Damned audiophiles

[Monketi Ghost]

Have you compared at various qualities of MP3? Several years ago, when I was thinking about ripping my entire CD collection, I did a bunch of tests to see what differences I could hear. At 128 kbps (fixed), the MP3s were listenable but certainly not as good as the source CD. At 160 kbps, the difference between MP3 and source CD was small. At 192 kbps, I couldn't tell the difference.

For my disclaimers: I didn't have any way to do a blind test but at 192 kbps, I frequently got mixed up about whether I was listening to the CD or the MP3. Also, I have no reason to think that my hearing is particularly good, so YMMV.

I typically rip at 192 kbps VBR; when I buy from Amazon, I think they're 256 kbps. But there are a lot of 128 kbps MP3s out there.

It may be that the newer encoders (I don't remember which I was using) can do a better job, so my tests may be out of date. And my hearing probably hasn't improved over the last several years. I didn't test any other compression schemes.

I made a huge mistake when I transferred all my discs to mp3 and wma: I didn't record in lossless format.

Now, on the quiet acoustic guitar stuff especially, sound trouble is revealed.

 

[daenku32]

LOUDER = BETTER!

SPEED = EMOTION!

Really, that describes my musical taste.

 

[Almo]

So: We got an Arcam amp/CD player in one unit. We got Focal floor speakers and a Focal subwoofer. Will post once they arrive and talk about its sound. In the shop, the sound was pretty damned amazing. For the price, it was easily the best setup we heard. Not the clearest on high trebel (another set of speakers, DynAudios were sharper on the trebel), but we like that kind of sound better anyway.

We like bass too, so the sub really made a big difference in adding the sub-60 Hz sound.

 

[rsaavedra]

So: We got an Arcam amp/CD player in one unit. We got Focal floor speakers and a Focal subwoofer. Will post once they arrive and talk about its sound. In the shop, the sound was pretty damned amazing. For the price, it was easily the best setup we heard. Not the clearest on high trebel (another set of speakers, DynAudios were sharper on the trebel), but we like that kind of sound better anyway.

We like bass too, so the sub really made a big difference in adding the sub-60 Hz sound.

Great speaker choices! The Focals are excellent, and the Dynaudios would have been great too. With respect to the Arcam source, is that the Solo? That's a strange but interesting product category. Not just a CD player or an amp, but both. Arcam makes very good amps and sources, so this product shouldn't dissapoint. Enjoy!

 

[Almo]

Great speaker choices! The Focals are excellent, and the Dynaudios would have been great too. With respect to the Arcam source, is that the Solo? That's a strange but interesting product category. Not just a CD player or an amp, but both. Arcam makes very good amps and sources, so this product shouldn't dissapoint. Enjoy!

I can thank my wife for finding them. She visited several audio stores while I was at work, and she said I should go check out the Focals. I can trust her with picking cars and stereos.

 

[Aitch]

... Arcam makes very good amps and sources, so this product shouldn't dissapoint. Enjoy!

But there is something a bit weird about a company that calls one of its product ranges Faithful Musical Joy.

 

[Skeptic]

I personally have an audiophile system, which sounds wonderful, and no doubt cost a lot more than it should, but unless you have understanding neighbours, and you regularly want to spend hours listening to music where the musicians seem to be in the room with you

As Flanders and Swann say:

-- It's like having a symphony orchestra playing in your sitting room!
-- There isn't really anything I'd like less than a symphony orchestra actually playing in my sitting room...

 

[rsaavedra]

-- There isn't really anything I'd like less than a symphony orchestra actually playing in my sitting room...

I'd like Norah Jones playing in my bedroom

(Hey, my audio system might be there after all)

 

[rsaavedra]

But there is something a bit weird about a company that calls one of its product ranges Faithful Musical Joy.

That might be a recent marketing move. In Arcam line of products FMJ originally meant "Full Metal Jacket," their top of the line:

http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/July 2003/110/759632/Arcam+FMJ+T31

 

[wackyvorlon]

The problem with a lot of audio is that it's highly subjective. Important points about a DAC: number of bits. This influences how "fine grained" it's output is. Next is the filtering that's after the DAC. That turns the output into a proper sine wave.

It's not like you're dealing with high speed stuff, either. Sample rate is generally 44.8kHz, modern high speed dac/adc chips go up into the hundreds of megahertz. If you looked up the price of the opamp chip and dac chip from an electronics supply outfit I'd be willing to bet they're less than a total of $20.

 

[Aitch]

That might be a recent marketing move. In Arcam line of products FMJ originally meant "Full Metal Jacket," their top of the line:

http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/July 2003/110/759632/Arcam+FMJ+T31

Oh well, one range may be called Faithful Musical Joy, but the Solo range has 'Audiophile grade sound quality', according to the General section of the specifications. Wow!

And the CD section has a 'Low jitter Colpitts crystal clock'. Are we now back to the start of the thread?

 

[Almo]

Oh well, one range may be called Faithful Musical Joy, but the Solo range has 'Audiophile grade sound quality', according to the General section of the specifications. Wow!

And the CD section has a 'Low jitter Colpitts crystal clock'. Are we now back to the start of the thread?

I saw a Rotel Amp for $1100 and Rotel CD player for $1100. This is $950 for the CD/Amp combo. It sounds fine, and appears to be well-built. Of course their marketing guys are going to pull out the stops on the audiophile-speak, but for me it just seemed like a solid unit without any BS. They rate it at 25 watts per channel, which doesn't sound needlessly inflated. The dudes at the stereo store we went to were even honest enough to tell us they preferred the model we got over the one that's more expensive. They didn't even try to upsell me on speaker cables.

(All prices are CAD)

 

[John Albert]

The Steve Hoffman Forums are a great place for hilarious audiophile jackassitude.

This website for a Swedish "audio" company looks and reads just like a New Age crystal-monger page.

Also, the comments section on this Amazon page are comedy gold.

 

[Almo]

Also, the comments section on this Amazon page are comedy gold.

This is a link to a Denon super ethernet cable of some sort. On the page, it says stuff people who viewed this bought. One of them is:

Accoutrements Horse Head Mask - by Accoutrements

 

[dlorde]

I find it amusing that those with expensive systems often do not understand their room acoustics and end with marginal sound and people are always surprised when with a little positioning I can make a cheapie system sound decent.

Room size and the nature of it's acoustics ( lively or muted ) has a big play in your choice

This^. And the mastering quality. Too many modern CD masterings (and, annoyingly, remasterings) are heavily compressed for loudness.

E.T.A. Oops! just noticed how old this thread is - it seems like only yesterday...

"With a tone control at a single touch,
I can make Caruso sound like Hutch!
Still, I never did care for music much - it's the High Fidelity"
Song of Reproduction, by Flanders and Swan

 

[Almo]

Monolake's latest two CDs (Ghosts and Silence) don't use compression. Their quality of sound is great, even if you're not too fond of the music. Infinite Snow is an awesome track from Silence.

 

[Sledge]

Also, the comments section on this Amazon page are comedy gold.

The customer-added images and notes aren't bad, either.

 

[carlitos]

This website for a Swedish "audio" company looks and reads just like a New Age crystal-monger page.

He used to post here. Funny stuff.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1196287

ETA - in case link doesn't work:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240267

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197107

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176890

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110193

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88523

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101284

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93780

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84171

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83842

 

[calebprime]

He used to post here. Funny stuff.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1196287

ETA - in case link doesn't work:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240267

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197107

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176890

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110193

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88523

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101284

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93780

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84171

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83842

Yeah, he wasn't like anyone else, that's for sure.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

This website for a Swedish "audio" company looks and reads just like a New Age crystal-monger page.

Meet the designer


Our designer has tweaked other manufacturers' products for more than a decade, 12+ hours per day, trying to improve them by cutting them to pieces and unveiling the truth. After he couldn't improve on them anymore, he started building his own.

He found that the highest performance came when combining crystals of different kinds. These crystal formulas were fine-tuned by ear to 0.01 gram accuracy to give the absolute sweet spot where the listener is transported to another world.

http://www.coconut-audio.com/index.html

Meth? Coke?