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The problem with audio in general is that its really difficult to find decent reviews of the product. I used to work as a tech in a recording studio (along wit

The problem with audio in general is that its really difficult to find decent reviews of the product. I used to work as a tech in a recording studio (along with a theatre and TV studio) We have a set of nearfield speakers, and that was about it. However audio reviews are basically: "Its got punchy bass" and "sounds a bit woolly" or "has brilliant clarity in the upper regions" are about as descriptive as review get. Not only that but "high end" audio is replete with proper charlatanism. Without trying the devices, its impossible to assess how good they are. personally, I have a second hand denon HDMI decoder thing, with airplay. I have some cheap surround speakers. The thing that separates it from "high end" amplifiers is that it has a microphone to add some basic DSP filtering during a calibration stage. It gives a decent flat reproduction of what's coming into the amp (ie its not mid or treble heavy), and cost about £250 all in (the amp was second hand)

MengerSponge 4y ago
Most amplifier reviews are less informative than the Knob Feel YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/KnobFeel https://www.youtube.com/c/KnobFeel
- n49o7 4y ago
  And they do it in all languages, which is really helpful.
etherealG 4y ago
I like rtings personally. Understandable for mere mortals like me, but clear about their test methods which seem scientific enough.
brosinante 4y ago
"personally, I have a second hand denon HDMI decoder thing, with airplay [..] dsp filtering [..] calibration stage [...] decent flat reproduction" These are certainly words, and everything else being the same I absolutely would rather have the "bit wooly" kind of review to read.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  i see what you did there! also point taken. In my defence, "decent flat reproduction" is at least measurable. However I should have actually been much more precise in my language. It should have read something like "the frequency response across the full spectrum is flat, which means that what you put in is what comes out, there is no extra base or treble, despite the shape and sound performance of the room"
  - Naracion 4y ago
    Is the microphone embedded? If not: Should be qualified by "since the mic is on the receiver, if you were to situate your head at the receiver's mic position and accounting for the mic's ADC circuit there is a chance that your human ears would hear something like a flat response." But of course that can't be generalized across the room, different points in the room will have different acoustic response because of the unique positioning wrt other reflective surfaces. The closest you can actually get is to use something like miniDSP and a umik, position the umik where you would usually sit, and then let the DSP run and calibrate. Anyhow--I'm not knocking you. I'm all about better audio through such tricks as well. It's just we can't probably say absolute things having a flat response, because at the end of the day people hear different things (both physiologically but also psychologically). One of the things I do for fun sometimes is run a flat signal that sweeps through the frequency range and edit the equalizer until I _perceive it_ to be a flat response, then compare the EQ to the FR chart on audiosciencereview if they have reviewed it or if the product has included it in their marketing :)
darkr 4y ago
Yep - reviews of consumer electronics in general are awash with useless content-farm generated crap. IMO the best audio review site currently is https://www.audioholics.com/ https://www.audioholics.com/
- andybak 4y ago
  The comment you are replying to was criticising "experts" not content farms.
gambiting 4y ago
On the other end of this you have serious audio reviewers who on one hand are professionals and have tonnes of experience, but then you see them review an absolute nonsense product like an audio-friendly ethernet switch(!!!) or "audiophile" NVMe drive, and write an entire article about how transformative it was to their sound(for the better, of course). Then you start to realize that even the best ear is still subjective, and people will hear things if they want to hear them.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  > Then you start to realize that even the best ear is still subjective, and people will hear things if they want to hear them. urgh yes. When I was recording something, I routed an (audio)compressor/gate combo. I was twiddling something on the effect and convinced myself that it was making a change. Looked to my left, the person was vehemently agreeing with me, I looked behind, the other person had a face like I'd farted. A while later I realised that I had routed the output into a muted bus. (ie I couldn't hear the output of the effect, only the raw original)
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Here's a great example, https://youtu.be/f-QxLAxwxkM https://youtu.be/f-QxLAxwxkM -- a CD trimmer that (paraphrasing) "improves your audio quality" and was lauded by audiophiles.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    If you want a good laugh, have a look at this forum thread - it's like these people are from a different planet. So many posters saying that the NVMe drive has improved the clarity and "richness" of their sound. Fortunately it's a harmless kind of ignorance. https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62753-nvme-ssd-designed-for-audiophiles/ https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62753-nvme-ssd-desi...
    - Bakary 4y ago
      It's actually beneficial ignorance. Money is transferred from those who don't know what to do with it into the broader economy.
tecleandor 4y ago
It's "funny" how sometimes the "audiophile" equipment people use for hearing music is way more expensive (not better, necessarily) than the equipment used to record said music. Particularly cables. How come an "audiophile" balanced XLR cable is 10 times more expensive (or more) than the ones used to connect the mics in the original recording, even when using the best Mogami cable, Neutrik plugs and paying somebody for hand soldering it? More or less same as you, the team made by my "cheap" Denon amp plus a couple of Q Acoustics bookshelf speakers (and a relatively cheap high quality bluetooth receiver) sounds great, and the whole costs just a bit more than some crappy Beats headphones. (Now that I'm venting, brands like Bose have some nice things but overprice lots of their equipment. Not to talk about the "DSP boards" needed to run their classic 802 PA systems, that was so bad)
- MisterTea 4y ago
  > It's "funny" how sometimes the "audiophile" equipment people use for hearing music is way more expensive (not better, necessarily) than the equipment used to record said music. Particularly cables. The simple fact is most "audiophiles" are rich people showing off their wealth. It has little to do with actual audio reproduction.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  urgh, Cables. because the studios were pretty well booked, we had a fair few repair jobs. Cables break, normally its where they are soldered into the XLR. From what I could tell, the main difference between cheap and expensive cables was the amount of string that was bundled into the core along with the actual cable. I suspect now is both string and the woven sheathing on the outside. sure some were copper, others were aluminium coated in copper (although they broke more often, I'm not sure because copper is more ductile and AL just stress fractures, or because they were really cheap and shoddy) They all sounded the same, apart from when we used phantom power on long cables. Then sometimes they turned into microphones. You didn't notice it unless you were in the theatre, and people would accidentally stand or kick the cable, making a massive thud.
whyoh 4y ago
>The problem with audio in general is that its really difficult to find decent reviews of the product. The website linked here is in fact trying to solve this problem, with reviews based on measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?reviews/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?reviews/
willis936 4y ago
The root is that at some point (late 20th century) the cheap wine became as good as the good wine. So the key differentiating metric for most of the space turned from performance to marketing. The high-end got pushed into the stratosphere (I'll never own a pair of electrostats) and everything else is good enough (hopefully, sometimes there is incompetence). So if it's all good enough for the mass market then the audiophiles need to look in the mirror and ask what they're after. Some will say a mystical, ethereal experience. Some will say total control over the signal chain from outside the body to inside. These are orthogonal wants crammed into a single market. The second path is harder, but it at least the end result is some form of truth. Very few engineers want to devote themselves to a pointless crusade for a tiny market of consumer goods. There's better things to do on the weekend. However, when they do it's special. http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/ http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/

MengerSponge 4y ago

Most amplifier reviews are less informative than the Knob Feel YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/KnobFeel https://www.youtube.com/c/KnobFeel

n49o7 4y ago
And they do it in all languages, which is really helpful.

etherealG 4y ago

I like rtings personally. Understandable for mere mortals like me, but clear about their test methods which seem scientific enough.

brosinante 4y ago

"personally, I have a second hand denon HDMI decoder thing, with airplay [..] dsp filtering [..] calibration stage [...] decent flat reproduction" These are certainly words, and everything else being the same I absolutely would rather have the "bit wooly" kind of review to read.

KaiserPro 4y ago
i see what you did there! also point taken. In my defence, "decent flat reproduction" is at least measurable. However I should have actually been much more precise in my language. It should have read something like "the frequency response across the full spectrum is flat, which means that what you put in is what comes out, there is no extra base or treble, despite the shape and sound performance of the room"
- Naracion 4y ago
  Is the microphone embedded? If not: Should be qualified by "since the mic is on the receiver, if you were to situate your head at the receiver's mic position and accounting for the mic's ADC circuit there is a chance that your human ears would hear something like a flat response." But of course that can't be generalized across the room, different points in the room will have different acoustic response because of the unique positioning wrt other reflective surfaces. The closest you can actually get is to use something like miniDSP and a umik, position the umik where you would usually sit, and then let the DSP run and calibrate. Anyhow--I'm not knocking you. I'm all about better audio through such tricks as well. It's just we can't probably say absolute things having a flat response, because at the end of the day people hear different things (both physiologically but also psychologically). One of the things I do for fun sometimes is run a flat signal that sweeps through the frequency range and edit the equalizer until I _perceive it_ to be a flat response, then compare the EQ to the FR chart on audiosciencereview if they have reviewed it or if the product has included it in their marketing :)

darkr 4y ago

Yep - reviews of consumer electronics in general are awash with useless content-farm generated crap. IMO the best audio review site currently is https://www.audioholics.com/ https://www.audioholics.com/

andybak 4y ago
The comment you are replying to was criticising "experts" not content farms.

gambiting 4y ago

On the other end of this you have serious audio reviewers who on one hand are professionals and have tonnes of experience, but then you see them review an absolute nonsense product like an audio-friendly ethernet switch(!!!) or "audiophile" NVMe drive, and write an entire article about how transformative it was to their sound(for the better, of course). Then you start to realize that even the best ear is still subjective, and people will hear things if they want to hear them.

KaiserPro 4y ago
> Then you start to realize that even the best ear is still subjective, and people will hear things if they want to hear them. urgh yes. When I was recording something, I routed an (audio)compressor/gate combo. I was twiddling something on the effect and convinced myself that it was making a change. Looked to my left, the person was vehemently agreeing with me, I looked behind, the other person had a face like I'd farted. A while later I realised that I had routed the output into a muted bus. (ie I couldn't hear the output of the effect, only the raw original)
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
Here's a great example, https://youtu.be/f-QxLAxwxkM https://youtu.be/f-QxLAxwxkM -- a CD trimmer that (paraphrasing) "improves your audio quality" and was lauded by audiophiles.
- gambiting 4y ago
  If you want a good laugh, have a look at this forum thread - it's like these people are from a different planet. So many posters saying that the NVMe drive has improved the clarity and "richness" of their sound. Fortunately it's a harmless kind of ignorance. https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62753-nvme-ssd-designed-for-audiophiles/ https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62753-nvme-ssd-desi...
  - Bakary 4y ago
    It's actually beneficial ignorance. Money is transferred from those who don't know what to do with it into the broader economy.

tecleandor 4y ago

It's "funny" how sometimes the "audiophile" equipment people use for hearing music is way more expensive (not better, necessarily) than the equipment used to record said music. Particularly cables. How come an "audiophile" balanced XLR cable is 10 times more expensive (or more) than the ones used to connect the mics in the original recording, even when using the best Mogami cable, Neutrik plugs and paying somebody for hand soldering it? More or less same as you, the team made by my "cheap" Denon amp plus a couple of Q Acoustics bookshelf speakers (and a relatively cheap high quality bluetooth receiver) sounds great, and the whole costs just a bit more than some crappy Beats headphones. (Now that I'm venting, brands like Bose have some nice things but overprice lots of their equipment. Not to talk about the "DSP boards" needed to run their classic 802 PA systems, that was so bad)

MisterTea 4y ago
> It's "funny" how sometimes the "audiophile" equipment people use for hearing music is way more expensive (not better, necessarily) than the equipment used to record said music. Particularly cables. The simple fact is most "audiophiles" are rich people showing off their wealth. It has little to do with actual audio reproduction.
KaiserPro 4y ago
urgh, Cables. because the studios were pretty well booked, we had a fair few repair jobs. Cables break, normally its where they are soldered into the XLR. From what I could tell, the main difference between cheap and expensive cables was the amount of string that was bundled into the core along with the actual cable. I suspect now is both string and the woven sheathing on the outside. sure some were copper, others were aluminium coated in copper (although they broke more often, I'm not sure because copper is more ductile and AL just stress fractures, or because they were really cheap and shoddy) They all sounded the same, apart from when we used phantom power on long cables. Then sometimes they turned into microphones. You didn't notice it unless you were in the theatre, and people would accidentally stand or kick the cable, making a massive thud.

whyoh 4y ago

>The problem with audio in general is that its really difficult to find decent reviews of the product. The website linked here is in fact trying to solve this problem, with reviews based on measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?reviews/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?reviews/

willis936 4y ago

The root is that at some point (late 20th century) the cheap wine became as good as the good wine. So the key differentiating metric for most of the space turned from performance to marketing. The high-end got pushed into the stratosphere (I'll never own a pair of electrostats) and everything else is good enough (hopefully, sometimes there is incompetence). So if it's all good enough for the mass market then the audiophiles need to look in the mirror and ask what they're after. Some will say a mystical, ethereal experience. Some will say total control over the signal chain from outside the body to inside. These are orthogonal wants crammed into a single market. The second path is harder, but it at least the end result is some form of truth. Very few engineers want to devote themselves to a pointless crusade for a tiny market of consumer goods. There's better things to do on the weekend. However, when they do it's special. http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/ http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/