[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
An interesting mixture of comments. I have ditched my exotic hi-fi, a mix of pre/power amplification two box cd setup, expensive cables and ridiculously expensive speakers. Ok it sounded outstanding but for a £3k outlay it ought to have. I was won over by accessability of digital and now all that graces my hifi stand is a squeezebox plugged directly into my power amps (all i kept from the old system along with the speakers). It basically sounds the same as my old system - and thats down to the speakers, and to a much lesser extent the amplifiers. Flac does sound better than ogg, but to a minute degree, and yes it is better than mp3, but only if you sit down and subject yourself to listening tests, which i dont really want to do. If all you are thinking while listening is it could sound better then the listening experience is being marred in my opinion. After finding myself obsessed by cables, plugs, power supplies, i decided it was time to abandon the quest for the elixir of sound quality (which essentially can never be obtained - not least with digital and compressed music) and listen to the music instead. I set a limit on bitrates to no lower that 192kbps (160 with ogg) and the sound equals the original as far as my ears are willing to scrutinise. Its certainly no less of an experience that listening to my old £3k worth of hifi. Basically, plug your squeezebox into the simplest amp and speaker setup you can get. You dont need equalizers or anything else that alters the source music - if you do, somthing is very wrong with the music. Any modest power amp (just use the SB's in built volume control) and quality bookshelf speakers will give you a superb listening experience which you can enjoy without becoming obsessed by frequency ranges, dynamics, resonance and all the other senseless things that us audiophiles, me included, all to easily take as the be all and end all of the audiophile listening experience. -- russj russj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4187 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: I'll see you later, CD replacement! Not yet, though, at least not around my environment. Of course, as I write this, Sting's Brand New Day has been playing in the background without any dropouts, sometimes I hate technology and the random %$#@ around it. But while I can listen to 256k knowing I have compromised quality for now, what I culdn't bear is listening to a FLAC with the thought that is may drop out any second in the back of my head... and upon looking it up, there's a lot of that in the forums. If you're still in the process of ripping and encoding, you might want to try one of the VBR settings instead of a fixed bitrate of 256k. You can actually get better sound with less filespace and bandwidth. I'm using the latest version of Lame, encoding with -V 1 --vbr-new which gives an average bitrate around 210k. Even the highest-quality VBR setting (-V 0 --vbr-new) averages about 230k. To my ears, both of these sound better than a straight 256k, because the bits can be allocated more efficiently: In the sections of music where there's not much going on, you're still using (actually wasting) 256k, when a lower amount of data would give the same results. And in difficult, busy passages, you are *limited* to 256k when the sound might be better served by allocating the full 320k to that section. The --vbr-new routines are also optimized for speed. The old vbr routines were pretty slow in encoding; these are much faster. You may be able to save time, space, and bandwidth by using vbr, while getting better quality of sound. Here's a page on the latest beta of Lame with a discussion of the various setting and how they relate to sound quality: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=28124 -- Pale Blue Ego Pale Blue Ego's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=110 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: Obviously the discussion did not pass me by. Today I converted 2 favorites to flac, and also to 320Mbps MP3, for comparison. The quality of FLAC is undeniable, running it through the DA input on the Accuphase CD it sounds just like the original CD. With the MP3 at 256, I can and could tell differences (even though it sounds great). At 320, well, still differences to the original, but if there are differences to 256 I can't tell. What did spoil my experience at the higher resolution (both FLAC and 320) were dropout issues. Random issues that I must attribute to buffering gone wrong. Never had a single issue at 256k. Wireless signal quality is in the 80s. Me thinks it may be a streaming issue with Slimserver itself. Not a performance issue with my computer - plenty of memory and an Athlon 64 3k processor... I don't know. That puts an end to my thoughts about FLAC for now. Not with this product generation for me, obviously not in my environment. The convenience is awesome, and at 256k it was a rock stable listening experiences. Dropouts are an utter an total no-no, I can't ever have them. I know you'l tell me I should debug. I work hard enough during the day, and 256k is reliable and just plain works and does what I want it to do. This stuff should be plug and play, the initial setup wasn't, and I don't feel like system testing things unless I get paid for it... I'll see you later, CD replacement! Not yet, though, at least not around my environment. Of course, as I write this, Sting's Brand New Day has been playing in the background without any dropouts, sometimes I hate technology and the random %$#@ around it. But while I can listen to 256k knowing I have compromised quality for now, what I culdn't bear is listening to a FLAC with the thought that is may drop out any second in the back of my head... and upon looking it up, there's a lot of that in the forums. Sounds like a network problem to me. Unless your server is really, really bogged down with something extremely demanding? I stream WAV (about twice the bandwidth demand to FLAC) over an 11 Mbit/s WLAN, and it works fine. But I keep that WLAN to be used exclusively by the SB. (I have a separate WLAN for surfing.) -- P Floding P Floding's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2932 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I have even encoded 48 kHz DVD sourced audio to FLAC with no problems. I also have a signal in the 80% range. I believe you, ebough people report equal luck. I don't know why, but I am experiencing some random instabilities: vanishing playlists, incomplete library information - I have tried updating the latest nightly a couple of times, to no avail. I have little doubt with more effort I could fix it, but then again, that's not what I want to do right now. I want to focus my effort on digitizing my collection and enjoying the convenience. I think there are fundamental incompatibilities between SQB, Slimserver and Windows Media Player for now. We'll see how it all evolves. At 256k it exceeeds the expectations I had. Above it, it underwhelms in my particular case because of the issues. It is not a replacement for the CD player, not by a mile, at least not yet - utter no-matter-what stability has to catch up in my environment. Which is a pretty vanilla one. -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Have you been playing back your FLAC's shortly after rescanning your library? You may be able to operate the SB while SlimServer is still updating your library. I always check via the web interface to make sure the scanning has completed, if not I'll get dropouts. Whew, 100 posts, I'm a senior member now! :-) -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: I want to focus my effort on digitizing my collection and enjoying the convenience. That's a good reason for not working hard on debugging your environment (although it's not a choice I would make). I would suggest that it might be worth your while ripping your collection to FLAC and converting to MP3 in anticipation of further slimserver releases, hardware upgrades, time etc. It would be a shame to upgrade to 6.5 in March and find all your issues have gone, but all your collection is MP3. Malcolm -- mwphoto mwphoto's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=652 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I started all this, and it went somewhere I couldn't follow anymore. It's har for me to understand that the powersupply could make any difference but in this room it seems to be so many intelligent people so I go for it. So I sum it up: 1) New power supply. Stabilized, around $25 in Sweden. 2) New Amp with digital line in. Any suggestions? Don't want to spend more than $650. 3) New cables. Could do that. 4) Go Flac. Don't think so. What about Apples lossless? 5) New hardware equalizer. Don´t want to have another box on top of all the others. Did I miss something? Best regards Mats -- Zacko Zacko's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3733 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Zacko Wrote: I started all this, and it went somewhere I couldn't follow anymore. It's har for me to understand that the powersupply could make any difference but in this room it seems to be so many intelligent people so I go for it. So I sum it up: 1) New power supply. Stabilized, around $25 in Sweden. 2) New Amp with digital line in. Any suggestions? Don't want to spend more than $650. 3) New cables. Could do that. 4) Go Flac. Don't think so. What about Apples lossless? 5) New hardware equalizer. Don´t want to have another box on top of all the others. Did I miss something? Best regards Mats Myself, I am going for a new powersupply now (An expensive 5V3A unit). I have already invested in new cables (Kimber Kable Timbre). I use FLAC and FLAC only. Apple lossless should be OK but I don't trust Apple... At around $650, I don't think you will get a decent amp with digital in; spend it on a separate DAC instead. or buy a pure analog amplifier (a used one perhaps?). I belive that good hardware equalizers are expensive, and you could probably spend the money more wisely on other parts of your stereo. Bottom line, if I were you, I would try a different power and new cables. Those investments are relatively low. Tom -- tomsi42 SqueezeBox2, Rotel RC-1070/RB-1070, dynaBel Exact. tomsi42's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2477 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Zacko Wrote: I started all this, and it went somewhere I couldn't follow anymore. It's har for me to understand that the powersupply could make any difference but in this room it seems to be so many intelligent people so I go for it. So I sum it up: 1) New power supply. Stabilized, around $25 in Sweden. 2) New Amp with digital line in. Any suggestions? Don't want to spend more than $650. 3) New cables. Could do that. 4) Go Flac. Don't think so. What about Apples lossless? 5) New hardware equalizer. Don´t want to have another box on top of all the others. Did I miss something? Best regards Mats How about giving up and going back to iTunes. It seems that you are looking for a sound that is emphasized at certain points across the spectrum. Sorry, but unequalized, the SqueezeBox just ain't gonna do it for you. It's built to be flat. If you're not willing to add an equalizer, I'm afraid there's not much anyone can do for you. Cut your losses, sell it on eBay. You'll get a taker. -- jonheal Jon Heal says: Have a nice day! http://www.theheals.org/ jonheal's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2133 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
jonheal Wrote: How about giving up and going back to iTunes. It seems that you are looking for a sound that is emphasized at certain points across the spectrum. Sorry, but unequalized, the SqueezeBox just ain't gonna do it for you. It's built to be flat. If you're not willing to add an equalizer, I'm afraid there's not much anyone can do for you. Cut your losses, sell it on eBay. You'll get a taker. I would not go that far. But I agree that these purist approaches are not going to get what you want. I think your listening orientation tends towards the bright hi fi sound. You may be better off to get some big mass market type speakers that gives you lots of highs and lows, and not worry about all these accuracy issue. it could just be that the more accurate it gets, the less you'll like. And there really isnt anything wrong with that approach either. My friend listens to a lot of music, but whenever he listens to a high end system, he always says not enough bass, not enough treble. And he absolutely adores BO and Bose. He is a very good friend of mine, but our musical and listening tastes are just different. -- agentsmith agentsmith's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1838 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Exactly the point of my earlier post. Even if you want to use mp3 for playback, it's worth your time to rip and encode to flac, so you never have to rip again. Once you have your collection in flac you can transcode to mp3, or maintain a parallel library in mp3, or debug your dropout problems when you have time and then play flac directly. I don't even want to think about how long it took me to rip my CD collection. Ugh.On 2/23/06, mwphoto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:pablolie Wrote: I want to focus my effort on digitizing my collection and enjoying the convenience.That's a good reason for not working hard on debugging your environment(although it's not a choice I would make). I would suggest that it might be worth your while ripping yourcollection to FLAC and converting to MP3 in anticipation of furtherslimserver releases, hardware upgrades, time etc. It would be a shameto upgrade to 6.5 in March and find all your issues have gone,but allyour collection is MP3.Malcolm--mwphotomwphoto's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=652View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___audiophiles mailing listaudiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Zacko Wrote: 4) Go Flac. Don't think so. What about Apples lossless? Just want to make sure you are aware: You will not be able to fast forward or rewind within Apple Lossless tracks. If it hasn't already been referenced before, this Wiki page may be useful: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?BeginnersGuideToFileFormats -- abdomen abdomen's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1205 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: Buying 5,000 compact discs and having 250 *good* ones is either poor selection or incredibly bad luck. That's an ignorant thing to say. Listen to jazz recording until the early 70s. A 256kbps MP3 is not going to be the *gating factor* in the vast majority of cases. It does beg the question, why further limit the resolution of the few good sounding ones you do have? I don't. I own Accuphase gear, and fantastic speakers. Catch up to that with a SQB. And good luck. You want to be obnoxious, 2 can play that game: you don't even realize your line of argument betrays your insecurity in your system's capabilities. The SQB is convenient. It sounds amazing. As ar as rivaling the psychoacoustic experience of listening to things without it through the Accupphase CD and amplifier: no way. What is a gating factor? As far as I'm aware errors accumulate. I have very few CDs that are not clearly different in sound when compressed to 256 kbps MP3, BTW. Even on my iPod nano I can easily hear the difference between 224 kbps AAC (which sounds better than MP3) and apple lossless. It is especially marked with symphonies. -- P Floding P Floding's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2932 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: The results are a lack of ACCUracy compared to the source. OK, so let's see - what is the ultimate benefit of phase accuracy? What does it help reproduce in a stereo recording? It goes back to a point I made before: since most phasing is introduced utterly artificially in most recordings these days, the hardly measurable phase inaccuracy introduced by MP3 does not corrupt the musicality of the source - that's a rethoric overstatement. If it's a brilliantly engineered recoding with true staging (and there are such recordings around) with an entire band on stage, different story. Incidentally, I have listened to the latter as a test on MP3 at 256kbps, and while it suffers, it's still very impressive. Beyond my expectations, and those were not set by humble and compromised original equipment - I need to make that clear. On an articually channel- and phase- mixed recording I truly don't overly care about utter 110% accuracy. pablolie, on my humble system piano is near unbearable at 192Kbps MP3, I have not evaluated 256Kbps though. Probably it has something to do with the way it is encoded, or type of music. But it is nice that people with all sorts of opinions and conviction all love enjoying their music collection. We're a lucky bunch. -- agentsmith agentsmith's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1838 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie wrote: Like the OS I use now will be around in 5 years... right. Good luck running that application then. two thoughts: 1) store the source code, not the binary executable (better yet: store the format spec and re-implement if needed) 2) emulators already exist for current OS's (VMWare,et.al.). ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I can't tell the difference between high bitrate mp3 and FLAC. Of course, my system is far from audiophile quality. Maybe someday I'll have equipment which reveals the difference to me. Maybe not.Despite this, my entire CD collection (500+? 700+? I don't even know anymore) is encoded in FLAC. It has required multiple hard drives, and I'm using RAID 1, so I'm using double the drives I strictly speaking need. Why? First, the noise of the system is a nonissue -- it's not in a listening room.Second, and this is the part I haven't seen you really address in your replies, FLAC ensures that I will never need to re-rip my CDs (unless catastrophe strikes and I lose the RAID system -- but I'm planning on adding periodic backups to my safety net as well). If you encode with mp3, and later you need/want to use another lossy format, you'll either have to re-rip or suffer a generational loss of quality. You (like I) may not be able to distinguish between high bitrate mp3 and FLAC, but after a generation or two of quality loss, you may begin to notice the difference. My next project may involve keeping a parallel library in mp3 format, generated automatically from my FLAC library. I can use the mp3s for players which don't speak FLAC.Disk space is cheap. The time it took me to rip all those CDs and verify the tags is not. I don't really care how anyone else chooses to do this, but I do feel like anyone with a decent sized music collection must have a streak of masochism is they'd willingly leave themselves open to having to re-rip all of their CDs. :) On 2/22/06, pablolie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All in good fun though. We're both here because music is important to us, but getting 'the best sound from your squeezebox' is not the most important thing in the world.Agree with you on all counts.As I have stated before: I am very likely to re-digitize thoserecording that are important to me as FLACs in due time. First of all I have to see how much storage space I have left after I have achieved myprimary objective, which is archiving my entire collection forconvenience while mantaining acceptable sound. The current sound leveland musicality of the set-up by far exceeds my original expectations, so I am ecstatic about it. My goal wasn't and isn't to maintainidentical playback quality - I have been consistently clear aboutthat.I can't recall telling ayone else what they should do when it comes to setting up their system or digitizing their collection, because I amnot sure what their goals are.Perhaps I could have gone out to see if I could utterly replace my CDplayer. I am not even remotely close to that. My idiosynchrasies and preferences are just mine, not asking anyone else to adopt them. On theother hand, I think it's foolish for others to try to judge the resultsI get without having experienced them first hand. That's called dogma. And all I can say is I am not afflicted by it.--pabloliepablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173___ audiophiles mailing listaudiophiles@lists.slimdevices.comhttp://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Mitch Harding said the following on 02/22/2006 03:40 PM: My next project may involve keeping a parallel library in mp3 format, generated automatically from my FLAC library. I can use the mp3s for players which don't speak FLAC. http://projects.robinbowes.com/trac/flac2mp3 R. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I have experienced no dropouts whatsoever. I have even encoded 48 kHz DVD sourced audio to FLAC with no problems. I also have a signal in the 80% range. Given the kind of performance I am getting, I truly believe this is the time to embrace FLAC lossless coding. The thing is even gapless. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to tell me this is not a dream :-) Perhaps you have SlimServer configured to transcode FLAC to raw PCM before streaming. This would definitely reduce your bandwidth... -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pfarrell Wrote: Is the audiophile world that old? I think The Absolute Sound is only about 15 years old. Maybe a little older. I think the Audiophile world is MUCH older than that. Perhaps not the term itself, and of course the technologies being fussed about are changing all the time, but if you're interested in the history of this strange obsession you could try hunting down A Song of Reproduction. Flanders and Swann, 1950s. Ceejay -- ceejay ceejay's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=148 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pfarrell Wrote: Is the audiophile world that old? I think The Absolute Sound is only about 15 years old. Maybe a little older. The idea of high end was pretty much defined by TAS. In the 70s and 80s, stereo was more of a mass market, or at least widespread, everyone in college aimed for some serious speakers, be they AR-3As or Large Advents, or something more exotic like Quads or Dahlquists. The current audiophiles seem to love wandering off into religious discussions. The idea of spending $500 or $1000 on interconnects is beyond beyond my understanding. Why should TAS define audiophile, and why do you think being an audiophile is equivalent to buying expensive interconnects? Religious discussions are part of every xyz-phile hobby. It is part of the fun. I know specialist audiophile publications existed at least 25 years ago, since I have been an audiophile for 25 years. I was admittedly on a low budget initially, but that has nothing to do with being or not being an audiophile. Some of the highest quality recordings around were made in the 50's -and I guess the masterful people making these recordings were their time's audiophiles. -- P Floding P Floding's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2932 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
P Floding wrote: pfarrell Wrote: Is the audiophile world that old? I think The Absolute Sound is only about 15 years old. Maybe a little older. Why should TAS define audiophile, They were the first to use the term high end Which is where mortals start to think of the term 'audiophile' The old normal stereo fans seem to have fallen away, moving to video or surround. From what I can see stereophile is the only US magazine still availble and alive. The mass market (mostly Japanese) receivers, turntables, and CD players of the late 70s drove the magazines to a all amps sound alike approach, which was bad for business and the hobby. The audiophile karma points out that they are not alike, and brought back tube amps, vinyl and other relics from the past. and why do you think being an audiophile is equivalent to buying expensive interconnects? Look at the advertisements in TAS, Stereophile, The Audiophile Voice and tell me what the magazines, and their advertisers think are defining lusts? being an audiophile. Some of the highest quality recordings around were made in the 50's -and I guess the masterful people making these recordings were their time's audiophiles. I agree that the 50s hi-fi hobby and 'stereo' that swept the colleges in the late 60s and 70s are the precursors to today's audiophiles. I don't think of audiophile as being a universal positive term. IMHO, too much attention is spent on 'gear' and not enough on the music. -- -- toc [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.curmudgeon4.us/ ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pfarrell Wrote: P Floding wrote: pfarrell Wrote: Is the audiophile world that old? I think The Absolute Sound is only about 15 years old. Maybe a little older. Why should TAS define audiophile, They were the first to use the term high end Which is where mortals start to think of the term 'audiophile' The old normal stereo fans seem to have fallen away, moving to video or surround. From what I can see stereophile is the only US magazine still availble and alive. The mass market (mostly Japanese) receivers, turntables, and CD players of the late 70s drove the magazines to a all amps sound alike approach, which was bad for business and the hobby. The audiophile karma points out that they are not alike, and brought back tube amps, vinyl and other relics from the past. and why do you think being an audiophile is equivalent to buying expensive interconnects? Look at the advertisements in TAS, Stereophile, The Audiophile Voice and tell me what the magazines, and their advertisers think are defining lusts? being an audiophile. Some of the highest quality recordings around were made in the 50's -and I guess the masterful people making these recordings were their time's audiophiles. I agree that the 50s hi-fi hobby and 'stereo' that swept the colleges in the late 60s and 70s are the precursors to today's audiophiles. I don't think of audiophile as being a universal positive term. IMHO, too much attention is spent on 'gear' and not enough on the music. -- -- toc toc (AT) curmudgeon4 (DOT) us http://www.curmudgeon4.us/ I sort of agree with your view on interconnects, I think money is much better spent elsewhere. Being a Naim and vinyl person, I am probably guilty of being a bit of a gear snob. However, I cannot for the life of me understand how people can buy into the idea of $5000 power cables. I surmise that there **may** be minor differences, (and that is a big may), but the difference should be minuscule and may or may not even be better, let alone worthing $5000. But I do believe all the Slim people frequenting this board are more music lovers and are smarter with their gear setup. From their descriptions many of them have some pretty awesome and well chosen systems. A nice mix of people with open minds and well balanced left and right brains. -- agentsmith agentsmith's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1838 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: You'll just hear a mediocre recording with higher resolution, but it'll remain mediocre. I thikn the average hifi system is superior to the average recording the music industry produces. Hmm. Upgrading my system made cd's I yearned to 'crank up' much more apt for doing so. Radiohead never sounded good on my system until I got everything just right. Doesn't mean it was a bad recording, just that I didn't have the right system for it. I certainly didn't buy B$W speakers to magically make it sound right though. Conversly, my Pink Floyd The Wall Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs has sounded _great_ even when I used a receiver, dvd player, and bose monitors. I wouldn't want all recordings to sound like that, because the engineering on some of these modern recordings blow me away. The newest Gorillaz album sounds leaps and bounds better than anything MFSL I've heard... If all the cd's you pick sound that bad, I'd suggest reconsidering the music you purchase :P -- Skunk Skunk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2685 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: OK, so we can all crank up the passive-aggressive stanza here. There are a couple things in that post I wish I could take back, but that wasn't one of them. I didn't mean anything by it, sorry you took offense. Buying 5,000 compact discs and having 250 *good* ones is either poor selection or incredibly bad luck. It does beg the question, why further limit the resolution of the few good sounding ones you do have? pablolie Wrote: But the gating factor is the emotion - the gear itself and the sound quality has long stopped being a factor in my case. Whatever I play through whatever medium in my home system is going to sound pretty fantastic Fine and good. Don't suggest that mp3 is *almost* as good as FLAC though. Bit perfect is a completely different ballpark, eg if someone has an hdcd decoding external dac- mp3 has no chance. -- Skunk Skunk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2685 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Weren't you arguing the merits of disk space and future support of the format? It doesn't matter to me that you get off on particular rituals and I think it's great that you realize that the point is to enjoy the music, but what does that have to do with choosing between MP3 and FLAC? The act of playing an MP3 track is much the same as the act of playing a FLAC track. You sit down, press a few buttons on your Squeezebox remote, and the music starts. Why use FLAC? - FLAC exactly preserves the original digital recording. - FLAC is available as source code. If there is never a new version of FLAC released, you will still be able to use the current one. If you buy a new computer with different architecture, you can re-compile FLAC and it will continue to work. The only case in which that would not be true is if the C programming language were not available for your chosen hardware. - Once you've ripped to FLAC, you never have to re-rip your collection again to change formats. With MP3 you will either have to re-rip or accept the loss of quality. Converting from MP3 to another lossy format compounds the loss of quality -- different formats throw out different information. If you decide to switch from MP3 to AAC to Vorbis, you'll have to re-rip every time or suffer generational losses. If you decide to switch from FLAC to Apple Lossless to Monkey Audio to some future lossless format, direct conversion from one format to the next involves no generational loss and can be automated. So what's the downside of FLAC? - Disk space. But disks are cheap. Cheap cheap cheap. If you don't want noisy disks near where you relax or work, don't put them there. Put them somewhere else. - Not as compatible with portable players, in terms of format and in terms of space. However, it's not hard to automate the process of duplicating your entire collection into some other format from the FLAC originals and store it in a separate directory, ready to use with your portable devices. So that's really back to the disk space issue. Did I mention that disks are cheap? -- John Stimson John Stimson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=218 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Buying 5,000 compact discs and having 250 *good* ones is either poor selection or incredibly bad luck. That's an ignorant thing to say. Listen to jazz recording until the early 70s. A 256kbps MP3 is not going to be the gating factor in the vast majority of cases. It does beg the question, why further limit the resolution of the few good sounding ones you do have? I don't. I own Accuphase gear, and fantastic speakers. catch up to that with a SQB. Good luck. You want to be obnoxious, 2 can play that game. -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
tyler_durden Wrote: In another year or so, mp3 players will disappear because the cost of storage will be so low everyone will go lossless, first with lossless compression like flac. aac or wma, then in another couple years, you'll just be storing .wav files (for CDs, until you need to store 24 bit 96 ksps stuff). At the rate things are going, terabyte drives will be $100 in another 12-18 months. TD Although I agree with your sentiment, mp3's are not going to disappear any time soon. In fact, I bet if you ask 100 people, 80 of them will not even know that mp3 IS a compression scheme. Most people have no clue about format wars. That said, I have started using FLAC as an archival format, while I still play very high quality mp3's. I use LAME VBR at the highest quality setting, and on my system, I can't hear any difference between FLAC and these mp3's. But, that is my system and my ears. Of course, YMMV. -- ezkcdude ezkcdude's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2545 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
... keep a copy of the encoder/decoder software on a CDROM .. Like the OS I use now will be around in 5 years... right. Good luck running that application then. In another year or so, mp3 players will disappear ... You're going a tad overboard. Out of all the encodings around, MP3 is still the most widely adopted one. No company in its right mind would discontinue its support and push away such a wide customer base. -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: I don't. I own Accuphase gear, and fantastic speakers. C Why then limit yourself to inferior compressed lossy material (MP3)? As for not wanting to expose defects in recordings. Well in this life nothing is perfect. I much rather live with those small recording imperfections than knowing some algorhythm software butchered the original. This somehow reminds me of the NO-Noise and CEDAR craze of the 80s and early 1990s. Much rather have HISS on my music than something artificially enhanced. -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I must add I still have MP3 encoded material from years ago. I don't plan to get rid of it, since I have some rare material. For new rips though, I am totally FLAC. I have even ripped to FLAC some older 1940's Sinatra recordings. I could have used MP3 since most are low in fidelity. But HD space is no longer an issue. -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: Like the OS I use now will be around in 5 years... right. Good luck running that application then. 5 years? I think you underestimate. Win 98 still has a very large user base and it's 8 years old now. I can still run DOS apps from the early 80's on my XP machine. Likewise, vi was written in 1976 and still runs frequently on pretty much every unix box I ever touch. -- radish radish's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=77 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: That's an ignorant thing to say. Listen to jazz recording until the early 70s. A 256kbps MP3 is not going to be the gating factor in the vast majority of cases. It is if you rip it from vinyl. Ignorance is ripping vinyl to mp3. FLAC is bliss. Sorry to be obnoxious :) pablolie Wrote: I don't. I own Accuphase gear, and fantastic speakers. Catch up to that with a SQB. And good luck. Maybe you're right, if you still get up and put the disc in the player. I'll take my FLAC on SB's DAC over your mp3 on accuphase's dac though, thanks. pablolie Wrote: You want to be obnoxious, 2 can play that game: you don't even realize your line of argument betrays your insecurity in your system's capabilities. My only line of argument is that you're not too good at choosing software. I don't understand the rest of your statement. -- Skunk Skunk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2685 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Why then limit yourself to inferior compressed lossy material (MP3)? Great gear is about musicality even -or especially- when the source isn't perfect. Audiophile 101, really. I much rather live with those small recording imperfections an knowing some algorhythm software butchered the original. Since I have listened to the original and the MP3, I know for a fact the original has *not* been butchered. The music still sounds fantastic. At least on my gear, YMMV, etc. Much rather have HISS on my music than something tificially enhanced. How odd that based on the exact same premise -I seldom used Dolby compesation on my CCs- I arrive at exactly the opposite conclusion. Especially since I have never claimed MP3 encoding at any rate provides an enhancement. -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: I'll take my FLAC on SB's DAC over your mp3 on accuphase's dac though, thanks. As you said, ignorance is bliss. I'll add: 'you can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think'. -- Skunk Skunk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2685 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I'll add: 'you can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think' The company you frequent is your business, I don't judge. :-) -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: I'll add: 'you can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think' The company you frequent is your business, I don't judge. :-) I don't ride horses or whores, just return trifling cliches. All in good fun though. We're both here because music is important to us, but getting 'the best sound from your squeezebox' is not the most important thing in the world. Music has so much more to offer than being able to be realistically reproduced in a house, so in many ways I agree with you. -- Skunk Skunk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2685 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Funny, Accuphase stands for accuracy and phase. MP3 is not accurate since it relies on destroying supposedly inaudible phase characteristics! -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
All in good fun though. We're both here because music is important to us, but getting 'the best sound from your squeezebox' is not the most important thing in the world. Agree with you on all counts. As I have stated before: I am very likely to re-digitize those recording that are important to me as FLACs in due time. First of all I have to see how much storage space I have left after I have achieved my primary objective, which is archiving my entire collection for convenience while mantaining acceptable sound. The current sound level and musicality of the set-up by far exceeds my original expectations, so I am ecstatic about it. My goal wasn't and isn't to maintain identical playback quality - I have been consistently clear about that. I can't recall telling ayone else what they should do when it comes to setting up their system or digitizing their collection, because I am not sure what their goals are. Perhaps I could have gone out to see if I could utterly replace my CD player. I am not even remotely close to that. My idiosynchrasies and preferences are just mine, not asking anyone else to adopt them. On the other hand, I think it's foolish for others to try to judge the results I get without having experienced them first hand. That's called dogma. And all I can say is I am not afflicted by it. -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: OK, so let's see - what is the ultimate benefit of phase accuracy? What does it help reproduce in a stereo recording? Phase accuracy plays a key role in soundstaging and imaging. It allows you to properly identify each instrument and it's relative position in the soundfield. A 256 kbps file may resemble the original in tone, but the alteration of phase relationships between channels will prevent the illusion of actual musicians performing in a space. Of course, recordings that are compressed and artificially processed in the studio will not have actual soundstaging of any sort. For those, I guess, MP3 at 256 kbps would do. As For me, I try to listen to recordings that are accurate and musical. Tough I know, specially when you like certain artists that are recorded like crap! -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Try it. Once you go FLAC there's no going back to MP3s. Everything that's on the CD is encoded even the warts on not so perfect recordings! Besides, hard drive storage is pretty cheap nowadays. I bought a 300 gig drive and I haven't even used a third of it. The main reason MP3 was adopted was the narrow bandwidth of dial-up internet connections and limited hard drive space a decade ago. I first found out about MP3s in late 1997, how time flies! CD technology was ahead of early PC computers. CDs were introduced in 1982 and could hold 650 MB of data. By contrast IBM's PCs of those years used 240 KB low density floopy drives for storage and some didn't even have hard drives! While CDs already offered full uncompressed linear PCM coding in 1982, MP3s compression was, in my opinion, a step backwards for convenience and economy. Well no more! Now with broadband, WI-FI streaming and huge storage space the time is ripe for lossless music encoding. -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
That aside, why not choose an open source format, i.e. flac? Without a doubt, when (it's not even an if) I go lossless I'd have a very strong preference for FLAC. But the fact it's open doesn't mean that the big guys with vested interest can't hijack it in the end if it suits their purpose - it's happened before in the open source community. :-( -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: That aside, why not choose an open source format, i.e. flac? Without a doubt, when (it's not even an if) I go lossless I'd have a very strong preference for FLAC. But the fact it's open doesn't mean that the big guys with vested interest can't hijack it in the end if it suits their purpose - it's happened before in the open source community. :-( So what is your point? Are you going to use a proprietary lossless format instead of a free lossless format because the free lossless format might become proprietary some day? You sound like you don't want to use a proprietary format but you're affraid to use an open source format. I'm confused... TD -- tyler_durden tyler_durden's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
tyler_durden wrote: pablolie Wrote: Without a doubt, when (it's not even an if) I go lossless I'd have a very strong preference for FLAC. But the fact it's open doesn't mean that the big guys with vested interest can't hijack it in the end if it suits their purpose - it's happened before in the open source community. So what is your point? Are you going to use a proprietary lossless format instead of a free lossless format because the free lossless format might become proprietary some day? You sound like you don't want to use a proprietary format but you're affraid to use an open source format. Contrary to most people's expectation, MP3 is not free or open source, it is proprietary. The format and codecs are owned by Thomson and the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, and the encoders have always had licensing fees. In 2002, they added licensing fees on decoders, and as a result, RedHat removed MP3 decoding from their free distributions. The hardware player manufacturers pay a fee per unit. It isn't a lot, but it is not zero. That was part of the motivation for MS and Apple to invent their own systems, so they can save costs of the license. -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie wrote: I don't understand. I was in the local CompuSA store yesterday Seagate 200GB disks for $35 each ... Cost is not the issue. The biggest mirrored drive I could get when I bought my Netgear SC101 was 400GB, I got 2 of them - now the largest one is 500GB. It simply is not large enough to house my collection -losslessly- and allow for headroom for growth. And your enviroment won't let it span drives? As I said, I have my songs on three separate drives, all linked to appear as a unified libary. So why not have several of the mirrored drive sets? Of course, if you want to keep it on a router or other restricted box, that may be different. I have mine on an old PC running Mandriva. I can use NFS to mount disks all over the house into a single system. If it is a limitation of the Netgear, then its not a limitation of the SlimServer or SqueezeBox I, on the other hand, think it is utter lunacy to not house a CD collection of several hundred CDs on redundant media. My point was that RAID is not a backup solution. And unless it is setup and administered properly, it is no more secure or reliable than using a single disk. Different strokes for different folks. I still like to listen to the CD itself when the audio quality is the primary consideration. I never listen to CDs, I use my squeezeboxes. When I get serious, my SB1/g goes thru a Benchmark DAC-1. If I had not wanted to buy the DAC-1 anyway, if I had a SB2 or SB3, I might not bother. Bits are bits, transports are obsolete. I'm not following how you jump from audio quality to redundancy to reliability at once. They are different issues that one can decide to implement or not as your strokes require. -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I'm interested in this research, but couldn't find it on their website. Do you have any links? I used to be subscribed to German Stereo magazine, they ran 2 articles on the matter about 3 years ago that influenced me quite a bit. Online references exist for almost everything, though, including any statement about audio quality. :-) -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie Wrote: Cost is not the issue. The biggest mirrored drive I could get when I bought my Netgear SC101 was 400GB, I got 2 of them - now the largest one is 500GB. It simply is not large enough to house my collection -losslessly- and allow for headroom for growth. Then why not simply get additional drives? As others have pointed out, slimserver can easily work with music collections on multiple drives. If need be, get an additional SC101, too. -Ken -- aubuti aubuti's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2074 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I'm not following how you jump from audio quality to redundancy to reliability at once. They are different issues that one can decide to implement or not as your strokes require. But there are some trade-offs, like in every engineering project, given the amount of resources one is willing to commit. And I am not talking only money - also convenience, perceived elegance of the solution. Both objective and subjective parameters are relvant here - I am not designing my system for public use, after all. Yes, the Netgear solution has limitations (I can't recall ever claiming the limitations are the SQB or SLMSRV), but it seemed to be a simple and elegant way for my own set of priorities. Why? I have a specially designed quiet computer. I hate fan noise in my study. A friend let me play with a full RAID server in case I was interested, but the noise level was utterly unacceptable. I spend long hours working, reading and writing in my study. Once you have gone low noise, you will not go back. The Netgear offers mirrored networked drives, and is very quiet. Bingo as far as I am concerned. As to audio quality, well, in the audiophle world the debate it existed long before the advent of MP3s and FLACs. It's part of the fun to argue about it. To claim LPs sound better despite lower SN ratios. To hear differences in cables. To not hear a difference between 256k and 320k MP3, or to claim the quality loss is defensible in some cases... the more things change... -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie wrote: I'm not following how you jump from audio quality to redundancy to reliability at once. They are different issues that one can decide to implement or not as your strokes require. Yes, the Netgear solution has limitations (I can't recall ever claiming the limitations are the SQB or SLMSRV), but it seemed to be a simple and elegant way for my own set of priorities. Why? I have a specially designed quiet computer. I hate fan noise in my study. A friend let me play with a full RAID server in case I was interested, but the noise level was utterly unacceptable. I can understand the noise problem. My SlimServer box is in the basement, far away from my serious music listening. Even then, I put in quieter fans, the cheap ones that most computers are built with can be greatly upgraded for $20 or so. Solves the same problem in a different way. I did have a laptop used to control my SlimServer and to surf the web, do email, etc. I returned it, the fan was too noisy to tolerate. As to audio quality, well, in the audiophle world the debate it existed long before the advent of MP3s and FLACs. It's part of the fun to argue about it. To claim LPs sound better despite lower SN ratios. To hear differences in cables. To not hear a difference between 256k and 320k MP3, or to claim the quality loss is defensible in some cases... the more things change... Is the audiophile world that old? I think The Absolute Sound is only about 15 years old. Maybe a little older. The idea of high end was pretty much defined by TAS. In the 70s and 80s, stereo was more of a mass market, or at least widespread, everyone in college aimed for some serious speakers, be they AR-3As or Large Advents, or something more exotic like Quads or Dahlquists. The current audiophiles seem to love wandering off into religious discussions. The idea of spending $500 or $1000 on interconnects is beyond beyond my understanding. I don't see any value in even talking about whether one or another MP3 version is relativly better or even good enough since for my decision space, the computer in the basement has infinite disk space, and then FLAC is my choice because it is lossless and open source. MP3 is neither. YMMV -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
TAS started as an underground mag in the late 1970s. It didn't come of age until a decade later. I do believe good cables make a difference but I would not pay more than $100 for a set of interconnects. Good thing the local dealer has a lot of demo and used cables to choose from. Like XLO's for 50 bucks. My speaker cables are orange jacketed cable from the Home Depot, a TAS suggestion for cost effective wire! -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Hi, and thansk for all replies. About being an audiophile: I've been there, done that. In the attic I have a pair of IMF TLS80-speakers, big ass fridges, icredible sound but impossible to place in my livingroom. My relation to good sound is like it is to music. A good tune is a good tune, I don't care if it's Dire Straits who made it. So what sounds good in my ears is good enough for me. Yes, I have a lot of MP3:s, just because iTunes on my Mac doesn't recognice Flac, I've spent a lot of time decoding Flac to AAC and I don't want to go trough the whole library again. There is certainly some 128 among them, I myself use 192 and I'm quite sure that it close to impossible to tell the difference between 192 and higher. SB3 is a really nice machine, but if it's as great as many says why do I have to mod it? I know some buffs want the music completely flat. I'm not one of them, it may work if I carry down my fridges from the attic but not with the speakers I use now. Still a EQ would be nice. I've tried the 6.2.2 and experienced a lot of cuts in during playing. I will try it again, since I suspect it was due to slow updating of the library. Maybe I buy myself a new amp, it would be with a great deal of sorrow, my BO is 20 years old, have a fantastic designed and is as a fact a dear old friend, even if the remote is bigger than some of the bathrooms I've been forced to use sometimes. And still: the iTunes intreface it's much nicer and quicker than Slimserver. This whas a bit long. Sorry. Mats -- Zacko Zacko's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3733 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Zacko wrote: SB3 is a really nice machine, but if it's as great as many says why do I have to mod it? I haven't mod'd any of mine. Lots of people talk about mods because many of them are easy and cheap. Buying a $10 power supply and plugging it in counts as a 'mod' to some folks, it is so cheap, it is easy to try. I've tried the 6.2.2 and experienced a lot of cuts in during playing. I will try it again, since I suspect it was due to slow updating of the library. I get noticable dropouts, maybe one per album. Its a known bug in the 6.* series, never had it with the 5.* server code. -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Why don't you just buy a hardware EQ? -- konut konut's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1596 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
konut Wrote: Why don't you just buy a hardware EQ? A friend of mine with a pretty decent system has been happy with this model: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?DID=7Partnumber=245-882 -- jonheal Jon Heal says: Have a nice day! http://www.theheals.org/ jonheal's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2133 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Thanks for your comments, Pat. It isn't the bass that is usually different, it is usually the reverb tails at the mid frequencies, and the decay of a snare hit. The acoustic bass has that range, especially when recorded as well as in that Kevin Mahogany album. t's in the echo, when you hear the note reverbrate. Mahogany's vocals are out of this world, and I truly can not detect a difference in resolution there. My reference for percussion and drums was Will Calhoun's Native Lands, and indeed there I did detect slight differences in the sharpness of some hits, but then again my ears seem to prefer warmth over bite in some instances, if you know what I mean. Why not FLAC? Same convenience as MP3, same sound as uncompressed, disk usage between uncompressed and MP3. Indeed, why not? I may give it a try. The main reason is inertia - I had started digitizing my music collection a while ago, and started off with my LP collection about 2 years ago - and back then following some online research decided on the MP3 256k CBR format. I'd feel guilty about giving my CDs better treatment than my beloved old LPs. :-) And it'd be a heck of a lot of work to re-do everything. I'll probably give the FLAC an inevitable test run one of these days - inquiring minds always need to find something new to play with. The Kevin Mahogany album is a prime candidate. -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie wrote: Indeed, why not? I may give it a try. The main reason is inertia - I had started digitizing my music collection a while ago, I can understand that. I have 750 CDs in my library and I never want to touch them again. -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Zacko Wrote: I myself use 192 and I'm quite sure that it close to impossible to tell the difference between 192 and higher. From my system 192kbps MP3 is unaccceptable, with very noticable sibilence especially with piano music. -- agentsmith agentsmith's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1838 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
320 kbps is the minimum for acceptable sound in my experience. Might as well go all the way and use FLAC in such a case. I have also found that audible MP3 artifacts are more noticeable with certain kinds of music. It also depends on the quality of the encoding process. -- crooner Squeezebox 3 Lite Audio DAC60 tube DAC Pioneer SX-1980 Vandersteen 2Ce Signature Vandersteen 2W crooner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3379 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
320 kbps is the minimum for acceptable sound in my experience. Fraunhofer institute has repeatedly lined up audiophile experts, and they've never been able to reliably tell the difference between 320k and 256k MP3 encoding. It's all due to psychoacoustics. The algorithms are tricky, and the linearity one would intuitively expect isn't really there. Differences between 256k and well recorded CDs are slight, however they are audible, as stated in other threads. I'd be curious to test out FLAC, and shall do so. -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I have been listening to quite a bit of music with the SQB3. I tested: (1) Original CD on Accuphase DP65v (2) SQB3 connected via Kimber Optical to DP65v's DA (2a) Uncompressed (2b) 256kbps MP3 (1) Always loved the sound. Crisp, high resolution, yet extremely musical. (2b) In the vast majority of instances, equally stunning sound. But upon listening closely to My world is empty on a Kevin Mahogany album, I finally saw some warmth and a certain acoustic echo missing on the bassline. The slightest difference, but detectable. (2a) Same as 1, impossible to tell a difference. I am sticking to my strategy of compressing MP3s at 256k CBR. The quality loss is damn near undetectable, the sound great, the convenience unbeatable. -- pablolie pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie wrote: (1) Original CD on Accuphase DP65v (2) SQB3 connected via Kimber Optical to DP65v's DA (2a) Uncompressed (2b) 256kbps MP3 (2b) In the vast majority of instances, equally stunning sound. But upon listening closely to My world is empty on a Kevin Mahogany album, I finally saw some warmth and a certain acoustic echo missing on the bassline. The slightest difference, but detectable. (2a) Same as 1, impossible to tell a difference. I am sticking to my strategy of compressing MP3s at 256k CBR. The quality loss is damn near undetectable, the sound great, the convenience unbeatable. Hey, this is the audiophiles list. It isn't the bass that is usually different, it is usually the reverb tails at the mid frequencies, and the decay of a snare hit. Why not FLAC? Same convenience as MP3, same sound as uncompressed, disk usage between uncompressed and MP3. -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Upgrade the server to version 6.2.2. That made a huge difference for me in terms of analogue output. Upgrading PS to regulated Linear supply, using decent interconnects all helps to improving the sound as well. -- dwsomers dwsomers's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3528 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
dwsommers, can you explain what it is about Slimserver 6.2.2 that results in a sound improvement? Is the improvement specific to a particular kind of encoding, or does it work accross the board? -- MartinP MartinP's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3513 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Zacko Wrote: iTunes/Airport Express sounds much better thanks to that simple equalizer. My amp doesn't even have bass or treble, let alone equalization, and sounds pretty clean and crispy with the squeezebox. Were you planning to lower the high frequencys with the eq? Also, FLAC encoded music sounds much better on the Squeezebox than mp3, in case mp3 is what you were using with the airport express. -- Skunk Skunk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2685 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
Zacko Wrote: I read the tests, I liked the cool look of the Squeezebox 3 and there it was, shiny and bright, rather easy setup. But where were the true clean crispy sound? Not in my speakers. iTunes/Airport Express sounds much better thanks to that simple equalizer. It's an old BangOlufsen amplifier, small Infinity speakers, no supercables, no way BO has a digital line in. So what could I do except for hoping for a software equalizer solution or a plug-in wich will let med play music through SB3 from iTunes? Mats Goteborg Sweden Maybe you're listenting to stuff you bought on iTunes or 128kpbs mp3s, which happen to have no high end, no bottom and a nice flat and muddled middle. (They *need* an equalizer to even begin to sound proper.) You know the sayings ... garbage in, garbage out... and You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear... and all that rot. -- jonheal Jon Heal says: Have a nice day! http://www.theheals.org/ jonheal's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2133 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
You could use foobar to preprocess all your audio. Alternatively, if you can find command line util to process audio that can stream data in and out, you can use that within slimserver - I havn't tried this, but I'm sure it must be possible... As you're in the audiophile forum I should say don't talk to me about equalisation unless its DRC... -- bludragon bludragon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1530 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
I've checked my SB3 on my amp (Sony w/ Jamo speakers) like this: - Original CD from one line - Lame APS rip from an other line in - Synchronized playing (both started at the same time) - Doing blind compare by switching several times between them (~15 times) Result: very hard to distinguish the original and the rip. So ... I think you better check your system (amp, quality of rips, etc.). The SB3 is very good (and yes, with FLAC it's even better). ::Krobb:: -- Krobb iRiver H340 with a Sony MDR-J20 (on the move) | foobar2000 (at comp) | Sennheiser HD555 (for HiFi) | Dension DMP3 (in car) | Squeezebox3 (in WiFi mode) Krobb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3177 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
joncourage Wrote: Lots of information in this article, provides a good summary of what to expect. Sort of a reader's digest version of going through many of the threads on this forum. http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1205/slimdevices_squeezebox.htm Short version: the SB is indeed capable of high-quality audiophile grade sound but to some degree depends on a) what you feed it (format and quality of rips); b) what you output it to (DAC, interconnects, electronics, speakers). The consensus seems to be that the out-of-the-box SB is comparable at least to most consumer-grade CD players. Add a decent DAC, you're looking at least at mid-grade audiophile-oriented CD players as a comparison. Have some mods done on the SB and you can get it into high-end audiophile territory, provided you're feeding it lossless music and outputting it to a decent stereo system. Given the same source material, how could the SqueezeBox's (with an outboard DAC, if you wish) sound quality *possibly* be any less than that of *any* CD player with a DAC of similar quality?!? -- jonheal Jon Heal says: Have a nice day! http://www.theheals.org/ jonheal's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2133 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21173 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
