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Any Audiophile Barfers?

auntiebling said:
I have some 12ga stranded lampcord that works really well. Do I not belong in this thread?
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No, not really...unless everything else you tried sounded worse...ever try something...er.....made for the job? Who knows, it might work!
tzrider said:
...where people spend more time fussing with equipment than they do listening to music. I'm not really sure what to call that hobby. :laughing
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A normal week. It's all about the music but you have to at least try to work on your system to get the best out of it.
GAJ said:
..I've stayed away though I believe the McIntosh amp I'm thinking of resurrecting is part tube. :wtf...
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They make solid state gear, no worries. I have a big MacDaddy amp, I'd sell it but I can't lift it, lol.
shrimants said:
...Might eventually get a box of cat5 or cat6, strip all the wires inside, and use them as speaker cables. 4 wires for hot and 4 for ground...
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Don't bother it sounds like shit. Try some Audio Quest Type 2, two bucks a foot, you can afford that can't you?
 
shrimants said:
wire is wire. if it conducts, use it.
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Oh how I wish that was true...I'd have a few more bucks for motorcycle parts...When you say conducts do you mean DC current? You know electrical properties change with frequency right?
 
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i go off of measurements. if your multimeter cant tell the difference, your ears most certainly cant.

audiophoolery aside, one thing that confuses the shit out of me is biamping in speakers.

from my electical engineering class where we designed crossovers, you end up with a high pass portion and a low pass portion. their response depends on the load, and the load for one crossover is basically made up of the speaker AND the other half of the crossover (not for first order crossovers, though).

so what i dont get is, when you remove those bus bars from a crossover and connect amps to the now seperated tweeter+woofer, how does the crossover retain its normal frequency response, considering the load is entirely different?

alternatively, how do youdesign a crossover so that removing 2 wires (hot and ground) will completely isolate the tweeter/woofer from the entire crossover?

thats some wizardry right there. my 685's support biWIRING, but not biamping. they sound like absolute trash if you try to biamp. and biwiring is just a flashy way to waste wire.
 
shrimants said:
i go off of measurements. if your multimeter cant tell the difference, your ears most certainly cant.
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What we hear and what we measure are not related. You can't tell how something sounds from the spec sheet. It's really just a reference. We have to play the item to see how it sounds.

shrimants said:
audiophoolery aside, one thing that confuses the shit out of me is biamping in speakers.
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When you bi-amp, you use an outboard crossover. Not all loudspeakers can be bi-amped without tearing into things.
 
russ69 said:
What we hear and what we measure are not related. You can't tell how something sounds from the spec sheet. It's really just a reference. We have to play the item to see how it sounds.
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this is false. to each their own though. ignorance is bliss.

EDIT: to clarify, you definitely cannot tell how something sounds from a spec sheet. you can sometimes get a minor inkling of an idea.

What im refering to is wires and cables. measure things like capacitance and resistance between various sets of wire. use a nice multimeter like a fluke or an extech. no difference in measurement? your ears cant tell either. its just your own cognitive bias. as for frequency response and impulse response for speakers and amplifiers themselves, i'll glance over a spec sheet but its the end impression that matters. Hell, even taking the speakers out of one room (at the dealer) and throwing them into a room in your house is enough to completely trash (or completely bring to life) the speaker's response. in home trials are the best.


russ69 said:
When you bi-amp, you use an outboard crossover. Not all loudspeakers can be bi-amped without tearing into things.
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didnt answer my question. i know you use an outboard crossover. theres plenty of speakers that are biamp capable or single amp capable, and all it takes is removing that bus bar. but what i dont get is how that crossover is designed so that removing 2 "wires" in the schematic will completely isolate everything.

are you saying that in order to biamp those super high end loudspeakrs, you need to open them up, remove all the crossover parts, connect the bare transducer to the posts, and then hook that up to the amps (which gets its input from the crossover outputs)?
 
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I'm not a real audiophile, but I'm lucky enough to have inherited my father's setups (or at least use of them). Downstairs is a Van Alstein DAC, preamp, poweramp fed by a Squeezebox and feeding a pair of Magneplanar MG12s. Squeezebox is a bit clunky, but seeing as all it's doing is delivering data I can live with it's interface.
 
Not since my age does not allow me to hear 14khz+ anymore :(

I hear from my kids that they use ringtones in class above that range that their teachers don't hear anymore.
 
only if you promise to do a double blind test and multimeter measurement to see if your super fancy cables and cable risers make any difference :twofinger
 
I prefer 70's equipment myself, just looks and feels better.
 
Reli, i had a pair of pioneer HPM60 when i was first getting into audio. really dig the vintage sound
 
Running a Nakamichi SR4a into Theil CS2 speakers.

I also have a Beogram turntable and a Nakamichi 600 cassette.

Don't use those two much these days. :)

On my computer I have Genelec self amplifying studio monitors, so I get realistic live performance sound at the keyboard. Great low end, clear mid and high and volume. Lots of volume.
 
I'm low in the audiophile ranks. But I do have a homemade tube amp for my headphones.
 
shrimants said:
Ive never gotten into vinyl. i thought about it but the cost of entry and the cost of constantly paying for music kind of ruins it for me. as of right now ive never paid for music. i just acquire a flac rip of whatever i want. And most recently, i just listen to it on youtube or spotify. in the HD youtube videos, the sound quality isnt too shabby, and spotify does 320kbps mp3.
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As someone who writes, records and sells music, this is a little irritating to read. While I think the current music business model is outmoded and ineffective, the idea that original music is something to be stolen is frustrating.
 
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I dunno man, between Spotify and YouTube I don't even really listen to the few albums I downloaded and actually kept.

Don't get your comment about pulling stuff off the Web. Some of my flac stuff is probably not flac. Most of it is.
 
shrimants said:
I dunno man, between Spotify and YouTube I don't even really listen to the few albums I downloaded and actually kept.

Don't get your comment about pulling stuff off the Web. Some of my flac stuff is probably not flac. Most of it is.
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I edited out the part about pulling stuff off the web because it was too opinionated and not useful. Sorry for that!!

Also wanted to say I do not want you to feel like I'm singling you out. MILLIONS of people pull musical content off the web for free becuase the recording industry is a dinosaur that refuses to update their business model in a way that makes sense to music lovers.

I used your quote as an example of how the current business model does not work.
 
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