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Megiddo posted:
Actually, the DCX2496 is a surprisingly high end bit of kit for the money. The interface is horrible but the components certainly aren't. If you're bothered, there's a pretty detailed breakdown of the DCX2496 vs. a BSS SoundWeb and a DBX DriveRack (admittedly the low budget PA version) here: http://forum.speakerplans.com/inside-compared-bss-9088-dbx-pa-dcx2496_topic25538_post252872.html#252872
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Jul 30, 2009 15:02
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qirex posted:If I was building a listening room I'd probably spend more money on the furniture than the amps. You can get a killer pro amp like a Crown XTi for a grand. A Crown XTi is far from a pro amp. Up until recently it had a huge failure rate due to the dodgy, DSP, and they don't put out anywhere near their rated power. Bench tests for the supposed 4000 model are abysmal. It also sounds a bit like somebody's taking a piss when the sensitivity is up. If you want to look at PA amps for home use, check out Chevin Research. They're discontinued but the quality of the sound is unbeatable. Megiddo posted:There's a lot more to it than the components used. Uwe Boll uses the same equipment that other filmmakers use, but makes shithouse films. The specs that count aren't the ones of the chips, it's the end result. Compare the specs sheets between the dbx PA DriveRack and the Berhringer and the only one that gives specs that even make sense or aren't misleading is the dbx. I'm hardly Behringer's biggest fan, and use DBX processing myself. However the PA model of DriveRack is utter crap, and they're only viable options when you get the 260 or above. Behringer make an awful lot of poo poo but the DCX is actually a blinding bit of kit for the money, and to best it in terms of processing and signal quality you have to spend a fair bit more for say a BSS OmniDrive or an XTA DP series- which in my experience is worth it simply to avoid the sneers at the badge on the front and to never have to use the god awful UI. I was fairly surprised to see audiophiles all over the DCX, because I thought they'd be more into spunking a few grand on say an XTA DP448 or Dolby Lake instead of a couple of hundred on some cheap Chinese tat.
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Jul 31, 2009 14:28
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Doc Spratley posted:You may also try digital room eq'ing. Did you prefer the sound like this? It goes quite strongly against the measured average response curve of the human ear, and every time I’ve EQ’d a system perfectly flat it’s sounded far too bright in the midrange and like there’s nowhere near enough bass.  http://www.silcom.com/~aludwig/EARS.htm
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Sep 27, 2009 14:08
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I wonder how many audiophiles are going to be chomping at the bit after these statements? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8368895.stm quote:The firm, which makes systems costing from £2,500 to more than £100,000, said discerning customers recognised the superior quality of digital streaming.
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Nov 23, 2009 15:26
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http://www.lessloss.com/page.html?id=64 So it's like particle physics kung fu?
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Nov 25, 2009 11:49
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MrData posted:So..what does it do exactly? It quantums your particles, duh.
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Nov 26, 2009 15:27
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wasp_f15ing posted:So.. one thing that makes me question all of the new speakers now, is their size. Whenever I read an article in a given magazine I hear how bass extension is this that and the other.. If you have a driver with a high enough Xmech and a low enough Fs the size of the cone is largely irrelevant - you can build a bigger bass-reflex cabinet or design a high-order bandpass to achieve significantly more air displacement than the surface area of the driver would otherwise allow. Likewise if you're going for a front-loaded horn enclosure. If you put enough compression and horn length in front of the driver then you can get some serious low frequencies out of small drivers. Particularly if you use multiples, perhaps in a push-pull configuration to reduce distortion. There's no escaping physics' iron laws however and if you go for a smaller driver and want an accurate sound you're going to have to build a pretty big box to compensate.
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Nov 28, 2009 20:51
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Hogscraper posted:I don't want to splurge on a good pair of Shure's only to have them snag and break or worse get mugged and be out $200.00 bucks on a pair of earbuds that someone is going to turn into $50.00 fast cash to someone who won't appreciate them. Ahh, city life! Exactly this happened to my Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5s. I was not a happy chappy.
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Jul 16, 2010 14:46
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-hdmi Proper testing of the cheapest HDMI cable going against the most expensive.
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Jan 8, 2011 16:31
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oversteer posted:Why SPL (dB) ? Um, why not? SPL or sound pressure level is the easiest way to measure perceived volume at any given point, those graphs are simple spectrum analysis.
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Jan 11, 2011 14:35
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:In a normal environment, they're pretty pointless for short distances. Unless your cable runs go anywhere near sources of interference. Mains electrical cables, for instance.
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Jan 12, 2011 17:41
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wav3form posted:My dad was a huge audiophile but not to the extent that some of these people are/were. He had the krell mono blocks, tube this, tube that and all very nice sounding. He dabbled in the overpriced wires for a while which was to my benefit. He recently gave me about 3 grand worth of silver braided speaker wire about as thick as a garden hose. I have them hooked up to my 800 dollar NHT speakers in my budget home theater. When dealing with analog processing the use of tube equipment can make a marked difference to the sound. TC make an amazing tube based compressor that a great many bands use on huge scale tours.
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Jan 16, 2011 22:46
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http://www.quantumqrt.com/content.asp?ContentID=24 http://www.bmicable.com/oceanic_statement http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Nordost%20VALHALLA%20Power.htm Lifted from another forum I use: MattStolton posted:WTF. http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Audience%20Auric%20Illuminator.htm Jesus Christ. Neurophonic fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Mar 20, 2011 |
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Mar 20, 2011 22:03
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CheapImitation posted:They were both six feet cables. I still have no idea why balanced interconnects aren't used as standard in any gear that calls itself hi-fi.
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May 4, 2011 18:48
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Socket Ryanist posted:When you're hearing the full range, you feel the beat like an impact against your chest. When you're just hearing the bass it's somewhat dulled, more of a shaking than an impact. Well yeah, 'bass' is a huge range of frequencies (~60-250Hz), even if you don't include harmonics and stick to fundamentals. If you count harmonics then a kickdrum is still making noise at around 4kHz.
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May 25, 2011 18:50
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:As far as I can tell this whole discussion was started on getting impact in your kick drums - and that's found nowhere but in the sub-100 Hz range. If it's impact you're after you need to move a lot of air, period. Of course the overtones are important too but they won't give you the kick in the gut if that's what you're after. You can use psychoacoustics to trick the listener into hearing phantom low tones but they won't feel them because there isn't enough energy for bone conduction to really kick in. Agreed. A simple trick to making a drum more 'kicky' in PA circles is a tight Q, 1.5 to 3dB boost at 91Hz. It gives more of that 'hammer knocking wood' sound, particularly from front loaded horn cabinets. Quite often, you'll end up notching down the harmonic range to prevent horrible ringing from the hits affecting your vocals or guitars.
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May 27, 2011 01:04
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Socket Ryanist posted:I think the EQ settings mentioned have to do with the human body's resonance, not the kick drum. There is a relatively narrow frequency band in the sub-bass range where you feel vibrations the most. Bingo. As long as you're also aware of the phase shift that any EQ adds, then you can get away with room tuning to a degree.
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May 27, 2011 13:33
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Combat Pretzel posted:How do you deal with the cosmic background radiation, that the atmosphere isn't filtering anymore? A space station built entirely out of Lessloss Black Body bricks.
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Oct 17, 2011 16:25
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http://www.ethanwiner.com/believe.html Show this to your nearest audiophile for a wonderfully clumsy attempt at dismissal.
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Nov 8, 2011 01:34
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DoctorOfLawls posted:For all the crazy audiophile products and claims that show up, I have yet to see people caring about how clean/mint your CD is. Do audiophiles refuse to listen to CDs that have minor cosmetic scratches (the likes of which obviously do not actually interfere with the sound?) Of course they do. And they have fantastic pens that stop the laser light from leaking through the printing and affecting the sound! http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/green_pen.htm quote:I selected Chris Isaak's analog recorded Heart Shaped World as this is one of my best sounding non-audiophile pre-recorded cassettes, and I thought it would be good to have a back up copy as Nakamichi cassette deck parts are getting scarce. The CD untreated was pale in comparison, there was more resonance in Chris Isaak's voice and more wood sound on the box of his acoustic guitar on the cassette. However when I treated the CD I noticed CD Stoplight brought the CD much closer to the realism of the pre-recorded cassette. The greened CD sounds wonderful and quite enjoyable, not high resolution but neither is the cassette. The importance of this test was to compare two low resolution formats, one I enjoy (cassette) and one I historically have had problems listening to (CD). The fact that this CD sounded good enough that I have since played it again means that the combination of hardware improvements and the use of CD Stoplight might just mean I can occasionally enjoy a CD.
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Apr 12, 2012 20:05
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Hammer Floyd posted:I've never heard a set of headphones that I get enough bass definition from. I know it's there, but I often find it hard to discern what the bass player is doing. Simple, combine high quality headphones with one of these, but in audiophile grade of course: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ASIN=B0030N7D6S
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May 17, 2012 02:41
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Pudgygiant posted:think "detailed brights" is just a way people in the know say "boosted treble". Then why not just say 'boosted treble', which is understandable by everyone? Hardly anybody in the professional audio world talks this way.
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May 22, 2012 03:15
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WanderingKid posted:I reckon alot of this stuff shouldn't ever be described in words because everyone has a different idea of what bright and detailed "sounds" like. Using terms of reference like this is only useful if you keep the internal logic of it to yourself. I agree to an extent, graphs can only say so much and many speakers look excellent on paper (flat frequency response, good impulse response, impedance curves and group delay) but sound god awful when they get anywhere near a decent level of power. There's simply no substitute for listening to a speaker for yourself, ideally in an ideal acoustic environment (eg. outdoors with no nearby boundaries) using good quality source material. In the world of PA that can often be done because when you're talking that kind of money there's always some form of demo to be arranged, but one of the things that annoys me most about 'audiophile' stuff is that they seem to actively work away from that ideal and write posts thousands of words long describing a speakers' sound like it's gospel. When was the last time anybody on Head-Fi or similar opened their post with 'this is just my opinion'?
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May 23, 2012 16:08
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Ron Burgundy posted:I can't believe the states still don't have hard wired earth pins, or at least one way keyed plugs Aussies have no right to criticise other nation's plug design after approving this easily bent madness: 
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May 30, 2012 19:58
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My new career is going to be snipping off all the gold plated connectors I see and sending them to Cash4Gold.
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Jun 15, 2012 14:48
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88h88 posted:I'm building a long style Table Tuba first as I mentioned, purely because I want to see what a £40 8" car audio driver can do in a proper enclosure. I have the wood and driver, just need some spare time to get it started (hopefully at the weekend). Have heard almost the full gamut of Bill's designs, and whilst they serve a purpose, there are far, far better box designs for free. The components however, usually cost more. One thing that really irks me about BFM stuff is the almost audiophile way he describes and 'tests' his kit. None of the comparisons to commercial or other subs are done fairly, or in a standard manner compared to other professional stuff - that extends to Tom Danley's newer bits too, awesome sounding boxes but the measurements have to be calculated backwards to be directly compared to their competitors.
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Jul 5, 2012 22:31
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88h88 posted:Seeing as this whole thing started off on pretty much a whim I've been more than happy with the results so far. I just like how everything is all ridiculously simple to throw together. If there's better I'll have a dig, I'd quite like to manufacture a whole stack of different designs; Big E Loudspeakers seem pretty impressive and are a new company with a slightly different design ethos. Without going too far off topic, if you're getting into DIY and wanted something (significantly) more challenging to design and build, I fully recommend looking into Unity or Synergy horns. Or, if you wanted to keep it simpler, build oblate spheroid waveguides to suit the drivers you have available. That's going to be the biggest improvement over the vast majority of club or local systems you'll find. http://redspade-audio.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/synergy-horn.html is a good place to start, follow his builds from first gen to third gen to get an idea of why this is worth pursuing! As for bass, try building some Jensen Imperials. There's something just right about that design and it goes reasonably low too. As for line arrays in stupid places, I work in live sound day in day out and have seen far, far more stupid things than that. Some places expect you to be able to mix a band through a bunch of JBL Control 6 dotted around the ceiling and an old, chipboard bass cabinet with an 18" driver held into a 15" baffle using 6 inch woodscrews… Neurophonic fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jul 6, 2012 |
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Jul 6, 2012 01:27
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88h88 posted:I'll certainly have a lookie at those designs, they're definitely interesting but I just like the ease of using a few boxes to cover the entire range rather than using a shotgun approach and having a million different designs sat about the place all doing a smaller section of the frequency range. Then an OS waveguide with a coaxial driver is ideal, you can get one single point source doing right down to 500Hz with a big enough horn, and with a Jensen Imperial you can likely cross straight from bass into that. Much more coherent! jonathan posted:I dont understand why that THT guy is running both subs in the same spot. Adding a second sub only gives you a max spl change of 3 db extra. The adavatage comes from placing subs in different areas of the room to spread out the "sweet spot" and giving you a uniform bass response. Actually, a single bass source is the simplest way to get good bass unless you're absolutely sure there's going to be stereo or more panning done with the really low stuff. Adding distance between boxes will create peaks and nulls that can be unpleasant. From what I have to hand, here are some examples that show sound pressure level differences. Phase coherence is going to be even more of a problem with multiple bass sources acting at once. Bear in mind this first example is in somewhat more ideal conditions than an average home theatre setup, being outdoors without the boundary effects you'll get from walls in a house, but it gives you an idea. One stack of bass:  Two stacks of bass about 10m apart:  This is what is known as 'power alley'. Here's an indoor space, bare brick walls. In order, single bass, two points of bass, three points of bass:   
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Jul 6, 2012 21:50
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88h88 posted:I did kinda put "obviously rooms factor into this but y'know..." at the end of that post for a reason. The stuff you just posted being that exact reason. I never stated it was the absolute answer to everything because sound is such a oval office to get right. Exactly this. Also I wasn't advocating one sub, I was advocating one radiating area. One source is much more predictable and that's the best thing to work with. Ideally everyone would just get a copy of Room EQ Wizard and a Behringer ECM8000 mic to plot their room properly and pick their 'sweet spot' of choice, because there's absolutely no way you can get the same sound for everybody in the room. Everything in sound is a compromise.
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Jul 11, 2012 22:36
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:That has a lot more to do with mixing for a tiny, lovely TV speaker than the engineer's ears. They deliberately use a small, limited range speaker so the mix will still be clear on the worst case scenario (which is every TV speaker ever). As a result it sounds like unwashed rear end smells on any halfway decent setup. Plus the move to MP4 based digital broadcasts has seemingly reduced the overall audio bitrate compared to the old school analogue signals, particularly in the UK - most apparent during commercial breaks where the compression level is increased even further (usually 10dB average over the normal programme) to compensate for people leaving the room to make a cup of tea.
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Aug 14, 2012 20:16
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:Speakers in general really. Vandersteen 2CEs are less than two grand (last I knew) and you'd be hard pressed to improve on them for any reasonable amount of money. Many incredibly expensive HiFi speakers actually use drivers that cost no more than $1200 a piece. Saw some Korean brand that had top of their range at $30k plus for off the shelf fibreglass horns and midrange drivers.
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Nov 23, 2012 21:31
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Should anybody in the UK be up for going to see this stuff live and in the flesh, this seems ideal: http://www.thehifishow.com/ It's a show put on by users of the HiFi Wigwam, they may be a slightly less extreme collective than others but there'll still be a few special cases - an example review here http://www.hifiwigwam.com/reference-fidelity-components-reference-pluto-phono-interconnectors-99-50metre-pair/
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Jan 11, 2013 19:01
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Khablam posted:Well, as mentioned, it's "too clinical" so they can't be expected to do it. But, better than that, many will do a spectral analysis on the computer of source vs original, and then go "I heard weaker high-notes, and this is shown in this graph here" A spectral analysis of the output of a speaker in test conditions would be somewhat acceptable, surely?
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Jan 16, 2013 13:04
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He's terminated those ridiculously expensive cables with the cheapest Neutrik FC Series SpeakOn connectors they make. It also looks like the speakers themselves use the bog standard plastic SpeakOn sockets, rather than the nicer and more durable metal ones. Frankly I'm surprised they haven't tried to push the use of something that apparently sounds better, like Amphenol EP series or even just banana plugs. I know of a theatre in the south of the UK that actually ABX tested all sorts of speaker connections and had their entire cabinet range changed to EP series as it sounded more 'transparent' than the others. Nevermind that their whole install was on 50 metre runs of cable.
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Apr 28, 2013 18:49
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:Part of the theory behind having ultra-wide frequency response (say, 10 hZ - 100 kHz or something) is that if the electronics are capable of handling frequencies that far out they are very unlikely to have any phase distortion or other errors within the audible band. Some of it might be dick-waving but I think there's at least a little truth to it. In theory yes, but in practice they just put numbers on a box. Without an actual measured response curve, phase and group delay plots it's more or less irrelevant.
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Jun 13, 2013 02:56
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88h88 posted:That would make me full goon then... That said I've made some DIY PA speakers which sound poo poo hot so I thought why not just go full bore and make the cables to go with it too? It's this thinking that has caused me to assemble some mint green/red XLR/1/4" cabling for the setup. Good work, now can you solder me up a VEAM multipin please? 
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Jul 11, 2013 19:37
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88h88 posted:This is not so much audiophile but it still seems pretty daft to me and certainly 'just because we could'. http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/19/4537724/lcd-soundsystem-frontman-returns-to-his-roots-with-amazing-custom-speaker-set I heard this. It was average at best, god awful screechy on vocals and wallowy as hell on bass. Have heard plenty of systems in the same sized space sound a lot better for a fraction of the price. Oh and there were 7 stacks there, at a total cost of £1.2mil. So of course, there's another 25 stacks on order… Talking about watts and dB like they're totally interchangeable is just hilarious. In no way was that system anywhere near close to 4000 bloody acoustic watts of output.
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Aug 1, 2013 19:45
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Detroit Q. Spider posted:A screechy horn speaker?!?!?! To be fair, the JBL horn flare they used wasn't the one it was designed for, you can just about see a wider panel inserted into the original cutout. But still, I doubt it would make that much difference. We don't have any proper Danley users in the UK, Isophase distribute it but their prices are far from cheap and well, I've not heard great things about larger arrays of it which you also don't often see in their blurb. All the Synergy Horn DIY boxes I've heard have been brilliant in singles though, so I'm keen to give it a proper listen. The Jericho is just mental, so huge it's almost unfeasible to actually use one to shift about. This is my current favourite thing to listen to at gigs, it even looks like some of these audiophile horns: 
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Aug 2, 2013 23:26
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88h88 posted:In one of the interviews I thought the amps alone cost over a million quid?? £880,000 on amps, the rest on the boxes and drivers, plus transport.
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Aug 7, 2013 21:02
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:19 |
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Well, on the subject of Beats: http://www.woodchuckcase.com/products/beats-by-dre-walnut  That's one confused product right there.
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Aug 8, 2013 21:14
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