on absurdly expensive poo poo iirc. And I suspect most people use far shittier room correction like Audeze or whatever that Denon does, so that could be an element in why perception has been so slow to change. To be completely honest my approach so far has been to purchase products with the understanding that I would return them if they didn't fit, because that's imo the only way a newbie is going to really understand what's best for them, or at least, the only way I succeeded... Taima fucked around with this message at 11:32 on May 7, 2023 |
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May 7, 2023 11:17
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The better versions of Audyssey sound ok Denon has Dirac in their flagship products now
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May 7, 2023 21:24
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Good room correction is amazing and in a perfect world we'd all have active speakers linked together with easy calibration/room correction so you don't need any amps or receivers or anything at all. vvv oh yes, of course Mozi fucked around with this message at 02:36 on May 9, 2023 |
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May 7, 2023 22:29
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Add wireless to that since they’re active speakers anyway and I’m sold
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May 7, 2023 22:55
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In my latest bit of rapidly setting money on fire, I'm considering upgrading my soundbar to something more advanced. Recently upgraded my TV to a 55" LG C2 OLED, and I'm still using a Samsung HW-M360 soundbar and subwoofer combo from 2017 or 2018 connected via TOSLINK/optical. I'm not really convinced I need to replace the existing soundbar, but the lack of eARC, Atmos, and most other fancy features has me looking at stuff. It's in a bedroom, not a living room, so it does quite well for the space that it's in, though it also worked pretty well in the living room of the apartment I used to occupy. My living situation is somewhat complicated now, but to put it simply I live with my parents due to reasons not tied to money. I don't need, and more specifically do not want, something that is going to be overly loud and an annoyance to them. My folks have a super nice Atmos enabled Samsung S800B that works with their 2022 Frame TV that does that Q-Symphony thing that uses the soundbar and the TV speakers to sound even better. It looks like LG has something similar on their 2023 soundbars, and is being backported via firmware updates to some 2022 model soundbars. Rtings.com doesn't seem to put LG in the better quality tiers for any Best Of lists though, consistently having them beaten by Samsung, Vizio, Sonos, Bose, and Sony in various categories. A real bridesmaid, never a bride kinda situation. Is there an actual benefit to getting a soundbar from the same manufacturer of my TV, or would a better priced and more capable soundbar outweigh any benefits the LG version of q-symphony would provide? I'd like something that's just a soundbar or soundbar and subwoofer combo. I'm not looking to spend more than $500 realistically. I don't have anywhere to put surround satellites, and don't want to buy a $500 soundbar that needs a $400 subwoofer add-on to sound decent. My budget could go up to around $1000 only if the quality is like pants-making GBS threads, load-blowing levels of amazing, but that seems rather doubtful for my other room size and speaker-count constraints. If this is the wrong thread for this, point me to the right one please. This seemed the best place to ask.
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May 8, 2023 00:26
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Branch Nvidian posted:In my latest bit of rapidly setting money on fire, I'm considering upgrading my soundbar to something more advanced. Recently upgraded my TV to a 55" LG C2 OLED, and I'm still using a Samsung HW-M360 soundbar and subwoofer combo from 2017 or 2018 connected via TOSLINK/optical. I'm not really convinced I need to replace the existing soundbar, but the lack of eARC, Atmos, and most other fancy features has me looking at stuff. It's in a bedroom, not a living room, so it does quite well for the space that it's in, though it also worked pretty well in the living room of the apartment I used to occupy. My living situation is somewhat complicated now, but to put it simply I live with my parents due to reasons not tied to money. I don't need, and more specifically do not want, something that is going to be overly loud and an annoyance to them. I think that's the only feature that having the same brand of TV and soundbar provide. If you can, test out the Q Symphony-ish feature / Atmos on your parent's soundbar. Turn them on and off and see which you prefer. Depending on which of those two features you like, that should narrow down your possible soundbar upgrades by quite a bit. And while I don't have a soundbar recommendation, I will say that getting one with a subwoofer should strongly be considered. You aren't getting any sort of bass presence without one.
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May 8, 2023 03:04
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qirex posted:I have faith that somebody, someday, will make a compact surround processor that is $500 or so. Even if it's just 5.1 and not Atmos/DTS-X it would be such a boon to the market. Taima posted:Beyond that, does lacking a center channel hurt Atmos more than "normal" listening? Right now I don't use a center on purpose, and that's fine because it's 4.1... but how does it interact with Atmos?
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May 8, 2023 08:49
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Taima posted:It is so difficult to parse anything in the audio world. If I had paid attention to the "experts" I never would have purchased a Dirac receiver, because most audiophiles will knock down your front door to yell that the only way to listen to music is with a 2 channel setup. That said cheap audio man is kind of lame, he thinks he can tell the difference between DAC chips and once companies started sending him review samples of expensive gear he started recommending $1000+ stuff real easily. Ruffian Price posted:You can get 5.1 audio extractors off Aliexpress, they passthrough HDMI and output separate RCA channels, some support bitstream input. Line level so bring your own amp or use active speakers obv
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May 8, 2023 16:20
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Ruffian Price posted:Atmos is more about flexibility in setups than it is about having poo poo above you, you can take a DD+ with Atmos stream (which has the object-based part literally bolted onto legacy frames carrying a downmix) and render it on a home audio setup with height speakers, you can render the same stream on a quadrophonic setup with a subwoofer (aka 4.1), and it'll likely take the legacy 5.1 core and mix the center channel to the fronts with -3dB Oh, that actually clarifies it a ton, thanks. So to be clear here, Atmos speakers essentially allow a receiver to be more flexible in producing the "right" imaging? So like... it allows room correction to work better too? qirex posted:Economies of scale in design and manufacturing mean that the performance and value you get out of major brand AVRs cannot be matched by 2 channel companies. That said if you still want objectively the best performance according to measurements you're best off with more and more expensive boxes. Plus for some people constantly swapping out parts of their system is the point of the hobby.A $600 AVR with Dirac is great, though, and I'm hoping the market overall cools off a bit. I also hope the AVR companies finally start adopting class D, smaller, more efficient and cooler running stuff would be good for everybody. Just curious, do you find yourself gravitating to 2 channel more for that reason? How much money would you generally feel like you would need to spend for a more niche 2 channel setup to match a mass produced receiver with Dirac etc? I'm very sympathetic to the idea that the tinkering is the point for many people, and frankly I probably spoke too harshly. If you don't do algorithmic room correction, do you perform the physical corrections that audiophile sources recommend like using materials to deflect and dampen? I can vibe with the idea that those things work, and unlike a lot of people, I have a giant home theater room so I could get into it that deep, but it's hard to figure out how much that stuff works vs how well room correction can fix up the oddities. And that's fair regarding cheap audio man. Another criticism I would level is that he makes a video like every single day, definitely a quantity over quality kinda guy. There's just not a ton of resources for making systems on that level, or at least, I had trouble finding them. A lot of audiophiles I talked to said things like the Aiyama A07 pro were poo poo and would sound like a dying turkey, but I feel like it's a decent kit for the price, so idk. Yeah, it's just a confusing space. What equipment do you like the most? Do you have a treated room and such? The only physical correction I've had to do is that I put a subwoofer in my bedroom (just a little one) and it sounded like absolute loving garbage. Just complete trash. It took hours of moving the sub around, and loving with algorithmic correction, DB adjusting just to make it acceptable. However my bedroom has Denon Audessey or whatever and doesn't seem to do fantastic with subwoofers. It just heard my sub, went "uh this is hot garbage" and shot it down to -12db in an attempt to squash it out of existence. That was the wrong call, and I managed to dial it in manually, which makes me skeptical of the Audessey system to some degree. In contrast, Dirac scoped the subwoofer in my home theater room like, right away. Zero issues, and it literally sounded like a brand new, more expensive subwoofer had just appeared in my room. Idk how much that's just luck vs capability though. Taima fucked around with this message at 10:02 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 11, 2023 09:55
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