[deadlylover]

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All I care about is does it sound good to me? I do not bother reading subjective reviews of sound quality anymore as they mean nothing to me. I do read about specifications, comments about build quality and to a limited extent measurements (primarily will those headphones play straight out of my ipod or do they need amped?)

 
Yep, that's exactly how I roll too. I couldn't care less if the sounds I am hearing aren't true to life nor accurate to the recording, I just want stuff to sound good to me.
 
I don't want no sissy recording engineer to tell me how something should sound, I'm the boss here, I know exactly what it should sound like.

 

[maverickronin]

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Yep, that's exactly how I roll too. I couldn't care less if the sounds I am hearing aren't true to life nor accurate to the recording, I just want stuff to sound good to me.
 
I don't want no sissy recording engineer to tell me how something should sound, I'm the boss here, I know exactly what it should sound like.

X2
 
Also, your sig is growing more impressive by the day.  Do you have to DIY all those lolis yourself or is there a place you can buy them?
 

 

[deadlylover]

Quote:

X2
 
Also, your sig is growing more impressive by the day.  Do you have to DIY all those lolis yourself or is there a place you can buy them?

Well, I wouldn't call it Do-it-Yourself as much as having to Find-them-Yourself. There is considerable effort involved, as you have to seduce/jedimindtrick befriend them before they will openly take requests to cover whatever song you fancy at the time. It's quite the challenge when you have no flippin' clue how to speak their language, I'm talking about livestream singing of course.

 
But as with DIY, totally worth it.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

One thing I do know is that I prefer an pretty even frequency range and certainly not any bass emphasis unless it was intended.
 
I still think that I only a partly failed audiophile.

 

[maverickronin]

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Well, I wouldn't call it Do-it-Yourself as much as having to Find-them-Yourself. There is considerable effort involved, as you have to seduce/jedimindtrick befriend them before they will openly take requests to cover whatever song you fancy at the time. It's quite the challenge when you have no flippin' clue how to speak their language, I'm talking about livestream singing of course.

 
But as with DIY, totally worth it.

Well you could always DIY them the easier way, but that still takes 7~10 years until ripeness and only has a 50% success rate...

 

[mastershake2393]

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Well you could always DIY them the easier way, but that still takes 7~10 years until ripeness and only has a 50% success rate...

. . . . .  I don't even 

 

 

[deadlylover]

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Well you could always DIY them the easier way, but that still takes 7~10 years until ripeness and only has a 50% success rate...

 
Talk about a lifelong DIY project. Slightly pricey too, but I suppose it pays itself off in time.

 

[maverickronin]

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. . . . .  I don't even 

You don't want to...
 
 
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Talk about a lifelong DIY project. Slightly pricey too, but I suppose it pays itself off in time.

Any good investment is long term.

 

[funkmeister]

Back on topic, y'all.
 
I have a serious problem. Can anybody help me solve this?
 
AKG K702 > Denon AH-D2000 > Audio-Technica ATH-AD900 > Sennheiser HD 598 > Shure SRH-940 > Beyerdynamic DT990 > AKG K702
 
I can't quite place where the error lies. I think it's in the amp not being factored in here. Anybody?

 

[deadlylover]

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Any good investment is long term.

 
Sound advice. And you know what they all say, 'source first'.
 
Quote:

Back on topic, y'all.
 
I have a serious problem. Can anybody help me solve this?
 
AKG K702 > Denon AH-D2000 > Audio-Technica ATH-AD900 > Sennheiser HD 598 > Shure SRH-940 > Beyerdynamic DT990 > AKG K702
 
I can't quite place where the error lies. I think it's in the amp not being factored in here. Anybody?

 
Sorry I don't quite understand, what's the problem?
If it's to do with going back to the K702's, it could have something to do with the other components but it's also just as likely to be the evolution of a person's sound preferences.
 

 

[ZMan2k2]

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I disagree completely. When people say stuff like this, it tends to be indicative of their own deficits in music appreciation. I think there's a certain mainstream perception that if you can hear a song's vocals and the most obvious musical elements, then you've absorbed most of the info contained in the song. But there are genres that cater specifically to people who nerd out over guitar tones and textures.There are a lot of bands that I like mainly for the cool sounds they get from their guitars. If I go from good VBR to 128, all the tones and textures in the recordings sound noticeably less detailed. If I'm listening to my favorite electronic music, shoegaze/space rock. hip-hop etc , a big part of my enjoyment of the music is how awesome the various textures sound when they hit my ears. Take that away and you take away a large part of my appreciation for the music.

I can agree with you on this.  Hearing the difference between a lossless file and a 128kbps mp3 on my home stereo is a major difference.  The mp3 isn't nearly as involving.  But part of it, for me, is mental as well.  If I know I'm listening to a lower bitrate rip, I feel like I'm missing something.  And if I know it's lossless, then I feel better about the music, knowing I'm hearing what I'm supposed too.  Can I hear the difference on my portable setup (iPod classic and MDT IEM's)?  I haven't been able to do a true blind test to find out.  But when I do a regular listening test, where I know which is which, I feel I can.  
 

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

Back on topic, y'all.
 
I have a serious problem. Can anybody help me solve this?
 
AKG K702 > Denon AH-D2000 > Audio-Technica ATH-AD900 > Sennheiser HD 598 > Shure SRH-940 > Beyerdynamic DT990 > AKG K702
 
I can't quite place where the error lies. I think it's in the amp not being factored in here. Anybody?

I think your forgetting that there's more than just one axis for each pair to be evaluated by.  Higher dimensions.  Literally.

 

[dynhm6]

For those of you who are hearing [qualitative] differences between FLAC (and other lossless formats) and 320kHz MP3s, let me suggest that you check your encoders and encoding settings, which can have a quite noticeable affect on the perceived sound quality of your recordings. In my case, I have a pretty good ear, a pretty good home sound system and a pretty good set of IEMs and I can't hear any differences between FLACs and 320kHz MP3s that were converted via Cool Edit. However, Cool Edit, like many other audio editors, contains a number of option settings that, while useful for reducing file size, CAN degrade sound quality. So, for those of you who are hearing differences between FLAC and 320kHz MP3s, check your conversion utility to be sure you're opting for the highest quality/slowest conversion codec available and disabling (unticking) any space-saving options:

 

 
I'd reckon that few, if any, of you could reliably decipher a FLAC from a properly encoded 320kHz MP3.

 

[dynhm6]

Not all 320kHz MP3s are created equal.
 
For those of you who are hearing [qualitative] differences between FLAC (and other lossless formats) and 320kHz MP3s, let me suggest that you check your encoders and encoding settings, which can have a quite noticeable affect on the perceived sound quality of your recordings. Alot of MP3 converters use low quality codecs that produce mediocre sounding conversions.
 
In my case, I have a pretty good ear, a pretty good home sound system and a pretty good set of IEMs and I can't hear any differences between FLACs and 320kHz MP3s that were converted via Cool Edit. However, Cool Edit, like many other audio editors, contains a number of option settings that, while useful for reducing file size, CAN degrade sound quality. So, for those of you who are hearing differences between FLAC and 320kHz MP3s, check your conversion utility to be sure you're opting for the highest quality/slowest conversion codec available and disabling (unticking) any space-saving options:

 

 
I'd reckon that few, if any, could [reliably] decipher a FLAC from a properly encoded 320kHz MP3.

 

[Foie]

So, I finally got around to doing some abx testing today with my TripleFi.  I used foobar2000. Results were good, but still depressing.
 
I compared 3 different tracks, all originating in FLAC and converted to 128kbps mp3 (lame).  I tested each about 5 times.  I scored 100% on all tracks, so I could tell the difference.  The only problem was, it wasn't easy.  I only noticed a slightest differences in atmosphere and everything else between the tracks.  After hearing everyone's comments, the difference between 128 and flac should be quite apparent.  Hopefully I'll be getting a total bithead DAC, which should help, but at the moment, flac doesn't add much at all even to 128kb mp3s on my laptop.
 
Here is one of the tracks (chesky) I used to test:
 
http://www.mediafire.com/?nrcpq0n3l7rno6w (Flac)

http://www.mediafire.com/?7we9rfabmd9ieza (128kb MP3)

 

And another: 

http://www.mediafire.com/?7pk9rdks3175g3j (Flac)

http://www.mediafire.com/?85q1t981d7keo2l (128kb MP3)

 

Can anyone else do this test and let me know their experience?  Such as the sonic differences and the likes?