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eddiewalker posted:You mean like a raspberrypi and a UCA222? Is it possible to actually buy a raspberry pi? Also Roon does no “quackery” other than lighting up the purple light for MQA [hopefully something we won’t have to worry about for much longer].
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Jun 2, 2023 16:15
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Mederlock posted:Someone get Elon Musky in front of a $100k audiophile system and then show him the terrible measurements. What kind of music do modern day analogues of oil barons like? 1) don’t bring that curse here, man. gently caress that racist transphobic idiot dipshit, keep him the gently caress away from our hobby 2) he probably listens to MC Chris and the Monty Python & the Holy Grail soundtrack
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Jun 2, 2023 16:28
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Ol Musky listens exclusively to early-40s German music
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Jun 2, 2023 16:54
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qirex posted:Is it possible to actually buy a raspberry pi? Also Roon does no “quackery” other than lighting up the purple light for MQA [hopefully something we won’t have to worry about for much longer]. There are drop in alternatives to the pi, and production should be back soon Roon attracts the people who think they need a dual-xeon for audio playback. https://taikoaudio.com/taiko-2020/reviews/mono-stereo-magazine-roon-and-digital-audio-extremes/ Volumio still passes the RME bitperfect test with a lot less hassle imo
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Jun 2, 2023 17:34
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eddiewalker posted:Roon attracts the people who think they need a dual-xeon for audio playback. https://taikoaudio.com/taiko-2020/reviews/mono-stereo-magazine-roon-and-digital-audio-extremes/
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Jun 2, 2023 18:21
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Mederlock posted:I really wish we could get a reasonable Roon endpoint with an optical and analog out, you know something like a Wiim mini for around $60-$120 of whatever, and for them to bring their sub price down a bit. It's a good idea but it's gated by expensive hardware We had that it was a chromecast audio except it was $30 and they killed it.
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Jun 2, 2023 20:01
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KozmoNaut posted:Good words Thank you  and yes if I attempted to set this receiver to 0db I would be deaf by the morning, let alone +db. I was just curious because every other piece of technology I operate goes from "0 is off and X is the max" except this receiver, haha.
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Jun 3, 2023 09:30
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I am so tired of not being able to hear dialogue on tv at home. I have a 7 year old Vizio 5.1 soundbar setup and it feels like every show and movie the ambient noise/music is louder than the dialogue. When I watch the same content on my pc with headphones the mixing is totally fine. I have tried playing with the center channel volume level and it doesn't seem to matter. I'm using an optical cable from the tv to the sound bar, and HDMI from the Roku Ultra to the TV. I guess my question is, what else can I try short of dropping more money on a new sound bar set up?
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Jun 6, 2023 17:43
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If you do have to look at new hardware, I would strongly consider not going with another sound bar. But the first thing I would check is if your sound bar has a "night" mode, which basically compresses the dynamic range to make quiet sounds louder relative to everything else.
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Jun 6, 2023 18:03
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What is the better hardware solution these days in the $2-300 range? Vizio's documentation says the night mode just lowers bass frequencies levels but I'll give that a shot.
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Jun 6, 2023 18:24
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Try setting your audio to 2.1 mode?
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Jun 6, 2023 18:49
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bawfuls posted:What is the better hardware solution these days in the $2-300 range? FB marketplace/ebay/estate sales
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Jun 6, 2023 19:16
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bawfuls posted:I guess my question is, what else can I try short of dropping more money on a new sound bar set up? e: This is true of "proper" speakers as well, positioning is super important and can make a bigger change in the sound than new gear. Dialog is fine for me in stereo because I have the speakers on stands a foot out from the wall and my room is such that I don't get early reflections. A lot of people can't get away with this but at the very least you want to tweeters of whatever you're listening to pointed at your ears in the main listening position. qirex fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Jun 6, 2023 |
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Jun 6, 2023 19:27
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I currently have a SteelSeries Arctis 7 wireless headset, that I use for pretty standard gaming/youtube video editing bullshit. At some point in the nearish future, I was looking at upgrading my audio stuff to something nicer. I'm thinking a small audio interface (focusrite scarlett solo?) that can handle one XLR microphone (future upgrade) and some higher impedance headphones (beyerdynamic dt990?). Here's my issue: the Arctis 7s have a chat mixer where my computer sees two virtual outputs (game/chat) and I can use a little knob on the headphones to adjust the mix. That feature is actually really useful and I've gotten attached to it. When I try and search for audio interfaces that have a similar feature by searching "channels" or "mixer" I get bogged down by results for professional recording mixers. Then I thought it'd be easy to find a software solution that I could control with a macropad knob. But even there I mostly find posts with the same problem and no clear solution. Does anyone have hardware or software recommendations for this? Or even just the search terms I could use? It's been driving me a little crazy.
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Jun 6, 2023 20:47
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FrenzyTheKillbot posted:I currently have a SteelSeries Arctis 7 wireless headset, that I use for pretty standard gaming/youtube video editing bullshit. At some point in the nearish future, I was looking at upgrading my audio stuff to something nicer. I'm thinking a small audio interface (focusrite scarlett solo?) that can handle one XLR microphone (future upgrade) and some higher impedance headphones (beyerdynamic dt990?). Something like the Audient EVO 4 should work. It let's you adjust both your mic volume and your sidetone on the fly. It can handle 2 XLR inputs as well.
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Jun 6, 2023 21:31
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Something like the Audient EVO 4 should work. It let's you adjust both your mic volume and your sidetone on the fly. That doesn't look like it does what I'm looking for although it can be hard to tell from websites descriptions. I'm looking for something that my PC will see as 2 different outputs, but then can be mixed by the time it gets to the headphones.
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Jun 7, 2023 16:28
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It looks like Voicemeeter can be controlled with midi? Don't have experience with it personally, but it looks like that would allow you to adjust the level of different programs with a hardware control of some kind, independent of what audio interface you'd use. Free to try the software before committing to any hardware purchase too.
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Jun 7, 2023 17:04
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Flipperwaldt posted:It looks like Voicemeeter can be controlled with midi? Don't have experience with it personally, but it looks like that would allow you to adjust the level of different programs with a hardware control of some kind, independent of what audio interface you'd use. Free to try the software before committing to any hardware purchase too.
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Jun 8, 2023 20:30
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Thanks guys, I'll take a closer look at Voicemeeter. I've looked at it before, but the impression I got was that it was mostly used to change outputs into inputs for streaming purposes. Maybe that was just the context I found it in.
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Jun 9, 2023 17:41
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KillHour posted:FB marketplace/ebay/estate sales
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Jun 9, 2023 20:03
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bawfuls posted:secondhand sure, but I meant what hardware if not soundbar setups (and why)? A receiver with speakers and a sub. It’s versatile and upgradable and you can find used stuff
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Jun 9, 2023 20:42
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BigFactory posted:A receiver with speakers and a sub. It’s versatile and upgradable and you can find used stuff I'm not an audiophile I just want to be able to hear the dialog on the dumb tv shows we watch at home. bawfuls fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Jun 9, 2023 |
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Jun 9, 2023 22:08
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bawfuls posted:This feels more open ended and intimidating than soundbar setups since any online guides for TV sound systems I find seem to be focused on soundbars. Is there a guide for dipshits here or elsewhere I can reference? So to answer the why: Soundbars are inherently a huge compromise. Speakers make sound by moving air and the smaller the speaker, the less air it can move. Soundbars have a ton of very small speakers to make them sound "larger" but lots of small speakers close together is actually really bad because they end up interfering with each other. As a result, soundbars have a small "sweet spot" where they sound good. If your complaint is that your soundbar doesn't make good audio that's easy to hear and understand, the main reason is because that's just how soundbars are and the best way to fix that is to dump the soundbar. To answer the "every guide is for soundbars" problem: 95% of people don't actually care about audio quality anywhere near the amount they care about looks. Soundbars look sleek and are thus the bulk of the market, regardless of how they sound. You can thank Bose for this because Bose stood there and said "you can have great sound from tiny speakers" even though it wasn't really true, but they had a lot of psycho-acoustic tricks to make them seem fine at first glance. Apple played a part in this too, but mostly blame Bose. The other 5% of people who do care about good sound probably do this as a hobby and so already know what they're buying. Also, ~1% of people are so obsessed with audio as a hobby, they call themselves audiophiles and buy into woo woo crystal bullshit that doesn't do anything and are extremely lucrative marks, so a bunch of companies peddle overpriced poo poo to them exclusively. The result of this is there isn't a reasonable correlation between price and quality AND a bunch of people will confidently spout bullshit online like saying the cable you use to hook up your speakers makes the sound better or worse (it does not). Basically, it's a minefield of poo poo. To answer the "what do I buy": You probably want to start with a receiver and 2 speakers. Given a budget of a few hundred $, the best bang for your buck is looking at used stuff so it's hard to give explicit advice, but the good news is all receivers sound the same and the only difference is connectivity and feature set*. Buy whatever receiver hooks up to the stuff you have and has enough ports. If you have a 4k TV and 4k sources, that's going to be the biggest limitation. If you only have a Sega Genesis and a CRT TV, you can go out and buy a Sony receiver from 1995 and it will be great. Here's a basic no frills does everything you need it to receiver with good 4k support: https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/yamrxv385bl-rb/yamaha-rx-v385-5.1-ch-x-70-watts-bluetooth-a/v-receiver/1.html I like Accessories 4 Less because their stuff is factory refurbished with a warranty and way cheaper than buying new retail. Once you've picked out a receiver, you want to start with a pair of speakers. Don't worry about a center channel or subwoofer to start - you can always buy them later and honestly, even as someone with thousands of $ in audio equipment, my center channel goes unused 90% of the time. I don't even have a pair of surround speakers set up. Floorstanding is going to be best if you can swing it, but bookshelf speakers might be fine if you have really strict budget or space constraints. Here's the important part - good speakers are not disposable. Good speakers can last decades. You can buy a pair of great speakers now and they will still be great in 20 years if you take care of them. For this reason, it's totally cool and good to buy well made speakers from forever ago because they will still be great speakers today (as long as the rubber on the drivers isn't rotted out). So don't treat this like a disposable purchase to last a few years. Treat speakers like something you're going to keep for a decade, and probably be able to sell them when you're done. Some brands of speakers to check out are: Polk (cheap but decent) Pioneer Andrew Jones (ditto) Elac (Very good for the price, IMO) Bowers & Wilkins (higher end but very well regarded) Klipsch (has a specific sound you will either love or hate. You'll know as soon as you hear them) Aperion (I have these and love them - they do free in-home trials. Not particularly cheap though) I would honestly just go to a place that sells speakers (BestBuy works, TBH) and listen to some. It's also good if you can take a pair home to try. A lot of companies let you do this now. Remember, treat this like a 10 year purchase - it's more like a refrigerator than a laptop. If you get bookshelf speakers due to budget or space reasons, make sure you put them on some kind of stand so they're about ear-height when you're sitting down. This is another reason soundbars suck - they are usually mounted under the TV, which is too low. Lastly, I don't want to sound like you need to spend $1000. You can if you want, and you will get more bang for your buck, but you don't have to. I started with a pair of ~$200 Polk bookshelves on some cheap Amazon stands and you know what? It was 100x better than 99% of soundbars out there, even really expensive ones. If you want to go really cheap, you can do what I did in my bedroom - I have a $99 Insignia stereo receiver from Best Buy that I hooked up to the headphone jack on my TV and a pair of bookshelf speakers. You can probably be all in for under $400, including speaker wire that way, especially if you get an old stereo receiver from craigslist or whatever. I can control the volume with the TV remote and all my devices go into the TV. It's not the best setup in the world, but it's cheap and still sounds better than a sound bar. *technically, some receivers might not support certain formats or have better room correction, and also cheaper receivers generally have a higher noise floor (hissing sound at high volume when nothing is playing) but this really doesn't matter for most people so it's true enough KillHour fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jun 9, 2023 |
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Jun 9, 2023 22:37
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bawfuls posted:This feels more open ended and intimidating than soundbar setups since any online guides for TV sound systems I find seem to be focused on soundbars. Is there a guide for dipshits here or elsewhere I can reference? Killhour nailed it, but stereos really aren’t scary or complicated. The people who make them scary and complicated do that because they’re lonely and have too much money. Put yourself in the mindset of a kid in his dorm room in the 70s - get whatever poo poo you can and smash it together and it’s going to work.
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Jun 10, 2023 00:37
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BigFactory posted:get whatever poo poo you can and smash it together and it’s going to work. If you do this you will eventually form opinions about what you like and don’t like and shop accordingly in the future. A lot of audio is subjective or case by case, especially the way different speakers sound with different music in your room. But getting a cheap receiver and 2 decent bookshelf speakers will put you miles ahead of any soundbar. Some speaker options I’ve seen good deals on lately: Wharfedale Diamond, Triangle Borea, ELAC Debut 2.0, Revel M16. Ones people recommend a ton but I’ve never liked: Klipsch RP, JBL 5 series, those Andrew Jones Pioneers [just get Elacs instead imo].
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Jun 10, 2023 00:52
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I dunno the validity of it, but I remember years ago it was always said that A4L actually sold brand new stuff marked as refurbs, but couldn’t sell them for those prices as new gear or they’d piss the manufacturers off.
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Jun 10, 2023 00:53
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The Integra I got fromAC4L looked absolutely new and perfect but it was in a box with “refurbished” printed on the side and had an inspection sheet. I think some refurbs are ones that failed initial testing then got fixed and repackaged without ever being in a customer’s hands.
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Jun 10, 2023 00:56
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KillHour nailed it, I would add that if you don’t need surround sound, then a stereo receiver/amp that takes optical in might be all you need and give you better bang for buck (although arguably in a way that you probably wouldn’t notice). Might be easier to deal with long term too as it eliminates dealing with HDMI connectivity.
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Jun 10, 2023 01:05
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qirex posted:If you do this you will eventually form opinions about what you like and don’t like and shop accordingly in the future. That’s how I did it. I started with some hand me down Panasonic crap and tinkered.
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Jun 10, 2023 01:05
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Thank you for this extremely informative post! We do indeed have a 4K tv and some 4K sources so I’ll start with the receiver hunt.
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Jun 10, 2023 02:38
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I highly recommend buying used receivers and speakers from Craigslist. You can find really good stuff for 75%+ off original msrp. Just ask to hear them plugged in before you hand over the money. I've had really good luck getting great items. $500 receivers from 5 years ago are often sold for $150 today.
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Jun 10, 2023 03:03
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Because this is often a confusing topic, I'm going to briefly touch on the receiver thing. There are two typical ways to hook up a receiver: Inputs -> (HDMI) -> Receiver -> (HDMI) -> TV or Inputs -> (HDMI) -> TV -> (audio cable) -> Receiver The first option routes all of your stuff through your receiver, so you use the receiver remote to select your input. This is the setup receivers are "designed" for, but they also require your receiver to support the HDMI video spec because the video runs through it. So in this case, you would need a 4k capable receiver (which for practical purposes means newer). The second option routes everything to your TV first and then a cable of some kind to go back to the receiver. This can be optical, RCA or HDMI via ARC/eARC (Audio Return Channel / Enhanced Audio Return Channel). It mostly depends on what your TV supports, but nearly all modern TVs support at least optical and ARC. eARC is the most flexible, as it supports all the major audio formats, but it also requires a fairly recent receiver and TV. Optical and RCA have been around forever and for stereo, are the "this will work with literally anything" option. With this setup, you will change inputs with the TV remote. Basically, option 1 is the more modern choice if you want all the latest and greatest features a modern receiver can do and option 2 is the old school way that has been around forever if you just want something basic that can use practically any hardware out there. As a side note, if you go with option 1, you'll still likely use ARC/eARC - any time you use an app built into the TV, the audio will go back down the HDMI cable to the receiver. That's why it's called Audio Return Channel. It's also how most soundbars are set up, so is probably what you are used to.
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Jun 10, 2023 03:17
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The only reason I'm still using "option 2" as described above is that all my video comes out of my nvidia shield tv, so I have no need to switch inputs at all, and I enjoy modular sound stuff. It is nice though that pushing the remote control power button turns everything mentioned off and on with one push.
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Jun 10, 2023 06:01
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Everything runs through the roku whether it's streaming aps or local plex content so we also don't need to change inputs. The main usability detail is I need the receiver volume control to work from the universal remote without having to switch targets on the remote away from the roku, as the bar does now.
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Jun 10, 2023 06:20
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I have a sub-10 year old daughter who has just discovered Taylor Swift's music and wants to listen to it as often as possible (on headphones) while doing crafts. We don't have Alexa or other bluetooth stuff in the house, and she spends her screen time on other stuff. I want her to be able to listen to music as much as she wants independent from screen time, but I can't figure out how to do this. The headphones\earbuds are a must. Is there anything like an iPod that I could put spotify on, or some other equivalent? I have tried letting her play songs on a tablet or phone but this devolves into turning the music off and goofing off with other stuff. Sorry if this is the wrong thread, if so please direct me, and TIA!
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Jun 10, 2023 07:47
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UltraShame posted:I have a sub-10 year old daughter who has just discovered Taylor Swift's music and wants to listen to it as often as possible (on headphones) while doing crafts. Short of literally obtaining song files and putting them on some kind of dedicated playback/storage device (ie, putting MP3s on an old iPod or old/new dedicated player), or making her listen to physical media like CDs or LPs, the best answer I got for you is a phone/tablet with strong parental controls engaged. If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of janitoring said controls on your/her device, and have an older/cheap phone kicking around, you could lock it down and have it be an “only Spotify, only on WiFi or download” device. Not sure if trying to track down something like an iPod touch (RIP) for this would be worth it.
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Jun 10, 2023 08:01
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bawfuls posted:Everything runs through the roku whether it's streaming aps or local plex content so we also don't need to change inputs. The main usability detail is I need the receiver volume control to work from the universal remote without having to switch targets on the remote away from the roku, as the bar does now. Roku doesn't have a primary volume adjustment?
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Jun 10, 2023 15:27
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LRADIKAL posted:Roku doesn't have a primary volume adjustment? Don’t think so. It’s like a dvd player or cable box
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Jun 10, 2023 15:45
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weird, yeah, I adjusted my volume on my dumb analog amp, set my tv output to static, and can control my master volume through shield's remote.
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Jun 10, 2023 17:09
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bawfuls posted:Everything runs through the roku whether it's streaming aps or local plex content so we also don't need to change inputs. The main usability detail is I need the receiver volume control to work from the universal remote without having to switch targets on the remote away from the roku, as the bar does now. What TV do you have? LRADIKAL posted:weird, yeah, I adjusted my volume on my dumb analog amp, set my tv output to static, and can control my master volume through shield's remote. Even if the Roku can't adjust the output volume directly, it should be able to tell the TV to do it via CEC unless Roku's are complete trash (I don't use one so maybe they are?) KillHour fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 10, 2023 |
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Jun 10, 2023 17:46
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