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Are you into HiFi?

#41
I'm a little old-fashioned about this stuff. When I listed to music ... I like to sit down and really listen to it without distractions.

I am one of those guys who has been listening to and collecting vinyl since the '80s. I've got a few good turntables, tonearms, and phono preamps. Plus a drawer full of cartridges LOL.

I like simple single-ended triode (SET) amps for playback. If I want more volume, I've got a couple of old McIntosh MC250 amps. I've been happy with my old A/D/S/ speakers. Nothing too fancy or expensive really.
 
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#42
mapleglo said:
I disagree.



I agree.



I totally disagree.

I'm a pretty experienced listener, but do not consider myself an audiophile. I used to know a few people who do consider themselves audiophiles, and they could totally tell the difference with 100% accuracy. As I said earlier, I'm ok with my iPhone and earbuds. I burn my CD's to iTunes with a pretty high bit rate, because I can tell the difference. Though because of capacity, I have them auto-converted to 256 kbps when downloading to my iPhone. In the car, I am typically not listening as carefully, and along with the background noise, I don't notice the difference.

$200+ power cables, speaker cables, and directional signal cables? Yeah, those are a rip off. But bit rates? I know too many people that can always tell the difference, and I can with fairly good accuracy, apparently more so than the woman in that video.

I used to have a few direct to disc vinyl records. Those were heaven. Unfortunately, all my vinyl and my turntable were lost in the great divorce of '00, and I pretty much replaced everything with CD's. I have been yearning for a record player lately though.
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We’ll have to agree to disagree :) I have some pretty strongly developed ears myself, had pretty much the same experience with the NPR quiz as found in the video. At lower bitrates, no problem. If the recording is clear and spacious, it’s possible to tell a bit higher. Between high bitrates in dense recordings, it’s just a guess. If you and your friends are better than Rick Beato and a 20 something assistant of his, we gotta hang out, rub those golden ears off on me :)
 
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#43
Nickweissmusic said:
We’ll have to agree to disagree :) I have some pretty strongly developed ears myself, had pretty much the same experience with the NPR quiz as found in the video. At lower bitrates, no problem. If the recording is clear and spacious, it’s possible to tell a bit higher. Between high bitrates in dense recordings, it’s just a guess. If you and your friends are better than Rick Beato and a 20 something assistant of his, we gotta hang out, rub those golden ears off on me :)
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I'm not so sure it's dependent on the frequency range of ones ears, but rather the experience of the listener. I used to work in consumer audio back in the day, and had access to the very best equipment available. Years of listening to high end audio systems trains ones ears. I'd go as far as to say that a 20 something listener doesn't yet have the experience to discern between varieties of higher end sound quality compared to someone in their 40s or 50s.
 
#45
Jeff Scott said:
And by then, their hearing may be starting to go downhill.............. :woot:
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I think when people say that ones hearing is going "downhill", they mean one can no longer hear the highest of frequencies. I don't think that reduces ones ability to critically listen, and discern differences between high and low bit rates, or THD, or any other facet of quality listening experiences, other than frequency response.
 
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#49
I kind do the HiFi thing, I currently use a set of Sennheiser HD6XX with a Schitt stack as my main setup. I don't really care so much for lossless files, but I do enjoy high quality headphones (really just tech in general)


image.jpg


IMG_20170520_192324.jpg
 
#50
James Hart said:
I have some slightly hifi gear... 85wpc Sony from the late 70s with an MK passive sub and JBL 4408 2-ways in the music room. Early 70s Kenwood 35wpc with some Ohm speakers in the house... Mid 60s all tube German table top radio in tje shop.

The music room is hooked to My DAW and about 600gb of music (mostly 320bit max VBR MP3s). The house setup streams online sources via bluetooth. The shop set up has an aux input for my LG V20's hifi dacs and the misc random 20gb of files I keep on it any given day (it also pushes some decent earbuds at the office)
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Collecting that cool old stuff is fun, and I’ll bet it sounds great.

I know you didn’t object to this, this is to clarify my statement about hi-fi being a lot of hype- like any industry, there will be fine gear with absurd price tags. Ohm speakers were a groundbreaking innovation, kudos to them for staying in business, etc... but to think those or any $7000 pair of speakers is required to enjoy music, is not the case. If you can afford it, fab. If not, there are many fantastic plebeian pieces of gear out there- you can empty any size wallet :) .

If you don’t have your room treated and analyzed, it’s potentially no “better” than anything else anyway, could potentally sound worse! I certainly don’t begrudge how somebody spends their money, or researches and fusses over their hobby, there are entire websites dedicated to fussing over the same old gear (ahem). The “hype” factor refers to gear getting more love on paper than it deserves, and extra dollars because of the nameplate.

Like most things, there are diminishing returns once you’ve reached a certain point of quality. I don’t have the money, desire, or permissive enough wife, to allow me to professionally treat my room, so $7000 speakers won’t necessarily give me better results than my kit speakers (pictured with right grille removed) if they’re just plopped down in the room and attached to the same amp. Mine sound freaking great, all told with high quality wood veneer and supplies, probably under $600. If you threw a new set of new Ohm towers in place of those, would they sound better? I don’t know, there’s a plaster wall corner right behind there which could cause big problems for omni speakers, but for the sake of argument I’ll say, sure, they’ll sound better. $6,400 better? C’mon.

image.jpg
 
#51
mapleglo said:
I'm not so sure it's dependent on the frequency range of ones ears, but rather the experience of the listener. I used to work in consumer audio back in the day, and had access to the very best equipment available. Years of listening to high end audio systems trains ones ears. I'd go as far as to say that a 20 something listener doesn't yet have the experience to discern between varieties of higher end sound quality compared to someone in their 40s or 50s.
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Spot on. There's only one glaring omission, and thats or 60's or 70's or even 80's. I'm 67 and my generation was first wave of the modern era, when the commercial Hi-fi industry was in high gear.
 
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#53
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#54
MordBass said:
I worked in that industry for about 5 or 6 years. Heres what i learned.....
a ton of it is worthless snake oil.... while a surprising amount is totally legit. Overall, your room is the biggest factor so I decided to go with a good headphone rig. Much more fun and easier on the wallet.
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I’ve been obsessed with hifi since I was a kid. Like you said “the room” and having “fun” are of utmost importance. Plus, you gotta love your speakers, warts and all, I believe a dual mono amp makes a difference, and like your interconnects, keep speaker cables off the floor. And don’t spend a lot of money, my most expensive gear sits in the closet.
 
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#55
twinjet said:
I've recently begun my adventure into the world of high fidelity listening. While I don't exactly have golden ears, it appears I can differentiate recording qualities to a small extent --about 66% of the time-- according to an NPR listening test.

A few years ago, I received a pair of open-back Sennheiser HD558 headphones. I didn't know what these were for at the time. They lacked bass and everything sounded flat. A mistake? No! It was then I read that they were meant to play music this way, without meddling with equalization. I was getting a more natural sonic experience.

A few days back, I stumbled upon an unbelievable deal at a garage sale -- a Bose SoundDock Portable for $4. At that price, I assumed something was wrong but tried it anyway. It was perfect. The owners just wanted to free up space and already had a bunch of Bose gear.

The SoundDock sounds very good and now I play a lot more music when I'm home. However, i have concluded that while this system is a significant upgrade from the no-name Bluetooth speaker I was using, it is a bit heavy on the bass side, even with flat EQ. Thus began my quest for a system capable of reproducing sound with less artificial and more natural flavoring.

I'm in the process of overhauling my library. Though I won't claim to hear all the minute differences, nor do I ever really expect to be able, I am replacing the majority of my library with higher quality rips -- 128 kbps AACs/mp3s/MPEG with 300+ kbps lossless AIFFs -- and taking advantage of this 160 GB iPod I own. Reason being, a lot of the music on my phone was ripped in its most compact state: 128kbps mp3 files. I want to see how listening to lossless affects things.

So, anyone else here doing the HiFi thing?
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I never truly got into it, but I dabbled in it by getting better speakers for my stereo as well as sub, and also better headphones/earbuds for personal use. I even made sure to rip CD's/download music in the highest quality format, as I could (and still can) tell the difference between the different formats in most cases (some stuff I hear I just can't listen to because the compression takes away so much).

These days though it's more about convince for me. Bose sound link plus gives me decent enough sound with tons more convince than powering up the big stereo, Apple Music allows me to get songs at "good enough" quality without going through the hassle of burning CD's/
 
#56
James Hart said:
@Nickweissmusic

I have 2 sets of Ohms. Walsh 2xo and I. The Walsh I've had since the 90s and I traded for those... i would guess they cost me $60 the I are epic and were a gift from a guy who couldn't use them.

Ohm I | Legacy Products | Ohm Speakers | Custom Audiophile Speakers for Music & Home Theater

Ohm Walsh 2XO | Legacy Products | Ohm Speakers | Custom Audiophile Speakers for Music & Home Theater


Not $7k by a long shot :)
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Heck yeah, if you can get stuff used go for it, the new towers are $7000 a par though
 
#57
This is my reference piece when testing new audio equipment. Michel Camilo's Suite Sandrine, Pt. 3. Off the album One More Once.

This piece is nothing short of perfect. Sounds incredible through a good set of cans or speakers. Particular the in/outro. So tight!

 
#58
twinjet said:
I've recently begun my adventure into the world of high fidelity listening. While I don't exactly have golden ears, it appears I can differentiate recording qualities to a small extent --about 66% of the time-- according to an NPR listening test.

A few years ago, I received a pair of open-back Sennheiser HD558 headphones. I didn't know what these were for at the time. They lacked bass and everything sounded flat. A mistake? No! It was then I read that they were meant to play music this way, without meddling with equalization. I was getting a more natural sonic experience.

A few days back, I stumbled upon an unbelievable deal at a garage sale -- a Bose SoundDock Portable for $4. At that price, I assumed something was wrong but tried it anyway. It was perfect. The owners just wanted to free up space and already had a bunch of Bose gear.

The SoundDock sounds very good and now I play a lot more music when I'm home. However, i have concluded that while this system is a significant upgrade from the no-name Bluetooth speaker I was using, it is a bit heavy on the bass side, even with flat EQ. Thus began my quest for a system capable of reproducing sound with less artificial and more natural flavoring.

I'm in the process of overhauling my library. Though I won't claim to hear all the minute differences, nor do I ever really expect to be able, I am replacing the majority of my library with higher quality rips -- 128 kbps AACs/mp3s/MPEG with 300+ kbps lossless AIFFs -- and taking advantage of this 160 GB iPod I own. Reason being, a lot of the music on my phone was ripped in its most compact state: 128kbps mp3 files. I want to see how listening to lossless affects things.

So, anyone else here doing the HiFi thing?
Click to expand...
Bose is known to have hella bass. unfortunately, their customers tend to agree that if there is a big bottom, then that equates to it sounding absolutely amazing.:rollno:

my theory is that their older listening clientele have poor hearing... :help:
 
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#59
Nowdays people rate sound by amount of bass. I had a set of headphones that would rattle the crap out of your ears, but overall crappy sounding. My friends loved them more than my current headset that sounds way better.
 
#60
While I have decent ears and do appreciate music at proper high bit rate and resolution I can tolerate Mp3 files for practical reasons.

Also actually I am into lo-fi, you know as the lo-fi approach to creating music that was popular on the indie music scene in the 90's, though the concept dates back longer.
The concept that the immediate unpolished performance recorded with whatever means you happen to have at your disposal, often crappy 1 to 4 track tape recorders (which naturally also result in songs with a simpler structure), makes for a more intimate, authentic and honest expression than material polished through repetitive practice, using countless takes, and post production studio magic to the point where it has lost all sense of life and soul and ends up sounding fake.
 

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