How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, firedog said:

Funny how you forgot to mention various forms of subsidies and tax breaks for the rich, and other forms of corporate welfare. How do you think wealth is getting more concentrated at the top? There's a reason it's happening, it doesn't just happen by itself. And it isn't being caused by the various forms of "welfare" you mention-maybe the opposite is true.

Never mind.

[gmgraves]

Hey GUTB!, The latest TAS (#284) has a review of Emotiva's entry-level power amp, the $300 BasX 150 (75 WPC). They did not find it to be lousy sounding junk as you characterized the entire line. Their only real complaint was that the bass never sounded "exactly right" to the reviewer. But since he did the entire review using just two rock albums, neither of which I've ever heard (shouldn't be too alarming. My knowledge of rock-'n-roll is exactly the same as my knowledge of neurosurgery - absolutely none, but learning brain surgery just might be interesting  ), I can't really evaluate the reviewer's conclusions except that he seemed to like it's overall sound and build quality. Care to comment, GUTB?

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

The amount of not expensive good sounding systems a person could put together is near limitless.

 

RME  ADI-2 DAC:  https://www.rme-usa.com/adi-2-dac.html

 

Focal powered monitors: https://www.focal.com/us/monitoring-speakers/sm6/trio6-be

 

done...  Essentially. Get some balanced cables and a USB from Blue Jeans and you're set.

 

You want to tweak it?
 

ZeroSurge: https://zerosurge.com/plug-in-products-solutions/

 

IsoAcoustics speaker stands: http://www.isoacoustics.com/products/iso-l8r-series-speaker-isolation-stands/

The best tweak is to stay away from USB cables from ANYBODY! Use a NAS and Coax SPDIF and avoid USB audio. It all sucks! 

[gmgraves]

15 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

When was the last time you sent DSD over SPDIF?  Or anything over 24/192?

I send DSD from my Korg MR1 or MR2000 via SPDIF all the time. Not optical SPDIF (Toslink) mind you, but coax SPDIF is my preferred way to transfer audio files. And I don't use anything over 24/96 for PCM because it's overkill. All it does is make the files bigger, with no increase in resolution because you're still just putting a 20Hz to 30KHz bandwidth in that 192K "container". 

[gmgraves]

15 hours ago, esldude said:

Why?

 

What about it sucks?

 

What facts back up that idea?

What I hear is collapsed soundstage, grainy top-end and what I call "Packet Noise" Small bursts of noise that can often be heard (on headphones)in the background of quiet passages, and it doesn't matter what computer, what DAC or what cable is being used, the same characteristics prevail. These same characteristics are not heard with SPDIF, either coax or optical.

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

LOL This is so misleading I don't even know where to begin...  

 

Show me where the SPDIF Coax output is here Jim? At least the MR2000 has some, but is this a playback device?  Do you have less than 128gb of music you keep on the SSD of the MR2000 or do you put new music on it all the time?

 

According to Korg, the MR2000 does not output DSD over Coax:  "Coaxial Digital I/O for PCM sources integrates into existing production environments"

 

Lastly, I feel bad for you that you can't hear the difference. 

 

 

You're right, I misspoke, and I probably should have been more specific. Of course, the DSD files have to be transferred from the recording device (MR1, MR2000) to the desktop via USB, but this is not the same thing as playing the files via USB. And I wasn't thinking about the fact that when I record via my MR2000, I generally use the PCM and not DSD settings and those are what I play back through the MR2K's coaxial SPDIF, not the DSD stuff. Sorry for any confusion. 

 

[gmgraves]

On 6/9/2018 at 5:17 PM, Kal Rubinson said:

Been there.  My CT house is not far from there and I knew the guy's father.  It is impressive but, imho, not especially, hospitable.

 

The box fan next to the listening area is speaks volumes! 30 tube amps, each one with 8 output tubes? that's 240 tubes! Can you imagine the size of the air conditioner required to make that place habitable while listening (and the fan suggests that however big it is, it's not enough)? Not to mention the the guy's electric bill! Remember the scene in Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation where he finally gets all the Christmas lights on his house working and somebody turns them on? Cut to a picture of his electric meter where the hands on the meter dials are spinning like airplane propellers and there's a rolling blackout occurring in the background? I imagine this guys electric meter must be similar. He probably has his own dedicated pole transformer outside his house and a dedicated mains circuit. I'll bet that his house registers with the electric company as an entire residential neighborhood, or perhaps a manufacturing facility!

[gmgraves]

9 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

I was actually referring to the audio system's performance which might have been fine for movies but for music was disappointing.  Lots of spread, immersion and weight but little focus or palpability.   It must be added that my only visit was several years ago and who knows what might have been changed since then. 

I get that Kal, but you have to admit that the box fan next to the seating area is telling!

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, elcorso said:

 

But I do not finish thanking Spain for the Paella.
Family and friends say that mine is the best, but they know that if they do not say that I will not invite them again ?

 

Roch

Paella, YUM! I haven't made that for years. But I use to make a good one!

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 All it shows is that George is human, and like everybody else (except a few like Jud who always dots the " i " and crosses the "t" due to his background ) sometimes makes an occasional monumental f'up when in too much of a hurry.

Guilty as charged! 

[gmgraves]

20 hours ago, jabbr said:

Are you sure the KORG doesn't encapsulate DSD as DOP to be sent over Coax (SPDIF)?

Yes, I'm sure. The MR1 outputs USB (but doesn't play out of USB. It only uses it to transfer the files recorded on it's built-in 1.5" 20 Meg mechanical HDD! (if I could find a SS drive that would fit. I'd replace the HDD. Already had to replace the Li-Ion battery - but not with the one Korg sells. They want more than US$100 for it and the one I replaced it with came off of E0bay and cost me about US$15!) The only way the MR1 "plays" anything is through either the headphone output or the line output (both 3.5mm phone jacks). The MR2000, being a bigger machine, primarily designed for rack mounting does have a coax SPDIF output as AudioDoctor correctly points out. But only for LPCM not for any of the DSD formats. 

[gmgraves]

3 minutes ago, mansr said:

There are, but quantifying them in a single number is difficult, if at all possible or meaningful. As a crude analogy, consider computer benchmarks. They, too, attempt to assign a single number to the performance of a system. In reality, which system wins is highly dependent on the specific workload. Humans are no different.

Actually, all an IQ test claims to do is to measure a person's ability to solve problems, and put a number to it. It's not supposed to measure knowledge or so-called "common sense". Smart people grasp concepts and abstractions faster than the average Joe, and that's all that an IQ test is designed to measure. 

[gmgraves]

20 hours ago, mansr said:

All true, but an IQ test doesn't account for the effects of long-term experience. Reaching one's limit in a particular area of problem solving can take years.

When I stated that all IQ tests measure is the ability to solve problems, I would have expected that the word "all" would be universally inclusive, meaning that it excludes a lifetime of experience as well any savant-ism that one might have. It also excludes talents such as the ability to sing well, or play a musical instrument or prowess at some sport. Just the ability to solve problems. 

[gmgraves]

39 minutes ago, mansr said:

Yes, but apparently they didn't want to conquer Europe, for whatever reason. The Mongols wanted to and did.

Only as far west as Vienna.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Why?  Did they not also have selection pressures that forced them to become smarter?  Nice try though...

 

Just because I used one example doesn't meant there aren't also others.

Actually, according to "The Bell Curve" by  ‎Richard J. Herrnstein‎ and ‎Charles Murray, The people with the highest average IQ on the planet are the Chinese, followed by European Ashkenazi Jews. White Europeans are third. The groups with the lowest average IQs are Mexicans of American Indian ancestry, and Africans. And it's simply (in those cases) exactly that African natives and others on the low end of the scale do not have the selections pressures that forced them to be smarter. African Americans are 10 point below the US national average (which will always be 100 because it's the centerpoint of the bell curve by definition). And I'm just the messenger. Don't get mad at me if you don't like the findings of Herrnstein and Murray's research. 

And Mansr, suggesting that black Africans don't have as high an IQ as other groups is only offensive if it's not the truth and is being used to keep some groups down. Since it is the truth, and there is lots of research to back it up, it shouldn't offend anyone. I'm sure that it's Inconvenient for the politically correct, perhaps, but in science (and the search for truth), there is no place for political correctness. 

[gmgraves]

8 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

What are some of those current selection pressures in first world societies?

Physical attractiveness, is number one in all societies where the mates select each other. After that it's such factors as personality, sense of humor, and with women it's the ability of a potential mate to support a family. The guy who is good-looking, smart, has a high-paying job and exhibits that he has lots of money is prime mating material in this society and generally has his pick of the females. 

[gmgraves]

8 hours ago, mansr said:

Whatever it is that women find attractive in men. Many men seem to believe it is fast cars.

Well, Fast cars are generally expensive, and as such are an outward indicator of possible wealth and women are attracted to money as proof that the guy can provide her with financial security and in first world cultures, that's a big attraction. It can even trump #1, looks. Case in point: Bill Gates, Melinda French!

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Kal Rubinson said:

That's well known but that affects his options which may not be influenced by whether she is capable of (or interested in) a large family.  My point is that a wealthy and advanced society (putting aside its inequities and inefficiencies for the moment) does not challenge selection for intelligence to the extent that physical and intellectual abilities are selected in physically challenging environments.

True enough. 

[gmgraves]

12 minutes ago, Jud said:

- IQ tests have everything to do with what makes a person intelligent *in the view of the testmakers.* And then the statistical tool is applied that invariably finds a portion of the subject’s performance on these disparate tests is due to a single “general factor” of intelligence.

I think that's probably not correct. It's not "in the view of the testmakers", it's the result of a standard test given across all social, economic, racial and gender groups. It's non-verbal and basically is designed to measure only one aspect of any human being's make-up and that's the individual's ability to solve problems. Most of the tests are based on visual cues using shapes and forms which makes some apologists say that some groups don't do well because the tests are "culturally biased", which is, of course, nonsense. One doesn't even have to know how to read to take a Stanford-Binet IQ test. 

[gmgraves]

1 minute ago, pkane2001 said:

I've also met with Steve Jobs a few times. He also appeared not to be fully adept at the accepted social behavior, although his approach was much more of the "I couldn't care less about social conventions" kind.

 

I've met Steve several times as a technical marketing engineer in Silicon Valley. He went out of his way to be a jerk. Literally. The first time I met him my company's sales rep and I went in to sell him on a keyboard encoder chip my company was making (they ere designing the Apple III). We went into his office where he had his dirty, bare feet up on the desk. He was very perfunctory; no "welcome  to Apple", in fact he didn't Even introduce himself! I gave my pitch, and when I was finished, without saying a word to me, he turned to the sales guy and started to excoriate him about some delivery issues on another part that we sold to Apple. When they got around to the keyboard encoder it broke down into an argument about cost/quantity issues. That first time he never said a word to me! Subsequent times, he did address me, but never in a friendly or even a cordial way just very perfunctory as if he was saying "What have you come here to bother me about today?" 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, Hugo9000 said:

 

Oh, come on, now!  You can't tell me that this man doesn't just radiate sex appeal!  That come-hither look, the naughty, crooked smile, that pose on his desktop?

 

  

 

?

 

He doesn't radiate sex appeal to me! But This does!

 

[gmgraves]

15 hours ago, esldude said:

Well I agree with one of them.  The most recent.

 

But is that because of his innate IQ or just the leftover effects of cocaine.  

I certainly wouldn't consider Reagan dumb. He was quite effective, where many presidents weren't (aren't). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that in my lifetime, we've only had three "great" presidents: Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. Reagan was a "good", effective leader, and I wouldn't give a nickel for the rest, each worse than the one before. 

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Yes but most will also test tings like short term memory or working memory. Without STM it makes it very difficult to harness intelligence.

 

 

There are typically language and visuospatial tasks. I would argue that if there weren't the result would be compromised. I think the Stanford-Binet IQ test is mainly used in kids but I could be wrong. using only visual cues may be used in certain populations to increase test sensitivity and applicability where language is known to be compromised.Nonetheless there is verbal and non-verbal visuospatial components to IQ. people also learn in quite different ways, some needing visual illustrations and others using more verbally based explanations.

IQ tests are generally given to kids in the 7th-8th grades here in the USA. It's also given by Mensa to prospective members. I've often thought that it should be given several times over one's productive life as IQ can change. I know it can go up, and there are probably situations where it can go down too. 

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, daverich4 said:

Just curious what any of this Intellectual Masturbation you guys are doing has to do with the topic this thread is supposed to be about?

I was about to make a similar observation that we should get back to the topic at hand: "How Much Does It Cost To Be An Audiophile?" 

[gmgraves]

8 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

IQ tests are, imo, a means to bragging rights for people that usually have little else to brag about, or to make up a number.  Lets stop talking about stupid IQ tests.

Very few people who have High IQs ever talk about it. It's generally self apparent and they don't have to brag about it. The exception is Mensa. But, if you knew the kinds of people who frequent Mensa, you wouldn't want any part of it, irrespective of whether or not you qualified for membership!