The Audiophile Myths and delusions thread

[Kaido]

One thing that I have found in the past is that a cable can matter for DVI. In any cable, one has to deal with wire resistance. If that resistance is too high, the signal transmitted over it will not be strong enough even if it is a digital signal. In the DVI instance, I had a 9' cable with a high wire gauge where the picture had sparkles in it. I bought a cable 9' cable that had a lower wire gauge and the problems disappeared. The same can apply for HDMI. However, that does not mean that one has to pay a lot of money for a cable that has a lower wire gauge, thus less internal resistance and lower loss. I have found it sometimes difficult to get the specs on the wire gauge used in the cable, though.

See, and that's where it gets tricky, because there is some merit in certain circumstances to cable quality. And even long HDMI cables come with built-in signal boosters these days. Like, you need shielded on long thin unbalanced audio cables, otherwise they act like antennas & get all kinds of interference. VGA on long runs tends to look like crap unless you get creative with the setup. So it's not like the argument for good-quality stuff is completely devoid of any usefulness, for sure.

 

[Deders]

#1 - yup, and I still am that way! Crank up that bass! I like feeling the punch of the drums & bass guitar in music & movies. I just watched Jurassic World last night & it was awesome turning the sub up to "feel" the bass :thumbsup: And that's where it goes back to personal preference - some people want to replicate a studio-quality experience, which is fine, and others want the teenager-style make-your-body-vibrate experience. It's fine both ways & doesn't mean either one is bad, unlike what a lot of high-end audio posters & articles would try to lead you to believe.

#2 - yeah, that's another thing that bothered me about the 650's, they were TOO accurate. I didn't want to hear correctly reproduced sound, I wanted emotional sound that enveloped you. Like the difference between a 2.1 system with great bass & say cheap earbuds. I'm sure there's a lot of music out there that sounds great with a reference set of speakers or headphones, especially classical stuff & whatnot, but I mostly just listen to stuff on the radio & want some boom to it

I know what you mean, I like to have a meaty bass but not so much that it becomes rumble for rumble's sake. I like it to be well defined (or tight).

People that listen to Hip-Hop or similar styles know that a lot of the focus in the music is in the bass so it's meant to be cranked. Personally I feel all the frequencies are important and need to be represented in a balanced way.

The whole idea behind getting the reference/flat response equipment is based on the idea that you'd want to hear it as close to what the sound engineer/producer is hearing or 'intended'. And because when building a studio you want to have as little colour or variation from flat frequencies as possible for the purpose of being able to know that what the engineer is hearing is actually there and not a colouration.

So the Engineer and audiophile are kind of at cross purposes. Like you say there is nothing wrong with a little bit of colour to the sound signature of equipment at the consumers end if it's pleasant. It can add a little something and sound less clinical.

One thing most engineers will do is test on a variety of equipment to see if the mix they are making on almost "perfect" speakers translates well on the kind of equipment that people will eventually listen to it on.

If they mixed sound like people who like to crank their bass expect to listen to it, It would likely blow most people's systems. This actually happened to someone I know who after mixing some Jungle on robust studio speakers, blew several in his car minutes after seeing how it sounded there.

See, and that's where it gets tricky, because there is some merit in certain circumstances to cable quality. And even long HDMI cables come with built-in signal boosters these days. Like, you need shielded on long thin unbalanced audio cables, otherwise they act like antennas & get all kinds of interference. VGA on long runs tends to look like crap unless you get creative with the setup. So it's not like the argument for good-quality stuff is completely devoid of any usefulness, for sure.

Agreed, you shouldn't need to spend more than £5-£10 or $10-$20 on good lead, although I expect some companies will put their shoddy leads in that price range because they know what people look for.

 

[Kaido]

That said, I agree that audio is a personal taste. Some people like speakers that I don't and vice versa.

Yeah, I think once you get past the clarity & volume questions, it all boils down to personal preference. Personally, I really like full-range speakers, which are definitely not for everybody. And I don't really like component speakers in cars all that much, because the tweeter separation distance sounds funny to my ears. So everyone's got their own tastes, and just because someone likes it one way doesn't mean that's the only way, which is a lot of what the adjective-filled descriptive rants about magical speakers, wires, amps, etc. seem to focus on.

 

[DigDog]

I didn't want to hear correctly reproduced sound, I wanted emotional sound that enveloped you.

you know, i can totally get behind this. i don't hate music, or emotions, i just want people to stahp selling this as if it's "technically better".

 

[wiyosaya]

See, and that's where it gets tricky, because there is some merit in certain circumstances to cable quality. And even long HDMI cables come with built-in signal boosters these days. Like, you need shielded on long thin unbalanced audio cables, otherwise they act like antennas & get all kinds of interference. VGA on long runs tends to look like crap unless you get creative with the setup. So it's not like the argument for good-quality stuff is completely devoid of any usefulness, for sure.

100% agree with this. Personally, I think the problem comes when people do not understand the technical details of cables. If they have a lot of money, I would not be surprised to see those who do not understand those technical details spend a large amount of money for something they could have gotten at a bargain price.

you know, i can totally get behind this. i don't hate music, or emotions, i just want people to stahp selling this as if it's "technically better".

100% agree on this, too.

BTW - I do think there are companies out there that go for a technically accurate reproduction of sound. I've been a Paradigm fan for that reason for a long time, and if their marketing is to be believed, they employ many aspects of engineering science including materials and acoustics in their designs. However, having listened to their high-end speakers, I don't think there is enough of an improvement over their mid range line to justify my spending twice as much on the high-end line - which echos your comments about mid priced systems sounding as good as high-end ones.

 

[Kaido]

you know, i can totally get behind this. i don't hate music, or emotions, i just want people to stahp selling this as if it's "technically better".

I think people's positions get hung up on either trying to sell you something, or trying to defend an investment they personally made (or something they're a fanboy of). There's nothing wrong with either reference speakers or boomboxes.

 

[myocardia]

I know for sure that I would not be buying super-duper diamond coated cables because I already know too much about cables to be fooled with marketing blather that claims they sound so much better than ordinary coat hangers.

Pfft, you obviously know nothing about coat hangers! If you did, you'd be using titanium alloy, platinum coated, diamond-encrusted coat hangers, like I use. Welcome to Anandtech, btw.

 

[ralfy]

The type of equipment is helpful given the type of music involved (e.g., a wide dynamic range for classical music, etc.), but the library of music available should be considered more than the equipment.

 

[wiyosaya]

For anyone interested, here is the latest in audio

Spoiler

myth makers

- http://www.wheel-fi.com/

 

[wiyosaya]

Pfft, you obviously know nothing about coat hangers! If you did, you'd be using titanium alloy, platinum coated, diamond-encrusted coat hangers, like I use. Welcome to Anandtech, btw.

:\ Where can I get me a set of those??? :biggrin:

Thanks for the welcome. I've been around for a while, I just have not posted much.

 

[moonbogg]

For anyone interested, here is the latest in audio

Spoiler

myth makers

- http://www.wheel-fi.com/

Hell yeah. That is awesome! Where can I buy them and how much do they cost? I'll take 4 please.

 

[Kaido]

For anyone interested, here is the latest in audio

Spoiler

myth makers

- http://www.wheel-fi.com/

That is one of the coolest build videos I have ever seen. I would buy those speakers just for the craftsmanship involved

 

[Deders]

That is one of the coolest build videos I have ever seen. I would buy those speakers just for the craftsmanship involved

I think design and aesthetic is mostly what they are about. Notice the video stopped when the needle hit the record. I'd normally make a comment about hipsters at this point but it does look pretty decent. Although I'd love to see the expression on any wife's face when they say what has just invaded their living room.

 

[moonbogg]

They are cool looking and would be nice to have just for the pride of ownership and to have something unique like that.

 

[wiyosaya]

Anyone who wants a set will have to go to their site and request the price. Apparently, only six sets in each of small, medium, and large are being made. Being more on the nerdy end myself, I am intrigued by their "field coil compression drivers".

 

[thesmokingman]

That is too steam punk for me.

 

[olds]

...

OH OH! I got one! Headphone burn in! While the headphones might undergo slight physical changes and may result in very slight sonic differences, you would be really hard pressed to tell the difference. Most of the time, its simply YOUR BRAIN adjusting to the new sound of new headphones and what was at first different becomes normal to your brain. The same thing sometimes happens to me when I buy a new PC game. The graphics are so confusing to my eyes sometimes and I can't make out the details, but then the BRAIN adjusts to the new graphics engine and things start to make sense visually.

What about planar magnetic headphones?

 

[adamantine.me]

I heard someone saying that sound cards offloaded the CPU by processing the sound which frees up the CPU to handle requests from the game you're playing or other software. They may have been speaking from an antiquated perspective. Was this ever true? Most people will say that sound cards are an unnecessary expense when building a PC.

 

[RampantAndroid]

I heard someone saying that sound cards offloaded the CPU by processing the sound which frees up the CPU to handle requests from the game you're playing or other software. They may have been speaking from an antiquated perspective. Was this ever true? Most people will say that sound cards are an unnecessary expense when building a PC.

I think in the days of EAX it may have been true...but anymore, USB audio is just fine.

 

[thesmokingman]

I heard someone saying that sound cards offloaded the CPU by processing the sound which frees up the CPU to handle requests from the game you're playing or other software. They may have been speaking from an antiquated perspective. Was this ever true? Most people will say that sound cards are an unnecessary expense when building a PC.

It's still true when you ask it to do any sound processing. Sound processing such as Dolby, spatial, or other requires resources. Sounds cards specialize in this area so they often will bring a whole bag of effects and dedicated DSP chips. Today soundcards bring better DACs, and in the multi speaker setups, DACs for front, rear, surround channels etc.

But for basic use a soundcard is not necessary and you can use your onboard sounds toslink to connect to a receiver and let it do teh surround decoding for you. If you are a gamer you might like the DSP capabilities of soundcards for enemy placement and imaging in the context of FPS. Soundcards also can have decent headphone amps like with the STX and ZXR lines and even replaceable OPAMPs that you can use to tailor the sound to your preference.

 

[Deders]

Don't creative have some kind of processor under the heatsink of its new cards? It must do something, although I can't imagine what. Unless it still has support for openal.

It won't be as powerful as an X-fi. The few games that fully supported it really did sound awesome. Mediaeval II: total war and Unreal 3's sound was sooo well implemented. It's a shame people didn't take to it.

 

[thesmokingman]

Don't creative have some kind of processor under the heatsink? It must do something, although I can't imagine what. Unless it still has support for openal.

Yea it has a DSP chip for mucking the sound quality lol, I kid but the real use is for enemy placement in the soundfield in games.

 

[RampantAndroid]

The last time I knew about a game leveraging Creative's crap (and crap is being too gentle) it was BF2. And it crashed allllll the time.

These days, with direct sound being gone, it's XAudio2 that's used, and I believe it only runs on the CPU - hardware 3D sound is pretty much dead. All that's left for sound cards to do is Dolby/DTS work, EQ, environments and such.

 

[MongGrel]

It's still true when you ask it to do any sound processing. Sound processing such as Dolby, spatial, or other requires resources. Sounds cards specialize in this area so they often will bring a whole bag of effects and dedicated DSP chips. Today soundcards bring better DACs, and in the multi speaker setups, DACs for front, rear, surround channels etc.

But for basic use a soundcard is not necessary and you can use your onboard sounds toslink to connect to a receiver and let it do teh surround decoding for you. If you are a gamer you might like the DSP capabilities of soundcards for enemy placement and imaging in the context of FPS. Soundcards also can have decent headphone amps like with the STX and ZXR lines and even replaceable OPAMPs that you can use to tailor the sound to your preference.

I was using the onboard 7.1 sound on my older P6T7 MOBO with Toslink just fine myself for awhile, but had an older Auzentech Prelude X-Fi card with replaceable OPAMPS laying around that I bought a PCI to PCIe adapter to use it again, for grins and giggles awhile back. It's feeding a reasonably large 7.2 theater system off the main in the front room.

It's nothing overly fancy, I still prefer the sound card myself, but I would say the difference isn't that noticeably large between the two.

The added options with the sound card I do like. It runs DTS pretty well, I think was one of the first cards that did it ATT. I do not use any of the Creative effects crap with it.

Was one of the reasons I bought it to begin with, was a licensed X-Fi chip on there sans a lot of the CL bloat, they were the only ones doing it then I believe.

 

[myocardia]

:\ Where can I get me a set of those??? :biggrin:

Neiman Marcus, of course! I had to stop in there to grab some cool Beats by Dr. Dre cans, with a custom Fendi carrying case for only $1,200. You just can't beat deals like that.