More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

[TonyRPH]

Le TVR said:

Chassis is DIY too.
Offcuts of 2 and 4mm alu sheet and big box of heatsink units that I found at a scrap metal dealer!

You did a good job! It looks quite professional.

Many moons ago I hand fabricated a chassis using aluminium angle and some plain panels, with some heatsinks I bought.

I don't really have the patience to scratch build chassis any more though!

I used to etch my own boards too - but find that to be too much of a chore now - and it's so cheap to buy from China these days, there's not much point really.

[TonyRPH]

So, I was browsing Ebay today and I felt obliged to share this magnificent product.

Do vinyl LPs contain enough (any??) metal particles to warrant demagnetisation?

And I thought the substrate on CDs was aluminium, a non ferrous metal, and hence cannot contain a magnetic field?

All yours for £176 + postage!!!

Advert said:

Magnetically Optimizes CDs/DVDs/LPs

Magnetic fields and static electricity can greatly affect audio and video playback equipment and source material. The Talisman temporarily dissipates magnetic fields and static electricity allowing the phono cartridge or laser reader to transmit a purer, more accurate signal.

Use the Talisman to treat LPs, CDs, SACDs and DVDs. Distortion will be lowered and the sound will be more realistic. The soundstage will open up with improved depth and transparency. You will get more information without glare or harshness. Dynamics will improve and the harmonics will sound more natural. With video, you will get improved colors, focus and depth of image. The Talisman requires no batteries or power cords and never needs recharging.

[TonyRPH]

qube_TA said:

If it's anti-static device then it'll stop your LP's fluffing up as quickly.

Yes, but the advert claims "Magnetically Optimizes CDs/DVDs/LPs"...

[TonyRPH]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

As someone who likes quality playback, I don't really care what happens in the studio, so long as the final outcome is a recording of good quality.

Sadly, a large percentage of the time, this is not the case - and this is not down to poor quality studio equipment, but the final mastering process, where levels are pushed up way to high.

I tinker with my system, but I've never been inclined to spend vast amounts of money on cables and other so called 'enhancements'.

I just like to give the recording the best chance to sound good.

Sadly though, it truly is a case of 'garbage in, garbage out' with so much stuff today.

It is refreshing when an artist / producer will make the effort to ensure that what we hear at home is a pretty good facsimile of what was heard in the studio.

[TonyRPH]

Is Planet Rock still a 64k stream?

The last time I listened, it sounded fecking awful.

I searched (and found) and alternate stream which claimed to be 128k, but I think they were simply streaming the original 64k stream at 128k...

[TonyRPH]

If you have an eclectic taste in music - Radio Paradise is worth a listen.

No adverts either - just music, music, and more music!

And they have some very high quality streams too.

[TonyRPH]

gpo746 said:

haha I know its not audio so you can have a go if you want but this caught my eye
I cant think theres anything wrong with ours as it is

http://www.whathifi.com/news/russ-andrews-tunes-up...

And some great comments there about it too lol.

[TonyRPH]

Playback in the home is always going to be a compromise anyway.

There are so many variables to consider and I think the best one can hope for is a reasonable facsimile of the original sound as heard in the studio.

Likewise - when a live performance is mastered - surely said performance is being monitored and mixed in the same way as a studio recording?

So who's to say that what the engineer is hearing is an accurate rendition of the live performance? After all, he can hardly go out into the stage area and compare the sound with what he's hearing through the monitors in his mixing environment can he?

So at the end of the day - if, when you sit down and listen to a performance on your home system (live or studio recording) you're satisfied with what you're hearing, that's all that matters surely?

[TonyRPH]

Crackie said:

You can't better what's on the disc; any difference is a deviation from what the artist, recording engineer, producer, mixer, etc wanted. The very best systems can approach the levels where live and recorded are indistinguishable but as has been said earlier in the thread, many recordings are not produced to sound like the artist is playing live in your home.

I don't think anyone is trying to better what's on disc - that would be impossible.

Garbage in - garbage out.

As I stated earlier in the thread - I just want to give the disc the best chance to sound as good as it can, and I believe that going to extremes with cables etc. is a waste, preferring to optimise the equipment I have with careful siting, keeping discs and contacts clean etc.

Crackie said:

Most domestic systems will never get close recreating a realistic performance because very few are capable of generating the SPLs and dynamics that real instruments can. eg. 88db speaker + 100w amp still only capable of 105db when listening 2m away. Real instruments are capable of well over 120db+ ; the same 88db speakers would need a 6310w amp to make 120db at 2m.

That's a fair comment - but having had a three piece band playing in my 12' x 13' living room, I wouldn't want such high levels anyway - the live band was *way* too loud, so I can't see the point of aiming for such high levels.

I had had various amps of various output power over the years, and one amp in particular (a NAD 2200) was capable of silly output power (150w + per channel into 4 ohms) and when used with my old Paradigm Monitor 7 speakers, I could wind it up that loud that I wanted to retreat from the room.

Personally - with speakers of an average efficiency, anything over 60w per channel is enough in my room.

Obviously, those of us lucky enough to own a mansion will need far greater power.

ETA: On the subject of cables ewtc. - I recently 'built' a mains filter with parts pillaged from an APC 3kW UPS.

I was actually quite dissapointed when testing it in my system.

1) Did it make the sound "darker"? - No.
2) Did it make the sound better? - No.
3) Did it reduce interference? - I don't know - because my mains is pretty clean anyway.

Here's picture for those interested...

Edited by TonyRPH on Thursday 13th June 09:10

[TonyRPH]

Just while people who may possibly be involved with the recording industry are reading this topic...

I started this thread which I will reproduce below.

Any offers of help welcome!

TonyRPH said:

As per the title, I'm looking for anyone who has access to a Dolby 'A' and DBX decoder.

I have a CD that has a really odd sound contour on it - it almost sounds like playing a Dolby encoded tape back with Dolby switched out (but slightly different) - or possibly even DBX encoded material without a DBX encoder.

So I was wondering if I could make a rip of said CD available - could somebody run a couple of tracks through the above mentioned decoders to see if it improves things?

I think it's unlikely a record company would release a CD without putting it through the correct decoding first, but stranger things have happened!!

Oh, and I have tried running it through 'sox' and applying de-emphasis - as that was my first thought - and although this improved matters - it still sounds wrong (very bright and sibilant).

For those wondering - the CD concerned is Yes - Live from house of blues.

TIA.

[TonyRPH]

Globs said:

<snip>
The old Elvis era recordings etc. are quite revealing too - sometimes it's difficult to work out where commercial audio has improved since then.

I have some Frank Sinatra stuff on CD too - the quality is amazing, given that much of it was recorded in the 60's.

Globs said:

I suppose the digital era is more flexible, but then the same record companies fought tooth and nail against using that, and still insist on us buying non error corrected lexan disks with limited sample rates, pitiful bit densities and waveforms that are severely clipped and compressed.

It's pretty sad than most multi-million dollar films on DVD are cheaper and have better sound quality than a simple audio CD.

I agree with the DVD vs CD sound quality issue. I have actually ripped some tracks off my Crossroads DVD and written them to CD - I was knocked out by the quality of the sound emanating from supposedly inferior CD...

[TonyRPH]

Funk said:

I'm thinking about a change of speakers.

No need.

Rub some snake oil on to your left arm.

Stand on your right foot with your head at 90 degrees and listen.

You'll see - you won't need new speakers.

There, I've just saved you some money.

[TonyRPH]

In the distant past, I seem to recall somebody reading the spdif stream from a CD player into a file on a PC and then perfoming a comparison of repeated reads, and the files were found to be different.

This will of course depend on how good a condition the CD is in the first place, as a scratched CD will potentially require more error correction, and (presumably) said error correction is not 100% consistent across plays.

Whether or not we can hear these differences is a moot point.

However, reading bits form a CD should be relatively trivial these days, given the bit density of a Blu Ray disk vs. a CD.

If reading a CD was as difficult as some suppose it to be, then reading a Blu Ray disk should be even more prone to error, which clearly it isn't.

[TonyRPH]

qube_TA said:

The thing is you can't really take 'bit-perfect digital copies' from CD's as they're downscaled from the master recordings which are all 24bit.
<snip>

An article I read a few months back (source forgotten), implied that most studios were still only getting 20bit at this point in time.

[TonyRPH]

robbyd said:

Harmonics and overtones are what shape a sound though - otherwise a flute would sound the same as a violin, so there's got to be an argument for recording and playback above what we can hear, no?

Even so, a flute playing middle C is about 262Hz.

The 5th harmonic of that is 1310Hz (1.31kHz).

Easily reproducible by any CD player.

And if you can even hear the 5th harmonic, I'd be surprised.

A violin can probably produce notes in the 2 - 4kHz range - again the 5th harmonic would be 20kHz - and the amplitude would be so low as to be practically inaudible I think.

The above assumes that the primary frequency is the first harmonic.

So the harmonic argument is pretty moot IMHO.

[TonyRPH]

Mr_Yogi said:

AFAIK there are no DAC's which are impervious to jitter on the SPDif interface, and all transports have some jitter. There are some intersting articles on the web explaining the problems. And I can definately say all transports do not sound the same. Even adding a linear power supply to the Squeezebox touch, which as acting purely as a transport made an obvious difference.

But what you're hearing is not the difference in transport - it's the interaction between the transport and the DAC.

If you looked at the resulting stream with an Oscilloscope / spectrum analyzer, you'd see an indentical stream, even with the 'enhanced' PSU.

The difference in sound is caused by interaction between the PSU, transport and DAC. This could be an earth loop, RF interference or just a poor interface* between DAC and transport.

• imho this is the cause of many issues.

[TonyRPH]

Mr_Yogi said:

Yep pretty much agree with that, but seeing as you can't separate the transport from the digital output and power supply I don't see as it's really worth looking at the CD transport mechanisum in isolation. I was talking about a CD transport as the whole box.

So you mean a CD player really, rather than a transport?

[TonyRPH]

Mr_Yogi said:

No, I ment CD transport

CD transport - transport mechanisum (disc reading thing with laser and spindle), Power supply/s, SPDif or other digital audio transponder (think that's the correct term), digital clock.

As opposed to

CD player - transport mechanisum, power supply/s, DAC, digital clock, analogue output stages, etc.

Ok, but then we could break it down even further, into the actual mechanical transport and then the associated servo circuitry, laser focus etc. etc.

Where do you stop?

I think that when most here refer to a transport, they are referring to the transport as a whole - e.g. only considering the SPDIF output stream.

You could break it down further an consider the I2C component, but that's getting a little too technical IMHO.

The CD mechanism / laser assembly itself is nothing without some kind of control electronics (servo etc.) anyway.

So I'm not quite sure where you're coming from.

[TonyRPH]

gizlaroc said:

TonyRPH said:

Ok, but then we could break it down even further, into the actual mechanical transport and then the associated servo circuitry, laser focus etc. etc.

Where do you stop?

I think that when most here refer to a transport, they are referring to the transport as a whole - e.g. only considering the SPDIF output stream.

You could break it down further an consider the I2C component, but that's getting a little too technical IMHO.

The CD mechanism / laser assembly itself is nothing without some kind of control electronics (servo etc.) anyway.

So I'm not quite sure where you're coming from.

You're missing the point completely.

The 'official' term for a player that outputs digitally is called a 'transport'.

That is what people were discussing,

That could be a CD transport, digital media file transport etc. etc.


And when people say they all sound the same that is simply incorrect.

Edited by gizlaroc on Thursday 20th March 18:52

How am I missing the point? I was responding in part to Mr_Yogi who (to my mind at least) was talking about a CD transport rather than a transport in general.

I know that a device that only outputs an SPDIF / digital signal is referred to as a transport - I only repaired that kind of stuff for about 12 years or so, so I think I know the difference...

[TonyRPH]

Mr_Yogi said:

Funk said:

I can't do this any more.

Anyone who says one digital stream can sound different to the same digital stream from another device is just....well.....like I say, I'm out.

So have you listened to different digital transports through the same system?

I tend to agree with Funk.

I have several different players, some have been extensively modified too.

When used as a transport, I cannot tell any difference through the same DAC.

To me, there's also no discernible difference between my Squeezebox and the CD players used as transports.

Just maybe, my system doesn't have sufficient resolution to tell the difference, or maybe my ears don't.

But my son, (a budding musician) can't hear any difference either.