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Has Class D amps made Class A/B completely obsolete for audio? I find it exceedingly hard to believe the claims that A/B sounds different/better than D in a DBT when all of them are competently designed for transparency and working within normal parameters.
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Jan 18, 2015 18:05
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Khablam posted:The site itself is right in a Poe's Law Valley of "wilful conartist or audifool?" because it manages to juxtapose terms that disprove their product is even needed. Science is pathetic, man. It brought us lousy crap like 2+ billion transistor consumer CPUs, 40+ terabit transoceanic submarine optic fibers, mercury analyzers that can detect mercury down to 0.000,000,0001% but it can't give us the correct basic signaling theory for audio applications. gently caress science.
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Jan 21, 2015 08:03
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I am wondering with the sick of amount money these audiophiles invested into their setups even comes close in sound quality to a pair of JBL M2 Master Reference Monitors at $20K with bundled free amps.
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Jan 24, 2015 18:06
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KozmoNaut posted:That's not to say that serious pro audio can't be super expensive, too: Other than edge cases like that, I noticed pro-audio monitors tend to be very reasonably priced for the level of sound quality for some weird reason.
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Jan 26, 2015 12:41
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Knifegrab posted:If I could push my budget a tiny bit above 50 would you have a different recommendation or would it still be these? http://www.amazon.com/Original-Xiao...xiaomi+piston+2 This rules from first hand experience. Combat Pretzel posted:
You gotta love DBT haters and their hilarious arguments against DBTs: 1. Attack the methodology, crappily - DBTs due to inherent real-life limitations is less reliable then their own sighted judgement "because a DBT can't be perfect" 2. Claims an obvious difference in sound with X product, while putting the burden of proof on skeptics who says it's bullshit. I strongly suspect why they hate the idea of blind testing so much is that deep down at some level they know they will be proven wrong conclusively and their worldview will no longer hold water like religious fanatics. Palladium fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Jan 27, 2015 |
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Jan 27, 2015 03:46
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BigFactory posted:That's really stupid. If "dirty" power was such a huge issue our major swaths of our civilization would probably won't work, including those chem lab spectrometers that can reliably detect stuff into the parts per billion/trillion range. KozmoNaut posted:No, because gently caress giving money to scammers. "How do you know it isn't better if you can't afford it?"  Ok, lets give them the benefit of doubt and they have hyperbolic measurements of 0.0000000000000000000000001% THD+N/IMD, 1000 dB of SNR etc. Sounds good until the fact that those specs are going to be dwarfed by the innate distortion and the non-flat frequency response of the best of the best of speakers by orders of magnitudes. "BUT I CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE" -golden ears type ODing on placebo pills
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Jan 28, 2015 03:45
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KozmoNaut posted:"And let's not say about the claim from Ayre themselves saying it's 80-90% as good as their $20,000 amp." 
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Jan 28, 2015 16:07
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Chill Callahan posted:Somewhat related to the discussion going on, a bunch of audio manufacturers chime in on whether or not measurements can accurately predict the sound of a component: http://www.herronaudio.com/images/Measurements.pdf tl:dr, but I fail to see how one can remotely argue against that objective measurements can't be used to judge sound quality. For a long time video card benchmarks are only posted as min/max/average frame rates, yet people started to feel that X model feels jerkier or sluggish than Y model despite having similar frame rates, the subjective differences are later confirmed by a new measurements of frame-time analysis.
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Jan 29, 2015 18:06
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BANME.sh posted:In that Dave Grohl documentary Sound City, Neil Young actually said on camera that the people who made up the digital sampling process made a mistake, so all digital recordings since then are inherently flawed. Of course he didn't actually go into any details of how or why. Ahaha, maybe he should check how bad the distortion is for a top-end studio mic versus an evil run-of-the-mill ADC/DAC.
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Jan 30, 2015 17:24
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NihilismNow posted:The best tube amp is still the AOpen AX4B. In addition to RF noise, imagine the tube microphonics with the 3+ fans, a spinning HDD and an optical drive in a typical PC. What can possibly go wrong?
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Jan 31, 2015 03:03
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If you looking for useful info or reviews other than on cheapo gear on Head-Fi, you are at the wrong place.
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Feb 1, 2015 18:28
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KozmoNaut posted:High voltage won't do anything, apart from being a major safety hazard. And it has to be DC, because that actually makes electrons flow in one direction. AC would just make them oscillate in the same position which makes the soundstage static.
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Feb 2, 2015 15:04
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I bought the Sansa Clip+ as a reference DAC. poo poo, I'm getting the audiophile bug.
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Feb 4, 2015 10:59
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Nintendo Kid posted:Remember when Audiophiles used to argue about what was the best quality CD-Rs? I know yellow SATA cables make data transfer faster, and black PCBs are for a blacker background in music.
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Feb 9, 2015 11:18
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88h88 posted:...did they ever take the packaging off? I not sure whether that site is the most elaborate troll of all time or they are actually sincere about what they do.
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Feb 10, 2015 10:57
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BigFactory posted:That's so stupid. So it's like RAID 1 except the main drive always gets corrupted while the secondary is always pristine...Somehow.
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Feb 13, 2015 13:23
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Sony unveils 64GB microSD card “for Premium Sound” (for $155) http://blog.gsmarena.com/sony-unveils-64gb-microsd-card-premium-sound/ As usual, the "how do you know it won't make a difference" placebophile comments.
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Feb 19, 2015 14:52
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grack posted:I met someone IRL last week who actually believes this. It should be legal to slap audiophiles when they start spouting crap. Did you ask what he thinks the billion other things that could possibly affect the sound that also deserves the same treatment too? E.g PCB traces, caps, inductors, room temperature, air humidity and pressure, elemental composition of air, ground cables, ear wax accumulation, germs in room, heatsink material, insulation material/resistance of cables, magnetic and electric fields in room, RF/IR/ionizing radiation...
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Feb 22, 2015 09:29
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Waldo P Barnstormer posted:
Too bad all that wiring inside the equipment didn't go through the same treatment though.
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Mar 25, 2015 16:43
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LifeSizePotato posted:Agreed. You don't understand, we have the capability to make 14nm CPUs, 40 terabits/s fiber optics across the Atlantic but not audio testing equipment that are objectively better than our ears.
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Mar 26, 2015 08:40
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BigFactory posted:He's half right. Audiophiles are bad but goons are bad too. In PC hardware analogy, a Behringer UCA202 DAC would be akin to Nvidia selling a GTX Titan X SLI for the price of a 8GB USB flashdrive which will be shunned by our game-o-philes who would rather be discussing to death about whether their $10,000 VGA cables makes any difference to the FPS on their lovely 1024x768 TN LCD screens when playing Doom 1.
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Jun 4, 2015 10:09
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I hope they never have to use Winrar/Winzip or installing apps on anything again because IMPEFEXTC COMPREZION? baka kaba posted:This means the more people try to tell you magical audiophile gear is bullshit, the more amazing it sounds. An industry that exists to be called out, and to feed on it. The more ridiculous you go, the greater the potential rewards! *Quotes study about how absolutely NO ONE was able to hear to detect a hidden 44/16 DAC/ADC pair degrading the audio chain for SACD playback in a 1-year period* "Of course, they don't have the *~*golden ears*~* like I do!"
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Jun 14, 2015 06:00
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You know, for a $3000 slab of junk, they might want to put in a screen that is at least as good as a 720p IPS LCD of a infinitely more useful device that happens to make phone calls which one can buy for like ~$120 shipped in China.
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Jun 14, 2015 11:39
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Combat Pretzel posted:One might argue that the driver of the display may cause interferences with the audio circuit, given the high frequencies it'll run at. Then again, not a problem a piece of metal foil wouldn't fix. Well, smartphones like iPhones and Galaxy Notes also happen to have some of the cleanest analog outputs to date, despite the magnitudes higher in engineering complexity. Like our venerable NwAvGuy once said, the notion that some guy in his basement can make a better audio device than companies having billions in resources, skill and testing equipment just because the latter uses utterly cheap parts is thoroughly absurd.
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Jun 14, 2015 12:30
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bigman.50grand posted:"One time in the 80's I was really high on coke and listened to Sam Cooke. I've been blowing tens of thousands of dollars chasing that high ever since!" With the kind of sick cash thrown at useless gizmos by audiophiles, they make drugs look stellar from a value of money standpoint.
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Jun 19, 2015 14:35
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Anyway, I think we rational people should avoid getting baited by placebophiles by assuming the burden of proof for their psuedoscientific claims. If you claim your $10K HDMI makes a difference to whatever quality its your job to back it up with conclusive scientific evidence, not mine.
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Jun 21, 2015 06:57
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Boiled Water posted:I need a recommendation for a cheap dac for listening to spotify music and online radio. Something I can leave at my office desk. http://benchmarkmedia.com/products/benchmark-dac2-hgc-digital-to-analog-audio-converter
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Jun 22, 2015 15:47
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bigman.50grand posted:The comments on that article are even more quote:It certainly is easy to claim a phenomenon is bogus, when you have not researched it extensively ( as I have), or do not even have the wherewithal to study this sort of phenomenon. Its just as easy to claim there’s no other planet than earth, when you’ve never peered through a telescope, or know how to use one. Dat strawman.  Hopefully he is not a lawyer IRL.
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Jun 24, 2015 03:14
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qirex posted:good news, there's a review of the usb error correcting device You see, bits of audio are fundamentally different from bits of other data. I wonder how will audiophiles react when all their precious music and software player are stealth processed out-of-order in the CPU?
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Sep 7, 2015 07:55
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qirex posted:I did just realize a lot of modern subs use class D amps which are anathema to audiophiles since they undoubtedly sound like computer chips, though. Someone needs to make a tube-powered sub [assuming one doesn't inevitably already exist]. Class D amps are a perfect fit for subs because the potential problems with high frequency distortion of Class D are bypassed entirely, power efficiency is way beyond Class A or AB and the distortion of the sub transducer alone dwarfs the amp by magnitudes. Using tubes to drive subs is the most clinically retarded thing anybody can do, although the lack of basic intelligence to understand basic engineering principles is a proud trait of audiofool circles soooo...
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Oct 24, 2015 06:47
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Foxtrot_13 posted:I love the bit at the end "While the audio people have a flame war i'll be on the beach" Ah, of course there has to be the classic rebuttal of "he didn't test a properly designed tube amp" because that couldn't possibly be a piece of grossly overpriced and underperforming POS, or the fact that it's supposed to be the vendor's responsibility to support their claims and not the other way round. Palladium fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jan 10, 2016 |
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Jan 10, 2016 05:02
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Croc Monster posted:If you look at the sticker on the back of the thing, it says "Designed by McIntosh in the USA". Someone in one of the audiophile forums surmises this means it was actually made in China. I'm inclined to agree. Oh McIntosh, how the mighty have fallen. McIntosh's logo IMO looks like some weird creepy hybrid cross of a Satanic cult and an energy drink, aka fugly as sin.
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Jan 13, 2016 16:45
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I betcha those semicon design engineers must be slapping themselves stupid by spending so much effort to make a perfect opamp to sell for 50 cents each when they could be out there ripping people off with a piece of lovely metal in insulation for $10K a pop.
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Jan 15, 2016 03:32
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I am disappoint. He didn't mention how good music sounds better with the Northwood Pentium 4 than the current i7 trash because of the 50% better L1 cache latency for less jitter, or how if you have to settle for modern motherboards you will have to recap all the solid caps to electrolytics. And no PWM power for any of the fans either, heck it's better just take out the CPU fan completely then Prime95 the CPU to 100C to bring out the warmth in the sound.
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Jan 15, 2016 10:14
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Waldo P Barnstormer posted:I read a bit into that thread and I feel Superdad and company were this close to suggesting the electrical equivalent to homeopathy as the reason for hearing the differences. It is literally a case of rounder zeroes and straighter ones. All that attention to local computing equipment yet no one questions their ISPs' infrastructure (and by extension the rest of the whole goddamn loving Internet) in their quest for more perfect bits.
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Jan 15, 2016 11:29
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KozmoNaut posted:Here's another fun one (Google-translated, unfortunately): If you ask me, it's too easy to impress laypersons with amazing sounding numbers that are technically true but ultimately makes no impact in the real world.
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Feb 9, 2016 07:40
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Not just limited to placebophiles, there's a Chinese saying of "A cent spent is an additional cent of quality received" which is great advice to subscribe to if you like getting ripped off left and right. I really don't get the logic of how people think a cheapass product is surely going to suck but others that cost hundreds or even thousands times more to do the same job will not. "Surely the expensive stuff is better is always because the seller put more actual well thought effort into it, and never because the seller is trying to rip me off!" Palladium fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 17:38
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Khablam posted:Meant to say, excluding certain 6S models that seemed to have a noise issue. This was a genuine problem that kinda got lost underneath 'chipgate'. Yours sounds like it is one of those, because on a non-affected handset there's no noise at all. My 6S+ 3.5mm jack has a very soft click which occurs only after the output goes silent after a few seconds, which is a complete non issue.
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Feb 29, 2016 20:06
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Collateral Damage posted:QR codes aren't a bad technology and it's well used in automated logistics and similar. But almost every consumer application of it I've seen has been idiotic and/or pointless. I still have no idea how to use QR codes despite using smartphones for 5 years while stuff like music, camera, messaging, browser etc are completely idiot-proof. It's paradoxically unintuitive for a semi-ubiquitous tech.
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Mar 1, 2016 11:46
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Panty Saluter posted:Oh look, the Crown amp fan is automatic and only switches on under high load I'm sure there will be some amps with poorly thought out fan designs but if I ever find the need to put 1KW of sound in my home the last thing I would worry about is fan noise.
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Mar 1, 2016 20:48
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