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Community => The Lounge => Hardware/Software => Topic started by: Spanky on Sunday, April 08, 2012, 21:23:40 PM
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Attention:
For those seeking real legitimate advice, don't follow the words of guily. Most of the stuff he says is misinformation or just plain bullshit. This is not my opinion, this is fact that several people agree with.
Yeah but the new Creative sound cards, have finally pretty good quality components, so it's one of the best sound cards out there...
Keep Cool
I doubt any Creative cards have decent components. Maybe the Auzentech X-Fi or Xonar cards but even then, if you really know about audio, those are just lower middle class. Here's a real "sound card": http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB12/NFB12EN.htm
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Well all of them also use latest high quality SMD just like that card...
I have an Auzentech Forte 7.1 PCIexpress and it also uses high quality smd's and u can also upgrade them, so you can upgrade the sound card quality without even having to solder...
Creative used to be good on the cpu and effects, but then the conversion to the music used bad components and therefore it sucked, but not anymore. Now they also use high quality components, and i think their latest is the one with bigger SNR (I think I saw 128db or 129)...
ps: oh and creative has 64MB RAM and it's good Sound processor XF-I.
Keep Cool
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Nice for people processing effects on digital audio workstations for music and such.
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Well all of them also use latest high quality SMD just like that card...
I have an Auzentech Forte 7.1 PCIexpress and it also uses high quality smd's and u can also upgrade them, so you can upgrade the sound card quality without even having to solder...
You mean OPAMPs, not SMDs. A SMD is just a surface mounted (soldered) device, it could be a capacitor, resistor or semiconductor.
OPAMPs aren't good for audio. There are higher quality ones that cost about $30 a piece but they're not really worth it. OPAMPs were designed as part of the semiconductor revolution, where things were constantly getting smaller. OPAMPs are great in that they are smaller than 0.5x0.5" when compared to a circuit board full of discrete components that might be several square inches in surface area. They also use less voltage and can operate in extreme environments. But, for audio quality, they just can't compare to a fully discrete circuit. Which is why high end audio devices don't have them at all.
I won't even get into the crappy power supplies in computers (even the $200 ones, they're still of the switching variety), grounding issues and EMI/RFI. An external discrete DAC will blow any sound card out of the water.
For sound processing (including onboard memory), it's really not necessary these days. It was a neat idea back for Pentium 4's in 2005 or so when you needed every extra bit of CPU power possible so X-Fi offloaded that to the sound card and it did help but these days, I don't think any modern game made in the last 2-3 years takes advantage of X-Fi moreso than old games like BF2 or AA (which didn't take full advantage of it anyway). Modern games just use the CPU and a little bit of system RAM because it's a lot more flexible (everybody has them) of a system and with multiple CPU cores, 10% load on one core for sound doesn't really matter.
/rant
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I won't even get into the crappy power supplies in computers (even the $200 ones, they're still of the switching variety), grounding issues and EMI/RFI.
And oh lord switching power supplies are noisy cunts. A poorly designed switching power supply can goof up all your audio lines. Fact, I have that problem on my laptop when it's connected to an amp on AC power. Damn power supply is too damn noisy and has terrible ground.
I'm gonna split this.
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Anyway the consequence of having a complete good amplifier or sound card is having a good system to listen it through. You might hear the difference even with budget equipment but you won't make great use of it.
Using 3rd party code and card memory to create a 3D sound environment when you can use system memory avoiding messing with Creative poor drivers ...how can that sound not overcomplicated. Are they calling theirselves Creative for the way they plan and design products? xD
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And oh lord switching power supplies are noisy cunts. A poorly designed switching power supply can goof up all your audio lines. Fact, I have that problem on my laptop when it's connected to an amp on AC power. Damn power supply is too damn noisy and has terrible ground.
Exactly what I'm talking about. It's impossible with so many different motherboards and power supplies and auxiliary cards to have perfect and proper grounding, there's just too many layout possibilities. I've heard my mouse squeal whenever I move it on different setups. A good way to isolate your computer from a DAC/amp is an optical digital cable but then you're adding jitter due to the conversion from electrical to optical... It's all a mess :)
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Hahaha yeah. I have pondered going to optical, but I can deal with random laptop parts squealing occasionally. It's not too bad if I shove all the equipment on the same tap.
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I don't believe in HTIB's. Only if they give winning lottery tickets.
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Yes they are the opmpap's, and they are pretty expansive too. Auzentech have a single one that cost 244.99$, and probably something like 260€ here...
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.auzentech.com%2Fsite%2Fimages%2Fcomponents%2Fopa627_637_sm_n_adaptor.jpg&hash=05f82f6e23e65e3e5486c28397ed462c)
That's just an example of a top one from auzentech built by Texas Instruments.
I have the "X-Fiâ„¢ Forte 7.1 PCI express". Auzentech used to have the best of 2 worlds. Oxygen audio+creative XF-I for games. But nowadays I think that the Creative with it's upgraded better components are better than auzentech (That's what lot's of ppl say, no idea).
But I would prefer if they only used the following type of capcitors:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hitechlegion.com%2Fimages%2Fstories%2Fpress%2Fgigabyte%2Fjapanesecapacitor.jpg&hash=3ac0995d0a0348d4576e8e70518d4f58)
ps: Well even in 2009 the Creative sound card still made a difference in some tests they won 1fps or so, but the CPU had less usage 4 real. It may not seem much, but winning 1+5 from a better ram, + ...... at the end you will have 10 fps, so everything counts!
Anyway the consequence of having a complete good amplifier or sound card is having a good system to listen it through. You might hear the difference even with budget equipment but you won't make great use of it.
Using 3rd party code and card memory to create a 3D sound environment when you can use system memory avoiding messing with Creative poor drivers ...how can that sound not overcomplicated. Are they calling theirselves Creative for the way they plan and design products? xD
Well I don't know if they continue the same with their newer cards. Creative sound cards used to have good processing power and that kind of shit, but then the awesome sound would get killed on the final output, since it passed by bad quality components, but they improved finally.
About their poor driver software I have no idea if they also have improved them. But I never had much problem with their drivers on the Creative Live 24bits that I bought 4 dirt cheap, I still have it here working, and it still kicks the crap I'm using at the moment (Asus Saberthooth P67 onboard "realtek" sound card).
Gosh, All I know is I HATE this sound card, I can only play AA until a little higher than half of the full volume, or it starts making some huge scratches grrr... Also I can't activate hardware 3D in any game, it will have millions of glitches... Bloody Realtek onboard soundcards >:(.
ps: I'm gonna get amazed when I can test my auzentech some day when I finish the case project first :(. But I still won't hear much of his quality, because I have LogitechZ5500 Digital, and therefore I don't really need that much higher quality soundcard, as the thing that will be amplifying the sound will be the Z5500 amplifier, so I don't really need much of opamp qualities (I'm happy in just being able to use 3D in everything without glitches).
Keep Cool
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Guily, the one you linked to is the OPA627 by Burr Brown. That's actually the one I was talking about, the real ones are about $20-$30 per chip and you need 2 for stereo. I would guess that for 7.1, you would need 7 of them which would be approaching $200. For that price, you can buy a discrete DAC that would beat the whole sound card.
Also, there may be good opamps and caps on the card but it still comprimises with the DAC since the DAC has to output multichannel, they can't use a good DAC chip setup for the best dynamic range. With current tech, it's pretty easy to get 128 or 129 DB in SNR and dynamic range yet your card is rated 98-115 DB depending on output.
For a 1FPS gain, spend 20 seconds and overclock your CPU/Memory/GPU 5-10% and you'll see more gain than you would with the sound card. Creative is getting left in the dust, all of their hardware features can be done faster and better in software with OpenAL. Other companies like Rapture are leading that front.
I used to have a Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer that I had modified with better opamps and capacitors along with a few other mods that cleaned up the signal path. It was fine and in some older games it was nice to have the extra EAX effects. But, looking back, I don't regret getting rid of it. Modern games have great software-based sound outputs that make you feel completely immersed. IMO what matters most is the speakers/headphones you use, without good ones, it doesn't matter if you use motherboard sound or have a $500 dedicated DAC, it's still going to sound like shit :)
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Yeah I know that, but I would be happy to own one of the new creative sound cards...
They really have improved it...
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fasia.creative.com%2Fimages%2Finline%2Fproducts%2FSB_XFiTitaniumHD%2FFea2_zoom.gif&hash=472e636de654d07b0662b503433befd7)
I do believe I would be happy with the original opamp's from this card, all I need to pay is the price of the card...
I also love the music played in the creative cards, even the older ones with pretty bad components, weren't bad.
I was happy with the creative live 24 bits (or some crap like that, that I have somewhere around). And with the New improved XF-I CPU musics will always sound crystal clear.
Using good components increase the quality output, but having special CPU's and special software, you can control the music more and make it sound very crystal clear.
They also say:
"EAX® and 3D audio restoration for Windows Vista®
Using Windows Vista? Creative ALchemy restores the surround sound effect for the same great gaming experience as on Windows XPâ„¢."
And yes the one u shown looks badass, but I still wouldn't buy it, It's the difference between something intended for gaming and not for having the best SNR, the best impendance, but something to have a lot of hardware processing effects that will make you hear them before they hear you :).
ps: And I bet they have improved the software, because they say "Optimized 4 wind7" and also they say now you just need a click or so to increase the quality thanks to their progressive new functions, X-Fi Cmss-3d & X-Fi Crystalizer, now fully wind7 compatible...
Keep Cool
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Meh, these days motherboard sound is enough for anything. If your a pro and play with big boy speakers, and pro audio equipment, you're going to have a usb or fireware DAC if you use the computer for audio. If you're a gamer and feel like those PCI-E soundcards do something for you, that's cool maybe it does I dunno.
If you don't use the computer for audio, then you're on vinyl or cd's which then is a completely different story and all of this discussion about sound cards doesn't matter :)
In the end, for me as long as I don't hear clipped waveforms and bad response then I don't really care how the sound is being processed.
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What do you have hooked up to the sound card Guily? I'm curious...
I guess I'm a purist because I don't want to have things messing with audio to make it "crystal clear" like you say. It's all about getting the file from your hard drive to your speakers with as little processing and alteration as possible.
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I guess I'm a purist because I don't want to have things messing with audio to make it "crystal clear" like you say.
Makes me so happy that Windows 7 has a Disable All Enhancements tickbox for audio devices. I don't need to dick around those stupid driver control panels to turn random "enhancements" off.
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Yea, and they made it easier to get exclusive control of the sound card, WASAPI so the Windows Mixer doesn't mess with your audio either.
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Meh, these days motherboard sound is enough for anything. If your a pro and play with big boy speakers, and pro audio equipment, you're going to have a usb or fireware DAC if you use the computer for audio. If you're a gamer and feel like those PCI-E soundcards do something for you, that's cool maybe it does I dunno.
If you don't use the computer for audio, then you're on vinyl or cd's which then is a completely different story and all of this discussion about sound cards doesn't matter :)
In the end, for me as long as I don't hear clipped waveforms and bad response then I don't really care how the sound is being processed.
Well I have add lots and lots of motherboards, and seen lots, and couldn't activate Hardware 3D or EAX in anyone I tested... Also When I had my creative, on 3 bars of volume in the Z5500, the house was already shaking and cd's were always falling down. Now on the motherboard sound, I have to use a lot more volume to obtain the same volume, but it sounds pretty bad (Kinda like if there was not really high frequencies, it sound kinda death).
Also Creative has technologies like "combat mod" that make you hear any enemy before they hear you. I never heard that, cause I never had a newer sound card from them, but I bet is all about their processor trying to detect the minimum sounds and making them louder (it might be something like that).
And you are wrong about the onboard sound cards being good.
I have this motherboard:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mbit.pt%2Ffotos%2Fprodutos%2F90-MIBEDA-G0EAY0KZ0.jpg&hash=f41d33a5c92acee4dfbbef38a2353a54)
It's pretty recent, and the first board ever made of it's kind. BUT STAY MILES AWAY FROM IT'S REALSHIT SOUNDCARD... Unless you love playing games at half volume only where you can't hear almost anyone at all...
ps: But nowadays there's a few rare top of the line motherboards that bring Xf-i and EAX onboard soundcards.
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Z5500
*facepalm* Even Skrewy knows better than to get Logitech speakers... No wonder you think X-Fi cards sound good. You probably care more about multi-channel than speaker placement or accurate sound reproduction.
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*facepalm* Even Skrewy knows better than to get Logitech speakers... No wonder you think X-Fi cards sound good. You probably care more about multi-channel than speaker placement or accurate sound reproduction.
Well... I'm very sound enthusiastic...
On my creative sound card, I had 9.3 speakers all connected together...
Z5500 digital 5.1 + 2.1 creative special edition speaker (satelites have a very high frequency) + 2.1 from creative (Good mid to mid-high).
Well It made a very awesome sound, I preferred my setup than the sound on any disco\club that I have been with thousand dollars special equipment.
Specially because I had a lot of different frequencies to play with. Logitech is more for low and mid low, then I had high frequency and also a good mid and mid-high frequency and 3 different reaction subwoofer, being the one of the Z5500 enough to almost break the windows.
ps: I also have the Creative fatality headphones, which are just 40mm drivers with neodymnium magnets (Nothing special and not expensive, but not that bad too).
Keep Cool
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Also Creative has technologies like "combat mod" that make you hear any enemy before they hear you. I never heard that, cause I never had a newer sound card from them, but I bet is all about their processor trying to detect the minimum sounds and making them louder (it might be something like that).
Compression. Or heavy limiting. Same idea.
And you are wrong about the onboard sound cards being good.
Of course they suck hard, but I know how to compensate for bad onboard sound. I can measure/listen for signal clipping so I don't send square waves to my big boy speakers. Then I turn down the gain for the onboard sound and just raise the amplifier power. I've got enough amp power so it's no big deal. I'd rather buy better speakers before I buy a big boy sound card.
Here's a fun fact; on my laptop the volume has to be set to 70% for optimum quality. This is the level where there is no signal clipping.
On my computer, which has a 90s creative soundblaster, the volume must be 85% for optimum quality.
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Also XF-i and crystalization restore the quality of the songs, so those compressed music (.mp3, .wav, wma...) get their quality restored by an extensive use of the creative CPU which inverts the compressed enconded music into something way better than that and playing the music at same time. It kinda reminds me of the reverse engineer on the coding world... make a compressed .mp 128kbs 4 example into uncompressed quality of the music...
I heard spankys facepalm from all the way over here in Australia, quality > quantity according to spanky, my 7.3 is both
Actually they aren't that bad, and are pretty loud too with a good SNR. They were the best for their price. I paid like 250€ and even a single 100w hi-fi amp alone can cost around 500€ here, and still wouldn't have the technologies built in the Z5500 amp which is full of technologies for movies and gaming...
They just need a very little tweak on the equalizer to increase a little the higher frequencies, and they actually sound pretty good. They would actually sound like those very expensive speakers, if they used 2 way speakers (All they needed to do was to have a little tweeter for the high frequency, but that would also make the price to increase a lot)...
Compression. Or heavy limiting. Same idea.
Of course they suck hard, but I know how to compensate for bad onboard sound. I can measure/listen for signal clipping so I don't send square waves to my big boy speakers. Then I turn down the gain for the onboard sound and just raise the amplifier power. I've got enough amp power so it's no big deal. I'd rather buy better speakers before I buy a big boy sound card.
Here's a fun fact; on my laptop the volume has to be set to 70% for optimum quality. This is the level where there is no signal clipping.
On my computer, which has a 90s creative soundblaster, the volume must be 85% for optimum quality.
Well I never had any kind of problem using my old Creative sound card on 100%, never noted anything with the headphones, and also 50% volume in them is like what 80% volume sounds like on my current onboard soundcard (but at like 60% it starts the big huge scratches specially on AA gun sounds)...
And then, most of those high quality and even studio quality like soundcards are meant to be used with very high quality huge drivers headphones, there's not much point to this sound cards if you don't have headphones or don't want hardware 3D sound 5.1\7.1. But using speakers, the soundcard amplifying components aren't much important as the amplifier that will be amplifying will be external, but technologies like CMSS, X-fi and crystalizer always matter, no matter what kind of amplifier or headphones you have.
Keep Cool
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Also XF-i and crystalization restore the quality of the songs, so those compressed music (.mp3, .wav, wma...) get their quality restored by an extensive use of the creative CPU which inverts the compressed enconded music into something way better than that and playing the music at same time.
Nope. Once it's gone, it's gone. You can't re-add detail.
I don't know what else to say. Creative sucks, Logitech sucks. It's fact, not a matter of opinion. Spend some time on Head-Fi.org in the computer section and the veil of Creative and Logitechs bloatware lies will be lifted.
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Nope. Once it's gone, it's gone. You can't re-add detail.
I don't know what else to say. Creative sucks, Logitech sucks. It's fact, not a matter of opinion. Spend some time on Head-Fi.org in the computer section and the veil of Creative and Logitechs bloatware lies will be lifted.
Yeah, they are not the best, but in almost every review, when like the Z5500 came out, it had like 9\10, 4\5....
And there are tons and tons of ppl who actually like them, I'm one of them...
All I can think off is 4 their price, they have the best quality ever. I also have a Class-A Thecnics amplifier (hi-fi type), but well, the technologies in it are.....0 and the price..... like almost 10 times what I paid for the Z5500, and it's just the price of the amp, it came with no speakers... (the amplifier is from my father not mine).
Also I connected the 100W professional 2-way huge speaker to the center of the Z5500 60w RMS output, and it actually even performed better than in the Thecnincs super expensive amp (The amp was only good to melt headphones, as it had HUGE headphones output), also no distortions on 100% and only started a very very little distortion at over 100% volume (using volume boost), and medium distortion at full volume boost, which can also damage the amplifier (it's meant for very low outputs only since it amplifies way more than it's rated capabilities). And with only that single speaker inside my room I was already having my hears hurting...
Keep Cool
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Give me a picture of this Technics amp please.
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Give me a picture of this Technics amp please.
I don't have it here, it's from my father, and it also broke the treble button, which sounded like an alien sound at the end of it ;D.
All I can remember is it had an orange light saying "new Class A synchro Bass" (or some crap like that) and a sticker saying Made In Japan :), I don't even know how much W it had, but all I know is it didn't had any kind of technologies like Z5500 has. But all I know is that it was good to kill headphones (it uses the big input, but I used to use normal headphones with a converter from 3.5mm to the big input like the electric guitars use).
Also I know my brother has a around 500€ sound table or whatever u call it (amplify and has effects and equalizer for lot's of inputs), but I can't compare quality with the Z5500, because the sound table uses only professional type of speakers which have something like 4 or 5 pins can't even remember, and it's a huge input which you connect and then rotate it to lock the speaker cable in the sound table...
Something like this crap or so:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com%2Fhi%2F68%2F68411%2Fp0796.1.jpg&hash=c7536fd6d66a4f938d303f2dd6dc09f9)
ps: I would love to test my bro's speakers in the logitech amplifier, but I dont't know which pin is what, and don't wanna fry my amp :)
Keep Cool
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If the amp killed headphones, it was likely malfunctioning, outputting DC offset which makes the driver coils work against themselves causing heat which will destroy the driver in time.
Those Logitech speakers were probably reviewed by computer sites or gaming sites. You won't find them reviewed on audio forums because they aren't even considered worthwhile by enthusiasts. Those computer or gaming sites that reviewed them probably compared them to other crappy 2.1 systems made by Logitech, Creative, Insignia or some other Walmart brand.
When you really start researching, no modern speakers/amps can be considered high quality unless you're talking several thousand dollar hand-built in the USA specialty units. Companies just don't make them like they used to. Vintage is where it's at. Japanese-made amplifiers made in the 60's, 70's, 80's and sometimes 90's have true quality built in them. Quality speakers were often made in the US with thick marine-grade plywood covered with a quality veneer.
Quality multi-channel systems are difficult to have. You generally have to find a good multi-channel receiver and do research on what speakers play well with each other. Speakers in a box or prebuilt systems like Logitech's are never the way to go.
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But all I know is that it was good to kill headphones (it uses the big input, but I used to use normal headphones with a converter from 3.5mm to the big input like the electric guitars use).
1/4" TRS connector. Sometimes they use 1/4" TS connectors.
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages2.monoprice.com%2Fproductlargeimages%2F47911.jpg&hash=17e5e7d72daa45436a8685d20a8a0d77)
Also I know my brother has a around 500€ sound table or whatever u call it (amplify and has effects and equalizer for lot's of inputs), but I can't compare quality with the Z5500, because the sound table uses only professional type of speakers which have something like 4 or 5 pins can't even remember, and it's a huge input which you connect and then rotate it to lock the speaker cable in the sound table...
Sound board, mixer console, or pre-amplifier. Line level input has XLR connectors. Speaker connectors is Neutrik Speakon. Used for pro sound where they need thick and rugged cables and connectors.
Usually on pro level speakers with speakon connections, you can use a 1/4" TS as well.
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If I am trying to find a speaker and amp set up what brands should I look out for?
For an amp, stay away from anything with a LCD display, the simpler the front and back is, the better. Generally ones Made in Japan pre-90's are good. Anything too old might need work. A lot of pre-80's stuff needs new capacitors, even some 90's stuff does. If you come across one, look the model number up on eBay, completed listings. Generally junker units never sell and you'll see one that was listed several times. Popular good quality units sell pretty frequently and you'll get an idea of the going rate. Higher end units will tend to have bridged mode, allowing you to hook 2 amps together, kind of like SLI or Crossfire, one amp per speaker. Real metal/aluminum fronts mean that they're older. Solid feeling knobs and switches are good too. The Sony ES series is very popular and has held it's value for quite a while.
For speakers, they're easier to tell. A serial number is a good start. Real wood veneer hints at higher end. The heavier they are, the better. It means they used thick plywood to assemble it and it's built well to eliminate resonance. If you see them in person, take a flathead and phillips screwdriver to remove the woofer. The size of magnet will tell you a lot about it. Bigger magnet is better, bigger ones will also be quite a bit heavy. Once that's out, take a look at the crossover circuit inside. Larger components on a dedicated circuit board or piece of MDF is a good sign. Low end speakers will have a capacitor or resistor stuck in the wire. If the woofer has "China", "Indonesia" or some other foreign location stamped on it, it's low end. Quality ones will have the manufacturer's logo on it and is likely to be made in the USA. While the woofer is still removed, feel how heavy the box is. If it's still ungodly heavy, that's good. See if there's foam inside to help reduce resonance and reflections. Cheaper speakers sometimes don't have foam or maybe they will have eggcrate style foam. My vintage speakers have a fiberglass kind of foam, like you would insulate your house with, real thick and soft. Finally, keep in mind that the woofers may need new foam surrounds. If they do, you can probably get the speakers for cheap as it takes $30 or so for a repair kit and some time/knowledge to fix them (I had to do it twice).
Here's some pictures of my speakers to kind of give you an idea of the features/looks that I'm talking about. Mine aren't high end, they're more middle of the road home style speakers, not super serious 3-way studio speakers with multiple woofers.
Deteroriated foam surround:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2Fjbl%2FDSCF0040.JPG&hash=e7897a3aaae6d8cdbf6ccdcf03142e42)
Cleaned woofer basket for new foam surround:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2Fjbl%2FDSCF0067.JPG&hash=4b4ceabd1a19eb4790707557fd3bf100)
Cabinet after some sanding and a few coats of watco danish oil:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2Fjbl%2FDSCF0051.JPG&hash=e256a23836de76ce93d16b61d4f3ad43)
New foam surround in place:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2Fjbl%2FDSCF0069.JPG&hash=adf24a0fd12c5fa096833b72cf3d97df)
Backside with high frequency adjust knob:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2Fjbl%2FDSCF0045.JPG&hash=99fe2cf162b13424561b967ba773bbb8)
Stock crossover circuit:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2Fjbl%2FDSCF0060.JPG&hash=dba213371dccac6e0c4e9e892a34229d)
Modded & upgraded crossover circuit:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2Fjbl%2FDSCF0353.JPG&hash=d3082393fb3ee6ba2c0ab0299d79dde2)
Beautiful result:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2Fjbl%2FDSCF0733.JPG&hash=09d30b8917c18b451329d824ccb1a033)
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If I am trying to find a speaker and amp set up what brands should I look out for?
If you think you're savvy and have some cash you can buy a class d amp kit off ebay and put it together yourself. Some are assembled, but it's much better to do it yourself if you have some soldering skill. However you'll also need to get yourself a power supply. You can build some speakers as well. A simple 2-way speaker design is easy to build and can sound very good. Building speakers is much easier than building an amplifier except getting everything you need can be more tedious.
Here's some links to get you started.
L15D amplifier is popular: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=l15d+amplifier&_sacat=See-All-Categories
Power supply: http://connexelectronic.com/product_info.php/cPath/25_46/products_id/117
Speakers, nuts, and crossover components: http://parts-express.com
More crossover components: http://www.mouser.com/
Design software: WinISD v0.7 (http://www.linearteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21&p=83)
Of course taking Spanky's suggestions is much easier. Building your own stuff is great once you've got the basics down. One of these days I'm going to build myself a nice 2-way, I've been forming the plans for a while.
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Nate I may be interested in buying a final product off you come summer
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Blue brings up good points. There's DIY kits on PartsExpress. While they probably won't compare to a vintage system, it's fun to DIY and read what other builds people are making with similar parts. Buying used vintage can be quite a hassle with having to replace parts anyway (requiring soldering skills or paying someone else to do it). I too think it would be fun to build my own speakers, starting from a kit and modding more and more. There's TONS of designs out there and plenty of help on various forums as well.
Nate I may be interested in buying a final product off you come summer
What...
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Well about creative they claim...
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F27.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lvdw3036nu1qfzx6so1_500.png&hash=8fb195204d485554b2abc29313ddb4d2)
"Creative’s Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio gives an experience beyond studio quality with MP3 music and movies! Featuring award-winning X-Fi technologies, X-Fi Crystalizer restores the details and vibrance lost during MP3 and DIVX compression, breathing life back into any audio, while X-Fi CMSS-3D expands stereo music and movies into amazing surround sound. Effective over virtually any speakers, including stereo speakers, Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio even provides unbelievable surround sound over normal headphones!"
That's what I was saying... it's not entirely 100% true, but it does effect, the cpu changed the modulation, it kinda makes the bass sound lower frequency and the highs sound very high.
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And about amps, those old amps are no match against newer ones... Any good hi-fi amp of like 100w here cost around 500€ (660$) in pixmania which is the place you get lower prices, but they have so much more fidelity than the old amps.
And about my father's amp killing headphones is not a malfunction, it's just that at full volume it make any kind of headphones to sound almost like a speaker because it had a pretty huge speaker output that killed your hears too lol (But on low volume ur safe).
And I actually connected one of the good "KEF" good old speakers in my logitech and they sounded better than in the hi-fi amp (just not as loud, cause they are lot more than 100w rms, and the logitech output is 60wrms, but it still kicked some good sound quality and pretty damn loud with good bass). BTW, the speakers are HARD WOOD. But you can buy newer ones in titanium with the best acoustic wood out there, the problem is they will cost like HELL.
Oh and also, old expensive speakers are just...speakers. Nowadays expensive speakers are made of titanium and other good and better materials and some use neodymnium, which is a permanent magnet (rare material on earth). While a normal speaker loses magnet field over time, those never lose it and always kick in pretty bad ass...
ps: I like JBL, that's what I bought for the car, and it killed all my friends speakers at same price level.
I got some speakers left from my old sound system u can buy mans
4 of these (SR, SL, SBL, SBR)
https://servicesales.sel.sony.com/ecom/accessories/web/viewItemDetail.do?operation=getItemDetail&itemID=675086&category=4&categoryName=Home%20Audio
and the centre speaker for the system, part number: SS-CNP5000 which I couldnt find a page for, heres some copy pasta about it
atm they are just chilling in my room taking up space
Yack, I hate sonny sound, in the car huge power subs and speakers, sonny is considered total GARBAGE...
Keep Cool
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Well about creative they claim...
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F27.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lvdw3036nu1qfzx6so1_500.png&hash=8fb195204d485554b2abc29313ddb4d2)
"Creative’s Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio gives an experience beyond studio quality with MP3 music and movies! Featuring award-winning X-Fi technologies, X-Fi Crystalizer restores the details and vibrance lost during MP3 and DIVX compression, breathing life back into any audio, while X-Fi CMSS-3D expands stereo music and movies into amazing surround sound. Effective over virtually any speakers, including stereo speakers, Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio even provides unbelievable surround sound over normal headphones!"
That's what I was saying... it's not entirely 100% true, but it does effect, the cpu changed the modulation, it kinda makes the bass sound lower frequency and the highs sound very high.
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Visual example for a comparable concept of loosing details in a block of data, no matter it being an image, a sound clip, or even text, for what it matters.
Starting only with the image on the right, do you think you can precisely take back any detail (even 1 pixel) of the original image on the left? You can't, because you just don't have the data. You can even fake or do a process called pixel binning to simulate a more accurate representation, but it's where all it ends. You can fake a wider representation of a sound clip but it will sound for what it is, a distort rendition in comparison to the original.
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.wiley.com%2FLux%2F83%2F315283.image0.jpg&hash=6b2997f85e725c7966cf8d6bff540352)
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*EDIT* Koden made a point that I tried making earlier but his execution was better.
Of course Creative is saying that. They want to sell more! The question is, why are you listening to MP3's in the first place? FLAC or GTFO. As for hating Sony speakers, I don't think they've ever made anything good in speakers but you can't rate modern stuff. Same for JBL. No manufacturer makes them like they used to.
Car audio doesn't count either as most people there just want bass and nothing else. Not to mention all the reflections inside a car and the ambient noise when driving, it's far from ideal for listening.
Vintage Sony amps are fantastic if you ever have the chance to listen to one.
As far as modern materials in speakers, I don't know what the advantages are but I do know that modern speakers don't sound as good as vintage ones. It's a fact. It's why 40 year old speakers cost so much. A lot of the JBL speakers from back then were built without a budget. Meaning, the best they could possibly make. What manufacturer does that now? It's all about Made in China at a low budget. I challenge you to try and find a modern speaker that's made in the USA, not just assembled in the USA with Chinese components.
Why would you crank headphones that high on a receiver? That's just abuse.
If you ever have the chance, try a real stereo setup. None of this multichannel crap. Somehow get a hold of some 3-way vintage speakers and an amplifier capable of driving them properly. I KNOW for a fact that your Logitech system is highly lacking mids. Those little satelite speakers are fine for highs and the subwoofer puts out bloated lows but you're not getting mids from anywhere. I know, I had a Logitech setup and it's absolutely night and day difference between it and a real speaker & amplifier setup.
I had a HUGE 5.1 Dell setup where the amp/subwoofer was larger and heavier than a desktop computer:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2FDSC05076.JPG&hash=248ca3fed257ec2716c7b50763d32d9e)
I hated it, even after using it for a week trying to get used to it and tweaking it. I was using my X-Fi card at the time too. It was way too loud and those satelite speakers just can't output a decent dynamic range at all. When you have good speakers, you don't need a subwoofer. They're really only for multichannel home theater enthusiasts that need the big boom and BIC makes some pretty good subwoofers for that purpose.
I'm really not trying to sound all high and mighty and that MY WAY IS THE BEST WAY. I'm just simply talking from experience. I've had a lot of those "gamer" components and I don't have any of them anymore. I've reached a point where I'm 100% happy with my audio setup.
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Fcomputer%2Fv9%2FDSCF0056.JPG&hash=ab918b32a46df3bd64b0b56be63670e1)
I hear details in music and games that I've never heard before. One minor silly example is how the M16 shot in AA echoes on for several seconds after you fire. I hear things with great clarity. Properly placed and angled speakers allow you to have an experience that I can only describe as up front and personal. You don't have to crank the volume to hear details, it's like the audio is being piped directly from the speakers into your brain. It doesn't sound like it's coming from any specific direction. That's the only way I can describe it.
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The question is, why are you listening to MP3's in the first place? FLAC or GTFO.
Meh, all of my music is mp3. I've heard FLAC files, and they do sound better, but it's not really worth it for the file size. Not to mention my Zune doesn't support FLAC files. I get no more enjoyment out of FLAC files than I do out of high quality MP3 files (320kbps) The difference is there, but I'm not going to waste a ton of space for a small quality increase. It's also all about convenience. My Zune doesn't support FLAC files, and even if it did, it wouldn't have enough room to hold my entire music collection. That is a big problem. And even if it did, I'm not willing to spend hundreds on headphones just to hear the quality increase FLAC brings. It doesn't make sense.
As for speakers, I don't know much about them. The only speakers I have is a Kicker ZK350 Zune dock and 4 new speakers I just bought for my car. 2 rear Rockford 6x9 speakers and 2 front Kenwood 6.5 speakers(old ones sounded like shit). No need for a subwoofer as I don't listen to anything that is supposed to be bass heavy. My speakers provide way more than enough bass. You can talk about how they aren't the best quality all you want, but they sound great to me and I didn't spend all that much money. I think the same thing applies to these computer sound cards. Sure they may not be the best like some claim, but I'm willing to bet they cost much less than the super high end amps and what not. It's all about value for your money.
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Meh, all of my music is mp3. I've heard FLAC files, and they do sound better, but it's not really worth it for the file size. Not to mention my Zune doesn't support FLAC files. I get no more enjoyment out of FLAC files than I do out of high quality MP3 files (320kbps) The difference is there, but I'm not going to waste a ton of space for a small quality increase. It's also all about convenience. My Zune doesn't support FLAC files, and even if it did, it wouldn't have enough room to hold my entire music collection. That is a big problem. And even if it did, I'm not willing to spend hundreds on headphones just to hear the quality increase FLAC brings. It doesn't make sense.
As for speakers, I don't know much about them. The only speakers I have is a Kicker ZK350 Zune dock and 4 new speakers I just bought for my car. 2 rear Rockford 6x9 speakers and 2 front Kenwood 6.5 speakers(old ones sounded like shit). No need for a subwoofer as I don't listen to anything that is supposed to be bass heavy. My speakers provide way more than enough bass. You can talk about how they aren't the best quality all you want, but they sound great to me and I didn't spend all that much money. I think the same thing applies to these computer sound cards. Sure they may not be the best like some claim, but I'm willing to bet they cost much less than the super high end amps and what not. It's all about value for your money.
It's just a matter of sound quality across the line from the source to the output peripheral of choice, if you have something that can render out a Flac in a faithful way, then you would notice the difference, otherwise you wouldn't notice a huge difference between that and a 160hz sampled mp3.
On the other hand it also matters what kind of music you listen of course.
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It's just a matter of sound quality across the line from the source to the output peripheral of choice, if you have something that can render out a Flac in a faithful way, then you would notice the difference, otherwise you wouldn't notice a huge difference between that and a 160hz sampled mp3.
On the other hand it also matters what kind of music you listen of course.
Yeah, that's kinda my point. I don't plan on buy a sound card or amp and an expensive pair of headphones just to enjoy FLAC files. It's not worth it for the price I would have to pay.
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I have some 320KBs MP3's too. I just try to get FLAC whenever possible. MP3 is necessary for portable devices, I have 128KBs on my phone but only because there's no difference due to the DAC/headphone amp being utter shit.
But on your desktop or laptop, there's no reason not to have FLAC. I have some FLAC songs that are 100MB each :)
Anyway, I brought it up for Guily who seems to be interested in quality yet listens to MP3's.
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FLAC pulls the data off the CD perfectly. FLAC = CD quality. MP3 is only about 1/3 the bitrate of normal FLAC but it's done in a way that makes it seem good.
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and all my stuff gets put on my ipod too, along with photos of my penis. mp3 ftw. i'll use flac after I get this in a few weeks time.
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=211&products_id=17422
Are you trying to set the record for placing genitalia related terms in every possible (unrelated) statement or what?
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and all my stuff gets put on my ipod too, along with photos of my penis. mp3 ftw. i'll use flac after I get this in a few weeks time.
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=211&products_id=17422
There's better for less $$. http://audio-gd.com
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There's also the DAC from maverick audio. I only know of this because of Spanky.
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FLAC pulls the data off the CD perfectly. FLAC = CD quality. MP3 is only about 1/3 the bitrate of normal FLAC but it's done in a way that makes it seem good.
I don't like FLAC. Only have nirvana discography in FLAC, and i think it takes like 2GB or some crap...
And actually sometimes I even prefer to encode my music as .mp3 128kbs at 48hz, than having it at higher rate samples like 300 and something...
About the speakers, well I do prefer quality of nowadays. While an expensive system from the 80's are just normal speakers... An expensive system nowadays comes with like 5 or even more different speakers as a single speaker in a vintage WOOD and accomplished by a powerfull sub. So 5 different speakers, means each one will reproduce only a certain frequency, so that the speakers don't have to lose all their power trying to reproduce every frequency like old systems...
Also nowadays you have special coil cases wich inside has like a labyrinth (if that's how you say it)... Nowadays some expensive ones uses titanium which is a pretty special material also neodymium which is pretty rare.
Visual example for a comparable concept of loosing details in a block of data, no matter it being an image, a sound clip, or even text, for what it matters.
Starting only with the image on the right, do you think you can precisely take back any detail (even 1 pixel) of the original image on the left? You can't, because you just don't have the data. You can even fake or do a process called pixel binning to simulate a more accurate representation, but it's where all it ends. You can fake a wider representation of a sound clip but it will sound for what it is, a distort rendition in comparison to the original.
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.wiley.com%2FLux%2F83%2F315283.image0.jpg&hash=6b2997f85e725c7966cf8d6bff540352)
Well it may not physically restore the quality, but what it does, is that the crappy compressed songs which are dead songs (sound that has only lower frequencies but poor mids and highs), are listened they way they used to be played before the compression or even have more bass and still with more mids and highs than the original...
ps: if it affects.... yes it does (somes like it, somes don't).
Vintage Sony amps are fantastic if you ever have the chance to listen to one.
As far as modern materials in speakers, I don't know what the advantages are but I do know that modern speakers don't sound as good as vintage ones. It's a fact. It's why 40 year old speakers cost so much. A lot of the JBL speakers from back then were built without a budget. Meaning, the best they could possibly make. What manufacturer does that now? It's all about Made in China at a low budget. I challenge you to try and find a modern speaker that's made in the USA, not just assembled in the USA with Chinese components.
Why would you crank headphones that high on a receiver? That's just abuse.
If you ever have the chance, try a real stereo setup. None of this multichannel crap. Somehow get a hold of some 3-way vintage speakers and an amplifier capable of driving them properly. I KNOW for a fact that your Logitech system is highly lacking mids. Those little satelite speakers are fine for highs and the subwoofer puts out bloated lows but you're not getting mids from anywhere. I know, I had a Logitech setup and it's absolutely night and day difference between it and a real speaker & amplifier setup.
I had a HUGE 5.1 Dell setup where the amp/subwoofer was larger and heavier than a desktop computer:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Faudio%2FDSC05076.JPG&hash=248ca3fed257ec2716c7b50763d32d9e)
I hated it, even after using it for a week trying to get used to it and tweaking it. I was using my X-Fi card at the time too. It was way too loud and those satelite speakers just can't output a decent dynamic range at all. When you have good speakers, you don't need a subwoofer. They're really only for multichannel home theater enthusiasts that need the big boom and BIC makes some pretty good subwoofers for that purpose.
I'm really not trying to sound all high and mighty and that MY WAY IS THE BEST WAY. I'm just simply talking from experience. I've had a lot of those "gamer" components and I don't have any of them anymore. I've reached a point where I'm 100% happy with my audio setup.
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F464376%2Fwebsite%2Fcomputer%2Fv9%2FDSCF0056.JPG&hash=ab918b32a46df3bd64b0b56be63670e1)
I hear details in music and games that I've never heard before. One minor silly example is how the M16 shot in AA echoes on for several seconds after you fire. I hear things with great clarity. Properly placed and angled speakers allow you to have an experience that I can only describe as up front and personal. You don't have to crank the volume to hear details, it's like the audio is being piped directly from the speakers into your brain. It doesn't sound like it's coming from any specific direction. That's the only way I can describe it.
Actually non of the old amplifiers are a match for any good amplifier of nowadays, everything is processed with special cpu's, better improved components (mosfets...3rd generation japanese condensers....).
I actually had a music table in my house for over a year that had like 20 500w professional outputs and two huge JBL 1000w RMS professional speakers, and I never heard any old system beating this one...
Specially you can put it on full volume with no source and you won't hear the bzzzzz crappy sound like old amplifiers...
ps: But I still prefer the sound of my logitech Z5500 digital to the more than 10K dollars amplifier I had here for one special reason... You can put the Z5500 at 40db and it will always sound like if you had a good amount of power like with the bigger speakers on higher volume... hint: (SUBWOOFER). And actually the logitech is not that bad on the mids, it's nothing good on the high frequencies, but I had the creative 2.1 special version I have wich have a very high frequency, and everything gets perfect.
ps2: And I prefer a billion times the sounds in the PC those days with a good sound card, using some true bad ass 50mm driver Headphones with neodymnium magnets, it's way more sound quality than you could ever have wanted...
Keep Cool
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I'm glad you believe what you do Guily. It leaves the quality products for the rest of us that enjoy them.
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I'm glad you believe what you do Guily. It leaves the quality products for the rest of us that enjoy them.
Read up the rest of my post...
I know about the budget and the fact that almost everything nowadays is made in china... but that doesn't count on the expensive vintage newer technology models, there are lot's built out of china with specialized people...
And then old amps are awesome to...... kill fuses and specially condensers (it uses old components which are no match against our new materials).
Nowadays there are some even special capacitors which can solder things just by using them and have a even bigger energy density than even what we though it was possible for their size. You can see them on youtube that ppl bought for experiences...
And about car amplifier, piooner is one of the best. Their new best amplifier (_I think it's 1000w) they claim it doesn't heat up and have the highest efficiency I ever seen, it's almost 100% (they can be lying, or have really used some crazy ass components).
Oh and my father's amp I think it's something like this:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg47.xooimage.com%2Ffiles%2Fa%2Fe%2Fb%2Fdscf2405-223be61.jpg&hash=69ec187b5774032cb7856f5230aee916)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Faudiozavar.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F10%2Fp1170242.jpg&hash=4a743c711d81472d5b3e90166ce36f5f)
And the speakers I tested on my logitech was something like this:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F-bbZ_z_5zMGY%2FT32VtnbnL_I%2FAAAAAAAACws%2F08IZ-ESYifk%2Fs1600%2FDSC04768.JPG&hash=7e2df29097416f4176601b5ace4db878)
But I wanted to test my bro's professional speakers in the Z5500, but they have that crap professional input >:(.
ps: Just like in PC nowadays you can buy +gold pcu's which have more than 90% of energy efficency (WHY? because of new improved components)...
Keep Cool
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Here's my little rant on my opinion of audio tech globalization.
Oh btw in Guily's post, the woofers in those speakers look like a pair from Aurum Cantus.
The MP3 compression scheme adds a special type of high shelving filter to reduces the range of higher frequencies. Higher frequencies (that is frequencies above approx. 15,000 in most MP3 cases) impact the size of a file much more than lower frequencies. A single hi-hat can span between 15,000 and 20,000 hertz. While a bass note can literally be one sine wave. In the case of bass guitars, a single note has harmonics up to about 1,000 hertz (because you usually hear a quick pluck while the rest of the note is bass harmonics below 500 hertz in most cases). The important thing to note here is that because the way music/instruments is/are, there is much more high frequency information than low frequency information quantitatively. So for MP3's, high frequency information is lost to lower file size.
Okay cool, but then you can boost high frequencies to get it back just like creative does right? LOL NOPE. The MP3 codec has been in development for years to figure out the perfect filter to compress music so that humans have a hard time distinguishing between the original and compressed copies. It is a very complex formula and it's quite amazing how we can store music digitally at such low file sizes and still have acceptable quality. 128kbps is not acceptable quality depending on the material. But a variable bit rate V0 file is quite excellent quality and many will not be able to tell the difference. 320kbps is unnecessary between file size and performance. If you're gonna do a 320, you might as well have it in FLAC. A 320kbps file is the best example of the misleading "bigger is better" belief. Once you at the FLAC level you really only benefit from it by having very expensive speakers. There is the belief that frequencies above 20,000 affect the perception of sound even if we can't hear it. I agree, but this is only gonna be useful and valid for you if you're listening to music created by live instruments in an expensive studio and listening with 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.
These days nobody really pops in a tune, mixes some drinks, and listens to it. We're all mostly less than 3 feet from our computers listening through some cheap chinese/japanese sweat shop factory trash while companies will tell us, "HEY THIS IS THE BEST QUALITY BROOO". These days, our cheap equipment and cheap music is enough for us and thats perfectly okay. But it's nice to have that classic feel of live instruments recorded in a truly pro studio listening through some excellently engineered speakers at a distance with all the dynamics and everything.
And for the record, if you really wanted quality audio, it would come from a company you never heard of that never advertises because it caters to an elite level that doesn't need to be told what is the best. There's nothing hipster about that statement.
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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...
Keep Cool
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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...
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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:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage.shutterstock.com%2Fdisplay_pic_with_logo%2F573649%2F573649%2C1291471135%2C1%2Fstock-photo-sound-mixer-low-angle-shot-with-shallow-dof-useful-for-various-music-and-sound-themes-66499972.jpg&hash=10472d8968b18897e2a0ac0a9f43b9dd)
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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In music is just the same, and barely in everything...I had studio quality system for more than a year here in my house off (only tested one time).
Something like this:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage.shutterstock.com%2Fdisplay_pic_with_logo%2F573649%2F573649%2C1291471135%2C1%2Fstock-photo-sound-mixer-low-angle-shot-with-shallow-dof-useful-for-various-music-and-sound-themes-66499972.jpg&hash=10472d8968b18897e2a0ac0a9f43b9dd)
Those are for studios, production, etc. You can find that in any music or news studio. That's not for home listening. You can use them for home listening but that wouldn't make sense because those go in carpeted and sealed environments. The environment is as important as the speakers. They sound fine and everything but are for reproducing something different.
Yeah they will sound better than the Z5500 and I would take them over the Z5500, but it would still bother me that it is studio equipment lol.
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Here's some epic quality for you guily:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CewacsP6TSY[/youtube]
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I wonder if those have crossovers at all. And whether they are passive or active. I'm not a great speaker designer but I'd think a passive crossover for those things would be a nightmare to make especially since you have multiple series and parallel things going on.
Here's some high quality speakers for realsies:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lautsprechershop.de%2Fhifi%2Fimages%2Fbk208.jpg&hash=8e467a19ed49a13c695aba59904513e0)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lautsprechershop.de%2Fhifi%2Fimages%2Ftopas.jpg&hash=d2659537d41c6a6f626c270eb0662c59)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lautsprechershop.de%2Fhifi%2Fimages%2Fvmaxx.jpg&hash=98a2a664a8905972505eec9464d8b081)
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lautsprechershop.de%2Fhifi%2Fimages%2Fjericho08ex.jpg&hash=ad667d8dea0a0b83327352112fcea4e3)
And here's a crazy one. Spherical wave horn on top, regular horn on the bottom.
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lautsprechershop.de%2Fhifi%2Fimages%2Fbk201kh.jpg&hash=af3d5779903cf6e8fe068843e530cf59)
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headset + eq = cheeter
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headset + eq = cheeter
Studio + equalizer cheater then...
Best sound creater use equalizer so they are noobs too... all professionals use equalizer so they are noobs too...
I always use the equalizer. I just don't use it with the headphones (because i just don't care, nowadays I never really enjoy music trough the headphones, it must be the all house shaking or nothing), but there are still tons of musics that need equalization to sound crystal clear. Well maybe If I had one of the newer creative soundcards, I wouldn't need to equalize antything...
On the laptop 4 example I increase all the low frequencies and decrease the higher ones, because the speakers are so damn crappy and are very high frequency, but if I wanna make it loud to someone far can listen I can increase the higher frequencies and decrease the low to low-mid ones...
And when I connect the speakers, I always equalize it a lot, and depending on the music I can be equalizing all day long :(
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About older being better than newer is just a lie... People say the same thing about everything, about cars, about bikes, motorbikes, airguns... abouit really almost anything, even about computers...
Well I remember my father's pentium 1 looked BAD cost a lot, quality = 0, git screwed in like 3 years... I remember the old P3 800mhz, which was a top of the line PC back then which cost around 500 contos (~2500€ ~3275 US$), it got screwed 2 years later... And the build quality YACK, just looked like a nude hadrware and a normal crappy bad looking case.
Then I bought my first PC just 4 me, the P4 3.6ghz, back in this time (like 2004 or so), computers had lot better quality already, the computer lasted until like 2008, but I broke lot's of hardware too, then I had my bro's AMD from 2006... And now in 2011 I bought the I7 2600k, GTX570, high efficiency psu from corsair 80+gold certified, and Asus saberthooth, and some crazy ass rams, all for like 1600€. The built quality has improved so damn much over years, damn I could only dream on having this built quality when my father paid 2500€ for the pentium 3 that was one top of the line computer that almost none had, but it just looked like any pentium I old pc that lot's of ppl had in their homes...
Nowadays 4 example in pc's, they use lot more aliminium and copper, lot more components, and every of them are improved ones. My motherboard 4 example is the first to be all covered with a shield, it's military certified, comes with a document signed by ASUS with the tests they make, they even test the condensers on salt+water, and they ensure they are the best anti-rust materials, and I really enjoy that gold document signed by them about the quality...
In the amplifiers and speaker sound improvements is just the same. There are all kinds of inventors, they made new kind of scheme designs other than the empty wood boxes from the 80's, the schemes of the hardware are tons more complex. And for last, if u get any schematics paper of an old good amplifier and you recreate it with modern equivalent materials, actually you get to a point that you will realize it will be more efficient, consume less, heat less, have a cleaner amplification and probably even more power without burning it...
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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.
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Here's my little rant on my opinion of audio tech globalization.
Oh btw in Guily's post, the woofers in those speakers look like a pair from Aurum Cantus.
The MP3 compression scheme adds a special type of high shelving filter to reduces the range of higher frequencies. Higher frequencies (that is frequencies above approx. 15,000 in most MP3 cases) impact the size of a file much more than lower frequencies. A single hi-hat can span between 15,000 and 20,000 hertz. While a bass note can literally be one sine wave. In the case of bass guitars, a single note has harmonics up to about 1,000 hertz (because you usually hear a quick pluck while the rest of the note is bass harmonics below 500 hertz in most cases). The important thing to note here is that because the way music/instruments is/are, there is much more high frequency information than low frequency information quantitatively. So for MP3's, high frequency information is lost to lower file size.
Okay cool, but then you can boost high frequencies to get it back just like creative does right? LOL NOPE. The MP3 codec has been in development for years to figure out the perfect filter to compress music so that humans have a hard time distinguishing between the original and compressed copies. It is a very complex formula and it's quite amazing how we can store music digitally at such low file sizes and still have acceptable quality. 128kbps is not acceptable quality depending on the material. But a variable bit rate V0 file is quite excellent quality and many will not be able to tell the difference. 320kbps is unnecessary between file size and performance. If you're gonna do a 320, you might as well have it in FLAC. A 320kbps file is the best example of the misleading "bigger is better" belief. Once you at the FLAC level you really only benefit from it by having very expensive speakers. There is the belief that frequencies above 20,000 affect the perception of sound even if we can't hear it. I agree, but this is only gonna be useful and valid for you if you're listening to music created by live instruments in an expensive studio and listening with 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.
These days nobody really pops in a tune, mixes some drinks, and listens to it. We're all mostly less than 3 feet from our computers listening through some cheap chinese/japanese sweat shop factory trash while companies will tell us, "HEY THIS IS THE BEST QUALITY BROOO". These days, our cheap equipment and cheap music is enough for us and thats perfectly okay. But it's nice to have that classic feel of live instruments recorded in a truly pro studio listening through some excellently engineered speakers at a distance with all the dynamics and everything.
And for the record, if you really wanted quality audio, it would come from a company you never heard of that never advertises because it caters to an elite level that doesn't need to be told what is the best. There's nothing hipster about that statement.
What are you the encyclopedia on sound? :P Well written post.
But on your desktop or laptop, there's no reason not to have FLAC. I have some FLAC songs that are 100MB each :)
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. :P Also, I don't have the sound equipment to enjoy FLAC any more than 320kbps mp3.
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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? :P 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. :P 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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Third world country?
My country didn't have McDonalds until 1998 (and having fast food is an indicator of the countries globalization and luxury), and computers weren't semi-standard until 2004. In the US, middle-class schools had a few computers starting in 1996 and they usually ran MS-DOS, no internet except for higher-class schools. My country didn't have the concept of a computer until about 2000. These days most young people in my country use their smart phones instead of computers. I don't need to explain why.
It's 2012, there is no reason people can't buy almost anything regardless of where they live. My country isn't third world anymore but things are available even if expensive. International shipping costs $100? Doesn't matter because you can buy it.
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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:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dolphinmusic.co.uk%2Fshop_image%2Fuploads%2FImage%2FJBL%2Fjbl_pair2.jpg&hash=af7753e80cc44df417b40249b7dc35f7)
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:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmembers.iinet.net.au%2F%7Epiotrlus%2Fonline%2Fimages%2Fjbl.jpg&hash=f2d8f0cb756f4850603f960deaef0efc)
(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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14U3kqLB7Cg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14U3kqLB7Cg)
(And it's not that yamaha keyboard, it's one with a blue touch lcd).
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Yeah lots of people use those for small parties or kareoke or whatever here. They're pretty good and easy to move around. Plus you can kick them hard and they still work.
A lot of keyboards and synthesizers have gotten really good recently. Nice things about them is you can tweak the sound really quickly and have good control over how it sounds. And you can do all the effects digitally which is nice. I have a Casio CTK-5000, it isn't a synthesizer or anything special. It's just a home keyboard, but it makes really nice organ sounds. Some of the guitars are okay, but guitars are easier to model now digitally.
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fprofile.ultimate-guitar.com%2Fprofile_mojo_data%2F7%2F3%2F5%2F8%2F735831%2Fpics%2F_c781833_image_0.jpg&hash=1699abfccbb4bccdfac6f7dfb1d6da87)
These are really good budget PA speakers: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=245-804
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parts-express.com%2Fimages%2Fitem_standard%2F245-804_s.jpg&hash=2b89355b49ccb3fb52253537d920577c)
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Yeah, they do look good. So you can finally agree with me, that you can still buy good and lot better quality sound systems nowadays... Even if they are considered expensive. Well in the 80's almost no one could afford any good sound system at all where I live. And nowadays you have lot's of cheap sound systems which are already pretty good.
Also check out the link of the video I posed in my last comment, that's an example that amplifying is not even the most important thing nowadays... Processing effects and digitalization are getting way more important. Even newer synthesizers can sound better than some real instruments while playing on a good sound system.
ps: That's what creative is also good in, they are bad in the amplification compared to professional audio, but they do were innovative on the sound effects (even though nowadays they aren't much important since in wind7 everyone uses openAL :o)...
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Yeah lots of people use those for small parties or kareoke or whatever here. They're pretty good and easy to move around. Plus you can kick them hard and they still work.
These are really good budget PA speakers: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=245-804
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parts-express.com%2Fimages%2Fitem_standard%2F245-804_s.jpg&hash=2b89355b49ccb3fb52253537d920577c)
Budget speaker, $108. Fuck that shit. :P
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I've given up this discussion since the notions are so absurd.
I will reply to one thing; Guily, your motherboard is not military certified. The manufacturer may claim it's military grade but that's purely a selling point. MSI did that for a while and they were they shittiest motherboards around. If you knew about electronics in the military, you would know that they are a hell of a lot more strict and do not accept consumer-grade electronics. I have heard they require thick gold traces instead of copper in the PCB's used in combat. I don't have proof for that but I would believe it. The average home computer isn't bouncing around in a hummer or taking heavy g-forces in a jet aircraft.
Guily, companies love you. You believe everything they say and fight for it without proof. You should be a used car salesman.
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http://www.genelec.com/ there u have ur quality speakers from finland of course :p
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LOL Killa you're funny. I would consider that a budget PA speaker. What else are you gonna buy for PA? It has to play loud and run for hours without destroying itself. In fact I would get rid of every other prefabricated PA speakers cheaper than this one because the chances are high that the cheap ones will work a few times or push out square waves.
Oh and I didn't mention you have to buy a power amplifier which is another $100 :)
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LOL Killa you're funny. I would consider that a budget PA speaker. What else are you gonna buy for PA? It has to play loud and run for hours without destroying itself. In fact I would get rid of every other prefabricated PA speakers cheaper than this one because the chances are high that the cheap ones will work a few times or push out square waves.
Oh and I didn't mention you have to buy a power amplifier which is another $100 :)
Oh I believe it, it is just that the words "budget" and $100 don't seem to go together in my head. :P
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Haha. You gotta stretch when it comes audio :P
I used to think the same way about budget and $100 not going together, and now I have that Technical Pro amplifier. Not that anything is bad with it, just that the stats are bogusly incorrect. Although it takes abuse so I can't complain too much about it.
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Well this is my bro long time ago on the old speakers and old amplyfier (can't see in the video).
But he uses that current yamaha synthesizer, that already cost a lot for our pockets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk_pTmVH4g4&feature=relmfu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk_pTmVH4g4&feature=relmfu)
We also have a CASIO old good synthesizer with built-in crappy speakers
Oh I believe it, it is just that the words "budget" and $100 don't seem to go together in my head. :P
Yeah, well they don't actually look bad, and horn type high frequency coils really improve a damn lot the quality of the speakers.
Actually for that price here in the 80's all you could get was a punch in your head and none speakers... so I don't see the problem here.
I've given up this discussion since the notions are so absurd.
I will reply to one thing; Guily, your motherboard is not military certified. The manufacturer may claim it's military grade but that's purely a selling point. MSI did that for a while and they were they shittiest motherboards around. If you knew about electronics in the military, you would know that they are a hell of a lot more strict and do not accept consumer-grade electronics. I have heard they require thick gold traces instead of copper in the PCB's used in combat. I don't have proof for that but I would believe it. The average home computer isn't bouncing around in a hummer or taking heavy g-forces in a jet aircraft.
Guily, companies love you. You believe everything they say and fight for it without proof. You should be a used car salesman.
I'm not the kind of guy to believe in things, and I'm the kind of guy that don't buy anything from here, I always check on the internet for better prices, and for choosing anything at all I can take days searching and searching unless they are things that I don't care much, like all my 2.1 speakers (2x 2.1 from creative + 2.1 from philips)...
About the military certificate, I do believe it's true, they could get processed for that if anyone would bother searching... But military certificated hardware doesn't mean it must be the ones for use in the combat, as none computar normal hardware is made for that, since a shake bam the gpu would break, or the rams would fail.... But when I went into the army here, they had a collection of good burned PSU's for show in the walls from their computers, they do have lot's of computers in the military schools and so...
And the tests they have there, I do believe they are real, even if not made by anything to do with the army. Because after all it uses the latest 3rd generation solid capacitors... all good components (not the best too, but nothing compared to old computers).
Also I like that this board is totally covered, so you can do whatever you want, and you won't be touching the components it self...And I believe all of their boards uses a low amount of gold (because I talked with guys that buy any used pc for very cheap, to break it all into pieces to remove the gold by newer processes).
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Hahaha I grew up hearing those synthesizers. I know a lot of people might not like how it sounds, but it's cool equipment. I see they sell a lot of PA stuff over where you live. It's the same thing in my country. PA's, synthesizers, and mixers. Amazing in a way.
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Hahaha I grew up hearing those synthesizers. I know a lot of people might not like how it sounds, but it's cool equipment. I see they sell a lot of PA stuff over where you live. It's the same thing in my country. PA's, synthesizers, and mixers. Amazing in a way.
Yep :D
Before I was born my father's had one casio very old one, it looks like a toy against the modern CASIO kinda pro from the 90's, and that was just a joke against this new modern yamaha...
Also in the 80's you could have had nothing like those new yamaha's with EFFECTS from other planet (it's all in one), they do have lot's of high quality components, but they also still cost way too much. My brother's yamaha cost like 500€ from germany and it's considered a crap for this modern days.
Roland has some bad ass moden models god damn (so much€€€), but they never lost quality, they always increase quality as long with the newer good amplifiers+speakers.
I also love the music box (or whatever you call it), wich you can 4 example connect the synthesizer to it and make pure electro house music :)
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OMG I LOVE THE MUSIC BOX.
Korg makes some excellent synthesizers too.
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*facepalm*
I'm out.
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*facepalm*
I'm out.
Haha... sry but you are the one who got it wrong...
I live in a village. And recently we made a RAVE here with a known international DJ, and we couldn't have the music too loud, because ppl from this village don't like parties like raves and so.... but we have lot's of young ppl...
We worked to getter with ppl with knowledge I believe that from a studio, and they made verything very professionally. They did a giant vinyl high quality impress with the logos, they took pictures, they advertized, they took care of the dj's...
And specially they brought special top of the line speakers that they had just bought for making raves, they cost thousands and thousands of euros, and they were directional speakers, so we made the rave for the side of the beach. It had lot's of huge speakers, and most were of a type I never saw on a rave, since they were some new state-of-art directional type of speakers, and the amps are of all modern professional type (but this guys for example are the only ones here that have those kind of expensive speakers around all the island), it also had lasers and all that kind of lights and shits on raves.
Actually I was in my house when they were testing at like 200meters from my house, and I barely could hear anything, but in there they really had very good quality.
Also if you don't know sound waves were even more comprehended since the 80's till nowadays. Even ur USA army has now a working weapon that works with sound, it's a special way of making sound that I still don't understand how they did it...
They kinda make a laser but instead of being a light it's sound, if you are on the sides or on the back you hear 0db completely, but in front it's so loud that on max volume can kill your hears and make you to feel pretty bad.
They were saying they were actually working for years and years trying to figure out all secrets of sound waves, and they made a way to make a laser for sound trough air that reaches i think that miles (if i'm remembering good).
ps: As those guys did discovered that, so many discoveries were made by the good speakers\amps builders, which get more complex and more crystal clear over time (just not the cheap ones made for a normal human being to just listen to something in the TV)... After the 80's for example, they discovered the bass reflex, new and different case designs inside to increase the quality... and the best speakers and amplifiers always come with all the discoveries together.
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Haha... sry but you are the one who got it wrong...
Where do you get your information? I'm talking purely from experience and knowledge I've learned through professional audio forums.
A discussion I had with someone whose opinion I respect and who also knows a LOT about high-end audio than I do, he's also been a DJ and has done studio mix recordings:
Nate: am i double facepalming for no reason? http://aao25.com/audio/what-makes-an-excellent-sound-card/
the guily6669 guy is just... *sigh*
someguy147: son I am proud.
you made great points nate
other dude is wack
Nate: so it's not my twisted sense of reality :)
did you read on into the other pages? he gets more crazy
talking about how modern speakers are better cuz they have titanium...
omg
OMG
he replied again
someguy147: i just hit second page
rofl
Nate: saying he prefers 128kbps 48hz mp3 to the original cd...
someguy147: titanium...
ROFL WHAT
NOOB
beyond noob
dude is diabolical.
LOL "GOOD MID TO HIGH END"
Nate: i'll tell ya
it feels good to at least have basic knowledge
unlike him
someguy147: true true
LOL this dude does NOT understand compression at all
he thinks it can be reversed...
Nate: he's got serious misinformation issues
seems to believe every word Creative spews
someguy147: yeah
also
that connector he linked is a pro-line neutrik
i work with this often
beautiful heavy duty things
them*
Nate: i've never actually seen one so i didn't comment on it
someguy147: chances are his "brother" is a DJ or something - just about all of the mid-high end loudspeakers made for live sound use them these days. occasionally 1/4 on older ones.
Nate: ah
makes sense
you should totally reply in that thread. i mean... if you have time, i would imagine it would take you a while to tell him what a fuckwit he is
someguy147: you're modded L19s look beautiful :)
Nate: :)
thanks :)
someguy147: he'd probably be blown away by like a cheap T-class amp off ebay and a similar external cheapo dac...
Nate: that's the funny thing
someguy147: realistically though - this guy will probably never heed our advice. we understand now that it takes real research, money and time to get to where we are.
Nate: he could sell his cheap logitech set and take that money and buy something better
someguy147: yeah
but hes probably unwilling to do the research
Nate: imo, that's great
leaves the dwindling supply of quality vintage gear to those of us that enjoy it
someguy147: this is possibly the funniest graph i've seen, like, ever: https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvdw3036nu1qfzx6so1_500.png
Nate: rofl
i skimmed that because i knew it was propaganda
just read "experience" on the x axis
something so subjective :D
someguy147: lololol
dudes trying to speculate on speaker magnets when he doesnt understand compression...
hilarious
give me a solid alnico anyday...
someguy147: LOL STILL READING THAT THREAD
look at that puny tecdhnics!
technics!
I floss with that kind of gear...
Nate: rofl
someguy147: man this dude talks A LOT OF CRAP
he simply has no idea what hes talking about whatsoever
After the 80's for example, they discovered the bass reflex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_reflex
Right, exactly what early 70's JBL speakers had. You're talking pure shit.
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Spanky's having some fun. The dude is clearly from an area where they don't have knowledge about the hi-fi. His ideas are pretty common of a lot of the people from over there. You can say it's an annoying sense of pride. Also something very common of those people.
Oh here's a fun fact. At my church are quite a lot of people that have that same thinking. There's a guy who did some sound system for the church's basement who thinks he's quite the stuff. I can't even have a good discussion with this dude because it's annoying listening to his bloated statements. Listening to him is like looking at car audio specs claiming 5000watts of peak power written in bright red and other stupid shit. So the dude installs the lowest quality Gemini speakers that are at the same level as Pyle. Your pro audio buddy will know what I'm talking about. The dude claims he did so many "pro" installations and yada yada. Well, to make the story short, the system sounds terrible. There used to be some real nice vintage Zeniths and some ancient power amp. Those sounded great, but I wouldn't be surprised if some incompetent people hooked up stuff wrong when doing performances and blew something. Because I still don't know why the dude made the new sound installation.
Drop them in a situation where they are forever intimidated by intelligent people and they will change.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_reflex
Right, exactly what early 70's JBL speakers had. You're talking pure shit.
Yeah I couldn't remember that it was on the early 70's, but I knew they already had that bass reflex port, what I was saying is that all kinds of technology they invented to get better sounds, are always used in any kind of audio system, no matter if it has crap components or good components.
Listening to him is like looking at car audio specs claiming 5000watts of peak power written in bright red and other stupid shit. So the dude installs the lowest quality Gemini speakers that are at the same level as Pyle. Your pro audio buddy will know what I'm talking about. The dude claims he did so many "pro" installations and yada yada. Well, to make the story short, the system sounds terrible. There used to be some real nice vintage Zeniths and some ancient power amp. Those sounded great, but I wouldn't be surprised if some incompetent people hooked up stuff wrong when doing performances and blew something. Because I still don't know why the dude made the new sound installation.
Drop them in a situation where they are forever intimidated by intelligent people and they will change.
Well actually I don't care about car audio, never said they were top quality, they are made to have dirty power...
What I was saying is high fidelity speakers from nowadays are higher fidelity than the ones from the 80's, specially they all test them in computers, and a very very low margin of error, the speakers are canceled (that's how it works on current high quality models).
And I can say the same to all of you, can't discuss anything ether.
On forums all you can get from all the pros is:
-> Old bikes are better and more reliable;
-> Old cars are lot better;
-> Old airguns used to shoot better;
-> Old computers used to have better construction and would not break in a few time.
Well my answer to all of them is wrong, wrong, wrong. Newer good bikes are the top on reliability, have lot more efficiency, less dirty, more economics, same for the cars, and 60hp nowadays is lot different than a 60hp (on the cars, not bikes of 2strokes vs 4 strokes) from way back. Old airguns? Then they don't know airguns that kill huge boars.
Always had computers for a long time, all of them got broken very fast, and in fact the one that lasted long was from 2006, always 24\7 on until 2010. And what I used to pay for an old pc, it had pretty bad components, not much copper used at all, crappy heatsinks... Nowadays I have a 3slot GPU, lot's and lot's of aluminium, lot's of copper, freakin awesome build quality and very solid...
ps: Same goes with the sound, newer high fidelity amplifiers are ensured to make no distortions or noise in the signals, some you can put lot's of wattage power and near max volume and omg the speakers sound like they are off, nothing of noise... WHATEVER
Where do you get your information? I'm talking purely from experience and knowledge I've learned through professional audio forums.
As I said creative don't actually reverse the compression, but what they do affects the music and in my opinion for better even if they are far away from high fidelity, I always loved their effects EAX...
About the speakers, there's a club here which is the most known of the entire island, they organize lot's of raves too with international dj's like carl cox and so... They use high fidelity speakers in their club, it's not to make loud, but to have high quality. But I still prefered a billion times when they even added some dirty power of a crazy HUGE subwoofer that they now have.
I also prefer home cinema and newer technology systems to the so called high fidelity full range ones from the studio. Y? Well because instead of having a coil that loses all it's power trying to reproduce all the frequencies, I prefer having lot's of speakers, each reproducing a certain frequency only and then with the addition of a subwoofer (+woofer 4 punch).
And my other reason is the high-fidelity speakers at very low volumes like 20db, 30db, don't sound powerfull, while with a subwoofer even at the lowest volume it make you think you still are hearing the punch and shake of the high fidelity speakers on high volume.
And since you guys are all sound engineers, go pick some amplifier schematics from one of the best amplifiers of the 80's or whatever... Buy the original, and remake it only using our top components of nowadays (equivalent ones), like solid capacitors, a thicker board with lot more conductivity, modern copper heatsink design with a fan.... modern high quality mosfet's or any other type of amp u wanna use...
And then come here and tell me which one has more noise in the sound waves, which one consume more, and which one heat more and finally the mix of all, which one has more efficiency? (yeah, think on that, and remember even if most companies just want money, there's always some who still enjoy making high quality products).
An example of a "not bad" hi-fi amplifier is this:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbrain.pan.e-merchant.com%2F1%2F6%2F01660161%2Fl_01660161.jpg&hash=cbf031071b0a83cdf2b706104e3418d9)
It's only 2 outputs and 180w of power, but this thing cost around 500€ (~658$). Why it cost so much for such low power and options? Well because it's construction is built the old way, but with good modern components, and this is not something near studio quality, but you can't say we don't have quality nowadays.
You can't compare this 500€ amp with only 180w to a cheap 1000w amplifier that cost 100€... What is good still cost a lot, like in the 80's, but back then you didn't have much cheap systems to buy.
ps: this is my opinion, so if you don't like it, I don't care, go buy your vintage speakers from the 80's or whatever you wanna buy, and I will be very happy with the modern high fidelity amplifiers.
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8 hours at work with no chance to look over the forum and i lose all the fun :( Guily honestly, we're at the
6th 7th page and you still claim the same arguments you were claiming at page 1. With no knowledge to back them.
It was worthy to read through for the tech enlightenment posts by Blue anyway.
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IT SOUNDS BETTER TO ME SO IT IS BETTER. That is his argument.
Is that not all that matters though? Sure he can be spewing a bunch of misinformation all day, but in the end, the only thing that matters is how you like it, not how others like it.
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Killaman is somewhat right. It's the spewing misinformation bit that's not acceptable. There are opinions and then there is misinformation which is passing off inexperienced opinions as fact.
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IT SOUNDS BETTER TO ME SO IT IS BETTER. That is his argument. You arent going to convince him otherwise. He has been trained to listen and use buzz words and you can see it throughout his posts. The fact that he mainly listens to dance music indicates that he prefers loudness over quality although he will argue otherwise.
Well I never talked about loudness. DB vs quality is 2 different things...
And since I'm the one that uses the argument "if it sound better to me it's the best".
Then GO BUY A OSCILLOSCOPE AND MEASURE THE NOISE IN THE SIGNAL OF 80'S HIGH FIDELITY SYSTEMS AGAINST MODERN HIGH QUALITY HIGH FIDELITY SYSTEMS (And no I'm not talking about car audio, creative, logitech, or whatever you think I say it's the best... I'm talking about true full range high fidelity low latency systems which are at more than 90% of efficiency).
Or better go compare old resistances against newer ones... Go compare old capacitors against newer solid 3rd generation japanese capacitors... Go compare low use of copper to 3layers of copper in some hardware boards...
ps: Well whatever. Nowadays if you have money you can built whatever you want. But no matter what, even if you told any good manufacturer to make a 1 billion dollars sound system, you will still keep saying the 80's quality is still better, and even if all the connections of the board inside were all made from gold, with the very best special materials we have nowadays you will keep saying the 80's sound systems are better.. WELL WHATEVA! (Go buy them, cause I don't care, I will only laugh when the crappy capacitors make BOOM!).
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you will still keep saying the 80's quality is still better, and even if all the connections of the board inside were all made from gold, with the very best special materials we have nowadays you will keep saying the 80's sound systems are better.. WELL WHATEVA! (Go buy them, cause I don't care, I will only laugh when the crappy capacitors make BOOM!).
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Anyone that knows about vintage audio also knows that capacitors need to be replaced after 15-20 years. Which is why people re-do the crossover circuits in vintage speakers with modern components that have better tolerances and specs. The values stay the same though, as that's what the engineers specified. Same for vintage amplifiers.
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15-20 years... only maybe in your hands. I would blow them in a year...
Nothing that used old capacitors got alive that much time in my hands...
My father's old KEF speakers which were pretty cool, are all screwed, it's better to buy a new coil than fixing them, also they are so old, that the magnets already lost some of it's power, just like the ones JBL you have. But you say newer are bad, well I loved the professional JBL 1000W RMS 2-way speakers I had, I bet the quality is like 10x better than ur's.
All the components are screwed cause I listened to Slipknot at full power, that thing was awesome until they started getting hot, and now 10 minutes on high volume the speakers start to blink a red light, until it stop making sound...
And the technics class A amplifier is fucked too... All those old good quality systems can't be used to kick hard like modern speakers 24/7...
At least nowadays even the crappy speakers (with lot less quality than vantage 80's speakers) last longer. Even my logitech crappy Z5500 go beyond their full capabilities for all day long, and they are still punching. For not talking about the my 2.1 super crap creative ones which I increase a lot the outputs in a pre-amp, that the speakers even go beyond their power, there's so many distortions, the amplification dies, but it always come back, they don't wanna die on me :o.
And newer subwoofer have a crazy excursion, after all they make your house to go down into pieces.
I love subwoofers even if they are way out of the so called high fidelity speakers, which I don't even care about them.
ps: Now talking about high fidelity expensive speakers of nowadays, they are still build like the old way, but use better materials...
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15-20 years... only maybe in your hands. I would blow them in a year...
If you're blowing capacitors that fast, there is something wrong with your amplifier or speaker connections. Not to mention, caps don't fail at the 15 year point, they just don't perform like they did when they were new. Perhaps you're just abusing your equipment. You seem to talk about blasting at full volume and huge excursions. Again, I'm glad you think vintage sucks because it would be a real shame to see you abuse a functional piece of art and history.
You don't buy new coils for speakers, that's not a wearable item unless the foam surrounds are installed improperly which would cause the cone to move in a slightly diagonal direction and make it rub the coil enough to remove the coating then you would get a short and blow your amp. Your speaker would be the least of your concerns then. The only wearable items on drivers are the foam surrounds and the spider. I have heard of magnets losing their power but NEVER in speakers. How did you measure the magnetic field and determine that it lost some of it's power?
All of your points are laughable.
I found a thread on a respected forum and went through a few pages and it helped me think of what I've been trying to articulate this whole time...
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=436514
Quality vintage equipment is fantastic. I don't have high end equipment, merely middle of the road stuff but guess what, it's worth less than $700 for my whole setup. It's fantastic sound and it's the best I've come across with listening to many receivers, speakers and DAC's. I have only $300 invested in my current setup and I've reached a point where I'm 100% happy. I don't feel like there's anything lacking. There's no sibilance or bloating, everything is crisp and the soundstage is fantastic, the sounds feel like they're surrounding me.
Compared to the stuff that's made today, it would take thousands of dollars to get the same quality. Not to mention, now that I've refurbished these speakers and don't abuse them, I should get 20 years out of them before I have to put any money back into them. $300-$500 receivers made these days die quite often within 5 years. I have an Onkyo receiver (yet another company that produced halfway decent stuff in Japan) that turns on and dies in 30 seconds. Even under warranty, they're not worth repairing. There is so much more value and soul in vintage electronics and even after you pay to get them repaired, they beat modern equilivants that are worth several times what you paid.
Contrary to what you believe, CPU processing doesn't help audio. The best anything can do is transfer the audio without altering it. No amount of software can re-add detail that was lost with MP3 compression. There is only 1 exception to processing and that's reclocking chips for digital signals to reduce jitter and make sure the digital signal is passed bit-perfect. But, it does not modify the analog signal itself, it just cleans the digital signal. The less components (capacitors, resistors, etc.) the analog signal has to go through, the better. It's fact.
But, even with all of this information, you'll still think you're right and all the avid vintage collectors in the world are wrong. I guess all those small 1-man shops that repair Marantz and McIntosh equipment are just there to steal your money while stores like Best Buy sell the best equipment there is. ::)
If you won't listen to me, do some reading;
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=575067
http://www.head-fi.org/t/593050/the-nameless-guide-to-pc-gaming-audio-with-binaural-headphone-surround-sound
http://www.head-fi.org/t/552257/calling-all-vintage-speaker-owners
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Well spanky any kind of magnet made by humans lose their power everytime... Only rare materials on earth like the powerful neodymnium never lose their magnet field.
Neodymnium based drivers with a good build, are always the best you can get. Nowadays all expensive headphones use neodymnium.
I bought a little neodymnium magnet, and they are freakin powerfull, two little pieces with like 1cm you almost can't separate them. I have seen one little piece in youtube that could lift more than 13kg.
And about the speakers, well they would have last 100 years in my father's hands listening at 3\10 volume and only musics with no much frequencies at play... Now go play something powerful near max full day, I bet that thing's gonna smoke at the end of the night LOL. I prefer a lot a modern modular amp, they will kick hard, and have tons of quality. And together with a good HARD driver, and a custom made case...
Specially I like the coils that are all metallic like titanium, 0 distortions, good fidelity and the metallic punch if well build (though a good one is expensive).
ps: I have lot's of magnets here with lot's of years that I took from old engines, and now they are very very weak, not like they used to be years ago. And low magnets would mean your fidelity is all gone, no more full power.
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Tell me Guily, why are the magnets in my 40 year old beat to hell rototiller still functioning perfectly to provide a strong spark? Extreme heat and dust in the summer plus negative freezing temps in the winter. 40 years old and I've not done any work on the ignition circuit and it doesn't look like anybody else has either. Now, how is it that a professionally designed speaker in a climate controlled environment lose so much power according to you?
I still don't understand why you would abuse your audio equipment to the point of permanent damage. I for one value the money and time I've put into my setup and I also happen to value my ears. I guess you don't? It must be nice to have copious amounts of disposable money and replaceable ears.
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Well my father's speakers also have lot's of years and still sound good even though one speaker doesn't take much power now or it stops playing LOL...
But if you would measure it's magnetic field, it's not what it used to be, and if you had an oscilloscope, and what you would measure will not be 100% the same as they were originally and the same to the sound quality wich you may not noticed, but under the right equipment to measure the frequencies, they will not also be the same...
ps: also over the years the resistance of the speakers will surely slightly change, you can test them with a multimeter, I haven't done that test in my father's speakers, but I did it in one creative subwoofer, but it really had what the manufacturer rated...
what made me laugh was reading
Well I'm not surprised since u laugh at everything...
And yeah punch are what the mid-low frequencies do. High fidelity sound don't reproduce much of the lower frequencies, they care more with the mid-low and the higher ones, they have no distortions, and sound pretty damn clear. And actually if you listen to a good fidelity drivers made all of metal without dust cape's, you realize they have a very huge kinda metallic punch, they sound pretty damn crystal clear (and again I'm not talking about those 100€ titanium car speakers, I'm talking about those made for studios that a single one cost 500€...1000€ and aren't even much powerful on wattage, and lot's are still hand-build).
And I'm still in my opinion... Good hand built speakers and amps of high fidelity are still made and they are better than ever, they just are very expensive. That makes almost everyone to have a no fidelity to mid fidelity sound systems because it's what most of us can acquire, just like in the 80's almost no one here had a sound system, they usually had crappy radios...
Also things not possible in the 80's was having good quality in very low speakers, which nowadays you still get a lot of decent sound quality in some sound systems even with speakers that are only a few cm, like 4cm (even though they are no fidelity, they sound pretty damn good).
An example is the X-mini II, I have it, it's a damn small speaker, and that shit actually sound pretty damn good, everyone get's impressed with it, also more impressive is the 8hours of sound play on it's tiny battery.
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But the question is, did YOU measure it? Do YOU have proof that the drivers lost magnetism?
You don't seem to have any proof to back up your statements.
As for the resistance changing, that's either old components in the crossover (again, anybody that knows quality speakers will know to upgrade/overhaul vintage speaker crossovers) or shorts developing in the coil from abuse.
That X Mini you mentioned, it falls in the same category as laptops. Portability comes first, performance is not a priority. People that search for speakers like that generally want them as loud as possible without any care for quality/performance. It is impossible to make portable speakers that sound as good as full-size ones, it's physics.
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But the question is, did YOU measure it? Do YOU have proof that the drivers lost magnetism?
You don't seem to have any proof to back up your statements.
As for the resistance changing, that's either old components in the crossover (again, anybody that knows quality speakers will know to upgrade/overhaul vintage speaker crossovers) or shorts developing in the coil from abuse.
That X Mini you mentioned, it falls in the same category as laptops. Portability comes first, performance is not a priority. People that search for speakers like that generally want them as loud as possible without any care for quality/performance. It is impossible to make portable speakers that sound as good as full-size ones, it's physics.
About my measuring tests it's easy... As I said I have really lot's and lot's of magnets from old engines... They are very little magnets (have little from from speakers too), which I have been saving over the years.
But I can clearly, clearly see that they lost almost all their magnetic power, now they don't lift much weight like they used to. They are little pieces, so you won't probably notice much the power of magnet lost in a speaker because it has a huge magnet and since it's huge you will always note a good magnet power field, but I'm 110% sure they aren't the same as they used to be...
About fixing the old speakers, well, the membrane get's screwed over years (you will use a modern one, which is crappy since nowadays you claim we have no quality)... Then the spiders or whatever u call it, which is what makes it shake to a certain place only, get way too soft over years, that's probably the hearth of the driver, so you will put a modern one, then you will make them sound like a crap since you say the materials nowadays are worst... (why would you buy an old coil which you only like the older ones, and then have it half old, half modern?).
And about the XMINI, your damn wrong. They aren't much louder than the speakers I have in this laptop, but they sound just like if I had a Wi-Fi kind of sound... They really reproduce the lower frequencies pretty good, hell even lower than the hi-fi systems, they really even shake like a damn subwoofer. I recently bought it, and now I have 5 guys always pissing me of to buy more from the internet, because they want it too.
And the why those little speakers are loud enough and with good quality, much is their magnets. I bet they use neodymnium, because I had other portable speakers like X-mini, but from a crappy brand, that had a very bad amplifier that got burned in 5 minutes. I removed everything, and the magnet inside was neodymnium, The screwdriver got glued to the metal around that magnet, it looks like you glue them, you have to make a lot of strength to take it out.
And it was just a very tiny magnet. If you use the most powerful normal magnet of the same size, it will not even have a quarter of it's strength. So I don't wanna even imagine a big coil with a huge neodymnium magnets, they will probable destroy a CRT completely from one meter away of it in less than a second.
ps: Bad quality means high DB, but actually X-mini is loud enough, but has a freakin awesome quality for what they look (but some frequencies make it kinda to make distortions, which doesn't matter).
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Without measurements of the magnetic fields or a study from a reputable source, your opinion is false.
Can you provide frequency response or RMAA measurements for the X-Mini? You say they have great quality but then you say it distorts. Keep your story straight. I did reading and people like it for being the best PORTABLE speaker but I have yet to come across studios or home theater setups using them.
Looks like your magnetism theory holds a little truth:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/22117-do-loudspeakers-wear-out.html#post257425
But that's a 60 year old speaker that's referenced and it sounds like the loss in magnetism is small. Certainly a lot less than the rate you're describing. The drivers you're talking about were likely abused but that doesn't surprise me from the way you talk about your equipment.
Back to your claim of CPU processing for audio being good and making things sound better. You claimed a lot that those sound cards like Auzentech and Creative are the best for processing. It's funny because I don't see those listed anywhere in the top 50 DACs on Head-Fi...
http://www.head-fi.org/products/category/amp-dacs
They're all straight pathways without any CPU processing.
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Without measurements of the magnetic fields or a study from a reputable source, your opinion is false.
Can you provide frequency response or RMAA measurements for the X-Mini? You say they have great quality but then you say it distorts. Keep your story straight. I did reading and people like it for being the best PORTABLE speaker but I have yet to come across studios or home theater setups using them.
Well I have seen a documentary about magnets, and in them they showed how do they make them... They are just non magnetic materials which are magnetized with high voltage electricity or that kind of shit. And they said that they will lose the magnetic field over the years, and they said how much will they last.
I can't remember the year's, but I think they claimed magnetized magnets will last something like 100 years (I may be wrong), but over the years they will constantly be loosing power.
neodymium are permanent magnets, and have a very huge power. As I said a very little piece can easily lift 13KG.
See the power they have:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClkP-QwIOAQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClkP-QwIOAQ)
Is youtube lying? Hell no, I bought a little piece of them, and I almost have to make all my strength to separate them.
My best bet is you can use them for sure in audio systems, they also add more quality and make sure everything will ever stay in the same spot, and the electricity won't ever change because of magnet affects.
All I know is I'm more than happy with a good headphones with at least 40mm drivers and neodymium magnets and a good sound card in the PC, they will sound like what you can get best from nowadays (nothing to do with high fidelity, those "4 me" are something way better). I also had some BAD ASS Headphones from the 90's, they sounded SO DAMN GOOD, they were almost as expansive as buying a 200€ headphones nowadays. They had two separate plugs (1 for R, 1 for L ) They were really high fidelity headphones, they lasted a year on my fathers amp, but that shit killed my ears 4 real :-\.
After some time I had to put some metal in the headphone coils to make pressure against the magnetic fields, that way, they still worked good, but after some time they started making distortions.
Now the thing is I prefer a ~60€ Headphones from nowadays connected to a good PC soundcard, than using the old thecnics amp, it's two very different worlds, No matter on how much volume I use the amplifier, I will keep not listening people walking in games, I tried that, now with the headphones, you can listen every little detail, that you never though it was even there... :o
ps: Well again whatever... buy what you like, I prefer good modern digital systems with high efficiency (the ones that uses 90%+ of the electricity in sound, not in heat, or lost).
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Can you provide frequency response or RMAA measurements for the X-Mini? You say they have great quality but then you say it distorts. Keep your story straight. I did reading and people like it for being the best PORTABLE speaker but I have yet to come across studios or home theater setups using them.
X-mini 2:
Dimension:60 mm×44mm (closed resonator)
Net Weight:83g
Speaker:Magnetically Shielded 40mm (4Ω)
Loudspeaker Output:2.5W
Frequency Response:100Hz - 20kHz
Signal-to-Noise:≥80dB
Distortion:≤1.0%
Playback Time:Up to 12 hours
Battery Capacity:400mAh
Battery Charging Voltage:5V
Battery Charge Time:Minimum of 2.5 hours.
Go see them on youtube (though you will never hear their quality, which can only be heard in real life). And they do have an impressive quality, since the coil is the size of my current headphones (40mm). They do sound like the sound of kinda a 2.1 system (not with that much rumble of a subwoofer, but plenty enough 4 what they are).
But As I said they kinda make distortions on some music (almost all will play very awesome), but there are still some that has some distortion, but seriously they are pure quality, I could never ask that much 4 what they are.
They probably have distortions, because instead of them trying to make it sound like a crap by letting it reproduce only higher frequencies, that little thing actually is good reproducing any frequency, even the lowest which are made for a subwoofer (the very deep frequencies aren't heard, but the speaker starts jumping all over the place :) ). I'm not saying they are high quality in Hi-fi standards, they are no fidelity for that standards.
But come on for what they really are, they are pretty damn good, and at least 8h of play I get from them always kicking hard ::) And what I loved even more, was that inside the simple package, comes a paper advertizing the poverty we have in the world, I think it even came with a picture of a unhealthy kid.
ps: I had some cheap copies of it, and they actually had no distortions (unless on full volume), but the quality damn, it was almost just as high as the ones on the laptop it self, they had no mids or low frequencies. X-mini really have them (and can go pretty damn loud if u want to remove all it's quality by equalizing the mid-higher frequencies to full).
The drivers you're talking about were likely abused but that doesn't surprise me from the way you talk about your equipment.
Well If beside the quality, the equipment is not made to be used 24/7 on it's full rated RMS power (constant power, nothing to do with the peak power), well then they are not reliable for people like me.
Back to your claim of CPU processing for audio being good and making things sound better. You claimed a lot that those sound cards like Auzentech and Creative are the best for processing. It's funny because I don't see those listed anywhere in the top 50 DACs on Head-Fi...
http://www.head-fi.org/products/category/amp-dacs
They're all straight pathways without any CPU processing.
Well, there are Hi-fi... PC gaming systems with special proccessing features.... DJ type sound... professional type sound...
PC gaming components never are rated by the music companies, they always have a very different part. But are they good? Well hear the enemy before they hear you. That's what I have to say about them, they are not made to be used in a studio, and that's they way it will be.
But actually some custom made equipment for some DJ's have a CPU even more powerful than all your computer, so I bet that mixed with good hardware pre-amp connected to a pro-amp, I bet it's something from other planet right? That's why we can nowadays make people with bad voice to be a world famous singer (digital, not analogic).
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LOL, you keep mentioning hearing the enemy before they hear you... That is so pointless. That has no relevance on quality. That's just tweaking for gamers. Gamers NEVER have good quality stuff, it's all things pushed by companies with pretty lights on the products. It's like saying a F1 race car is the best car made because it goes fast. No it's not! It's engineered for a specific purpose and can't do much else. Logitech makes some nice gamer style keyboards and mice but they're not meant for durability or comfort, they're meant for looks and speed. Same for sound. Did you even read this thread about Creative's technology:
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=575067
Those sound cards are useless in modern games and since they don't sound good compared to a DAC, why are they around? Because of the misinformation that people like you believe.
I'm not arguing that neodymium aren't powerful. I'm simply saying that they're not immune either. Also, since speakers are moving parts, the style of magnet affects the sound and a lot of people prefer ALNICO's sound. Neodymium is only being used because they're cheaper and stronger but that doesn't always mean better. Just like the size of the headphone drivers you're talking about. 40mm has very little in terms of information about the sound quality. The way it's built is much more important than the size. That was one of the first things I learned about headphones.
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LOL, you keep mentioning hearing the enemy before they hear you... That is so pointless. That has no relevance on quality. That's just tweaking for gamers. Gamers NEVER have good quality stuff, it's all things pushed by companies with pretty lights on the products. It's like saying a F1 race car is the best car made because it goes fast. No it's not! It's engineered for a specific purpose and can't do much else. Logitech makes some nice gamer style keyboards and mice but they're not meant for durability or comfort, they're meant for looks and speed. Same for sound. Did you even read this thread about Creative's technology:
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=575067
Those sound cards are useless in modern games and since they don't sound good compared to a DAC, why are they around? Because of the misinformation that people like you believe.
LOL...
You don't seem to get my posts right... I never compared creative or even PC sound cards to HI-FI or pro-audio.
As I said PC is PC, Hi-fi is Hi-Fi and Pro-audio is pro audio.... they don't compete with each other in any way.
PC doesn't give a damn about fidelity it just requires good quality and huge processing in effects. As I said Creative have improved a lot... blahblahlah do I really need a creative card? (yes and no). Unless you love the distortions that ur onboard sound card makes and the special flavor of activating 3D in a certain game and all it does is bzuuuu brruuuu braaaa. I actually had lot's of boards, and in none I could use hardware 3D in almost all games, or it sounded like christmas..., oh and also you will enjoy so pure garbage sound on your 200$ super quality headphones, also you will get the lowest impedance, and low SNR DB on them.
Now does it really must be a creative card? No, Auzentech always made good ones too, Asus recently made good ones too, or you can have others, just chose ur favorite PCI express soundcard. And if you think you can somehow solder an amp from the 80's to the pc motherboard to act like a sound card, well just do it (it will require some WTF components, but oh well)...
And about old hi-fi being better than modern. Have you actually seen how a 5000€ stand-alone amplifier can do compared to the greatest ones of the 80's? That outputs almost the same power efficiency at all wattage levels, completely distortions free, oh and at almost 100% efficiency like some newer pioneer expensive claims (almost no power lost on heat, doesn't even need heatsinks, all the power is used to amplify sound, not much is lost), Which mean 100w on full power, will always have an higher peak input nowadays, and will probably consume like 108 W of electricity?
I'm not arguing that neodymium aren't powerful. I'm simply saying that they're not immune either. Also, since speakers are moving parts, the style of magnet affects the sound and a lot of people prefer ALNICO's sound. Neodymium is only being used because they're cheaper and stronger but that doesn't always mean better. Just like the size of the headphone drivers you're talking about. 40mm has very little in terms of information about the sound quality. The way it's built is much more important than the size. That was one of the first things I learned about headphones.
Really? Neodymium are permanent (that stands 4 ever. Still they may not be immune to 1000 years, that I have no clue) on it's magnetic field generator.
Are they cheap? Well they are one of the most expensive materials on earth (not talking about luxury ones like gold or diamonds, but wrath materials). The ones I sent from China were just a few gr, very little pieces, and cost me like 1.5€ or so.
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Rare Earth magnets (also known as Neodymium magnets) are 5 to 7 times stronger than Ferrite Magnets and offer the most value for money. They provide high energy, maximum efficiency and extreme stability when exposed to other electromagnetic fields. For this reason they are commonly used in engineering, electronics and medical fields.
Rare Earth Magnets are the most advanced magnet with superior performance and are a logical choice when extra strength in a reduced size is important. Available in Nickel or Gold plated varieties.
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Woofers with neodymium magnets from china are expensive because china recently increased the prices. China claims their neodymium reserve is low and so they made a "protection law" until the neodymium amount increases.
Best buy from USA.
Here's a fun fact for you, I had the chance to handle a neodymium magnet a few months ago in one of my physics classes. It was cylinder shaped, about 1.75inches tall and 1inch diameter. It was so strong I couldn't pull it straight off a metal surface unless I used both hands. I had to tip it on one end and then pull. That was the first time I ever ran into a neodymium magnet. Just random info for you.
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Yeah, even the very little ones I bought made in China, I almost couldn't pull them away.
But it's not just that they increased prices, they have always been expensive, because they are not just a special magnet, they are really a RARE MATERIAL on this planet (unless someone discover tons of miles of them).
And if you read up you see why would you rather use then in high fidelity equipment of any kind (sound, and any kind of electronics).
So why would the best high fidelity expensive amplifiers of nowadays are worst if they have all the best components ever produced known by humanity. Crazy new designs hardly tested with computers, the best of two worlds, Super powerfull computers (way more powerfull than ur PC) together with the best amplifying components just to produce sound. That's just what modern expensive high fidelity systems are, they are pure advanced computers with the best used components, and the use of gold on all the motherboard connections instead of copper and blahblahblah so many technologies that were discovered over the years.
How can that be worst than the 80's amps? (Which probably didn't even had a way to test the so called Hi fidelity they had). I already heard to some expensive Hi-fi sound systems studio kind, and I don't think the amplification as ever been so clean!
BUT, I'm still happier with a PC with a good sound card, with a good headphones, and some home cinema speakers instead of hi-fi systems (which are getting old nowadays, as everyone is going for the home cinema kind of sound). I guess people just prefer to exchange high fidelity to the rumble of the subwoofer (I'm one of those). But I do realize that if you still want some real high fidelity system, you can still have them better than ever, it will just cost too much and a normal person won't enjoy it (unless your a composer and music producer).
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Speaking of multiple subs, one time I came across someone whose intelligence vs. wealth were inversely proportional. He had 2 12inch subs in a room and claimed that when he had 1 12inch a few years ago it was better. Even told me that one sub from his new ones were more expensive than his old one. I wanted to punch the guy in the mouth so hard. I moved the subs around and made him eat his tears after I told him don't face the subs together ya cunt.
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I don't get why people need to blow things apart using audio equipment. Aside from blowing the equip itself which anyway depends on your spending capability. Personally i almost never use standalone speakers but i prefer headphones (it's a totally different approach of course).
A little history for your entertainment (please note that the last card in the video being a Creative its not meant to make any point):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a324ykKV-7Y[/youtube]
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Finally we'r making some sense 8). But about the prices, actually at least here where I live, A good sound system from the 80's would probably have cost you the price of a few months of work (on the minimum salary), so it's not much difference.
The good thing is nowadays you get systems with good sound quality for dirty cheap.
And no, I know my logitech aren't anything you can really trust for an audiophile . BUT, haven't seen so much offer for such a low price. Even the best from creative which is slightly better cost like 500€ and have no digital plugs, you have to pay extra 150 or more for the decoder. Logitech Z5500 is really 505w RMS not that bad quality, at least mine doesn't make such crappy distortions, have a big rumble, and the best is they already have digital sound for 250€ (which is near the price of just one single medium fidelity speaker).
I already had\have 18.5 speakers (18 satellites and 5 subwoofers). 2x5.1 + 4x 2.1. And I do believe I had one more 2.1 which I'm not even remembering...
Speaking of multiple subs, one time I came across someone whose intelligence vs. wealth were inversely proportional. He had 2 12inch subs in a room and claimed that when he had 1 12inch a few years ago it was better. Even told me that one sub from his new ones were more expensive than his old one. I wanted to punch the guy in the mouth so hard. I moved the subs around and made him eat his tears after I told him don't face the subs together ya cunt.
I understand that pretty well. Most of us won't have a good place to have the speakers.
I remember one crappy 2.1 from creative which are the standards for (low-mid bidget of 50€) which are the standards as 2x6w + 17w subwoofer if I'm not mistaking. Here in my little full of things bedroom, they aren't anything impressive. But when I used them in a huge empty room full of metal and glass on the sides damnnnnnnn.
That crap sounded like I had a million dollars system for real lol, 17 w never sounded so much powerfull with all the probably 30 huge thin glasses shaking all over the place. All I could say is wtf, it was so damn loud. (the fidelity was million of years away, but it sounded powerful, and that makes me a happy customer ;D).
But the quality in my room DAMN, it's the worst you can get, even the Z5500 have trouble to make it rumble, but when I put it on the living room, it get's dangerous as everything starts shaking and falling down and whateva :D
Yeah that sound system was insane, but you listen to hip hop and no music that requires quality, so you have a perfect system for your needs.
Totally agree. But still I have heard some good high fidelity modern systems in a proper room, they are like crystal, but are they good? (Hell they have a lot of quality, but I wouldn't buy them even if they were cheap).
And why would I not buy them? Well because my dream is a total different thing. Instead of having full range, I would prefer having lot's of different good drivers each producing a certain frequency, with a HUGE woofer for the bick kicks and punches, and a even bigger subwoofer for the rumbles, and EVEN with the addition of a rotary sub to get the lowest frequency ever possible.
And I even prefer John Lennon on a non high fidelity system, it sound so much more powerful with the subwoofer on the back making all the "chords" (don't know if that's the word) to a all new level.
Also even most modern good quality Hi-fi with the best wood, all hand built, freakin new designs from other planet... even them are adding subwoofers and other type of things which are totally against the original Hi fidelity.
But you have to agree that the so called Hi fidelity term just simply changed it's concept, as there are newer ones distortions free with less input lag and all kind of things which also sound different than the original concept, in my opinion they sound better. (But one thing that almost never changed are the studio sound systems, they are at it's best, and still try to be all range speakers). Therefore Hi-fidelity term doesn't totally exists, and it's a term wich is in a constant changing.
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Oh and actually my father is just like you, he has ton's of vinyls from all the old bands, he specially loves john Lennon, Vivaldi, composers, Beatles...., and actually my father kinda stolen my X-mini II >:(. He loved the quality of the little speaker and got so impressed by how such small crap can sound so damn good. He never hear music on the laptop speakers anymore.
And he actually prefer when I'm playing Nirvana or John Lennon... in my 9.3 system connected to the pc than the old good amplifiers and speakers from the 80's. Hell he even always tell me to increase the volume to make the windows to do the sound of the music :P And he really had a nice sound system that me and my bro kinda destroyed :(.
ps: Damn If I had millions you can bet I would make my dream true (having lot's of speakers, each playing only a certain frequency) ;).
>>I know it's too much blahblahblah, but I do believe you will like to read :-X<<
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I remember one crappy 2.1 from creative which are the standards for (low-mid bidget of 50€) which are the standards as 2x6w + 17w subwoofer if I'm not mistaking. Here in my little full of things bedroom, they aren't anything impressive. But when I used them in a huge empty room full of metal and glass on the sides damnnnnnnn.
That crap sounded like I had a million dollars system for real lol, 17 w never sounded so much powerfull with all the probably 30 huge thin glasses shaking all over the place. All I could say is wtf, it was so damn loud. (the fidelity was million of years away, but it sounded powerful, and that makes me a happy customer ;D).
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages1.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20120213055636%2Funcyclopedia%2Fimages%2F5%2F52%2FDouble-facepalm.jpg&hash=b656a496c382cf6b867f9b01ed5000ce)
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LOL, I know I overreacted, but do that with your speakers and you will see what I was talking.
The glasses were all big and kinda free to move in all metal thin stores, there was so much amplification and resonance in the room for real, it just sounded like those car crazy bastards that wasted thousand of $ for huge dirty power, but I was only running a crapy ~30w crappy system.
And about High fidelity. I guess modern high fidelity are changing to something like this:
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techdigest.tv%2FKlipsch-RF62.jpg&hash=d2e82cf8ac4d1bc9996c979ab39663bc)
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Some good sound of nowadays:
CES 2009: Sennheiser announces "world's best headphones"- the HD800s
By
Duncan Geere
on January 8, 2009 No Comments
sennheiser-hd800
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techdigest.tv%2Fsennheiser-hd800.jpg&hash=fec23efd8114aa746880b52474991716)
making quite a bold claim here - the world's best headphones. The HD800s apparently sound better than any other pair of headphones on the planet. I suspect that it might be difficult to prove that one to a jury - surely it's more than a little subjective?
But let's not quibble over that - it's beyond doubt that these are damn good. A brand new "RING" driver, developed specifically for these cans alone, can deliver an amazing 6Hz - 51kHz frequency response. For comparison, your average person on the street can hear about 20Hz to 20kHz. Unless you're an audiophile, therefore, you're not going to get much out of these. Sennheiser also claims an amazingly low 0.02% distortion.
Something modern and good, far from the best, but pretty damn good:
Yamaha intros A-S700 amp and CD-S700 CD player
By
Andy Merrett
on October 8, 2008 No Comments
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techdigest.tv%2Fyamaha_a-s700_cd-s700_amp_cd_player.jpg&hash=5a33633d1d5f0f2da538a883cb5e4d63)
Yamaha continues to push out its high-end audio products with the introduction of the A-S700 amplifier and CD-S700 CD player. Mercifully, both come without an iPod dock.
The amp can pump out 90W RMS power over two channels with a SNR of 98dB and frequency response of 10Hz-100kHz, and features Total Purity Audio Reproduction Technology.
And something more classic sound type, but with modern components (just like I said, everything nowadays is possible).
Acapella unveils new Violon & High Violon MKIV speaker set - beauty is in the ear of the beholder
By
Al W
on July 29, 2008 No Comments
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ftechdigest.tv%2Facapella_violon_mkiv.jpg&hash=079d83f0e16f9016fab33858d6e4c9c8)(It sure as hell isn't in the eye)
German audio company Acapella Audio Arts is a household name amongst serious audiophiles and renowned for its dangerously high quality audio products, and in particular its Violon loudspeakers. Well, audiophiles, prepare to clasp the nearest ring binder to your waists and shuffle cautiously towards the gents; Acapella has just unveiled its latest Violon set - the Violon & High Violon MKIV.
Sporting the same external design as its predecessor, the MKIV features a patented ion plasma tweeter, a new updated crossover, internal cabinet modifications and advanced tuning techniques. The woofers have been overhauled and made larger. The large horns on the front have also been finished in Porsche Macadamia Metallic, giving this version of the speaker something much more reminiscent of a classic gramophone.
ps: I'm not being a smart-ass, I'm just showing that we still have good modern sound systems, some even pretty reliable to the so cald old term of high fidelity. And those I shown are approved by "audiophiles", and are even far from being at a true master studio of nowadays which have even more impressive components.
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Actually I say 1+1=2 and you come saying I said 1+1=4? Get ur facts...
I said logitech have no fidelity. But they are actually pretty damn good at quality vs price, actually in all reviews they got 9\10, 8\10, 4.5\5... specially because they offer a lot for a very cheap price. No one said they were top of the line, they are just one of the best gaming home cinema all in one, specially because it's just plug and play...
They aren't mean for you to become a DJ using them or that kind of shit, but they actually will be enough for like 8\10 people that have them...
And actually you all are the ones who said we have no built quality nowadays, none of the companies make them like they used to anymore, that's wrong, since there are lot of expensive speakers, which are hand built, metal made on Porche factory, best parts made in all the best factories and most have really been manufactured... And each of them are really tested to ensure all really have the right fidelity for their standards.
And then comparing normal old magnets to permanent magnets, use of less copper to use of lot's of copper and gold... Use of digital systems with the minimum distortion possible ever made with the 80's analogic systems and so one.... Comparing low efficiency with high efficiency which doesn't even waste energy heating, all on sound...
Use of advanced membranes materials made from fibers to titanium compared to the old materials used in the 80's, which all the cheap ones from that time are all made of something that looks like paper (I'm not talking about the true Hi-fi systems, I'm talking about just crappy coils for other usage, most were made of something that looks like paper, I have lot's of them around).
Also comparing every kind of new inventors that designed special custom case designs that even make the same coil to produce even better sounds... to an era that didn't had much evolution as nowadays and didn't had all those new crazy internal designs that nowadays at each day it comes a new better and improved design.
ps: Everything improved no matter if you like it or not. Nowadays u have all kind of systems for all ur "audiophile" hears, with the most frequency range ever created by humanity... And that's it. Lower budget systems is what we want nowadays, and will even be more used in the future with this crisis, the cheaper a thing is, the more ppl go behind them (I'm one of them)...
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If you guys'd come playing AA instead of making such a conversation, it would be very much active again
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If you guys'd come playing AA instead of making such a conversation, it would be very much active again
LOL 8).
I like talking about technologies... We'r just discussing not killing each other :D.
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If you guys'd come playing AA instead of making such a conversation, it would be very much active again
Unfortunately, I've lost interest in both AA and this thread.
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Did nobody look at the pictures of the speakers that I linked to? Those are hi-fi and don't cost the price of a new car. Guily linked to a picture of Klipsch's which are indeed hi-fi but only because it's from a big company that acts like an asshole sometimes. They once sued BIC for making a subwoofer with an orange colored cone. I don't wanna knock on Klipsch or anything, but they are just a stepping stone for true hi-fi. I'm sure anyone who gets Klipsch will be perfectly happy with it.
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Yep, I would never buy them too, but it's just to prove that there are some pretty good systems with the classical line of the high fidelity.
But about this thread, no matter what amp you will use in ur computer, one made for computer or connecting cables and more cables to an heavy Hi-fi system (old or modern)... You will still be needing a good sound card 4 it.
So if the hardware outputs of any normal onboard soundcard like realtek are really the most big garbage you can get, no matter how good the amplifier you will use can be, it will amplify a very crappy sound signal. So I do recommend a PCIexpress card like the new best creative card, or a good auzentech, or an Asus xonar, or any other good sound card, they are really a must if your a pc gamer sound lover, specially for use in a good heaphones.
Pc sound-cards are pc sound-cards, you can't just go there and solder a studio huge hardware in the pc to make it work as a sound card...
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Hehe, this is my sound card: http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA222.aspx
(https://aao25.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.behringer.com%2Fassets%2FUCA222_P0A31_Front_web.jpg&hash=79cd9740ccf4af12facc1b0e3c28c81c)
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Haha, is that thing any good? Haven't seen the specs, but it does look like it won't make anything better :P.
I also don't like USB cards, which has a lower speed transfer, unless you gonna use it in a laptop!
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Haha, is that thing any good? Haven't seen the specs, but it does look like it won't make anything better :P.
I also don't like USB cards, which has a lower speed transfer, unless you gonna use it in a laptop!
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USB3 allows for a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 400mb/s, i can hardly figure how you can saturate that bandwidth.
That little thing is truly compact, cute indeed.
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Nobody needs tons of bandwidth when all you need is to feed line level signals to an amplifier. All you need with something like that is low latency. Install and forget.
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I also don't like USB cards, which has a lower speed transfer, unless you gonna use it in a laptop!
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You're a total fucktard. USB 2 is more than enough for 24/192 which is more than most people need. USB 1 will cap at 24/48 I believe.
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You're a total fucktard. USB 2 is more than enough for 24/192 which is more than most people need. USB 1 will cap at 24/48 I believe.
Whatever dog...
I don't like USB cards...
And also I wasen't even talking on it's full 400mbs bandwidth.
I'm talking that you won't get any better connection in a PC other than PCIexpress specially for having the lowes latency possible between all the hardware.
And also I don't know if there's any good USB soundcard that produces really a good quality sound and with high SNR of around 120db and with big impedance for who likes to use some good headphones... (don't really have any clue on that, cause I never cared for USB audio cards, and never searched 4 them).
I'm also going to buy a USB cheap sound card for my laptop, but it's only for the laptop cause my bro broke a 3.5mm sound jack inside, I drilled it and it screwed the output, it only outputs sound to one side of the headphones... >:(
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And also I wasen't even talking on it's full 400mbs bandwidth.
I'm talking that you won't get any better connection in a PC other than PCIexpress specially for having the lowes latency possible between all the hardware.
Which is nice for graphics cards where tons of data is being sent back and fourth. It doesn't matter for sound. PCI sound cards were perfectly fine for 24-Bit 96KHz and USB 2 is faster than the PCI interface.
Facts are nice.
If you need a USB DAC for your laptop, check out the one I recommended to mans:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-design-S-M-S-L-SD-1955-DIR9001-AD1955-mini-DAC-Optical-coaxial-/200714728557?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ebb87b46d#ht_9532wt_1396
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Damn, that thing it too heavy LOL... The usb card I'm gonna buy for this laptop will be the one from creative that cost like 30$, it's not much good, but all I care is being able to hear from the 2 sides of the headphones, and it must be something very little to go with the laptop (powered by usb power :().
For my Desktop I would only buy a PCI Express soundcard. PCI was slower than USB, but I do believe the latency would still be higher on the usb since it goes trough all the USB controllers and that crap, and they also depend a lot on how good is the usb controller in the motherboard.
PCIexpress is faster. But don't care much for that, it's just because it stays inside the computer, and never have to care more about it...
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If it's a laptop it doesn't matter what you use as long as it sounds better than the onboard. My behringer sounds better than the onboard, the difference is really noticeable.
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Guily, you're spinning more opinion as fact misinformation again. There is no latency difference with PCI-e versus USB. Think about it. There's a lot of high-end studio equipment that interfaces with USB. EMU 0404 is a good example, heck I think it even had a PCI interface. If you want less latency, get rid of your useless CPU processing and use ASIO. That's what the professionals use for recording because they NEED 0 latency.
Think about it for a bit. If PCI-e was so much better than USB in terms of latency, gamer companies would make PCI-e mice with pretty lights to sell to customers as being the fastest mice ever. They don't because USB is plenty fast.
I use Reclock to synchronize audio and video playback on my computer for movies so if USB did have noticeable amounts of latency I would see it because the audio and video is synced when it leaves the CPU. Yet, the graphics go over PCI-e and the sound travels through 10-15ft of USB cable into a DAC, through a tube, into an amplifier and out the speakers in the same time. Everything looks and sounds perfectly in sync. How is that possible with your logic?
*EDIT*
Found this on Wikipedia:
PCIe sends all control messages, including interrupts, over the same links used for data. The serial protocol can never be blocked, so latency is still comparable to conventional PCI, which has dedicated interrupt lines.
I will say that PCI-e is better for studio work where you have a lot of channels coming and going and USB 2 would be overloaded. But, for 99% of computer use (including gaming), it doesn't matter.
You made one good point about that DAC being too big/heavy for your laptop for portable use. If you want a serious one, check out Fiio, they have portable DAC's that can run on batteries or off of USB power.
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Spanky brought up ASIO which I forgot about. Proper studio sound cards/interfaces have ASIO drivers but only because latency needs to be as low as possible. When I scratch my digital turntable, there needs to be no lag. Studio equipment is made for this. Hi-fi audio interfaces don't need that stuff or ASIO drivers, they just need to transfer bit-perfect at high resolutions.
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I don't really know about that, but there's also some PCIexpress HDD's, which aren't either SATAIII, or USB3, and they made it claiming that only the PCI express can have the fastest hardware connection directly o the motherboard. That's what some OCZ said from their 1000$ PCI EXPRESS 1TB HDD, but still I don't think it has much to do with the latency from the transfer of the SSD to the Motherboard, I believe it's only because of their bandwidth of 1GB\s of Data transfer, but still they do claim it's also the fastest way to connect to the hardware...
And yeah USB like I though is way slower on latency:
A single USB transaction takes at least 125 microseconds, and empirically usually consumes 250 microseconds, even in Linux. 125 microseconds is significant in computer-based systems, especially in the embedded world where human input is often a smaller portion of the system’s total operation. This means USB takes longer to issue control events, like setting up a mode of operation, or polling for a status change.
PCIe, on the other hand, can complete a single transaction in anywhere from a fraction of a microsecond to around two microseconds, depending on the system architecture. This low latency allows more control requests to be issued, or better timing to be achieved even when using relatively few requests. The difference in latency effectively means USB is less “real-time†than PCI Express. Many applications don’t need microsecond latencies, but only PCIe can deliver it when necessary.
A single FPGA-based PCI Express design may have three to five times the parts cost for the bus interface alone—completely excluding your circuitry! When you factor in the increased PCB, assembly, and test costs, PCIe is truly an expensive proposition compared to USB. Even if you use a COTS PCIe-to-local bus bridge chip instead of FPGAs (greatly reducing your device’s flexibility), design and parts costs exceeds USB by a significant margin.
Score one for USB for being easier and less expensive to design, and for its lower parts cost throughout.
That's why I would still go to a good gaming sound card. That's also why PC gaming designed cards are expensive too, but they do quite have very low latency and already big outputs, but the best is really their processor (which sadly is not much used lately with the gay OpenAL... Bloody Realtek and other craps can only be paying to have them, but they'r outputs are pretty ugly, that's a thing they never change in their 1€ crappy sound cards)...
How much is the cheapest little usb DAC powered by USB? (just need stereo). If there's one with better portability than the creative (little usb kind with X-FI), and if it costs the same, which is around 30 bucks, I wouldn't mind buying.
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Those SSD's need that bandwidth that SATA3 can't provide. Nothing like the small amounts of data with audio.
Your quote doesn't change the fact that studio work and audio production has been done flawlessly on USB 2 for quite a while. It also doesn't mean you have ANY advantage at all with a "good" gaming sound card. Especially with all the processing involved, that probably re-adds that 125ms latency that article claims. I have a hard time believing that because if I sway Reclock 125ms forward or reverse, I can notice that the audio and video no longer sync in videos. Either that number is a lie OR it takes 125ms from the PCI-e slot to the graphics card, through the chip, out the video converter, into the monitor, through the logic board and onto the pixels. There is latency in monitors but it's not 125ms.
You can get a cheap USB DAC for probably $5 but it will sound like shit. One of the basic units from Fiio would probably do you good. They're all stereo as is most high end equipment.
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I'm posting this for a friend whose audio advice (and experience) I value greatly. His current setup is:
Audio GD NFB-3, Sony 444-ESX, modded and refurbished JBL L110, Morrow Audio MA-1s, Cryo Parts USB cable, 12ga shielded volex power cables, Sennheiser HD600 with custom mogami cabling.
I'll start by saying that while there are some decent PCI-E "sound cards" they are multi-thousand dollar ADC interfaces that have external components, that often don't quite compare to higher end external ADCs. As for DACs anyone that works with professional audio has an external one, that is almost always USB 2.0 these days, occasionally Firewire. I work with recording artists, and my own music, near daily, and USB 2.0 has suited me well, both when it comes to ADCs and DACs, all run USB 2.0.
Most of the time latency is less physical and more software-based these days. If you can use something like ASIO, KS, or JACK - and circumvent any other software based audio processing than you're in the clear, and that is exactly what you want.
Most all pro audio gear today is run with USB 2.0, Firewire, or something proprietary.
On the topic of speakers, it is less about how old or new they are and more about the design and quality of the components used. There have been some outrageously good (and still relevant) speaker designs since the advent of the loudspeaker, that, while being consistently improved upon, have largely plateaued since the 70s. Coincidentally these designs, and the materials used on the better models beat just about all the consumer junk out today. My example being - it doesn't matter if you use neodymium magnets if the enclosure is made of particle board or plastic. Nor does it matter if you have a titanium Tweeter if the crossover is junk.
Its about the overall quality, and for the money, you're best off shopping around for a higher end model from the 70s/80s that you can refurbish yourself, or get someone else to do - either way the several hundred dollars (and a little time) you pump into this project will get your speakers near the multi-thousand you would need to spend today to get comparable sound. This is coming from someone that has auditioned $2k-20k+ systems. Simply, for the money - spend the time and research and buy used, then refurbish.
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Damn you guys don't joke around. "Sennheiser"...
About the audio not synching, I don't think it is because of the response time of the hardware, since they are values that no one notice. Probably more like a software problem or something.
ps: I will search more on the usb cards, If I find something good for 30$ better than the creative X-FI, I may buy it ;)
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The audio not syncing is the ms offset which could be called added latency. My point is that if USB had a serious issue with audio being slow to process, I would see it because with Reclock, it's synced when it leaves the CPU, before it's processed by the USB chip and DAC.
Sennheiser makes great headphones... so I've heard. If I were to get a new pair, it would be Sennheisers. HD 5xx series or higher. I had a pair of Beyerdynamic headphones but I sold them as my speaker setup has better quality and I didn't use the headphones much. There's other high end headphone manufacturers like Grado and... I'm drawing a blank. Certainly not Skull Candy or Beats by Dre, those are junk brands.
For absolute budget, there's this: (with the 12mhz clock, it would be mathematically best to output 48KHz audio)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MINI-PCM2704-HI-FI-USB-DAC-SOUND-CARD-BOARD-hi-fi-ELNA-Capacitance-for-it-/260994381452?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc47a368c#ht_4211wt_1396
Otherwise you can go with a branded unit with a warranty and resale-ability: (I'm not 100% sure it's USB audio in, analog out or if it just uses USB for power...)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MUSE-HIFI-USB-to-S-PDIF-Converter-USB-DAC-PCM2704-/320726112511?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aacc418ff#ht_3378wt_1163
Aside from that, I think the one I linked to mans is the next step up as it has a great USB chip and low jitter digital receiver chip, both of which are used in high end $300+ DAC's:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SMSL-High-end-MINI-DAC-SD-1955-AD1955-DIR9001-TE7022L-Optical-coaxial-S-/120795055322?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c1ff244da
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I only like the last DAC, but that's already something for heavy duty. The little and cheap one, doesn't look much good (I really liked the hardware of the best DAC).
get the headphones I got
http://headphones.com.au/psingle?productID=178
they cradle the balls and come in sporty purple
If I would go buy some expensive headphones, I think I would buy from Schneider.
I really like the schneider in-ear phones I bought. It's not even the quality of it, it's even more the high efficiency. I had some in-hear phones from Philips that cost around 40€, they really sounded like a subwoofer. But the volume was pretty low, specially in my crappy MP3.
With the Schneider in fact I use my mp3 at 1\30 of volume (1 of 30) and for me it's at a good volume, and it's pretty impressive, since the mp3 is really very low on volume and crappy quality (It's not enough for my taste :(), but the hearphones really have some crazy efficiency, they are pretty damn low on just 1 bar of volume and the mp3 goes to 30, and they still do pretty good bass (Though I preferred the old expensive philips I had that had higher bass, but their efficiency was pretty bad, had to hear on 8 volume to be almost the same as shneider on 1 or 2).
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I just gave the little one as a cheap solution. You could encase it in hot glue or epoxy to make it sturdy.
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The more bass the better. I trust guily.
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The more bass the better. I trust guily.
Anything to disagree with me amirite?
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LOL whateva dog...
Anyway wi-fi is wi-fi, dirty power is dirty power. On dirty power the bigger the bass the bigger the quality... In fact you can even trow away all the speakers and tweeters and use only subwoofers making bass with no sound, and Most will be happy with it and going crazy like YEAAAAHHHH the windows gonna break :)
About the in-earphones from schneider, they really have better quality than the Philips I had (In terms of hi-fidelity and overall quality), but I still preferred the philips in-ear phones, cause they really had the biggest bass I ever heard on little phones (Tried lot's and lot's of them from friends, and I had lot's too), they really make the bass like a subwoofer, but they were expensive too back then (now they'r screwed).
On my MP3 I use 3D BASS effect, it's way better than the normal, but the quality is pretty bad, because this mp3 is pure garbage, but I always wanted the creative X-FI, I bet in there we could use the 3D BASS effects pretty well with their X-FI chip, without having glitches\artifacts in the music like my cheap mp3...
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I finally bought the external usb sound card for my laptop.
Creative X-FI GO PRO! (couldn't buy anything bigger, as it must be very portable and cheap).
For music is nothing big, and if you use high sensivity in-ear phones like SCHNEIDER CX-300 and others... you will kinda hear a very litle static noise (There's no way to hear it in the headphones or speakers at all), it may also be because of the USB port, since there's lot's of things that can make noise on usb, they recommend disabling Spread spectrum, HT................
The quality in games is pretty good, it's just like I was thinking "Hear enemies before they hear you", on AA2.8.5, I could hear the enemy climbing the middle bridge ladders from like almost spawn.
And now I can use full volume and Thank god I don't get distortions like the crap onboard realshit soundcard I have from the ASUS Saberthooth P67 board.
Pretty good for it's very little size and price, also new creative software really works, and AA can really have the good sound effects back on wind7 with no problems, also I can use all the other features on all other non eax games, to make me hear enemies before they hear me :), and the crystalizer is really good, it really makes music to almost sound as good as the original source (it works pretty good, depending on the music).
Also other good thing is you can adjust the crossover frequency, which is something I never seen on any onboard soundcards...
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