Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 08:09:10 +0000
From: barnacle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] echo indigo

On Tuesday 09 November 2004 20:42, you wrote:
> Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:41:01 -0800 (PST)
> From: Matt Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [LIB] echo indigo
<...>
> And then I need a good EQ, as I'm continually
> adjusting it to make up for the low tech (cheap) audio
> equipment I've got.  I know a lot of audiophiles will
> have nothing to do with any type of EQ at all... But
> then they generally have $20,000 and up audio systems.

One of those things. Remember that *under no circumstances* can you hear the 
sound *as recorded* anywhere except in the original mixdown studio. Your amp 
is different, your speakers are different, the acoustics of your room are 
different, the background noise is different... hell, even the volume is 
likely different and as the frequency response of the human ear varies with 
volume...

That said, a few general thoughts on buying amps and speakers in general... 
find a pair of speakers of which you like the sound. Don't go mad, but look 
for something that doesn't have any obvious resonances in their response and 
that can cope with extreme choices from your taste in music - in my case, I'm 
quite happy to go to a hifi shop with a fistful of my own CDs - e.g. violin, 
piano, and organ concerti, full symphonies, heavy metal, solo voice, capo 
verde jazz... whatever. Listen to the speakers through a single amp and 
decide which you like the sound of best.

I'd recommend if the amps have eq, centering the controls. Once you've found 
the speakers you like, switch alternate amps to the speakers. At this stage, 
the salesman will be going wild and enthusing about pace, rhythm, control, 
stage etc. Tune him out, he's an idiot. When you seek an amp, get one capable 
of outputting *more* power than the speakers can officially handle. The 
salesman will go 'eek' but that way, you'll be unlikely to overload the amp, 
thus you won't generated the dangerous squarewave clipping signal that *will* 
kill your speakers...

Each of the speaker pairs will sound different; each of the amps will sound 
different... but there's likely to be a combination in there that you like, 
even in the less than optimal environment of the shop.

The reason for avoiding eq is that if done in the analogue domain, it will 
introduce phase shifts depending on frequency... which can lead to stereo 
image shifts as well as potentially introducing harmonic distortions... but 
again, it's a matter of taste.

For what it's worth, my home audio is over ten years old; a pioneer amp and 
wharfedale speakers that cost under three hundred quid at the time.

>
> > >I think John is referring to the old school
> >
> > audiophile
> >
> > >beef with digital\CD\semiconductor audio playback
> >
> > vs.
> >
> > >analog\vinyl\tube based audio.  Right John, or not?
> >
> > Uooh, that's hot topic ;-). And I'm not really
> > qualified for this since
> > I lack the >10k $/EUR hifi equipment (both
> > semiconductor and tube).
>
> Okay... $10K is a starting point I guess... ;-P

Heh. See above. But the last pair of speakers I bought professionally were 
eighteen thousand pounds *each* :)

>
> > Never really ventured into WINE land, I tried it a
> > couple of times on my
> > desktop (unsuccessfully). From the little experience
> > I had I would say
> > it's a nogo on a 50ct (it draws quite some CPU).
> > Anyone with experience
> > on a 110ct?
>
> From Neil's comments, I'm now wondering if a 110 could
> handle it.
>

I'd still not recommend it - ok if you want to play patience or use word, but 
by the time you're asking it to emulate all the windows audio buffers and 
then the linux sound system buffers on top of that... you're on a hiding to 
nothing :)

One point about your requirement for eq on the lib player - recall that eq is 
one of the heavier computational requirements to be done with any accuracy, 
though on an mp2 playback it could be done once the signal has been decrypted 
but not yet decoded at very little cost - I doubt that that's how they do 
it...

Neil



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