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Ihmemies posted:Meh, so I need a new room then. Wouldn’t room treatment be easier?
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Mar 1, 2023 17:02
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BigFactory posted:Wouldn’t room treatment be easier? I don’t understand how I can add something back which is missing, like bass at 90Hz. I tried various positions in REW’s room sim with the 4x2,8x2,6m room, and found no good definitely better positions. Maybe I just don’t know how to use it properly.
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Mar 1, 2023 18:29
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Try moving stuff around like pulling your desk/speakers away from the wall, or putting something absorbent behind/across from them like acoustic panels or a thick rear end tapestry.
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Mar 1, 2023 20:18
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I'm not that smart with acoustics, but my understanding is that for bass you run into standing waves so you have peaks and nulls throughout the room. If it's missing because you're in a null part of the wave, then you either have to move things around or treat the room. Adding a subwoofer can help because it gives you some placement flexibility. From what I've read, which could be wrong and I've not bothered trying, you need pretty beefy bass traps to help in the lower registers so moving things around/adding a sub is often easier.
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Mar 1, 2023 23:16
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Now that I no longer need it to prop up my monitor, I really want to get rid of this giant Denon amplifier that's weighing down my work desk. I was going to replace it with an Optimus SA-155 that I've had stashed in a box for years, but that turns out to just pump a nasty hum through the speakers. What are my options for small, cheap, and halfway decent? My speakers are just little things I have mounted up on the wall. I pretty much only play the output from my PC, so I really don't need much. Mainly I want to stop heating my office with this big 150w fucker.
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Mar 3, 2023 01:00
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Pham Nuwen posted:Now that I no longer need it to prop up my monitor, I really want to get rid of this giant Denon amplifier that's weighing down my work desk. I was going to replace it with an Optimus SA-155 that I've had stashed in a box for years, but that turns out to just pump a nasty hum through the speakers. Something like a LOXJIE A30 or S.M.S.L SA300 will probably be fine. The former has a headphone jack of mediocre quality and optical in, while the latter has neither. The Loxjie is less powerful, but it is still more than enough for a desktop situation. iirc it's 18W into 8 ohms / 40W into 4ohms. Beyond that they are basically the same.
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Mar 3, 2023 02:35
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I have a Loxjie A30 and like it. I mostly use it to stream a Wiim Mini over optical and my wife typically uses it to play Pandora over Bluetooth. It's driving bookshelf speakers in an open living/dining sort of room and gets as loud as we need it while sounding pretty good. I've never used the headphone jack so I can't comment on that, although I've seen the bad measurements online. For my use case it's easier to just plug directly into the source (e.g. my phone).
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Mar 3, 2023 13:32
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I asked a while back but got no replies but it's still bothering me. My current TV has an absolute garbage piece of headphone out. What should I do to get decent audio for my headphones and VERY occasionally my active speakers? (My setup is a cursed setup 4x genelecs + woofer which I swap between rear and front depending if I'm using the ones in front of my TV or PC) My only current kit is a more than a decade old NuForce Icon which does do analog audio in if needed. Bluetooth for connecting headphones would be neat added value, I guess. It might be nice to just replace the Icon for PC use too. I do often watch stuff from PC connected to the TV but lip sync is often dicey on Netflix and most other platforms don't support 4K off a PC, and sometimes I just want a PC-off experience. For headphones I'm running DT 770 and DT 990 Pro (occasionally) and rarely my WH-1000XM4s when I need the ANC. Do I go with some cheap HDMI/SPDIF audio extractor like this, preferably with (e?)ARC support so I can actually adjust volume with my TV remote? The DAC inside is probably not the best but it's probably an upgrade to the ceaseless hissing on my TV. I don't mind running audio cables to my Icon if I need to drive my headphones. There are some SPDIF extractors but the remotes are probably craptastic, so might as well go with the HDMI route. My TV has one eARC HDMI input. This use case *should* work with simple ARC, right? Even though most examples are about streaming boxes to TV with HDMI passthrough to TV with audio extracted. I considered : Alientek D8 I.AM.D V200 (not available) Sabaj A4 cheap option, probably doesn't remember volume settings judging by a video, no volume knob SMSL AD18 apparently a garbage headphone amp Topping MX3 (not available) AIYIMA T8 seems interesting, but aren't vacuum tubes just an insufferable audiophile meme? And what does a tube have anything to do in this price point anyways? The AIYIMA seems to fit my use case the best but that vacuum tube just legit bothers me. All of these options have their own remotes but they may be of varying quality. Most of these options don't have a simple RCA output, so are there any decent ways to go about connecting active speakers to passive speaker terminals. Doubtful, I think. I My googling didn't get me any results. I considered used AVRs but they're usually massive and not any cheaper than bunch of the stuff I listed above. edit: fixed the audio extractor link edit2: yeah definitely not dealing with speaker-level to line-out level converters on further research, yikes. Dessel fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 17:47
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Dessel posted:I asked a while back but got no replies but it's still bothering me. My current TV has an absolute garbage piece of headphone out. What should I do to get decent audio for my headphones and VERY occasionally my active speakers? (My setup is a cursed setup 4x genelecs + woofer which I swap between rear and front depending if I'm using the ones in front of my TV or PC) My only current kit is a more than a decade old NuForce Icon which does do analog audio in if needed. Bluetooth for connecting headphones would be neat added value, I guess. It might be nice to just replace the Icon for PC use too. I do often watch stuff from PC connected to the TV but lip sync is often dicey on Netflix and most other platforms don't support 4K off a PC, and sometimes I just want a PC-off experience. Why don't you just run an optical out from the TV to the Nuforce Icon, and a USB out for the PC to it, and then run the RCA cables from the analog out to your active speakers as needed or use the headphone out as needed? Place it on your coffee/side table if you can make the cable management work, and they should work, no?
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Mar 7, 2023 05:42
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My Icon has no optical in. It's difficult to differentiate between all the Icon versions to be fair. And that wouldn't allow for volume control via remote apart from rare cases as optical audio volume is not usually determined by the source device.
Dessel fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 10:53
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Well, I ordered a used FX Audio DAC M1 off German ebay, example review here for 149€ ...Except I got a Topping E30 with no remote or power supply. I could get a new one 30€ cheaper than I got this used. Meaning I'll have to return it. Ugh. I don't suppose there are any alternatives with...: Optical in USB in volume knob RCA out remote and headphone out? I'm considering Sabaj D4 but it has no volume knob, probably doesn't remember volume levels, uses touch panel for controls, and changing between speakers and headphones is a bit of a menu hassle judging by review of the similar Sabaj A4. On the other hand it's 50% of the price. Edit: I'll probably order the Topping DX3 Pro+ from a domestic retailer once I get my money back. Dessel fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Mar 17, 2023 |
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Mar 17, 2023 15:41
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Could someone help me understand the specifics of room size vs subwoofer size? I have a home theater room which is very large, I'm not sure exactly but on the order of 30 feet by 20 feet, at least. It's also attached to a hallway with no door which is also quite large. My understanding is that you need bigger subwoofers to accommodate larger rooms, but here's the problem: we have three total home theater setups in the house- one in the living room by the kitchen, another in one of our bedrooms, and then one in the home theater room which doubles as my wfh office and such. 90% of my theater usage with my wife is in either the bedroom or the living room. So almost always, I'm the only person in the this particular home theater. That's the rub; I understand that this home theater has a large room, but I'm also the only person who uses it. Can I have one single subwoofer (such as an SVS SB4000) roughly 8 feet from my listening position, and that would be ok, even though the room is large, since I'm the only person being catered to acoustically? Or does the room being large necessitate larger sub(s) and there's no way to get around that even if you're the only person in the room?
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Mar 18, 2023 14:08
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Pretend you have a single lightbulb. Is that single lightbulb sufficient for a large room if you're the only one in it? Probably not. Imagine the theoretical limit of what you're asking - a sub outside. With no walls to reflect the sound, the pressure wave is going to follow the inverse square law, meaning standing 5 ft from the subwoofer will be 4 times as loud as standing 10 ft from the subwoofer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law Inside a room, the waves of sound bounce around, so it's less drastic, but a larger room will have fewer bounces before the sound dissipates as heat energy (and will generally sound more echoey). If you just have a single subwoofer, it's going to be difficult to impossible to make the volume even in the room. The number of people doesn't matter because your ears aren't absorbing the sound energy in any meaningful quality. It's not like the sound is split up between people. You don't really need a single huge subwoofer. What you actually want is several medium subwoofers (probably 4 for a room that big). Edit: you obviously could use a single one if you want, but it will only sound right sitting in basically one spot and you're probably going to have to spend a lot of time moving it around until it sounds good at the listening position. I'd rather have 4 SVS 1000s than a single SVS 4000. KillHour fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Mar 18, 2023 |
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Mar 18, 2023 16:08
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Eh, you can get down firing subwoofers that are designed to be placed near the listening position. I'd just get a 12" or something like that in that style, personally. You can also do this goofy sounding thing called the Sub Crawl, where you place your sub on your couch at your listening position, playing a bass heavy track on repeat, and you crawl around listening for the spot where the bass sounds the best. Maybe don't do it when your partner isn't home tho  I've done it and it works, but it's goofy as all get out https://lifehacker.com/use-the-subwoofer-crawl-to-fine-tune-your-speaker-set-5751818
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Mar 18, 2023 16:43
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Buttkickers can be a good solution for situations like that. Also, the levels that most vendors and advice sites give is like “oh yeah you need 115db peaks at 12hz or it’s not worth doing, I suggest 4 15s at a minimum.” In my experience you can get decent bass you can hear in large rooms with normal amounts of equipment. For the “tactile” aspect that’s where the seat shakers come in.
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Mar 18, 2023 18:24
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My weird room needed two subs at incredibly specific locations at very certain distances from the wall in order to sound good at the main listening position with no weird dips or louder frequencies, with very specific phase settings and so forth. The only way to do this was with a calibrated mic and repeated (and repeated, and repeated) testing. One of those things that was sort of fun to figure out but now that it's set I'm never touching them again. Worth it, though. I don't listen too loud but I like the bass to have a physical presence in the room without stepping on anything else and I was really happy when I finally got it locked in.
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Mar 18, 2023 18:26
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Thank you very much for the insightful replies! drat I love SA <3KillHour posted:You don't really need a single huge subwoofer. What you actually want is several medium subwoofers (probably 4 for a room that big). That's completely fair and I appreciate your lightbulb analogy. I'm actually completely ok with it sounding right in one spot. That's the dream actually... regarding the SVS 4000 my thought process was "maybe I can get one really nice subwoofer and localize it instead of getting 4x woofers" if that makes any sense... sounds like it doesn't  Here is a rough idea of the room. I have my wfh area in front (which was previously a home theater room; it's currently not used for that), the subwoofer off about 6 feet to the right of me, and speakers are arranged as indicated in a 4.1 setup (I don't like center speakers for setups only reaching a single person).  Behind me in the blank area that constitutes the full breadth of the room I have another couch directly behind my desk, then behind that exercise equipment... it probably doesn't make any sense, but I turned this area from a theater into my... like... um... like a wfh/gaming/home gym thing, haha. Anyways my point is, and this might be way too much to envision, but where is a good starting spot for this subwoofer if I was going to begin trying positions? It's not horrible right now, the SPL-150 is a pretty decent size unit, but I bought it for an entirely different house, and it's not really fit to task anymore obviously. This is the sub I was hoping I could get to work locally for my single listening position, it's a Klipsch SPL-150 that sounded great in my previous (much smaller) place but we moved out to the suburbs of Seattle and our house is literally like 3x as big. https://www.klipsch.com/products/spl-150-subwoofer I could take some pictures if that helps, I guess. Mozi posted:My weird room needed two subs at incredibly specific locations at very certain distances from the wall in order to sound good at the main listening position with no weird dips or louder frequencies, with very specific phase settings and so forth. The only way to do this was with a calibrated mic and repeated (and repeated, and repeated) testing. One of those things that was sort of fun to figure out but now that it's set I'm never touching them again. Worth it, though. I don't listen too loud but I like the bass to have a physical presence in the room without stepping on anything else and I was really happy when I finally got it locked in. I'm starting to believe this is going to be a difficult job. Anyone live in Seattle? Help me suss this poo poo out haha... honestly though, man, audio stuff is just hard. And before I moved into this frankly giant loving house I just did not appreciate how my audio equipment would become somewhat underwhelming in the face of the sheer space in this room. qirex posted:Buttkickers can be a good solution for situations like that. Also, the levels that most vendors and advice sites give is like “oh yeah you need 115db peaks at 12hz or it’s not worth doing, I suggest 4 15s at a minimum.” In my experience you can get decent bass you can hear in large rooms with normal amounts of equipment. For the “tactile” aspect that’s where the seat shakers come in. That's an interesting concept thanks for the link brother. Mederlock posted:Eh, you can get down firing subwoofers that are designed to be placed near the listening position. I'd just get a 12" or something like that in that style, personally. Huh, down firing? Is this a well accepted solution? I like the idea of a sub being near the position if that negates the issues of the room size, for sure. I'm starting to think I may need to completely remake my audio setup for the room, and I would really like to avoid that if I can. But I guess it's possible if was willing to get all Sun Tzu on convincing the wife. The dream here, in general, is to NOT replace all of my sound gear though if I can help it. The room size has like, tripled though in my new digs so maybe it's inevitable. Taima fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Mar 20, 2023 |
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Mar 20, 2023 13:09
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Taima posted:That's completely fair and I appreciate your lightbulb analogy. I'm actually completely ok with it sounding right in one spot. That's the dream actually... regarding the SVS 4000 my thought process was "maybe I can get one really nice subwoofer and localize it instead of getting 4x woofers" if that makes any sense... sounds like it doesn't One sub is fine for your scenario of sounding good at one position. Multiple subs will make the whole area sound good instead of having peaks and nulls. Taima posted:where is a good starting spot for this subwoofer if I was going to begin trying positions? That's probably a good of a spot as any to start with. Or a corner, because it will get extra boundary reinforcement and be boomier / louder. But you are almost certainly going to have to do the subwoofer crawl to truly determine the best spot.
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Mar 20, 2023 15:49
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Taima posted:Huh, down firing? Is this a well accepted solution? I like the idea of a sub being near the position if that negates the issues of the room size, for sure. Down firing is better for home theater / shaking the house. Or chosen for aesthetic purposes. Or when floor space is at a premium so you can have a smaller but taller footprint(I am thinking of the cylinder style subs now). You can place either close or far from you. If anything, front firing might be better as the energy will be directed you instead of into the ground. Yes, low frequencies below 80ish hz are generally omnidirectional but the cone positioning matters too.
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Mar 20, 2023 16:06
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I really enjoy my under sear car subwoofer bolted under my office desk for tactile, nearby bass. The only consideration of it being for cars is you need a 12 volt DC power adapter for it. You could put it inside your chair/couch and bolt it to the structure for some cheap butt kicking and a close location to the listener.
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Mar 20, 2023 19:03
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Also assuming since a desk is there that the listening position is an office chair you can just get a buttkicker gamer plus (or pro) and clamp it to your office chair.
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Mar 20, 2023 19:16
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LRADIKAL posted:I really enjoy my under sear car subwoofer bolted under my office desk for tactile, nearby bass. The only consideration of it being for cars is you need a 12 volt DC power adapter for it. You could put it inside your chair/couch and bolt it to the structure for some cheap butt kicking and a close location to the listener. what does that do to your display?
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Mar 20, 2023 19:26
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Taima posted:
Based on my (limited) experience I would say, the best thing you could do IMO is to get a UMIK-1 mic (or similar) and get Room EQ Wizard on your PC or laptop (presuming you can connect your speakers to your PC somehow) and do some tutorials on just running a basic sweep. It sucks to have to pay for the mic and learn the software but there's a lot of tutorials on Youtube. And what this gets you is an objective measurement you can save and compare against; if you just try using your ears you're just going to go around in circles over and over again. One you have an objective measurement then you can actually start testing what happens if you move the sub (or speakers for that matter) closer or farther from the wall, different positions, etc. You can get a few pieces of room treatment, a couple of absorbers and a couple diffusers, and see what happens if you put them in different places. Once you have the ability to do a sweep, save it and compare, you can start iterating really quickly and confidently. Then once you've got all of that as perfect as you can, you can try doing some EQ as a finishing touch. It sounds like a bunch of work but (IME) one I had the process in place it was fun instead of frustrating. Then again I think the future holds speaker systems just doing this mostly automatically for you. Hopefully not too much longer, newer receivers can do some pretty amazing things.
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Mar 21, 2023 14:57
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Ok Comboomer posted:what does that do to your display? Other things on my desk start rattling and resonating before I have any electronics vibration issues. My monitors are mounted to the desk on a static mount (tilt/turn only) and they aren't vibrating to a blur if that's the question. At fairly low volume/power I get a nice tactile feel and decent audible response.
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Mar 21, 2023 16:31
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LRADIKAL posted:At fairly low volume/power I get a nice tactile feel and decent audible response. imagine if you could put it in your pants
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Mar 21, 2023 16:38
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Ok Comboomer posted:imagine if you could put it in your
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Mar 21, 2023 17:47
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Novelty Bluetooth Speaker Butt Plug Adults Audiophiles Only - Etsy https://www.etsy.com/listing/652160672/novelty-bluetooth-speaker-butt-plug
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Mar 21, 2023 19:47
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I'm ripping all of my CDs to FLAC (ugh after doing the same two years ago to MP3, back before I decided I wanted to squeeze the best quality possible out of my nice headphones and PC sound card) and I'm using Windows Media Player to do it. On some CDs, I get an "unable to rip track" error on individual tracks, even when the progress bar has gone up to 100%. These are CDs without scratches, that play just fine, and that I can rip to mp3 using iTunes. If I reattempt the rip, sometimes it gets the tracks that it couldn't get on the first pass. This is a frustrating process, though, so I thought I'd try something else. Exact Audio Copy seemed like a popular recommendation, so I got that, but of course there are problems with this one too. The ripping process is so loving slow, and I have to manually type in all of the information about the cd, track titles, etc. It appears there's some way to get that data automatically, but after ten albums, you have to pay. Any suggestions on how to make this process less of a nightmare?
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Mar 29, 2023 18:59
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EAC has multiple Metadata sources you can select. Most of them are free. The one you pay for is a one-time $7 and was actually kind of worth it if you have a fair bit of stuff that might be a bit obscure or have QC issues. If your MP3s are high quality you may not hear any difference, but the nice thing about ripping to FLAC is that you will never have to re-rip again. Space is cheap and you can transcode from the "original" if needed.
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Mar 29, 2023 19:43
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Discussion Quorum posted:EAC has multiple Metadata sources you can select. Most of them are free. The one you pay for is a one-time $7 and was actually kind of worth it if you have a fair bit of stuff that might be a bit obscure or have QC issues. Okay, I'll work a little harder to figure out the metadata functions. EAC has that free software lack of modern UI thing that is very common, but I'm sure I can figure it out. The ripping process seems to be faster now. It took forever on the first album because it had to go into error correction on two tracks, but it has not had to do that since. I know that usually (or perhaps always) I won't really be able to tell between this and high-quality MP3, but I like that I won't have to do this again. I'm also going to get a nice DAP to hook up to the home stereo, and once I've done that, the file being played will probably be the weakest link.
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Mar 29, 2023 20:07
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Musicbrainz Picard can help a lot with tagging if what EAC offers doesn't do it for you.
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Mar 29, 2023 20:12
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I want to say I used a plugin or another program to populate all the metadata when I was ripping flacs with EAC back in the what.cd days. Been a while though.
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Mar 29, 2023 21:03
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Is this a good deal, I got a 4K projector and all I got is old cables
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Mar 30, 2023 02:00
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bird with big dick posted:Is this a good deal, I got a 4K projector and all I got is old cables Yes. 
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Mar 30, 2023 14:21
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i still like the $5,000 Amazon AudioQuest ethernet cable where the reviews consist entirely of shitposts Audioquest Diamond RJ/E (Ethernet) Cable 3m (10') https://a.co/d/cThmbir
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Mar 30, 2023 14:49
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Feels Villeneuve posted:i still like the $5,000 Amazon AudioQuest ethernet cable where the reviews consist entirely of shitposts https://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/product-reviews/B000I1X6PM this is better
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Mar 30, 2023 16:31
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Palladium posted:https://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/product-reviews/B000I1X6PM Oh man this is good quote:And the emotions I felt were sublime. I remembered touching moments from my childhood. I cried. I vomited. I convulsed. I pooped myself uncontrollably.
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Mar 30, 2023 18:14
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qirex posted:Dedicated my a$$. I plugged it in and thirty seconds later it slithered away like a sidewinder snake and made itself a coffee.
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Mar 31, 2023 00:55
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I've been using my M-Audio Studiophile AV-40 speakers for years now and love them. But recently the right speaker has been much, much louder than the left speaker. At normal volume I can only hear the right channel, but if I unplug the right speaker completely and turn up the volume, the left speaker sounds ok. Being able to adjust the volume from the source is important - unless it's cranked the left speaker will sound much too quiet. I'd estimate the difference between the two is about 30-40 decibels. I tried using the software MusicBee to mess with the EQ, and if I set it to Left+4 (out of 5), the balance seems pretty good and everything sounds normal. Of course, this isn't always an option... and makes switching between headphones and speakers pretty cumbersome. Fixes I've tried: 1) I recut and replaced the speaker wire. The new wire is very high quality 12 gauge from monoprice. For good measure, I also replaced the RCA audio cable and the power cord. Changing the cables didn't affect the problem. 2) I also removed and replugged all the wires several times to make sure it there was no connection problem. 3) I tried several different sources. The speakers are used for my record player and my desktop PC. I tried both these sources and a phone with a headphone jack, and the problem remains the same despite the source. At this point do I conclude there's some mechanical damage and that the speakers need to be replaced? Or is there something else to try?
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Apr 2, 2023 19:25
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Given they're active monitors, my guess is that the internals of the speaker are probably failing on that channel. Either somewhere in the crossover circuits or in the amplification circuit. Unless you're handy with a multimeter and a soldering iron, and understand how to discharge capacitors so you don't electrocute yourself, those speakers are probably a write off. If you are handy/want to learn how to do that stuff, if can isolate the crossover parts from the amplification parts(ideally say, if the crossover is on a separate daughterboard inside the enclosure), you may be able to bypass the amp and use something like a Fosi Audio TB10D wired right into the speaker crossover and then straight to the speakers. If you want to repair it to fill active monitor functionality, it looks like someone has already had this issue and repaired it : https://www.reddit.com/r/audiorepair/comments/g24k7d/maudio_av30_av40_successful_repair_notes/
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Apr 3, 2023 00:42
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