Fatigue free listening

[Blackmorec]

When comparing hi-res to lo-res source material, if your system sounds preferable, with less harshness in particular with low res files, your system has a shortage of resolution and you’re hearing the unresolved music/acoustic combined with the other music as harshness (the alteration of certain frequencies).  Increase resolution and you’ll hear more subtle detail, notice a corresponding decrease in harshness and of course generally prefer hi-res material, with its greater level of detail. 

 

When a system is really cookin’ with hi-res files, the knock-on benefit is that low resolution also starts to sound really good....not hi-res standard but way good enough to listen to very regularly without major sacrifice. 

[Blackmorec]

11 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

Dunno what you are specifically referring to when you use the term "low resolution" but, if you are talking MP3, the difference from listening to hi-res on a well configured system could, depending on the quality of the recording, amount to a "major sacrifice".

In a really well matched and highly network-optimised system, lo-res material like Swiss Radio Classic (128kbps MP3) will meet every single audiophile desire, from beautiful accurate tone, wide and deep acoustical stage, accurate instrument placement, excellent dynamics and micro-dynamics and most important the overall beauty, rhythm and gestalt of the music.

The same system playing hi-res files will exceed most audiophile’s expectations, creating a facsimile of the recording venue and populating it with musicians playing instuments, such that music sounds like its being played by instruments rather than a reproduction of sounds made by instruments. 

The point is, while the hi-res stuff is stunningly good, the lo-res stuff can be highly enjoyable and rewarding, so not a major sacrifice, especially when the program material is of a very high quality.

 

And just for the record, I prefer the sound of my engine and exhaust to the sound of an MP3 file playing on my car’s ICES.

[Blackmorec]

11 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 A multi function computer when  properly implemented is capable of outperforming most stand alone servers etc. especially when Subscription services are used where the quality of the material listened to will never be quite as good as when the information is directly extracted and saved to an electrically quiet PC or Server. The front end DOES matter, despite what some members here will insist.

I have spent a small  fraction of the money that the guys in Rajiv's thread are doing.

These days much of my listening is with headphones, although I can output from the PC to my main system when I wish to, which BTW is used even for watching TV. 

I also use my PC to download Music Videos from YouTube and  extract the hidden higher quality Video and Audio streams to create markedly better looking and sounding Videos that I can play on my main system, as well as capture some of the great music performances from USA late night TV when available as uploaded .ts streams.

Not everybody has a separate listening room available , and I am also on a pension these days. 

In fact, if the Covid 19 virus keeps going much longer, many people won't be able to afford to do what so many members of this forum are currently doing.

Hey Sandy,

Have I got this right? You are claiming that a standard PC, with its cheap-as-chips power supply, bloated operating system, non-optimised (for audio) CPU and EFI radiation, with all sorts of tasks running in background plus cooling fans is better that a dedicated, optimised, purpose built (for audio) server with dedicated, multi-rail, low noise linear power supplies, vibration control, EMI mitigation measures, optimised CPU utilisation, optimised OS and BIOS, high accuracy, temperature stabilised oscillators and passive cooling? Surely I’m mistaken, right?