Market Socialism?

[sdifox]

So is it just me that finds it amusing this test was done in an Apple store, arguably the "king" of marketing? :whiste:

not really. Apple products are not bad, unlike Bose.

 

[jordanecmusic]

not really. Apple products are not bad, unlike Bose.

My iPod Touch 4g 64gig is very solid with what it does. Things such as games, work out apps, and what not are very enjoyable on it. My primary concern for my device is how well it plays music. The device has no problem reproducing 192kbps mp3 format into my ear canal. Not only am I an audiophile, but I am a Musician that does production and what not. I can say for myself that I will not be purchasing a pair of Bose headphones for recording.

Well as I've stated before, my current headphones are the
Sony MDR-V150's
Frequency Response: 18hz-22khz
Sensitivity: 98db/mw
Magnet Material: Ferrite 30mm
Power Handling: 500mw
Type: Studio Monitoring Headphones

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/sto...specifications

I am most likely upgrading to the
Sony MDR-ZX300's in Red
Frequency Response: 10hz-24khz
Sensitivity: 102db/mw
Magnet Material: Neodymium 30mm
Power Handling: 1000mw
Type: Studio Monitoring Headphones

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/sto...specifications

 

[Railgun]

The device has no problem reproducing 192kbps mp3 format into my ear canal. Not only am I an audiophile,

I don't think these two statements belong together.

I'm interested in checking out Sony's XBA line whenever it comes out.

Granted they're not monitors. I haven't bothered to look at studio headphones yet as I'm fine for the time being with my monitors though as I mentioned in the other thread, I should get some for voice work.

 

[jordanecmusic]

I don't think these two statements belong together.

I'm interested in checking out Sony's XBA line whenever it comes out.

Granted they're not monitors. I haven't bothered to look at studio headphones yet as I'm fine for the time being with my monitors though as I mentioned in the other thread, I should get some for voice work.

The device has no problem reproducing 192kbps mp3 format into my ear canal...

OH GOD NO NOT LIKE THAT MAN! IM NOT GAY OR ANYTHING GEESSUSSS I DIDNT MEAN IT LIKE THAT!

XD

lol but to be honest with you the size of the sound file compared to the audio quality, the sweetspot is at 192kbps for me

 

[Railgun]

Not even close to what I meant. I was referring to the audiophile statement and the reference to 192kbps MP3s. At that bitrate, you're not even close to "audiophile" standards.

 

[NutBucket]

We live in an analog world Any "audiophile" will tell you that

 

[mmntech]

not really. Apple products are not bad, unlike Bose.

This. Apple's stuff is good quality, innovative, and they actually do what they're claimed to do. I'd say Bose are more like a Smart Car or a Prius. Chic, but a piece of crap.

People are stupid, and I hate to break it to the "audiophiles" out there, but them especially. The hardcore ones that is. There's an awful lot of ludicrous and borderline useless tat marketed to "audiophiles." $100k turntables, space age unobtainium coated tri-cobalt/dilithium alloy speaker wires, tube amps that cost as much as a Ford Fiesta, speakers the size of a coffin. You can't make it sound any better than the studio master.

 

[HeXen]

Did Bose ever even market its gear for audiophiles?
at least i've never seen them advertise to the audiophile market. Did they ever use the word audiophile in any ad?

SQ is subjective, but if 100% pure replication of the lossless source material is of primary concern, you wouldnt be going to the Apple store nor own anything that said Sony. A good HP amp alone can be pricey.

Back to Bose, your talking about an American company that typically makes compact, small speakers for gods sake,. i know speaker tech has come a bit in the last 20 years but i don't think they have broken the laws of physics yet.

However keep in mind your paying for several things, their American made and not a china factory, so that costs more right there, Their $100 million a year R&D budget, their support and warranties and of course marketing...your not going to see Top shelf audio brands like Cary or Thiel on your local TV Ads after the Simpsons or for sale at BestBuy No your paying for really high end, custom hardware there. Bose is marketing the general consumers of middle class.
If you want non EQ'ed, untouched sound for cheap, buy china copy's...plenty of Bose knockoffs made by sweaty kids and suicidal adults from there and plenty of companies that piggy back off the research of other companies to choose from.

 

[jordanecmusic]

Not even close to what I meant. I was referring to the audiophile statement and the reference to 192kbps MP3s. At that bitrate, you're not even close to "audiophile" standards.

I understand what your saying. I guess I'm not an audiophile.but.I.do like higher nitrate stuff. I still don't know how people can listen to 128kbps. It.could be that they have never used a high.quality pair of headphones. They all just want garbage apple slop phones. I will also mention that the size to quality ratio of 192kbps to 320kbps is not comparable to 128kbps to 192kbps. I've done so many comparisons showing this. Anyways the quality difference between 128kbps and 192kbps is much more noticable compared to 192kbps and 320kbps.

 

[Aluvus]

ok so i went to the apple store to compare my 20$ pair of studio monitoring headphones (sony mdr-v150) to the bose quiet comfort 15's and the senheiser eh150s (bose being 300$ and senheiser being $150) and my headphones decimated both of them in sound quality.

1. Listening to things at the Apple Store is not exactly a rigorous testing environment. And vague comments on quality without any information on (at least) the audio source are not very persuasive.

2. The Sennheiser eH-150 is discontinued, and not listed anymore at the "usual suspects", but the web sites that are selling it seem to put it around $40...not $150. And some Googling suggests MSRP was $60. Makes sense given the enormous cosmetic similarity to the HD-203 ($30 at Amazon). Not to say that I can't imagine Apple selling a discontinued product at over 2.5x MSRP...

FWIW I've listened to the Bose cans and I would say that, like most Bose products, they were pretty good but not nearly worth the money. But that's just based on playing around with them a little bit.

Just to add to the frequency response discussion, it doesn't matter what the stated frequency response is. What matters is how flat the output of the driver is across the claimed frequency range.

To add even more, the stated limits are not necessarily meaningful. Frequency response is not an "on or off" phenomenon; at a certain point it will roll off, but that roll off may occur fairly gradually. To illustrate, look at the low end of the frequency-response curve here: http://www.headphone.com/headphones/sony-mdr-z1000.php (which also shows how nonlinear the frequency response can be over the "good" range)

Depending on your testing criteria, you might decide that the "minimum" frequency is anywhere around, what? 20-50 Hz? And of course if you are a less-than-scrupulous manufacturer, you might claim as low as 10 Hz! This is why it is far more useful to have an actual frequency response curve to compare to other products.

 

[0roo0roo]

not really. Apple products are not bad, unlike Bose.

well their headphones aren't horrible.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Bose is not a brand that "Audiophiles" would ever even look at. Bose and Beats are two products that people think are good because they were told so by a commercial or Lebron James. There are Dozens of brands of headphones that will perform better for less money.

This. And please, OP, don't use the word "socialism" in the title. What you describe has nothing to do with socialism, and that makes you look like a redneck who uses words without knowing what they mean.

 

[Anarchist420]

SQ is subjective, but if 100% pure replication of the lossless source material is of primary concern, you wouldnt be going to the Apple store nor own anything that said Sony. A good HP amp alone can be pricey.

I don't know about that. I can tell the difference between the itunes versions of the tracks I later got in FLAC on really shitty MS20s.

 

[jordanecmusic]

This. And please, OP, don't use the word "socialism" in the title. What you describe has nothing to do with socialism, and that makes you look like a redneck who uses words without knowing what they mean.

I'm sort of Puerto rican lol. What I used for testing was devin townsend's songs deconstruction and noisy pink bubbles @ 192kbps and I can both hear and feel the difference. And if what I described wasn't socialism, then what would you describe it as?

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

This is the only Bose system someone actually concerned about sound quality would love to have:

Pictured are, from top to bottom:

901 Series VI EQ
Commercial Speaker Selector
Spatial Control Receiver Series I
Spatial Control Receiver Series II
1801 Power Amp

The speakers are:
802 Series II
901 Series IV
901 Series VI

Definitely would not mind having that in my listening room.

LOL, that would sound terrible.

You cant put 901's up against the wall like that.

 

[jordanecmusic]

LOL, that would sound terrible.

You cant put 901's up against the wall like that.

You know, id rather use headphones. Easier, cheaper, spacesaving, more clarity and detail since the drivers are closer to the ear.... I played through dead space 2 with my Sony mdrv150s. It's just more immersive. For rumble, just get the rumble bass chair pad and get ready to be frightened

 

[Ika]

If you can't hear the difference between your V150s and any other pair of headphones, even Bose, then I both pity you and envy you, for having tin ears. Seriously, the V150s sound like crap. I used them for two years, then got a pair of Grado SR60s, then went back to the V150s, and they sound like I'm listening to music underwater now. It's not like Bose headphones are a paragon of quality, but they at least sound *decent*, even if they should be priced at around 1/4 of what they are retail.

 

[jordanecmusic]

If you can't hear the difference between your V150s and any other pair of headphones, even Bose, then I both pity you and envy you, for having tin ears. Seriously, the V150s sound like crap. I used them for two years, then got a pair of Grado SR60s, then went back to the V150s, and they sound like I'm listening to music underwater now. It's not like Bose headphones are a paragon of quality, but they at least sound *decent*, even if they should be priced at around 1/4 of what they are retail.

no i can hear the difference. Now the grado's you mention, those are meant to be high quality sound and not high quality gimmick right? now thats a different story.

 

[0roo0roo]

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/celebrity-headphone-deathmatch-monster-and-beats-dr-dre

 

[Craig234]

Decimate means to destroy a tenth of something. I think you meant obliterate. Just an FYI.

That's the origin of the term, but in usage it's come to mean a lot more than a tenth.

From Websters - note the "obsolete":

transitive verb decimated, decimating

1.Obsolete to select by lot and kill every tenth one of
2.to destroy or kill a large part of: famine decimated the population
3.Obsolete to take a tenth part of; tithe

 

[Craig234]

This. Apple's stuff is good quality, innovative, and they actually do what they're claimed to do. I'd say Bose are more like a Smart Car or a Prius. Chic, but a piece of crap.

People are stupid, and I hate to break it to the "audiophiles" out there, but them especially. The hardcore ones that is. There's an awful lot of ludicrous and borderline useless tat marketed to "audiophiles." $100k turntables, space age unobtainium coated tri-cobalt/dilithium alloy speaker wires, tube amps that cost as much as a Ford Fiesta, speakers the size of a coffin. You can't make it sound any better than the studio master.

I largely agree except the part about not being able to make it sound better than the master.

That's an arguable point depending how you define 'sound better'.

You can't actually increase the information - but you can change it in ways that some listeners would define as 'sounding better than' while others would say is worse.

Take upconverting DVD's - you can't actually put more information in the original DVD's data, but you can modify the image in ways that most say make it 'look better'.

(This in contrast to the common tv plot exaggeration error where high tech 'zooms in' on a low quality photo and reveals the license plate or other information.

Computers can extrapolate and enhance the information; they can't do that past a certain point of what's there).

A lot of audio equipment can 'sound better' to the casual listener by things like 'boosting the bass' that audiophiles would say are horrible distortions ruining the sound.

What can you say if a person listens to Bose and says 'that sounds great' while an audiophile listens and says 'they ruined the sound'?

What can you say if a guy prefers the taste of budweiser to a fine German beer?

(Your point still fits - how many wine snobs make a big deal over imaginary qualities in 'fine wines' costing thousands of dollars when a $50 bottle might be 'better tasting'?)

 

[CubanlB]

No highs? No lows? Must be Bose. At least that's how the god awful lifestyle systems were/are. Man I hate lifestyle systems...

 

[Ika]

no i can hear the difference. Now the grado's you mention, those are meant to be high quality sound and not high quality gimmick right? now thats a different story.

Yes, Grados are pretty well known for their concern with sound quality and not marketing or design. If you seriously want to get decent headphones for ~$50+, I recommend you go to http://www.head-fi.org and browse around in the full-size headphones section. There are a considerable number of threads there, just do a search for something like "budget headphones" or "first-time headphones".

 

[homercles337]

What dictionary are you looking at? While that definition is correct, the original use is accurate.

The original use? Its latin, a direct translation is "paid tithe." A tithe is a one-tenth part of something. Lets deconstruct this. Decem is latin for ten and -ate is latin for separate. The very root of the word is TEN.

 

[jordanecmusic]

Yes, Grados are pretty well known for their concern with sound quality and not marketing or design. If you seriously want to get decent headphones for ~$50+, I recommend you go to http://www.head-fi.org and browse around in the full-size headphones section. There are a considerable number of threads there, just do a search for something like "budget headphones" or "first-time headphones".

ive switched my decision from the mdr-zx300s to the mdr-zx700's. seem legit
did some research on it and i believe head fi also said they were very good.
its 120$ and....you know what theres the specs:

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/st...&productId=8198552921666308094#specifications