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What is tu name? posted:I just bought a new Onkyo Home Theater Receiver (TX-SR504) from Circuit City after my old Kenwood from the 70's pooped out. I have a pair of Bose 901 Series speakers from 1983 and they have the equalizer box that you're supposed to run through the tape input and output on the back of the receiver. This might be too simple of a solution but when running through the "A" channel is your receiver set to 2 channel stereo mode?
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Jun 19, 2007 17:13
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What is tu name? posted:Does anybody have any ideas on how I can get the speakers to work properly through the "B" set and how I can get the Bose equalizer to work? Sorry if this was confusing - I'm not a great audio mind.
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Jun 19, 2007 17:28
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androo posted:e: ohh, just realized there are wireless systems out there. How does this look? Do not get Logitech speakers. They sound like rear end. What is your budget?
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Jun 19, 2007 21:38
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Pibborando San posted:Do not get Logitech speakers. They sound like rear end. What is your budget? $150 - $200 sounds good to me. $200 is a bit of a stretch on my budget, but this won't be until winter so I'm just trying to get an idea.
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Jun 20, 2007 03:22
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What are the best bang for the buck in speakers, budget of say 200, 250 if its a steal? Its strictly for records, tapes and CDs and its not super high quality stuff. Punk, metal, etc.
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Jun 20, 2007 06:19
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I'm moving into my own place in a few days and I'm finally going to have enough room for a good stereo setup. I'm probably going to go for a pair of Paradigm Monitor 7s, but they're not going to do me much good without an amp. I've had a number of solid state headphone amps and my audiophile-esque father has gone through a few solid states as well. I'm interested in giving tubes a try now. Does anyone have any suggestions for tube amps that are of reasonable quality and price? I'm looking to spend a thousand or less. Preferably less.
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Jun 22, 2007 05:05
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steckles posted:I'm interested in giving tubes a try now. Does anyone have any suggestions for tube amps that are of reasonable quality and price? I'm looking to spend a thousand or less. Preferably less. Any particular reason for wanting to go tubes? Do you want your sound to be accurate or sound a certain way, because tubes are not accurate. They simply distort the sound, but if that sound is what you're after... Solid state isn't meant to "sound" a certain way, just amplify the signal. That said, I've heard those Monitor 7s and they're nice, albeit a bit forward and bright. Maybe a tube would make them sound better even to me, so it's worth looking in to. $1,000 isn't a whole lot, but this is what immediately came to mind: Onix SP3 Tube Integrated Amplifier
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Jun 22, 2007 18:58
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Pibborando San posted:Any particular reason for wanting to go tubes? Just curious really. Every now and then, I meet somebody who practically creams their pants over tubes when we start talking about audio equipment. Besides, they look cool.
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Jun 22, 2007 20:12
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Pibborando San posted:Any particular reason for wanting to go tubes? Do you want your sound to be accurate or sound a certain way, because tubes are not accurate. They simply distort the sound, but if that sound is what you're after... Thats not what tubes do. The principles of tube amplification and solid state amplification are the same - the difference is that in tube amplifiers, current flow between cathode and anode takes place across a vacuum. In solid state amplifiers it is through a solid semiconductor. Tubes like semiconductors are used in the process of amplifying an electronic signal - Tube sound becomes distinctive in overdrive because they generate a non linear series of low order harmonics. Overdrive tube amps enough and the output soft clips. By contrast, straight solid state amplifiers when driven close to and beyond saturation point generate a linear series of harmonics across the entire spectrum of sound. When the peak signal exceeds the saturation point, the output hard clips quite suddenly (squares off). So the onset of distortion is more sudden and is perceived to be harsher. Now you can get solid state and digital amps that recreate tube overdrive characteristics and simulate the effects of soft clipping. A combination of these properties has led to the popularity of tube amplification amongst electric guitarists and the increasing wealth of digitally modelled tube amps and solid state amps that recreate tube amp behaviour is testament to this (see Marshall's Valvestate technology) - the onset of distortion is less sudden and the emphasis on lower order harmonics contribute to the perceived 'warmth' of the resulting sound. When the output does distort, the soft clipping does not alter the proportion or emphasis of the harmonic series as dramatically as traditional solid state amplifiers. One is not better than the other - they simply have different distortion characteristics, although tube amp distortion is overwhelmingly more popular than solid state amp distortion or digital distortion. Tube amps tend to be bigger and heavier than solid state amplifiers. They are more labour intensive to produce and the innards are more fragile. Tube amps have a higher rate of failure than solid state amps because they have more servicable parts that can fail - cathode poisining is an issue, tubes themselves can be physically broken and they can burn out. Tube amps can short too. Tubes will also have increasingly non linear distortion characteristics as they age. Some people like this effect, others do not. A combination of these factors and their desirability amongst musicians means they are expensive to purchase and fairly expensive to maintain. Solid state amps are smaller, lighter and require less maintenance because they have less servicable and mechanical parts. More so for digitally modelled amps, which require no maintenance, have very low rate of failure and are cheap to mass produce. Different tubes have different distortion characteristics. If you buy a tube amplifier you can mix and match tubes for a different emphasis on the sound. Amps that have multiple tubes in series have capacitors/transformers between them because of the massive negative bias at the input stage of each tube in relation to the cathode. This introduces a phase shift into the signal which will alter it because of comb filtering which occurs across the signal. The extent of the comb filtering depends on the extent of the phase shift and the results are somewhat difficult to predict. This inherant part of tube arrays is partly responsible (together with the emphasis on lower order harmonics) for what many people describe as 'colouration' of the signal. This phase shift characteristic is found in varying degrees in all analogue signal processers - analogue equalisers and tube compressors for instance. Tube amps are high voltage, current devices. The tubes themselves generate alot of heat but they also radiate alot of it. In the event of critical failure, the tube can be replaced easily. Because tubes generate lower order harmonics in overdrive, overdriven sound is more tolerable at very high amplitudes although I should stress - low frequency sound at high amplitude is just as bad for ear health as high frequency sound at high amplitude. Tubes really come into their own when they are driven behind massive speakers and they tolerate overloads better making them good if you plan to pump out music at unholy volumes. Transistor based amps cannot tolerate overloads quite so well. Solid state amps are low voltage, high current devices. Solid state amp distortion, with its emphasis on the entire spectrum of harmonics have more perceived higher order harmonics than tube amp distortion. At very high amplitudes, this is less tolerable to listen to and is bad for your ears. Solid state amps can of course be used to drive massive soundsystems, but if you overload them to destruction, you will probably have to replace the entire amp. Consequently they are less suitable than tube amps for driving sounds very very loud. This should be stressed - you will not be driving your speakers or amps this hard in your home. Unless you have no neighbors and no concern for the health of your ears. My soundsystem is a pair of active monitors with solid state amps built into the speaker cabinet. Generally speaking I like them but I work with people who will not use my monitors to mix because they dislike the way they reproduce sound. Similarly, I find their speakers odd to mix on. Ultimately, you have to listen to the soundsystem yourself and formulate your own judgement. Especially if you are going to spend large sums of money on one. You will gradually get used to the way your soundsystem sounds and you can equalise the output if sound reproduction is not great in your room. WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jun 22, 2007 |
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Jun 22, 2007 21:06
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WanderingKid posted:Ah, thanks. You clearly know much more about this than myself. I still like that Onix amp...
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Jun 23, 2007 00:21
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It does look nice. You even get to see all your little bitches light up. 
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Jun 23, 2007 00:51
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I'd like to add in my broken moon-language english that tube amps add harmonics that are typically multiples of the original signal, whereas solid state amps, if overdriven, add random harmonics (basically noise). Harmonics that are multiples like times 2, times 4 and so on sound very pleasant to the ear and in fact sound like you are "coloring" the instrument (the typical sound of an instrument is a basic tone and characteristic multiple harmonics). Comb filtering is obviously a factor, too. What you can do is get a VST host for your media player and get a "tube warmer" or "tube saturiser" plugin and push it to 100% saturation. This way you can get a decent picture of what a typical tube amp is "supposed" to sound like. If you don't care, I really recomment a digital amplifier. They are smaller and much more effective, do not produce that much heat and do not break quite as fast.
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Jun 24, 2007 00:58
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I'm going to be moving into a dorm this fall and I'm looking to get a nice pair of speakers without spending too much money, my high end being about $150. I'm already going to cram a tv and a pc into that same side of the room, so I have to find something that isn't too large. Preferably something that will fit on a desk or a shelf without having to huddle on the other side of the room to do my homework. I'll probably hook them up to a pc or mp3 player and use them mostly for music, but I am going to do some gaming which I want to sound nice too. I've been searching Amazon and I went to Best Buy, but they didn't have much sitting out that I could listen to. I am nervous about spending that much based solely on Amazon reviews. Can anyone here recommend something?
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Jun 24, 2007 05:54
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Achates posted:... a nice pair of speakers ... my high end being about $150. Sorry to break it to ya but... Ok, I'm kidding. Kind of. I would look at these guys. Use the remaining $50 to get a decent used receiver.
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Jun 24, 2007 08:42
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Arson Equity posted:What are the best bang for the buck in speakers, budget of say 200, 250 if its a steal? Its strictly for records, tapes and CDs and its not super high quality stuff. Punk, metal, etc. Basically what I'm asking, but not punk etc. Would it be better to just have two speakers? Because the idea of surround sound is nice, but I don't want to go too expensive and I don't want all those wires running around, and I'm not sure if wireless is cheap / dependable enough.
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Jun 25, 2007 17:30
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You really have to listen to speakers before you buy them because they all sound different - even speakers in the same price bracket. I was amazed at how different my Dynaudio BM5as sound compared to ADAM P11as. Which sound way diferent to Event P6s. Some people really don't like listening to my speakers and I live with a person who will not monitor on them. Get your cash together and get yourself down to a retailer. This is your budget. Ask to audition all the speakers below your budget. Do not audition a speaker you definitely cannot afford. Before hand, burn a disc full of your favourite tunes. Now go listen and buy the speakers you like the most. This is the only good advice when buying speakers. Doing anything else is tantamount to buying blind and if its money you can't afford to lose, it makes it all the more important.
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Jun 25, 2007 20:21
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WanderingKid, whats your opinion of the speakers here? On the last page is the specs to the Vifas, I think I might build those but I have no idea how they'd perform. Not that you'd really know, but is it worth it?
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Jun 26, 2007 03:46
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Having not heard one I really couldn't tell you. If built into a well designed cabinet and with the crossovers matched appropriately (plus both woofer and tweeter being phase alligned) I don't doubt that it could be a decent little speaker. The important points though: 1) never buy any speaker without listening to it first - if you buy blind like this, do not be surprised if you dislike the sound of it when you hook it up at home. I suppose if you are building your own, this can be difficult but if theres any way you can audition high/low frequency driver in a ready built speaker - do it. 2) take into account that room acoustics have a very dramatic effect on how speakers project sound. Other than that I use speakers for a somewhat different purpose to most people in this forum - sound design. However, for that purpose it really doesn't matter what speakers you use so long as you know where they are deficient and how to compensate accordingly using equalisation and sound absorption/diffusion material to treat your listening environment. As a testament to this, its worth noting that the Yamaha NS10 is probably the most well known and well used reference monitor in the world (no contest) and its absolutely rubbish. That telephonetastic +7dB spike over 1500hz has something to do with that.
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Jun 26, 2007 09:35
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I'm thinking about buying some wood cone speakers from JVC. How are they?
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Jun 26, 2007 12:57
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Here's a quick question: Which would generally be more battery hungry (assuming the amp/speaker parts etc. are the same,) a cassette boombox or a CD one?
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Jun 28, 2007 17:41
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pablo kickasso posted:Here's a quick question: I'd image the laser array and motor and stuff would use more watts than turning the cassete tape.
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Jun 28, 2007 20:45
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Im looking to get either the paradigm studio 20 v2 and above. Does anyone have any reccomendations for bookshelves old or new that are in the same 300-600 price range?
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Jun 30, 2007 19:44
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Sorry, if this has been asked ad nauseum. I searched and had no luck. I have a fairly inexpensive bookshelf speaker set (two speakers + sub) hooked up to my TV. When watching DVDs, the dialogue is hard to hear and the music is crazy loud. Is there a setting in my DVD player I'm missing, or is this just an issue with DVDs and stereo speakers?
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Jun 30, 2007 21:11
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rckstar79 posted:Sorry, if this has been asked ad nauseum. I searched and had no luck. Try switching audio tracks? I watch dvds on my computer with normal stereo speakers and the mixed down 5.1 channel and the 2 channel tracks sound vastly different.
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Jun 30, 2007 21:21
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Stupid question, but what exactly is the purpose of having A/B speaker selection on an amplifier? Could I theoretically hook up 4 sets of speakers and position them around my room, switching between the 2 pairs when I want?
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Jul 1, 2007 17:43
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Rolodex Propaganda posted:Stupid question, but what exactly is the purpose of having A/B speaker selection on an amplifier? Could I theoretically hook up 4 sets of speakers and position them around my room, switching between the 2 pairs when I want? Yeah, or run the B speakers to your bathroom and rock out in the shower.
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Jul 1, 2007 17:56
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sund posted:Yeah, or run the B speakers to your bathroom and rock out in the shower.
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Jul 1, 2007 21:15
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Is there an easy way to find a manual for my denon avr2600? Its from the early 90's
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Jul 1, 2007 23:29
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Bobcats posted:How can I keep bass from traveling through walls and pissing off my neighbors? I actually have a similar question. While I haven't gotten any noise complaints, I'd hate to be creating noise for my neighbors and I'm a bit paranoid to the point where I'll turn down the sound on my speakers to where I can barely hear it. I have 2 bookshelf speakers and just got 2 tall speakers (not sure what they are called) and all the speakers are sitting on the carpet. I thought there were some sort of feet to stop the sound from vibrating through the floor. Are these what I'm looking for? http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=BSISO Does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm willing to put quite a bit of money/effort into this.
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Jul 2, 2007 05:17
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Internet Explorer posted:I actually have a similar question. While I haven't gotten any noise complaints, I'd hate to be creating noise for my neighbors and I'm a bit paranoid to the point where I'll turn down the sound on my speakers to where I can barely hear it. You have a few options but please bear in mind that soundproofing a room in a home is not possible (without essentially rebuilding it). The best bet you have is rigid fibre glass insulation. If you are a US resident the best stuff is Owens Corning 705 and you can get it in packs of 4 foot panels. If you live outside of the US you won't be able to get this stuff so you should use mineral wool (rockwool) instead. It works out at about the same price. How you utilize them depends on how your walls are constructed but they were designed to be slipped under floorboards and in between the air gap in your walls. If this is not possible for you, you should mount them in plywood frames and fix them to your wall/ceiling using a thick layer of adhesive. Dont couple them to wall surfaces (i.e. by nailing them directly onto walls). To treat an entire room in this manner will be expensive. If you cover an entire surface or line an entire wall with this stuff (and you do it properly) it does act like an attenuator for upper mid and high frequency sound - it wont do poo poo for low frequency sound (bass). The primary purpose of rockwool/rigid fibreglass is home insulation and sound absorption - i.e. reducing flutter echoes within rooms. You will notice that if you had a flutter echo in your room or a pitched reverberation, it will be gone if you do this correctly. Bass is a whole different story. Soundproofing as mentioned before is impossible. It would involve decoupling your entire room from every other exterior surface - basically, you float it and suspend it in a 'slightly larger room' using a sytem of springs (literally, very heavy duty springs). Then line the air gap with rockwool/rigid fibreglass. Auralex (I think) sells stuff called Sheetblok. Which is this black matting which you are supposed to staple onto your walls and so forth. It is supposed to provide quick and dirty sound proofing. In my humble opinion this stuff doesn't work very well (if at all) but its cheap compared to DIYing your own rigid fibreglass absorbers. Note that you can buy them readymade but the cost will be higher. When I get home I'll update this post with a link containing some instructions on how to build rigid fibreglass panels. Beyond that the only real attenuator that works is big, thick, solid walls. Preferably 2 big thick solid walls running parallel and with a gap of air in between. Which you can line with rigid fibreglass! You may have heard some myths about hanging carpets on your walls or using egg cartons. Carpets don't do poo poo. Egg cartons act as diffusors (they break up reverberation from flat surfaces) if you have enough of them but they turn your room into a giant firehazard. Acoustic foam panels act as absorbers and for that purpose they are somewhat effective but they are not very good at attenuating anything but high frequency sound - which your walls will tend to do better. They also turn your room into a giant firehazard except this time, it burns slower so you have time to escape. - To stop your speakers vibrating you need to mechanically decouple them from your desk. So you need to put some sort of elastic material in between your speaker and your desk. It has to be elastic enough that it returns to its original shape without the mass of the speaker on it but it needs to compress to some degree under the weight of the speaker. Do not use plastic materials - materials that deform and stay that way until you remould them - i.e. blue tac. Sand however works quite well and you can sit your monitors in 2 sand pits (a couple of centimetres high, not packed rigid) to get the job done. Also, don't use something too springy - For about 5 minutes I had an idea to sit my monitors on cushions. However, they will probably wobble and fall over. Which is obviously bad. Instead I would recommend buying something like this because it does actually work. Auralex has a rather 'creative' marketing department and they wax alot of lyrical about how these pads 'improve the performance of your monitoring system' - whatever thats supposed to mean. Either way, ignore all of that guff. It basically works for mechanical decoupling. You can DIY these things (and probably make a better one if you have measured the resonant frequency which is causing your speaker to physically vibrate and build your pads out of appropriate materials). but I don't know how or what materials would be the best for you personally. There is a sound on sound forums post that details this but I don't know where it is and have forgotten all the specifics. I'll try to find it. Do NOT buy those node feet. They do almost the opposite of what you need to be doing. The Auralex pad is a spongy, compressible material that retains its shape. In case you are worried - it is fire retardent (which means it does burn but it does so slowly. It ain't fire proof). You can think of these pads as 'speaker suspension' (rather like car suspension). The idea of car suspension is to limit shocks and vibrations caused from contact between the tyre and the ground. The idea being so that those vibrations aren't felt so much by the driver/passenger. Car suspension is essentially a spring between the mass of the ground (in contact with the tyre which itself is not totally rigid) and the mass of the car frame (and driver/passenger). The spring mechanically decouples to some extent the driver from the uneveness of the road. So riding a modern car doesn't give you a sore arse. Whenever you go over a speed bump for example, the spring compresses and relaxes thus taking much of the jolt out of the ride. The idea with decoupling speakers works in the same way - its just not as dramatic. Edit: Here are some urls you may find interesting: http://www.speakerbuilding.com/content/1011/page_9.php http://www.ethanwiner.com/basstrap.html http://www.6moons.com/ramef/6.html http://www.realtraps.com/install_mt.htm WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Jul 2, 2007 |
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Jul 2, 2007 10:03
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Is there a large difference between optical outputs versus an HDMI audio output? Or more specifically, the receiver in question is a Sony STR-DA2ES from a few years back. Now that a Blu-ray player is involved, is it time to upgrade the receiver to take advantage of snazzy uncompressed PCM audio (or TrueHD... so many new buzzwords to learn about)?
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Jul 2, 2007 17:49
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Can anyone reccomend me a good boxed theatre set? I got a 50inch Sony LCD..and a Pioneer receiver which only has component. I either need speakers or a receiver/speakers set. I am not good with this stuff.
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Jul 2, 2007 18:25
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I just purchased an old Kenwood KA-3500. Before I even hooked speakers up to it, I plugged my headphones to listen for any unusual noise. There is a very slight "hsss" noise when turned all the way down, and it increases slightly as I turn the volume knob all the way up. The phono input is very noisy, but I've noticed this before in other old amps. My question is what is generally considered acceptable for idle noise from an integrated amplifier? This is certainly much better than the Optimus one I was using before, but I don't have much experience with other pieces of equipment to compare. Is there always going to be a little noise due to the nature of the technology?
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Jul 2, 2007 19:13
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noface posted:Is there a large difference between optical outputs versus an HDMI audio output? I can't imagine there being much difference provided the optical out outputs at 24/96. Which is pretty much the standard bitdepth/samplerate at the moment. I don't really see 192khz catching on anytime soon.
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Jul 2, 2007 19:18
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WanderingKid posted:Wonderfully awesome post. Thanks a lot for all of the information. That was a great explanation to a sound moron like me and I actually learned a lot. I forgot to mention in my original post that I am in an apartment (posting too late  ), but a lot of the stuff towards the end could definitely work for me. Thanks for the suggestions! You're a huge help!
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Jul 3, 2007 00:32
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Another quick question about my KA-3500: I've hooked up one pair of speakers to the 'A' input on the back and they work fine. Now, I was just messing around with the A, B, A+B dial and there is silence when I select 'A+B'. One would think that the 'A' speakers would still play, but like I said earlier I don't have experience with this type of equipment. Do you have to have two sets of speakers to hooked up in order for the 'A+B' setting to function? I'm just making sure there's nothing wrong with it.
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Jul 3, 2007 15:06
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What cable should I buy to connect my receiver's sub-out to the red/white line-in on the subwoofer? It would be some type of Y-split cable, but I don't know which one. I have a Polk 6750 5.1 speaker system and an Onkyo SR-605 receiver. Am I correct in assuming that this setup will produce better sound than connecting my front speakers directly into the subwoofer using the pass-through clamps? (as opposed to hooking all speakers into the receiver and using the sub-out cable)
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Jul 5, 2007 09:27
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Can you use a 3.5mm splitter to connect two inputs to one output? Or is it just one input to two outputs?
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Jul 6, 2007 06:53
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This always seems to happen to all my audio devices. I stop hearing in one ear of my headphones so I go to buy new one only problem is it isn't the head phones it's the jack itself. Now it's happened to my MP3 player, what should I do? I don't know if it's still under warranty or not, will Best Buy fix it for me? Is there a way to fix it my self?
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Jul 6, 2007 23:07
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Does anybody know where I can get a pair of replacement woofers for my Infinity RS 4000 A speakers? The foam surrounds have rotted out from years of being in somebody's basement and my love for volume has begun to disintegrate them.
BeastPussy fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Jul 6, 2007 |
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Jul 6, 2007 23:09
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