OSNews

Ahh, the HPMs were a good series. My dad finally retired his Pioneer HPM-70s after nearly 30 years.

I myself am not an audiophile by any means, but I do cringe at bad sound everywhere. I run a Yamaha HTR-5940 powering some Polk Audio Monitor 70s for the front channels, a Polk center channel speaker whose model I don't remember, and a couple of their bookshelf speakers as the SR & SL channels. My next investment will probably be a new HDMI-compliant receiver so I can get the full DTS-HD experience from my PS3 and Blu-Ray. I wonder how some people can tolerate spending thousands of dollars on a 50"+ HDTV and listen to the sound on a sub-US$200 home theater in a box...

I was doing that until my kids were born, starting 5 years ago. Now my "high end" system sits and collects dust. I had a nice system going, Polk Audio speakers, Onkyo receiver. Bose (early 90's boxes) surrounds. Now it all sits unused, and unloved. Shame....

As it were, component stereo will never go away. For one, movies will always require discrete electronics for surround. HTIB sound sucks. The iPod is only as good as the resolution of the track it's playing.

Take one MP3 (AAC/Ogg whatever you like), one CD and one record (vinyl) of the same song/album. The winner is ALWAYS vinyl.

Not so. Well cared for, clean records, that were good pressings to begin with can sound very good. A well engineered CD will sound better.

I'll be a little more specific. I have a $1000 dollar, Music Hall MMF7 turntable, along with a cheap Sony DVD/CD player (roughly $80 when I bought it). I have two recordings on CD and LP. The first is lute pieces by Kapsberger played by Paul O'Dette. I ended up digitizing the LP, because it lacked the rather metallic overtones of the CD. Moral: Good LP beats crappy CD.

The second is a recording of the Corelli Concerti Grossi, Opus 6 directed by Nicolas McGegan. The LP is very nice and quiet, but the CD impresses with the noise floor dropping out completely, and with a greater dynamic range (quiet passages are quieter, loud passages are louder). You feel the orchestral attacks in the gut when listening to the CD. Overall coloration in both recordings is the same. My conclusion, if mixed well, Moral: Well done CDs win every time.

Then there's the physical aspect to it you don't get with downloads. I'm not against MP3s, I just want the others too. The iPod is great and sounds good too, but it sounds like shite next to vinyl. Try it!

I have converted many LPs to MP3, and when I am done, the MP3s sound better. You want a reasonably good bit rate; a variable one helps. The 128kbit rate offered by the iTunes store is good for the iPod earphones, but not for better headphones, or a good home stereo.

When it comes to recording LPs to MP3s, I like Lame's --preset-standard. It produces overall bit rates in the 170-190 range when ripping CDs. That rate climbs past 200 when digitizing LPs. Why? Simple, Lame works harder to digitize the various distortions inherent in LPs. The noisier the LP, the higher the resulting bit rate.

I might also add that Amazon seems to use something like Lame's --preset-extreme setting for their MP3 store. Usually, the MP3s they sell are above 220kbits.

Finally, I like Lame in part, because it shows a quick and dirty breakdown on what bit rates it uses as it encodes. Often you get a large simultaneous spread. The same instant of music may get encoded in simultaneous rates of 32 through 320. If a cymbal strike needs a high bit rate, Lame's --preset-standard will provide it.

MP3's sound absolutely horrible and with their sharp rolloff below 15khz they can hardly even be considered hi-fidelity. If you think they sound better than LP's something is wrong with your analogue playback equipment. If you want to digitize your LP collection you should be using something like Flac or Apple lossless. A copy can never sound better than the original.

Below 15 KHz or above it or below 15 Hz?

Since most humans hear in the 20 Hz to 20 KHz range, a rolloff in the audible range would be horrible indeed.

Most middle aged humans can't hear above 15KHz anyway.

MP3's sound absolutely horrible and with their sharp rolloff below 15khz they can hardly even be considered hi-fidelity. If you think they sound better than LP's something is wrong with your analogue playback equipment. If you want to digitize your LP collection you should be using something like Flac or Apple lossless. A copy can never sound better than the original.

Stuff and nonsense. A straight 256kbit stream is virtually indistinguishable from the original source. Countless double blind tests have shown that in practice that no-one could hear the difference. At 160, the differences are small. Here is a good article on the subject:

http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/pm/index.html

The executive summary is this: a 128kbit stream goes to 16kHz, before abruptly rolling off to zero. It also suffers from what the author says is a pruning of low intensity content (think the harpsichord in the sample used). At 160kbits there is a falling off at 16kHz, but it is gradual. Low intensity content is restored. At 256kbit, the frequency response matched the original. The original went to just beyond 20kHz.

A couple of things to remember:

1) There is little, or no real content beyond 15kHz on an LP.

2) When using the presets on Lame, you are getting significantly better results per nominal bit rate. As I said elsewhere, when needed, Lame's --preset-standard (nominally 180-190) will use 256kbits, or even 320 to capture certain passages. For LPs, a final encoding of -preset-standard is plenty; in fact, it's overkill.

This is hardly a good reference. It is the opinion of one man from a site that dedicated to the development of MP3. So it can be completely discounted due to its lack of objectivity. For a better comparison see here:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1560793,00.asp

If you yourself can't tell the difference, then you lack the discerning ear necessary to be included in the group described here (or should it be h-e-a-r?) as audiophile.



More proof that your playback system is faulty. LPs can have frequency information far beyond 20khz, which is the limit of CD's. This is the major reason LPs are vastly superior in sound quality to CDs let alone lossy copies.



Double stuff and double nonsense. If you are unable to hear the differences yourself, read objective surveys which have all concluded that MP3 is the least capable audio codec to use for serious music reproduction while AAC @ 256kbits is OK, but no more than OK. Personally, I like Musepack as well. But for anything serious I use Apple Lossless or Flac.

Edited 2008-05-24 21:17 UTC

I wouldn't say that mp3s sound horrible, muted is what I'd say. Remember, most cheap speakers attached to PCs (even expensive ones) have crappy top ends, so they mate rather well to the muted top ends of mp3s. There's a difference in reproducing high frequencies with spatial information, and not doing so.

For those using iPods - you do *realise* that the earphones that Apple ships with them are both bad for your ears (actually very bad), but are also detrimental to the overall sound quality? The human ear uses the pinnae to distribute information about high frequency pitch and spacial location, direct in the ear canal phones bypass this entirely. The human ear is not designed to take direct noise down the canal, and I think you'll find in 15-20 years that hearing damage will be on the MASSIVE rise. I prefer open design headphones, sure they leak a bit of music to others, and sure you can hear what's going on around you more frequently (not a bad thing imho), but the sound quality will be better imho, and it's a lot safer for your ears.

Dave

A little Company called dbx makes equipment that can bring back the compressed dynamic range of an LP pretty close to what it was recorded at.

I've had a pair of dbx 117's since they came on the market in the 70s, and a 3bx which I need to repair and attach to my preamp. I've just put my stereo back together, and while CDs are nice, I enjoy listening to LPs. Mine were used a lot, so an SAE 5000 takes most of the pops out. You can keep your CDs and digital amps. I'll stuck with all analog - maybe because there's just something there that makes listening to it more enjoyable than digital. Yeah, when I'm out walking, I'll use earbuds and my iPhone/MP3s, but for real listening pleasure, its all analog - even when driving my ancient electrostatic headphones.

Exactly. Portable and digital music players give consumers new extra toys to choose from but they don't automatically kill old solutions, especially if the old solutions still work well too. Some people may prefer the old toys some the newer ones. Some even use old C-cassettes still too.

There will always be audiophiles and music lovers who are ready to invest in good quality sound and equipment because they want the best audio quality they can afford. For them MP3 may be a step backwards and they may not be huge lovers of portable music players in general either.

Personally, I have never had a portable MP3 player and I'm in no hurry to get one. I just rather listen to my favorite music in the peace of my home using good equipment than on some noisy train using lousy tiny headphones... Really, the analogue sound of old vinyls listened with good equipment at home beats the audio quality of MP3s listened in noisy traffic any time.. Besides, if I can choose, I also prefer to get my digital music in some better quality format than MP3.

The quality of MP3 files can vary a lot. Too often MP3 producers (and consumers?) seem to care more for small file size than audio quality. I suppose crappy quality may be ok if the goal is just to consume latest hits for a short moment like you would consume candies. However, to lots of people good music is still more than just factory made candies to be chewed for a minute and then forgotten. Unfortunately major part of the music industry seems to care less and less for lasting musical quality and more for easy money only.

Maybe it is just that most current "music" from commercial entertainment factories does not even deserve anything better than to be consumed as short-lived MP3 background muzak for some other more important activities and then forgotten. Portable MP3 players may serve that purpose very well.

My speaker tech knowledge is lacking so I'm sure there's something cooler but the most interesting I've seen are a set of electrostatics at an audiophile friend's house. It's just wierd to see these two rectangle sheets of metal screen with no magnet well behind them but the sound quality from them speaks for itself. I was just pondering what a 7.1 setup with six of those and a good woofer would be like; geekly cool overkill for a computer though.

I've got a pair of Audiostatic DC1 electrostatics that I drive with a pair of Radford tube/valve amps with four EL34s per channel and they indeed do sound great. But the total cost is about 10000 euro or so.

I can't fit that system into the small flat where I now live and at the moment I'm using a pair of modified Tandy Genexxa LX5s, and a battery powered modified Trends TA10.1 tripath chip amp. The little Tandys aren't electrostatics, but they have an exotic 'Linaeum' film tweeter which certainly has much of the magic of my big electrostatics in the treble and midrange, although they do lack bass.

You can get Tandy/Radioshack speakers for about $100 on ebay. Then you need to rewire them (I used Chord Rumour), change the inductor and capacitor in the crossover to higher quality parts (total cost another $50), stuff the ports with drinking straws, and add more foam padding inside the box. Google for instructions.

The basic Trends amp is about $150, and you can get a modified one with battery power supply from Audiomagus (http://www.audiomagus.com) for about $450 dollars. So for a total cost of $600 or so you've got a potentially really exotic system. Add some more little Tandys and a subwoofer, driven by some more tripath digital chip amps and you can build your dream 7.1 system for a relatively low cost.

The iPod is actually a high quality source, although the DAC in the current models isn't as good as the Wolfson in the previous generation. So you can use that as a main source for your system and still be an Audiophile. Buy an older Wolfson based iPod, and get it tweaked by Red Wine audio, and you have a seriously exotic source.

Other great amps/speakers that are cheap include the Glow tube amp ($500), or the Nuforce Icon-1/S-1 amp/speaker combination, the John Blue JB3 speaker ($300) or Hornshoppe horns ($800). The new trend for highly efficient full range crossover-less speakers means that you only need a low power amp to drive them.

I think these new cheap super quality components are a new golden age of affordable Hi End, and I'm having as much fun as I ever have, while spending very little money.

Tripath is a Class-D PWM amp. PWM amps are digital right up to output FET which is hooked to the speaker wires. They have made up a Class-T but it is just a Class-D PWM amp with a feedback line. The feedback line is important. It allows the amp to compensate for things like ripple and droop in the power supply. Digital plus the feedback loop is why Tripath amps sound so good. BTW Tripath is close to going under, a similar amp is the TI TAS5706.

Tube and analog amps are very vulnerable to power supply issues. That's why they have those giant toroidal transformers that weight 50lbs. A 50lb toroid trys to stabilize the power supply.

In the long run the digital amps will win. It is simply much more efficient to use a feedback loop to compensate for power supply variance than it is to build a power supply that doesn't vary. They are lot more power efficient too consuming up to 50% less power to generate the same music volume.

MP3s don't represent all of digital audio. MP3s sound bad because a big chunk of the music has been thrown away in the compression process. Better compression schemes like AAC sound better. No compression sounds best. 192K/24b audio contains more information than the ear can hear.

Speakers are the most critical component. No matter what the amp does it still has to move air for you to be able to hear it. Speaker placement and room acoustics are key. Make sure your subwoofer has enough low end range.

I've a friend who swears by tubes. He also restors any tube amp he can get hands on, prefering 50s models, though it's no mystery why. I think his prefered amp for the gittar collection is stamped with a production number under ten.

Digital will likely win out eventually due to production costs but I expect tubes will still be around for those willing to pay.

bah, that osnews is being used for the editors personal rants is nothing new. but i cant say i find any quick indicator that this is a editorial and not a news report...

as for audiophiles (or mediaphiles in general), good riddance. my experience is that they are similar to religious fanatics. unless your using the exactly correct equipment, you should be burned on a stake. or so the mentality seems to be.

if your going to listen to digital audio, it must be max bitrate flac minimum (preferably raw pcm or higher), or your peeing on the holy symbol. if its digital video it should be as close to the sensor signal as possible with as high a resolution as technically possible. "good enough" is the name of the devil.

Enough with the food and wine critics. McDonalds and Coke for everybody!

Get a good receiver and a good turntable with a good cartridge and a good pair of speakers and you will get your reason. Yea you have to adjust your setup and set the tracking force, anti-skate, and other things on your turntable, but what you end up with is a fine-tuned system set up just the way you like it that will sound just the way you want it to. Basically it is something that you will not understand unless you are into it, so in some ways yes, it is a fetish.

As for the crackles and pops, they dont show up on good records with a well-tracking cartridge. If you take good care of a record it will live just as long as a CD. This is where cartridge alignment and tracking force are very important. If it tracks too heavy it will eventually gouge the vinyl out of the groove leading to data loss.

A lot of the alure of analog recordings lays in the fact that the distortion it introduces actually sounds good for most people. Remember, analog media for analog creatures

With the cost of all your "goodies", I can buy a decent sound card that outputs digital signal to a good DAC. Must be cheaper to build, easier to maintain, more faithfully it can reproduce.
And the cost difference between the two systems will let me buy tones of CDs to really enjoy music other than dealing with machines.

MP3 has a set quality limitation. Though there are lossless audio formats, they are still not as flexible as a good analog original source. Keep your audio on vinyl as originals, keep the digital library in flac or similar lossless and keep your player copies in whatever form works best for each gadget.

Some people also prefer the warmth that comes from those pops and whistles along with the more natural processing from rutt to output horn.

I haven't touched a turntable in years mind you, I've just recently been looking at ways to make my audio library more centralized and flexible.

I haven't touched a turntable in years mind you, I've just recently been looking at ways to make my audio library more centralized and flexible.

I faced that problem, too. I'm luck in one respect, my house is wired for networking. I have a file server that sites in one room, and computers that sit on other rooms. That includes the the master bedroom, where the shelf stereo system sits, and the living room. The living room has a good set of speakers wired to the stereo in the bedroom.

The setup works like this: I log into the bedroom computer from anywhere in the house (but mostly from the living room) using RDP or VNC. The bedroom computer has a media player that connects to the file server. Music files stream from the file server to the bedroom computer, and go out to the stereo via an M-Audio 24/96 card. It sounds fabulous.

To keep this OS centric: All the machines run Linux with KDE desktops, and the media player is Kaffeine.

If I owned my house, it would have wire run everywhere too. It sounds like a nice setup you have and with VNC, you could even use an old PalmOS with the VNC client as a universal remote.

In the past, I've kept a single IDE drive in a budget NAS box. Loosing my network accessed files every six months or so when that drive box burns through another hard drive lost it's novelty though. I'm living in some dark days without a central storage on my network but it's only temporary until the left overs from last upgrade go into a proper groupware and NAS box. I want to build a Tivonix of some sort for the media centre but that comes after I get the back end cleaned up again.

Go to a Pink Floyd Show and be near the PA System. Then go home and play the songs for a string Digital Experience. You discover you're missing a lot in that open space found in the Analog format.

Go to a Pink Floyd Show and be near the PA System. Then go home and play the songs for a string Digital Experience. You discover you're missing a lot in that open space found in the Analog format.

It's been "a few years" since one could go to a Pink Floyd show. I suspect that the PA system might have an advantage or two over an LP. The first is bass response. LPs tend to roll off at 50 Hz or higher. By 20 Hz there is little left. The PA system could probably beat 20 Hz by at least an octave. A CD at least, can reach 20 Hz without rolling off.

On the high end, an LP audiophile pressing might reach 20kHz for the first several playings (I'm being generous). Standard LPs roll off sharply at 14-15kHz. If played often, you lose even that. CDs reach 20kHz.

If you go to rock concerts and stand next to the PA system, then these high frequency issues are moot. Your ability to hear anything like a high frequency is shot, anyway.

Finally, there is the issue of dynamic range. Pink Floyd was one of those loud groups that sometimes played softly. An audiophile LP might achieve a 70db dynamic range, a decent standard pressing, 50. CDs can exceed 90db. That's regular, bog standard CDs.

LPs degrade over time, meaning the noise floor increases the more it is played. CDs (and LPs) may also be badly engineered. Popular music listeners sometimes complain that the CDs they buy use a heavily compressed dynamic range. Everything sounds loud, in other words. That's a reflection on the engineering of the CD, not on what the CD is capable of. Mercifully, classical music has largely been spared this.

November last year - no current dates though...

I'm not sure if that would classify as Floyd. I saw Waters after they broke up when he toured with Clapton playing Floyd songs. 5 man band. It was amazing. Then I saw Gilmore later when he toured with his Floyd. 20 musicians on stage. So much processing you couldn't even who was playing what. Definately didn't feel like a Pink Floyd show other than the lights and sound system.
My 2 cents.

Well, the key here is that you're comparing to SACD, which is hardly mainstream.

The big problem with today's CDs etc. is not the technology, but the way the audio is (on purpose) dynamically compressed (not data compression) on many, if not most, CDs. This is done to provide a more easy listening experience in suboptimal environments (the car, the IPod etc.), but it really destroys the music.

If you can find the same recording on both vinyl and CD and perform measurements on them, you will often find that the vinyl recording contains A LOT more dynamic detail.

Well, the key here is that you're comparing to SACD, which is hardly mainstream.

The big problem with today's CDs etc. is not the technology, but the way the audio is (on purpose) dynamically compressed (not data compression) on many, if not most, CDs. This is done to provide a more easy listening experience in suboptimal environments (the car, the IPod etc.), but it really destroys the music.

If you can find the same recording on both vinyl and CD and perform measurements on them, you will often find that the vinyl recording contains A LOT more dynamic detail. "

Is there a reason you only have one point in voting on your comment, other than Truth is something people can't stand?

Edited 2008-05-23 22:59 UTC

Well, the key here is that you're comparing to SACD, which is hardly mainstream.

The big problem with today's CDs etc. is not the technology, but the way the audio is (on purpose) dynamically compressed (not data compression) on many, if not most, CDs. This is done to provide a more easy listening experience in suboptimal environments (the car, the IPod etc.), but it really destroys the music.

If you can find the same recording on both vinyl and CD and perform measurements on them, you will often find that the vinyl recording contains A LOT more dynamic detail. "

Hmm, if you're interested in re-issues and re-mastered old music; I've found a good many have actually upped the quality of the recording - but that does come at the expense of having to spread it over 2 cds. Given the cheapness of cd's these days, there should be no reason why one can't have high quality recordings spanned over 2 cds.

Crackles? Bah. Sure, if you listen through an el cheapo $99 plastic turntable that comes with undampled cheap, plastic tonearm and an el cheapo ceramic cartridge, coupled to 2nd hand vinyl from the 80s that did not use virgin vinyl, and was not of a good pressing quality.

However, if you listen to vinyl LP on a quality turntable, using a quality tonearm and cartridge, using quality pressed vinyl, you'll be amazed at how good it can sound. Oh, and you need a decent phono amp (or preamp/amp with a decent phono stage) to do the RIAA equalisation.

Digital isn't bad sounding at all, in fact, in a good setup, it can be just as good as vinyl. Good setups take time, and cost money, it's an unfortunate aspect of this expensive hobby.

Just remember - nature is analogue. You don't seen digital sound signals in nature. It's analogue. I don't think man is good enough to better nature whatsoever. Pretty much explains why as we become more and more technologically advanced, we end up screwing more and more up.

A dedicated audio system costs a lot, but does (generally) sound good, very good. How good? How much better than an iPod etc? Probably not by a huge margin - there's the good ole fashioned law of diminished returns that comes into play - the more you spend, the less the increase in quality you will gain.

I'm a transistor guy myself, but I do admit that the good old thermionic valve setup (usually single ended 300bs or 211 triodes) can sound very very good.

I've got a system that's worth more than most people's cars, although truth be told I'm too lazy to use it these days because I simply cannot set it up as it demands (speaker placement etc).

Dave

I couldn't agree more with AdamW.

Edited 2008-05-23 20:28 UTC

I second that.

I am on my 3rd setup right now, and there is really nothing better than quality components, Adcom amp, Paradigm Monitor speakers, Nakamichi Tape deck (kinda just for show, its 30 years old and still works perfectly) Denon cd player, Harmon Kardon pre amp. Its amazing the subtle details you miss listening to "average" sound systems. My only complaint is with a digital collection it exposes how terrible even the highest bitrate mp3's sound. Which influenced my buying of cd's more than anything.

A lot of the early conversions to CD were poor and they gave audiophiles a reason to complain about digital technology.

Remembering the first two digital recordings using the SoundStream system, the vinyl had to be produced outside the U.S.A. because of the harsh chemicals involved. The typical U.S. vinyl had poor dynamic range and limiting killed most recordings. I have one of those Telarc recordings and it's much better on CD. In fact, almost everything is better on CD--it's a matter of care taken during re-mastering.

There is that whimsical notion that analog components provide atmosphere. They do. They usually hides the fact that there are major flaws. Your ears fill in the gaps, just as your eyes do with bad t.v. If it sounds warm, you feel warm, just like most people feel about their first text editor.

Exactly. (Warning: anecdote ahead) A few years back, I chipped in on a new stereo for my dad's birthday - to replace a decent-but-aging component system.

Physically, just a *single* speaker from his old system was at least 2-3 times larger than the entire new stereo. And yet, the new system produces noticeably-better sound quality - from the same media. He still has the old speakers today - he uses one of them as a table/stand for the new stereo.

IMO, the opinions of "audiophiles" have always been influenced mostly by sentimentality, affected snobbery, and cognitive dissonance. Most of the typical audiophile pretensions don't hold up to even the most basic scrutiny (E.g., double-blind testing).

Get off ya high horse on the decline of music. Just because the commercial channels are clogged with crap doesn't mean there isn't any good stuff being produced.

Oh and answer to Mandonna's highlight, I think her Confessions on a Dance Floor was the best but that was due to the producers used and some of the musical ideas they ripped off earlier artists.

Commercial music has been stagnant for a few decades now but that's what happens when you get music being pushed as a product.

As for systems, they change but I run my audio through my PC controlled by an Echo Gina3G which works well on Windows Vista and Linux and I believe there is also BeOS support for it as well. Very good 24/96 solution then running to a dual channel power amp and 2 biwired bookshelf monitor speakers. Serves me well and has done so for many years. Might take the amp in for an upgrade and if I want I can get more base with a matching sub but for appartments it's fine.

Needing anything more I run my AKG headphones from the Echo's breakout box.

My music is usually compressed with Ogg Vorbis @ 192bit rate or setting 6. Pity there is no alternative to that Russian MP3 store that allowed you to encode your music purchases in any format you wanted. That was a great concept and would work well if not stomped on by the West. Just gotto make sure some of the income gets to the artists but not the RIA.

A good reference point would be imho a live concert.

Edited 2008-05-24 05:40 UTC