Re: What's your audio setup?
I'm no audiophile myself, despite having been a semi-professional musician. I generally fiddle until I am happy enough and go with that.
What:
Speakers - Edifier RT1600
Headphones - Corsair Vengeance 1500 v2
Why:
Speakers - They only cost me £50 for 2.1 sound in a medium-sized home office and are WICKED.
Headphones - My Plantronics 780s karked it, as they generally do and I needed a hard-weraing replacement. The Vengeance fit the bill and I've actually had better quality sound, even though they're 7.1 USB audio.
Re: What's your audio setup?
Having kids has made me give up with decent audio, subtlety of stereo image can't contend with all that shouting :)
So my Mission 763 floorstanding speakers sit either side of the TV for use as surround amp fronts. Works really well, just tell the amp not to bother with center speakers or sub woofer and just mix it through the fronts because they have the bass response to handle it :D
What do people use for source material these days? I am just using the digital out from the blu-ray player into a Pioneer surround amp, and playing CDs through that. CD was never that good though, is there something better I should be looking at now the kids are growing up and I can hear things? I am using streamed blutooth from my phone in the car, but then I am never going to be able to hear compression artefacts over the noise of a diesel engine.
Re: What's your audio setup?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
What do people use for source material these days? I am just using the digital out from the blu-ray player into a Pioneer surround amp, and playing CDs through that. CD was never that good though, is there something better I should be looking at now the kids are growing up and I can hear things? I am using streamed blutooth from my phone in the car, but then I am never going to be able to hear compression artefacts over the noise of a diesel engine.
Guys over on AVforums seem very happy with the service from http://tidalhifi.com which started recently.
Re: What's your audio setup?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dooms
Guys over on AVforums seem very happy with the service from
http://tidalhifi.com which started recently.
Interesting, though according to their FAQ they are sending Flac 1411 kbps - Lossless, which dividing by 16 for bits per sample and then 2 for stereo comes to 44KHz, so same as a 1980's CD?
Re: What's your audio setup?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
Interesting, though according to their FAQ they are sending Flac 1411 kbps - Lossless, which dividing by 16 for bits per sample and then 2 for stereo comes to 44KHz, so same as a 1980's CD?
Anything above 16/44 is pretty niche and there isn't much material beyond some niche 24/96 stuff on places like HD tracks. For the most part the masters simply don't exist.
I'm not sure if there's much benefit in lossless streaming, not the extra £10 over spotify's 320kb/s for me, anyway..
Re: What's your audio setup?
There's no real audible difference between flacs and MP3s, unless maybe you train your ears. Both are compressed and as above, it's not worth paying more for it.
Re: What's your audio setup?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MrRockliffe
There's no real audible difference between flacs and MP3s, unless maybe you train your ears. Both are compressed and as above, it's not worth paying more for it.
Flac is lossless compression, it is bit equivalent to whatever is on the cd. MP3s etc use psycho acoustic lossy compression.
MP3s are a bit outdated now, newer formats are more efficient. Differences are more pronounced lower bitrates, though.
Re: What's your audio setup?
My setup is as follows:
PC - Old Logitech Z-680 5.1 set with the Bass Mod in the control pod for better bass control.
TV - Yamaha RXV675 Receiver with Boston Acoustics Soundware XS 5.1 SE speakers - Yeah I live in a ground floor flat but I love the Sub!
I also have a pair of Sennhesier HD595 cans for late night TV/Movie and Gaming Sessions when people around are asleep.
Re: What's your audio setup?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
krazy_olie
Anything above 16/44 is pretty niche and there isn't much material beyond some niche 24/96 stuff on places like HD tracks. For the most part the masters simply don't exist.
I'm not sure if there's much benefit in lossless streaming, not the extra £10 over spotify's 320kb/s for me, anyway..
Hmm, wondered if that was still the case.
Thankfully as you get older your hearing deteriorates, so I probably can't tell the difference between 24/96 and 16/44 now :D
I expect 16/96 would have been good enough even when my hearing was at its best, so 24/96 sounds about right to me to make sure there just can't be a problem with how the music is stored.
Most people just seem to want "good enough" audio through cheap ear buds though.
Re: What's your audio setup?
Even at your best you wouldn't tell the difference between 96/24 and 44.1/16. It's pretty much physically impossible. Halve the sample rate in order to work out the highest frequency recorded. You're looking at 22k which is already 2KHz higher than human hearing at its best. 48KHz? Overkill for playback purposes, much like huge bit depths. 24 bit comes into its own for recording purposes. For playback, it's marketing one upmanship, music simply doesn't have a dynamic range that great.
Re: What's your audio setup?
Got my DT990s and they're broken. Out the box. Expected really, since Beyerdynamics often have poor quality drivers.
Re: What's your audio setup?
First I have heard of them having poor quality drivers :/ I work in broadcast and see them everywhere.
Re: What's your audio setup?
After having owned Custom One Pros (replaced twice and 1 repair) and after a little research, they seem to have a common problem - bass. Too much and the drivers will break. Happened to me multiple times and to many others.
Re: What's your audio setup?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lowe
Even at your best you wouldn't tell the difference between 96/24 and 44.1/16. It's pretty much physically impossible. Halve the sample rate in order to work out the highest frequency recorded. You're looking at 22k which is already 2KHz higher than human hearing at its best. 48KHz? Overkill for playback purposes, much like huge bit depths. 24 bit comes into its own for recording purposes. For playback, it's marketing one upmanship, music simply doesn't have a dynamic range that great.
Part of lessons in 6th form and university included measuring our hearing responses. Mine was about 26KHz. School kids often use ultrasonic ring tones so that older teachers can't hear when the kids get a text message, and some shopping centers have been known to use ultrasonics to break up places where youths congregate. So over 20KHz is actually quite common, though as I said at my age very unlikely.
But then there is the misunderstanding of Nyquist points. There is no information above the Nyquist rate, sure, but the thing is as you approach half the sample rate you tend not to sample the peaks of those higher frequencies but somewhere on the edge so the result is that there is attenuation long before you get to 22KHz. My DSP lecturer (who did the most amazing rant mid lecture on why CD was rubbish and a missed opportunity for something good thanks to a poor choice of sample rate back in 1988 :D ) referred to this as "sampling droop". So from something like 16KHz you are losing information.
Hmm, I have glasses now that my eyes are fading, I wonder if anyone has looked at doing hifi hearing correction... :D
Re: What's your audio setup?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Biscuit
First I have heard of them having poor quality drivers :/ I work in broadcast and see them everywhere.
I may look into replacing the 990s with 770s - do you use them for gaming at all?
Re: What's your audio setup?
PC: Creative Soundblaster (4, I think). Does a job
Creative Gigaworks T20
Lounge: Onkyo TX-SR607
Front: B&W Vision VS3s - old but still got it
Back: Mission something or other bookshelves on stands
Centre: Mordaunt Short something.
No sub as VS3s are quite bassy...