My computer audio setup is better than yours
kerr.io
kerr.io
>I was always under the impression that I had an audiophile worthy setup especially considering that I’ve spent upwards of $300 on headphones like Beats by Dre or Skull Candy.
Most of these guys who claim themselves as Audiophiles are usually victims of Psychological marketing - I tell you to close your eyes and listen to the sounds you've never heard before and after you hear them by willfully paying much attention to detail than you ever used to, I tell you it's because of the headphones you're wearing right now and it's Audiophile-grade. Bang! My $500 headphone sold! (Bose is very good at this)
A note to my fellow HN'ers - When reading articles like these, please take them with a grain of salt. In the world of audio, brands aren't important at all, it's the product that matters. It's logical to say that product A by Brand A is better than product B by Brand B, rather than simply assuming all products by Brand A are great.
As a headphone collector (I own 40+ models), I can tell you that the popular $450 Sennheiser HD650 Headphones he references are over-priced and you can get a better (excellent, actually) headphones for less than half the price, from a not-so-popular brand. The Pioneer SE-A-1000 (Google it out).
But, it is important to note that the world of Audio is incredibly subjective and what one person likes may be the worst choice for another. Always listen to something before buying them.
Usually the differences in Sound Quality between a $1500 headphone and a $500 headphone are marginally low (unlike what the author claims) and are not worth the price difference, unless you are making a living out of Audio monitoring, etc.
>you’ll hear things you’ve never heard before. It's like these new details were added to the music and it just blows you away.
Stay away from such ambiguous claims. a)It's highly subjective, b)It's the after-effect of Psychological marketing.
>I listen to Apple Lossless music files and watch a lot of movies on my notebook and I wanted superb audio.
From the excerpt that the author provides, it is clearly evident that he is just getting started (it's not a bad thing at all). But what is not right here is misleading people into believing something that is not true, especially when you are just getting started yourself.
[Edit] The author is trying to flaunt that he listens to only lossless music, but fails to tell you how even Lossless music can suck at times. As daeken and greyfade point out, It depends on the input content while the audio was recorded. Simply by listening to lossless music you won't discover 'sounds you've never heard before' as the author claims. You need to listen to good versions of these lossless audio files.
Ok, enough bashing...as for a simple in-expensive set-up, yet incredibly clear Audio, here's a combo for all you fellow HN'ers -
The Sony MDR V6 (Legendry Monitoring headphones, actually) + a Fiio E11 headphone amplifier.
It's inexpensive and it's amazing for its price. Try it out and let me know.
Thanks for reading.
This is completely, objectively false. The bitrate of a lossless file depends 100% on the compressibility of the file. By definition, if you take a piece of data and pass it into a lossless encoder (FLAC, ALAC, ZIP, ...) and then pass that to the respective decoder, you get out the original piece of data; that's what lossless means.
The only time quality comes into play is when considering the input quality, not the compression.
What?
Do you not know the meaning of the term "lossless" when discussing compression? It means that there is no difference between the decompressed result and the original source material. To do that, FLAC uses the minimum bits required to exactly reproduce the original sound waveform. There is no 1500kbps FLAC that "sounds better" than a 800kbps FLAC, because FLAC will only produce one bitrate for a given waveform.
That said, 44.1khz puts the Nyquist frequency just above what most adults are capable of hearing. Unless you're young and have excellent hearing, it's unlikely that you'll perceive much difference for anything above 44.1khz.
If I really want to "hear things I've never heard before" in recordings I've heard countless times in countless environments, I choose loudspeakers and headphones with a flat frequency response. I've come to prefer a set of near-field studio monitors over "audiophile" brands, without hesitation. This shifts the subjectiity to the sound engineers who produced the recording, instead of the "hifi" manufacturer targeting "audiophiles".
If these recordings need to be "fixed" to adjust to my preferred perception of the audio - and needless to say, there's a lot that needs to be fixed these days - then that needs to be done at the recording and mastering stages ("the input"), by recording and mastering engineers, not at the reproduction stage ("the output"), by those who design and manufacture "audiophile" stereo components. This is the conclusion I reached many years ago.
Of course, it is subjective conclusion. Audio qualities will alwys be a matter of preference.
Sincerely,
A Former Audiophile
I'll sit down to put the finishing touches on a song. The drums are always tricky to EQ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parametric_equalizer), especially the snare. I'll easily spend 20 minutes carefully dialing in the exact sound I'm looking for. Sometimes I'll spend over 5 minutes on a single frequency band, agonizing over the effect of a single decibel boost or cut. Finally, after I've gotten it to sound perfect, I realize that the frigging bypass button is on. In other words, the equalizer wasn't even on. I was completely imagining the changes, yet for 20 minutes I was certain that my delicate adjustments were really doing something.
I'd be embarrased about it, but it's happened to nearly every recording engineer. IMHO the placebo effect applies more strongly to sound than any other sense.
tl;dr: Audio nerds sit around in darkened rooms by themselves uselessly twiddling their knobs for hours on end.
I am a recovering DAW user, i.e. knob twiddler.
Manipulating spacial environments (acoustics, not knobs) is, to me, the true "art" and the most interesting skill. It predates all this gear. And it seems to be something that some people have "mastered" without necessarily being experts in, say, the the science of acoustics at the same time. (Picture all the pseudo-scientific literature the "audiofile" industry churns out as part of their marketing. I confess in my younger days I totally fell for it. Sadly I know many older folks who still do.)
Ever read TapeOp?
As for acoustics, I agree. The acoustics of the room you record in is the #2 factor (only behind the skill of the musician). Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of AD/DA converters, pre amps, and microphones aren't going to fix crappy acoustics.
I've seen some great pseudo-science from audiophiles. I remember the site for a recording studio advertising that they suspended their computers in the air because of something to do with vibrations from the floor hurting the audio quality of burned CD's or some such nonsense. It was the best example of Poe's Law I've ever encountered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law).
I've read a few issues of TapeOp, but it was a number of years ago.
Bash, bash, this is why I'm better than you, more bash, etc..
I am just getting started, and I LOVE the setup I've put together which is what I reviewed. I'd like to get involved in audio meets, but I haven't had any luck breaking into them. (Austin, TX.)
However, it is possible to get a more accurate reproduction of sound at a lower price with an external audio interface, a pair of studio monitors and a sub. Here's a bargain list:
2 x Yamaha HS50M Speaker (2 x $200)
1 x Yamaha HS10W Sub ($400)
1 x MOTU MicroBook II Audio Interface ($250)
4 x TRS/XLR Cable (4 x $20)
Skull Candy? Hahahaha! Get a pair of Audio Technica, Grado or AKG K-series headphones and get back to me. After seeing all the snake oil that is sold as audiophile equipment, I immediately stopped trusting that group of people.
If you want a pair of speakers that reproduce what the engineer heard in the studio, get a pair of near-field monitors. They're much cheaper than audiophile speakers. If you want to go over the top, get acoustic tiles for your listening room or just use some heavy curtains and wall carpets. If you're still not happy, get a room correction system and a measuring microphone. As a bonus, this will correct your speakers too.
Some engineer will now tell me that I should not use electronic room correction. I don't care. My mixes sound more balanced when I use it, even after I turn off the correction.
Best advice in the article is avoid Beats audio and SkullCandy, and get an external DAC.