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.
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.
