MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Accurate monitoring setups are tools for the audio industry, they don’t sound bad, but they can be a bit boring to listen to.
As I said, it's subjective. I listen mostly to classical and I have a very good idea what it sounds like live. IMO an accurate system gets closer to reproducing that than a typical artificially warm hi-fi.
Still not close but closer.
Can you explain using physics why mains cable vs bell wire makes the difference you say it does?…and why nothing over 2.5mm² will.have any benefit?
It's to do with the "skin effect".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect
Lots of strands have lower resistance to AC than a single strand of the same diameter.
Hence bell wire is not nearly as good as proper speaker cable.
(Apologies if this has already been discussed).
IMO an accurate system gets closer to reproducing that than a typical artificially warm hi-fi.
shure, but a "nice sounding" setup can make listening to recordings (which have obvious limitations,and some which are less than perfect) more enjoyable IME
molgrips
I’ve no idea why I can’t bear to listen to MP3 music on headphones for long periods, but I can listen to HD audio (on Amazon) all day.
What's the actually difference you can hear?
Cause i'll be honest, I hear no difference at all, been messing about with a free tidal account and comparing it to youtube music, A/Bing it, and I hear no difference. Same when I make stuff in abelton and export to mp3. I'm not hearing any noticeable difference.
Can you describe the difference you are hearing?
shure, but a “nice sounding” setup can make listening to recordings (which have obvious limitations,and some which are less than perfect) more enjoyable IME
*Nods approvingly*
mp3 artefacts can be heard easily on piano and bowed string instruments i find, there are a lot of codecs some are less obvious than others.
What does an artefact sound like on a 256 aac or 320mp3?
What do you mean? If you are implying that it is not audible to you at the maximum data rates, fair enough.
It manifests mainly as added extra noise oddly related to the input signal and can sound a bit "phasey reverby or echoy" (if those terms exixt!) for want of a better way to describe it.
If you believe that it is the last word in high fidelity, so be it.
Some material loses a lot in conversion to compressed formats to my ears.
Some is such crap to start off with that it does not really matter 😉
I'm asking you to describe it, so I can listen for the specific thing. artefacts is a bit vague. Curious to hear the difference.
Is there a specific example on a specific song so I can A/B it? I've got a 3 month try of tidal, so I am curious.
Lots of variables, I find it most apparent on piano and strings, maybe because they produse tones rich in harmonics etc. try a few of your faves with those instruments, Oscar Peterson- Motions and Emotions or a bit of Tori Amos, are easy listening 😉
What’s the actually difference you can hear?
It sounds more wooly on the standard def stream. But this isn't the weird part. With compresse audio I can't listen to headphones for long periods. Just ends up stressing me out. Like some sort of pressure in my head and ears. Even on planes I could never listen for long.
I can listen to HD audio for hours and hours though.
Cool, cheers, will have a listen out to those tracks.
I agree with what Molgrips said.
I just can't listen to poor quality digital for much over half an hour.
It was the same when CD first came out - the initial releases of classical stuff were unlistenable - so much distortion, tiring and unatural.
Early cd's were manufactured using analogue masters and as such the compression was ramped up leading to poor sound quality.
Out of curiosity, what are your hi res audio listening set ups?
What does an artefact sound like on a 256 aac or 320mp3?
you won’t hear them at those rates. You won’t notice any difference between a downsampled 320kbps mp3 and its fancy ‘hi res’ original.
You can hear the kinds of artefacts described at mp3 rates of 128 Kbps. You will hear them at 96kbps and lower.
if I remember correctly this was a speaker cable thread. Even with bell wire you’ll hear the loss of detail between 320kbps mp3 and 96kbps.
seosamh77
Full MemberI’m asking you to describe it, so I can listen for the specific thing. artefacts is a bit vague. Curious to hear the difference.
One example is pre-echo, if you search for that on Hydrogen Audio you should be able to find a bunch of example tracks. Castanets are a particular problem for MP3. AAC does a lot lot better.
Out of curiosity, what are your hi res audio listening set ups?
See my previous post on this thread, as for the signal path, see below
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Was just trying some oscar peterson there as recommend above. on my xm4s throgh LDAC and through wired on the mac through my scarlett interface. tbh, I canny hear the difference at all, A/Bing between youtube and tidal masters.
Not saying it isn't there, but I've been testing for a week or so now. I think I'm glad I canny hear the difference. 😆 will save me a few quid.
incidently I also don't hear a difference between LDAC and SBC on the bluetooth.
somafunk
Full Member
Why are you converting from 88.2 to 384khz?
Out of curiosity, what are your hi res audio listening set ups?
I simply have XM3s and an Amazon Music HD sub. I always use Bluetooth, but I have LDAC with max bitrate on the phone and AAC on the Mac. I think the phone + LDAC has the edge but theres not a lot in it. Wired to the Mac is best, although I think maybe wired to the phone isn't such an improvement over bluetooth - but I don't want to bother with wires. I really think that of all these things having a high quality BT codec and lossless audio codec is what stops my ears and brain hurting.
Incidentally, there was a problem with my HD sub a while back, and I ended up listening to SD - and I could tell straight away something wasn't right. But for the record, I cannot tell the difference between HD and Ultra HD on this setup.
I also have an Echo Link connected via analogue to my amp, I gave away nearly ally my CDs, and I have archived my CD player. The Echo is crisper, clearer but lacks warmth - it's objectively better dynamically but I preferred the CD player overall. But not so much that I'll be faffing around with CDs.
heh, I thought I was the only person with an echo link - they don't seem very popular. I also have a link amp used to drive a couple of small bronze-1 speakers in the office - there's probably better things out there for the money but I liuke the connected-ness
prettygreenparrot
Full Member
What does an artefact sound like on a 256 aac or 320mp3?you won’t hear them at those rates. You won’t notice any difference between a downsampled 320kbps mp3 and its fancy ‘hi res’ original.
You can hear the kinds of artefacts described at mp3 rates of 128 Kbps. You will hear them at 96kbps and lower.
if I remember correctly this was a speaker cable thread. Even with bell wire you’ll hear the loss of detail between 320kbps mp3 and 96kbps.
Yeah I'd agree here, I did a test last night on some recorded music I'd made. exported the 320 CBR from ableton, downsampled to 256/192/128/64/32. was only really 128 where I can start to notice(even then I might fail in a blind test sometimes I reckon), 64 was surprising capable, but obviously degraded. 32 was just a riot. 😆
What’s the actually difference you can hear?
Cause i’ll be honest, I hear no difference at all, been messing about with a free tidal account and comparing it to youtube music, A/Bing it, and I hear no difference. Same when I make stuff in abelton and export to mp3. I’m not hearing any noticeable difference.
Can you describe the difference you are hearing?
When I was working at BBC R&D I asked one of the audio guys this and he advised me I was better off not knowing, because once you know what to look for you can't stop yourself. I don't know, and I don't want to know.
OP back again, can't believe this thread is still going, but i have learnt a lot from it which is a good thing, one thing i don't have to worry about to much is the upper frequency end of hearing too much having started my working life as an artillery man, thankfully i have a love of dub reggae..
Finished setting system up today having decided to go with proper speaker stands over just having them resting in either corner (offset to corner and about away from the walls).
Started with this:
https://www.discogs.com/The-Aggrovators-Dubbing-At-King-Tubbys-Vol-1/release/8759239 think my vinyl habit may be a new rabbit hole to disappear down.
I ended up just using this cable, but bought at £5 a metre:
https://www.richersounds.com/chord-c-screen.html
Thanks all for advice.
When I was working at BBC R&D I asked one of the audio guys this and he advised me I was better off not knowing, because once you know what to look for you can’t stop yourself. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.
I can translate that for you: he didn't know. (-:
I know what he means though. Once you notice the orange & teal palette in TV and films you can't unsee it, it's everywhere. Erm, sorry everyone.
Re the Soundguys article, they seem to take a lot of nice accurate measurements, see differences, and then hand-wave them away with stuff like this:
Bit unfair there Mols. They go on to summarise what they mean later in the same paragraph, and the bit you're objecting to is a hyperlink to a fairly lengthy article explaining all about frequency response. It's not hand-waving at all.
Yes - you might not be able to measure the difference, as all the boring engineers have pointed out, but you can feel it... and that's what music's all about isn't it?
I've just got to the end of that article.
It makes me very happy that the targeted advertising it gave me after the end was a link to buy posh coat-hangers.
RegaP3 or marantz CD/RotelPre /Dr Thomas and a pair of Advents
in the box its PTHD 192/Audient iD Quad 240 on some Tannoy System 8's and Dynaudio BM15A's
all probably belongs in the retro hifi thread.....
you can feel it
Five quid a metre for speaker cable to listen to vinyl, I'd be feeling it too.
5 quid a metre? <shudders>
Five quid a metre for speaker cable to listen to vinyl, I’d be feeling it too.
Thankfully i only needed 6 metres, so hardly broke the bank, and it made me happy to have my little set up going and to crack out some vinyl i haven't heard for 20 years, which is more than i can say for most of the miserable self-absorbed buggers who feel they have to be critical of everything on here.
Bit unfair there Mols. They go on to summarise what they mean later in the same paragraph, and the bit you’re objecting to is a hyperlink to a fairly lengthy article explaining all about frequency response. It’s not hand-waving at all.
Well no, their science stops at their measuring equipment. But it's simply an assumption that they are measuring the right things, and it's also an assumption as to how their measurements translate to listening pleasure.
Why are you converting from 88.2 to 384khz?
At the risk of kicking over a can of worms with my understanding.........the greater sampling rate will provide more information for increased data sampling and as close as possible to an analogue waveform which has an infinitesimal amount of potential data points.
EDIT : Found better explanations below
WOW, its just like the zoom/enhance in Bladerunner.
wait.
which is more than i can say for most of the miserable self-absorbed buggers who feel they have to be critical of everything on here.
🤣 Well played.
somafunk
Full Member
Why are you converting from 88.2 to 384khz?At the risk of kicking over a can of worms with my understanding………the greater sampling rate will provide more information for increased data sampling and as close as possible to an analogue waveform which has an infinitesimal amount of potential data points.
EDIT : Found better explanations below
fair enough, at what point do you think it becomes indistinguishable though?
Thankfully i only needed 6 metres, so hardly broke the bank,
Less than the price of a decent tyre, fancy bit of plastic to stop mud clogging up your 5k full suss, or a weeks worth of Chai matcha caramel skinny lattes with extra squirt cream
Sounds like a bargain to me if it helps get your foot tapping.
fair enough, at what point do you think it becomes indistinguishable though?
From 320kbps mp3 to cd quality/16bit 44.1khz, relatively easily and repeatable to a point that I can say which is which but I do have a decent enough system and more importantly a room that allows me to hear without extraneous reflections (don't want to stress the point yet again but it does make a significant difference).
After a few beers or whisky's anything above 16bit/44.1khz not a jot to my ears, before a few beers or whiskies?............Hmmm? - obviously id like to say yes but that'd be stretching my ability as my ears are untrained compared to the friends I have who make a very decent living from music, whether that be producing or running their own mixing/mastering studios - their ability to detect imperceptible tonal differences between sounds is an art form that only comes with many years in the business, they've tried to educate me on the "obvious to them" differences that they can pick up on but I very soon disappear up my own arse with guesswork which probably sums up the hifi hi-res discussion.
So as long as it's cd quality im perfectly happy, daft and probably innapropriate food analogy - anything else on top of cd quality is akin to a fancy garnish that makes it look pretty and enhances the desire to experience it, does nothing to the actual taste but then again how something looks can have a positive impression on how it tastes - therefore all things being equal 24bit 384khz must be better.
Id rather listen to a low res well produced, engineered and mastered track on mp3 than a poorly mastered hi res track.
Defo with you on your last point anyhow!
A decent, well placed $20 Ikea rug will make more difference to the sound than posh cables would.
I upgraded my rug to a 3k silk one from House of Rugs,
much better 3d soundstage and tighter rhythmic low end.
tighter rhythmic low end
Forget the cables, but I mounted my speakers on some IsoAcoustics Aperta desk speaker isolation stands. Made a big difference. I went for shiny silver to match the monitor and MacBook because I am vain. Cheaper plastic ones are available. Not cheap, but a big improvement.
Currently playing a set of Rogers JR149s driven by a Sonos amp for the computer.
shh, they’ll be telling you they can tell the difference between 256AAC/320MP3 and FLAC next.
I know I can’t, or at least not without doing long-winded testing with multiple tracks, at which point I’m pretty certain any difference I could hear is more down to variables in the original mastering or re-mastering that’s been going on.
I can hear significant differences between different earphones and headphones, but that’s nothing to do with the source material. I’ve got an article somewhere about this very thing, and the writer came to the conclusion that there’s no point going for Lossless downloads, because the great majority of people can’t hear any significant difference between them, and having a mix of 256 and 320Kb music on my phone, even using cabled three-driver Ultimate Ears IEM’s I can’t hear any difference at between them, and I have compared with lossless as well in the past. The amount of space taken up by lossless isn’t worth any minute difference that a golden-eared individual might think they can hear!
I can definitely tell the difference between 128kbs and lossless.. Not so much 320kbs though.
No
Nor
(what we talking about?)
I'm about to buy a 10m drum of 12V cable to sort some solar panels on the campervan. With luck there'll be enough left over to use with the speakers in the garage.
Holy thread resurrection Batman...
This week, does vinyl sound "better"?
"Does speaker cable actually make a difference?"
Yes
As a result of this thread I've actually stopped listening to S Club 7 until I can get my head around this. I am really worried that my previous enjoyment of Reach For The Stars has been limited by inferior cables and I refuse to allow their art to be compromised.
franksinatra
As a result of this thread I’ve actually stopped listening to S Club 7 until I can get my head around this. I am really worried that my previous enjoyment of Reach For The Stars has been limited by inferior cables
The song is actually called Reach for the Galaxies showing just how much info you've been losing down those inferior cables!!
🤣
Apparently there are on average 1,000 people in the world listening to S Club 7 at any given time.*
By stopping you are therefore causing someone else to have to listen. Selfish.
Meanwhile - Peter Walker's (of QUAD fame) thoughts on the matter. When asked what the requirements of a good speaker cable were, he is said to have replied:
" There are only two requirements a speaker cable should satisfy. The first is that it should be long enough to reach between amplifier and speaker. Then having done that, the only other requirement is, ideally, the colour of the insulation should match that of the surface on which it is lays."
*I might have made this up
Does speaker cable actually make a difference?”
Yes
True. It's pretty hopeless unless connected in the right direction.
True. It’s pretty hopeless unless connected in the right direction.
There is, after all, only One Direction…
I think Peter Walker could also have added that the speakers make more difference than the cable.
Does this help ?
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That's amazing.
This week, does vinyl sound “better”?
No. Next?
Define 'better'. 🙃
I think it's pretty well defined.
One could successfully argue that one prefers it. Your ears and your preferences, that's subjective. It's not for me but to each their own, go enjoy things. Hell, in 20 years' time our current crop of Zoomers might shed a nostalgic tear over autotune.
But one cannot argue that it sounds better because it objectively does not.
But one cannot argue that it sounds better because it objectively does not.
cougar - "better" is subjective. There is surely no objective standard as to what sounds better. Its surely just opinion
Would one be better putting the speakers in a room with thick pile carpet or a shorter pile?
Also would wool give better resolution and sound over a standard man made fibre.
Critical decisions these
I tested a CD of S-Club 7 back to back with the band performing live in my loft, fading in and out from one to the other. I actively preferred the CD, the band itself sounded like an ensemble of caterwauling penguins. Anyone else tried this?
I did use speaker cable for the CD but it made no obvious difference with the live performance.
I did use speaker cable for the CD but it made no obvious difference with the live performance.
There is definitely a way for cable to improve the live sound of the band.
Not speaker cable. That can also be used and leads to a more permanent solution, does have the disadvantage of a jail term though.
Here is Ethan Winer on speaker cable. Conclusion at 28:17 for the lazy.
If you don't know who Ethan Winer is, he's quite well known in audio production/mastering/recording/hifi world. He does a lot of talks around 'audio myths' and such like.
cougar – “better” is subjective. There is surely no objective standard as to what sounds better. Its surely just opinion
Of course there is. Does it sound the same coming out as it did going in? Then it's better than if it doesn't. If the media / cabling / equipment is adding artefacts and noise then it is objectively, not subjectively, worse.
It might not be preferable. You might like the imperfections. I was reading a thing the other day talking about reproducing retro computer games on modern hardware, where graphics were designed with the intention of CRT scan lines blurring detail. On a modern screen that effect is lost. A modern screen is better, but undesirable.
The same is often true with films and TV shows, without a degree of careful conversion and remastering your "4k reissue" might show up a lot of unwanted details that the original film-makers knew would be hidden in production. Some of the Star Wars releases suffered from this IIRC, you could see the mattes in the ship cockpits.
Hmm.
I wonder if one could argue the same about 'retro' music. Were pre-digital albums produced knowing that the limitations of the reproduction media would hide certain sounds or add others?
Would one be better putting the speakers in a room with thick pile carpet or a shorter pile?
Do you fancy a shag?
Of course there is. Does it sound the same coming out as it did going in? Then it’s better than if it doesn’t.
You're making "better" synonymous with "more accurate". There's no reason at all in this context why "better" can't be synonymous with "preferable". In my case, vinyl is better because I prefer the sound it makes. I couldn't care less what an oscilloscope says.
Conclusion at 28:17 for the lazy.
And repeated at 28:35 and 28:37 🙂
Yes, absolutely.
A CD remastered from the original master tapes often has loads more bass info than the original vinyl.
Including that info in the vinyl version would have been pointless and led to issues with the very real limitations of the medium.
However, there are lots of instances where I much prefer the vinyl over the CD. And as mentioned before, my tolerance for listening to CD is definitely finite, a couple of hours and I'm done.
I can listen to vinyl all day.
Is vinyl better?
Technically, no, of course it isn't.
In the real world, for me, yes, because it allows me to enjoy the music more.
As you said, I enjoy it's failings.
I find the same with DAB vs FM btw, although FM beats most DAB signals objectively as well as subjectively.
cougar " better is a value judgement" It can only be subjective.
If I offer to give you a fiver or a tenner, is it a matter of opinion as to which is better?
We'll have to agree to disagree here I'm afraid.
Would an F1 car be better for your commute than a Honda Jazz?
If I offer to give you a fiver or a tenner, is it a matter of opinion as to which is better?
We’ll have to agree to disagree here I’m afraid.
I presume there are other comparisons you can make to things that are not the same.
By all means assert that a sound closer to the original is more precise, more accurate or whatever. But "better" in this context is subjective. AFAIC vinyl is better because I prefer the sound.
"If I offer to give you a fiver or a tenner, is it a matter of opinion as to which is better?"
Well no its not if everyone is agreed that a tenner is better than a fiver because its worth twice the amount. If I was really hungry and the vending machine I was at only took a fiver then the fiver would be better to have than the tenner so I might consider your offer.
However listening is a subjective thing and not bound by black and white distinctions.
Another comparison:
Would you rather eat a meal of many ingredients cooked quite well, or a simple meal of fewer ingredients cooked superbly?
I like this game. 🙂