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Insanely Audiophile
wiredog sent us a choice quote from a Washington Post story about high end audio. It compares audiophiles to drug addicts and talks about six figure stereo systems that make me cry with jealousy. Anyway, the true gold mine quote is "For that money [$140k], a local company called the Gene Donati Orchestras will send a string quartet to your home and play on your patio once a week for more than a year. Which is why audiophiles spend a lot of time defending their sanity." I dunno about you guys, but that makes my technology buying habit look like my chewing gum budget.
That's not what they mean by audiophile, sir.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Come on, folks- this stuff is FUN! How can you enjoy stuff like PCs and overclocking and not sympathise a little bit with this audio stuff? It's the same kind of thing! It's stereo system hot-rods and NOT only confined to white-smocked technicians making million dollar patchcords for rich idiots.
Example: all that stuff about magnets? Old news and well discussed at rec.audio.high-end, where there's always an argument but _also_ usually some clued-in people as well. And the thing is- magnets have compliance as well. This is no different from air suspensions- it still has a compliance and a pattern of varying compliance with different amounts of separation. If you want to play with that sort of thing, you can do it for virtually nothing- all you need to do is go get some bike inner tubes. Put 'em under your speakers with the stems tucked out where you can get at 'em. Presto, isolation stand- really works. Using high pressure (stiffer compliance) seems to bring everything forward and make it aggressive- I have no idea why, but can confirm others' reports of that. Really soggy compliance minimizes this- the real fun is tuning the air pressure like it is a 'forwardness' control. Good cheap fun. And isn't that a good thing? About time audio quality went 'open source'.
By the way, I bet if you hid the EQ, compander, and noise gate the audiophile wouldn't have hassled you ;) come on, what are you, post-production? It'd probably sound better without that stuff, honest. Though the guy's response is a BIT harsh, what if you enjoy twiddling knobs a whole bunch? Different strokes :)
He's Right You Know! Geekery is _fun_ to apply to audio. In the spirit of Ogerman's post here's what I've done- copy amend tweak etc to your heart's content...
I have to concur. High end is not about money. It's about _tweaking_ _the_ _gear_, and any overclocker or kernel hacker should appreciate the fun of that
Recent work on dithering has illustrated that with good dithering you can get audible signal to something like 12db _below_ the noise floor, which was previously (early digital) thought to be a hard limit. This explains much about the vinylphiles... more significantly, it means that people also have the capacity to develop great sensitivity to issues of _linearity_ which is what dithering is for in the first place. Linearity is not a pitch-domain thing. It's a resolution-domain thing. You could have someone listening to a 200 hz tone and be able to distinguish when it 'swelled' to 1.00000001 of its previous volume, even if they couldn't hear above 8K. In fact, some types of hearing loss _increase_ sensitivity to resolution issues, though they do so in an un-helpful manner (recruitment- your response to volume boost is no longer as linear).
There's no reason to doubt that when you're 71 your ears will still be as sensitive to resolution-domain stuff. You may be a total loss in the frequency domain, though :)
It got covered by the Absolute Sound magazine. I've written for that magazine, and the _promise_ of the thing sounds very appealing. And yet the guy would not explain what he did, and I just couldn't accept that... I would _love_ to plug a weird device into my studio power strip that would 'polarize' all the electrons or whatever and clean out the soundstage plus also making my TV look better. The TAS guys apparently had experiences like: played system. HP and some golden ear types were in the other room. Install 'clock', keep playing. About 15 minutes later, HP _and_ golden ear types, unaware of the installing, are clamoring into the room demanding "What did you DO?" because the character of the sound underwent an obvious change that they heard from the other room. And yet Tice won't explain what the hell he's doing, if anything... plus, the TAS guys, um, like their herbaceous sustenance ;)
Very frustrating. Now that I think about it in the context of Slashdot, this is an argument for open source _science_. The more people do stuff and conceal it, the less good it all is. This Tice may actually have come up with something for all we know- but prove it! There is nothing, nothing but hearsay...
That's why you need us mastering engineers ;)
I'll concede this: not every tube amplifier or peculiar high end speaker is at all suitable for mastering. Those monster horns are like audio microscopes: it's a selective view of the audio spectrum, not practical to work with. But really- maybe _you_ can work on Yamaha NS-10s but that doesn't mean everybody can and should. Once you have to deal with serious mastering concerns you have got to go a LOT more 'audiophile' or you will simply lose: your stuff won't be consistent, won't translate well to all systems.
Different strokes. You keep mixing, and others will deal with the fine-tuning (and pray that you _are_ using NS-10s vs., say, Genelecs: some Genelecs are so 'forgiving' that you can be mixing in horrible bass and treble irregularities and not even hear it. NS-10s at least distort when you do that :) )
He's reacting to the many, many poor 16-bit CDs out there. You can take CD a surprisingly long way if you dither it really well but there's lots out there which is completely screwed-up: lots of truncation all through the recording process, inadequate bus wordlength, you name it.
Peoples' ears are trained by what they listen to. You live out in the country, you listen to nature sounds off in the distance, and your ear learns to discriminate between different types of distant sound automatically. There's no effort, you just do.
If you listen to a lot of _bad_ CDs, your ear is being trained to pull detail out of a lot of _garbage_: if audio can be said to have a fractal quality (like, oh, everything _else_ in nature?), bad digital recording obliterates this. At the threshold of hearing (actually well before that point for really bad examples) instead of pulling signal out of the noise floor as your ear is constantly trying to do, you are pulling the correlated noise known as quantization distortion out of the noise floor. There _is_ no consistent signal pattern to be had. The signal leaves off right there- at all frequencies, too, this is NOT a frequency domain problem. It's a resolution problem, a quantization problem.
Dithering _really_ helps this. Dithering properly at every single stage of digital transform makes a world of difference. That said, I am not convinced Levinson isn't right: though it makes a difference, I question whether it is a real solution. I think it's sort of damage control.
In one sense he's wrong- we're constantly surrounded with acoustic sound. You may not be getting a healthy sound for audio-brain-center auditory training from bad _CDs_ or any CDs... but all the time, you're getting an optimal sound from passing cars on the highway, and the road crews tearing up the asphalt :) maybe Levinson leads too sheltered a life if his brain only gets CD digital sound to process! He should get a teenage rock drummer kid to move in next door, then his ears would be getting normal healthy acoustic sound to process, whether he likes it or not >:)
That said, you're a sillyperson not to like some of the high points of 'Spike'. I mean, come on, "Chewing Gum"? "God's Comic"? "Any King's Shilling" for God's sake? Geez, it may be an inconsistent album but _damn_...
YOW! Are we OFFTOPIC yet? ;)
Since you like rock, have you ever _played_ in a band? With nothing but drums and amps, no PA, just raw instrument volume? _That_ is what 'rock live sound' really is, but you won't get it at a concert- unless maybe you're catching some really small gig where the drums and amps aren't even miked. You might get it there. ...or, of course, off recordings that accurately convey what live rock instruments sound like- for instance, if you have a killer vinyl-based High End rig, you can put on Creedence's "Bayou Country" and get damn close to the 'live sound' I'm talking about. It's a lot rowdier than classical as you know, but there _is_ still a proper way to do it.
Wow, for 1200 US you can get some *really* good Paradigm Monitor 11s and have decent speakers.
Yes Canada makes some nice speakers and with the strong US Dollar, it's a really good deal.
www.paradigm.ca - Really good, really affordable speakers that aren't a scam like Bose.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
Carver's an interesting fellow. He actually built a "real" high-end tube amp that everyone raved over (he probably sold a few), and also built a conventional (by his standards -- it used a highly unconventional power supply that didn't need a monster transformer, but I've long since forgotten the details) amplifier with a matched transfer function that he sold rather more of. The high end critics really hated his much cheaper amplifiers, even if they couldn't tell the difference.
Of all the snake oil salesmen in high end audio, though, I think the cable mafia is the worst. Particularly the digital cables (which others have already commented on) and some of the really bizarre speaker cables, which in some cases look like they would be more counterproductive than anything. I will certainly admit that trashy connectors can cause problems, although simply gold plating them and taking care not to run them right next to a power line should take care of just about anything.
If one uses CD's to play music (rather than to store and retrieve data) timing becomes extremely important. The musical bits simply must arrive at exactly the right time-- hence the need for extremely accurate clocks. Most clocks, are, to a certain extent, sensitive to vibration-- thus, the supposed need for vibration free equipment.
In addition, CD-Audio is not random access. (I think the resolution is limited to one second-- 88200 bytes). This is why "rippers" usually have anti-jitter routines.
It shows that you are in the same boat as the guy in a straight jacket... $20,000 for a set of speakers...Insane
-Kevin
Buy stylii instead, they last longer. :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Of course at his age, after all those years around jet engines, for his hearing to still be that good is pretty impressive, if true.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If the purpose is relieving the buyer of $140,000, I'm sure Microsoft would be glad to come up with something. :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The amplifier's output stage may be single-ended or "unbalanced" (one hot, one ground), but after that the unsheilded wires in the cable are out in the air subject to magnetic and electrical fields from all over the place (the twisting helps keep them from acting as antennas, to oversimplify) and the speaker itself isn't "grounded" (even though the woofer, mid-range, tweeter, whatever, and the crossover network may use one side as "common"), so the speaker input is basically a "balanced" input.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
You might want to inform Shure Bros., Pickering, Stanton, ADC, Grado, Dual, AR, Fisher, P.E., et cetera.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Okay, some of them spell it "styli".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Au contraire. If the instruments were merely amplified with no distortion, then that would indeed be the case. However, when they are intentionally amplified with distortion, then it is the output of the distorted speaker that is the most pure representation of that sound. Intentional distortion is itself an art form. A finely tuned Marshall stack, four of which could be purchased (for the purposes of the aformentioned electric quartet,) I might add, for easily under $5000; will yield an original sound that must be itself miked in order to achieve maximal purity for reproduction. A small live rock show, for instance, where the performers amplifiers/drums are not miked, is the closest equivalent to being in the audience of an opera you're going to find.
Then there are those unique little gems that don't fit well into these categories. I'm thinking of names like Rotel and NAD. Or, on the mid-tier end, Magnepan.
For Rotel & NAD, they're priced like Chevy, Ford, Honda, and Toyota, but they have a fit and finish that puts them squarely in the Lexus, Infinity, and Volvo range. I'm thinking here of maybe a Volvo when they were first trying to break into the US market. Priced like a Ford, but built like a Lexus.
As for Magnepan, it's priced like a Lexus, Infinity, or Volvo, but some of their gear produces, IMHO, the best sound available at any price. I've heard a number of $100,000 gear, with >$20,000 speakers, but I've never heard any speakers outperform the Magnepan 1.6 speakers (about $1500). Now, to get that level of performance, you need to match it with expensive electronics. But, for $1500, they are an absolute steal. If you're looking for an analogy, I'd put Maggies in the realm of TVR, the British sports car company. Priced like a Japanese sports car, performs like a Ferrari.
This is a very good analogy. Furthermore, I would generally agree with your rankings, too.
--Be human.
Yes, yes, The audio industry is ripe with sham artists. Check out, for instance, the guys selling those green hilighter pens for $20 a piece. They claim it absorbs extraneous frequencies from the laser, refining the sound. But, wait. Doesn't a laser, by definition, produce one, and only one, frequency? Why yes! So, in fact, these green highlighters don't do shit!
Well, one thing to correct you one, though. You generally want to oversample the output from your CD player. This goes by to Nyquist theory. Since you have to filter the output from a digital signal to recreate the analog signal, and since filters introduce all sorts of problems if the filter frequency is remotely close to the audible range (as is the case with a CD, but not the case with DVD's audio), you typically oversample the 44.1kHz signal. This effectively moves the filter frequency higher, so that it doesn't interfere with the audible range. When you oversample, you effectively interpolating. In order not to lose accuracy, you must increase the resolution (16 bits -> 24 bits). So, having a 24 bit, 356kHz DAC is entirely reasonable, even if the input source is only 16 bits and 44.1 kHz.
--Be human.
and yet, the LED that acts as a source produces but one frequency.
--Be human.
The output from the DAC will be a step signal. That is, it needs to be filtered to return it to the original analog signal. This filter works great if you can build a perfect brick wall filter (actually, not quite...but for the sake of argument, it's pretty close--you'll still get aliasing effects). So, what you normally do is simply interpolate the signal, then put the filter at something like 192kHz. That way, these aliasing effects and the effects from a real-world filter (attenuation, etc) occur outside the audible range.
And as for your snotty remark, I don't care how stupid you are, or how little you know about the topic, you still need oversampling and interpolation to higher bits in order to retrieve the same signal you put in.
--Be human.
One of the neat things about LEDs are that they produce only one frequency. Exactly one. Pretty cool. Even cheap ones. And LEDs are used as the source for lasers in CD players. Do a spectrum analysis on a cheap laser, and you'll see what I mean. Other frequencies are effectively below the noise floor, and are probably the result of ambient light. Guess what? Those green pens don't do shit.
Also, you may want to bring your theoretical Nyquist understanding into the real world. The problem comes from the fact that the output of a DAC is a step function. It must then be filtered to retrieve the same signal as the original input. This is the last part of of the theorem. Well, guess what. If we had perfect brick wall fitlers (we don't), and if there weren't problems with aliasing with real filters (there are), you would be correct in saying oversampling isn't necessary. But it is.
Oversampling allows the filter to be moved from 22.05 kHz to, for instance, 178 kHz. This moves the aliasing effects and the filter rolloff into the supersonic frequencies. And, voila, the output signal is a closer match to the input signal.
You know, all those companies investing untold millions into oversampling DACs aren't wasting their money. Oversampling does make sense.
--Be human.
No, it's not like "augementing your analog filter with a digital one". Digital filters can help with the rolloff. But they don't help the aliasing aspect. Furthermore, digital filters still have problems--they affect one of the three basic side effects of filters (analog typically affect two). Those effects are 1) linear phase, 2) linear response, and 3) perfect "brick-wall" step function.
Basically, the best approach, given these problems, is to simply oversample the frequency, interpolate the signal, and move the filtering to the supersonic frepquencies. The goal is not to introduce more signal than you put in. The goal is to reproduce the input signal as closely as possible in real world conditions. Nyquist theory is fantastic, and the results are wonderful, but the implementation using a 16-bit signal (96dB theoretical S/N ratio, while humans are capable of detecting noise at -120dB) and a 44.1kHz sample rate (because of the filtering effects mentioned) require oversampling.
--Be human.
Ooops...forgot the obligatory link.
--Be human.
I guess I don't understand what you're saying about it augmenting the analog filter with a digital one. There's no digital filtering going on at all. Just interpolation. Interpolation != filtering.
--Be human.
... is that after the years spent in the (related) car audio fanciers (addicts), with jillions of dBs hammering my eardrums, I'm now happy with a 10 year old Pioneer tuner/amp, because I'm so deaf I can't tell the difference between it and a $10K Levinson.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Unfortunately, I can easily hear the difference between a $1k and a $10k setup. This is depressing when I can't afford more than about a $300 system, so I just don't even try anymore.
-- Jeff Paulsen
Or the mystery of non existance. I had a 356 s90 and I never liked first gear. It was hard to find, mushy and tentative. After screwing with it I finally took it to a shop that worked on Porsche racing. The mechanic was some old Stuttgart gnome who looked me in the eye and said "vy do you care about first geeer, du only need it vunce."
And that as they say, is that.
dual Mak tube mono power amps, Phase Linear preamp, 24 band eq, compander, noisegate analyzer, Denon TT, Infinity elctrostatic panels, Voice of the Theater, subwoofer/Ampzilla, Sony 1" open reel.
Showed it to an audiophile and he said and I quote: "If all you want to hear is shit just plug it into the fucking television and be done with it."
There's no winning. There's a company that will digitally inject the sound of needle to vinyl into your CD tracks. Just for the warmth of the sound. How fucked up is that?
As a DJ I find myself buying all sorts of cool gizmos all the time, but my hi-fi gear is eclipsed by my record collection which costs me about $1000 a month in new vinyl acquisitions. (BTW - if anyone in the bay area needs a DJ for their party my rates are reasonable)
I have a townhouse with a window directly behind the stereo (there's nowhere else to put it), and tile floors, and it makes a stereo that sounded excellent in my last house sound like crap. Spending extra money on a stereo in this situation, without fixing up the acoustical environment, would almost certainly be a waste of time.
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Lots more opportunities to spend money . . .
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Why are some people, who have obviously never had the experience, complaining about others enjoying music at something closely approximating the way the musicians played it?
Not complaining, just wondering about the priorities. After all, if it's the "live" music experience the one guy in the story was shooting for, he could have spent $140,000 on a stereo rig, sure. Or, at a hundred bucks a pop, he could have gone to three actual live concerts a week for the next nine years...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Nahh, your equipment's fine - your ear's just wrecked from honkin' on that big bong bassoon.
:)
sorry, the brass player in me couldn't resist
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Moreover, when drug addicts throw their money away, they're usually pumping it back into the local economy instead of shipping it off to hardware manufacturers overseas.
Actually, a lot of "high-end" approved gear is made in the US and Canada (Canada funded some serious speaker research several years ago, and a lot of companies grew out of that, making some fine speakers for a reasonable price).
Just plain nuts. Imperial Bedroom is not only Elvis Costello's finest album, it's his last fine album period. Everything produced after that is crap, utter crap. Don't talk to me about King of America. Don't talk to me about Spike. The guys been recording with Burt Bacharach for Chrissakes! What's next, dinner music and ad medlies with Barry Manilow? Whatever happened to our angry young man? For all I know, Elvis Costello died in late 1982 and they shaved a monkey and sent him into the studio with dear old Bart. Give me a fucking break!
IbMePdErRoIoAmL
--Jim
Go, do yourself a favor and read some good book on signal physics. If you hear up to 12Khz, you want you equipment to be linear and sampling of the digitization to be up to at least 24Khz. Even then you may get VERY noticable artifacts due to nonlinearity of the system in the area well above 12Khz.. Basically 96Khz/24bit sampling seems to be where you really hit physiological limits. It would seem to me that for all the high end systems, room acoustics would be a bigger factor. It is definitly a huge factor in live performances.. Personally I listen music only in my car. Where even MP3 256kb quality is sufficient. But I DO hear the difference between MP3, CD, and life performance. I just do not care enough.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
There needs to be a middle ground between the mass market junk sold in chain stores and the grossly overpriced and under-engineered equipment sold in "audio salons". Every time I read about $100 a foot speaker wire, hand woven out of virgin silver thread by Buddhist monks in Tibet, I want to beat the salesman to death with a book on transmission line theory.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
After listening to my new (years ago) system:
"It's OK if all you want to do is listen to music".
I've also noticed that Linux zealots will say just about anything to a Windows user to justify the huge amounts of inconvenience that they go through to support their habit.
One man's passion is another man's wretched excess.
Lucky for me I own Conrad-Johnson audio equipment AND use Linux!
-h-
Lead is a strong coupling superconductor
meaning phonons have more effect on transport.
No, for best sound quality, use niobium 99.9999%
purity. Don't forget to properly anneal your wire,
to get it as close to single crystal as possible,
I personally can hear every grain boundary.
BTW, liquid helium is found at around 4 K. Getting
it to be near 2 K requires pumping on it, which is
a bad idea if you are trying to keep vibrations
down. And as for what real men use, well real men
cool with liquid He^3, not He^4. It costs more
but the temperatures are well worth it. A dilution
fridge system can get you into milliKelvin range.
Yeah, right. If audiophilia is a religion, then so is $cientology.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
>> "different qualities of fiber ..."
fiber??
Such tourists.
(spits derisively...)
Tubing is the way to go, my friend.
Connecting my speakers to the amp are super-cooled copper tubes of a quality generally only used in high-end nuclear research facilities. (Don't buy that cheap Russian Super-Cooled-Copper-Speaker-Tubing that's floating around these days! You'll *really* be able to tell the difference.)
Passing through each one is a super-cooled liquid nitrogen that pushed the temperature of the tube down towards 0 degrees kelvin.
As the tube cools, it becomes a super-conductor, causing the signal's electrons to move to the surface of the tubing, where the sound is richer.
(True audiophiles such as myself, can really tell the difference.)
On a side note, I'm moving soon - the excavation is finally done on my new listening room. I've had an accoustically perfect room carved from a layer of granite bedrock under a mountain in the Black Hills. Sadly, my wife will not be joining me - her presence in the room caused the sound waves to ricochet, causing audible distortion.
;-)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
MMDC.NET
-- My Weblog.
It depends. My obsession (not addiction) is collecting Rocky Horror items and references. Two years ago, I was spending upwards of 20k a year on the hobby - I was also making 80k a year. Then I started my own company, and have been scraping by, and haven't bought anything in months.
If I had the money, I'd be hitting conventions, eBay, movie memoribelia stores, etc... but I don't, so... oh, well. Now I just update my website.
There's a difference between Jack Nickolas's $500,000 custom built theater that he hired Bose engineers to build (I went to school with his sons... damn fine system), and the kid who works at McDonalds putting a $14,000 system into a $1,400 hatchback Honda.
But, at the same time, they are both welcome to spend their money however they wanted. I was broke when the 25th Anniversary of RHPS rolled around, but I scraped together enough to fly out to Vegas. I decided that the *event* was worth suffering a bit for, but didn't buy anything.
There's a fine line between addiction to items, budgeting for what you want rationally, and simple fiscal irresponsibility. As Robert Heinlein said: "Budget the luxuries first". --
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
He's the best golfer of all time, blowing away Tiger Woods's record by an order of magnitude (of course, he's been doing it longer). I may have misspelled his name; I'm not a golf fan, I just happened to know his sons. He lives down here in Palm Beach, Florida.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Oh, I agree -- that's why I said parenthetically: "of course, he's been doing it longer". I didn't mean to slight Tiger Woods, just that there was somebody breaking records for decades in a row before him (I think - again, I've played and enjoyed golf, but I'll be the first to admit I don't follow it other than in passing).
--
Evan "Lettered in Junior Varsity Golf, then did Varsity Wrestling (Lettered) and Cricket"
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I was reading up a while ago about lots of audio stuff....
a few facts came to light.
- In most modern studios, when mixing, the sound engineer is NOT using $20,000 electrostatic speakers with insane frequency response and a perfectly flat response curve. Nor is he using 20,000 electorstatic headphones with the same. Yes, he's using good equipment, but it's not scientifically perfect equipment.
- This same sound engineer is going to master things so it sounds good on his equipment.
- Therefore, it's somewhat silly to buy *perfect* equipment to reproduce sound, when the only way to reproduce what the sound engineer had in mind is to use his room/equipment.
- The exception to this is THX movie systems. THX is a specification that can be reproduced pretty much anywhere, so you can get reliably close to what the sound engineers intended it to sound like. This does not happen in any other recording type.
- Most of the dynamic range available on modern CD recordings, espeically pop music, is no longer taken advantage of. Instead, music is recorded all as loud as possible, in theory, to get a slightly louder recording during radio play, to make your trakcs more noticed. You can see this; take a cd from the olden days of CD (80's) and take something now. The cd from wayback, you will need to turn the volume up, and those bass beats will sound so much more real.
Well...
I've heard super expensive stereo systems (as in audiophile gear, not feature-laden gear).. I've heard symphony on them. Very impressive indeed.
I've also seen live symphony. Still no comparison. Yes, the sound may be excellent, and technically accurate, but it's still not the same.
As I posted in another post...
Studio engineers do not use such high end equipment to mix things. What's the point in trying to reproduce a sound that the mixing engineer never even heard?
ah, but that depends on how much 9000$ is worth to the buyer. For me, 3000$ for an SACD player (tho they have come down a from that) is totally out of my reach, for others it is chump change. There was a guy on the hometheaterforum(.com) that dropped 3K$ on two dvd players because he couldn't choose between them.
The vast majority of studios use Yamaha NS-10M speakers - some just as a stable reference (because they're -everywhere-), and others full-time (because they're -everywhere-, and why bother with more than one pair of monitor speakers in the same room?). Somewhat like Windows on a PC. Moving right a long...
By audiophile standards, it's a horrible speaker. Big, honky upper midrange - and no low bass. Limited low-level detail. Limited dynamic range.
Supposedly (and I'm not sure if I give them this much credit) Yamaha created the speaker with the idea of making something which sounded similar to what most real people have, but "good" enough to be used in a studio. Compared to most Circuit City wares, it's really not bad.
Whatever the case, modern rock (and techno, and rap, and...) is dynamically smashed, harmonically huge, and in some cases, artificially tuned, beaten, massaged, panned, and molested in completely disgusting ways, until it sounds good on a pair of abused Yamaha NS-10s.
If you're really interested in hearing what the engineer and producer hear (these folks have infinately more control of the final result than any member of the band), pick up a pair of NS-10s. If you don't like them, so what? Find something different that makes your music sound how -you- want it to sound, and/or adjust it to sound differently by way of an EQ, a BBE, and boosting the volume of a subwoofer. Throw a compressor in there. How about an expander? A noise gate! Why not fire up the reverb machine in your surround sound reciever? The mind boggles at the signal processing capabilities available today.
If you just want to listen to rock music, it doesn't matter that you're destroying the original signal with any one of these toys, because the signal has already been destroyed a thousand times before you got your hands on it. Tweak it until it suits -you-, because that's exactly what -they- did.
Incidentally, the same logic holds true of the audiophile mentality - except, their goal is to recreate sounds in a manner that -they- find realistic (this is supposedly objective), in the most simple way they can. Which can cost a fortune, and yield remarkable results with a similarly minimalist recording. As an aside, a good audiophile system can made some rock recordings sound particularly good - this is an accidental side-effect, and is in no way intended by the producer of the album.
Kid-proof tablet..
Heh.
.9999 silver, and other hugely-expensive, measurably (and marginally) better parts.
The world of high-end audio is somewhat amiss from the norm of more money buying additional features. A high-end system is typically as -minimal- as possible - extra components are all destructive of the audio signal.
Rather than spending X thousands of dollars on, say, all-wheel drive in a new Audi, an audiophile will spend X thousands just for the assurance that a common feature (simple tone controls, for instance) is not present.
Those features which remain because they're needed for the system to function (crossovers in speakers, for instance) are so ghastly overbuilt, from such stuff as hand-rolled matched capacitors, flat-wire inductors made from
And still, the use of these parts is minimized - every component counts as another way to introduce distortion between the microphone in some music hall and the listener's ears in a different time and place.
Joe Consumer buys based on features, because that's what they're accustomed to doing while shopping for cars, electric ranges, and all manner of other expensive items. An automotive purist, in love with driving, will ignore the sticker price and associated list of flash, get behind the wheel and experience a vehicle, and then another, and another until he's found something with the correct balance for his taste. Issues of what color and material the seats are fall aside in favor of their ability to properly support the driver. If the cheapest, low-end fabric seats provide better posture than the supposed-high end, heated leather monstrosities, the choice is obvious and a cow's life is saved. That the buyer saved money is insubstantial.
Audiophiles don't buy components based on what "features" are present, as they can do nothing but color the sound in one way or another - something they're certainly not interested in while questing for absolute transparency. The best component is one which is not present.
Much as someone fixated on performance driving might like to feel every stone in the pavement through the chassis of the car, and would be comforted by the steering wheel reporting the exact condition of a road in an attempt to feel more connected, an audiophile seeks the same experience with music. If someone sneezes in the sixteenth row of a Bethoven performance, or a Zippo is lit in some smoke-filled jazz bar, they want to hear it - and hear it with enough character that they can visualize the person who sneezed, or identify the type of plating on the Zippo.
Whether or not they're insane for wanting such things is left as an exercise for the reader.
Kid-proof tablet..
Heh.
I'm also a recording engineer.
The noise floor of a full auditorium is higher than 16-bit linear PCM, in a typical minimalist recording. Probably due to the sound of a few thousand breathing, shifting bodies.
If one can hear a sneeze from the mic position, it will thus be recorded. Similarly, for the zippo lighter.
If you cannot hear a sneeze from 16 rows (figure 2.5 feet per row, or just 40 feet overall) away, you've got problems. See a doctor. Your hearing damage might even be treatable.
For a further dose of reality, let's assume that a healthy sneeze produces a level of 85dBA at a point 1 foot in front of the sneezer's head, in anechoic free field. At 2 feet, this sneeze is at 79dBA, at four feet, 73dBA. Once we get up to 40 feet, the sneeze is just a little less than 55dBA. In reality, the sneeze will be somewhat louder, due to reverberation - but that's safe to ignore for the purposes of this argument.
Now, let's assume we've got a 16-bit DAT machine with a pair of good mics with good preamps that we're using to record an orchestral work. We've got the gain set such that levels of 120dBA at the microphones, which are at the front of the stage, do not induce clipping (and we're hoping that nothing louder than this occurs and destroys the recording).
Given this enviroment, the aforementioned sneeze would be 65dB below maximum. If 16-bit linear PCM has dynamic range of 96dB (it does), and the final product (a CD) is not fucked with at all (that is, it is bit-perfect from the original DAT), then this sneeze will be at a level of 31dB -above- the floor of the CD, which is also to say that the sneeze has a maximum of 31dB of dynamic range.
This is more than adequate to capture a sneeze - it far surpasses the dynamic potential of most modern rock music.
Oh. In case you missed it: This is completely devoid of being "tweaked all to hell" in the "mixing/mastering process", because such processes do not exist in this example - nor in great numbers of excellent classical recordings.
It's simple, really: Two microphones (surprise, surprise) match up beautifully with two speakers, and two ears. No need to do anything more except, on occasion, mess with levels. And obviously, in this instance, even that is not needed to "capture the level of detail" I describe.
What were you saying about transparency?
Kid-proof tablet..
A friend of mine works for a company which designs and installs very high end audio and theatre systems. Almost everything they do is featured in magazines somewhere or another. The usually don't touch anything under 6 figures. Most of the people buying the stuff are idiots with too much money who manage to fuck up their programmable remote once a week and pay the company to come back out and reprogram it. Those are the people that spend $1 million or more on their system (he's worked on $3.5 million dollar home theaters).
The people whole spend relatively little on their systems know what they are doing for the most part, can manage their remotes, and actually USE their systems for just listening.
The best part about his job is that people buy new stuff and give him all of their old equipment for free. His house is filled with absolutely wonderful high-end equipment. Once you sit in front of a pair of speakers and close your eyes and it sounds like the music is live and the people playing and singing are in the room with you, you will know the attraction of high-end audio. It's not about "loud" like most people think, it's about quality. I can't get that sort of sound out of my computer sound card (although I'm trying), and the latest $300 bookshelf system won't give it to you either. A nice cd player with a digital out, a good DAC, a good amp, and some Martin Logan or other high-end speakers will give you what you need.
Take a trip down to your local audio shop and ask them to give you a demo of their best sounding system.
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As someone who can, and regularly does, pick out just about every voice from a 30-strong choir individually (I'm not so good with orchestras - it depends on the venue and their playing), sound is terribly important for me. Indeed, I am physcially pained by certain sounds ('psycosomaticism' is just another word to me ;-), and am especially prone to headaches. Sure, you may think that spending $140K is a lot for pure sound, but then, many people would think that spending $50K on a computer is extreme - yet Sun still manage to sell quite a few such workstations...
So, how would I spend $140K ~= £100K? Well, let's see:
- 1xMeridian 861 'reference' controller, ~£10K
- 1xMeridian 800 'reference' DVD player, also ~£10K
- 7xMeridian DSP8000 loudspeakers, full surround set, ~£120K
Oops, I'm just a littleover budget... And no speaker cables in that list, either. Hmm.As you can guess, I like Meridian - well, given the quite ridiculously amazing technology, they're actually quite cheap, and given as the company designed the up-coming DVD-Audio standard... - anyone feeling exceptionally generous? ;-)
James F.
If you want great quality audio for a fairly cheap price, check out the reviews of headphones at www.headwize.com. Headphones can achieve a far greater quality of audio for less than speakers. I currently have a pair of Sennheiser HD580s and they're fantstic.
You know I was wondering what these people would do when faced with the digital era. No longer will qualitative descriptions be relevant when you can actually say "Yup, the whole signal made it to the speaker."
When will someone just lay some ethernet cable on this, put a few megs of memory in speakers and just cut out the whole cabling dilemma altogether.
Fabio has (allegedly) a custom made Krell Reference amplifier - one of a few in existence, with Dan D'agastino (ownder and founder of Krell, www.krellonline.com) owning another. These beasts put out 650 Watts/Channel at 8ohms and will drive a load as low as .5ohms with a clean division.
If I'm not mistaken it looked like all of his other gear (cd players, preamps) were Krell as well. The amp goes for around 250k (for a pair of monoblocks - these don't come multichannel and you don't want them to), weighs several hundred pounds, and sounds CLEAN. You can make out every detail of the recording at full volume or at minimal volume. The cd players looked like model 25's, a top loading design, which retails for about $25k.
Alas, I had to settle for an intergrated amp/preamp combination - quite a bit cheaper but blows anything you can find in a retail store out of the water in terms of clarity and soundstage
Move to Texas. Half the people who go to a symphony wear a coat and tie and the other half wear jeans and a t-shirt. The orchestra even advertises that casual dress is acceptable. There is no animosity between these groups because they're all there for the music. Especially in Houston, since the Houston Symphony is wonderful.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
OTOH, spending money on computers could be justified as a financial investment that will produce more income in the future. If I hadn't dropped my life's savings on a VIC-20 eighteen years ago (when I was 14), I might not have been as well off as I am today.
Sounds sort of like computer collecting.. However, in my case, it's not as expensive because classic computers can usually be had for almost nothing. :) (My current collection consists of an '040 NeXT Cube, Apple Newton Messagepad 2100, and an SGI Crimson among others)
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
I don't understand this. Oversampling an analog signal for greater accuracy is one thing, but on a CD the signal is already digital. I don't care how fast and accurate your system is; the CD only contains a certain amount of information, and that's 16 bits at 44.1kHz.
Is there a website that explains this in more detail?
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Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Hello,
:).
:).
I can easily see how a stereo system can cost that much money. One of the more interesting people I have heard was of an EE who built his system out of extremely high-end components (a LOT of Mark Levinson), and who actually built the rest of it himself from parts, especially the interconnects. When you've got the knowledge this guy has (and he lives up near Montreal in upstate NY), and the drive to search for not only stereo components, but super-high-grade electronics components to finish off the system, you're going to have yourself a system that will sound better, period.
If you know where to look, you can find the parts you need. The dials and switches in one of the components he built were incredibly sensitive, and easily cost several hundred dollars on their own. Same goes for the capacitors as well. If you want to build your own amplifier or pre-amp, the instructions are readily available on the net.
The funny part was the guy actually paid Lucasfilm, the trademark holders of THX, to certify his system for it. It passed. Yes, that alone will cost you as much as a Lexus if you're not a movie theater chain.
By building the major parts himself, and finding other components and speakers that were just as good, he saved himself over $25K.
There's a site called Madisound that will sell you the components you need to build very high-quality speakers. I will be buying my next speakers and having them assembled from 1" DuPont Corian from these people, when I can actually afford it. If you go for Skanning woofers, they can run as much as $680.00 each. Speakers from them (with parts they will not list on their website because they would have to order them from the manufacturer) can cost over $10K, but the kits run anywhere from $300 to $2000 on average.
However, I built a system that does what I want on a very tight budget (under $1000), most of which was spent on my turntable needle (Ortofon), BA speakers (which are surprisingly good), a Tandberg tape deck, and a Sony CD player (yeah, yeah, I know, but it sounds damn fine and is getting upgraded soon anyways to at least an H/K).
I bought most of it at pawn shops. Sometimes audiophiles have to sell as well. Now I'm just planning a major upgrade to a NAD preamp/amp combination, custom speakers, and I haven't decided on the CD player yet
However, I can understand spending $140K on a stereo if you have it. Larry Ellison spent over $1 million on his (which has a subwoofer that sits in a former indoor swimming pool with special acoustical filling, and yes he had it designed in, it is one of the biggest sub assemblies ever made), and Bill Gates is a serious audiophile as well. We know where Slash's royalty checks from GNR go as well
Golden ear audiophiles are notorious for claiming to hear subtle things that no one else can hear. What's more they will attribute these differences to things like skin effect in the patch cables. Skin effect on signal that goes to 30kHz max? Gee, a whole micron's worth of the center of a 12 gauge cable might be getting dodged by the signal. This is the least picadillo one will read in publications like The Absolute Sound. They will use the language of art critics to make technical criticisms. One reads things like "The J13 speakers have a wonderful phase shifted aural spaciality but slightly overmunge the dibalanced low-band spectrum." Truly awful. They mangle fantasy and science together the same way flying saucer and new age enthusiasts do.
It's very easy to suspect that they are in fact full of....stuff. If you're in the business of selling high end audio then it becomes very important to discover to what extent the golden ears are or are not full of it. Bob Carver did a little hands on research at a mid '70s trade show to shed some light on these suspicions. He displayed an impressive system openly. I don't recall the model number but it had the separate tube amps for the right and left channel. It had the oxygen free gold wire to interconnect the type of components that ultra audiophiles have wet dreams about: hand crafted capacitors and resistors and transistors matched to six 9s precision in gain and so on and so forth. In any case the system displayed was in the $30k range at the time. The speakers were no less expensive and no doubt exquisitely hand matched to the amps. But here is where the joke comes in. The speakers were connected to a $200 dollar range bookshelf stereo hidden behind a curtain. Carver injected pink noise into the ultra stereo and displayed the result on a spectrum analyzer. He then set the bookshelf system to a moderate volume and EQed it with the same pink noise as input until it matched the spectrum of the ultra stereo. As long as the controls on the bookshelf were not tampered with, it's sound was good approximation of the ultra stereo at the same moderate volume. He told the audience that he had a top secret experimental system behind the curtain and wanted to field test it to ensure he was on the right track. With some audiophile grade vinyl classical as the input he switched between the ultra stereo (which they COULD see and were familiar with) and the "top secret" bookshelf system behind the curtain.
Lo and behold! The bookshelf system had far better "aural spaciality.........." I've known salesmen who have done this same thing several times with the same result. I suppose this goes a long way toward explaining the audiophile aversion to double blinded A/B listening tests. Those A/B switches must introduce some truly horrible "multiphasic inhibited frequency shifts" into the signal.
Now, it is true that a $5000 system will most likely sound far better than a Soundesign bookshelf from Wal-Mart. But there is a point of imperceptible diminishing returns. I have no trouble believing that point comes long before one has spent $140,000.
p.s. I'll tweak the tweaks a little more by mentioning that Don Lancaster has described similiar experiments in tweak psychology. Every so often in Electronics Now he would describe such shenanigans. Many of his writings can be found at www.tinaja.com. He also critiques would be perpetual motion machine inventers and "free" energy sources that are even BETTER than cold fusion.
But look at the audiophiles. They're doing nutty stuff that can't possibly help the sound, and saying how great it is. The Post article missed the famous scam of a decade or so back, the green magic marker called "CD Stoplight". Rub it on the edge of your CD and it sounds much better, or so claimed the editors of Stereofool. To a high-end fan, "bits is bits" just doesn't work.
Likewise for power conditioning. If the audio gear has good power supplies to begin with, then it shouldn't matter what goes into the AC line. Refrigerator noise? Sure: The compressor not only takes lots of juice when it kicks in, but it shakes the floor (acoustic low-frequency vibration). But a good amplifier power supply should have enough charge in its capacitors to ride it out.
The whole cable biz is also nutty. Yes, inadequate cables will hurt the sound. But good 8-gauge zip wire is probably just as good as $10/foot gold-plated wire. There's precious little skin effect below 20 kHz anyway. As others have noted, this goes triple for digital cables! Bits is bits.
Good speakers, sure. Good amps, sure, though I suspect a $1k VFET amp will sound indistinguishable from a tube amp, or at least have no worse distortion or noise. Ordinary bipolar junction transistor amps are not good, but back in 1960 you could buy a good tube Williamson (that's a type, not a brand) amp for $100 or so that today would set you back a few grand. Why? Because nutty folks think that paying more makes it better.
High-end audio equipment actually colors sound in a way that they find pleasing, I think; rather than providing perfect reproduction. Witness the typical audiophile's love of vinyl and tubes, which don't offer anything like faithful reproduction. They do, however, provide a characteristic coloration which many people find enjoyable.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Don't forget Alma Gates, creator of The Beast, a Ford Bronco with a 48,000 watt sound system that's louder by a factor of eight or so than a 747 jet engine. Alma's a 6-something retired schoolteacher.
Okay, so maybe that's not the usual definition of audiophile, but she does exhibit quite a love for her kind of audio.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
You don't work for the Tweeter store in Framingham, MA, do you? 'Cause the guy I bought my head unit from told me he was putting a system into his car just like that... I don't think the price tag he mentioned was quite as high, though.
Anyway, I've seen the Alpine in-dash DVD players, and while it's definitely a sweet gadget to show off, well...when you're usually the only one in your car, and usually not for more than an hour at a time, it's most definitely not worth the $3-4k =)
I still need to get the factory speakers out of my car and put some decent ones in (one that don't have paper cones), and a subwoofer (I like to *feel* my bass). They're decent for now, though. My next step is to check out playing MP3s through it with my laptop that should be arriving on Monday. *grin*
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
I have a program that'll generate pretty much any tone you want it to, and tested out my hearing compared to a few of my friends.
I can hear tones it generates up to about 18kHz. I don't know if that's where my hearing peters out or where my sound card/speakers do, but that's (apparently) pretty damn high. Quite a few of my friends (and, actually, my mother) hear absolutely nothing at 16kHz and even lower. Meanwhile, I'm flinching from the pain. I can hear television sets and older computer monitors from a few rooms over (my Apple IIe's monitor produces a particularly painful shriek that doesn't bother anyone else in the house).
You know what, though? I have an extensive collection of MP3s, most encoded at 128k, and they sound just fine to me, thank you. Granted, this doesn't mean much, but I don't get audiophiles either. I'm picky with my audio, but I'm not a 'phile.
P.S. You can get that tone generator here. Click "other tools", it's the only one in the category. Windows-only.
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
Alright, I'm bored, I've got some time to kill...let's see how close I can get.
[A couple hours pass]
Alright, I suppose I could keep adding things onto this, but I won't. I got it up to $10,103.46, though. It's a multimedia workstation designed for graphics and digital video editing, high-performance gaming, DVD playback, and DVD authoring, with all the accessories.
That's right, Win2K. I know we all love linux in here, Win2K is actually a decent OS, especially for all of the tasks I've specced this out for.
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
other names are less recognizable like Arcam , Marantz, Rega , Rotel , NAD, and Nakamichi . But all make superlative gear for less than you'd think.
my habit has recently been Krell and Vandersteen
above all, any audiophile will tell you to listen, make adjustments, and buy and enjoy what sounds the best. all it takes is love of music
I've always been puzzled why people would spend so much money on a home stereo system. Recently a friend was going to purchase the Beosound 3000 from Bang & Olufsen, and I could not tell the difference between that and a Bose Wave until the salesman played different classical CD's in which certain instruments sounded crystal clear on the Bang player, and it was a bit louder.
Personally I don't need music to give me Tinitus just one to enjoy crisp sounds, at a decent price. Hell for a 6 figure price I'd have Gwen Stefani sing to me for a few hours, so this would be monstrous system at a fraction of the cost.
Technics 1200MKII about 450.00
Bose 901's about 1200.00
NAD T770 Receiver about 1200.00
Pioneer combo DVD/CD about 1,000.00
And then a house to go with it. Or I'd just get a Nakamichi SoundSpace8 (unf) instead of beating around the bush. I guess when you have money like that, it shouldn't be a problem to enjoy your life, however people shouldn't be so materialistic, since there are other more important things in life you could do with that money, send a needy person to school, feed some people in a foreign land, etc, etc.
Want Root?
This sounds EXACTLY like a description of a Linux zealot :)
For $140,000, I could make a Beowulf cluster.
Unfortunately, I can easily hear the difference between a $1k and a $10k setup. This is depressing when I can't afford more than about a $300 system, so I just don't even try anymore.
I think I could piece together a system for $300 (provided that I'm allowed to find used pieces) that will sound better than the $1000 system that John Doe just bought at his local Circuit City. It truly isn't all about money with audio equipment. The other day I went up to my local hi-fi shop and listened to a rig that goes for about 60% more than my system. I thought I needed to upgrade something on my system, but listening just reassured me that I'm still happy with what I've got now.
When I graduate and have some disposable income, I probably will upgrade - carefully. Throwing money at the problem is not the way to go about upgrading a stereo. I don't listen to reviewers much, I find a dealer that I trust and who has similar tastes, and I listen to his suggestions. There's always the haunting fear in any audiophile's heart that there's something better out there. That's exactly why a good dealer is imperative.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
> I do want to have the latest Video Card, latest chipset, latest Soundblaster Platinum card, and THX certified speakers..which could set me back a couple of thousand..
Computer equipment is different though. With the latest video card(s) you get a much higher framerate. With the newer sounds cards, they support 5.1 channels.
The poine is, it is much easier to "quantify" the quality with computer hardware, then with high end audio equipment.
Um, yes it does. Addiciton is addiction. Be it psychological or physical, its still an addiction.
You're just addicted to a costlier substance that does less bodily harm. I smoke, and I'll put myself in the same boat with the crack fiend and the audiophile.
Perhaps you're still in denial, trying to rationalize your purchase of that $30,000 preamp away, by calling it a hobby, instead of what it is.
.sig: Now legally binding!
The point of diminishing returns is NOT where your own ear can no longer tell the difference between a system and a more expensive system.
If you plotted price vs percentage increase in sound quality over some base-reference sound quality. Diminishing returns is every interval on the graph where a percentage increase in price is greater then the percentage increase in sound quality.
For example, if one purchased a 10 dollar system and experienced 10% increase in quality and (not being happy with only 10%) decided to return the system and buy a 20 dollar system and experienced a 15% increase in quality (5% over the 10 dollar system.) The audiophile in question is experiencing diminishing returns, and contrary to your definition could still hear the difference.
Furthermore, by definition there can not be a point of diminishing returns - you need an interval. However, in real life often there usually exists some point x where all intervals beyond that point experience diminishing returns. One might say point x is the point of diminishing returns
Historical Reference : The notion of diminishing returns was first theorized by the British financier and pamphleteer David Ricardo while studying price theory.
On the other hand, dropping $20k on speakers when you only make $21k a year then you probably are in the exact same sinking boat.
An addiction is unhealthy because it interferes with a person's normal interaction with the world. If you start caring about audio fidelity more than feeding yourself that is IMHO abnormal behavior.
Besides, at $10-$15 per CD, I bet everyone knows somebody who owns several thousand dollars worth of music. Why play them on a $200 stereo? It's like putting a 60GB hard drive in a 486.
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314-15-9265
They sell all the crack they own at fire sale prices to buy more audio equipment
There's always the haunting fear in any audiophile's heart that there's something better out there. That's exactly why a good dealer is imperative.
on the topic of this story if you substituted "audiophile" with "drug user" the quote above would be just as applicable.
- j
They have got to be kidding! Does that quartet come with a free SUV, too?! When I was in music school, I can't recall how many gigs my friends and I played simply for food.
Let's see. $140/4 people = $35,000 per wirehead, and what, let's say 4 hours on the patio? So, that's 208 hours. That's $168/hr. That's attorney-range, not musician range.
Um, musicians don't make that kind of cash. (That's the reason I got a job being a programmer, not a pro musician.)
Even if the biz agency took a 90% cut, it's still ridiculous.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Are you saying that stereo effects are the only concern when reproducing audio, and that response and dynamics are inconsequential? Or are you saying that all but the most obscure releases are poor quality and sound engineers get paid lots of money for a job that could be done by a trained monkey?
Short of having the actual musicians in my living room, manually panned is what I get. Even if the music is entirely artificial there is a huge difference between qualities of reproduction.
Most people just don't understand, even those who like music. They shell out money for their sony integrated system, turn the bass up and think their sound is great.
What they don't realise is that for a relatively small amount more you can buy a system which is really good at reproducing sound. Those "companies with name you've never heard" are experts at reproducing music, comparing them with Sony or Panasonic is like comparing Porsche to Hayundai or GM. And the price difference is not necessarily that much, many hi-fi companies are producing cheaper components which are still high quality, to compete with the generic brand names. They continue to develop and use technology to reproduce music with cheaper equipment at higher quality.
If you're one of these people, I urge you to go down to your nearest hi-fi shop and ask to have a listen to some of their systems. If you have a typical integrated stereo at home, even the cheapest setups will amaze you. If you're willing to shell out a bit more, the music will be so realistic you can imagine the musicians standing in your living room when you close your eyes.
Admittedly, it can be a slippery slope but spending $140,000 is rare and really ridiculous. My system cost a bit over $3000 australian ($1600 and falling for you yanks) and I'm quite satisfied with it for any type of music (until I can afford a better one :-). But these days you can get a reasonably cheap system from companies who actually care about the music rather than their brand image. And you can also buy them from more local businesses, instead of sending the profits to some head office in Asia for products made as cheaply as possible in Taiwan.
...is what I keep reading from people. Person A says, "Come on, it can't sound so much better that it's worth THAT much more money." Person B responds with, "You've just never heard a really good high-end sound system! Go down to your local hi-fi shop and you'll see what we're talking about!"
:)
I have a problem with this. Near the beginning of the article, he said that the apparent goal of hardcore audiophiles was to be able to recreate the exact sound and feel of live music.
I don't really like live music. I've been to a lot of concerts (Metallica, Offspring, Green Day, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Joe Satriani, plus festivals like the KROQ Weenie Roast and Almost Acoustic Christmas, to name a few) and even though these are a few of my favorite artists, and I usually do enjoy the show, I've found that I never liked the way live music sounds nearly as much as the studio albums. I don't really know why this is; certainly live music is a HELL OF A LOT LOUDER THAN RECORDED MUSIC, but I never enjoy it as much.
If the goal is to sound like it's live, then, well, you won't catch me spending more than $25 on a pair of headphones -- I wear them at work so that I can tune out the marketing yahoos who hover around the programmers' desks all day, not so that I can enjoy the sublime essence of Clapton's farts -- because I don't really like live music very much. If live music isn't the goal, then what is?
Also, I was annoyed by the guy in the article who said, "Would you take a book to the symphony?" No, asshole, I wouldn't -- if I was ACTUALLY AT A SYMPHONY, not sitting in my oak-paneled den grooving on how awesome I am. I was amazed that the writer didn't interview any of these guys' wives or girlfriends to see what they think of their man's habits. Then again, maybe these guys don't have an SO... for whatever reason.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Well, I've been to a couple of really small gigs (Naked to the World at the Genghis Cohen Cantina in Los Angeles, to name one) and they sounded fine, not really any different than other rock concerts (if a lot quieter and smaller than, say, Metallica). Spending even $500 to recreate that kind of sound is simply not important to me; I really only listen to music to make driving and programming more bearable. (Granted I LIKE doing both, but I *have* to drive to work and then I *have* to program when I'm there; oddly enough I don't listen to music when I code at home.)
:) I mean, that guy who spent $140,000 on sound equipment... extreme, yes, but he could have gotten $500 front-row seats to 280 concerts for that money!
As for symphony orchestra stuff... there, I'll agree. I've been to several symphonies a number of times, and it's a full, deep sound; I really enjoy it when I do go. The problem is that spending thousands of dollars to recreate that in my home is, to me, a waste, when I could use that money to simply GO to the symphony!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
If you have a tin ear, consider yourself fortunate then go buy that Mercedes Gull Wing you always wanted, instead of the car you actually did.
This is the thing that amazes me most about audiophiles. The things they claim they can hear. I can easily hook up my Bruel and Kjaer sound level meter microphone, and demonstrate perfect reconstruction from cheap speakers. I can demonstrate to them that they can hardly hear anything over 12 kHz. I can demonstrate that their hearing threshold at 15 kHz is about 50 times higher than it is at 5 kHz.
Yet still, they continue to buy $10k+ speakers. They continue to buy 96 kHz sound cards. It is not a form of addiction - it is a way of peacocking around. Ludicrous. It is as though they were unaware that total harmonic distortion had been a non-issue in even cheap sound amplifiers for over a decade.
Then walk over to the same person's computer and listen to the 50 dB whine from the hard drive...
When I was younger, I performed a blind test and found I could hear 22KHz. Not sure where it's at now, but it's still better than 12 KHz.
Largely irrelevant. Your hearing threshold at 12 kHz is about 7-8 times greater than it is at 5 kHz, as long as you are human.
Your audio recordings contain VERY little signal at 12 kHz that is 7-8 times louder than signal in the 1-5kHz range. It is a non-issue. You cannot hear it.
The point behind an increase in sample rate past 44.1 KHz is because of the interaction of harmonics on the brick-wall filtering that is taking place.
Audio frequencies above half the sample rate (Nyquist frequency) are filtered, but to avoid a particular type of aliasing the frequencies above the Nyquist frequency are translated to frequencies below, typically in the 5-8 KHz range.
You are making little sense. Almost all sound equipment contains anti-aliasing output filters to prevent aliasing. This creates a substantial problem for a researcher who works with an animal that hears above 20 kHz.
There are quite reasonable digital to analog algorithms that reconstruct the signal with translating frequencies.
I can listen to my $3500 stereo and hear how it is better than a $500 stereo. I can listen to a $40,000 stereo and tell that it improves on my own stereo. Hear it for yourself, or maybe you can't. Maybe you don't care. But there's something there, and if others value it you needn't deface their hobbies.
When I can measure that there is no improved sound resolution in the more expensive system, I can safely conclude that the audiophile in question is full of crap. Since I do auditory research for a living, I do measure this all the time. I know that the sound production in my systems in the lab does what it is supposed to do.
How many audiophiles have taken a $10000 microphone to test the fidelity of their $40000 system ??? Go ahead, take the test. Record the difference. And tell yourself what the 0.00001% improvement in signal reconstruction is worth the extra $39,500.
I'm very sorry to hear that you have a $10000 microphone that apparently isn't able to measure differences that are discernible to the human ear in simple blind listening tests.
I didn't claim there were not differences. Just that there was not improved sound reconstruction. Most auditory researchers use B & K microphones to measure sound levels and determine frequency:transfer functions. They are expensive because they are sensitive and have broad dynamic range.
When you get into the magnitude of the differences between well constructed $3500 systems and well constructed $40000 systems, the rest of the system plays an important role too. By "rest of the system", I mean the acoustic reflectance and placement of walls and other obstacles, things that might absorb sound, placement of speakers (especially sub woofers) relative to walls...
When an individual puts a system more expensive than that found in a concert hall in his living room without doing a thorough assessment of ALL sources of sound interference, then that person is just spending money to look like he is spending money.
I remember when I bought my last CD player and the guy was explaining to me that there are different qualities of fiber (for CD digital IO). He told me he could hear the difference, that the sound with a lesser-quality fiber had a different "color" (I didn't tell him I had an EE degree). I would have liked to see this guy to do a listening test and try differentiating fiber quality.
Sure, there's a lot of different quality, but at these distances they're all equal. Moreover, bit errors will sound like (additive) white noise and will not "color" the sound. I don't know whether the guy believed what he said or was just trying to sell expensive stuff.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
One thing that may be worth it because you can actually _feel_ the difference is subwoofers. These should preferably shake the entire house when "Alzo Spake Zarathustra" is played at high volume (for those of you that don't recognize the name: you have heard the music, it's usually refered to as "2001").
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
But if they could, that'd be one awesome string quartet.
Hey, why not? Electrify the instruments (it can be done, with great results), maybe slap some distortion pedals on... wow. I wish I still played the cello now....
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Instead of mounting pickups or mics on the instruments, you could use an electric cello, electric violin, etc. You'd need a keyboard amp to handle the range of the cello, but it'd work....
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
In a society where business is actively trying to induce desire (for goods) in people is this really so surprising?
It reminds me alot of people obsessed with modifying their cars -- its always "Im gonna get this new window tint..." , "Im gonna have it lowered another 1.5 inches ...
In hobbies like this, acquiring the stereo *IS* the hobby. Its easy to get addicted to purchasing gear, (im a hobby musician myself) its called "Gear Lust" and is quite common ... Its only really "dangerous" if you debit finance the thing -- because at some point you have to pay off the credit cards and can't get your next "fix" by purchasing something.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
"You know. ... the thing is .. when you buy furniture, you tell yourself, thats the last one of those I'll ever have to buy ... whatever else happens I've got that sofa problem taken care of." - I am jacks stereo problem :)
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
If I had the money, I'd rather spend it on software (i.e., music CD's) rather than hardware. I consider my 600 dollar shelf system extravagant :)
NO CARRIER
Wrong, actually. The c't magazine once did experiments with MP3s encoded with a *good* encoder vs. CD on different channels of a really expensive sound studio, testers could switch at will. At 256kbps, most testers couldn't anymore tell them apart consistently, and those who could were far from 100%. If your MP3s sound like crap, don't use a crappy encoder.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
The audiophile (diminished significantly by 20 years of highway commuting) yearns for the listening room free of parallel surfaces or right angles, containing only a turntable, preamp, monoblocks, speakers and me. That guy spent a few years as a consultant to a high-end dealer, evaluating new gear he was thinking of selling. (Bad eyesight, good hearing.) And the turntable better not damage the records either.
The home theater guy only cares about something that plays all the things I need to play, with relative simplicity. Video fidelity is much more important to him than audio fidelity.
The DJ doesn't care a whit about fidelity. His rig plays loudly, reasonably well, and with unshakable reliability. He doesn't mind that a record will only last about a dozen plays on the 1200 with the Stanton cartridge.
But if there's one thing that playing around in high-end audio has taught me, it's that being exposed to the $100K systems also exposed me to $2500 systems that would beat the pants off the trash you'd spend $2500 on at Circuit City.
High end is not synonymous with high price.
just because it's an addiction doesn't mean it's unhealthy ...
just because i drop 20k on speakers doesn't mean im in the same boat as the guy who hops down to the local steet-corner to grab some smack.
_f
Oh.. didn't /. feature a house with a half million dollar subwoofer that some guy built into his foundation and was the size of a swimming pool?
That guy was Oracle founder and all around rich guy Ellison.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
As someone who has "gone down the road to hi-fi" so to speak, I see a lot of reviews/interviews that look at the megabuck systems. You can actually get close to that for a fraction of the cost, say about 1500-2000. That seems reasonable to me, considering that the gear will last long enough so that if you purchased "consumer" gear you would need to replace it enough to make up the difference. As a note, stated previously about price depreciation in high end audio, the other good thing is that the service what they sell to the death. My (multi kilobuck) amp is 20years old last month and I can call Audio Research and get every part ever made for it, and still get service. Try that with a (insert your common mid-fi stereo here) unit. Ah, enough with the good things... it is still hard to justify buying an amp/cdplayer/preamp/speakers that costs more than a new car. :)
As I may have mentioned in another post the human ear doesn't operate the way a typical ADC does. It has lots of hair cells tuned to various frequencies, and there's lots of other things going on in the brain.
Someone's ear might just have a bunch of "hair cells-neurons" that only respond strongly to 20KHz and another set for 20.1KHz. That's possible right?
So if you have someone who can't hear greater than 22KHz but can tell the difference between 20KHz and 20.1KHz, then sampling at 44.1KHz might not be good enough.
How do you reproduce 20KHz and 20.1KHz accurately with 44KHz sampling and a filter that must also pass 20Hz to 22KHz through?
Cheerio,
Link.
Well I don't have golden ears but there is a problem I noticed with sampling.
For example if you try to generate a 12999Hz sine wave when you are sampling at 26K you end up with a 13KHz tone that changes in amplitude once a second or so (ick!). Given an appropriate filter you'd get 12999Hz but in practice you don't.
If you sample at 44KHz, you can produce 22KHz, 11Khz, 7333Hz, 5500Hz and other fractions of 22KHz easily, but the rest need the filter to do the job.
Now the human ear doesn't operate the way a typical ADC does. It has lots of hair cells tuned to various frequencies, and there's lots of neural sound processing. Someone's ear might just have a bunch of "hair cells-neurons" that only respond strongly to 12.1KHz and another set for 12KHz.
So if you have someone who can't hear greater than 13KHz but can tell the difference between 12KHz and 12.1KHz, then sampling at 44KHz might not be good enough.
Don't underestimate human sound processing. We're not as good as dolphins, but I believe there are many genuine cases of "golden ears"[1].
Cheerio,
Link.
[1] Golden ears: An unfortunate syndrome that is difficult to cure without undesirable side effects. Treatment involves use of expensive equipment.
I don't understand..the goal of an audiophile is to attempt to reproduce the sound of live music, which, ironically, was recorded using audio equipment, and subsequently mixed in the artificial confines of a studio..let's not even begin to contemplate what exactly audiophiles are attempting to reproduce the experience of when playing stuff recorded in the studio, where the creation of music has basically nothing to do with playing live...
Truly amazing.
That depends a lot. There are probably genuine, if marginal, gains in theoretical sound quality all the way up the scale to that $100,000 system you mention. But my impression is that at just about any price point you can get further by careful comparison shopping than by throwing 2x more money at the problem blindly. It's definitely worth your time to go to the shop with your favorite music in hand and have the guys there hook up the different components you're considering for you to listen to. Even better is if you can get a home trial, since different set ups can sound different in depending on the environment.
Eventually, you'll find that the limit to your system is either your ears or (more likely) your listening environment, rather than your equipment. For most people that's going to be well before they reach the true high-end. Let's face it, most people don't have a place where they can listen to their music that would let them get anything close to the full available range out of a mid-range system, much less a super high end one. Unless you also have the money to invest in an anechoic room for your house, that $100,000 system is going to be money down the drain no matter how good your ears are.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Well, if you are at all interested in hifi, you wouldn't care much about how loud your equipment can play. The idea is to reproduce sound as if you were there, and you will never hear a violin playing at 160dB at a concert. Besides, beyond a certain threshold, all sound starts to sound badly simply because your ears aren't designed for it. If you want to enjoy music, you listen at a comfortable level!
Can you actually hear/notice the difference between a $100,000 system and a $10,000 system? Between a $10,000 system and a $1,000 system? A lot of times, the more you pay, the more features you get. What features besides being able to provide good, clean sound for your music and movies do you need? Will is wash my dishes?
I like music. And if you cannot tell the difference between live music and music played back through a $2000 stereo, then you are deaf. Live music is much much more enjoyable. Indeed, it is a different experience. Many people seem to think that this is because of the different physical environment in which live music is played. They are wrong. The experience that I get from my stereo is fairly close to live. People who visit me who would not think of themselves as audiophiles have found the same.
Why are some people, who have obviously never had the experience, complaining about others enjoying music at something closely approximating the way the musicians played it?
I'm pretty sure it's "Thus Spake Zarathustra".
I have a website. It's about Macs.
First off, a joke (that someone else has probably already told).
Q: Define Audiophile.
A: Someone who listens to the stereo rather than the music.
I do think the whole thing is a little warped. And I don't quite get the "warm" thing at all (I think I did as a kid, because I had a slight allergy to FM radio, but I grew out of it...).
/Brian
Guitar amps ain't got nothing to do with this. In fact, the reason so many guitarists use tube amps these days has nothing to do with sound *reproduction* at all -- if you're using a Marshall stack, you're essentially using a tube-based preamp as an analog signal processor. Go to a guitar store if you don't have a guitar in your closet to see what I mean.
Tube amp distortion softens the fuzz; if you distort a transistor amp you get a sort of clipping effect that creates the crashing buzzsaw distortion you hear in grunge music, but that effect doesn't work so well for blues or classic rock. Tube amps sort of round that out, and the net effect is rather different.
/Brian
The storage world is almost as bad as the audio world... a 6 TB SAN is the equivalant of a $500 all-in-one Sony stereo from Circuit City. An IDE/ATA RAID is a used, first-generation Rio MP3 player with a pair of $3 headphones. Get yourself a (4 - 512 CPU) SGI Origin 3000 or a Cray SV1ex and (25 - 500 TB) storage from EMC. Don't forget a 1.5 PB robotic tape silo from StorageTek for backup.
The thing is, most people have never heard a high-end (or moderately high-end) system. So it's easy for them to dismiss it as people blowing money. My audio hardware is of excellent quality and will outlast any of the mass-market Circuit City units by 15 years, easy. It's highly unlikely I'll ever have to replace my stereo due to it being broken.
Perhaps the most important thing in buying high-end equipment is listening. A surprising number of people don't do this. They look up specs for watts and distortion not realizing that the stereo companies actually engineer their equipment to come in with "better specs" but in doing so they completely ruin the actual sound quality. I have a very good system "on the cheap" (comparatively) because I spent a lot of time in my local dealer's showroom matching components with speakers. You wouldn't think you could tell a difference?? Even my wife could, and she's deaf in one ear! She had very distinct opinions about the various equipment we listened to, even though at first she thought the idea of expensive audio equipment was pretty silly. She even wishes we could've got the more expensive integrated amplifier because it sounded obviously better.
It's easy to think some of these audio nuts are smoking crack -- thousands of dollars on speaker wires or interconnects (patch cords)?? I borrowed two sets of interconnects from my local dealer for a week to decide which set I wanted to keep (each one was about $100). A friend and I sat around for hours comparing the two and there were obvious differences! If you'd told me five years ago that there are significant, audible differences between two patch cords (which just conduct the electric signal) I would've called you crazy! Alas, it's true. You just have to make out a budget and then stick to it -- try different combinations of components until you get the one that sounds best to your ears.
And oh yeah, Bose is not the best , not even close. They just have marketing that has convinced people that they are the cat's meow. Walk into your local store and listen to Bose, then go into a high-end dealer and listen to their cheapest equipment--you'll laugh at yourself for considering Bose.
First, if you mainly listen to MP3's, why bother. You're already cutting away ~20% of the frequency response. Any kind of rock(pop, rap, punk, basically anything with a guitar and drums in it), the technology going into creating the music in the first place isn't as good as these stereos. Guitar in particular is very lo-fi - hell, we purposely distort the guitar signal to make it sound better. Basically you need to be listening to classical music or something sonically similar to Pink Floyd to need a high end system. That throws out about 95% of all recorded music right there.
I love classical music, and I love Pink Floyd, but that kind of stuff represents 5 percent of what I listen to. I also really get off listening to hard rock played loud through an average system.
I suspect the vast majority of us would be quite happy with a $300 receiver and a set of surround speakers. I know I am, and I've listened to 70,000 dollar systems.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
All men. Men love stuff with knobs, plugs and lights, and they adore technical jargon about ohms and impedance. Women spend just as much on CDs and cassettes, according to industry surveys, but men are typically more ardent about music, more willing to contend that only an idiot could think "Imperial Bedroom" is Elvis Costello's finest album.
Wrong.
I know of at least one female audiophile. She's a teacher who uses her excellent knowledge of science to put together a great system. Instead of simply plunking down loads of money (though I'm sure she's done that too), she has carefully constructed a special room in her house dedicated to excellent listening. Some examples of her modifications include:
- She re-twisted each or her speaker cables at just the right twists per length to get the best sound of the music she's used to.
- She measured exactly the length of each wire and suspended on the walls.
She claims if she's hearing a recording of a building she's been in, she can tell where a person is standing up (which seat) when they perform a solo.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Oh.. didn't
I love this part.
Hoang was so amazed by the sound, and so depressed by the life of a doctor, that he quit his job. "I sold my stuff, including my stereo, and lived on it for two years. I tried a few other jobs, but mostly I just wanted to listen to music.
It's kind of like cocaine, the rich pricks that can afford it, deserve it. Me - I'll just go to a live show and sit way the hell in the back with the rest of the vulgar.
Peace.
The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit: /.'ers since Spring 2001.
Pissing off hyper caffeineated
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Audio cable is like laptop PC's. Just as 95% of laptops come from one of two Singapore factories (yes, that includes those cool Apple powerbooks and the Sony Vaio), nearly all speaker cable (including the fancy stuff that you bought) comes from one of six factories.
In one famous case, Monster Cable had a wire with a little plastic box near one end (similar to the one you see on computer monitors). Curious about what it could be, the audio testers for a hi-fi mag cracked it open. It was just an empty piece of plastic that was slapped on just before shipping.
High End cable manufacturers are con artists. Electrical conduction is electrical conduction. Buy cable that is properly shielded, wide enough, just barely long enough, has good connections (the gold ones are popular) and don't run it parallel to power cables. Anybody who does more than that is buying for status, not sound.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Having recently helped a hi-fi nut shop for speakers, I would have to disagree.
$1000 get you right in th edge of high-quality speakers. Most speakers in that price range that we listened to demanded some small compromise or another. Either the highs would be a little too aggressive, or the imaging would be a little limited. Each $1k speaker sounded better than the others in some ways, and worse in some ways.
When we moved up to the $2000 - $3000 speakers, it was like magic. I don't recall off the top of my head the name of the monitors we auditioned... they were not electrostats... Some kind of side-mounted subwoofer tower... Anyway... Listening to Marni Nixon sing "Someone To Watch Over Me" was like having her in the room with us. On a live jazz record, I was able to close my eyes and visualize the dimensions of the stage with total confidence. Then came the clincher... The opening wash of sound from Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" almost knocked us out of our chairs, not from the impact of the bass, but the heavenly beauty of the sound! I have listened to that album at least a thousand times on a lot of great systems, and thought I knew how good it could sound. I was wrong. It was a transendantial experiece.
I'm no snob... I get by (for now) with a sub-$1000 pair of B&W speakers myself, and I am a big believer in hi-fi bargain hunting. That said, I have never heard a $1k pair of speakers pull off that level of quality. Were in not for my expensive PC and musical instrument habits, I would have bought a pair of those $2k speakers on the spot that day, and I wasn't even the one shopping for them.
(As for the hi-fi nut that I was shopping with... He didn't buy them either. He agreed that they were the best-sounding ones we had heard, but his wife didn't like the way they looked.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
but if it was an obsession, taking up substantial portions of my income to a destructive level, then there is a problem.
A human can be obsessed with anything. Take the previously discussed example of hypnotism. Now if you have people in a chronic hypnotic state, such as via you favorite recreational chemicals, or what ever, - well I imagine that advertising might be much more effective.
heck, any positive feedback loop can be addictive. Maybe we should just make sure that only negative feedback loops are legal?
sounds like a plan to me.
My point is that Positive feedback loops are destructive if there is not a limiter on them. The word Addiction is used too broadly to cover things and classify positive things as negative.
"He was addicted to life. But we cured him"
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
For people who think that all high-end audio is bunk, I'll say that the difference between what you can get at Circuit City for $1000 and a high-end stereo store for $3000, even, is pretty considerable, and the differences between $3000 and $25,000 are noticeable, and it's diminishing returns after that. You have to care about sound, though, and not everyone does, which is fine.
What burns me is the amount of money that high-end stereo stores try to get you to spend on things that don't make a difference, especially cables. We're not just talking about multi-thousand-dollar speaker cables. We're talking about multi-hundred-dollar digital interconnect cables. Hello? Do you understand the concept of digital transmission? I thought not.
Or, for example, the high-end audio store I was in this weekend that had high-end AC power cables running to the amplifier that were bigger in diameter than your typical garden hose. Kinda silly when you consider that on the other end of that wall plug is very low-tech 12-ga copper wire.
The example in the article about putting an air bladder underneath your equipment so the vibrations don't disturb it sounds to me like so much hooey. As long as your CD transport isn't shaking so much that it's getting a lot of errors, what difference can it make? The improvements that the owner claimed are probably placebo effect.
Spend your money where it counts. Speakers, first and foremost. Amplification next. Then a halfway-nice CD player. Forget about the rest.
-----
I agree! Except that my price point is - or should I say was - $2K. I got the Cambridge Soundworks MovieWorks 5.1 with a Marantz SR5000 receiver. (Don't worry, I have no relationship with CS other than as a happy customer.) It is a $2K system that is currently on sale for about $1500.
It sounds better than any movie theater I've ever been to, except for the Sony Metreon theaters in San Francisco.
Plus, I'm free to drink a malted barley beverage while I watch...
"I know - let's make Quake...AGAIN! They just might be stupid enough to buy it..." (overheard at id)
Can you tell the difference between a $100,000 system and a $10,000 system? I don't know. I do know that I can tell the difference between a $100,000 system and a $1,000 system (which is probably about what my home stereo system cost). I go to my friends' houses and listen to music and it's almost as if the instruments are there in the room. The sound staging is phenomenal. The precision and power and detail is unbelievable. I'm constantly hearing things that I never hear on my own stereo, and it almost depresses me to listen to my system for days after listening to their because the quality of mine is so inferior.
I am not by any means a hard-core audiophile, and in fact I'm highly skeptical about the value of, say, $10,000 *cables*. Even if I had all the money in the world to spend, I'm not sure I'd spend it on a higher-end stereo, because the reality is that for the listening I do, what I've got is good enough. But I can't deny that the really high-end stuff sounds absolutely spectacular -- and as far as what you're paying for, it's definitely quality rather than features.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Wrong... The audiophile next door did not break into my shed and steal my lawn mower, trimmer, rototiller.. They got their money the old fashioned way. They inherited it and invested it.
The truth shall set you free!
The CD will never play back in the 19-40 Khz randge the vinyl does. (remember the quad records, They had a high frequency pilot that the turntable was able to repoduce to make the decoder work.) This is unable to be recorded on a CD because it is higher than the sampling frequency of the CD. It is true the CD has a flatter requency response over a smaller bandwidth. It is also true the CD recording is more linear (less distortion) within that range, However the vinyl does not have ailising and quanitization noise added to the recording. These artifacts are many times more offensive to some people than a little hiss. Adding warmth to a CD does not remove these artifacts while adding the artifacts of tone-arm resonance and surface noise to an already flawed recording.
The truth shall set you free!
and sound better to send the sound directly to your brain. (In the future.)
Got friends?
Just spend a few minutes browsing through Stereophile. 100k for a pair of JM Labs Grand Utopia speakers, plus amps, transports, preamps et al.
But still, it's addictive. I'm working on my own (low) high end system right now and the difference is amazing between a five hundred dollar system and a fifteen hundred one. So what about higher? Is true High End worth it?
--- On the other hand, you have five fingers.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I can understand spending on something which you enjoy. For me it's home theatre, and I'm probably still on the low end of the scale because that's all my budget can hanele at the moment, but Who's to say what's crazy. I was suprised to fin that the author of the author was a guy, because this is does seem to be a male dominated spending habit, but hey, who am I to judge?
Jay Leno has how many cars now? He works how many hours per day? Is he crazy... well maybe but no one would say it to his face (read: chin).
So, what's wrong with investing in the high end of anything, really? DO I need a rack of 1.2Ghz servers in my home? PRobably not, but, if you asked me if I needed them all, I'd come up with reasons that each one was essential to my wellbeing. OK, well the article is worth a read for it's entertainment value, which, of course is it's intent, as far as I can tell.
--CTH
---
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Spend a little extra money on a quality belt-drive turntable. Rega makes some nice ones, in, IIRC the $800 range.
Guns don't kill people - bullets do!
now having Britney Spears show up on a regular basis.....
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
The point is that most rooms have an inherant noise above the noise floor. In Crowder it is probably somewhere between 30-40dBSPL. Well, that means that if you record something that peaks to 110dB using a 16-bit recording, the inherant noise of the room will be recorded and still be above the digital noise floor. However, you can hear things below that level, hence why 24-bit yeild superior sound, even though there is inherant noise in the room.
Since then I've also done recordings simeltaniously in 16 and 24-bit and the 24 ditherd to 16 always sounds better in my opinion.
Now of course their strength is also their flaw. To always produce this pleasing sound they have to change and distort the signal a whole lot so they can never sound great. You can back up Bose with the best gear available and they still sound the same as they did with the cheap stuff. They still have that distinctive Bose sound. Well, that is not what I want. IMHO the best sound equipment has NO audible charicteristics of it's own. IF you use really great gear, you should be able to swap any component for another great component and hear no change in sound because the gear isn't changing it in any way, jsut reproducing it. Well Bose speakers change the sound, and change it a lot.
Basically it comes down to what you're looking for. Bose speakers are great for people like College kids that want good sound on a budget. They'll sound just fine with a cheapie RaidoShack amp backing them up and you can throw them any old place you have room for them. However if you want something that is going to let you hear the music, and not itself, then Bose is not the answer.
I once read an interview with Bob Carver in Stereo Review. He was talking about the psychology of high-end audio and how even though he'd been able to perfectly duplicate the sound of any tube amp ever made with a pure transistor amp, there were always going to be some people who looked at their tube amps and saw the tubes glowing and automatically knew that the tube amp sounded better than any transistor amp and there was no way they'd be convinced otherwise.
The problem with many audiophiles is that they'd never bother with double blind a/b comparisons to test their beliefs. Carver performed such double-blind tests with audio critics who never believed he could make one of his amps sound like any randomly-chosen amp. The test in question occurred at a high end audio trade show. Carver was given 24 hours notice of the exact amp he needed to duplicate. He'd put that amp on an oscilloscope and as closely as possible matched what he called the amp's "transfer function."
When the tests were run, the critics couldn't tell the difference between Carver's amp and the amp he had cloned.
Carver also told a story about the time he tested some $1,000 silver patch cables. He and a friend were astonished at the amazing quality difference. When he switched back to his original patch cables, he and his friend marveled at how sonically dead and flat the soundstage had become. They swapped back and forth a few times, with Carver's friend continuing to hear the difference, but eventually, Carver was able realize the effect had been completely created within their own minds. When he listened to the sound as critically and objectively as he could, he no longer heard the difference.
In general, audiophiles are an irrational bunch. Yes, there are differences between high-end audiophile components and even the best "audiophile-grade" mass-produced consumer stuff, but don't tell me putting your power supplies in sandboxes will make that much of a difference. And definitely don't tell me your CDs sound better when you paint the circumferential edge green with a felt pen.
Drug addicts will at least leave you in peace, shooting their arms up in abandoned alleyways and passing out with friends around the bong. Moreover, when drug addicts throw their money away, they're usually pumping it back into the local economy instead of shipping it off to hardware manufacturers overseas.
Audiophiles, in contrast, aren't content to waste their money in private or among other like-minded individuals. Oh no. They have a compulsive need to prosthelitize about their audiophilia. As if there weren't enough of their kind in this world as it is, they will openly moan and complain about the quality of others' audio equipment and wax on end about the relative merits of whatever their latest hobbyhorse format is over mp3 which is far too lossy or whatever they're bitching this week.
In all my years of knowing dope smokers and heroin addicts, I've never known any to spend half as much time trying to justify the benefits of their drug of choice as audiophiles do about their wares. It just isn't done. Drug addicts are content to enjoy their recreational substances and leave it at that. Audiophiles feel a need to go so much further.
The other day, I was reading about the US Supreme Court's latest court case upholding the constitutionality of religious groups' use of public school space for after-school bible classes. But what I think was left out of the debate was how religious groups are such a small threat when compared to other secular groups. Whereas the liberals would like to bar the Good News club from coming to elementary schools, they would happily and cheerfully admit an audiophilia club. Whereas the Good News club is just trying to save your soul, the audiophiles are both trying to steal your soul and bilk your wallet at the same time. That is the true threat in our society today.
I'm glad someone is finally casting the light of public scrutiny upon this pestilence in our midst. Audiophilia must be banned and criminalized as it has no place in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Our forefathers did not give their lives to found a nation where we could scamper around with our goldplated headphones and 10 megawatt amps in one giant aureal masturbatory frenzy.
The difference is probably that: (a) audiophiles run around in far less numbers than computer addicts and (b) when you buy an amplifier for $50k, you can be fairly assured that in five years you're not going to see it on eBay for $50.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
Whether you're upgrading a car, stereo, or computer, there is just a real thrill in knowing that you and you alone are determining the components going into your system. Your upgraded car or stereo or whatever is uniquely you, with any custom tweaks or whatnot that you inserted through your own skill. Overclocking a CPU, when one takes into account the expenses of cooling systems, is rarely economical - but it delivers a powerful feeling of accomplishment.
Building your own custom rig isn't just a matter of "mine is faster/better/bigger". It's a way of displaying your own abilities in a very specialized hobby. It's a source of pride. If I can keep my Athlon T-Bird stable at just ten more megahertz than my friend, that is very cool to me.
I'm the stranger...posting to
...we'll get the same loss of quality we'd get with the 140,000 dollar sound system. In that case, I guess I would prefer the sound system.
I'm the stranger...posting to
...I'd prefer the string quartet. Then again, I doubt they can play Pink Floyd loud enough to induce brain damage in small children.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Bose is as close as you get to fraud without being sued :-)
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