/ag/: audio general - let's try to be real edition

What are some good, low-cost, non-powered speakers, and low-cost amps? $300 or less for the kit.

Continued from:

Other urls found in this thread:

cnet.com/news/are-you-ready-for-this-a-160-stereo-system-an-audiophile-could-love/
parttimeaudiophile.com/2014/12/14/the-guttenberg-challenge-affordable-loudspeakers-from-dayton-micca-and-pioneer/
stereophile.com/content/dayton-audio-b652-loudspeaker-measurements
techpowerup.com/forums/threads/how-to-hook-a-car-amp-up-to-your-pc.116144/
desmoines.craigslist.org/ele/d/klipsch-icon-powered/6487813460.html
cedarrapids.craigslist.org/ele/d/klipsch-10sw-10-subwoofer/6488351505.html
amazon.com/dp/B000062VUO/ref=psdc_172471_t1_B000068PJG
amazon.de/Ligawo-6518777-Extractor-auskoppeln-Klinke-schwarz/dp/B01N8T1NR9/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

cnet.com/news/are-you-ready-for-this-a-160-stereo-system-an-audiophile-could-love/

parttimeaudiophile.com/2014/12/14/the-guttenberg-challenge-affordable-loudspeakers-from-dayton-micca-and-pioneer/

agree with the latter except for the pioneers which ive heard and which sound distorted and coarse

I kek'd OP.

Ok, m8s, here's my question. My budget is really low and my current speakers are beyond ridiculous. So are there any decent speakers at 100 bucks that don't hiss and sound great on low volume? I am not planning on listening to them on high volume, just to listen to music while programming.

>inb4 get decent headphones

Nah, I thought about that, but you can't keep them on your head for more than 1 or 2 hours and I like to listen to music in open air.

I was thinking maybe of a Micca or Magnat pair, but those are already about 80 bucks and an amplifier would cost a lot more.

Are there any cheap amps with balanced inputs? Any usable ones, at least.

Idk, I know you can't get much for 100 bucks, but even some modest speakers would be better than what I have now. It's important that they have balanced connections though, I don't want the whole thing to hiss and crackle all the time.

These are interesting, but they have RCA connectors as inputs. And the amp + speakers cost like 160$.

It's weird that these companies don't consider the 100$ price range interesting to make products for, since most people would probably want a decent, powered pair of speakers that don't sound like total crap and don't hiss. It seems like too much to ask for.

lol stereophile actually reviewed these

While the Dayton B652 has some severe measured problems, it actually performed much better on the test bench than I was expecting, given its price. When you consider that the build budget of a speaker selling for less than $40/pair will be no more than $8 for both speakers, assuming the usual 5:1 ratio of retail price to parts cost, the B652's measured performance is actually quite remarkable—and certainly better than the plastic squawkboxes sold for use with computers.—John Atkinson

stereophile.com/content/dayton-audio-b652-loudspeaker-measurements

What's a good desktop monitor setup for $300-800

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L O A D E D

I think any inexpensive ($8) thrift store receiver will drive these speakers effectively.

Can you post some examples or a link?

I've seen a few miniamps at about 30 bucks on amazon. Not sure how good they are, though.

I use monoprice 8" speakers with a Denon AVR-S510Bt for my home theater system, and it was cheap as fuck. right around 300 bucks and it splits hdmi audio. The powered subwoofer is 100 bucks extra but you dont need to buy that up front.

shaddap its just ur imagnation

I increased the deathclaw HP a lil bit so you dont leave concord with 1k Minigun ammo, thinking deathclaws are weak

Question: I want to make sure that an audio signal will only flow out of a device, not back into it. I'm using a combination DAC/Amp, where the analog ports just sit between the DAC and Amp so it can be used as either. But this means that audio signals from the DAC could still flow out and back into the attached analog device. Is there some kind of device I can use to block these signals from flowing in the wrong direction?

wrong thread fuck

Honestlyit's as coherent as every other post in this thread within the context of audio.

I need help. I have a car audio amplifier, the STETSOM CL600 VISION, and it only works with a car radio. I tried hooking it up with a PC amplifier and directly in the 3.5mm jack, but it won't turn on. What can i do to hook it up to the PC? I need help, anons.

To google the manual.
Seriously, I know this is the stupid questions thread, but that doesn't excuse you from the age old addage.

RTFM.

Rage the fucking machine? I kind of grew out of them, sorry.

>being obtuse
cute.

Hey /sqt/, is there a device that takes two HDMI inputs and outputs video from one and the sound from both? Basically a HDMI mixer.

NoAudiophile recommended the Vanatoo Transparent Zero/One. I was thinking of getting those because space is slightly a concern, so I can't go with fuckhuge sized speakers.

I currently have his EQ'd AudioEngine A2+, they're alright.

I want something fun for movies/games/music in a smallish room at close PC range.
I don't work with audio so it doesn't have to be neutral or whatever, should be fun!
Lets say price is 500-1300 euro(prefer lower but whichever is more worth for its price) including amp/dac or interface and any other accessories I would need.
Which is the best category to look into open headphones or speakers? if speakers should i go for active or passive? Which are considered the best in my budget? I've heard good things about adam a7x, kef ls50, neumanns, genelec etc but idk how they compare to each other.

I got the V-Moda Crossfade Wireless, Do I need a dac now? Music sounds great, I can't really seem to notice difference between flac and mp3 though.
I also use them mostly wired, wireless only outside

Not sure what those speakers are and I'm not looking them up. DACs, eh. You could get the Modi 2 and leave it at that. It's what I have. I noticed it makes a small difference, but if you really don't care then probably not. If you have a mobo with a good realtek chip or something it will probably be fine.

I remember when I switched from good Logitech speakers to real speakers it was like everything was brought forward centre stage, in quality. It was like the same thing, but cleaner and just fairly better. With the DAC the difference was more subtle. I'm sure it's just more polished now, but it was worth it.

Also I can't reliably tell the difference between a good MP3 and FLAC either.

it's the headphones

Recommendations on cheap subwoofers for a small apartment? I got an Onkyo receiver during Black Friday and have it running a 3.0 setup. I'd like to add a sub but don't have much budget. Maybe $100. Used is totally fine.

>500-1300 euro
you can do a lot of good shit with that much cash
what kind of music
or is this for gaymes

post your state and ill find something for you,
or look at something new by dayton;
an inexpensive (msrp) subwoofer (like martin logaqn dynamo 300) usually will not add much except a boomy sound or a light thud

But i have already read the manual, user.
The thing is, it won't turn on unless i hook it up to a car radio. And i want to hook it up directly on the PC.

techpowerup.com/forums/threads/how-to-hook-a-car-amp-up-to-your-pc.116144/


So., be careful.

They're rated from 55Hz but I can hear them down to 35Hz.
Very nice sound, don't require much of an amp. I'm using one I picked up for about $30.

I tried this, but this amp has an "auto turn-on" function, and it only works when i put a car radio directly in it. So, it won't work if i hook it up that way.

user the signal from a car radio and from a PC's headphone out are the same. Start playing music, it'll turn on. Never do something as retarded as buying an amp that doesn't use a 12v remote input again.

mm... qt

Central Iowa

>STETSOM CL600 VISION
>claims to be 200w RMS (100w x2 @ 2 ohms)
I think the auto turn on is not at the top of the 'reasons to no buy this' list, sadly.

>Never do something as retarded as buying an amp that doesn't use a 12v remote input again.
That was harsh, but you are right.

I know the signals are the same, but it won't work. I tried several times, and it won't turn up. Thats why i tried asking for help here.
It was cheap, and one of the best that i could afford.
The auto turn on is at the top of the reasons.

desmoines.craigslist.org/ele/d/klipsch-icon-powered/6487813460.html
$50 10in part of a soundbar set...

cedarrapids.craigslist.org/ele/d/klipsch-10sw-10-subwoofer/6488351505.html
$150 10in 300w

Dude thank you! I'll jump on that Klipsch!

Is there a way to set up my active bookshelf speakers with my tv so that the volume can be controlled with the tv remote? It seems like my tv doesn't have the right output. What audio output can achieve this?

Turn your TV to the highest possible volume and then turn up the volume on your amp until it's louder than you will ever use, then turn your TV down half way and turn up the amp a little more.

Then just use the TV volume adjustment.

Oh for fucks sake. You always think you have found a good product until it turns out it has some flaw or other.
So what is a good speaker at a comparable price?

Turns out the first one is wireless only and I'm not confident it would pair with my receiver. I'm gonna try and get the cedar rapids one. Bit of a drive but worth it if I can nab it.

Good cheap tube or hybrid preamp, if it uses FET's that's fine too.

mackie mr

>modi2
It's garbage, not recommend at all

How so. I have Modi 2 Uber. Does it's job just fine. I believe Multibit is snake oil.

How come?

I've narrowed down some preamps to audition locally. "Audition" in the most base of senses, I just want to verify they work before I buy. I really doubt anyone's going to have a system quite like mine. Most of these old farts with beefy solid state amps are using them with Wilsons or Magnephans. Hopefully will decide on a final purchase later this week. Why is /hpg/ so hostile towards us speaker users? Every time I ask for a preamp recommendation I get screeched at. Well, its about 50/50 I guess. Sometimes I get some quality help, other times its some asshole who thinks because I'm canadian i'm scum of the earth.

There's nothing wrong with us canadians we even make some of the best audio equipment in the world ;-;

Some people just hate on shit for their design and marketing strategies. Personally I think they are a great company with many great products. Sure they have some duds but the ones I have are great for the price. Also American made.

That's actually what I use to. Figured if I'm going to get the original, might as well get the Uber for that different analog filtering or something.

Why do you think that? It does it's job and I like it. It definitely isn't some thousand dollar snake-oil frequency DAC and that's fine.

That's what I figured

Here is my take on the whole schiitty situation. I wanted to post this on head-fi but I'd probably wind up getting censored. This is going to be a long winded post, so bear with me.

I think there's a lot of things weird about this situation but if there's something I've learned is that usually people have noble intentions and there's just some misunderstanding or something wrong is going on and people just don't know about. I think the most likely scenario is that Amir got a defective modi and a defective bifrost. Really unlucky, but if you ask me that makes the most sense. As for the more negative theories... some of which I'm going to be inclined to believe if certain points aren't addressed soon: I wish Amir was more willing to show us what his measuring system consists of exactly, with verifiable evidence... as it stands he really could be faking all the numbers. On the other hand, Amir could honestly be telling the truth. If his background is to believed, and his equipment as well, his measurements seem to be accurate. Assuming that his bifrost and modi weren't defective, I think its quite telling that they banned him from Jason's thread on head-fi, and people are getting censored left right and center in Mike's thread. Not only that, but Mike's suggestion that they meet face to face raises some red flags. Perhaps he's trying to damage control, and have the whole dramatic deal dealt with offline, where people can't know the exact details? It does seem an awful lot like damage control. Who knows what sort of PM's might be exchanged between the two. It's worrying that so much censorship is going on.

On the flipside of that point, I think it's a little lame how Amir is on his forum, he does seem to be posting his data under the assumption that their products will be rated poorly. Anyway, I'm pretty neutrel on this right now, will see how it pans out. I actually own a yggdrasil, but the second product I ordered from the, a saga, was just unusable in my system. It was popping the hell out of my right speaker channel. I verified it was not the fault of the rest of my gear upstream or down, its possible it was a grounding issue, and I tried to ensure a good ground, but I didnt really see the point, as every other preamp I've used has worked flawlessly. I'm suspecting that because of the saga's low price point, $350, that it's built using inferior parts and design, and it's just a noisy schitty little box. I'm not that disappointed, I lost $40 for shipping to test it out. If I had bought used I'd be stuck with it... but this goes to show that not everything schiit makes is golden. I'm wondering if a Freya would be better, but getting one of those would cost me near a grand probably. I'm very close to getting a preamp that I know will perform flawlessly, anyway.

Oh, and I didn't even go into my customer support details. If anyone's interested I could detail those as well. Long story short, they worked well with me to make sure I was happy, but only after I emailed two other departments and complaind and whine a lot.

Using what sort of output? Auxiliary? It doesn't seem like it changes the volume on the speakers

>Yggdrasil

Measures like ass

JBL LSR 305. Just buy them

So it produces distortion at inaudible levels? Wow.

For the same money you can get a dac that out performs modi2 in a landslide, the jds labs ol dac is the same price

>-90db
>inaudible
Might as well use the shit dac on your pc

It seems youre objectively right, but I'm still content with my purchase. This is definitely something to keep in mind for next time.

I just picked up the PreSonus Eris E4.5 studio monitors.

For $200, they're incredible. You won't find anything better in this price range. Check it out.

Don't forget a good quality audio interface and some nice balanced TRS cables.

I got the Uber. Heard that was fixed.

Reading into the thread a bit if it has something to do with (USB) power maybe it is fixed by the Uber version, since it has it's own standalone power supply. Right? It's still looking like the Modi 2 isn't a great decision.

Is this like bitcoin chart astrology?

What I love is how its a pic of the Modi 2 Uber but its obviously showing the specs of the regular Modi 2.

hey guys i just bought a HomePod but I can't connect to it with my Pixel how do I play my Google Play Music on my HomePod or even set it up?

I'm thinking about the Earthquake MiniMe P63 to hook up to my Vanatoo T0s for my desk setup, almost exclusively for music.

Does Earthquake make good subs?

yeah, if ya like to take your house down

...

They can't keep getting away with it, but they do. Marketing wins over science, audiophile is an insult and an invitation to get ripped off.

Because only audio engineers and professionals desire neutrality and accuracy. For general playback you want your sound to be distorted and colored as fuck for meximum euphoric pleasure. Screw any acoustic treatment or room dsp too, if you don't like it RAW you're not an audiophile. Instead put that money into a diamond picosecond unicorn DAC ,silver plated pre-amp and power conditioning for your 500lb horn speakers.

I used to consider myself an audiophile and I was sold the lie of "transparent clear audio" and getting suckered by purple prose into buying gear that measured like shit built for gullible fanatics chasing an audio fantasy. Having descriptions like "musical" or "euphoric", where in reality it had a 8dB boost in the 200-400hz region or some shit, or worse it didn't do anything at all and was completely psychosomatic... but you MUST burn in for 500+ hours before forming a final opinion!! Barely long enough for the 30 day return period of course.

It's mostly a huckster fraud world of wannabe engineers turned marketers who couldn't make it in the studio/professional sector and want to make some money selling distortion to rich idiots who don't know or can't hear any better.

There are some "good" audiophile products out there, but those are like undigested corn in a sea of feces.

No.

>There are some "good" audiophile products out there, but those are like undigested corn in a sea of feces.

And those are?

I have this audio engineer fried who says he tried all the Erises and came to the conclusion they all suck, because they kill mids and emphasise highs and lows.

>Eris are really bad for the price
>u gonna pay the brand for real
>high and bass, no medium spectre

The only thing made by Presonus which he recommends is audio interfaces, the rest of the stuff they make he says it's crap.

But then.. he recommended me to get the Focal Shape 50, which is like 550 euros a piece. xD

amazon.com/dp/B000062VUO/ref=psdc_172471_t1_B000068PJG

*friend

No, stop with that meme recommended by the Tek syndicate """experts""".

i'm old and don't know what that is

but i do have many klipsch products and have recommended these to some friends that loved them

That's true any time they didn't fuck up the design for the sound portion of your motherboard. The theoretical dynamic range on CD audio is 96dB.

Still for the electrical engineering side of it is that caused by clock oscillator jitter?

I want to get some good speakers and subwoofer for my PC. What should I get? Do I need a really good soundcard or AMP?

no on either count
these are excellent for the money

>Is there a way to set up my active bookshelf speakers with my tv so that the volume can be controlled with the tv remote? It seems like my tv doesn't have the right output. What audio output can achieve this?

HDMI ARC on one of these things:
amazon.de/Ligawo-6518777-Extractor-auskoppeln-Klinke-schwarz/dp/B01N8T1NR9/
Your TV needs to support HDMI CEC

There could be more simple/cheap options but that's what I use. Beware, that one in particular only outputs minijack and RCA (I use it for my headphones).

I absolutely can't fit a subwoofer into my setup due to size restrictions, what's the best bookshelf sized speaker I can buy for around $300 that will still play reasonably low? Looking at Monolith K-BAS's at the moment, but one of the reviews I saw on them was pretty negative.

I tried the LSR305's already and thought they sounded great(more than good enough for what I'm asking for in the bass department), but I had to return them due to the OP comic. I tried everything I could for like two weeks to get rid of the noise(I wrapped ferrite cores around the USB wire going into my DAC, shit got pretty weird) short of a ground lift plug but nothing worked.

you still have to be able to power that speaker at a sub level which means active speaker or amplified speaker input

LSR 305 or KEF Q100? If I go for the Q100, is the Micca OriGain good enough to power them?

I have one of these. Think it does 50 watts per channel, which should be good enough for just playing stuff at my desk in near field.

forget my picture like a mongoloid

Same question as this guy. I got the Q100s new for $190 and think that's a pretty good deal. But I heard the LSR30Xs are also very good, and they go for the same price and without needing to buy an amp (I already have a preamp). I haven't been able to hear my Q100s yet (no amp) so I'm still wondering if I should keep these or get LSRs.

>I wrapped ferrite cores around the USB wire going into my DAC

fukking amaze

quick question
anyone have a speaker guide?
or anyone wanna spend time helping decide what speaker to get for someone who knows nothing about them?
I figure the the former would probably be preferable to most.

I just bought a Denon x3400h to upgrade my 200€ Sony receiver. Will I regret it?

I basically bought it for the audyssey xt32

that denon is like 600 dollars US
what speakers are you using

where will you be listening to them

Fuck that. My current studio monitors are PreSonus and they completely butcher the sound. Never buying that brand again.
Anyone knows some good studio monitors? I was going to go for the JBL LSR308.

Anyone with a HomePod can confirm if streaming from Android phone works? I know in theory it should work as I can stream from my Android phone to Apple TV using various AirPlay apps.

bedroom
via turntable

Magnat Vector 207 5.1 setup with a different front fire sub. I guess I paid about the same for the speakers but they cost more than twice as much when they came out

looks good on paper
any el cheapo good-quality ten to thirty dollar used receiver from 2006 will drive the kefs

my recommendation is bookshelf speakers atop speaker stands. i reccomend kef ls50.

cool
-$400?