11 ms·

Audiophilia is a study in contradiction. The ask is a flat "uncolored" accurate sound. The gear that sells for ridiculous prices is usually tube gear with limit

by S_A_P 8y ago

Audiophilia is a study in contradiction. The ask is a flat "uncolored" accurate sound. The gear that sells for ridiculous prices is usually tube gear with limited bandwidth and makes ~15 watts at 5-10% (admittedly usually even order harmonic) thd. Hardly uncolored. That said, and Ive mentioned this before on HN. My (now late) uncle had a bunch of audiophile friends in Dallas. He hung around folks who had spent upwards of 500,000 (yes you read that right) on audio gear. I can't forget the time I rolled up to a modest middle class home, only to find out that inside of this house was a pair of Focal Grand Utopias (selling retail for 250k at the time, though he said he paid around 60k for the pair). He had 2 750 watt tube amps, current era but the brand escapes me. For source material he had a heavily modified Technics SP-10 with 2 tone arm/cartridge combinations and a boutique tube phono preamp. This fed into a similarly heavily modified Dynaco tube preamp from the 1960s. When he really wanted to get serious, though, he had a studer 2" tape machine and a sizable collection of low generation master tape copies. If I hadn't seen this with my own eyes I would say my uncle was full of shit when he told me about it. You know what? it sounded freaking amazing.Im sure it is 90% placebo, and 10% the fact that he was able to play high bandwidth audio to concert levels with no stress or strain from the amplifiers. Was it worth 6 figures of money? not to me. But I am glad I got to hear it...

sjwright 8y ago
The three critical paths for high end sound reproduction are: loudspeakers, speaker placement, room acoustics. Of course all parts of sound reproduction matter, but those three are the ones that affect real systems in practice. Most other factors are rarely an issue and/or inferior parts have a much lower magnitude of impact on sound quality. Sufficiently good source material (256kbps AAC or better) is widely available. Most amplifiers are fine. Almost all wire/cable is perfectly good. High quality DACs are more abundant than you might think (e.g. the digital inputs of any half-decent AV receiver made in the past decade). Good speakers. Good placement. Good acoustics. Those are the ones to focus on. They're the ones to spend money on. If you wanted to add a fourth to that list, I'd add an honourable mention to in-room calibration systems like Audyssey and DIRAC. Depending on the sorts of imperfections in a given system the opportunity for improvements with DSP might be substantial and dramatic, or marginal to the point of being irrelevant. (For most systems it's somewhere in the middle.)
- quakenul 8y ago
  Not in that order though, unfortunately: Unless you are using really shitty speakers, room acoustics trumps everything else pretty quickly. For anyone who has never listened to music in a well treated environment I found https://youtu.be/dB8H0HFMylo?t=355 https://youtu.be/dB8H0HFMylo?t=355 to be pretty eye opening.
  - b1daly 8y ago
    Even in well treated environment , speaker placement is critical. I’ve been working in pro audio 30 years and still surprised at how much moving speakers affects their performance.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    > Unless you are using really shitty speakers, room acoustics trumps everything else pretty quickly. I agree completely, but emphasising that point tends to lead to flame-wars in most places on the internet. And it's such an imprecise subject to debate because everyone's room is different. Some rooms can be atrocious, while others can be unintentionally excellent. Some rooms can be easy to improve, some require knowledge and experience in order to improve. Some only require repositioning, some require treatment products that can cost a lot more than many enthusiasts realise. My favourite video that demonstrates the effectiveness of acoustic treatment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp56A6TcL1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp56A6TcL1E
- scns 8y ago
  The weakest "link" in the "audio-chain" (if you exclude the room) are passive speakers with distortion above 1% The best speakers i heard to date are from a german company called Backes & Müller. Active crossovers, each speaker has its own poweramp and a sensor attached to the membrane. The signal of the sensor is fed back into a comparator which calculates the difference to the music signal, this is then used to force the speaker to follow the music signal exactly. >On the basis of physical factors all drivers make mistakes, which one must accept in passive and uncontrolled systems. In contrast, all BM drivers are a part of active error correction systems. >Active loudspeakers know no conduction loss, no impedance issues; have faultless crossover performance, exact phasing, an optimal amplifier-chassis ratio, more actual output stage power at their disposal, quicker impulse processing and higher dynamics. All of this produces active regulatory intelligence. A sensor system continuously compares and corrects the membrane movements with the actual music signal. >B&M uses two types of negative feedback: inductive and capacitive. Intelligent electronic fuses ensure that the entire system is reliably shut down in the case of an impending overload. The BM electronic crossover splits the music signal into individual paths of respective frequency ranges and allocates these to their individual output stage. Every individual output stage drives to its respective driver, optimised for its frequency range. from http://www.backesmueller.de/en/b-m-technology.html http://www.backesmueller.de/en/b-m-technology.html Pricey and not DIY friendly, but you can pick them up used on ebay for "peanuts". W0as thinking about buying an BM8 (3-way) refurbished for 2800 Euros, BM10 (4-way) refurbished costs 10000 Euros, got a BM12 (5-way) used for 1400 Euros. The company is now owned by http://ksaudio.com http://ksaudio.com
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
setquk 8y ago
I’ve heard such things. Two points to note: 1. Decent monitor headphones or speakers sound the same. That’s under $500. Even some Sennheiser HD25’s are literally up there. 2. The equipment used to record such music cost less and was lower quality. Adding $500k doesn’t add anything because there isn’t anything there. Then again I have no problem with people who spend $500k on audio kit. That’s up to them. If it makes them feel good buying something in that range then fair play to them. It’s mostly just art. What I object to is little bags of stones wrapped around cables, magic boxes which absorb non physical entities in the room and directional cables. Woo and such needs to be taken down.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  Not actually true about recording equipment. Top end mixing desks cost > $1m. Top end engineers and producers usually have at least $100k of outboard processing on hand - everything from mic preamps to vintage compressors. Top end mastering studios will work with similar budgets. Add exotic guitars, vintage synthesizers, and other esoterica, and the total hardware budget for a mainstream commercial hit album is comfortably high six/low seven figures. Some genres - mostly electronica - are 100% "in the box", generated and mixed with software. But they're usually still mastered in a high end studio with a combination of digital and analog tools on reference-grade monitors. But all of that equipment is used to produce recordings that "translate" - play well on everything from ear buds to high end systems. That requires processing of its own. True hifi recordings that aim to be as transparent as possible are very rare. There's no such thing as "transparent" in pop/rock because it's all artifice. But even in classical recordings the sound has usually been edited and significantly processed, so the abstract concept of fidelity doesn't really apply.
  - setquk 8y ago
    Yes but the point is the signal path in those probably less than $100 end to end. Instruments excepted. A decent audio grade opamp is $2 for example.
    - KeytarHero 8y ago
crispyambulance 8y ago
It's very easy for an audiophile to start going down the slippery slope into madness. It usually starts with amplifiers, then speakers, then source equipment... and then they start rearranging furniture, tearing out drywall and putting absorbers everywhere, and then it starts all over again in a cycle. I find it best to stick with a nice comfy pair of headphones and keep expectations low for everything else. If you're only managing the volume of air between your ear drums and the headphone cups-- that can be done to an obsessive level for vastly less cost (and without divorce) than if we're talking about a whole living room.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  I used to sell medium-high end audio visual equipment in Calgary during the height of the oil sands boom. Plenty of money moving around. I knew customers who built the foundation of their homes around speaker placement, having separate foundations for their towers so that fewer resonant effects from the house would impact the speakers. Haha. Madness is right! And that $500,000 number is easy when you’re dealing with those circles for sure.
utopcell 8y ago
What did he listen to ?
- chadcmulligan 8y ago
  The cannons from the 1812 overture, over and over again. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? wasn't that awesome? Hang on I'll play it again, let me just adjust this setting first....
  - lb1lf 8y ago
    In fairness, though, the 1812 ouverture IS a pretty impressive piece to listen to, if it is properly recorded and reproduced. While my setup is somewhat (cough) less impressive/over-the-top than the one referenced above, there's no denying listening to a proper 1812 is a physical experience. I'm partial to Kunzel's recording with the Cincinnati Pops - those cannons are LOUD. (Better be careful not setting the volume too high or you're likely to find yourself a couple of woofers short afterwards.)
Balgair 8y ago
> 2750 watt tube amps WOW! That's ~5% of a Ducati. That's ... insane for a sound system.
- cardinalfang 8y ago
  A Ducati is a sound system.
ryguytilidie 8y ago
I don't think that your first paragraph is an honest assessment of the issue. People who buy tube gear are absolutely not looking for "flat, uncolored sound".

by S_A_P 8y ago

sjwright 8y ago

The three critical paths for high end sound reproduction are: loudspeakers, speaker placement, room acoustics. Of course all parts of sound reproduction matter, but those three are the ones that affect real systems in practice. Most other factors are rarely an issue and/or inferior parts have a much lower magnitude of impact on sound quality. Sufficiently good source material (256kbps AAC or better) is widely available. Most amplifiers are fine. Almost all wire/cable is perfectly good. High quality DACs are more abundant than you might think (e.g. the digital inputs of any half-decent AV receiver made in the past decade). Good speakers. Good placement. Good acoustics. Those are the ones to focus on. They're the ones to spend money on. If you wanted to add a fourth to that list, I'd add an honourable mention to in-room calibration systems like Audyssey and DIRAC. Depending on the sorts of imperfections in a given system the opportunity for improvements with DSP might be substantial and dramatic, or marginal to the point of being irrelevant. (For most systems it's somewhere in the middle.)

quakenul 8y ago
Not in that order though, unfortunately: Unless you are using really shitty speakers, room acoustics trumps everything else pretty quickly. For anyone who has never listened to music in a well treated environment I found https://youtu.be/dB8H0HFMylo?t=355 https://youtu.be/dB8H0HFMylo?t=355 to be pretty eye opening.
- b1daly 8y ago
  Even in well treated environment , speaker placement is critical. I’ve been working in pro audio 30 years and still surprised at how much moving speakers affects their performance.
- sjwright 8y ago
  > Unless you are using really shitty speakers, room acoustics trumps everything else pretty quickly. I agree completely, but emphasising that point tends to lead to flame-wars in most places on the internet. And it's such an imprecise subject to debate because everyone's room is different. Some rooms can be atrocious, while others can be unintentionally excellent. Some rooms can be easy to improve, some require knowledge and experience in order to improve. Some only require repositioning, some require treatment products that can cost a lot more than many enthusiasts realise. My favourite video that demonstrates the effectiveness of acoustic treatment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp56A6TcL1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp56A6TcL1E
scns 8y ago
The weakest "link" in the "audio-chain" (if you exclude the room) are passive speakers with distortion above 1% The best speakers i heard to date are from a german company called Backes & Müller. Active crossovers, each speaker has its own poweramp and a sensor attached to the membrane. The signal of the sensor is fed back into a comparator which calculates the difference to the music signal, this is then used to force the speaker to follow the music signal exactly. >On the basis of physical factors all drivers make mistakes, which one must accept in passive and uncontrolled systems. In contrast, all BM drivers are a part of active error correction systems. >Active loudspeakers know no conduction loss, no impedance issues; have faultless crossover performance, exact phasing, an optimal amplifier-chassis ratio, more actual output stage power at their disposal, quicker impulse processing and higher dynamics. All of this produces active regulatory intelligence. A sensor system continuously compares and corrects the membrane movements with the actual music signal. >B&M uses two types of negative feedback: inductive and capacitive. Intelligent electronic fuses ensure that the entire system is reliably shut down in the case of an impending overload. The BM electronic crossover splits the music signal into individual paths of respective frequency ranges and allocates these to their individual output stage. Every individual output stage drives to its respective driver, optimised for its frequency range. from http://www.backesmueller.de/en/b-m-technology.html http://www.backesmueller.de/en/b-m-technology.html Pricey and not DIY friendly, but you can pick them up used on ebay for "peanuts". W0as thinking about buying an BM8 (3-way) refurbished for 2800 Euros, BM10 (4-way) refurbished costs 10000 Euros, got a BM12 (5-way) used for 1400 Euros. The company is now owned by http://ksaudio.com http://ksaudio.com

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

setquk 8y ago

I’ve heard such things. Two points to note: 1. Decent monitor headphones or speakers sound the same. That’s under $500. Even some Sennheiser HD25’s are literally up there. 2. The equipment used to record such music cost less and was lower quality. Adding $500k doesn’t add anything because there isn’t anything there. Then again I have no problem with people who spend $500k on audio kit. That’s up to them. If it makes them feel good buying something in that range then fair play to them. It’s mostly just art. What I object to is little bags of stones wrapped around cables, magic boxes which absorb non physical entities in the room and directional cables. Woo and such needs to be taken down.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Not actually true about recording equipment. Top end mixing desks cost > $1m. Top end engineers and producers usually have at least $100k of outboard processing on hand - everything from mic preamps to vintage compressors. Top end mastering studios will work with similar budgets. Add exotic guitars, vintage synthesizers, and other esoterica, and the total hardware budget for a mainstream commercial hit album is comfortably high six/low seven figures. Some genres - mostly electronica - are 100% "in the box", generated and mixed with software. But they're usually still mastered in a high end studio with a combination of digital and analog tools on reference-grade monitors. But all of that equipment is used to produce recordings that "translate" - play well on everything from ear buds to high end systems. That requires processing of its own. True hifi recordings that aim to be as transparent as possible are very rare. There's no such thing as "transparent" in pop/rock because it's all artifice. But even in classical recordings the sound has usually been edited and significantly processed, so the abstract concept of fidelity doesn't really apply.
- setquk 8y ago
  Yes but the point is the signal path in those probably less than $100 end to end. Instruments excepted. A decent audio grade opamp is $2 for example.
  - KeytarHero 8y ago

crispyambulance 8y ago

It's very easy for an audiophile to start going down the slippery slope into madness. It usually starts with amplifiers, then speakers, then source equipment... and then they start rearranging furniture, tearing out drywall and putting absorbers everywhere, and then it starts all over again in a cycle. I find it best to stick with a nice comfy pair of headphones and keep expectations low for everything else. If you're only managing the volume of air between your ear drums and the headphone cups-- that can be done to an obsessive level for vastly less cost (and without divorce) than if we're talking about a whole living room.

52-6F-62 8y ago
I used to sell medium-high end audio visual equipment in Calgary during the height of the oil sands boom. Plenty of money moving around. I knew customers who built the foundation of their homes around speaker placement, having separate foundations for their towers so that fewer resonant effects from the house would impact the speakers. Haha. Madness is right! And that $500,000 number is easy when you’re dealing with those circles for sure.

utopcell 8y ago

What did he listen to ?

chadcmulligan 8y ago
The cannons from the 1812 overture, over and over again. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? wasn't that awesome? Hang on I'll play it again, let me just adjust this setting first....
- lb1lf 8y ago
  In fairness, though, the 1812 ouverture IS a pretty impressive piece to listen to, if it is properly recorded and reproduced. While my setup is somewhat (cough) less impressive/over-the-top than the one referenced above, there's no denying listening to a proper 1812 is a physical experience. I'm partial to Kunzel's recording with the Cincinnati Pops - those cannons are LOUD. (Better be careful not setting the volume too high or you're likely to find yourself a couple of woofers short afterwards.)

Balgair 8y ago

> 2750 watt tube amps WOW! That's ~5% of a Ducati. That's ... insane for a sound system.

cardinalfang 8y ago
A Ducati is a sound system.

ryguytilidie 8y ago

I don't think that your first paragraph is an honest assessment of the issue. People who buy tube gear are absolutely not looking for "flat, uncolored sound".