Winamp DSP band-pass/high-pass felcher?

Fear · Post by **Fear** » March 22nd, 2007, 23:32

I guess it depends a lot of what you are listening to it on. My hifi/speakers are worth more than 4 times my PC. (Imagine Berk's PC equivalent in hi-fi)

I also use coax digital from the PC to an expensive amp which helps maintain noise-free-ness as the dirty noisy soundcard DAC doesn't get to inject noise as it is still 0's and 1's. (*)

Then it arrives at my amp where it is converted to analogue with some funky shit technology keeping all the channels isolated at all times. It then get amplified by mono block amplifiers and sent down silly-priced oxygen free cables to my B&W 603's. This is all on a vibration isolation stage. Power-in is also filtered.

Incidentally can you lot tell the difference between say an 192bit mp3 and wav/cd? Some can, some can't. Once you can hear the difference it will bug you forever.

For me avoiding the software mixer part of windows I found the treble to become much clearer and the instruments seemed to have more air around them. Similar to the difference between mp3 encoding and wav (but without the additional compression artefacting you'd also hear). Jazz is a particularly good music type to hear the difference, and some operatic classical type stuff.

"Gregorian - The Gift" - my choice hifi geek test track.

(*) This makes a massive massive difference. If you can do this, do it.

/endeth the geeky sound blog (and you thought I just enjoyed glow sticks)

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 22nd, 2007, 23:35

Musical Fidelity Xcan v2 (modded with high end caps and tubes), senn HD650s.

I can hear the difference

Eion (iirc) is on shure e5cs or HD600s

Fear · Post by **Fear** » March 22nd, 2007, 23:47

Nice, I do enjoy Senhiesers. I've got some BeyyerDynamic headphones which aren't up to much. Still sound damn good tho compared to your currys/dixons typical.

Are those the open air ones? Sound immense but not at all practical for public use (on a train or something).

What do you output your sound from your pc with? (soundcard) Or do you listen to CDs with them?

Edit:
Oh and my hi-fi is really for CDs, I just happen to connect my PC in as well.

Post by **deject** » March 23rd, 2007, 2:21

Fear wrote:Incidentally can you lot tell the difference between say an 192bit mp3 and wav/cd? Some can, some can't. Once you can hear the difference it will bug you forever.

Yeah I can but most of the time it isn't a big problem for me. Usually it's only bad if there's a lot of cymbals and higher frequency sounds.

eion · Post by **eion** » March 23rd, 2007, 6:16

Fear wrote:Are those the open air ones? Sound immense but not at all practical for public use (on a train or something).

What do you output your sound from your pc with? (soundcard) Or do you listen to CDs with them?

HD600s and Shure e5s here (the musician version of the e5c - same thing though really). Shures are much more practical for public use, and are especially great for airplanes et cetera (and they're loud), but they really show up any flaws in the music and they can be quite fatiguing to listen to.

My soundcard is an Audigy2 Platinum Pro ZS - I too would like a decent musician-type card with balanced outputs, but I'd also kinda like something for games occasionally, plus I can't afford a new sound card at the moment.

I have just over 80GB of MP3s, the majority of which are in 320kbps every-quality-setting-to-max. The reason for MP3 rather than lossless or CD is threefold - first, I can't reliably tell the difference between 320kbps MP3 and the original source, even with my e5s (which are super sensitive to that sort of thing). Second, I also have an ipod, so FLAC and that lot are out, and it's a 15GB one so WAV is kinda inconvenient too, not to mention that I like my files to be properly tagged - in addition, my computer doesn't have that much hard disk space and I can't easily add more, so smaller file sizes are better there too. Third, I move around a lot, and carting 650-odd DVDs is enough hassle without having to bring my CD collection along too. That - and a lack of cash - is also why I don't have a set of humongous speakers, no matter how much I lust after a pair of Nautiluses or those marble Norhs. And I do love headphones.

I can tell the difference between CD and sub-256k MP3 relatively easily depending on the genre of music, when it was recorded, et cetera. I actually find the mid-range, rather than the highs, suffers a lot from MP3 compression - it goes all muddy.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 23rd, 2007, 6:48

Fear wrote:Nice, I do enjoy Senhiesers. I've got some BeyyerDynamic headphones which aren't up to much. Still sound damn good tho compared to your currys/dixons typical.

Are those the open air ones? Sound immense but not at all practical for public use (on a train or something).

What do you output your sound from your pc with? (soundcard) Or do you listen to CDs with them?

I thought I posted here.

Yep, they're the happy open ones, not much use for moving, but i'd use in-ears if i travelled much

Audigy 2 zx thing, mostly nice mp3s or flacs, don't bother with cds unless it's to rip them.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » March 23rd, 2007, 11:12

Over the last few years I've become a bit of an audiophile although I don't really have enough knowledge of audio stuff or the budget to go much further than I have. I'm one of the few that can tell the difference between compressed audio and losless which has resulted in me becoming more and more concerned with the way my music sounds.

Right now I'm using a creative x-fi xtreme audio sound card with M-Audio Studiophile LX4 2.1 speakers. The x-fi probably isn't the best for music but I'd hate to lose features like EAX in games. My speakers are some of the best I've heard although admittedly I haven't heard many, they sound alot better than my Dad's £400 hi-fi and they cost less than half of that. I found it amazing how crappy the subwoofer on my old logitech itrigue 3200 speakers was when I upgraded to these, alot more of the range comes through the sattelites on my LX4s and the subwoofer has a much smaller range, it doesn't try playing some of the mid range like my old speakers and the bass doesn't sound all floppy

Fear · Post by **Fear** » March 23rd, 2007, 12:10

It's nice to know I'm not the only <strike>sad bastard</strike> audio enthusiast amongst us.

My biggest problem with all my kit now is the size of my room - it just isn't big enough to truly listen to the B&Ws (or the 'bonk and wanks' as they are affectionately known).

I also find that using a subwoofer for the low freq, whilst handy as it reduces the size of the speakers, is no substitute for the speaks to be able to do it all. I do have a crafty 12" that I turn on when I want to move next doors windows tho.

I got into it when a school mate of mine showed me his dad's kit. They were Kef Q with some mean monoblock krell amplifiers and a speperate DAC and more isolation platforms you can shake a stick at. They sounded amazing, though cost over £10,000 when it all got totalled up (included a v posh projector thing as well). It's that cupcake's fault I now have to have all this kit to enjoy music. A 'ghetto blaster' with turbo-bass maxed out used to be good enough.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » March 23rd, 2007, 13:40

Fear wrote:A 'ghetto blaster' with turbo-bass maxed out used to be good enough.

Yeah, that's it. I've actually gone completely in the other direction. I used to love all this stuff, but since living in London now all I've got is a pair of Dell speakers with a sub and it plugs into the TV (the headphone jack no less!!!) which then plays my MP3's/FLAC's/avi's via an Xbox, DVD's via Xbox 360 or cable/tivo for TV/radio....

I'll enjoy music if it's on a £10,000 system or a dodgy old tape player in the car.

pixie pie · Post by **pixie pie** » March 23rd, 2007, 21:35

cheeseandham wrote:
Yeah, that's it. I've actually gone completely in the other direction. I used to love all this stuff, but since living in London now all I've got is a pair of Dell speakers with a sub and it plugs into the TV (the headphone jack no less!!!) which then plays my MP3's/FLAC's/avi's via an Xbox, DVD's via Xbox 360 or cable/tivo for TV/radio....

I'll enjoy music if it's on a £10,000 system or a dodgy old tape player in the car.

I'm tempted to agree with

&

with this one, Not quite as extreme as Dell speakers, I've got some reasonable Creative 4.1 surround (Although from my laptop, so it only has stereo, rather than surround sound), and my headphones are some fairly nice Sennheiser CX300's, the best things you can get without spending too many pennies. I used to have some huuge speakers hooked up to a fairly nice amp, but since moved in to a smaller room without the capacity for the beasts. And have become accustomed to lesser quality, I don't think I could tell the difference between CD and MP3 quality, and I think its a bonus not being able to.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 23rd, 2007, 21:39

I enjoy music whatever I listen on.

but i'm fucked if i'm not using the really horribly nice stuff i own.