[HN Gopher] Building a high quality audio system [video]
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Building a high quality audio system [video]
Author : brudgers
Score : 97 points
Date : 2021-10-12 03:48 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| js2 wrote:
| If you don't have an hour to watch, here's a summary:
|
| https://www.wtvr.com/i-have-a-story/worlds-greatest-stereo-s...
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| when the house is the loud?speaker:
|
| http://www.scrounge.org/speak/burwen/index.html
| vinkelhake wrote:
| Off topic, but man the out of focus shots bugged me. I don't know
| what they were shooting with, but obviously some care went into
| it. The shots of him sitting in the chair were framed alright,
| lighting was good, low aperture for a nice depth of field and...
| focus was on the chair in the center of the frame, making his
| face a blurry mess :(
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Well, I'll take that guy's system over mine for sure.
|
| However....!
|
| For those unfamiliar with the hobby I'd like to mention
| something, however: you can have an _objectively very good_
| system for not too much money.
|
| The research of (among others) Dr. Floyd Toole (formerly of
| Harman International) makes a very persuasive case that the
| "best" audio system is simply one that reproduces the input
| signal accurately, both on- and off-axis. There's no secret
| sauce, really. It's all in the measurements.
|
| This can be achieved rather affordably. Monitors from JBL (a
| Harman company) and Kali (former Harman engineers) such as the
| JBL 305/306/308 and competing models from Kali were built around
| these principles and accomplish this starting at prices of
| several hundred $USD.
|
| While formerly "audiophiles" were associated with snake oil and
| unlimited budgets, there are growing legions of those who
| subscribe to a more objectivist take on the hobby.
|
| https://www.audiosciencereview.com (I have no affiliation) is one
| place to find such reviews and discussions.
|
| I'm not an expert but have been in the hobby for a while and
| would be happy to answer questions if anybody's had interest in
| the hobby but hasn't known where/how to get started.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| The snake oil victims really turned me off conversing with
| other hi fi hobbyists. Pseudo-science about cables, ethernet
| hubs for audio, utter nonsense about jitter. Endless arguments
| about blind testing and the "your ears aren't good enough to
| appreciate the sound that _I_ can hear " sniffery and veiled
| snobbery. The insufferable Stereophile magazine and the
| nonsense it continues to peddle. Horrifying.
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| Yeah, I've always loved music and good audio, but I pretty
| much gave up on the hobby for a decade or two because the
| main sources of information (i.e. industry magazines) were so
| absurdly pseudo-science. But, as the grandparent of this post
| points out, there has been a real renaissance of information
| and discussion on the internet that isn't bought and paid for
| by snake oil salesmen and it's the best time ever to get a
| great audio system for little money.
|
| A bunch of Chinese companies (Topping, etc.) have actually
| jumped on the objectivist bandwagon are cranking out
| (relatively) inexpensive DACs, amps, etc. that are world-
| leading in measured performance (at any price).
|
| Like everything internet, the 'objectivist' audiophile world
| can be a bit of an echo chamber, but real progress is being
| made towards non-trivial questions like how one should
| measure the performance of headphones and speakers, what the
| ideal actually is, and what deviations from that ideal make
| the most difference.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > the main sources of information (i.e. industry magazines)
| were so absurdly pseudo-science.
|
| This is true of almost any industry magazine that does
| reviews. It's all trash, gamed, manipulated, paid for.
|
| The bike magazines are utter trash, with everyone mocking
| phrases like "horizontally compliant, vertically stiff"
| which used to be a given for carbon frame bike reviews, and
| keep shouting about efficiency in "power transfer." I wish
| I were joking when i say these idiots used to claim that
| the soles of your cycling shoes were not "transferring"
| power "efficiently." It's now easy to buy a bike that
| weighs less than the bikes run in the TdF (which has a
| minimum weight limit for safety/reliability.)
|
| PC hardware, especially cooling stuff? Trash. Reviews will
| claim x degrees temperature reduction but not tell you the
| room temperature or humidity, or even noise level. Reviews
| are heavily, heavily 'paid for' in that companies just send
| hardware free to reviewers and if they don't say nice
| things, they stop getting hardware for free which kills
| them off pretty rapidly.
|
| Photography magazines, same thing. They don't tell you that
| all their reviews are all based off gear provided to them
| that has been likely hand-assembled very carefully, and
| extensively tweaked and calibrated for the press circuit.
| The $500 lens you buy off the shelf a year later? Nowhere
| near the QA went into it than did the lens that was shipped
| to Photography Wank Magazine. Not a single photography
| magazine blind-purchases their gear retail. Not a single
| one looks at more than one sample.
|
| Car reviews? It's all a focus on performance and looks, and
| nothing to little about repairability, reliability,
| depreciation. They wax poetic about all sorts of subjective
| bullshit about a brand or model. I'm a car guy. It's a
| bunch of steel and rubber and aluminum, made to a price for
| a particular market segment. Car manufactures have been
| caught specifically setting up cars for particular auto
| reviewers; most famously, Top Gear caught Ferrari
| specifically modifying their cars for Top Gear's test track
| and putting much stickier, expensive tires on. Ferrari
| responded by refusing to provide review cars to Top Gear,
| and when TG found private owners to loan them
| cars...prohibiting owners from allowing any Top Gear staff
| to use their car for a review. If you were found out,
| Ferrari would ban you from buying a Ferrari, or just not
| give you the normal priority for new models.
|
| Tech companies are now getting caught cheapening their
| hardware right after reviews come out and early retail
| sales. Most commonly with SSDs; they make a really sweet
| SSD model with a great controller/DRAM/flash chips and then
| a month or two later quietly switch out the controller, use
| less/no DRAM, use lower grade flash, etc.
|
| The bullshit generation has shifted to "creators" - people
| who make videos telling a 'story' about the 'experience'
| and kinda sorta reviewing the product, but they have little
| or no qualification to objectively _review_ the item in
| question. So you have guys who are tech youtubers reviewing
| electric cars but they don 't know shit about cars, tech
| reviewers reviewing bicycles and bicycle products they
| don't know shit about, etc. _PR firms specifically seek out
| reviewers who aren 't experts in a particular product
| category or industry because they don't know what to look
| for or how something compares to what else is on the
| market._
|
| Not even stuff from supposedly reputable reviewers is
| trustworthy anymore. Wirecutter, now bought by the NY
| Times? Every time I've trusted their reviews, the product I
| ended up with turned out to have glaringly obvious flaws
| the somehow expert panel of reviewers didn't notice or
| mention. They're also in the habit of comparing very old
| products they've owned and used for ages against new stuff,
| and recommending buying the old product. For example: their
| vacuum cleaner review recommends a Miele vacuum they've had
| for years. If you read the Amazon reviews, you see plain as
| day comments talking about how the model is no longer made
| in country X but country Y to a much lower cost, and the
| new models are junk that fall apart/fail like crazy.
|
| Another example: I bought a set of sheets recommended by
| Wirecutter. They were garbage, fell apart rapidly. Reading
| the comments later on the store website, I see _drumroll
| please_ they clearly changed the sheets - people saying the
| manufacturer had clearly changed suppliers or something.
|
| Another example: a set of bluetooth earbuds. The Wirecutter
| review neglected to mention that the proprietary charge
| connector adapter hadn't been available for over a year,
| which meant your $150 headphones were "totalled" by losing
| a $20 piece of plastic. It also neglected to mention that
| powering them up played a booming theme song, and any event
| triggered a voice actor shouting things like "HEADPHONES
| CONNECTED!" or "BATTERY LOW!" in your ears, genuinely
| startling if you're listening to some quiet meditative
| music. The volume of these effects did not match the set
| volume for the headset and if you looked in the forums -
| people had been BEGGING the company to do something about
| it for YEARS. Which they did not, despite bragging about
| how their smartphone app should be installed because it
| could do firmware updates.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Your description of reality is accurate, and reality just
| sucks in this case. Photography
| magazines, same thing. They don't tell you that
| all their reviews are all based off gear provided to them
| that has been likely hand-assembled very carefully
|
| The obvious answer is for reviewers to purchase their own
| products outright at retail, like Consumer Reports always
| did. A lot of outlets do this, but it's often
| impractical.
|
| Some amateur reviewers rely on samples sent/lent to them
| by fans. Lots of audio equipment, watch, and car
| reviewers do this to name a few I'm familiar with.
|
| Of course that can also lead to the opposite problem.
| Instead of getting above-spec, hand-picked models from
| the manufacturer they may wind up with products that
| perform worse than the typical sample.
|
| One "middle ground" that works is some companies will
| ship review copies to reviewers straight from Amazon.
| I've received review products in this manner. Not
| perfect, but at least they weren't handpicked by the mfr.
| Another example: I bought a set of sheets
| recommended by Wirecutter. They were garbage,
| fell apart rapidly. Reading the comments later
| on the store website, I see drumroll please they
| clearly changed the sheets - people saying the
| manufacturer had clearly changed suppliers or
| something.
|
| Wirecutter makes a pretty decent effort to update their
| reviews when information like this comes in, but yeah --
| I wish they were more proactive about this.
|
| It's tough to know what the answer is. It seems
| impractical for a reviewer to continually re-buy every
| product they've ever reviewed every N months to check for
| quality issues. Crowdsourcing it and monitoring recent
| user reviews from Amazon etc seems like the only remotely
| viable option, but still a massive timesink.
| Every time I've trusted their reviews, the product
| I ended up with turned out to have glaringly obvious
| flaws the somehow expert panel of reviewers didn't
| notice or mention
|
| I can't say I've shared your experience. I've bought
| dozens of things based on their recommendations. Far from
| perfect but I have a generally high opinion of them.
| Car reviews? It's all a focus on performance and
| looks, and nothing to little about repairability,
| reliability, depreciation.
|
| I have to cut the auto mags a _little_ slack here. How
| could a reviewer know about the reliability of a new car?
| You 've got to put 50-100K miles on a car before you can
| even really assess that. That's like 100+ days of heavy
| driving. And even then, your sample size is _one._ So not
| even useful. You 'd have to buy a _fleet_ of the vehicle
| in question and have dozens of reviewers putting serious
| miles on them. I don 't think that's something new-car
| reviewers could even tackle, so it's better that they
| stick to what they can do.
|
| It's been a while since I've read them, but Motor Trend
| and Car & Driver always did long-term reliability
| updates. Admittedly it was only for a subset of the
| vehicles they reviewed.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Car & Driver was a great magazine, sometimes tough to get
| down under and two thirds of the cars were unobtainable
| here, but the level of journalism was great. Kinda lost
| the appetite for car magazines when the fun cars got sold
| for kiddie haulers and I realised a lot of the magazines
| I was reading were full of wankery arounds seconds to 60
| when all I wanted to know was miles to breakdown.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yeah it's a real golden era for the hobby, if you ask me.
| By my reckoning one can have an objectively excellent
| system for a small/medium residential room for well under
| $700. The primary difference between that a more capable
| system would be the horsepower required to achieve the
| desired SPL levels in larger spaces and/or reproduce
| recorded material with a large dynamic range.
|
| Even casual consumer gear is getting better these days. A
| lot of these little home speakers (HomePod mini, etc) put
| out some pretty reasonable sound: tonally correct, low
| distortion, etc. The objectivist approach is trickling up
| as well as down. but real progress is
| being made towards non-trivial questions like how
| one should measure the performance of headphones
| and speakers, what the ideal actually is, and
| what deviations from that ideal make the most
| difference.
|
| Amen. If anything, the objectivist community might actually
| veer _too_ far into objectivity at this point, lol. Lots of
| nitpicking over small differences that show up in
| measurements but are certainly inaudible.
|
| I think the next frontier is a stronger correlation between
| measurements and listener preference/audibility. We know
| that better-measuring gear sounds better. But the
| correlation between better measurements and listener
| preference is far from linear.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Same here. It's why I avoided the hobby for years and years.
|
| Those magazines like Stereophile were caught in an
| unavoidable spiral. They were reliant on advertising dollars
| from the snake-oil peddlers.
|
| The good news is, you would not be alone in the hobby these
| days - there's a really robust segment of the hobby who holds
| that snake oil stuff in utter contempt. AudioScienceReview is
| a good objectivist community; NYT/Wirecutter's audio coverage
| is commendably reality-based, and so on.
| stef25 wrote:
| They have to balance things like audio being delivered by
| streaming mp3s from phones to a tv's built in speakers.
| Something I encountered at a party, equally horrifying.
|
| Too many people measure the quality of their audio by how
| much bass comes out of their oddly shaped bluetooth speakers
| and are excited about the built-in light show it provides.
| HKH2 wrote:
| It's understandable that people want wireless control. When
| most software is proprietary/web-based, the easiest local
| solution is streaming mp3s via bluetooth.
| js2 wrote:
| Harman regularly runs sales on the Studio 5 series and Infinity
| Reference series at practically give-away prices. And there has
| been almost no shortage during the pandemic either. They
| must've built thousands of these and have them all in a huge
| warehouse in Kentucky.
|
| I mean it's ridiculous. I purchased these for $700/pair earlier
| this year and now they are on sale for $600/pair:
|
| https://www.jbl.com/loudspeakers/STUDIO+580.html
|
| They just had the R253 on sale for $300/pair last week but they
| sold through them all (for now):
|
| https://www.harmanaudio.com/loudspeakers/REFERENCE+253.html
|
| The Spinorama data from ASR and other sources is online here:
|
| https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/
|
| Another site that collects these charts:
|
| https://speakerdata2034.blogspot.com/
|
| Finally, measuring subwoofers is a separate endeavor:
|
| https://audioxpress.com/article/cta-2010-a-better-way-to-mea...
|
| Collected in this Google Sheet:
|
| https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/s...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| $100 off a $700 pair of speakers is not "practically give-
| away prices."
| js2 wrote:
| Normal price on the Studio 580 is $700 each. They are a
| very good value at $700/pair and an even more exceptional
| value at $600/pair. Free shipping. Try in your home for 30
| days and send them back to Harman on their dime if you
| don't like them. The R253 at $300/pair is an even crazier
| value.
|
| When Harman has these lines of speakers on sale at 50-62%
| off you simply won't find a nicer speaker at that price,
| especially once you factor in that Harman allows for 30-day
| in-home evals and free returns.
| stef25 wrote:
| > JBL 305
|
| You mean LSR305? Have those sitting on my desk.
| js2 wrote:
| 305P Mk ii, its current iteration (LSR305 was discontinued a
| few years back):
|
| https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/jbl-l.
| ..
| stef25 wrote:
| Nice. With speakers that cheap being so good you wonder why
| you need more.
| buescher wrote:
| I have a pair. They are indeed really nice. The built-in
| amplifier is pretty wimpy though - they don't get very
| loud at all.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I have the 306P from the newer mk2 lineup and I agree.
| You only need/want more if you want deep bass or big
| output/dynamics.
| justinclift wrote:
| As a data point, I've recently hooked up the LSR310S
| (subwoofer) to my LSR305P mk2's. It definitely makes for
| a very positive difference when listening to music and
| watching movies.
|
| (setting up a much cheaper 7.1 system using these as the
| foundation components now :>)
| IgorPartola wrote:
| As it happens, tonight j was researching upgrades to my
| motorcycle's audio system and learning things about frequency
| response, crossover, headroom, etc. Here are the questions I
| have yet to answer:
|
| 1. Will using a higher power amp with higher power and somewhat
| higher quality speakers give me more clarity of sound? I don't
| care for loud as much as being able to hear the music.
|
| 2. Is there any point in installing a subwoofer on a
| motorcycle? The reason I ask is that it seems as though in
| order to properly install and integrate a sub you need a
| housing for it that won't resonate with it or make any sounds
| of movement, creaking, etc. That seems rather impossible where
| you might normally install it: fiberglass saddlebags or the
| trunk/tour pack. Also, won't the engine and exhaust noise
| simply drown out the bass?
|
| 3. If no sub, then how long should frequencies on a 2 component
| speaker go? I have a choice of 60-80Hz as the lower limit.
|
| 4. Can non-marine grade speakers be made waterproof on the
| output side?
|
| 5. The amp I have says it strongly prefers RCA/line input over
| speaker level high input. Why is that? Also, my stock radio
| doesn't have line level output. Should I get an external high
| level to line level adapter or try the one built into the amp?
|
| Will any of this compare to my Bose QC35s?
| chucksta wrote:
| 1) it will give you clarity at a louder level
|
| 2) thats kinda personal, I would say no. Subs also benefit
| from the enclosed car. I guess anything is possible though.
| Plus your on a motorcycle, its going to travel a lot more.
|
| 3) you're overthinking it, you're on a motorcycle
|
| 4) not that i'm aware of, but I don't really know, i'm sure
| it's possible.
|
| 5) Hi level is more prone to pick up interference. I don't
| quite understand the second part, hi level is radio output to
| the speaker. Don't really understand that part either
|
| 6?) sound quality? No you're on a motorcycle. Wearing them
| instead? I feel like there are other reasons you shouldn't
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Thanks! What I meant in 5: my receiver can output to
| speakers only. My amp can accept line level or speaker
| level input, but says it prefers line level. Would I get
| better results by connecting the speaker level receiver
| output directly to the amp or is it better to instead get a
| separate preamp to bring receiver output to line level then
| connect that to the amp.
|
| I think I will try the former first.
| chucksta wrote:
| Oh no, its only worth converting if you are picking up
| interference. If you avoid runs near power sources you
| should be ok. Its also worth checking your grounds first
| if you do pick some up
| jrace wrote:
| Your best audio on a motorcyle will be with "In Ear Monitors"
| and a personal audio player (like a phone or ipod).
|
| These will have the benefit of also reducing wind and engine
| noises.
|
| But will come with a safety issue.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Will using a higher power amp with higher power and
| somewhat higher quality speakers give me more
| clarity of sound?
|
| Vast simplification, but: amplifiers sound more or less
| equally good until pushed to their limits, at which point
| they distort and sound bad. A 3W amp played at low volumes
| won't sound any better or worse than a 3,000W amp at equally
| low levels.
|
| Small differences in wattage between amplifiers can be
| ignored.
|
| To sound twice as loud to the human ear, you need 10x the
| amplifier power. Literally. Like a lot of our sensory organs
| the ears function on a more or less logarithmic scale. Or,
| you can use more sensitive speakers.
|
| This is for indoor use, but you can play around with the
| numbers here to get an idea of the difference that amplifier
| output and speaker sensitivity make when it comes to actual
| sound pressure levels:
| http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html
|
| Perhaps even more importantly, manufacturers lie liberally
| about the power produced by their amplifiers. Car audio is
| especially bad about this. They advertise a "3,000W" amp --
| but it generally only produces this power for a millisecond
| and it does so at ridiculously high distortion levels.
|
| This guy tests audio amps, typically car audio amps, and can
| tell you their actual output:
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGW-qPM8-xJE4-uSLA5BAGQ
| Is there any point in installing a subwoofer on a motorcycle?
|
| I don't have any experience with motorcycle audio whatsoever,
| but it takes a LOT of power and BIG speakers to produce bass
| in open spaces. A 12" subwoofer that is deafening in a car or
| living room won't sound loud in an open field. I suspect a
| motorcycle would be closer to the latter.
|
| But, I guess just research what others have done with their
| bikes. If no sub, then how long should
| frequencies on a 2 component speaker go? I have a
| choice of 60-80Hz as the lower limit.
|
| Neither is very deep. It's just hard to make bass in open
| spaces. The lowest string on a bass guitar with standard
| tuning is about 40hz, though most music is mastered to sound
| good on speakers that don't go that deep.
| Can non-marine grade speakers be made waterproof on the
| output side?
|
| That sounds impossible to me. To be waterproof you need a
| completely sealed enclosure and that rules out most speakers.
| Most non-weather proof speakers have ports (air holes)
| because it's the only way they can produce bass from a small
| size. But some sealed speakers have passive radiators instead
| of ports which accomplish the same thing.
| Will any of this compare to my Bose QC35s?
|
| Not even close.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The first point you make is really answering the question I
| was trying to ask, so thanks girl the efficient mind
| reading!
|
| I am happy with the current volume but clarity and taking
| out some of the "tin" out of the sound would be nice. I am
| looking at going from a 15W RMS per channel to 75W (amp was
| tested by a YouTuber to actually give about 89W before
| distortion kicks in), going into 100W RMS/200W peak
| speakers that do 60-20k Hz wit sensitivity of 91 dB. The
| speakers will also go from 5.25" to 6.5" so hoping that'll
| give them a less compressed sound.
|
| But sounds like I should be just riding in the Bose
| headphones anyways :)
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Yeah the JBL 305 is a kickass powered monitor, esp for the
| price. Pair that with a preamp and some rca -> trs cables and
| you've got a seriously good sounding setup.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is an absolute fortune worth of clocks in that room.
| defterGoose wrote:
| ...and mostly in the DACs I'd wager.
| bittercynic wrote:
| This guy's system and the room are true works of art. Part of me
| wants to criticize the extravagance of it, but he's clearly
| having a good time, and it really looks like fun!
| rusteh1 wrote:
| I'd be curious to see the typical rate of hearing degradation due
| to age graphed against typical income growth with age that would
| be required to support systems of this standard. Audiophiles are
| synonymous with diminishing returns, but I wonder if that is even
| more acute with age of the listener. Super cool nonetheless.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's precisely right, I figure the crossover would be
| somewhere between 30 and 40. Babies (and dogs) would be quite
| happy though.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| An excellent question.
|
| Hearing obviously (almost always) worsens with age, but it's
| not a linear degradation across the entire range of hearing,
| like adding random static noise to an entire television image.
| You can often still hear many/most frequencies very well even
| when experiencing moderate hearing loss.
|
| Moderate hearing loss is almost always more severe in the
| higher frequencies a.k.a. treble. For example I'm in my 40s,
| and my hearing's starting to become crap above 8khz.
|
| Meanwhile, the fundamental frequency of most musical content is
| quite a bit lower in the frequency range. The highest
| fundamental frequency of a standard piano with standard tuning
| is around 4khz, and most notes are an octave or five below
| that; "middle C" is usually defined as 262hz.
|
| So, still plenty to enjoy even if one's hearing is no longer
| pristine. typical rate of hearing degradation
| due to age graphed against typical income growth with
| age
|
| This correlation is not lost on speaker manufacturers. A lot of
| pricey speakers add (at least) a few extra dB of treble.
|
| None of the manufacturers will admit it, of course, but you
| can't convince me otherwise: I've always been certain this is
| an attempt to appeal to the degraded hearing capabilities of
| their aging+affluent customers.
| zw123456 wrote:
| Well, one man's snake oil is another man's hobby, or whatever. I
| am not there with him, but I kind of understand a little. I
| inherited a collection of rare jazz and classical 78's from my
| favorite uncle when I was 15 (1973), he was a DJ at a radio
| station at a liberal arts college. He was my favorite uncle
| because when everyone else at a family reunion was arguing about
| fords vs. chevy or whatever, he and I would be off talking about
| Jazz, Blues, Rock, and all kinds of things. I have treasured
| them, he also willed me his vintage Victrola. I have not played
| most of them to preserve them. I have been experimenting and
| working on how to record them without harming them for years and
| I think I am almost there. Optics is no good, I have tried that,
| but this is real vinyl and there is a reactivity and response of
| the material that optics does not capture. I have developed what
| I call a software defined turntable that uses an FPGA to
| dynamically select equalization and control the speed, which
| varies during recordings.
|
| Sorry, I am rambling. My point is, some of us are kooks, I guess.
| But, here is the thing, music can do that to a person. And other
| emotions. Never judge someone why they are obsessed, just enjoy
| the wonder of it.
|
| I love that guy, good for him, enjoy my fellow traveler, enjoy.
| [deleted]
| pg_bot wrote:
| This guy needs to write a book about audio engineering.
| m0zg wrote:
| He probably doesn't know much about it. Otherwise he'd buy a
| much simpler system akin to the ones studios use to record and
| mix the records. Given that he doesn't need the mixing console
| (which can be quite expensive), he could get a SOTA set up for
| well under $100K, and it'd likely sound much better. That
| includes acoustic treatments, but not "silver speaker wire".
| Copper works just fine.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| If you want to read "the" book on sound reproduction, this is
| rather indisputably it:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Lo...
|
| The book is backed by quite a few decades of research and
| controlled listening experiments with trained and untrained
| listeners. It really is authoritative.
|
| Dr. Toole is also very generous with his time on various audio
| forums and YouTube channels. So by all indications, you are
| also supporting a pretty decent human being.
| buescher wrote:
| It's a truly great book. Also a great sales pitch for Harman
| products.
| jarnold wrote:
| This isn't a documentary about hi-if equipment. It's a story
| about this man's obsession. The sacrifices and guilt now
| realized. Nearing the end of his life with a terminal illness --
| it's the reflection at the end that causes pause. How are your
| obsessions impacting you? Are they tearing you away from your
| family or friends? Are you happy with those choices made?
| Animats wrote:
| Is he an Instagrammer?
|
| The ultimate system was probably the one in the screening room at
| Dolby Labs on Potero in San Francisco. The _entire room_ was
| supported on anti-vibration mounts, isolated from the rest of the
| structure by an air gap. Outside that was a foot of acoustic
| insulation. The speakers are built into big chambers in the walls
| hidden by grille cloth screens. There 's a control and projection
| room at the back. You didn't even see the system. Which is the
| point. The equipment should not distract from the show.
|
| The room also had good enough acoustics that a speaker didn't
| need amplification to address 90 people.
|
| I was there once for a demo of spatial audio for video games. We
| could hear the enemies sneaking up behind us. They had full
| hemisphere speaker coverage.
|
| The room wasn't particularly luxurious. It was a working facility
| for the industry.
|
| Dolby has since moved to a larger facility and built a new,
| larger screening room. I haven't seen that one.
| dehrmann wrote:
| All the _room_ effort is a good point. This guy 's listening
| room appears to be an acoustically odd shape with a lot of
| hard, echoy surfaces. The room acoustics likely dominate any
| benefits he hears after the first $5,000.
|
| That said, I suspect he has more fun building the room than
| anything.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| The guy's room seems pretty good acoustically.
|
| The main thing is avoiding resonances / room modes. These
| will cause peaks and nulls in the frequency response that
| cannot be fixed with EQ. The primary way to do this is to
| avoid right angles; it looks like he has largely done this.
| In a more typical room where right angles are a fact of life,
| furnishings and bass traps can help with this.
|
| The (lack of) sound absorption is kind of a tricky issue to
| discuss in a brief manner.
|
| On an objective level w.r.t to room interactions, this guy's
| seating area is closer to the speakers than the side walls.
| That makes this a nearfield arrangement, meaning that the
| direct sound from the speakers will be greater in magnitude
| than reflected sound from the walls. This alone will minimize
| the effect of reflections.
|
| On a subjective level w.r.t. room interactions, somewhat
| counterintuitively the goal for enjoyable listening is not to
| create a purely anechoic room _totally_ free from room
| effects: this sounds unnatural and essentially just recreates
| a headphones listening experience. One can save a lot of
| money by strapping on a pair of headphones if that 's what's
| desired. The human brain is, frankly, rather amazing at doing
| its own "room correction" and hearing through room issues
| anyway, as long as they're not massive peaks and nulls.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's a nice room too for work with lasers to make holograms,
| the long exposure means vibration will kill the image.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > We could hear the enemies sneaking up behind us.
|
| Consumer audio is getting _really_ good at spatial audio. Like,
| surprisingly good. I just got a sub-$500 television, and haven
| 't hooked a soundbar up yet (just using TV audio). I was
| watching a movie with a scene in a cabin in the woods (not that
| one), and I was sitting by my window with my back to it. I
| started hearing birds chirping and wind blowing outside behind
| me, but when I looked out the window all was still. I realized
| it was the "outside the cabin" audio in that scene. My mind was
| absolutely blown.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I'd pay some decent money for time in that room! Maybe not a
| lot of money. But some. The entire room is
| supported on anti-vibration mounts, isolated from the
| rest of the structure by an air gap. Outside that is a
| foot of acoustic insulation.
|
| Tangentially: the noise floor in a "normal" residential room is
| one reason why technically inferior formats such as vinyl
| records continue to be enjoyed by many. By the numbers, vinyl
| is objectively inferior to many digital formats. However, the
| average residential room has a noise floor of something like
| 30-40dB anyway. So, under normal listening conditions, vinyl
| tends to sound quite good compared to modern technology.
|
| (edit) This could have been phrased better. What I meant was:
| when you look at "the specs", vinyl is vastly inferior to CD-
| quality digital audio. However, real world listening conditions
| render many of these advantages moot. For example, vinyl has a
| higher noise floor than CD audio - but this and other "flaws"
| of vinyl are essentially rendered moot thanks to real world
| listening/playback conditions that mask them.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| I don't understand, how does vinyl improve the noise floor
| issue?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I probably could have phrased that better.
|
| What I mean is:
|
| - vinyl is technically inferior to CD-quality digital
| audio, by a longshot
|
| - one reason among others is: vinyl's noise floor is higher
| than CD-quality digital audio
|
| - however, the "disadvantages" of vinyl are somewhat mooted
| by real-world listening and playback conditions. for
| example: the approx. 30-40dB noise floor present in many
| residential rooms. that environmental noise floor is going
| to mask a lot of vinyl's flaws, rendering them somewhat
| irrelevant in the real world.
| bittercynic wrote:
| I'd never considered this angle, but in a way a higher
| noise floor could be an advantage. If the noise on the
| recording medium drowns out traffic noise, the fridge,
| the heater, etc. it could make for a more immersive
| listening experience.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Hahaha. I don't think it quite works that way. Although,
| maybe it's because I bought an $25,000 audiophile
| dishwasher.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Vinyl's noise floor is heavily rumble-centric. We can't
| hear that as easily and when we do we can hear through it
| very easily. Also, our hearing's evolved to hear past
| intrusive transients like crackle or leaf rustling, so in
| every sense the noise floor of vinyl is incredibly
| deceptive.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Vinyl's noise floor is heavily rumble-centric.
|
| Yup. Additionally, this roughly correlates with the noise
| floor in a "typical" room. The walls themselves do a
| great job of attenuating high-frequency noise from
| outside the room. The outside noise that does penetrate
| into a closed room will be in the lower frequencies.
| Also, our hearing's evolved to hear past intrusive
| transients like crackle or leaf rustling, so in
| every sense the noise floor of vinyl is incredibly
| deceptive.
|
| Very well put.
| jonahbenton wrote:
| Say more? It would sound worse in a more acoustically refined
| setting because the noise in a vinyl playback would be more
| evident?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| My initial post wasn't phrased very well; my apologies. I
| edited it for (hopefully) increased clarity.
|
| You are absolutely correct. In an acoustically refined
| setting such as this (or, with a nice pair of headphones)
| the differences between vinyl and digital would be more
| obvious.
|
| However, in a more typical residential setting with
| background noise and non-ideal acoustics the differences
| are masked and mooted to a large extent.
| jonahbenton wrote:
| Thanks. I am puzzling about this because of the
| experience of visiting a friend's this weekend, playing
| records on his turntable. Old records, low end turntable
| and speakers, but bizarrely the listening experience was
| strikingly better- more engaging, transporting,
| interesting- than my higher end digital setup. The
| records were noisy, to be sure, but it was almost that I
| could hear through the noise to actual musicians playing
| actual instruments. Like the cocktail party effect, my
| brain was more engaged by the experience of listening.
| Makes me wonder if adding noise to a digital system would
| for some use cases improve the experience.
| Animats wrote:
| Much of the unreality of modern recordings is collateral
| damage from the loudness wars.[1] For noisy environments
| like cars and for casual listening, lots of dynamic range
| compression helps. Most recordings are made for that
| market.
|
| You can get more dynamic range from the hardware than
| most listening environments support. This is a problem
| for serious music. Even for serious loud rock music.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Move 2 feet on either side and there goes the entire premise of
| all these high fidelity amplifiers and drivers. I see absolutely
| zero sound proofing. At this point this guy should be building an
| anachoic chamber, I only kid slighly.
|
| The more I learn about hi-fi, the more bullshit I hear. There is
| no nice way to put this.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Stories like this aren't representative of reality.
|
| Obviously, when you coverage such as this, it tends to focus on
| outlandish examples such as this guy who has poured an absolute
| fortune into his stereo system.
|
| It's the same way with any hobby. If somebody has two cats,
| it's not news. If they have fifty cats, it's news. Those kinds
| of cat owners obviously exist but they are on the fringe.
| Replace "cats" with "cars" or "guitars" or any other thing you
| like.
|
| There is a growing trend of objectivism in the audio hobby.
| Performance can be measured in objective ways and it turns out
| that generally speaking, it's all just _signal reproduction_
| and the more accurately you do this, the better it sounds. An
| objectively well-performing system can be put together for just
| a few hundred USD at retail prices.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Also, the top-end of live performance has moved up. Whether
| it's the amazing line array designs for huge gigs, or
| Funktion One intensely loud horn-loaded designs, we get very
| impressive results these days.
|
| This is one reason audio quality is experiencing a
| renaissance. If you have a club system that will CLEANLY hit
| 120 dB on transient peaks and you've got it cranked up and
| there's space in the mix, it's easy to hear where 16 bit
| audio leaves off (and mp3 is completely not to be thought of,
| a real bozo move).
|
| Mind you, you've got to mix and master stuff correctly to use
| that to full effect, but some do :)
| JohnBooty wrote:
| If you have a club system that will CLEANLY hit
| 120 dB on transient peaks
|
| A very underrated aspect of audio reproduction.
|
| I've got a big ol' pair of 3-way "monkey coffin" speakers
| in my garage as a secondary system. Horn tweeters, 15"
| woofers. Frequency response is smooth through the vocal
| range but overall, kind of a mess. Manfacturer cleams
| 95dB/watt efficiency which is probably somewhat of a lie,
| but they do get punishingly loud with very little power and
| will happily take a few hundred watts' worth of juice.
|
| Generally I am an objectivist and in many ways this system
| objectively sucks. And yet, it's a blast to listen to.
| While not hitting 120dB, it _can_ actually sort of begin to
| approximate the dynamic range of live instruments like
| drums. Something that simply can 't be achieved without
| serious firepower. Mind you, you've got
| to mix and master stuff correctly to use that to
| full effect, but some do :)
|
| Amen. This is actually where I basically... hit my personal
| end of the road when it came to buying audio equipment.
|
| My setups aren't extravagant or expensive, and there is
| some room for audible improvement, but basically I was
| hitting the limits of: my listening room, my ears, and like
| you said -- the recorded material itself. Very little
| recorded material outside of the classical realm is
| recorded and mastered in a way that would IMO reward
| further investment in my systems.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Depends on what kinds of genres you enjoy. It's real
| tough to find rock/pop/mainstream/big-room/etc. music
| that'll make sense with big dynamics, anymore. Especially
| 'loud' genres have been overloudenated for decades and
| it's tough to put that genie back in the bottle.
|
| If you're interested in house or techno music, though,
| there are entire genres/artists that leave a lot of
| space, and those would sound incredible in your garage :)
|
| There's a guy who's got a blog post calling out 'what
| nobody tells you and admits about Funktion One', which,
| he says, is that they sound bad when there's 'a lot going
| on in the midrange', which he calls 'resolution'. And his
| example, which is his own stuff, is fine but the dynamics
| are real bad and everything's a clogged up mess that
| doesn't ever budge from 'full volume'. I've got a mixing
| system that's known-good at being able to resolve what's
| really in a mix, and it can both resolve 'very dense
| layers of midrange' and the kind of open, transient-heavy
| stuff that works on Funktion One. And he's got another,
| very different, example of stuff suited to the expensive
| high-dynamics speakers, and that sounds utterly different
| and also fantastic on my speakers... and great on the
| Funktion Ones, and most likely in your garage.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Funeral home vibes in this man's house. But nice system.
|
| World's Second Best Speakers!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEh01PX-q9I
|
| DIY option.
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