This might not be the most appropriate section to post, if necessary let me know where I should move it to. It is a bit long.. so please bear with me.
[tl;dr] Jump to last paragraph.
Well, recently I had made the "best" mistake of my life
... I bought the S4 earphones in an impulse buying session. I loved music all my life and have been a constant music buff .. 
anything from classical, rock, jazz, progressive, electronic and so on, in fact anything melodious will pull my ears towards it.
After I put the headphones on and played one of my old songs.. boy was I in for a surprise. I was hearing music from a whole different world, what was I even listening until today. I quickly opened up my whole MP3 collection and everyday is like a pleasant walk down the beach with so many treasures that I previously didn't even notice.
I used to be the group of people, who smirked on discussions comparing MP3 to CD quality. In fact, with a good math education I never quite understood how our ears can even differentiate the lossy and lossless recordings with only subtle differences in the waveforms. I never found any noticeable difference, and in fact all my cd collection was converted to 256kBps MP3 files and the physical media was stowed somewhere.
Now after listening to my lossy files, I am searching for my old CD's, and I can't even wait to find them, so going to stores and buying them over again. Some of them I can't find even in stores near home (Dark Side of the Moon SACD, Kraftwerk Minimum-Maximum, etc). Just a simple playback comparison of CD and MP3 showed me a huge difference. I can't even start to explain at how many levels. Now if this is S4, then I don't even know what does X10 has to say.
Well this engaged me on a journey to find how much deeper does the rabbit hole goes... and I ventured into a totally strange land with everyone talking about vinyl, DAC, amp, tube, equalizer, compressor, etc. There is no end to how much everyone is putting their efforts in getting the best sound possible. I need some help in starting out on my own journey. Maybe an advice on where I can start with my current setup would be really helpful.
I am on a small budget (recently out of school and repaying loans
) and hence will have to start out slowly. I do understand that audiophile components are not cheap by any means but I can use any advise that helps me in planning and accumulating for the right stuff for my setup.
I have a Macbook pro (2+ yrs old) laptop and I am currently trying to rebuild my CD collection from scratch. Newly added titles to the collection are:
Tori Amos - Boys for Pele
Vitas V
System of a Down - Toxicity
Godsmack - Godsmack
Pink Floyd - Echoes
Jimi Hendrix - Are you experienced
Please suggest any other titles that might be in similar lines.
I am currently using AudioHijack Pro along with a few AU/VST plugins (
EQ->multiband compressor->stereo widening->hard limiter) to enhance the audio output from my macbook. They do a good job in giving depth and amplifying the output.
But I don't think this is the appropriate way, as I have seen nobody else following this procedure. So I am thinking of looking for an actual hardware such as DAC or an amp option. Here I am getting lost as it is not easy to do a trial and error as software.
[tl;dr]
Can somebody give me advice on whether I should go for a DAC or an amplifier, if I usually listen to CD/FLAC on laptop and what should I be looking for compatibility or specifications, so that I don't burn the S4 headphones (I had done that with my car speakers.. though in earlier days).
[tl;dr] Jump to last paragraph.
Well, recently I had made the "best" mistake of my life
... I bought the S4 earphones in an impulse buying session. I loved music all my life and have been a constant music buff .. anything from classical, rock, jazz, progressive, electronic and so on, in fact anything melodious will pull my ears towards it.After I put the headphones on and played one of my old songs.. boy was I in for a surprise. I was hearing music from a whole different world, what was I even listening until today. I quickly opened up my whole MP3 collection and everyday is like a pleasant walk down the beach with so many treasures that I previously didn't even notice.
I used to be the group of people, who smirked on discussions comparing MP3 to CD quality. In fact, with a good math education I never quite understood how our ears can even differentiate the lossy and lossless recordings with only subtle differences in the waveforms. I never found any noticeable difference, and in fact all my cd collection was converted to 256kBps MP3 files and the physical media was stowed somewhere.
Now after listening to my lossy files, I am searching for my old CD's, and I can't even wait to find them, so going to stores and buying them over again. Some of them I can't find even in stores near home (Dark Side of the Moon SACD, Kraftwerk Minimum-Maximum, etc). Just a simple playback comparison of CD and MP3 showed me a huge difference. I can't even start to explain at how many levels. Now if this is S4, then I don't even know what does X10 has to say.
Well this engaged me on a journey to find how much deeper does the rabbit hole goes... and I ventured into a totally strange land with everyone talking about vinyl, DAC, amp, tube, equalizer, compressor, etc. There is no end to how much everyone is putting their efforts in getting the best sound possible. I need some help in starting out on my own journey. Maybe an advice on where I can start with my current setup would be really helpful.
I am on a small budget (recently out of school and repaying loans
) and hence will have to start out slowly. I do understand that audiophile components are not cheap by any means but I can use any advise that helps me in planning and accumulating for the right stuff for my setup.I have a Macbook pro (2+ yrs old) laptop and I am currently trying to rebuild my CD collection from scratch. Newly added titles to the collection are:
Tori Amos - Boys for Pele
Vitas V
System of a Down - Toxicity
Godsmack - Godsmack
Pink Floyd - Echoes
Jimi Hendrix - Are you experienced
Please suggest any other titles that might be in similar lines.
I am currently using AudioHijack Pro along with a few AU/VST plugins (
EQ->multiband compressor->stereo widening->hard limiter) to enhance the audio output from my macbook. They do a good job in giving depth and amplifying the output.
But I don't think this is the appropriate way, as I have seen nobody else following this procedure. So I am thinking of looking for an actual hardware such as DAC or an amp option. Here I am getting lost as it is not easy to do a trial and error as software.
[tl;dr]
Can somebody give me advice on whether I should go for a DAC or an amplifier, if I usually listen to CD/FLAC on laptop and what should I be looking for compatibility or specifications, so that I don't burn the S4 headphones (I had done that with my car speakers.. though in earlier days).
