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A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

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Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#121

Post by isatty »

allears wrote: post #72
isatty wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audiophile here - if they were using a proper master, minimally a true lossless file I don’t really see the problem. On the other hand, it seems to me like I meet more people who are just into buying new gear rather than enjoying the music, which is what the hobby is to me. Don’t even get me started on snake oil like cables.

Depends on the signal level and the impedance. For speaker cables, all you need is a big enough gauge to carry the current. But for low level signals, especially less than line level (magnetic phono cartridges, microphones, guitar pickups) a good quality cable with proper impedance and low capacitance can make a big difference. If you look at professional studio and broadcast supply catalogs, you will see mic cables…

The average person buying $2000 snake oil cables have no idea about impedance or capacitance. I’m not talking about studio professionals buying gear here.

Idk what the cheap guitar cable was but any decent guitar cable will be indistinguishable from an expensive ass cable sonically. This doesn’t take into account better quality of construction and better connectors etc.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#122

Post by user_7832 »

conradfr wrote: post #114
Maursault wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you also cannot tell the difference between lossless and properly transcoded MP3 I'm not sure what you mean by "properly transcoded," as though there's a scourge of bad encoders out there and everyone has nutty encoding practices, but I really, really bet you can. Listen to an mp3 of a rock/pop track. Try to focus on the cymbals. See if you can isolate them aurally from the rest of the music. Can you hear how mp3 e…

The encoders of today create really good mp3 even at 192kbps (at 128kbps not so much which is a shame as a lot of internet radios use that). Do you have a favorite rock track we can do an ABX test with?

Not the person you replied to, but Hotel California’s Hell Freezes Over version is generally very well regarded in mastering.

If I’m not mistaken one of those A/B/X test websites also tested that, and while I was using a very simple pair of headphones, the difference was noticeable.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#123

Post by wk_end »

kstrauser wrote: post #29
iforgotpassword wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the main reason I really like vinyl. Physics prevents the mastering engineers from going overly crazy. Vinyl often sounds more carefully mastered, even though nothing would technically prevent you from releasing the same thing in digital form. The other thing I like is that it really takes more effort to put on a record than start a track on Spotify. I really only do it when I can take the time to do so. Pick…

I listened to "Disintegration" last week exactly like that, but with Apple Music. It was the first time I'd listened to an album start-to-finish in years, and I highly recommend it. I like not having to flip the record halfway through, or being able to listen to "The Wall" without 3 flips.

The structure that side/disc limitations impose is part of the listening experience, to me - I like having to take a moment to consider the sub-narrative of the side as a whole before moving on. Even when streaming I’ll often look up the vinyl track listings to get a sense of the artist’s intended schema.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#124

Post by isatty »

criddell wrote: post #69
isatty wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audiophile here - if they were using a proper master, minimally a true lossless file I don’t really see the problem. On the other hand, it seems to me like I meet more people who are just into buying new gear rather than enjoying the music, which is what the hobby is to me. Don’t even get me started on snake oil like cables.

Can you reliably hear a difference between a lossless file and a modern high bit rate MP3 (or other lossy format)? I can't, but then I have tinnitus...

Depends on the music. 320k mp3 is actually pretty good.

Anyway in this case I want a studio promising that their records were pressed from a high quality master to actually use a high quality master. It doesn’t matter if I can’t distinguish it.

Just because a Camry can also transport my ass from a to b does not mean the Porsche dealership gets to sell me one over another car I specifically wanted.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#125

Post by user_7832 »

apohn wrote: post #79
gwern wrote: post #2

"The fallout of the MoFi revelation has thrown the audiophile community into something of an existential crisis. The quality of digitized music has long been criticized because of how much data was stripped out of files so MP3s could fit on mobile devices. But these days, with the right equipment, digital recordings can be so good they can fool even the best ears. Many of MoFi’s now-exposed records were on Fremer and…

>The fallout of the MoFi revelation has thrown the audiophile community into something of an existential crisis. Don't worry, the crisis will not last long. Audiophiles will find a way to get over it and buy some better cables that would have revealed they were using a Digital source all along.

> Don't worry, the crisis will not last long. Audiophiles will find a way to get over it and buy some better cables that would have revealed they were using a Digital source all along.

You don’t need to attack any person or community - especially given that rich people buying expensive stuff is hardly hurting others directly. Please make good faith arguments.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#126

Post by thih9 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #86
thih9 wrote: post #63

> “These people who claim they have golden ears and can hear the difference between analog and digital, well, it turns out you couldn’t.” But was there an album without DSD to compare to and hear the difference? I guess most people heard just the album with DSD (that admittedly sounded great). What would happen if there was also a One Press version without DSD? Would people with “golden ears” be able to recognize it…

Almost nothing has ever been recorded and released using only DSD. Why not? Most fundamentally because you can't edit DSD data, it has to be converted to PCM format first. This means it can only be used for live takes, with nothing done except topping & tailing the recording. There are are few "ultra-audiophile" recordings that have been made this way, but so few of them that the question of whether it's better or au…

> Almost nothing has ever been recorded and released using only DSD.

I don’t understand; I was talking about an album without DSD. Why are you referring to albums produced with only DSD?

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#127

Post by user_7832 »

(Meta) I was hoping HN would stay civil and while it mostly is, I’d like to remind that what people do in their homes for themselves isn’t really something worth circle jerking over. If you like expensive gear and find a difference, great. If you don’t find a difference, that’s also fine. Please don’t bother attacking either group for their (relatively) harmless views.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#128

Post by hakfoo »

Kirby64 wrote: post #101
allears wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a recording engineer, and I can tell you that there definitely is such a thing as high quality audio. Certainly there are people who believe in snake oil and like to parade their ignorance as though it were knowledge. But if you bother to study the science of audio, read trade magazines, or hang out with engineers and studio owners, you will find that just quoting frequency range or dynamic range, or even noise f…

The reasons for higher quality audio (24/32-bit data, higher frequency, etc) have value in the mastering process. For recording, yes there is value in it. It gives you freedom to adjust your recording without running out of headroom. For listening, no. Find me a double-blind test where 16-bit 48 or 44.1 kHz audio compares poorly to 24-bit 192 kHz audio. You won't find it. You'll find PLENTY of people claiming they ca…

I wonder if there's some real-world "resonance" we're ignoring.

I could imagine an accurate statement like "the converted signal out of the DAC never diverges more than 0.005% from the original input", but could some aspects of that .005% produce some outsized weight when fed through a real audio system? I could imagine circuits that "rang" if given something that looks a little too square-wavey or hitting non-linear spots on the speaker's response curve differently.

It would be interesting to do some sort of A/B/C/D testing-- analog and digital, on two different audio systems, for example, to see if some systems are more subject to that.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#129

Post by kstrauser »

wk_end wrote: post #123
kstrauser wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listened to "Disintegration" last week exactly like that, but with Apple Music. It was the first time I'd listened to an album start-to-finish in years, and I highly recommend it. I like not having to flip the record halfway through, or being able to listen to "The Wall" without 3 flips.

The structure that side/disc limitations impose is part of the listening experience, to me - I like having to take a moment to consider the sub-narrative of the side as a whole before moving on. Even when streaming I’ll often look up the vinyl track listings to get a sense of the artist’s intended schema.

I get it. I still like having the option to skip it if I'm being lazy.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#130

Post by bambax »

jrajav wrote: post #16
kstrauser wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whole line of thinking just blows me away. It's possible to accurately sample and reproduce any vinyl recording in the digital realm. It's absolutely not possible to accurately record every digital recording onto vinyl. For instance, it's not hard at all to make bass so loud that it causes the needle to leap out of the track, or treble so high that the needle can't accurately track the high frequency vibrations.…

Most of the time people will argue that vinyl has "warmth" and this makes it subjectively better. This is true, but it's actually because of the pleasing distortion record players add to the music. Being distortion, even if it improves your listening experience (and this depends on genre, though it generally does), it is certainly objectively worse in terms of accurate reproduction.

YES! The article says this:

> But a few specialty houses (...) have long advocated for the warmth of analog. “Not that you can’t make good records with digital, but it just isn’t as natural as when you use the original tape,” says Bernie Grundman

which is absurd. "Warmth" is a kind of distortion, and if a signal is distorted then it's less accurate or "natural"!

They can't claim "fidelity" and "warmth" at the same time. It's one or the other.

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