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History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

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Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#61

Post by newdude116 »

em500 wrote: post #41
vatican_banker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My honest and unscientific opinion is that the difference _is_ discernible but the listener needs to know what to hear for. Also, the reproduction quality is impacted by several factors like room, equipment, and recording quality (not just speaker quality). [Anecdotal] One example of the difference between MP3 and lossless: the "image" [1] on 256kbps MP3s is worse compared to the the original uncompressed, lossless,…

> Important to keep in mind the "size" of the experiment. Two interesting quotes from the article in c't magazine: >> twelve participants would be asked to come to Hanover. It's a mistake to apply vanilla statistical thinking here. The 12 participants were not randomly drawn from the German population, they were extremely skewed towards enthusiasts/professionals: audio engineers, an owner of an actual Nautilus 801, s…

This magazine did a test with mp3 https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Kreuzverhoertest-287592.html

The only one who was significantly able to tell if something was mp3 encoded or not, was a guy with a hearing damage who loved punk music. In fact, mp3 was developed for persons with normal hearing. So it is well possible that he was able to tell differences where other people were unable to.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#62

Post by brnt »

em500 wrote: post #16

Never heard these myself, but I remember that Nautilus speakers were used in an MP3 listening test by the German c't magazine in 2000[1]. Conclusion: > In plain language, this means that our musically trained test listeners could reliably distinguish the poorer quality MP3s at 128kbps quite accurately from either of the other higher-quality samples. But when deciding between 256 kbps encoded MP3s and the original CD,…

Note that the quality of MP3 encoders has changed significantly since 2000, and differed significantly between encoders at the time. (Does anyone not use LAME these days?)

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#63

Post by antihero »

growt wrote: post #31
JohnBooty wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but 90% of the road can be traveled with just basic, but good components IMHO. Amen. No expert here but I've been in the hobby for a while and have demo'd some high end stuff at audio shows. I strongly believe a really good "90% of the way there" system can be put together for well under $500 retail, or even less if going DIY or used.

Can you give an example of such a <$500 system? I'm genuinely curious.

Couple of JBL 306PII active monitors

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#64

Post by willtim »

vatican_banker wrote: post #35
em500 wrote: post #16

Never heard these myself, but I remember that Nautilus speakers were used in an MP3 listening test by the German c't magazine in 2000[1]. Conclusion: > In plain language, this means that our musically trained test listeners could reliably distinguish the poorer quality MP3s at 128kbps quite accurately from either of the other higher-quality samples. But when deciding between 256 kbps encoded MP3s and the original CD,…

My honest and unscientific opinion is that the difference _is_ discernible but the listener needs to know what to hear for. Also, the reproduction quality is impacted by several factors like room, equipment, and recording quality (not just speaker quality). [Anecdotal] One example of the difference between MP3 and lossless: the "image" [1] on 256kbps MP3s is worse compared to the the original uncompressed, lossless,…

Agree with everything you say, but I would also add that the interactions with compression and other lossy signal processing that is frequently performed is not well studied. For example, when using Bluetooth headphones, it is likely that the music will be equalised/normalised, resampled to 48Khz (for mixing) and then re-encoded to a bluetooth codec e.g. LDAC. It is much safer to start with FLAC, if you cannot avoid such a signal chain.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#65

Post by newdude116 »

growt wrote: post #31
JohnBooty wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but 90% of the road can be traveled with just basic, but good components IMHO. Amen. No expert here but I've been in the hobby for a while and have demo'd some high end stuff at audio shows. I strongly believe a really good "90% of the way there" system can be put together for well under $500 retail, or even less if going DIY or used.

Can you give an example of such a <$500 system? I'm genuinely curious.

Hm. I have a very old German Tube Amplifier (K+H) from my grandfather and some USSR made speakers (Radiotehnika Audio - GoldLine 90, 30kg each).

But this system would cost you know 1-2k. But I was lucky and bought the speakers for 100 USD not long ago.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#67

Post by em500 »

newdude116 wrote: post #61
em500 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Important to keep in mind the "size" of the experiment. Two interesting quotes from the article in c't magazine: >> twelve participants would be asked to come to Hanover. It's a mistake to apply vanilla statistical thinking here. The 12 participants were not randomly drawn from the German population, they were extremely skewed towards enthusiasts/professionals: audio engineers, an owner of an actual Nautilus 801, s…

This magazine did a test with mp3 https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Kreuzverhoertest-287592.html The only one who was significantly able to tell if something was mp3 encoded or not, was a guy with a hearing damage who loved punk music. In fact, mp3 was developed for persons with normal hearing. So it is well possible that he was able to tell differences where other people were unable to.

That's the original German version of the article which was translated in my hydrogenaudio link.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#68

Post by drw85 »

bayindirh wrote: post #52
stinos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

e.g. in classical music, you can tell subtle differences if you've listened the piece live or performed it inside an orchestra Can you explain this a bit more? How is having heard a piece live, which by definition means a unique performance, going to affect whether or not you can pick out whether the recording of (likely) a different performance has been put through lossy compression? Or do you mean a recording of th…

In classical music, the performance is of course unique, but the piece is not. What I mean is, even if the arrangement has changed for a particular piece, the underlying score, the foundation is same. As you know, classical music is layered. It can be scaled for different sized orchestras, which can be akin to tessellation in graphics. You can add more nuanced scores or details if your orchestra has enough members. O…

But that still had nothing to do with comparing lossy vs lossless, or am I misunderstanding you?

How does a live performance that you hear with your ears at a specific place in a room help you pick out missing parts in a different recording, played by different people in a different place, recorded with multiple mics and then mixed and mastered?

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#69

Post by JohnBooty »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #43
JohnBooty wrote: post #27

On one hand I like spare-no-expense halo products like this. They are fascinating, at least visually. On the other hand this is why the hi-fi hobby is dying. With products like this, we promote the idea that high fidelity audio requires all sorts of exotic equipment that few can afford. The happy reality is that excellent audio reproduction can be achieved without spending much money; certainly less than a modern gam…

Studio monitors and HiFi equipment seem like different categories and use cases to me. HiFi speakers should fill the room. To get a good sound from studio monitors you need to be positioned well. Just moving a little bit can make a big difference in the sound.

    Studio monitors and HiFi equipment seem like different categories and use cases to me. .
Studio monitors can potentially be great hifi speakers, though generally not the other way around.

    To get a good sound from studio monitors you need to be positioned well.
Modern studio monitors are often quite the literal opposite of this!

Thanks to the waveguide on the JBL 3-series and 7-series monitors, you get nearly perfectly constant sound over an unbelievably wide 120-degree swath. You won't find anything approaching this in the consumer hi-fi market segment. This is nearly as true for Genelec studio monitors as well. Check the dispersion graphs (the rainbow colored ones) for these models:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/j...

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/j...

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/g...

Which makes sense given the use case: you might have a few people sitting at the mixing desk and you'd like them to be hearing the same thing.

    HiFi speakers should fill the room
Depending on the size of the room, studio monitors may or may not be able to fulfill this duty well. It does definitely tend to be the achilles heel when you try and use studio monitors for hifi. I've got JBL 306's crossed over to a pair of compact 12" subs in my fairly small music room and and they definitely get way louder than I want or need them too.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#70

Post by maqp »

qiqitori wrote: post #21
rorykoehler wrote: post #11

Not a fan of how these look (subjective) but am generally a massive fan of B&W speakers. They are a class apart. Truly stunning sounding. You can listen for hours on end with zero fatigue. My bro has has pair of bookshelf (CDM1?) hooked up to Arcam pre and power amps and the sound is out of this world.

I use Bowers & Wilkins P5 (series 1) headphones after having tested every other pair in the shop and found these to sound nicest. Really like the sound, but the discoloring is pretty bad (I got the white ones). (Could have something to do with the shop being a somewhat noisy environment and these being the only headphones without active noise cancelling that still shut out most noise, so YMMV.)

The P5 suffer from a disgusting design flaw: Under the magnetically connected ear pads, the headphones have a soft fiber-like material that's glued in. The glue will melt and leak between the contact points in a few months, which will stain white t-shirts etc.:

https://imgur.com/a/W2i0pPa

The importer first claimed they fixed this issue mid-production, they did not. I went through FOUR pairs. Every. Single. Time. the glue melted.

I wrote to B&W about them having a systematic problem in their manufacturing process, they advised me to contact the importer for a replacement pair.

Then came the P5 series 2 which the importer said would fix it. Finally... Except, it did not.

When I contacted the importer about the problem being still present, they flat out refused to replace the headphones, but instead offered a discount for PX headphones. I told them I would've annulled the purchase like the Finnish law allows me, had I been made aware it would never be fixed. I also told me I wouldn't pour another cent in B&W products.

Also I found an entire site dedicated to the design flaw in the PX, which I alas, can't find now.

To conclude: Do NOT buy B&W headphones / consumer loudspeakers. The company does still manufacture high-quality high-end loudspeakers, I've been satisfied with the CM1s and no complaints after 10 years of use.

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