Revealing Member Stories

[fuzzyqoute]

Discrete properly produced multichannel is something else. And yet most audiophiles used thier SACD or DVDA for stereo only?

If properly downmixed the Stereo version can sound 3D or turn into binaural with some DSP's for headphones.

 

[pozz]

Today my desktop speakers were on, and my HD58X as well. I didn't realize my speakers were on at their normal volume

There were many times I was amazed at the bass response of my bookshelves, even hearing new and I would have thought pretty obvious basslines, when I would realize that the approach of a lowflying plane was supplying all that material. To show how stupid I am, it's happened at least a dozen times and I only ever catch it when my windows start rattling.

 

[Soniclife]

I've lost count of the number of times when playing vinyl or CD that I've thought 'wow, this CD/Vinyl (delete one at random) sounds great today" only to look up and realise it's the other format playing.

 

[LTig]

Thread title is a double entendre for flasher. So far the stories have been respectable.

Didn't catch this one (my french is too bad), but ...

I'm not sure I want to see a bunch of guys telling stories about revealing their members... oh wait that's not what it said...

.. oh boy ROTFL
I hope - not being a native english speaker - the rest of the posting was not as funny as its title.

 

[LTig]

That being embarrassing enough, yet with no harm done, permits me to have contributed to the thread and keep any other embarrassments safely in the Vault O' Shame.

May be this would have been a more suiting title for this thread ... and you'd have to expose the other embarrassement (really like to know now).

 

[cookiefactory]

I’ve never been able to hear differences in amps, tubes, op-amps, or sources (unless it was a poorly implemented onboard soundcard where you could hear the mouse move and click) but once I measured my room with a DEQ2496 and was like, “Wow this is a huge improvement” before I realized that while I had recorded a correction curve, it was not yet active. Felt pretty stupid there.

 

[Audiophonic]

How my audio(hardware) journey really started: I needed new speakers because my old ones (Teufel Concept E Magnum) didn't fit into my new student apartment when I moved out of my parents' place. So I have bought my first pair of nice little studio monitors ESI Unik 05+ and connected them via RCA to my Creative SoundBlaster soundcard. It was then when I have learned that speakers could need break-in time because they sounded like shit for like 4 days... As you would put your mobile phone speakers into a tin can. So I basically gave up on them and have already ordered another set of speakers. I just left the ESIs at my place until the new speakers would arrive and then (magically) they have opened up after one week or so. That was the time I started experimenting with placement, toe-in and so on. So I had some bad grounding/ grounding differential in my PC because I could hear my mouse moving in the speakers. Also the graphics card made some noise through the speakers when it started to calculate... As uninformed as I was back then, I started troubleshooting in the SoundBlaster settings. It was then, when I have activated some stereo widening effect and I guess through some phase-misalignment, the speakers have created the so often told "holographic" soundstage. So much so, that I thought I could grab sounds and tones in the air on their specific places, where they originated from. It was unbelievable the first time I have experienced that. So that taught me a lot about distortion, phase and placement ...

 

[majingotan]

It was then, when I have activated some stereo widening effect and I guess through some phase-misalignment, the speakers have created the so often told "holographic" soundstage. So much so, that I thought I could grab sounds and tones in the air on their specific places, where they originated from. It was unbelievable the first time I have experienced that. So that taught me a lot about distortion, phase and placement ...

I remember using that Dolby Headphone from my PowerDVD on speakers to create the same effect. Though I find that with my HS7 monitors, the effect sounds "too fake" and switching to stereo downmix (no Dolby effects, just decoding the content to PCM) made it sound like the way I hear it on an actual movie theaters with correct imaging and still holographic soundstage.

 

[rajapruk]

I have heard large differences after switching power cables, and speaker cables, in HIFI-store.

I did not realise what was going on when small juvenile delinquent audiophile fingers at home secretly switched gain on my amps, making HF +10dB and UHF -10dB. I started to think about changing placement of speakers, and other negative thoughts. Took a month or so until I realised...

 

[TungstenC]

I often find myself fiddling with eq settings and hear things, then finding out I'd forgot to turn it on

 

[Audiophonic]

There is something I would really like to know if others experienced it. I am not a believer of that snake oil **** that some hifi dealers sell. SO I wanted to have nice looking speaker cables and I bought the cheapest 2,5mm² OFC cable I could find on Amazon. I peeled 2 (+)&(-) poles of the cables so I would have four cables per channel 2x(+) and 2x(-). With this configuration, I have created three stereo sets of cables - as mentioned, just for the looks.

1. I have twisted a pair of 2 cables clockwise and then twisted those together counterclockwise.
2. I have twisted a pair of 2 cables clockwise and then twisted those together also clockwise.
3. I have braided/woven 4 strands of cable and tried to make it as accurate as possible for the looks.
They all had the same initial length.

So cable 1&2 didn't sound any different than a straight cable. But cable 3 sounded remarkably bad (I lay out the window and say everyone would discern those in blind test.) I still don't know exactly why this was or which physical effect has caused this, but that was when I started looking into cable geometry... For now, I just use straight cheap OFC Copper Amazon wire with some nice looks

 

[pozz]

There is something I would really like to know if others experienced it. I am not a believer of that snake oil **** that some hifi dealers sell. SO I wanted to have nice looking speaker cables and I bought the cheapest 2,5mm² OFC cable I could find on Amazon. I peeled 2 (+)&(-) poles of the cables so I would have four cables per channel 2x(+) and 2x(-). With this configuration, I have created three stereo sets of cables - as mentioned, just for the looks.

1. I have twisted a pair of 2 cables clockwise and then twisted those together counterclockwise.
2. I have twisted a pair of 2 cables clockwise and then twisted those together also clockwise.
3. I have braided/woven 4 strands of cable and tried to make it as accurate as possible for the looks.
They all had the same initial length.

So cable 1&2 didn't sound any different than a straight cable. But cable 3 sounded remarkably bad (I lay out the window and say everyone would discern those in blind test.) I still don't know exactly why this was or which physical effect has caused this, but that was when I started looking into cable geometry... For now, I just use straight cheap OFC Copper Amazon wire with some nice looks

If the difference is very obvious you'd be able to measure it either electrically or acoustically using REW. Try the latter and report back if you'd like.

 

[Audiophonic]

If the difference is very obvious you'd be able to measure it either electrically or acoustically using REW. Try the latter and report back if you'd like.

Yes, I can do that - just need to get a measurement microphone.

 

[MRC01]

This thread shall collect stories of ASR members which reveal how our human hearing sense fooled us into believing to hear differences where they were provable none at all. ... No more need to repeat the same story again and again, just link to the story here.

We've all had experiences where our ears fooled us. More interesting and rare, is when our ears tell us something we didn't expect, that turns out to be verified with measurements. One example of this that I have experienced: after I found it was real and quantified it, I modified the device to improve it.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...rtion-a-blind-test-proposal.10004/post-274225
PS: my point is that while our hearing perception is too bad to trust, it's also too good to ignore. We should be somewhere in between these extremes, something like "trust but verify".