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Well there's so many ways to encode music as .mp3... I actually used one that I actually preffered the only 128kbs .mp3 file than listening trough the actual CD... I was mixing with the special settings of the converter... If you instead of using 44khz use 48khz most of the musics will sound much better. Actually I can even make it 64kbs (only wma, because on the mp3, no matter what I did in this low rate it really were bad) sounding almost like the 128...

And well no one though it was possible to get things out from your hdd after you format it a million times... And nowadays everyone know it's possible. Lot's of things that look impossible sometimes are craked by someone. I do know creative actually has a very high knowledge in music business, but I know they are far away from the highs quality, but they know a lot about sound effects and all the newer special sound features.


About manufacturers, that's mostly a lie, most of the companies that still make good quality speakers, uses all the improvements they gathered over the years in the new systems, and use even newer and better components, I saw lot's of documentations of making of some of them, and they still have strange and lot better designs and use of titanium, best wood, neodymnium magnets... that's something no one could even think of on the old speakers (just the wood)...

guily that amp is shit, it doesnt even go to 11

LOL, but at 10, it used to kill your hears already, everyone could hear the KEF speakers sound at like 300 meters from the house, but I still prefer a lot nowadays quality...
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As always, Blue comes in with a great technical explanation

*EDIT* Guily, you have GOT to be trolling. I mean... you can't seriously believe the words you're saying...

Yeah I do... Just like in cars, here lot's of ppl say cars nowadays suck full of electronics, the old cars were the ones... Yeah they were... a 300hp car that almost doesn't go at 200km\h and suck 30 liters of gas for that... (And I'm also an old car enthusiastic, specially US Muscle cars). But cars nowadays thanks to new technologies, have lot more power. Hell even a 60hp car nowadays have enough power for everything, while a very old car that had 60hp, would not even be able to get in my garage which have a big inclination...

In music is just the same, and barely in everything...

expensive speakers with a huge range. Nobody I know, or anybody on this forum is at that level. Nobody has that kind of system. And if you did, you would be listening to vinyls.

I had studio quality system for more than a year here in my house off (only tested one time).

Something like this:

It had 10 or more outputs for professional type speakers (500w each), I have no idea which was the manufacter, all i know is that shit cost the price of maybe 50xZ5500 digital. But I  remember well that the speakers were two JBL huge 1000w rms professional speakers, and hell they had a pretty good quality, but I still prefer the PC sound (is more my type. Sattelites+subwoofer).

But my dream is having not all range speakers like studio kind, but having lots and lot's of speakers, each playing only a certain frequency. Let's say a huge woofer for the kicks, a huge subwoofer for the rumble, a huge speaker for the mid low, a huge for the mids, a medium for the mid-high, and little for the highs. That was my dream, all lower ones made of titanium, and the higher frequency one to be a horn type, oh and a rotary subwoofer type for the very deepest rumble possible (damn it can be made nowadays, it's just a matter of having a lot of $$$$$$), but I don't think you could ever had anything like this in the old times, that was not possible.

ps: and I can't find the subwoofer that cost like 10K $ or more, since you guys say we have no built quality nowadays... this sub has lot of thecnologies in it to increase bass, even in the case design...

guily, now a days everything is mass produced, the quality is lowered in order to pump out components quicker (cheap labour, cheap parts, cheap materials) which in turn = profit. you could get a system now a days that beats older stuff but u wont find it on the shelf at ur local store, it'd be custom jobs that u pay a lot for.
easiest example is cars, compare your mass produced car to say Ferrari which only makes a small number of cars, they can afford to focus on every little detail, it costs a lot more then mass produced cars but the small numbers and attention to detail means every part is the best.

I agree with what blue said about the best stuff wont be up on billboards or tv ads.

Well the quality of cars nowadays are lot higher than older ones...

There are some good mass produced materials, which come better by robots than made by humans...

Also mass produced can be made for making cheap things, but can also be used to make expensive things...

And the expensive high quality things compared to the expensive old high quality things, you can't even compare...


Boards are better, solder are better and take lot more heat, condensers improved a billion times, every component has improved over the years... transistors, resistances............

ps: Nowadays there are simple lots and lot's of cheap things that we never had before, creative is one of those, but their best speaker system has a good quality and have like 600w RMS and cost here around 500€ which is already expensive. But ofcourse their 50€ 2.1 systems, have all pretty bad components... (50€ = 10 contos of my old currency, and with 10 contos all you could buy "HERE" was probably just the cables in the 80's)...

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OH other things, 4 example in the cars, ppl always think old cars were lot safer since they were all hard metal... actually that's wrong. There's in the youtube a car crash against a huge and heavy old car (I think a chevy) against a crappy cheap car of nowadays, and the old car kinda broke into pices and would have killed everyone inside, while the new car, dind't take that much danger and everyone would probably survive.

ps: that was just a myth (unless compared against a chine model car, cause their crash tests are pretty.... BAD)...
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Here's some epic quality for you guily:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CewacsP6TSY[/youtube]

headset + eq = cheeter

I'm not sure that audio components follow Moore's Law. I can run a 1 ohm load on a tube amplifier on max all day. If I try a 1 ohm load on solid state amps from this age, it will blow immediately. Although the comparison is a bit unfair.

The only thing that happened in the few decades is more electronic components to improve efficiency. A lot of people mistakenly try to determine which components does it better (digital or analog), but it's a combination of both that makes the best.

The ideas and designs from vintage audio hasn't changed. Speaker components have improved, but only if you pay for it. Machines has allowed cheaper components to become a part of everything these days. That's nice but for the good stuff you still have to pay big bucks. Even back 50 years ago or more, you still had to pay big bucks. The only difference is 50 years ago, low end (cheap things) didn't exist. Now every idiot can go buy a magnet and wire and make a shitty $2 dollar speaker. Or you can get a less shittier, but still shit, $10 speaker from china.

Mass production vs manual labor is the important thing here. Let me repeat again, components are improving but only if you pay for it.

Mass production vs manual labor is the important thing here. Let me repeat again, components are improving but only if you pay for it.

Well maybe for you in the US...

In the 90's almost no one had computer here... almost no one had amplifiers like the one my father had which cost a damn lot (he didn't told me the price, but he said he worked a lot for having it)...

In the 60's cars were rare here... on the 90's no one on my zone had internet, my father was the first to have it in like 95 or so...

So you come telling me that nowadays you can in fact have higher quality things if you pay a lot for them? Well in the past you could actually have.... NONE, the best chance is you could buy a cheap portable crappy old radio here...

And no one uses valves anymore, and thank god they don't, that just make up a lot of noise in the electrical system... hardware components have improved, that's a fact. Nowadays we use more digital than analog, and well the computer only in fact got to the point of what they are today because they became digital and not analog wich were all controlled manually valve by valve, tons of them eating tons of electricity, and burning in a few time that would need replace...

My bro's sound box has a valve amplifier, but I think is just to look vintage, I don't think it's amplifying anything (afteral that's one example of what are good old components used for... just to show and look vintage bad ass, they have no other usage for nowadays).

What are you the encyclopedia on sound? Well written post. I have a lot of reasons to not have FLAC on my desktop, mainly having to download all of my music over again, but 10x larger. It would be a nightmare. Also, I don't have the sound equipment to enjoy FLAC any more than 320kbps mp3.

Well I had 1 TB of sound. Imagine if it was in FLAC... I even converted every 320 .mp3 to .WMA 128, but in fact I made them even sound better in 128 than the original .mp3 320, because I tweaked the enconders, and specially used 48kz against the 44 original. (and you can even tweak a 64kbs .wma to sound pretty good, but the .mp3 at 64 is pretty crappy no matter what encoder you use or even with tweaks).
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Yeah, nowadays I see lot's of ppl from here buying huge sone of a biatch studio sound mixers and professional speakers, just to make private parties with friends... back in the 80's you would see ppl all together singing and playing guitar or listening to crapy quality radios...

About computers well, My school had them in 95 4 sure, internet came way later, but almost none had had a computer in their homes...

And good quality speakers are for example:


And I have seen on the discovery ppl using titanium speaker coils to simulate an earthquake, that thing was freakin powerfull, it's the hardest material you can get for the huge kicks in your heart...


I also like this type of speakers:

(Those are not expensive, and are pretty good for little shows and karaoke parties. This is an example of something not from the 80's... yeah it look like a crap quality plastic speakers, but as soon as you turn them on u think WTF, I never though they sounded so good for how little, light and cheap plastic look... this is an example of modern design improvements on something that isn't even wood, because lot's of newer speakers are still made from expensive WOOD).

That's the kind of professional speakers my brother uses (not from JBL) to play synthesizer from yamaha which has very nice sound effects, the electric guitar, really sounds almost like the real one, it makes all the treble and shake of the guitar, because there was a guy with an electric guitar from fender that used to come here, and actually the yamaha synthesizer had better guitar sound on some musics  ;D

It sounded even better than this video

(And it's not that yamaha keyboard, it's one with a blue touch lcd).
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