Great sounding system - $2K all in

[fas42]

3 hours ago, MarkusBarkus said:

...jibba-jabba. The above is so misguided, it's stunning. 

 

Nope. This is the heart of the matter ... you Subtract Badness; not, Add Goodness - it's absolutely core of getting the best out of any rig. I have done this exercise, over and over again, with all sorts of combinations of gear - and it always works ... you listen for what is below par in what you hear, and then track down likely suspects that are causing that. Once identified, you sort it out - cumulatively doing this delivers competent SQ - of the quality one can hear in the best YT clips being put up ...

[sandyk]

Quote

45 minutes ago, botrytis said:

Remember this is they gen that puts STACKS papers on his speaker and believes it helps......

 

MQA must be rubbing their hands together with glee at the acceptance of Youtube audio by people like Frank because it makes MQA sound great in comparison.  

[fas42]

4 hours ago, sandyk said:

 This thread is Great sounding system - $2K all in

 

 

A "great sounding system" is one that lacks any significant, audible flaws - if it is obviously flawed, just over a YT video played normally, what chance does it have of being "fantastic", in the flesh?

[fas42]

1 hour ago, botrytis said:

Remember this is they gen that puts STACKS papers on his speaker and believes it helps......

 

It helps to understand the REASONS why something is done - rather than focus on the particular methods used 😉 - high mass gets the job done; every serious, blingy speaker out there has tonnes of weight to it - because the makers know that this is an essential for getting "high end" sound - you have to minimise spurious vibrations, to get clarity.

 

If I take the stacks of papers off, it reverts to tiny, typical bookshelf sound; and clean, solid bass impact evaporates - not being a fan of the latter experience, I choose not to do this 🙃 ...

[fas42]

16 minutes ago, sandyk said:

MQA must be rubbing their hands together with glee at the acceptance of Youtube audio by people like Frank because it makes MQA sound great in comparison.  

 

Number one call is for replay to be pleasant - if it is disturbingly irritating to listen to, as many high end rigs are, unless they play only the "Right Recordings", then you've immediately lost a large part of the audience anyway - MQA is a fudge that makes it more pleasant on many lacklustre setups; that's why it wasn't instantly rejected.

[sphinxsix]

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

MQA is a fudge that makes it more pleasant on many lacklustre setups; that's why it wasn't instantly rejected.

 

Maybe the reason why MQA wasn't 'instantly rejected' is that it sounds a little bit like Youtube mp3 - the same lossy genes after all..

As for Youtube - first it became the masses' source of choice for video clips, then for movies, next for music (sounding particularly good when played through a phone speaker of course!)..

Will it now become the main source of knowledge of how audio gear sounds for audiophiles.? (different rooms with different acoustics, low quality mics, often just randomly changing position, mp3 sound.. c'mon, guys..)

I would call the whole thing a YOUTUBISATION of culture..

I'm sorry, I personally say - NO!

 

 

 

[botrytis]

13 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

It helps to understand the REASONS why something is done - rather than focus on the particular methods used 😉 - high mass gets the job done; every serious, blingy speaker out there has tonnes of weight to it - because the makers know that this is an essential for getting "high end" sound - you have to minimise spurious vibrations, to get clarity.

 

If I take the stacks of papers off, it reverts to tiny, typical bookshelf sound; and clean, solid bass impact evaporates - not being a fan of the latter experience, I choose not to do this 🙃 ...

 

Then you need different speakers. Plain and simple.

 

Well, many are going the opposite like Q Acoustics with their stands that give, as they totally isolated.

 

Q Acoustics Concept 300 Review: These Sexy Bookshelf Speakers Are Brilliant! – HI-FI Trends

[fas42]

3 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

Then you need different speakers. Plain and simple.

 

Well, many are going the opposite like Q Acoustics with their stands that give, as they totally isolated.

 

Q Acoustics Concept 300 Review: These Sexy Bookshelf Speakers Are Brilliant! – HI-FI Trends

 

Think about it. If a major factor in getting a speaker to sound as good as it's intrinsically capable of is to minimise all excess vibration, then it's going to require lots of engineering, and cost of materials, and cost to ship it around if sheer mass is a major mechanism used to get the job done. Which you as a consumer are going to pay for. With a major loading on top of that to reward the maker for doing it. ... If you're happy to line the pockets of other people to make it happen, that's OK - but it's not my way. Some people if they want a new lawn in their yard will pay people to come in, dig out all the dirt down many inches; cart that away; bring in new, exactly the right sort of loam to fill the hole; lay on pristine, carefully prepared turf, fertilise, water - voila, instant, "perfect" spread of green - which you pay through the nose for ... personally, that doesn't do a thing for me - I want the satisfaction of the results being from my efforts.

[fas42]

4 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

Q Acoustics Concept 300 Review: These Sexy Bookshelf Speakers Are Brilliant! – HI-FI Trends

 

And the giveaway:

 

Quote

 

Cons

• Sound lacks a little depth

 

 

Exactly what I would expect from the flimsy way of supporting them in space ... what I get is depth, tonnes of it; I like the vista opening up to the performance beyond the speakers; that world that exists within the recording.

[fas42]

5 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

 

Maybe the reason why MQA wasn't 'instantly rejected' is that it sounds a little bit like Youtube mp3 - the same lossy genes after all..

As for Youtube - first it became the masses' source of choice for video clips, then for movies, next for music (sounding particularly good when played through a phone speaker of course!)..

Will it now become the main source of knowledge of how audio gear sounds for audiophiles.? (different rooms with different acoustics, low quality mics, often just randomly changing position, mp3 sound.. c'mon, guys..)

I would call the whole thing a YOUTUBISATION of culture..

I'm sorry, I personally say - NO!

 

 

 

 

We're talking about the bell curve of listening experiences again; where the height of the curve represents the level of potential unpleasantness about the SQ - I described this some time ago.

 

To summarise, at the beginning of the curve - low cost, non-ambitious gear can easily be made to always sound pleasant: MP3, MQA, etc all help in this goal. At the peak of the curve almost no recordings can be listened to for pleasure, because the SQ is so on edge that the slightest imperfection in the source audio screams at you. Finally, where only a few people get to, is the right side, the end of the curve, where the system is now fully competent - and virtually every recording is a pleasure to listen to, no matter how it's recorded ... here, you win everything.

 

The choice is where one wants to be on that bell curve - no-one is forcing you to stay in any one place ... and the right hand end is always available, if one chooses to pursue it, 😉.

[sandyk]

52 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Exactly what I would expect from the flimsy way of supporting them in space ... what I get is depth, tonnes of it; I like the vista opening up to the performance beyond the speakers; that world that exists within the recording.

 And all that from 128kb/s YouTube videos.🤣 

[fas42]

10 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 And all that from only 2 tiny laptop speakers playing  128kb/s .aac audio ! 🤣

 

Alex, don't confuse when I use laptop speakers to get a general idea of the quality of something, especially if it's getting key parts of the SQ wrong; from what I hear through the 'serious' rig, which happens to be those digital speakers at the moment. As regards the Concept 300 speakers, I'm reacting to the words of the reviewer, in that link - reading it more thoroughly, his issues with the bass make complete sense to me - if I had them, I would mount them completely differently; to "rescue" the sound.

 

Quote

Come on Frank, be honest with all of us. Did you even go to the trouble of extracting the 128kb/s .aac audio from the YouTube video, save it to SSD/HDD, and then play it using your bookshelf speakers ?

If so, how did you play it through your main system?

 

Which video?

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Which video?

 

ALL of the Youtube videos with 128kb/s .aac audio that you keep making these claims for !

 How do you play them through your Bookshelf speakers ?

[fas42]

14 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

ALL of the Youtube videos with 128kb/s .aac audio that you keep making these claims for !

 How do you play them through your Bookshelf speakers ?

 

I'm confused now ... I play YT clips to check captures of other playback systems; and to hear music that I'm not familiar with - if I suspect that the YT data could give me more info, I DL the Opus audio, which gives me the best, 20kHz version; convert that to a WAV file, and play that in one of my better media players - on the laptop.

 

If I want to play through the proper speakers, I burn that to CDR, and away it goes ... I've done that to a highly vintage, set of classical tracks captured off Spotify, fairly recently - I was quite impressed with how well that did; meaning that the Spotify compression wasn't doing too much damage ...

[sphinxsix]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

at the beginning of the curve - low cost, non-ambitious gear can easily be made to always sound pleasant: MP3, MQA, etc all help in this goal.

 

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Finally, where only a few people get to, is the right side, the end of the curve, where the system is now fully competent - and virtually every recording is a pleasure to listen to, no matter how it's recorded ... here, you win everything.

 

1. I do not get in 100% what's according to you the difference between the two then..

 

 

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Finally, where only a few people get to, is the right side, the end of the curve, where the system is now fully competent - and virtually every recording is a pleasure to listen to, no matter how it's recorded ... here, you win everything.

 

2. I'm sorry I do not agree - IMO a really good hi end system will always show clearly the difference between well recorded and poorly recorded material and the better, the more revealing the system is, the bigger the difference will be. Also eg good speakers will show more clearly SQ differences between other components.

 

Of course some may prefer eg some euphonic, sweet sounding systems which will make more recordings sound pleasant but IMO systems like that don't tell the truth - they in a way tell a fairy tale and they will never be as revealing or realistic as the former ones. Not that I mind someone else choosing the later option 

[MarkusBarkus]

[sandyk]

53 minutes ago, fas42 said:

if I suspect that the YT data could give me more info, I DL the Opus audio, which gives me the best, 20kHz version; convert that to a WAV file, and play that in one of my better media players - on the laptop.

 

 Once again you prove my point. You are playing them through tiny little Laptop speakers that have buggerall frequency response below 100Hz and above about 11kHz.

I would bet that you haven't even done that with the vast majority of YouTube videos that you are replying to, where Opus audio as an OUTPUT format isn't an option either.

 The only way that I can directly play the pathetic 128kb/s .aac Youtube audio which is limited to around 16kHz via my main system, is to use the WiFi dongle of my Oppo 103

 Please post a screen grab of the Audio Spectrum  of one of these Opus Audio captures . I don't doubt that some use Opus for encoding as high as 20kHz but it appears that it is still  restricted to 128kB/s for playback

 

See also this discussion :

youtube-dl: Download Opus audio or AAC audio? - Super User

[fas42]

4 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Once again you prove my point. You are playing them through tiny little Laptop speakers that have buggerall frequency response below 100Hz and above about 11kHz.

I would bet that you haven't even done that with the vast majority o YouTube videos that you are replying to, where Opus audio isn't an option either.

 The only way that I can directly play the pathetic 128kb/s .aac Youtube audio via my main system is to use the WiFi dongle of my Oppo 103

 Please post a screen grab of the Audio Spectrum  of one of these Opus Audio captures . I don't doubt that some use Opus for encoding as high as 20kHz but it appears that it is still  restricted to 128kB/s for playback

 

Ummm, nothing below 200Hz 😉 - but where do you get this nonsense about lacking treble output? Any headphone, no matter how cheap, can easily pump out high frequencies - tiny drivers are perfectly at ease with delivering this sort of sound.

 

Opus is always available - I have never seen it not being there.

 

What I'll do is try and find a technical video clip, where the poster has inserted some output from a wave generator - say, put up so people can test their hearing - and see what the spectrum looks like. It's not the user that decides to use Opus; it's done as part of the automatic YouTube processing of the upload, it seems.

[sphinxsix]

Wait a minute, are we talking judging hi end gear by listening to it through laptop speakers here.?

The end of the world is near.. believe me..

 

 

 

[fas42]

23 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

 

 

1. I do not get in 100% what's according to you the difference between the two then..

 

 

With the low end you get pleasantness - but it lacks detail; it throws away that which might be disturbing to experience. At the other end you get everything, but the absolute bare minimum distortion of what was recorded is added to the mix. In the middle, all the detail is coming through, but a disturbing level of anomalies is added, from shortcomings in the playback chain.

 

23 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

 

2. I'm sorry I do not agree - IMO a really good hi end system will always show clearly the difference between well recorded and poorly recorded material and the better, the more revealing the system is, the bigger the difference will be. Also eg good speakers will show more clearly SQ differences between other components.

 

You will differences, lots of it ... but it won't be unpleasant to one's hearing - a 'silly' example is a Marshall guitar amp; that's distorting what is coming from the guitar pickups - but it's good to listen to! It turns out that one's hearing adjusts to the "setup" of the recording, and what's important in the musical content is what your mental focus reacts to, in a positive way.

 

23 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

 

Of course some may prefer eg some euphonic, sweet sounding systems which will make more recordings sound pleasant but IMO systems like that don't tell the truth - they in a way tell a fairy tale and they will never be as revealing or realistic as the former ones. Not that I mind someone else choosing the later option 

 

Euphonic means that that all recordings are flavoured the same - the better the playback, the more every recording sounds different from the previous one - but they never sound "bad" ... an analogy is meeting 100 people, at random - no-one looks non-human, their individuality always shines through.

[fas42]

11 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

Wait a minute, are we talking judging hi end gear by listening to it through laptop speakers here.?

The end of the world is near.. believe me..

 

 

 

 

Tell me, if you talk to someone you know over that ultra, ultra primitive, lo-res phone system - do you have any trouble picking up that they are not in a good mood; that they are a bit off-colour; that they are not "their usual self"?

[sandyk]

24 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Ummm, nothing below 200Hz 😉 - but where do you get this nonsense about lacking treble output? Any headphone, no matter how cheap, can easily pump out high frequencies - tiny drivers are perfectly at ease with delivering this sort of sound.

 I have previously posted Frequency spectrum response graphs of typical small Laptop speakers.

Unless your laptop cost over $2K you will also have a similar limitation. There is usually a very larger dip at just over 10kHz.

Even my fairly expensive ATH M70x which claim a response to 40kHz have this typical dip, but way less than typical inexpensive headphones. 

[sandyk]

26 minutes ago, fas42 said:

It's not the user that decides to use Opus; it's done as part of the automatic YouTube processing of the upload, it seems.

Which is as I said, and 128kb/s .aac audio is typically limited to around 16kHz maximum which is even inferior to FM  Stereo.

 

 Opus Audio is mainly used for encoding at lower bit rates than .aac audio. 

[sphinxsix]

37 minutes ago, fas42 said:

At the other end you get everything, but the absolute bare minimum distortion of what was recorded is added to the mix. In the middle, all the detail is coming through, but a disturbing level of anomalies is added, from shortcomings in the playback chain.

 

Didn't you say (about 'the other end'):

 

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

Finally, where only a few people get to, is the right side, the end of the curve, where the system is now fully competent - and virtually every recording is a pleasure to listen to

 

 

37 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Euphonic means that that all recordings are flavoured the same - the better the playback, the more every recording sounds different from the previous one - but they never sound "bad"

 

Believe me, there are lots of bad recordings out there, possibly more of them than of good ones.. and if one can't hear that, something isn't quite right.

 

Ps. @fas42 Why don't you use your active speakers with your laptop if I may ask.?

 

[sphinxsix]

22 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Tell me, if you talk to someone you know over that ultra, ultra primitive, lo-res phone system - do you have any trouble picking up that they are not in a good mood; that they are a bit off-colour; that they are not "their usual self"?

 

Yes I can also hear eg if a song is sad or jolly but I don't want to hear none of them through a phone anyway (I get nervous when I'm forced to)..