Nenu
[H]ardened
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You are a cock.
You make no account for decent hifi and peoples opinions other than your own.
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Forget Expensive Soundcards
- Thread starter thomasward00
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You are a cock.
You make no account for decent hifi and peoples opinions other than your own.
-=Antimatter=-
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As he mentioned above, his motherboard chipset supports DTS Interactive, which is really just another name as DTS Connect, similar to DDL. I wasn't aware of any onboard solutions that could do DDL or DTS-C until I read this thread.
Klob is not in any way shape or form a "HiFi " person. He recently had a thread asking why Totem asks so much money for a tower speaker with only a tweeter and one mid-bass driver...
That proves right there his lack of knowledge...I'm not gonna call you a cock, (I just about spit my coffee all over my montitor again tho when I read that! Haha!) but you sir, are freakin' DEAF. Go check yer ears. Grab some Q-tips and fix 'em. Maybe its the type of crap you listen to?
Best line of this thread!! Bravo, Nenu!!
Digital Viper-X-
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Same here
there are also other benefits in terms of "features"
as far as Analog / Digital and SQ that's it IMO ^^
Don't generalize. Transparency can be achieved at varying levels of quality with different types of music, but it isn't always achievable. The more complex the frame, the more difficult it is for an encoder to compress. A strong encoder will throw a ton of bits on problematic frames, but that doesn't always result in transparency for all users. There are also killer samples that most modern encoders completely fumble, even at the highest bit rates, and those sometimes involve musical passages.
That being said, the majority of listeners will have difficulty discerning the original sample from the lossy one (or fail to outright) regardless of the quality of playback equipment so long as the sample's encoded appropriately. In most cases, though, these tests are performed with mid- to high-end headphones, not speakers. Doing A/B trials on speakers tends to be much, much more difficult.
People that go around throwing out statements like "I can tell the difference between 320kbps MP3 and lossless" aren't necessarily liars, they just typically haven't performed double-blind A/B or ABX testing to confirm their perceptions (so what they're saying ends up sounding pretty arrogant and silly to people like me).
Digital Viper-X-
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I did a double blind test with an audio engineer, using an audigy 2 ZS, Senn HD570s I encoded a CD into 192k, and he couldn't tell the difference. could be the sound system too, who knows ^^ but most people won't notice. some people might
another thing to consider is that the recording you are using, is it something that wasn't normalized? etc I don't think every recording / track will sound the same
another thing to consider is that the recording you are using, is it something that wasn't normalized? etc I don't think every recording / track will sound the same
Very good point. Something alot (read=most) people overlook. Modern rock albums (for the most part) are, to put it plainly, absolute shit it terms of recording quality. Something worth watching. The Loudness War.
Exactly. Most of them come clipped out of the gate. Run all of Chevelle's tracks through a wave analyzer for example. The whole thing is clipped at the peaks somefin' fierce. You have now just lost any hope for dynamics and anything resembling sound quality. What could/should have been a great recording was completely ruined and extremely painful to listen to on good equipment. THIS is what the .mp3 has done to us. Everybody wants their tracks to play loud and think distortion helps accomplish that. There are great metal albums (old Slayer albums for example) that have excellent recordings, play a little quiter, but have maintained all of the recording/playback dynamics intended. Makes a HUGE diff.
If you want a clean disc to test with, try Donald Fagen's NightFly. Wow. Fairly ghey music, but holy cow. A long-time audiophile reference.
Holy thread derail.
Digital Viper-X-
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Well it's not .mp3 that has done anything, normalization or whatever it is called in the recording industry has been around for a while, probably before mp3s.
another big issue is
what kind of system is someone going to need to be able to tell the difference between a a good mp3, lossless format and a cd?
on HD570s, I couldn't tell, I used a moist(not sure on the recording setup for this) cd from the 90s that I had laying around to test it. (while ago) and an audio engineer and I both couldn't tell the difference between the 192k mp3 and the CD,
Keep in mind while I'm not an audiophile, I'd rather NOT listen to a track I like if it's not at least good quality. and I'm very picky about quality of all things in general.
I don't know what to say man. A 196k mp3 is so completely lossy to my ears, I will not listen to it at all. I have a few rogue 256k and some 320k's but even the 256k's are quite obvious.
The main things I can tell are the dynamics lost from the orignal source, the cymbals usally give it away especially on a quiet recording. Lossy mp3s will lose a certain dynamic "punch" that I can hear in the originals, be it snare drum snap or tight kick drum. Instruments are less defined. Everything is more "blended" sounding, which makes perfect sense, considering you're losing 3/4 of the information in even a 320k mp3. A 128k? You lost what, a 6th of the original information?
Digital Viper-X-
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Well to be honest, I've used a fair bit of different encoders, in my early days I used winamp, which I quickly found was #$%# horrible by default, then I started using different encoders which opened up my options a bit, (I don't remember which I used back then), but on winamp it sounds completely flat, not dynamic at all, it could be your encoder.
also what are you listening to it on? it's possible that the sound system you're using is able to reproduce sounds that mine is not able to. ETC.
The Loudness Wars were brought on due to the popularity of FM radio and car CD players in the late 90's, not MP3s. While radio stations have employed broadcast limiters since that time, labels have still been competing by demanding highly compressed masters. The MP3 just happened to come along at around the same time as the Loudness Wars started reaching its pinnacle.
It's sort of funny that we started out talking about the MP3 being bad because it somehow makes music sound terrible, because the bit rate is too low or for some other reason, but now it's an entirely different reason you're attributing to why MP3 sucks -- because labels put out loud CDs (?).
We've been compressing masters since the 50's. It's typically used on certain tracks as an effect, to give certain instruments an "edge" in the mix, to "fatten" drums (to reduce the decay), or to even out a vocal track. Stereo mixes are then compressed again to balance the mix and ensure that no particular instrument gets lost when played back in noisy environments (i.e. a car).
Digital Viper-X-
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I'm going to do some more research
I don't think MP3s are as lossy as some people think, I think most people have a placebo effect thing going on.
lets look at 10 points on a graph, (Digital) and say 4 points on a graph(lower quality digital) the through interpolation you can get the 4 points to look very similar to the 10 points while using much less space. Not even sure if Mp3s do this or not but its worth a look into it. maybe we should make another discussion about mp3s and and quality of encoded sound media
I don't think MP3s are as lossy as some people think, I think most people have a placebo effect thing going on.
lets look at 10 points on a graph, (Digital) and say 4 points on a graph(lower quality digital) the through interpolation you can get the 4 points to look very similar to the 10 points while using much less space. Not even sure if Mp3s do this or not but its worth a look into it. maybe we should make another discussion about mp3s and and quality of encoded sound media
Only if the MP3 is encoded at a constant bitrate, which no discerning music listener in their right mind would use (unless it's at 320kbps).
I'm not going to argue that you can't hear the difference, but I get the distinct impression that you have somewhat limited experience in how drastic a difference there can be between one MP3 codec and the next. For example, back in the early days of Napster and Kazaa, quality was all over the map, and many MP3s used a codec called Blade, which was absolute crap. A MP3 encoded at 128kbps is poor quality no matter how you encode it, but the difference between the LAME codec and many of the older codecs even at that bitrate is extraordinary. If it's been several years since you last gave MP3s a serious quality analysis, you may want to try it again sometime.
I haven;'t spent a lot of time researching robust encoders, which may be part of the problem. I should and will look into it. Pretty much listened to downlaods and used WMP to rip at 320k.
I can tell you, the Klipsch Reference line of speakers will let you hear things you've never heard before in a recording. Some people describe the playback as being "in your face" - I have grown addicted to the sound because you can hear SO much detail - sometimes too much detail, at any volume. But, you get used to that. Everything else sounds boring.
to me now. A lot of guys bash Klipsch and say they're loud, rock speakers. Far from the truth now with their better stuff. Different strokes. I'm not claiming I'm somehow better or different from anybody else, but I know what I CAN hear.
Digital Viper-X-
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actually im looking at a set of RF-52s currently, or set of Energy speakers =p We'll see soon!
Much of what's discarded is psychoacoustically masked information. There are certain encoders that only discard masked information, which is theoretically an audibly lossless process if the psychoacoustic model is sound, though most encoders reduce bits via lossy lowpass, by lossless stereo coding (joint stereo) and a psychoacoustic model. You lose bits, but you don't necessarily lose a lot of what those bits audibly define.
Really the only artifact you could attribute to diminished transients would be pre-echo, and pre-echo is typically not severe. Usually the most audible factor is lowpass, and as you age, your ability to distinguished a lowpassed track from the original diminishes (and mastering engineers tend to throw in a soft LPF these days to give themselves additional headroom anyway). If you're over 30, odds are you can only hear pure tones up to 17 kHz, and that probably gets reduced to about 14 to 15 kHz in actual music, where the high frequencies have much lower amplitudes compared to the rest of the frequency band. So, the default lowpass for a LAME V5 encoded file likely wouldn't be audible to you.
That's accurate. This particular listening test was comprised mostly of lossy encoder developers and "lossy encoding enthusiasts", which somewhat negatively skews the results.
Klob is not in any way shape or form a "HiFi " person. He recently had a thread asking why Totem asks so much money for a tower speaker with only a tweeter and one mid-bass driver...
I've actually listened to Totem speakers and subs and left that little bit of info out deliberately. While their speakers are of very high quality build they do not reproduce the full sound spectrum. For what they cost Paradigm offers a much better speaker in their studio series of speakers. I was weened on audiophile because my father was a heavy jazz listener and musician so have been listening to good music on decent equipment almost since the day I was born. That's five decades of experience and probably 3 decades longer than you.
Do some ABX testing in foobar and then report back the fact you failed. I tested a friend who claims he is an audiophile (I think owning a 240w per channel Crown amp qualifies as audiophile) and he also failed. The only people who claim they can hear the difference easily have never taken an ABX test. I lay down the challenge but I know you are afraid to take it because you are afraid to find out the truth. But then you will probably come back and claim the ABX test in foobar is flawed for some convoluted BS reason like I have seen a few at headfi pull.
Best line of this thread!! Bravo, Nenu!!
That was a personal attack and he should be banned for it.
Kinda had it coming. Go spend some time in the 2-channel section of AVSForums... post your "thoughts" over there, see what they think.
No reason to be pointing fingers and calling names.
Klob, there is a difference in codecs WHEN you use a source good enough to display the differences. An Audigy 2zs is not such a source.
Totem, their higher end, is more of an expensive flavor than a solid deal. Totems bookshelves such as Mites, Model One, etc, are very good speakers for the money though.
Paradigm is always an excellent choice for entry to mid level fi and is bang for the buck.
Enough bullshit. The thread has gone way off tanget.
Klob, there is a difference in codecs WHEN you use a source good enough to display the differences. An Audigy 2zs is not such a source.
Totem, their higher end, is more of an expensive flavor than a solid deal. Totems bookshelves such as Mites, Model One, etc, are very good speakers for the money though.
Paradigm is always an excellent choice for entry to mid level fi and is bang for the buck.
Enough bullshit. The thread has gone way off tanget.
OK. so in "general" you are agreeing with me. Except on my use of the term "liars". I know liar is a strong word but when someone posts BS I think that is what it is generally called. Cut back on the placebos people!
no2censorship
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There are good lossy compression algorithims (to the pt where some tracks i can't tell a difference in quality if someone doesn't point it out), but there are also bad ones (where it just completely ruins the music), so I think that we need to just stick to one of the available lossless standards, which is a perfectly happy medium.
I see no reason to not abandon uncompressed and lossy algorithims, b/c we have the space and the bandwidth/speed.
I honestly don't know why they bother using 256kbps format itunes when the damn players have up to 60 GB worth of storage.
Same with pc's with multiple 1 TB harddrives and broadband extremely common in europe and very common in the u.s.
I see no reason to not abandon uncompressed and lossy algorithims, b/c we have the space and the bandwidth/speed.
I honestly don't know why they bother using 256kbps format itunes when the damn players have up to 60 GB worth of storage.
Same with pc's with multiple 1 TB harddrives and broadband extremely common in europe and very common in the u.s.
I use a track from Handel's Messiah and Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve for ABX testing, both are well recorded.
I don't even own an Audigy 2zs!
Paradigm Studio 60 gets rated higher than mid level by Stereophile and sound almost as good as his reference speakers that cost $10.000.
http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/1204paradigm/index.html
Sound
My reference Revel Ultima Studio speakers were given a brief vacation in the next room, and the Paradigms were connected to an admittedly overkill systemsee Sidebar that the Reference Studio/60 v.3s are unlikely to encounter in real life. But they were not embarrassed, sounding very much like the $10,000/pair speakers they'd replaced: ample, balanced, and open. In fact, in overall balance, there was little to choose between the Revels and the Paradigms. The latter were as full and warm as the Revels, but with excellent and spacious treble, and the stability and dimensions of their soundstage were impressive. Over the month that the Studio/60 v.3s were driven by the Theta Gen.VIII and Classé Omicron monoblocks, they were consistently satisfying with all types of music, from large orchestral and choral pieces to smaller vocal and chamber works.
the reasons I bought a soundcard (prelude) even though I use coax out to a receiver:
-ASIO
-bit-perfect
-tunability (eq, and effects)
-EAX (game mode)
-hardware acceleration
and the main thing: did I notice a difference? no but I didn't do a direct test...and the main difference was enabling ASIO and bit-perfect playback
do I care? no
does it make me happy and make me feel all special: yepper, the thing even has a green light that strobes
and the flac vs mp3 argument..I'll make it simple...my library is composed of flac, and there's two reasons for it:
1- I have a ton of extra space and can spare it
2- I seem to have shitty luck with mp3's where I always get some idiot trying to make his own remix or an mp3 that's not been ripped poorly
-ASIO
-bit-perfect
-tunability (eq, and effects)
-EAX (game mode)
-hardware acceleration
and the main thing: did I notice a difference? no but I didn't do a direct test...and the main difference was enabling ASIO and bit-perfect playback
do I care? no
does it make me happy and make me feel all special: yepper, the thing even has a green light that strobes
and the flac vs mp3 argument..I'll make it simple...my library is composed of flac, and there's two reasons for it:
1- I have a ton of extra space and can spare it
2- I seem to have shitty luck with mp3's where I always get some idiot trying to make his own remix or an mp3 that's not been ripped poorly
Now there's a sound reason for .flac over .mp3 for sure. The illegal downloads are of better quality.
klob I was referring to mrwolf using the audigy 2zs and senn 570 to a/b.
Ok we are all friends again good. This place is where we help each other learn and help each other not compare e-pees.
Try and watch your wording and be funny instead of mean ok?
These days there are as many terrible recordings as there are good ones.
Onboard sound is ok if you are broke but there is no reason not to spend a few bucks for a decent transport like my X-Fi Titanium. It certainly is nice to output 5.1 digital to a receiver instead of the analogue 5.1 of an x-fi though.
Ok we are all friends again good. This place is where we help each other learn and help each other not compare e-pees.
Try and watch your wording and be funny instead of mean ok?
These days there are as many terrible recordings as there are good ones.
Onboard sound is ok if you are broke but there is no reason not to spend a few bucks for a decent transport like my X-Fi Titanium. It certainly is nice to output 5.1 digital to a receiver instead of the analogue 5.1 of an x-fi though.
There's really nothing wrong with the Audigy 2 for A/B testing. It specs out practically as well as any other sound card on the market (within the constraints of human hearing), and is somewhat more linear than most of the "audiophile" cards out there.
The HD570s could be better, yeah, but I know of a couple individuals who routinely A/B high bitrate stuff (successfully) on lesser equipment. On the other side of the coin, I outright fail in most cases with mid-level bitrates on my Headroom Micro/HD650 setup. The "equipment factor" isn't really all that critical.
Digital Viper-X-
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That was me using the A2ZS + 570s
All I had at the time! he was convinced that he could hear a difference till he tried.I do not think that most people can tell the difference b/w different encodings. Now, different recordings would be easier to tell the difference b/w say Metallica awful Death Magnetic vs Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine.
If you make a decent rip and keep it at least 128kps it should sound fine these days. I use 320 kps just b/c my equipment is that sensitive. My background is absolutely black which allows me to pick up way more detail than normal.
If you make a decent rip and keep it at least 128kps it should sound fine these days. I use 320 kps just b/c my equipment is that sensitive. My background is absolutely black which allows me to pick up way more detail than normal.
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I don't like locking threads so let's keep the thread on topic and keep the personal attacks out.
Oh we are past that now I hope. Seems to be going back on the rails lol.
Anyway, I am going to try and get my X-Fi to do 5.1 digital to my Denon very soon. It will be interesting if I can get COD2 to work that way. I will be using a 4.1 setup as I have no matching center.
I will do a listening test with the help of a friend or two. If I can get three folks to try it we might have a good answer yeah?
For me, I have stopped buying new soundcard after I got my first external DAC a couple of years ago. I was using an EMU 1212m before and at that time, people were saying it was one of the best cards for music but the external DAC just sounded so much better in every way. I know external DACs cost a lot more and you get no special sound effects for games, but this is perfectly fine for me as I would rather pay more and sacrifice some gaming effects for better music quality.
As for lossless vs 320Kbps MP3, I can only tell the difference between the two only on certain well recorded songs even with my Omega 2. The easiest place for me to tell was the very low frequency part where the bass has more weight in the wav files. The difference was definitely subtle though. I surely wouldn't notice the difference if I weren't listening carefully.
As for lossless vs 320Kbps MP3, I can only tell the difference between the two only on certain well recorded songs even with my Omega 2. The easiest place for me to tell was the very low frequency part where the bass has more weight in the wav files. The difference was definitely subtle though. I surely wouldn't notice the difference if I weren't listening carefully.