How to Enhance Audio Quality: Seeking Advice from Enthusiasts

[janny88]

Hey audiophiles!

I'm a total newbie when it comes to fancy audio equipment, but my trusty bookshelf speakers and mid-range receiver have been treating me well for casual listening. They've got great clarity and balance, but I'm starting to itch for an even better audio experience.

I've been hearing whispers of magic boxes called DACs, amps, and even special cables that can take things to the next level. Problem is, I'm not sure where to begin!

Hoping you awesome audio gurus can point me in the right direction:

Beginner-Friendly Upgrades: What's the best way for an audio newbie like me to start improving sound quality without breaking the bank? Are there specific products or brands you recommend that make a noticeable difference?
DACs, Amps & Cables Explained: Can someone break down what all this DAC and amp stuff is about, and do fancy cables really make a big difference?
Room Acoustics & Speaker Placement: How important is the actual room I listen in and where I put my speakers? Are there some simple adjustments I can make to optimize my listening environment for better sound?

I also check this: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-share-uncomgenaipressed-audio-with-player-on-asr-etc.53628/ But I have not found any solution. could anyone guide me about this?

I appreciate any insights or recommendations you can provide. Looking forward to learning from the community's expertise!

Thanks in advance.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Key things you should include is the sort of money you want to spend and the room size.

Cables, should be well made and of the correct construction, but otherwise normally are not worth spending money on upgrading from what ships with a product.

In the right circumstances a standalone DAC may be useful. You would need to list your current setup for anyone to help.

 

[staticV3]

Beginner-Friendly Upgrades: What's the best way for an audio newbie like me to start improving sound quality without breaking the bank?

Start with speakers, room treatment, and room correction.

On a tight budget, room correction will have the biggest impact.

DACs and Amps are usually not important. They can affect sound quality if broken or used outside their operating range.

Otherwise, changes in sound quality are not expected, even if many enthusiasts swear they got "better soundstage", "more dynamics" etc. after they upgraded their Amp (It's just placebo).

Similar story with cables. All you need are basic, good quality cables. Any fancy upgrades beyond that are a complete waste of money.

 

[tmuikku]

Positioning has great great impact on sound and in my opinion makes one of the greatest differences between hifi and ordinary sound system, and is absolutely free to manipulate and play with! Next important is speakers and room acoustics and how it all plays together, positioning is in the core again. Typical living room acoustics seem to be quite fine as long as there is no excessive flutter echo, which you might want to test and address, not very expensive as almost any "acoustic treatment" would help.

Some quick tips for positioning: start from quite small equilateral stereo triangle, like less than 2m per side, which helps reduce effect of early reflections to the sound you perceive. Shrinking the listening triangle increases ratio of direct/reflected sound, and also changes early reflection delays and angles and so on, so single quite effective way to affect sound regardless of speakers or room acoustics. You could then go and move yourself further out to listen where room sound increases in relation to direct sound to hear if you like the early reflections or not, they make the sound "more spacious" in a way, but also take away some clarity and localization, sometimes good sometimes not so goos. Try to make the triangle symmetrical to room boundaries if possible, toe-in speakers as you wish just keep it symmetrical as well, purpose is to have left and right sounds be close tonsame fornmaximally strong phantom image. Try to listen how the sound changes with or without toe-in and what you like. Some speakers don't have very good frequency response other than toward one listening angle only, while some speakers sound good no matter what the angle is which allows better adjustment of early reflections.

Place you sit, also where the speakers are, affect low frequency response a lot (room modes) so you could try and optimize for this as well. Room correction / EQ is good help here, also multisubs might help and so on. Effective acoustic treatment for lows would be very expensive, good positioning and EQing modal peaks down at listening position is good and relatively easy / cheap victory here.

Just go ahead and experiment with positioning. you'll find out if you like "good / sharp imaging" if your system is capable of it, or if you like more hazy/bloated early reflections dominated sound, and on which recordings as some can sound better on either but also you migh prefer either by mood.

Anyway, any system, cheap or expensive, can only sound as good as you can position it! Have fun!

 

[DVDdoug]

I'm a total newbie when it comes to fancy audio equipment

You came to the right place. This is one of the few rational-scientific audio-related websites. Most audiophiles are nuts, and most audio related websites are full of nonsense and they use lots of meaningless terminology.

The most important characteristic of sound quality is frequency response (the balance between the bass & treble and everything in-between). The ideal is "flat" frequency response where all frequencies are reproduced equally so the recording is reproduced accurately as recorded. Speakers (and headphones) are the challenge and they make the biggest difference. Every speaker and headphone sounds different (better or worse).

The good news is that to some extent you can adjust frequency response with EQ (equalization) and if your source is a computer or phone, EQ usually already built into your player software. EQ can help to correct your speakers, it can help with "bad" recordings, and it can be used to adjust to your taste. PEQ (parametric equalization) allows more precise adjustments and it's normally used after making measurements in the room.

Another thing is that with bass is that when you turn-down the volume it sounds like you've turned-down the bass even more (Equal Loudness Curves) so at lower (or even "medium") volumes it usually sounds better and more natural if you turn-up the bass. Older receivers used to have a "loudness compensation" switch to do that automatically when you turned-down the volume knob but that's gone out-of-style. Regular bass & treble controls are also mostly out-of-style and unfortunately, it's not so easy to adjust EQ every time you adjust the volume.

The main limitation with EQ is usually the bass. You can only boost the bass so-far before the speaker or amplifier starts to distort.

Bigger speakers or adding a subwoofer should make a big difference in the bass range. Adding a subwoofer can be tricky if you don't have an AVR (audio video receiver). All AVRs have a low-level subwoofer output to drive an active (powered) subwoofer. Speaker design is complicated and bigger speakers don't always have better bass but "big things" make bass, a kitten can't roar like a lion, and you can't get bass you can feel in your body from a small woofer.

The room also has a big influence on bass. because of standing waves in the room you get dips & bumps at different frequencies and at different places in room. That's a "big topic" but for now just be aware of it. There is free software for "measuring your room" (actually your speakers & room together) but you need a measurement microphone which costs about $100 USD.

With headphones there is almost no correlation between cost and sound quality. For under $200 you can get a pair of excellent headphones, and besides giving you good sound, they can serve as a reference for what really good sound is like. But speakers & headphones "sound different" and it's a "different experience". I prefer speakers in a room. You can check the headphone reviews here and look at what's "recommended". With good headphones and a smart phone you can get top-notch sound, as long as you enjoy listening to headphones.

Anything that plays digital audio has a DAC (digital to analog converter). Only once have I heard a difference or defect with a "DAC". Once, I had a soundcard that made noise (from the connected speakers) when the hard drive was accessed. Otherwise I've never heard anything wrong, including my 1st CD player that I bought in 1985.

Audiophoolery has some good information.

 

[kemmler3D]

Welcome to ASR!

Beginner-Friendly Upgrades: What's the best way for an audio newbie like me to start improving sound quality without breaking the bank? Are there specific products or brands you recommend that make a noticeable difference?

Ways to improve sound: The best ways to improve sound are better speakers, 1+ subs, and DSP for room correction. Recommendations depend on what you want to spend and what you have now.

DACs, Amps & Cables Explained: Can someone break down what all this DAC and amp stuff is about, and do fancy cables really make a big difference?

DAC: Turns digital audio into an analog signal, that's it. Most have basically perfect sound quality, they don't really have "a sound" (despite what many or most sites / reviewers will tell you) and the main thing to compare these on is features like which types of connectors they use.

Amp: Makes an analog signal into the same signal, but bigger. Needed to drive speakers. Sometimes DACs are built into amps. Often DACs include headphone amps. "Active" speakers have the amps built in, which can be really convenient.

The amp you need depends on your speakers, listening distance, and room size. Amps also don't really have "a sound" unless you are pushing them outside their normal operating range, or if they have design deficiencies.

Fancy cables: Absolutely not, basically the scam of the century. Don't think about cables until they are over 50 feet long. Even then the solution is just to get decent XLR cables.

Room Acoustics & Speaker Placement: How important is the actual room I listen in and where I put my speakers? Are there some simple adjustments I can make to optimize my listening environment for better sound?

Acoustics / placement: Super important. There are guides on putting your speakers the correct distances from walls, angling them properly, and sitting at the right distance, etc. Room treatments can go a long way. DSP for room correction is also a game-changer and can be done very cheap. Definitely look into it.

One thing to keep in mind in your audio journey: A LOT of what people say about audio is driven by cognitive biases, i.e. "placebo effect". If you expect to hear something, you usually hear something, whether or not it's real. This is absolutely pervasive, nobody is immune. This is why measurements are so fundamentally important. Without measurements you just have someone's opinion, which is often based on nothing more than imagination.

When someone says "I know what I heard" or "the difference is obvious" but they can't or won't do a blind test, can't or won't show measurements that back it up, or just expect you to believe them because they're an "expert"... this tells you everything you need to know. They want you to believe them (and maybe spend money) without proof.

At ASR we demand proof... no more or less. And for whatever reason this makes certain people upset.

 

[Todd k]

That’s why I love ASR. All of the above post are excellent. I wish I could have had this advice when I started my audio adventure in the late seventies an early eighties. Would have saved a lot of time an money. Good luck janny88 on your audio journey.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I agree with the above. The important thing in audio is the weakest link. In most cases it's the speakers and/or the room. Electronic devices have been, generally speaking, "good enough" as far as the limits of human hearing are concerned for quite a few years.