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What are the things you wish you knew when starting out in this hobby?
- Thread starter Westsounds
- Start date
syn08
Senior Member
How bad the spectrum analyzer between the ears is.
Spend most of your budget on speakers.
After reading Erin's measurements,
I would consider EQ and room treatment is as important as speakers.
Revel PerformaBe F226Be Floorstanding Speaker Review
Revel PerformaBe F226Be Floorstanding Speaker Review
www.erinsaudiocorner.com
JustAnandaDourEyedDude
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Sines and cosines. I wish I had paid attention when these were covered in high school.
That most all women are hugely unimpressed by your hugely expensive hi-fi audio gear.
That the visible universe is about 92 billion light-years across, is about 13.8 billion years old, and contains 100s of billions of galaxies each consisting of 100s of billions of stars. That this universe began with a size of the order of 10^(-33) m, and then acquired a temperature of the order of 10^38 K. That almost all dynamical processes or our earth, including all life, are driven by the earth absorbing high-temperature low-entropy solar radiation energy and radiating away into space on average an equal amount of low-temperature high-entropy energy. That most humans get around 4000 weeks or less to say their say and do their do, other than their genes maybe living on beyond them in their descendants. That scientists would someday (in 2015, it turned out) "hear" the chirp of gravitational space-time waves generated by black holes merging. That quantum mechanics and the double slit experiments and the delayed choice quantum eraser experiments would show that reality is much stranger than even the wildest audiophile fantasies. That the theory of biological evolution ranks as one among the greatest theories, alongside mechanics, relativity, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, chemistry, thermodynamics and molecular biology. Reflecting on these things should help to keep the audiophile gear hobby, among other obsessions, in perspective.
That most all women are hugely unimpressed by your hugely expensive hi-fi audio gear.
That the visible universe is about 92 billion light-years across, is about 13.8 billion years old, and contains 100s of billions of galaxies each consisting of 100s of billions of stars. That this universe began with a size of the order of 10^(-33) m, and then acquired a temperature of the order of 10^38 K. That almost all dynamical processes or our earth, including all life, are driven by the earth absorbing high-temperature low-entropy solar radiation energy and radiating away into space on average an equal amount of low-temperature high-entropy energy. That most humans get around 4000 weeks or less to say their say and do their do, other than their genes maybe living on beyond them in their descendants. That scientists would someday (in 2015, it turned out) "hear" the chirp of gravitational space-time waves generated by black holes merging. That quantum mechanics and the double slit experiments and the delayed choice quantum eraser experiments would show that reality is much stranger than even the wildest audiophile fantasies. That the theory of biological evolution ranks as one among the greatest theories, alongside mechanics, relativity, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, chemistry, thermodynamics and molecular biology. Reflecting on these things should help to keep the audiophile gear hobby, among other obsessions, in perspective.
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I wish I'd known that almost all reviewers don't have any idea about how audio replay works and the differences/improvements they say they hear are mostly in their heads. It took me a long time to realise that, take a step back, and start adopting a more objective approach.
You come up on reading those magazines and they get you into that mindset and it's not easy to break out of it. I wouldn't go so far as to call it brainwashing but you only have to chat to some subjectivist types to see how firmly that nonsense was implanted. They talk exactly like the reviewers talk.
Thankfully I didn't have much money then so the financial damage was limited but I did spend years mucking about, getting nowhere and being dissatisfied when I could have just been enjoying music instead. The wasted time probably hurts more than the wasted money.
You come up on reading those magazines and they get you into that mindset and it's not easy to break out of it. I wouldn't go so far as to call it brainwashing but you only have to chat to some subjectivist types to see how firmly that nonsense was implanted. They talk exactly like the reviewers talk.
Thankfully I didn't have much money then so the financial damage was limited but I did spend years mucking about, getting nowhere and being dissatisfied when I could have just been enjoying music instead. The wasted time probably hurts more than the wasted money.
Robin L
Master Contributor
A bit O.T.
The amount of BS spewed on a regular basis by the subjective audio press, perhaps the overwhelming majority of the Audiophile press and web presence , is actually an impediment to the growth of the industry.
From the top of my head. Let's say a young person discovers that, maybe, just maybe, better sound (we will fight on the defintion later... promise) brings heightened enjoyment of musical pieces ... she/he/they have $300 to splurge...
On the ASR side. he will get recommendations for:
Qudelix 5K (As of this writing, Out of Stock at Amazon!! 50000x
!! Should have snatched one more)
AKG K-371
...and a few hours after reading to understand the value of proper EQ... Heaven! Sonic Bliss for not much...
.. or ... ASR people equivalents
or she/he/they go to the other side , the usual audio rags, fora or webzine and ... You can imagine the horror stories ...
Same with a person who wants to build a decent an Audio and/or Audio-Video system, with a a limited budget...
ASR was needed.
Long Live ASR!
Peace!
The amount of BS spewed on a regular basis by the subjective audio press, perhaps the overwhelming majority of the Audiophile press and web presence , is actually an impediment to the growth of the industry.
From the top of my head. Let's say a young person discovers that, maybe, just maybe, better sound (we will fight on the defintion later... promise) brings heightened enjoyment of musical pieces ... she/he/they have $300 to splurge...
On the ASR side. he will get recommendations for:
Qudelix 5K (As of this writing, Out of Stock at Amazon!! 50000x
!! Should have snatched one more)AKG K-371
...and a few hours after reading to understand the value of proper EQ... Heaven! Sonic Bliss for not much...
.. or ... ASR people equivalents
or she/he/they go to the other side , the usual audio rags, fora or webzine and ... You can imagine the horror stories ...
Same with a person who wants to build a decent an Audio and/or Audio-Video system, with a a limited budget...
ASR was needed.
Long Live ASR!
Peace!
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OP
Westsounds
Active Member
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2020
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- 103
- Thread Starter
- #90
If anyone was to buy expensive hi-fi to impress women they are way off the mark!
It must be the most un-woman friendly hobby there is. It's right up there with pipe smoking, whittling and restoring classic cars Women love music as much as men and appreciate good sound but when it comes to how they hear it, there's generally very little attention paid!
Overall it has been a pleasant and exciting journey and fortunately I haven't made any grave mistakes like engaging in turntables or tube amps. However I wish I haven't bought a 160 EUR worth RCA cable from an eloquent hi-fi dealer.
I wonder why women are practically absent in hi-fi shows and generally so unwilling to spend a cent on audio gear.If anyone was to buy expensive hi-fi to impress women they are way off the mark!
Women love music as much as men and appreciate good sound but when it comes to how they hear it, there's generally very little attention paid!
OP
Westsounds
Active Member
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2020
- Messages
- 215
- Likes
- 103
- Thread Starter
- #93
Because maybe they are smarter than us and just see it as sound
The content is the important bit. Splitting hairs over sometimes extremely small differences is kind of silly depending on how you look at it. And dragging big ugly speakers into their living space or sticking rediculos looking headphones on our heads is not something they think is fun.To women, those thing looks like coffins.
Amen
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Not to mention, level matching when A/B'ing probably seemed superfluous to nearly all of them.
It was never even mentioned! Just taken for granted that everything was different from everything else, more expensive always better, you can't hear that? System not resolving enough. You need better cables mate, or a power conditioner, or some little wooden discs strategically placed.
It was not always like that, I've been reading archived issues of Stereophile and it all changes in the mid 1980s when they start getting reviewers on board who believe in magic. Lots of readers write in to protest at first but gradually that whole mindset seems to take over and by the mid-90s it's ten grand power cables making night and day improvements and the readers are writing in saying 'I wish I could afford them'.
This was amusing !! Yeah a few years ago, I also listened to these people with avid attention, but over time, it also dawned on me that is was as bad as alchemy in the good old days. Nothing to substantiate their opinions.
What really hit home to me that they were more "entertainment" than fact, was when it occurred to be that the effective dynamic range of any music we hear in a published format, for general listening, rarely has more than 20dB of dynamic range, so 96dB which is CD quality dynamic range is far more than enough. Yes we may have 24 bits and 16 bits in the formats, on recorded or streamed audio, but no more than 10 of those bits is used at the very maximum (i.e 60 db), during 99% of the duration of the track. Typically its only for a few inaudible milliseconds at the start or end of the recording does audio fall below -60 dBFS, on a CD.
Point being - if any system can resolve fully at least 85dB for each of the following measurements (SINAD, Crosstalk, THD+N) and 100dB Dynamic range, that should be more than good enough for listening to almost any kind of commercially published music.
Who needs more precision, those recording and producing/mixing the audio - sure they could do with even more resolution, so that they are well above the electronic noise floor, typically anything with 110dB of dynamic range should be good enough. On the DAC's and amps side of things pretty much anything nowadays meets these requirements.( Most likely thanks to sites like Archimago's, Julian Krause, Erins, and ASR, who are keeping everyone more honest, via their independent evaluations).
In another few years, we can expect that the same revolution will have swept through speaker manufacturers, and their products. Links below to a recent text and video review by Erin, of a pair of powered speakers costing less than $300, with very acceptable results, demonstrates that we are at the start of a new era where good quality is now affordable. No need for the hype, and unsubstantiated reviewer opinions, to justify why gear needs to be expensive.
Unfortunately, there will always be a captive audience, for anyone with a soap box (e.g Youtube)
Soapbox - Wikipedia
Thomann Swissonic A306 2-Way Bookshelf Speaker Review
Thomann Swissonic A306 2-Way Bookshelf Speaker Review
www.erinsaudiocorner.com
I wish I knew that being a cheap but patient man was virtuous, and that timing is everything.
These days relatively few dollars can get you a really nice system. Superlative amps, streamers, Dac's for peanuts. You do have to spend a bit on speakers (but I saw KEF R3's non meta for a grand this month), and on Preamp/AVR items (but Denon 3800 for 899!).
These days relatively few dollars can get you a really nice system. Superlative amps, streamers, Dac's for peanuts. You do have to spend a bit on speakers (but I saw KEF R3's non meta for a grand this month), and on Preamp/AVR items (but Denon 3800 for 899!).
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