Audiophile retardation thread

Spending shit ton of money on equipment while having no gain & setting it up in a room with zero acoustics.

Give me your thoughts Sup Forums

Other urls found in this thread:

conradhoffman.com/troubleshoottut.htm
coconut-audio.com/
audiophilereview.com/audiophile-news/why-double-blind-testing-cant-work-for-audio.html
twitter.com/AnonBabble

Sup Forums is full of hypocrite retards who laugh at people who buy monster cables and then go and spend thousands of dollars on tube-amps and DAC's and listen to 24bit vinyl rips.

External DAC's is 100% snakeoil as your soundcard/mobo's DAC/ADC are just as good (dedicated headphone amp can be beneficial though), tube amps are retarded and valve amps are even better for listening to music, anything above 16b/44.1kHz is snakeoil for listening to music. Generally anything "high-end hi-fi" is snakeoil, apart from speakers (though most "hi-fi" speakers are ridiculously overpriced for how they sound like).

why is that cable so thicc bros

you're just as retarded for continuing to post these fucking threads, and you guys thought desktop threads were bad

Is this a fucking power cable?

Does he not realise that on the other end of the socket it looks at best like this?

I have a retarded audio question so I guess it fits the thread:

When listening to music in my car through aux, is it better to tune my music players graphic EQ, or my car head units EQ?

By the thumbnail, I thought it was some kind of lizard/anaconda snake.

if they realized that, they wouldn't be audiophiles

You need moar tube

...

The truth about audiophile world is the more you invest money into your system the less it becomes about sound and the more it becomes about aesthetic.

The actual best perceivable difference in audio quality happens in the lower price bracket between $0-$5k and generally tapers off beyond a certain point. That's not to downplay other exceptions like speakers designed for industry use in studios, etc, but this is a different market altogether and equipment is expected to be expensive. I've heard lots of professional systems but I and others typically agree that the 'sound you get for the price' begins to fall off right about the $5-$8k mark, again, with some exceptions. This phenomena is the law of diminishing returns.

Why dont you test it out?
Good sound in a car needs good speakers so before throwing a massive Subwoofer in, better upgrade the frontsystem.

My Xperia has a godlike build in EQ that gives out clear sound with clear bass so i use that with my trunk-1000W-sub at 20% and it is almost perfect.

>forgot pic

Is this the /audiogeneral/ ?
Help me out boys, there is some weird distortion in the left channel when I play quiet passages
How fix

Why those cables have fucking stands?

>1000W sub
For when your neighbour's neighbour's neighbours need to hate you

dont ask here go to /diy/ they have actual knowledge and might help you

Well there's also the fact that no matter how much you invest in your system, at some point the acoustics of the room you have it in will stone wall you from getting any real gains. Then you have to renovate the room, and that can easily get into double the worth of any system just to get very little gain.

Also I'm going to start selling audiophile equipment and just wrap normal wires in electrical tape until its roughly the size of my forearm and sell it at huge profit.

Surely audiophiles build their house from the ground up with the finest wiring and acoustics.

OP is just jelly.

...

>External DAC's is 100% snakeoil as your soundcard/mobo's DAC/ADC are just as good

the external dacs which cost more usually have more features than onboard dacs, and sometimes better shielding -- the differences are not always appreciable unless a user needs the added features

also, not everyone wants to lug around a laptop just for the dac

the preamp in your music player may be power-limited, while your car stereo preamp may more formidable -- it really depends on which two units you're using specifically

is that a rotel

Multi strand wire in the walls....what hell hole do you live in

>this is what people with fucked up eardrums actually believe

Go away it literaly makes no difference.

Adcom

As a professional musician I frequently spend shit tons of money on equiptment and set it up in rooms with zero acoustics. although gain has never been a problem for me. ive got gain to spare

I think spending a fortune on gear to listen to already mixed and mastered music is stupid. I get no more pleasure out of hearing my favorite song through a large pa system than I do through cheap earbuds.

If you're monitoring your own instrument though said gear then thats a totally different story. I say leave the audiophila to the musicians and producers

Audiophile shit is ridiculous, ho's just want to shake their ass to the bass and hear things swoosh by in movies. $60 7.1 dts setup, speakers were free just needed a new x over, found the denon avr-987 at a thriftshop for $7.99, Rest is a Kenwood 5.1 setup that had a broken amp, $15 from a garage sale, been working great for 5 or so years.

spend some money on treating your room

its worth it

conradhoffman.com/troubleshoottut.htm

This is a good read.
Especially the section about finding the "why" behind the symptoms.
A very cheap thing you can try is just deoxit/ contact cleaner on all switches and pots. I have a kenwood ka 3500 i got for $30 on my local classifieds that had issues with the right channel putting out sound. I played with the unit for a bit and realized flipping the tape monitor switch a few times would bring it back, although it would randomly cut out.
A litttle contact cleaner and now it works more or leas flawlessly minus an unusually lound noise floor. Though thats probably due to some of the transistors which are known for going noisey over time or caps with excessive dc leakage.

Pic related.

hahahahah no my onboard chip has noticeable distortion

So comfy

Ayy I've been waiting for a thread like this. You guys know anything about turntables? I've got one almost set up. (missing the speakers and amp) and I want some buying advice. I have a pretty good preamp and wanted some recommendations on amps.

Also Bowie albums are still $150. Think the remasters are alright? Or are they just Digital to analog pressings?

Certainly. Music is produced to sound the best on a wide variety of sources. The notion that there is a kind of ultimate sound reproduction is silly seeing that the production is a compromise to the sound on PA systems and earbuds and cheap speakers.

>every music producer on earth does this
There's always exceptions to this. Some artists make music that's really only meant to be listened to through high quality equipment. Just because big record labels need to cater to plebs with $5 earbuds doesn't mean everyone does.

>soundcard/mobo's DAC/ADC are just as good
Non-budget tier's may be, but the problem is not the mobo's DAC itself but the PSU that can't deliver good enough power to that DAC when it is also feeding other power hungry components

i shed a tear when coconut closed down
coconut-audio.com/

That's because of user error, you haven't installed your components properly or you're not using a grounded outlet or something.

>Non-budget tier's may be
All consumer-class sound cards/mobo's use "good" DAC/ADC's. There really isn't any "budget DAC" IC's that manufacturers use because a DAC is a small cheap component that you can pick up at an electronics store for a dollar or two. More expensive ones aren't for better sound quality but for higher bit-/samplingrate for professional studio/mastering applications. You don't get better sound quality by changing DAC.
>but the problem is not the mobo's DAC itself but the PSU that can't deliver good enough power to that DAC when it is also feeding other power hungry components
You have no idea what you're talking about. A DAC has a power load of probably a few mW tops.

Maybe you cant hear it, but I can so you should spend >9000 Shekels on your Audio setup

ffs learn to read mouthbreather. quality of the power that psu's deliver is just not good enough, too much ripple and noise in the dc lines that feed that dac for high quality audio

Add more capacitors.

>why is that cable so thicc bros


It's a custom made power cord. Seriously, a power cord for some nut job audiofreaks DAC.

They literally think they can clean up the electricity for better sounding audio.

Also, you see those wooden mounts the power cord is on, they're supposed to be some sort of anti-vibration mount to keep the electricity from bouncing around and causing distortion.

The wooden mounts probably cost $300 a piece, and the custom power cord, probably anywhere between $2K - $5K.

I shit you not, these audiophile freaks are bat fucking shit insane.

>Lets make fun of the rich because they can afford equipment and technology while all we can afford is a 50 dollar used chinkpad from 1996 and put a shitty freegan OS on it!

I'll make fun of someone for sticking a huge 000ga triple shielded, foil wrapped monster on their wall when the living area in their home is wired with some no name 12/2 nmc wiring and taking power straight from the box.

>better shielding
>better shielding
>better shielding
>better shielding
fucking idiot audiophile kys

I'd rather make fun of the rich because they buy things that do literally nothing and then imagine they hear an improvement.

Hey, I could set my money on fire and it would be an equally worthwhile use of it.

>External DAC's is 100% snakeoil as your soundcard/mobo's DAC/ADC are just as good
There's a good chance your mobo's onboard sound isn't great. I've had issues with noise and just generally poor quality on a cheap board and horrific driver issues with a Creative chip.

I don't see what is special about an external DAC though. If you can find a decent one for cheaper than a decent sound card, why not just buy it?

I'm not an expert on professional recording, but I'm pretty sure you need some kind of external interface for it though.

>tube amps are retarded and valve amps are even better for listening to music
valve amps are tube amps. I don't see anything silly about coloring the sound with a tube. It seems a bit wasteful to do the entire amp with tubes though; the only reason guitar amps do that is because they intentionally make the amp clip, which sounds better with tubes.

>$100000 audio system
>Music playing recorded on a $1,50 microphone


But the system makes a difference right

...

I know it's probably a bait, but "just because your inferior ears can't tell a differece between $5K and $5 power cable doesn't mean mine can't either" is actually a common argument by audiophiles. There's a very simple way of determining once and for all whether it's true or not: double blind test. For some reason, no fucking audiophile ever is willing to take one. I wonder why.

>There's a good chance your mobo's onboard sound isn't great. I've had issues with noise and just generally poor quality on a cheap board and horrific driver issues with a Creative chip.
That's not because the DAC is inferior, it's because you're using ungrounded sockets or some shitty case without proper shielding or something. Besides, it's the amp that is affected. Not the DAC.

>I don't see what is special about an external DAC though. If you can find a decent one for cheaper than a decent sound card, why not just buy it?
You still need a sound card though. Why not just buy it? Because it makes no difference as long as you're using a proper case and grounding. An external amplifier can make a difference however, and that may or may not come with a DAC/ADC. I guess a lot of people don't really know the difference.

>I'm not an expert on professional recording, but I'm pretty sure you need some kind of external interface for it though.
For professional recording it's more about the connectability, you want XLR for mics and high-Z for instruments etc. Can be internal or external, in my experience USB is more of a hassle than internal. More points of possible failure.


>valve amps are tube amps. I don't see anything silly about coloring the sound with a tube. It seems a bit wasteful to do the entire amp with tubes though; the only reason guitar amps do that is because they intentionally make the amp clip, which sounds better with tubes.
Shit I meant transistor amps. Yeah that's my point, tubes color the sound in a way that is desirable for some applications like guitar amps etc. But it's not desirable in a stereo system, especially if you try to be "hi-fi" about it. I mean tubes makes the system have LESS fidelity. But yeah they look expensive and glow in that cool way so dumbs are gonna buy it. You can sell anything to "hi-fi" retards.

>it's because you're using ungrounded sockets
That was not the case.
>some shitty case without proper shielding or something
also not the case.
>Besides, it's the amp that is affected. Not the DAC.
I can't exactly separate those things, so it makes the onboard sound an issue.

>You still need a sound card though
No, you can just plug in a USB interface and get sound from it. I bought a Fiio E10 (overpriced garbage) when my laptop's sound started making a hissing noise. No sound card required.

>For professional recording it's more about the connectability
I plugged my guitar into my computer once, it clipped like crazy. Most recording people recommend some special DI box for guitars.

Also I didn't know they made internal professional recording cards. I thought audio professionals needed physical knobs on everything.

>tubes color the sound in a way that is desirable for some applications like guitar amps etc. But it's not desirable in a stereo system
For guitar amps it's a lot less about coloring and more about the overdrive. I don't see why coloring the sound is bad for a stereo system if you enjoy it. That's why some come with eqs.

The standard setup for headphone tube amps seems to be using a tube as a buffer to color the sound, then using a standard solid state amp, unless you buy something really high end. I don't see why having a full amp made of tubes actually helps anything.

>No, you can just plug in a USB interface and get sound from it. I bought a Fiio E10 (overpriced garbage) when my laptop's sound started making a hissing noise. No sound card required.
Then it's literally a sound card and not a "DAC".

>I plugged my guitar into my computer once, it clipped like crazy. Most recording people recommend some special DI box for guitars.
Either that or a interface that can handle high-Z inputs yeah.

>Also I didn't know they made internal professional recording cards. I thought audio professionals needed physical knobs on everything.
Why would you need physical knobs?

This is a legit problem in (albeit rare) some cases. Just look up buzz, hum, whine, etc. from motherboard audio.
It's generally from a somewhat faulty motherboard, but the issue can happen.
I've even seen complaints of dedicated audio cards causing problems.

Sure 10kV are the same as 120V

>Then it's literally a sound card and not a "DAC".
You could buy a separate external DAC and amplifier, which are separate units. I'm not sure what your point with needing a sound card anyway is.

>Why would you need physical knobs?
because everything has physical knobs in the music world. My guitar amp that is most digitally controlled has knobs for everything.

DAC stands for digital to analog converter. If you use an analog output from your sound card, it is indeed a DAC.

>Then it's literally a sound card and not a "DAC".
A sound card is literally a DAC if it has analog outputs, regardless of whether it's internal or external. There's one in your phone, your motherboard, your TV, everything that might play audio from a digital source has a DAC.

I know that but it's actually super rare
if your shit is humming send it in and get new shit
if you can't send it in because of that it's time to fucking leave america

If you live in Canada, buying a cheap sound card is usually much cheaper than RMAing a motherboard. Shipping both ways to the US is going to be at least $40.

>just because people want more money doesnt mean theyre gonna try to get more money

>ALL AMPLIFIERS TOOOOOOOOTATLLYYYYYYYY SOUND DIFFERENT BECAUSE THEY ALL HAVE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT OUTPUT IMPEDANCE that makes slight changes in bass response OMFG 5000$ CLASS A IS ENTRY LEVEL!!!!!!!!!!!!

hear's your (You)

I own a set of logitech z5500 computer speakers

except apparently logitech doesnt actually care about making good electronics, because it picks up FM stations and plays them over the speakers the entire time it's powered on.

>all this money that could have been spent for amazing screens
>or a sweet custom watercooled PC setup
>or a top of the line super fast home network
>or indestructible premium wood furniture
>or anything useful really
>wasted on sound gear

>hear's
AYYYY LMAO

those are all equally as placebo as audiophile gear

A monitor with higher resolution, refresh rate or color accuracy isn't a placebo.

>implying humans can sense refresh rates above 60
>implying humans can see benefits from increases in pixel density beyond their resolution limit (which many monitors are already at)
>implying human color detection isn't incredibly adaptive by default so that it's almost impossible for the human eye to detect whether colors are truly right
they're absolutely placebo

It was a thing on pretty much every motherboard with onboard audio up to 2006 or something like that. I had to use an old soundblaster card to eliminate the buzzing and humming. Nowadays the onboard audio don't do that.

>double blind test
audiophilereview.com/audiophile-news/why-double-blind-testing-cant-work-for-audio.html
Feel free to try again.

there is no resolution limit if you make the monitor bigger.

I've been laughed at so many times here for saying this, but why you people aren't passing audio from a digital device to a digital device via HDMI boggles my fucking mind.
You dont have to worry about DACs, filtering, noise/interference, signal degradation, etc.etc.etc.

And if the counterargument is the only way many of you listen to music is through headphones then man, am I sorry for you people.

>And if the counterargument is the only way many of you listen to music is through headphones then man, am I sorry for you people
I am in university. I live in a house with 4 others. I headphones are the only option. They're also pretty cheap for a good sound, compared to speakers.

Human ears are not digital, senpai.

Can you elaborate? Don't you still need a DAC to decode that signal from the hdmi

>what is s/pdif?

That article is completely nonsensical, and you should feel bad for posting it.

A valid case, for sure, just dont be those people who flame others for having another opinion on it.

I trust the hardware on my receiver more than almost every DAC worth buying. Beyond a certain point you get into the area where the extra money does nothing for perceived quality anyways.

Yeah yeah in the end it has to get converted somewhere in the chain. My point is that bypassing onboard to begin with eliminates first-order problems. Using analog from a PC to a receiver is terrible, slapping a DAC between a PC and a receiver is just stupid.

>what's something hardly anybody uses anymore?

Are you implying that transporting analogue signals through like rca cables for example degrade the signal enough for it to be noticeable?

>I trust the hardware on my receiver more than almost every DAC worth buying
How much did your receiver cost though?

The argument here is getting the most quality out of your sound. I'm no longer going to argue about straight PC > Headphone transport, that's been addressed.

Removing cans from the equation it's simply retarded to use anything but a pure digital link which bypasses any on board or added in audio device. S/PIDF user was right to make a point but we've superseded that connection with HDMI, S/PIDF itself cannot support the bandwidth for true multi channel high bitrate audio now anyways and itself has dependencies on the source hardware.

How much is a quality 7.2 channel DAC with multiple industry format options for surround decoding?

>get proven wrog
>I-IT'S NONSENSICAL...

> be an audiophile
> come up with bullshit science explanations of why $5K cables improve audio quality
> brag about how the difference can only be detected by superior audiophile ears
> come up with bullshit science explanations of why they can't take a simple test to prove it
Fucking comedy gold.

>didn't read the article
Please stop wasting my time until you actually know what you're talking about.

Even though I know what you're talking about I'd still rather trust my O2 than a random dac chip in a random receiver that I don't have any knowledge about

nice trips, but that's retarded. Do research before you buy a receiver.

>what if we use speakers
lol cant do that
>what if we use 2 speakers
lol cant do that
>what if we use headphones
lol cant do that..wait that'd work...shit
>what if we use music with headphones
lol cant do that

also

>And for the other stuff, the things like simple comparisons of single frequency relative amplitude? Well, yeah, it may be possible to do a valid blind test of them, but so what, and who cares? For information like that, it's both easier and more accurate to just hook them to a meter and get whatever information you might want directly! Why bother with any other kind of testing at all?

much proof very science

>Tumblr-tier game reaction image

Oh, you're just baiting, then. Carry on.

Well can you supply some measurements of the unit you're using? So many fucking models out there almost none of them are well documented

Sorry, the correct answer was "You can't find 7.2 channel standalone DACs with industry format support" because they dont exist. Considering the O2, at that price ($280??? O.O), it would cost as much as any decent yet "cheap" receiver anyways.

With that O2 it looks to me like you're simply getting the equivalent of an expensive underpowered amp and paying a premium for it designed only for headphones. I'm not trying to shit on it, I'd probably get something like that though not as costly if I had really good phones.

>Considering the O2, at that price ($280??? O.O)
The O2 is like $130. The O2 + ODAC costs $280. You can buy the ODAC separately, which would probably be ideal for a line in on a receiver.

>The wooden mounts probably cost $300 a piece, and the custom power cord, probably anywhere between $2K - $5K

Dude where the fuck do you live? Those wooden things shouldn't cost more than 10 bucks each, maybe 20 if they're made of some fancy wood and bought on a fancy store.

I have no idea of what are the components of that chord, but I really doubt it's more than 800 bucks.

I don't even know what fucking game it's from, you twit.

>maybe 20 if they're made of some fancy wood and bought on a fancy store
20 is pretty small for fancy woods. Woods like Ebony and Walnut are pretty expensive.

> I really doubt it's more than 800 bucks
I'm guessing you've never been to the coconut audio website

Again, and for the last time, your only audio transport connection should be an all digital high bandwidth, bypassing the source's audio hardware directly, straight to an inclusive receiver device. Why you would want to put a DAC in the way is beyond me.

>i-i-im not a retarded manchild...i-i swear it guise

I wasn't arguing that. I was just pointing out that your price was inaccurate.

> B-blind t-testing doesn't work because "there's too many characteristics"
Either you can detect if I switch $5K cable resting on $20K ivory "floor distancers" to a $5 piece of copper in your HiFi setup, or you can't. No matter how many long-ass pseudo-scientific bullshit articles you come up with, there is _nothing_ wrong with the methodology of this simple fucking test.