AUDIO AND AUDIO ACCESSORIES
What AMPs are you faggots using? I'll be getting an HD 6XX soon and is currently looking for an AMP. I'm currently looking at the Fiio E10K and the K3 but don't know the difference between the two. Any amps you'd recommend?
The best sound card is INTEL HD AUDIO and the best amplifier is a single transistor. Prove me wrong audiophiggots
I'm using an ASRock mainboard with a quadraphonic setup.
Why not Realtek HD Audio?
Hidizs AP200 and Sennheiser Momentum 2 (wired and over-ear) for audio on the go, and the AP200 serves as USB DAC. Streaming Tidal (actually using offline mode but whatever). No amps.
Also Tin Audio T2 in-ears.
What I'm using by the way, not a recommendation. If you speak French or want to translate, go there tellementnomade.org
They know their shit.
Not an audio guy so don't know much about this. How does it sound?
I can smell the baguette from here. Thanks m8.
It doesn't unless you find actual quad recordings (of which there are near 0 because all those self proclaimed audiophiles are the kind of retards who buy into things like the vinyl meme) or play vidya with it.
The latter one is damn awesome because you can really hear that the grenade blew up behind your left shoulder.
*later
granted. If you find an actual quad recording they also sound pretty cool.
As expected.
I exclusively use IEMs that don't require an amp.
this, unless you are looking to buy high(er)-end hardware
There's actually a good amount of multichannel mixes out there if you know where to look.
tell me.
And don't give me buyfag links.
It's not an acronym lol
Also, Soundblaster Pro II ought to be enough for anybody
Dali Zensor 1 with a Yamaha AS300. I'll probably keep buying Dali since these are really incredible to their size.
...
Asus Xonar DX with an old external amp + passive speakers.
dls are slow as fuck. 50KiB/s
would take 22h for 2 CDs
Best studio monitors on the market incoming.
I just set it to download on my server and forget about it
You should have bought the HD650 instead.
Nah
I really enjoyed my Grados SR60 headphones when I had them, and the SuperLux HD 681 before that. They're both pretty amazing for the price as far as audio goes, the grados headphones aren't super comfy but the superlux aren't bad. Both lasted me a year or two before the cable wore out under heavy use, both of which I replaced the cable once before the cable broke again and I just switched back to using speakers out of lethargy. On audio, I'm a bit of a trible-head if such a thing exists so I'm not sure these would be for everyone.
shouldn't this be in the consumer advice thread?
Its trash user, not even a removable cable. Practically useless for serious work. People only buy them because they're inexpensive
Their design is unchanged since they were introduced in 1986 because it doesn't need to. They don't have a dual usage like the M50 or M40. The MDR-V6 aren't portable fashion headphones, they're studio headphones.
A removable cable is very useful for studio headphones, it makes them more robust as the cables are easier to replace if broken and you're given a lot more flexibility
pics related are my current endgame fantasy
¼″ TRRRS to XLR4
how come there's no love in speakers?
headphones = our moms don't come down to the basement and yell at us to be quiet
Nice pics fellow Sony employee. This will bring us lots of customers!
this, kek
Speakers are obviously superior to headphones but persistence doesn't work with the cool kids. How can they even use them when they're hanging around in some dirty place in the streets with their smartphones?
...
Nobody is denying that the Sony MDR series is cheap famo
based biebs
I think you have a slight misconception there.
This. Screw headphones, man. And smartphones too.
This has been my setup for the last 5 years, got the RME used.
I also have an Objective 2 connected to the DAC but I can't really hear a difference to it's headphone jack.
Because speakers (with proper amps) are 8-10× more expensive than headphones of the same sound quality level, and headphones we are talking about are already damn expensive enough for a mere user.
A wheeled cart, some 12V car batteries and Bluetooth?
Older onkyo tx8511 (2x100watt rms)
I use some Yamaha bookshelf's normally on the A side but have a set of old BIC 15's hooked to the B side if I want to do some damage.
also
For HiFi in the cheap, not counting headphones, high efficiency, full range drivers are hard (impossible) to beat.. eg. Fostex style. Couple with a nice flea amplifier and a decent source, you've good amazing sound for fairly little money. You can get ear splitting sound out of 2 watts. Very pure, clean sound. Not great for heavy bass, but for everything else, great sound. Acoustic guitar is crazy good. Generally speaking, "full ranger drivers plus a flea amp (tube!) plus a decent source" sounds way, way more expensive than it is.
Here, for example, this guy (whose speakers are really well regarded but maybe a bit expensive) takes relatively inexpensive Fostex speakers, puts them in a custom box, and sells them for $1K. The sound you get from these, with appropriate amp and source, will just destroy most audio MOST people have ever heard.
You can build a (shoddier/simpler) box that will still sound great for way less, or go even simpler and do "open baffle" speakers. Speakers without cabinets. This stuff here (full range, high efficiency drivers) are the mortal entry point to HiFi, you can get into it without selling a kidney, don't need high power amps, no crossovers, etc.. just 2 speakers, speaker wire, amp, source.. tnt-audio is probably the best place to read about this .. doing hifi on the cheap. diyparadise is interesting reading.
Listen to the 2 versions of this track and bully away if you hear the difference, but point out what it is so I can see if I can tell too. The background is that I have a shitty audio setup, poor hearing from to all the screaming in my ears, and I'm still young.
mp3:
files.catbox.moe
flac:
files.catbox.moe
With FLAC, the pitch changes are less buzzy and each element of the song are less blurred together (like whoever start singing at 0:26). Minute details can be picked up on the FLAC that can't be detected with MP3 128kbps. There's some minute clipping issues with 128kbps.
t. someone with mediocre, yet manageable setup, still healthy ears (I think), and music hobby and training on the side
If you have all those issues, plus not going in trying to enjoy the full soundscape, you won't tell the difference ever. No need for bully just a basic fact.
now go and do the same with FLAC vs 128kbps opus
and post differences you heard
Sorry user I'm a neet who lives a life of suffering.
What do you think of this also 128kbps opus encode?
files.catbox.moe
For certain I can tell that I get headaches if I listen to these "low quality" encodes even if I have trouble telling the difference in them. No idea why. Happens mainly with mp3 and aac audio, could be some wicked sort of placebo.
I'm actually about to sleep right now, I should hear better after some rest.
But I think after some repeated listening I could feel the "ssshhhh" sound of her voice when she says "ishukan" at about 00:00:57 was a bit more accentuated on the mp3.
This isn't me btw.
I doubt the average human being could differentiate 192kbps mp3 from flac. It's mostly placebo, like people who claim records sound better than digital. Even if there was a difference, you need audio equipment worth thousands to notice it. If you're listening on $10-100 headphones, just save the harddrive space.
Intel HD Audio is number 2 on my list.
The #1 though would be Samsung phones with Hifi 192khz 24-bit Yamaha audio card. For some reason Android processes the audio better than my linux setup too though I think that would be linux/systemdick fault.
The quality is great with a decent pair of in-ear earphones.
2 mW
102dB
32ohm
⌀10mm NdFeB
This is a must: no microphone because it steals the volts and those shits are usually rated at 96dB due to that! and the mic/volume switches if not using dedicated sliders are actually caused by short circuiting the voltage parts together! Yikes! You can try that yourself.
The bass is much more punchier on my phone than when it is plugged in my Intel HD Audio laptop and much worse like there is "dropped frames" on my Realtek HD setup even at max setting (tested on windows) though a whole lot better on Linux but not as good as Linux + Intel HD Audio.
The only thing the Realtek HD gets an edge is that you can use the universal Dolby Home Theater v4 drivers and make any cheap ass 2.0 drivers get richer bass and surround effect + max volume without any noticeable crackle sounds though I no longer do this since I have a decent 2.1 system now and using dolby only causes my woofer to sound like ass but it is great for stereo separation on headphones for 3D gaming audio you won't get on any hardware setup!
you can install dolby HT v4 on intel HD audio too.
You're not alone
Oppus has a cut-off. I saw a thread on nntpchan before where they dissected these audio files from different encodes and concluded Opus does that thing.
Not good for audiophiles. I prefer ogg encodes but never opus ones. I also did a lot of blind test though I still always prefer the FLAC version which for some reason is a lot more comfier to listen to for hours, ogg as second, opus last and worse than aac/mp3. Opus seems to may have intentionally did that frequency cutoff you get from loudness wars then lower the volume back to "save more bits". I think it is the best for audio streams where compression is the thing. m4a is direct trash and the cutoff is at the bass part that is why iPhones employ some kind of dolby trickery to compensate for the lost bass which is obvious since iphone speakers are pretty good and sound dolby enhanced
I can't fit speakers in my shitty small dorm. well I could but I feel it would be a waste. I just go plebian and just play music videos on my CRT or play tapes on my boombox.
I suggest you stop talking about stuff you don't understand.
1) Opus's CELT doesn't have a cutoff filter lower than 20KHz.
2) All lossy codecs have a cutoff filter.
3) Don't confuse ogg and vorbis, useless nigger. In fact, opus is most of the time store in ogg.
OSS has better sound quality then ALSA, pulseaudio, or any windows/android faggotry you could ever use. Install and setup kernel modules for that realtek shitcard on ALSA and then OSS and go hear the difference if you even can git gud enough to install more modern OSS kernel modules and compile some audio player to use OSS directly.
I downloaded 5 albums so far and it already happened with 3 of them. Agents of Fortune, Nevermind, and In The Garden Of Venus.
I bet the next ones I download won't even have an unfucked release.
Not an audioephebophile but a lot of rock music that came out before CDs had vinyl releases that were good but when the studio got togheter to put it on CDs they completely butchered it. See: Everything The Doors ever produced.
But for a specific example Voyage of the Acolyte was originally released on vinyl which sounded fine, but when they put it on CD they decided to do some shitty EQ which murdered the album. They overemphasized highs, a lot.
Kind of a moot point in saying this as audiotards usually buy whatever meme vinyl their favorite audiotard company produces which was probably butchered the same way the CDs were, but it makes sense to go vinyl sometimes. Not because it's superior tech, but because some retarded fuck didn't destroy the audio. And of course by go vinyl I mean torrent someone's rip from your favorite torrent site and downsample it to 16bit/48khz as they have a tendency to do 24bit/192khz (or more sometimes).
Be the change you want to see in the world and seed the audio quality you wish others would seed.
Also, fuck the Chinese, make torrents that have the Tienanmen Square shit and seed them Marveru Infinity Waru trailers with them as the subs.
I just got this setup on sale over the month.
Soundwise they're a great value at $200. The only problem is that the speakers have significant hiss so in my opinion they're not suitable for near field setups. I still stand by my notion that the best computer speaker setup is probably a diy 3" full range driver 2 channel setup, or a FAST setup.
Why does opus floatp have a recurring stutters? Animu encoded with opus soud so terrible .
No, you're offensively wrong.
The housing makes a lot of difference and you have the perfect example here
In my living room I have my Laserdisc player, which also plays CDs and DVDs, my Playstation 2, my computer, my AM/ FM radio, my shortwave radio, my turntable, and a couple more things going into a mixing board which then feeds a bunch of self amplified studio monitors, a pair of Yamaha HS-80Ms, a pair of HS-50Ms, and an NS-10M. Instead of my computer's built-in sound card I use a DSD / PCM DAC. When I use headphones I gravitate back to the Yamaha orthodynamics but I have like a dozen sets.
In my basement lair I just have a pair of Yamaha HS-50Ms hooked up to my shitposting / command station which is currently a Raspberry Pi. I'm running it into a cheap USB sound card which I use for ham radio stuff.
Buy a cheap old transistor-radio record player with a small mono speaker hanging off the back of it and then buy the cheapest Iron Maiden vinyl you can find
Then try to come back here and make the same claim again
You won't be able to do it without either trolling or feeling stupid
Your fault for having shit taste, plebeian.
What do I need to drive these speakers?
They're huge vingatage Pioneer HPM-1500.
Will some cheap c-class chinesium amp board be enough? That and the power supply maybe 150-200 USD?
Just get an amp and speaker wire
A single transistor will never have the dynamic range required to normalize all frequencies
/thread
Not a single one of these "other guys" amps OP listed has the crucial letters: H. D. in them.
Because people here are poor and have no ability to buy real audio equipment like speakers.
also this
Good fucking grief, you insufferable faggot.
Sounds like you have a clusterfuck and are probably getting echos out the ass. Don't forget positioning and environment is extremely important - why do you think orchestras don't take place in parking structures? Because event the most beautiful music played there would sound like dogshit.
or just
or
if you want one of those instead
I got a $1400 flagship Pioneer elite amp that sounds fucking amazing for $200 because it was a few years old. I keep a laptop cooler on top of it to keep it cool, and expect to get many years out of it, not to mention that its build quality makes it repairable. You could do much better on price for something less crazy, all you need is patience and a hint of autism. Ignore DIY bullshit for once and buy something practical that won't need you to solder and make a cardboard enclosure for it.
Look at this pleb. Look at him and laugh.
I bet you faggots bought into the tube amp meme. They are objectively inferior in the linear region which is where they should fucking stay in a HiFi amp. For guitar amps theres an argument to be had about how they distort, but they've been conclusively shown to be snake oil for stereo and headphones.
just got me some k712s for 170€
That's a strawman if I ever saw one.
Nelson Pass sort of shares that opinion so suit yourself I guess
Build yourself an Amp Camp Amp for fun, learning, and profit
Xonar D2, into a $15 FM transmitter, into any reciever in the house.
FM transmitter is weakest link, YMMV.
These were my first 'good' headphones. The sound was nice and I learned detachable cables were the best feature headphones could have. The pads though were seriously pure garbage. It's some kind of plastic abomination that makes my skin sweat and is uncomfortable in the extreme. Couldn't wear it for too long before I needed a break. After months the fucking pads started literally disintegrating. I'd take it off and little bits of black stuff remained stuck to my head. Got to the point where I had to buy fucking velour pads from Amazon. They were much, much better in every way but the sound just wasn't the same with those pads.
I never want to deal with stuff like this again. I'm thinking about buying IEMs only from now on. I have an etymotic HF-5 set but it's too weak...
What's the best speaker brand? I've never seen good reviews for them and I only know Dali by ear (like them); can't go to a store to test my raw black metal too.
Logitech will serve you splendidly
just got my Koss PortaPros in the mail to replace my decade old Hesh2s and they're good thank you Zig Forums
You're wrong, memer. It's quite fun to see that this lo-fi music is usually devoid of any compression/clipping.
lmao
Go take a gas shower
One thing I should add to is room treatment. Doesn't matter for headphones, of course, but if you are listening to speakers in an open room, the materials matter. Carpet is better than hard flooring. Curtains are better than windows. Wall paper, or sound absorbing wall coverings, are better than bare walls. Etc. Basically, the thicker, cushier, the more sound absorbing, the better. You can buy special sound sinks, corner traps, special wall coverings .. the works. Room treatment is a well acknowledged part of hifi.
The idea is to cut down on sound reflections. The fewer reflections, the fewer stray sound waves hit your ears, meaning the sound coming from the speaker is all you hear. You can quite often get a great little bump in sound quality just by paying attention to this (I once threw up a rug on a far wall, in a very small room, and the difference was shocking.) Once you get decent speakers/source/amp, room treatment should probably be done before anymore tweaking to the system.
Other random thoughts:
Tube vs. Solid State: Tube, any day, for acoustic, various other softer forms. Solid state for rock, electronica, etc. I think this is a somewhat accepted concept in the HIFI community. No one will argue that tube amps can run with SS amps in many technical areas.. they cannot .. and many will concede that tube amps do give a special sound. One downside to tube amps is you have to replace the tubes every now and again. It's not expensive but it's not that cheap either, so be aware if you are considering this. Tube amps tend to be finickier, generally. Depending on your primary music style, they may or may not be worth the hassle.
Expensive interconnect/speaker cabling: Seems to be bullshit.
Wattage: The first watt is the cleanest. The nicest, clearest sounds I have ever heard have come from a flea sized amp driving super efficient speakers. But again, totally inappropriate for rock type music: this setup will never melt your face. For that: Solid state amp, tonnes of wattage, big speakers. There is no replacement for displacement, as they say.
Sonic Impact (and their cheap Super-T amps.) GREAT little amps for not a lot of money. If I was building a budget hifi system, this would be my amp, or something similar.
Lowther: Arguably the best quality full range drive out there. Some say they are radically overpriced.. some say "you just don't get it." Personally I don't know, I've never has the pleasure, but a lot of people swear by these.
DAC: No one is talking about DACs. Often built in to your CD player, or music player, the DAC converts music from digital to analog. The manner in which it does it is what counts. More expensive DACs tend to sound better. Budget audiophile guys run "any old CD player", as long as it has "digital out", and then run that into a more expensive DAC. I have an old Monica2 and it is noticeable when I change it out for a shitty DAC. A shitty DAC will sound flatter, less crisp, less detailed.
BIB box Style: There is a cabinet style out there called "Bigger is Better", and it is a way to get more bass out of full range speakers. I used to have a set of FE168EZs in a BIB box: magical, for the money. If you want to go full range but want a bit better bass, a BIB design can help. I think mine were seven'ish feet tall .. not much wider than the speaker itself, though.
Madisound.. good place to source audio stuff in the US.
tnt-audio.. super educational DIY hifi web site. Numero uno.
...
What? Is there a misunderstanding.
Stop here, nigger. Unless "colouring" the sound matters to you, tube is worse than transistor when it comes to accuracy.
Razer barracuda. U can only find the infrared audio pci card on ebay these days and it still sells for a pretty penny.
Contact razer about this headset and they will offer to sponsor you and give u free shit.
Good ol Fostex HPA4BL
Dammit, Amps, you said amps not setup, user I have two old Mono Heathkit tube amps. Thats right beeeeatches. Two mono amps to make stereo. Kiss my ass.
Good bait, but just in case someone falls for it,
never buy gaming headphones because they are overpriced garbage with terrible sound.
give me another 4 years and I'm gonna look like Mr. Peanut, but at least I got my money's worth!
None of you brainlets have the slightest idea of what proper audio amplification is. I made my own tube amplifier; it has superior amplification, and true high fidelity sound quality.
2/10, work on it.
You came into this thread to laugh at us but guess who's being laughed at now
I'm thinking on getting some cheap Yamaha Home-Theater-in-a-Box (e.g. YHT-1840) as opposed to a Logitech Z906 because anybody I ask says Logitechs are shit. But would a cheap 5.1 home theater setup from a better brand be just as bad? I want to spend
It's not like you were using that cranial space for anything.
You should add a Booper to it. negativland.com
Some people do a balanced input to a stereo amp to output mono so that they get lower distortion and/or higher power