[Sound Quest]

Quote:

It's unfortunate that we are in the beginning of the demise of the CD. I can't find hardly anything I like new on CD locally anymore. I would have to buy the CD from Amazon or overseas somewhere and pay an arm and a leg for shipping. Electronic artists especially are really going "digital download only". For example, Alex M.O.R.P.H.'s latest album "Prime Mover (2012)" is only available in the US as 320 kbps MP3 files. 

 
Thing is though. CD's are so badly mastered these days, that they don't really benefit from being lossless.
 
Everything is compressed to sound as loud as possible. So any benefit you get from lossless over lossy is almost non-existent.
 
I know a guy that has all the "Now Thats What I Call Music" albums stored on his PC in FLAC. But I keep asking him what the point is, because it still sounds awful, even in lossless.

 

[336881]

Quote:

Hello, could you tell me where do you get the highest quality for music? I mean, I thought purchasing the music anywhere would give you a full quality music file but you're saying even itunes purchases are not good enough.
The thing is i listen to a lot of electro music (DnB, dnb liquid, dubstep, house, etc) but currently im basically streaming all my music from youtube, I know it's, kinda disgusting, but that's where i find the new released tracks and such, besides im cheap and i havent really bought music but i might for the quality. I have Denon's AH-D2000.
So if iTunes doesn't give good quality versions of the songs, where do you get them from?

I go to beatport, redeyerecords.co.uk and breakbeat.co.uk. Lossless is nice but with encoders being what they are today I personally can't hear the dif. between lossless and 320kbps. Beatport ran a sale recently to upgrade you library for less but 100 songs = 50 bucks and I passed. If you looking for an upgade to your d2000's I would recommned a used lcd-2rev1 (around $650). If money is no object than a new lcd-3, 2k.

 

[336881]

Quote:

 
Thing is though. CD's are so badly mastered these days, that they don't really benefit from being lossless.
 
Everything is compressed to sound as loud as possible. So any benefit you get from lossless over lossy is almost non-existent.
 
I know a guy that has all the "Now Thats What I Call Music" albums stored on his PC in FLAC. But I keep asking him what the point is, because it still sounds awful, even in lossless.

+1. I personally didn't like serato takin away vinyl from us but after some time went by and performance control vinyl became available from stokyo I can really understand what the hype was about. My music is now way more available and cheaper than it was before and barring a really big 2500+ watt sound system I actually prefer the sound of my mp3's over my trainspotters.

 

[336881]

Not going to completly take back what I said but I just remembered that I have heard my records on non-dj needles before (denon dl-160's) and that does make a difference. Better than serato and mp3's, as needles dont have an effect on serato, but very expensive.

 

[smallcaps]

Sennheiser Orpheus.

 

[obobskivich]

I agree with what Mal said - reasonableness is a consideration that should be made. That said, I'd add a few other headphones to the consideration list:

- Sony SA5k
- Ultrasone PRO2900

 

[autoteleology]

480p Youtube is quite decent FYI. 

 
I'd have to disagree. Audio that has most likely already been transcoded once to lossy, and then is transcoded again to 128/192kbps AAC is not really all that great.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Quality_and_codecs

 

[PrisonNurse]

Quote:

 
If you have a pair of beats, you can listen to the audio at 240p and it will sound like the original 24bit studio master.

  (Allegedly) 

If you have a pair of tin cans and some string, YouTube @ 240p will sound like the original 24bit studio master.
Just sayin'...   

 

[Audiolic]

I would really like to try the taket versus stax versus esp-950 versus hd800 vs lcd-3 versus oppo pm-1 versus hifiman he6 and he-560 =)
 
with the best electronic music... like extrawelt
 
my guess without listening would be
 
taket and stax 02 mk1 on top
stax 009 after
and would need to compare hd800 and he6 and lcd3 he-560 esp-950 pm-1
 
right now i have esp-950.. i wonder where i should step up =)
 
really interested in the light but ugly taket h2 plus with linear digital EQ before dac ...
 
if you go stax or esp-950 look at the Woo Wee to power them with a power speaker amp.
 
on the dac side.. go good power and good implemented AK4396,AK4399 or CS4398, or Es9018 with perfect analog stage ... perso i would go AK4396 like schiit modi or others and invest on better amp and headphone|speaker(speaker you can built with NEO10 and NEO3 or ERAUDIO mini electrostatic panels( need 1.5 ohm capable amp) with nanodigi dsp and 3 ak4396 dac|passive volume like schiit sys or balanced if you go balanced first.
 
afterwards i would go with better dac... (like chord hugo or cheaper bifrost)
 
(note that buying chord hugo and he-560 would be interesting to try too =)

 

[Zoom25]

From the list of headphones I've owned and used extensively for many months (except HD 800), here is my ranking for favourite cans with electronic music (trance, EDM, electro, house, dub step, vocal trance, deep house, psychedelic, DNB….and so on):
 
1) HD 800
 
2) LCD-2.2
 
3) HE-500
 
4) LCD-3
 
5) Denon AH-D2000
 
 
I've yet to try Stax and Fostex.