I love seeing this story… it reminds me of 30 years ago when I worked in the telephone industry. Heard about telephone copmanies rolling out service in very very rural areas - running signals over barbed-wire fences because it was too expensive to run dedicated cables. That did degrade the signal, but it worked.
I know it’s a completely different thing entirely, but it just gave me nostalgia remembering hearing about that.
I know I has nothing to do with your story. But I just spent the weekend removing barbed wire fencing. And I just want to say, fuck barbed wire. Whoever thought it was a good idea to put that shit up should be wrapped in it and pushed down a steep slope.
And by whoever I mean my great grandfather. But also everyone else involved. All the way to the factory making it.
I used to be an audiophile. I spent a lot of money on speakers, and amplifiers, and DACs. But I always found the audiophile cable crowd a bit nuts. And the people that are buying audiophile versions of stuff in the digital domain are full on delusional.
I say “used to be” for two reasons. One, hearing everything does not always mean better. A lot of the time it just reveals imperfections in the recording. And depending on the space, and ambient noise, more headroom can be worse because it just pushes the quiet stuff below the background. And, you are going to have to listen to music in places that you do not have your gear and it is going to sound bad if you get too used to the good stuff. So your music life may be worse overall.
But the biggest difference is that I am older. I just cannot tell the difference as well as I used to.
But most people spend too much money on the equipment and not enough on the sources. You do not need a $20,000 setup if you are listening to badly encoded MP3 or AAC files for example.
But if you have high quality FLAC or Opus sources (or really high-end analog), you do not have to be an audiophile to tell the difference. Same with linear power supplies. You can hear the difference even if you do not spend so much money.
Like wine, audiophiles often make it more about the money they spend than the quality they are getting or the experience they are having.
That said, I can still hear well enough to know that 80% of the people that play music around me turn it up past what their amp can handle and it clips like crazy. I do not know how people listen to that.
Most people DO NOT hear the difference between FLAC and MP3s, which are 320kbs encoded. Most people that claim that do, can’t do it in the blind test.
But if you have high quality FLAC or Opus sources (or really high-end analog), you do not have to be an audiophile to tell the difference
The analysis showed that there was no statistically significant difference in quality between the un- compressed signals and AAC-LC 320 kbps compression, which means participants did not perceive difference between two formats
https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP384.pdf
Could be they were both shit lol. I couldnt see (on mobile) what playback system was used.
A good interview with Bob Carver if you like audio history https://podcast.asknoahshow.com/25
I’m jealous of people who can’t tell the difference and have no need to buy audiophile grade SSDs
that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen lol. I’d love the know how audiophiles think ssds work if they think this could actually make a difference.
If you think this is dumb wait until you find out about the audiophile network switches
To be fair, “audiophiles” are morons.
What do you mean? I always pay extra for the audiophile version of vinyl records!
Can’t wait til 3d printers get good enough to make records so i can stock up on audiophile filament!
I worked at an online shop for high end audio equipment. It was always both amusing and painful when customers asked about the sound characteristics of various power cables in the price range between $100 and $10,000 that we carried, or the same with USB and optical digital cables. Some came with the firm belief that they needed better power cables to enhance the bass of their setup. They even bought gold plated “audiophile fuses”.
I am in the wrong goddamn business, I need to be selling $9,000 kettle cords to music morons.
I know a dude who has had me fix 2 separate 800$+ DACS and then listens to only YouTube music rips on his 500$ headphones through the DACS. he swears his 1300$ setup makes a difference on his 128kbps aac YouTube downloads…
These people spend a crap ton of money to set up over priced equipment in untreated rooms.
Some of them even improve their rooms accordingly but are never satisfied.
Some search for the listening experience they had when they were in their twenties and discovered their special music for the first time. They think if they just spend enough money on improving the equipment, the goosebumps of the days of yore will come back automatically.
Im certain I could tell the difference between a $50,000 setup, and the one i have cobbled together for a couple hundo over the past decade… And i would love to have that setup. But that cost to performance is only worth it if you have way too much disposable income. Eff the audiophile market.
This is the kind of info I would pay for
The eye opening moments for me were
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Listening to $35 Porta Pro headphones and realizing you don’t need a lot of money for great sound
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ABX testing and realizing I couldn’t tell the difference AT ALL and certainly couldn’t remember the last sound bite well enough to make a real comparison anyway.
The AutoEQ project is all I need for great sound.
Shit’s mindblowing with some headphones I’ve tried that need a heavy EQ. Porta Pros are fairly balanced already so not as mindblowing, but still worth at least checking out the demos on the webpage.
AutoEQ is open source. It’s just EQ settings from analyzing frequency responses of headphones.
There’s an extra “.” in your link. Here’s a corrected link for my fellow lazies: AutoEQ
Similar with mp3 bitrate. While I do think I noticed a difference going from 128kbps to 192kbps, anything beyond that I can’t hear a difference for.
Which clearly means I need to dumb 15k into my aound setup because it maxes out somewhere between 128kbps and 192kbps!
Were they comfortable though?
Did they have good noise blocking? Good battery? Good delay? Microphone? Good warranty? Reparaibility? There’s so many reasons to spend a buck extra
They don’t block noise. No battery, this is mid-'80s wired tech. There’s a model with a very good microphone. Lifetime warranty. Repairable with super glue sometimes.
I did get aftermarket pads for them but they are not made for long term listening. But that is beside the point - they show you don’t need to spend $1000 to get great sound and they are only one example of that.
I actually just bought a pair of porta pros three days ago—any chance you recall what pads you upgraded to? I’ve mostly seen recommendations for Yaxi
Yep Yaxi, between that and the built in comfort slider in the headphones it’s comfortable enough
About as comfortable as plastic wrapped in a thin sponge can be
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Oehlbach knows.
This is about a digital signal right? Cause I’m pretty sure if I add a banana midway into my bass’ pedalboard that I’d be getting a significantly different sound. I’m tempted to try and proof myself wrong tho lmao
Everyone knows for bass you use plantain. Poser
Electronica requires fried plantains
The ones with the red label on the bag? I love those things!
Do it, imagine it sounds good, the stage trick you’d gain!
This just shows that bananas and mud are materials for excellent audio equipment. I am looking forward to my gold-plated banana.
To be fair, the signal is only going through these suboptimal conductors for a very short distance.
Try wiring up your stereo with 50 feet of bananas, and you might start having problems.
There’s always music in the banana chain… or something like that
I mean yeah, audiophile cables are 100% a rip-off every time. You can spend thousands on a cable without it having any real benefits.
It makes more sense to just buy decent speakers and a decent amp, along with a good audio source (any CD player).
Everyone knows that the quartz cones with gold flakes is what actually makes a difference.
Bunch of amateurs!Yeah, but if they don’t buy the gold and platinum plated cables, washed in the blood of young rams, and studded with diamonds- how can they be sure they are experiencing the music as it was intended to be experienced?
Delivery mechanisms and audio quality do not matter as long as it has a good beat that I can dance to.
This is why I like to get mid level stuff. Once you get past the cheap rubbish it’s all the same imo.
So, between a copper wire, a banana, and wet mud, the mid-level stuff is the banana, right?
I’ll go for that, then.
Oddly it’s the copper wire that is mid
Nah, I go with a wet mud, I hate all those banana flies.
