11 ms·

I have a pair of powered studio monitors (Mackie MR5), and I completely relate to this problem. Many PCs and phones will emit an audible hissing noise while plu

by 013a 8y ago

I have a pair of powered studio monitors (Mackie MR5), and I completely relate to this problem. Many PCs and phones will emit an audible hissing noise while plugged in. I've tested on a dozen different devices, with integrated and external DACs, five hundred dollar sound cards, massively shielded cables, practically every modern OS you can name, tweaking every audio setting exposed to me. The only devices that work perfectly are (1) my TV output, and (2) every single Apple product. I'm wholly convinced that the computing world is, in general, regressing. Audio has been a huge loser in this fight. Today, many modern phones don't ship with 3.5mm jacks. If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it, even though there's zero reason companies like Spotify couldn't stream it when available (even if it costs extra) (Spotify literally asks artists to upload the masters when they publish, they have that data and then throw it away). Many artists don't even publish physical CDs anymore, so its a game of luck if they have a website where I can buy the FLACs/ALACs. And if you want the actual files to, you know, live your life in a completely legal way, those are gone. Its more than just audio. Watching movies sucks; you now pay full price to effectively indefinitely rent movies, and have them taken away at any time. eBooks are the same and always have been; the world's oldest technology has been coopted by companies like Amazon to increase revenue, and there's practically zero competition. Applications suck; we're puking web and electron everywhere, eating up every conceivable megabyte of memory available literally only because developers are lazy, and now you're consistently asked to pay a monthly fee to access this functionality literally only because companies are lazy. Modern operating systems suck; restricting filesystem access, exposing proprietary application APIs which fundamentally make applications unportable and thus contributing to the rise of Electron/RN. Somehow we took systems and workflows that were amazing throughout the 90s-00s and, in the course of a decade, completely ruined them.

HocusLocus 8y ago
Wow I can sympathize. Sounds like you're discerning a S/N ratio problem that would have disqualified the designs from 'high fidelity' in the late 70s and through the 80s. And you have to wonder if in your TV/Apple the hiss is there but is being noise gated. I too believe there has been regression. All it takes is one generation to 'interrupt' consumer expectations of ever increasing quality. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18569013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18569013
- blattimwind 8y ago
  Not so long ago widely used audio codecs (the actual ADC/DAC part in the PC) had big problems with idle tones at low signal levels (which were simply gated off at silence, otherwise you would have gotten constant, looping artifacts). I managed to reproduce over 100 % THD+N with my old Thinkpad X200, i.e. more, very clearly audible, noise and artifacts than signal. This is a separate issue though from the usually high output noise floor and poor isolation from other components, e.g. many complaints about many makes and models where CPU/GPU or even disk activity will induce audible pulse noises in the heaphone outputs or speakers.
dylan604 8y ago
> Its more than just audio. Watching movies sucks; you now pay full price to effectively indefinitely rent movies, and have them taken away at any time. This has always been the case, even when you "owned" the physical media. Owning a CD, DVD or even vinyl copy of audio/video did not mean you owned the content. It was always just a delivery mechanism. It always came with legal wording to state you didn't own the content, and were only allowed to listen/view in a private setting. You were not allowed to take the music and play it in public, you were not allowed to show the video to large groups of people (including in your own home). Your OS is the same way. You don't own the software. You only pay for a license granting use of it on one computer.
- soccerdave 8y ago
  I disagree with you. When you “owned” a physical cd, you had to ability to sell it. When you own the digital version it is not possible to resell it.
  - dylan604 8y ago
    You can disagree with me, but the legal aspect is still the same. You owned the physical delivery mechanism, and the single use license that delivery mechanism represented. Sure, you could sell that, but the point is still the same in that you never owned the content, legally speaking.
    - chaosite 8y ago
      You never owned the copyright on the content, but you did own the thing. Not a "single-use license". Owning a CD is exactly like owning a book, in that way.
      - bitwize 8y ago
        Grandparent was correct. Copyright law only allowed for private home exhibition of the music/movie. VHS tapes even came with a warning from the FBI. As in, the people who might show up at your house if you copied the movie or showed it to a large group of people.
orbital-decay 8y ago
>exposing proprietary application APIs which fundamentally make applications unportable and thus contributing to the rise of Electron/RN. I don't think there's anything modern about this.
- jakobegger 8y ago
  Yeah, there is no standard for high level APIs provided by operating systems. Everybody has always just done their own stuff. And it's not like the Open Source world is any better, with Linux and the BSDs coming up with their own solutions for common issues. There's POSIX which is pretty great because it at least allows to write somewhat portable networking & io code. But for pretty much anything else, you'll have to write separate code for every OS, and it's always been the case.
  - seanp2k2 8y ago
    Even within Linux, consider Wayland vs Xorg, systemd, etc.
blattimwind 8y ago
> Watching movies sucks; you now pay full price to effectively indefinitely rent movies, and have them taken away at any time. The quality of streaming services is also a far cry from BDs.
wilsonnb3 8y ago
Except you’re leaving out all the positives and only focusing on the negatives. Sure, Google can revoke my access to a movie at any time but I can watch on any of my devices and I dont have to worry about finding it in stock at the local store. I can carry literally thousands of books with me in a device smaller than a paperback. I can’t stream lossless music from Spotify but I can stream high enough quality that most people can’t tell the difference. Not to mention you get access to pretty much every song you want for 10$ a month. Electron apps and the web are replacing desktop apps but they are also making it easier than ever to make a cross platform app, meaning we will get apps that we otherwise wouldn’t. This is especially good for Linux, which would be much further behind macOS and windows without popular electron/web apps available like slack, Spotify, etc.
- mindslight 8y ago
  The "positives" you've listed were basically the case for the standard 00's setup. You just had to undertake some deliberate action to adopt it as your setup, rather than going along with that period's sharecropper option.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    How would you maintain access to your entire library across multiple devices in the 00’s?
    - williamscales 8y ago
      I had an iPod with a big hard drive that synced when I plugged it in (Linux). I either ran a streaming server off my home machine or mounted my filesystem via sshfs.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sneak 8y ago
  Not “most people” - pros on high end equipment cannot pass an ABX on 256kbps MP3. Spotify’s “extreme” quality setting is 320kbps. This isn’t some “normies”/“audiophiles” thing. 256kbps mp3 is acoustically transparent to human beings in ideal listening situations. The bad rap mp3 got was from 128kbps that was more common pre-broadband. Also, using lossy compressed sources (even 256-320kbps) in derivative works (eg dj mixes, samples, et c) that will be later lossy recompressed (podcast, satellite radio, spotify, et c) is a good way to make your production sound crappy, which is why lossless is important. Any audiophile who tells you they need lossless for final listening simply hasn’t tested it. It is religion, not engineering.
anotheryou 8y ago
Did you do a blind test on spotify's high quality vs lossless? At least with 320mp3s I could only get it right with certain songs and not too consistently. I'd say my room treatment has a far bigger impact. (but regarding hardware I'm totally with you and haven't found the source of my rather high noise floor either)
- woah 8y ago
  It all really depends on the gold plating of your cables
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    Gold plating? Ridiculous. All my cables are mineral water shielded.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      Ha, loser! My cables were made in the same places that they make the best cuban cigars, naked beautiful people of the appropriate genders make the best cigars and the best cables. My ethernet cable is sex on wheels.
      - seanp2k2 8y ago
        https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2015/07/24/audioquest-diamond-vodka-and-cinnamon-ethernet-cables/ https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2015/07/24/audioquest-diamond... a review of >$1k cat7 patch cables
        Latteland 8y ago
        That's just sad
  - anotheryou 8y ago
    not sure if sarcasm or not...
  - 8y ago
acabal 8y ago
Re. flac downloads, Bandcamp (almost?) always offers a flac download option. You'd be surprised how many bands have a Bandcamp page, even if they're signed to labels. The option is not well advertised. After you purchase a digital download, there's a tiny arrow next to the 'download' link that allows you to switch the download to flac. I always download flac and consequently spend a lot of money at Bandcamp!
- rvense 8y ago
  OGG too. I love Bandcamp. They also have an app that offers streaming and a bunch of social features so you can make a page for yourself where you show off the music you like and make playlists and interact with others. It's probably a great feature, but the thing that really sets Bandcamp apart is that you can just ignore the fuck out of it and pay money for some files that you can download using a browser and put on your own drives and devices.
  - JadeNB 8y ago
    > OGG too. Of course there's no need for a separate OGG download; no matter how transparent the MP3 encoding is, one thing at which MP3s suck and lossless codecs, by definition, excel is re-encodeability. If you've got FLAC, you're not far from OGG, AAC, and any other format you like.
- baroffoos 8y ago
  Bandcamp is pretty much single-handedly keeping high quality audio alive. I exclusively buy music from them and then load it on to my own music streaming server.
  - thirdsun 8y ago
    While Bandcamp is indeed a great service you might want to add Boomkat, Qobuz and Bleep to that list.
    - sho_nuff 8y ago
andthat 8y ago
You tried balanced cables?
- 013a 8y ago
  Yup; the speakers support both unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR. Same issue on both.
thinkmassive 8y ago
Any advice on a quality Lightning to 3.5mm adapter? The official Apple one is so flimsy that one or both channels cut out anytime I move the phone. My workaround is to heatshrink the cable and both ends, so it’s rigid enough not to cut out. But it’s ugly and probably won’t last more than a few months.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Sounds like a defective connector. Mine doesn't cut out at all that I have noticed.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    If you use it a lot, it gets flaky after a few months because of the poor quality of the wiring and wire boot.
- joecool1029 8y ago
  Its going to sound crazy but stick a paperclip into the lightning port and scrape along the top. I bet a small amount of dirt will come out. These ports pick up some lint and dust after a few months and it packs in pretty hard. Eventually it will give you connection issues.
  - snazz 8y ago
    A thin toothpick should achieve the same without scratching the inside of the port.
  - tcoff91 8y ago
    I would say use one of those brushes that are for flossing in between teeth, that’s what I use and it works great.
    - seanp2k2 8y ago
      Use a cotton swab with some of the material plucked off to make it thinner and soak it in CAIG DeoxIT or MG Chemicals Electrosolve (you can typically buy these from Fry's / MicroCenter / online). These chemicals are made to actually clean and de-oxidize contacts.
PascLeRasc 8y ago
Regarding your Mackies, which exact DACs and sound cards have you tested them with? According to the manual [1] they expect a +4dBu input, which will lead to unnecessary noise if you use them with "consumer" -10dBu gear. Most audio interfaces (i.e. designed for recording, not Schiit-type DACs) with balanced output will do +4dBu - I believe it's standard on all Focusrites. [1] https://www.hhb.co.uk/files/product/file/user_manual_20131126123905_27990.pdf https://www.hhb.co.uk/files/product/file/user_manual_2013112...
bb88 8y ago
> and (2) every single Apple product. Sure but that doesn't mean the default Apple audio jack is high quality. I have a cheap USB DAC (bought from monoprice) to power a set of Beyerdynamic headphones. The DAC beat a macbook I was using for work hands down on quality of sound. Specifically, I noted the DAC had better definition of sound meaning that I could pick out details better. It also had better spatial attributes as well, meaning that I could pick out instruments in 3d space. To be fair, doing a D to A conversion in a laptop is hard, and while Apple does it relatively better than average, it's still probably better off done outside of the macbook itself.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  My experience has been similar. The output on my MacBook was fine, until I hooked up an amp (coincidentally, my headphones are also Beyerdynamic; DT880s in this case). It sounded pretty bad to be honest, so then I hooked up the external DAC, and it was fascinating how big a difference it made. And I'm not an audiophile, so I usually don't really notice such differences. * the DAC and AMP were Schiit Magni/Modi
  - bb88 8y ago
    So my post is downvoted to -3 and then bumped back up to 0. But there was no disagreement in the form of a response. I'm not an audiophile either, but there is something about having listened to a track over and over again on an average pair of headphones and then listening to it again through a DAC and the DT770s I have. It's like hearing it for the first time again. Details just pop out and I really began to appreciate the engineering that went into some of the 80's songs I listened to on crappy car speakers when I was a kid. BTW, the tracks I used to test the spatial qualities of my macbook was "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" on the O' Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and "Blackbird" by the Kings Singers. With the DT770's alone using the Mac jack, the Mac smeared the audio on both tracks. The first one especially because the mic used for recording introduces a distortion. With the DAC, spatial on both were clear and came from point sources. Phenomenal.
snvzz 8y ago
aliexpress, topping dx3 pro, solved. Motherboard audio and soundcards are just terrible.
- seanp2k2 8y ago
  I typically recommend Fiio gear for people just getting into higher-end audio. They have some great stuff for <$100 that can be a huge upgrade over smartphone / laptop / desktop output. https://www.fiio.com/amp https://www.fiio.com/amp
  - Shaddox 8y ago
    I subscribe to this post's message. I was reluctant at first, but after buying a pair of Sennheiser HD650 headphones and a Fiio E10K headphone amp/dac and I can definitely tell the vast improvement in sound clarity.
  - snvzz 8y ago
    Fiio's devices are almost there but not quite. I do generally suggest the dx3 because it's a single expense, there's no actual hearable upgrade from it. It measures well and provides enough power for everything short of special cases (such as STAX).
fb03 8y ago
The only way I found to minimize/eliminate HISS while using high quality monitors/pro speakers is to pair them with a proper external USB Audio Card. Those External Audio Cards receive the signal in digital form, thus free of any noise they could pick up in the process. These are decoded inside the external DAC which then feeds audio to the speakers. since this part of the signal path is analog, any interference picked up by these cables is gonna appear on the speakers, which is why the good gear usually supports BALANCED SIGNALS so that the speaker can reference the signal and weed out noises added while in-transit. My gear is a pair of YAMAHA HS8 speakers and a YAMAHA AG06 external audio card. Both support Balanced audio so that's what I'm using regarding cables between the audio card and the speakers.
- kakarot 8y ago
  Checked out the AG06 but it has internal DSP and other things I don't really need, plus it seemed like more of an audio interface than a sound card, do you have any recommendations for balanced audio usb external cards without all of the extra stuff?
  - culot 8y ago
    I think that's what Schiit specializes in.
    - fb03 8y ago
      I've researched this brand and could only find devices sporting RCA outputs (like Fulla or Bifrost). You need a proper XLR balanced output (3 wires) for balanced. In that regard, the AG06 is much cheaper than any of the offerings i'm finding from Schiit.
  - fb03 8y ago
    Sadly, I don't. A replier said something about a brand called "Schiit Audio", but I've researched them and they only offer stuff with RCA outputs which are sadly not balanced at all. If you're on a budget you could get the AG03 which is the same interface, but with less input channels. Also, the DSP is totally optional on those, If you don't use it you'll bypass it totally, not coloring or changing your signal in any way. Btw you mentioned your speakers are Mackie, right? Before buying, research if your speakers actually support balanced input (they use XLR or P2/TRS "stereo" (2 black bands) for that, because each speaker is actually receiving 2 polarity-inverted copies of the signal). If all they have are RCA inputs (mono), you're out of luck. Hope I could help! EDIT: I have researched your monitors and they do have all three types of input: XLR and TRS (balanced) and RCA (unbalanced). yay \o/ Now go get yourself a nice audio interface with support for balanced output and go make yourself some nice XLR cables. The Yamaha AG03 AG06 output balanced TRS signals, but for that extra "click" factor no the monitors I have built a custom cable that is TRS on the DAC and XLR to the monitors. That way it stays put :-) Have a good one mate!
eikenberry 8y ago
You sure it isn't a problem with the speakers? I've had a couple different sets of similar monitors and several decent sets of headphones and have never had a problem with any of my external DACs and hissing. I had hissing whenever I used internal cards of any kind, but once I switch to external DACs all hissing went away.
alphabettsy 8y ago
Tidal has a lossless streaming service. https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/203055911-High-Fidelity-HiFi-Sound https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/203055911-High-F...
thinkloop 8y ago
> I'm wholly convinced that the computing world is, in general, regressing The last few decades have shown a preference for accessibility over "quality": - concord high speed luxury air travel >> cheap but slow mass air travel - pentium >> netbooks >> raspberry pi - professional international newsrooms >> amateur blogs - CDs >> MP3s >> streaming - steel cars >> plastic and aluminum - handcrafted oak furniture >> ikea - durable hand-me-downs >> dispensable chinese products - etc. The trade-off is generally positive in my opinion.
kakarot 8y ago
I agree with everything you've said except for > literally only because developers are lazy I think management has a lot to do with this, or priorities in general because at the end of the day working with electron and web everywhere is on a superficial level just as difficult as working with other languages-- it's a matter of training and hiring the right people for the right jobs.
m-p-3 8y ago
Thankfully some services like Bandcamp sells DRM-free albums in FLAC.
admax88q 8y ago
> I have a pair of powered studio monitors (Mackie MR5), and I completely relate to this problem. Many PCs and phones will emit an audible hissing noise while plugged in. I've tested on a dozen different devices, with integrated and external DACs, five hundred dollar sound cards, massively shielded cables, practically every modern OS you can name, tweaking every audio setting exposed to me. The only devices that work perfectly are (1) my TV output, and (2) every single Apple product. If almost every device has poor audio quality, maybe its not the device but the headphones that are your problem?
- codyb 8y ago
  They also list products that don't do it, so seems like it wouldn't be that.
- 013a 8y ago
  Mackie MR5s are studio monitors, not headphones. I can plug them into an analog output device and they work perfectly. I'm talking about digital, and the only digital devices that work are a Vizio TV (possibly others, didn't really test against TVs), iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
  - armitron 8y ago
    You should use an external DAC connected to your digital device via optical or spdif connection. Then connect your monitors to your DAC. I bet this solves all your problems.
- dextersgenius 8y ago
  Have you tried using a DAC with a USB noise isolator? I don't get any hiss with my setup: Neutron Player on Android > USB OTG cable > HiFimeDIY USB noise isolator > HiFimeDIY USB DAC > Beyerdynamic DT880 Although I don't use all that any longer, for convenience sake I just use a wireless Audiotechnica ATH-DSR9BT which supports aptX-HD and produces "good enough" quality with no hissing/noise.
nine_k 8y ago
Wat. > we're puking web and electron everywhere ... literally only because developers are lazy No. This is done because developers are slow and expensive. Reusing most of your web app as a desktop app, same for every platform, saves a lot of money to companies. > you're consistently asked to pay a monthly fee to access this functionality literally only because companies are lazy No. This is because companies want recurring revenue, not one-time sale. It's vastly easier to get you into ("only $3.99/mo" vs "only $199.95 for lifetime of use"), and it keeps dripping every month. There's not a bit of laziness here, only business shrewdness.
- 013a 8y ago
  Businesses are inherently lazy. Business shrewdness and laziness are literally the same thing; businesses always take the easiest path to the greatest profit. "Lazy" just means "unwilling to expend energy". Let's say Dow Chemical wants to start dumping chemical by-products into the Mississippi River. Thankfully, we have the EPA and strict laws which make this impossible. The only other force which would stop them from doing this is consumer outrage, which only works in some situations and even then tends to be very fleeting. Now, let's say Slack wants to build their app in Electron. By doing so, they are collectively forcing their 8M users to burn more CPU cycles and purchase machines with larger memory footprints, all of which literally waste resources and cause pollution. Not to the same degree as the previous example, but the comparison is very valid.
mquander 8y ago
None of this is the computing world regressing; it's just businesses regressing, or the law regressing, or convention in your social bubble regressing (regressing from what you like, mind, not what other people want.) The time with maximum availability of lossless audio and high-quality movies is right now. You can go join a private tracker and have the largest catalog of them in existence available to you for free, and you have the most bandwidth, most storage, and best tools in existence to organize and consume them. With books, you have to exert even less effort, because there is a huge global search engine where you can instantly download them without any registration barrier. If you don't choose to do that stuff, it's not software stopping you.
dcbadacd 8y ago
> If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it, What audio could you get lossless before that you now can't that you're claiming there has been a regression? > Watching movies sucks; you now pay full price to effectively indefinitely rent movies You can buy most movies on physical disks. The old physical copy ownership option still exists. There has been no regression, just new options you personally don't like. > Applications suck; we're puking web and electron everywhere Clearly the market has decided that the heavier versions are just as fine. Also, in pretty much every case there's also lightweight non-electron alternative. There has been no regression, just new options you don't like. > Modern operating systems suck; restricting filesystem access, exposing proprietary application APIs which fundamentally make applications unportable and thus contributing to the rise of Electron/RN. That is absolutely your own fault if your OS restricts FS access. Applications are just as unportable as they have been. There has been no regression, just new options you don't like. You're just looking at the past like it was some gold standard and a wonderland of software, development and user freedom (of choice or of software), it's ridiculous.
- Scramblejams 8y ago
  > What audio could you get lossless before that you now can't that you're claiming there has been a regression? Compact discs. You should look them up. :-) Lots of music out these days that you can't find on a CD.
  - dcbadacd 8y ago
    I know well enough what CDs are :) could you please give a few examples of songs you can't get?
    - 013a 8y ago
      I'll literally click on the playlist I'm listening to right now and start listing albums that don't appear available physically on Amazon. (1) Til The End - MitiS (2) Dear Me, - Borgeous (3) Ultraviolet - 3LAU (4) Mau5ville Level 1 - Deadmau5 (5) Sleeping With Roses - Chelsea Cutler I could go on, because I literally didn't skip a single song. I started at the top and went down. On this playlist of 300 songs, I would guess that fewer than 20 have physical albums widely available. In some cases, the artist will sell one on their website (ironically LPs are even more popular nowadays). And why should they? CDs suck. But they do two things really well: they have clear ownership, and they're pretty close to a master recording. Digital does not have to remove these advantages; we can improve instead of regress. Products like Bandcamp do an excellent job of replicating this experience digitally, but few artists distribute on there, because consumers-at-large demand music on Spotify/iTunes/GPM/etc. Tidal also does a really good job of getting masters, but doesn't have the "you own it" advantage. In other words, consumers have ruined music for both the artists and audiophiles by changing the rules of the game and forcing the markets to adapt in a way that isn't backward compatible with how things have worked. Artists make shit money on most streaming services, and people who actually care about the audio quality also get shafted.
FridgeSeal 8y ago
> If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it If you like electronic music, Bandcamp and Beatport (thankfully) sell stuff in lossless. Bandcamp is arguably the best: largest cut for the artist; large range of format wth no extra cost for lossless.
thirdsun 8y ago
> If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it. While I agree with your general thoughts, I have to disagree with this particular point. In my opinion there's never been a better time for lossless audio. My collection is made of digital, lossless material only. I buy a lot of music - about 5-10 releases a week - and I have no problem at all finding everthing I want in a lossless format. I understand that this may differ depending on what you listen to and ironically obscure, niche music might be better served by lossles music stores, but I just wanted to provid a different perspective. If I don't what I'm looking for at Bandcamp, Boomkat, Bleep, Qobuz or various label stores chances are that it's a physical-only release, in which case ripping it myself is always an option.

by 013a 8y ago

HocusLocus 8y ago

Wow I can sympathize. Sounds like you're discerning a S/N ratio problem that would have disqualified the designs from 'high fidelity' in the late 70s and through the 80s. And you have to wonder if in your TV/Apple the hiss is there but is being noise gated. I too believe there has been regression. All it takes is one generation to 'interrupt' consumer expectations of ever increasing quality. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18569013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18569013

blattimwind 8y ago
Not so long ago widely used audio codecs (the actual ADC/DAC part in the PC) had big problems with idle tones at low signal levels (which were simply gated off at silence, otherwise you would have gotten constant, looping artifacts). I managed to reproduce over 100 % THD+N with my old Thinkpad X200, i.e. more, very clearly audible, noise and artifacts than signal. This is a separate issue though from the usually high output noise floor and poor isolation from other components, e.g. many complaints about many makes and models where CPU/GPU or even disk activity will induce audible pulse noises in the heaphone outputs or speakers.

dylan604 8y ago

> Its more than just audio. Watching movies sucks; you now pay full price to effectively indefinitely rent movies, and have them taken away at any time. This has always been the case, even when you "owned" the physical media. Owning a CD, DVD or even vinyl copy of audio/video did not mean you owned the content. It was always just a delivery mechanism. It always came with legal wording to state you didn't own the content, and were only allowed to listen/view in a private setting. You were not allowed to take the music and play it in public, you were not allowed to show the video to large groups of people (including in your own home). Your OS is the same way. You don't own the software. You only pay for a license granting use of it on one computer.

soccerdave 8y ago
I disagree with you. When you “owned” a physical cd, you had to ability to sell it. When you own the digital version it is not possible to resell it.
- dylan604 8y ago
  You can disagree with me, but the legal aspect is still the same. You owned the physical delivery mechanism, and the single use license that delivery mechanism represented. Sure, you could sell that, but the point is still the same in that you never owned the content, legally speaking.
  - chaosite 8y ago
    You never owned the copyright on the content, but you did own the thing. Not a "single-use license". Owning a CD is exactly like owning a book, in that way.
    - bitwize 8y ago
      Grandparent was correct. Copyright law only allowed for private home exhibition of the music/movie. VHS tapes even came with a warning from the FBI. As in, the people who might show up at your house if you copied the movie or showed it to a large group of people.

orbital-decay 8y ago

>exposing proprietary application APIs which fundamentally make applications unportable and thus contributing to the rise of Electron/RN. I don't think there's anything modern about this.

jakobegger 8y ago
Yeah, there is no standard for high level APIs provided by operating systems. Everybody has always just done their own stuff. And it's not like the Open Source world is any better, with Linux and the BSDs coming up with their own solutions for common issues. There's POSIX which is pretty great because it at least allows to write somewhat portable networking & io code. But for pretty much anything else, you'll have to write separate code for every OS, and it's always been the case.
- seanp2k2 8y ago
  Even within Linux, consider Wayland vs Xorg, systemd, etc.

blattimwind 8y ago

> Watching movies sucks; you now pay full price to effectively indefinitely rent movies, and have them taken away at any time. The quality of streaming services is also a far cry from BDs.

wilsonnb3 8y ago

Except you’re leaving out all the positives and only focusing on the negatives. Sure, Google can revoke my access to a movie at any time but I can watch on any of my devices and I dont have to worry about finding it in stock at the local store. I can carry literally thousands of books with me in a device smaller than a paperback. I can’t stream lossless music from Spotify but I can stream high enough quality that most people can’t tell the difference. Not to mention you get access to pretty much every song you want for 10$ a month. Electron apps and the web are replacing desktop apps but they are also making it easier than ever to make a cross platform app, meaning we will get apps that we otherwise wouldn’t. This is especially good for Linux, which would be much further behind macOS and windows without popular electron/web apps available like slack, Spotify, etc.

mindslight 8y ago
The "positives" you've listed were basically the case for the standard 00's setup. You just had to undertake some deliberate action to adopt it as your setup, rather than going along with that period's sharecropper option.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  How would you maintain access to your entire library across multiple devices in the 00’s?
  - williamscales 8y ago
    I had an iPod with a big hard drive that synced when I plugged it in (Linux). I either ran a streaming server off my home machine or mounted my filesystem via sshfs.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sneak 8y ago
Not “most people” - pros on high end equipment cannot pass an ABX on 256kbps MP3. Spotify’s “extreme” quality setting is 320kbps. This isn’t some “normies”/“audiophiles” thing. 256kbps mp3 is acoustically transparent to human beings in ideal listening situations. The bad rap mp3 got was from 128kbps that was more common pre-broadband. Also, using lossy compressed sources (even 256-320kbps) in derivative works (eg dj mixes, samples, et c) that will be later lossy recompressed (podcast, satellite radio, spotify, et c) is a good way to make your production sound crappy, which is why lossless is important. Any audiophile who tells you they need lossless for final listening simply hasn’t tested it. It is religion, not engineering.

anotheryou 8y ago

Did you do a blind test on spotify's high quality vs lossless? At least with 320mp3s I could only get it right with certain songs and not too consistently. I'd say my room treatment has a far bigger impact. (but regarding hardware I'm totally with you and haven't found the source of my rather high noise floor either)

woah 8y ago
It all really depends on the gold plating of your cables
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Gold plating? Ridiculous. All my cables are mineral water shielded.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    Ha, loser! My cables were made in the same places that they make the best cuban cigars, naked beautiful people of the appropriate genders make the best cigars and the best cables. My ethernet cable is sex on wheels.
    - seanp2k2 8y ago
      https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2015/07/24/audioquest-diamond-vodka-and-cinnamon-ethernet-cables/ https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2015/07/24/audioquest-diamond... a review of >$1k cat7 patch cables
      - Latteland 8y ago
        That's just sad
- anotheryou 8y ago
  not sure if sarcasm or not...
- 8y ago

acabal 8y ago

Re. flac downloads, Bandcamp (almost?) always offers a flac download option. You'd be surprised how many bands have a Bandcamp page, even if they're signed to labels. The option is not well advertised. After you purchase a digital download, there's a tiny arrow next to the 'download' link that allows you to switch the download to flac. I always download flac and consequently spend a lot of money at Bandcamp!

rvense 8y ago
OGG too. I love Bandcamp. They also have an app that offers streaming and a bunch of social features so you can make a page for yourself where you show off the music you like and make playlists and interact with others. It's probably a great feature, but the thing that really sets Bandcamp apart is that you can just ignore the fuck out of it and pay money for some files that you can download using a browser and put on your own drives and devices.
- JadeNB 8y ago
  > OGG too. Of course there's no need for a separate OGG download; no matter how transparent the MP3 encoding is, one thing at which MP3s suck and lossless codecs, by definition, excel is re-encodeability. If you've got FLAC, you're not far from OGG, AAC, and any other format you like.
baroffoos 8y ago
Bandcamp is pretty much single-handedly keeping high quality audio alive. I exclusively buy music from them and then load it on to my own music streaming server.
- thirdsun 8y ago
  While Bandcamp is indeed a great service you might want to add Boomkat, Qobuz and Bleep to that list.
  - sho_nuff 8y ago

andthat 8y ago

You tried balanced cables?

013a 8y ago
Yup; the speakers support both unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR. Same issue on both.

thinkmassive 8y ago

Any advice on a quality Lightning to 3.5mm adapter? The official Apple one is so flimsy that one or both channels cut out anytime I move the phone. My workaround is to heatshrink the cable and both ends, so it’s rigid enough not to cut out. But it’s ugly and probably won’t last more than a few months.

jjeaff 8y ago
Sounds like a defective connector. Mine doesn't cut out at all that I have noticed.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  If you use it a lot, it gets flaky after a few months because of the poor quality of the wiring and wire boot.
joecool1029 8y ago
Its going to sound crazy but stick a paperclip into the lightning port and scrape along the top. I bet a small amount of dirt will come out. These ports pick up some lint and dust after a few months and it packs in pretty hard. Eventually it will give you connection issues.
- snazz 8y ago
  A thin toothpick should achieve the same without scratching the inside of the port.
- tcoff91 8y ago
  I would say use one of those brushes that are for flossing in between teeth, that’s what I use and it works great.
  - seanp2k2 8y ago
    Use a cotton swab with some of the material plucked off to make it thinner and soak it in CAIG DeoxIT or MG Chemicals Electrosolve (you can typically buy these from Fry's / MicroCenter / online). These chemicals are made to actually clean and de-oxidize contacts.

PascLeRasc 8y ago

Regarding your Mackies, which exact DACs and sound cards have you tested them with? According to the manual [1] they expect a +4dBu input, which will lead to unnecessary noise if you use them with "consumer" -10dBu gear. Most audio interfaces (i.e. designed for recording, not Schiit-type DACs) with balanced output will do +4dBu - I believe it's standard on all Focusrites. [1] https://www.hhb.co.uk/files/product/file/user_manual_20131126123905_27990.pdf https://www.hhb.co.uk/files/product/file/user_manual_2013112...

bb88 8y ago

> and (2) every single Apple product. Sure but that doesn't mean the default Apple audio jack is high quality. I have a cheap USB DAC (bought from monoprice) to power a set of Beyerdynamic headphones. The DAC beat a macbook I was using for work hands down on quality of sound. Specifically, I noted the DAC had better definition of sound meaning that I could pick out details better. It also had better spatial attributes as well, meaning that I could pick out instruments in 3d space. To be fair, doing a D to A conversion in a laptop is hard, and while Apple does it relatively better than average, it's still probably better off done outside of the macbook itself.

rootusrootus 8y ago
My experience has been similar. The output on my MacBook was fine, until I hooked up an amp (coincidentally, my headphones are also Beyerdynamic; DT880s in this case). It sounded pretty bad to be honest, so then I hooked up the external DAC, and it was fascinating how big a difference it made. And I'm not an audiophile, so I usually don't really notice such differences. * the DAC and AMP were Schiit Magni/Modi
- bb88 8y ago
  So my post is downvoted to -3 and then bumped back up to 0. But there was no disagreement in the form of a response. I'm not an audiophile either, but there is something about having listened to a track over and over again on an average pair of headphones and then listening to it again through a DAC and the DT770s I have. It's like hearing it for the first time again. Details just pop out and I really began to appreciate the engineering that went into some of the 80's songs I listened to on crappy car speakers when I was a kid. BTW, the tracks I used to test the spatial qualities of my macbook was "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" on the O' Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and "Blackbird" by the Kings Singers. With the DT770's alone using the Mac jack, the Mac smeared the audio on both tracks. The first one especially because the mic used for recording introduces a distortion. With the DAC, spatial on both were clear and came from point sources. Phenomenal.

snvzz 8y ago

aliexpress, topping dx3 pro, solved. Motherboard audio and soundcards are just terrible.

seanp2k2 8y ago
I typically recommend Fiio gear for people just getting into higher-end audio. They have some great stuff for <$100 that can be a huge upgrade over smartphone / laptop / desktop output. https://www.fiio.com/amp https://www.fiio.com/amp
- Shaddox 8y ago
  I subscribe to this post's message. I was reluctant at first, but after buying a pair of Sennheiser HD650 headphones and a Fiio E10K headphone amp/dac and I can definitely tell the vast improvement in sound clarity.
- snvzz 8y ago
  Fiio's devices are almost there but not quite. I do generally suggest the dx3 because it's a single expense, there's no actual hearable upgrade from it. It measures well and provides enough power for everything short of special cases (such as STAX).

fb03 8y ago

The only way I found to minimize/eliminate HISS while using high quality monitors/pro speakers is to pair them with a proper external USB Audio Card. Those External Audio Cards receive the signal in digital form, thus free of any noise they could pick up in the process. These are decoded inside the external DAC which then feeds audio to the speakers. since this part of the signal path is analog, any interference picked up by these cables is gonna appear on the speakers, which is why the good gear usually supports BALANCED SIGNALS so that the speaker can reference the signal and weed out noises added while in-transit. My gear is a pair of YAMAHA HS8 speakers and a YAMAHA AG06 external audio card. Both support Balanced audio so that's what I'm using regarding cables between the audio card and the speakers.

kakarot 8y ago
Checked out the AG06 but it has internal DSP and other things I don't really need, plus it seemed like more of an audio interface than a sound card, do you have any recommendations for balanced audio usb external cards without all of the extra stuff?
- culot 8y ago
  I think that's what Schiit specializes in.
  - fb03 8y ago
    I've researched this brand and could only find devices sporting RCA outputs (like Fulla or Bifrost). You need a proper XLR balanced output (3 wires) for balanced. In that regard, the AG06 is much cheaper than any of the offerings i'm finding from Schiit.
- fb03 8y ago
  Sadly, I don't. A replier said something about a brand called "Schiit Audio", but I've researched them and they only offer stuff with RCA outputs which are sadly not balanced at all. If you're on a budget you could get the AG03 which is the same interface, but with less input channels. Also, the DSP is totally optional on those, If you don't use it you'll bypass it totally, not coloring or changing your signal in any way. Btw you mentioned your speakers are Mackie, right? Before buying, research if your speakers actually support balanced input (they use XLR or P2/TRS "stereo" (2 black bands) for that, because each speaker is actually receiving 2 polarity-inverted copies of the signal). If all they have are RCA inputs (mono), you're out of luck. Hope I could help! EDIT: I have researched your monitors and they do have all three types of input: XLR and TRS (balanced) and RCA (unbalanced). yay \o/ Now go get yourself a nice audio interface with support for balanced output and go make yourself some nice XLR cables. The Yamaha AG03 AG06 output balanced TRS signals, but for that extra "click" factor no the monitors I have built a custom cable that is TRS on the DAC and XLR to the monitors. That way it stays put :-) Have a good one mate!

eikenberry 8y ago

You sure it isn't a problem with the speakers? I've had a couple different sets of similar monitors and several decent sets of headphones and have never had a problem with any of my external DACs and hissing. I had hissing whenever I used internal cards of any kind, but once I switch to external DACs all hissing went away.

alphabettsy 8y ago

Tidal has a lossless streaming service. https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/203055911-High-Fidelity-HiFi-Sound https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/203055911-High-F...

thinkloop 8y ago

> I'm wholly convinced that the computing world is, in general, regressing The last few decades have shown a preference for accessibility over "quality": - concord high speed luxury air travel >> cheap but slow mass air travel - pentium >> netbooks >> raspberry pi - professional international newsrooms >> amateur blogs - CDs >> MP3s >> streaming - steel cars >> plastic and aluminum - handcrafted oak furniture >> ikea - durable hand-me-downs >> dispensable chinese products - etc. The trade-off is generally positive in my opinion.

kakarot 8y ago

I agree with everything you've said except for > literally only because developers are lazy I think management has a lot to do with this, or priorities in general because at the end of the day working with electron and web everywhere is on a superficial level just as difficult as working with other languages-- it's a matter of training and hiring the right people for the right jobs.

m-p-3 8y ago

Thankfully some services like Bandcamp sells DRM-free albums in FLAC.

admax88q 8y ago

> I have a pair of powered studio monitors (Mackie MR5), and I completely relate to this problem. Many PCs and phones will emit an audible hissing noise while plugged in. I've tested on a dozen different devices, with integrated and external DACs, five hundred dollar sound cards, massively shielded cables, practically every modern OS you can name, tweaking every audio setting exposed to me. The only devices that work perfectly are (1) my TV output, and (2) every single Apple product. If almost every device has poor audio quality, maybe its not the device but the headphones that are your problem?

codyb 8y ago
They also list products that don't do it, so seems like it wouldn't be that.
013a 8y ago
Mackie MR5s are studio monitors, not headphones. I can plug them into an analog output device and they work perfectly. I'm talking about digital, and the only digital devices that work are a Vizio TV (possibly others, didn't really test against TVs), iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
- armitron 8y ago
  You should use an external DAC connected to your digital device via optical or spdif connection. Then connect your monitors to your DAC. I bet this solves all your problems.
dextersgenius 8y ago
Have you tried using a DAC with a USB noise isolator? I don't get any hiss with my setup: Neutron Player on Android > USB OTG cable > HiFimeDIY USB noise isolator > HiFimeDIY USB DAC > Beyerdynamic DT880 Although I don't use all that any longer, for convenience sake I just use a wireless Audiotechnica ATH-DSR9BT which supports aptX-HD and produces "good enough" quality with no hissing/noise.

nine_k 8y ago

Wat. > we're puking web and electron everywhere ... literally only because developers are lazy No. This is done because developers are slow and expensive. Reusing most of your web app as a desktop app, same for every platform, saves a lot of money to companies. > you're consistently asked to pay a monthly fee to access this functionality literally only because companies are lazy No. This is because companies want recurring revenue, not one-time sale. It's vastly easier to get you into ("only $3.99/mo" vs "only $199.95 for lifetime of use"), and it keeps dripping every month. There's not a bit of laziness here, only business shrewdness.

013a 8y ago
Businesses are inherently lazy. Business shrewdness and laziness are literally the same thing; businesses always take the easiest path to the greatest profit. "Lazy" just means "unwilling to expend energy". Let's say Dow Chemical wants to start dumping chemical by-products into the Mississippi River. Thankfully, we have the EPA and strict laws which make this impossible. The only other force which would stop them from doing this is consumer outrage, which only works in some situations and even then tends to be very fleeting. Now, let's say Slack wants to build their app in Electron. By doing so, they are collectively forcing their 8M users to burn more CPU cycles and purchase machines with larger memory footprints, all of which literally waste resources and cause pollution. Not to the same degree as the previous example, but the comparison is very valid.

mquander 8y ago

None of this is the computing world regressing; it's just businesses regressing, or the law regressing, or convention in your social bubble regressing (regressing from what you like, mind, not what other people want.) The time with maximum availability of lossless audio and high-quality movies is right now. You can go join a private tracker and have the largest catalog of them in existence available to you for free, and you have the most bandwidth, most storage, and best tools in existence to organize and consume them. With books, you have to exert even less effort, because there is a huge global search engine where you can instantly download them without any registration barrier. If you don't choose to do that stuff, it's not software stopping you.

dcbadacd 8y ago

> If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it, What audio could you get lossless before that you now can't that you're claiming there has been a regression? > Watching movies sucks; you now pay full price to effectively indefinitely rent movies You can buy most movies on physical disks. The old physical copy ownership option still exists. There has been no regression, just new options you personally don't like. > Applications suck; we're puking web and electron everywhere Clearly the market has decided that the heavier versions are just as fine. Also, in pretty much every case there's also lightweight non-electron alternative. There has been no regression, just new options you don't like. > Modern operating systems suck; restricting filesystem access, exposing proprietary application APIs which fundamentally make applications unportable and thus contributing to the rise of Electron/RN. That is absolutely your own fault if your OS restricts FS access. Applications are just as unportable as they have been. There has been no regression, just new options you don't like. You're just looking at the past like it was some gold standard and a wonderland of software, development and user freedom (of choice or of software), it's ridiculous.

Scramblejams 8y ago
> What audio could you get lossless before that you now can't that you're claiming there has been a regression? Compact discs. You should look them up. :-) Lots of music out these days that you can't find on a CD.
- dcbadacd 8y ago
  I know well enough what CDs are :) could you please give a few examples of songs you can't get?
  - 013a 8y ago
    I'll literally click on the playlist I'm listening to right now and start listing albums that don't appear available physically on Amazon. (1) Til The End - MitiS (2) Dear Me, - Borgeous (3) Ultraviolet - 3LAU (4) Mau5ville Level 1 - Deadmau5 (5) Sleeping With Roses - Chelsea Cutler I could go on, because I literally didn't skip a single song. I started at the top and went down. On this playlist of 300 songs, I would guess that fewer than 20 have physical albums widely available. In some cases, the artist will sell one on their website (ironically LPs are even more popular nowadays). And why should they? CDs suck. But they do two things really well: they have clear ownership, and they're pretty close to a master recording. Digital does not have to remove these advantages; we can improve instead of regress. Products like Bandcamp do an excellent job of replicating this experience digitally, but few artists distribute on there, because consumers-at-large demand music on Spotify/iTunes/GPM/etc. Tidal also does a really good job of getting masters, but doesn't have the "you own it" advantage. In other words, consumers have ruined music for both the artists and audiophiles by changing the rules of the game and forcing the markets to adapt in a way that isn't backward compatible with how things have worked. Artists make shit money on most streaming services, and people who actually care about the audio quality also get shafted.

FridgeSeal 8y ago

> If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it If you like electronic music, Bandcamp and Beatport (thankfully) sell stuff in lossless. Bandcamp is arguably the best: largest cut for the artist; large range of format wth no extra cost for lossless.

thirdsun 8y ago

> If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it. While I agree with your general thoughts, I have to disagree with this particular point. In my opinion there's never been a better time for lossless audio. My collection is made of digital, lossless material only. I buy a lot of music - about 5-10 releases a week - and I have no problem at all finding everthing I want in a lossless format. I understand that this may differ depending on what you listen to and ironically obscure, niche music might be better served by lossles music stores, but I just wanted to provid a different perspective. If I don't what I'm looking for at Bandcamp, Boomkat, Bleep, Qobuz or various label stores chances are that it's a physical-only release, in which case ripping it myself is always an option.