Latest Thread Images

Shure SRH 940 impression and support thread
Dec 29, 2011 at 4:13 AM Post #2,911 of 3,855
Dec 29, 2011 at 5:43 AM Post #2,914 of 3,855
 
Just to fill you guys in, PomPWNiuS is a kid that won $400 on a lottery ticket for christmas, and I told him to buy the SRH-940 second hand, so he found one on amazon.com.
 
He just wants to know the basics of how the 940 sounds with his music, lossless or lossy doesn't make much difference there.
 
 
You have to admit ac500, that compression is a minor component in a total audio system.  If we stopped posting youtube links on head-fi, and only talked about cables and expensive CD players, well... I don't think that's audio, that's more like... being a collector.
 
If you think lossless makes a huge difference, it makes you sound a bit like a USB cable lover. <3
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 5:56 AM Post #2,916 of 3,855


Quote:
kiteki said:
 
Just to fill you guys in, PomPWNiuS is a kid that won $400 on a lottery ticket for christmas, and I told him to buy the SRH-940 second hand, so he found one on amazon.com.
 
He just wants to know the basics of how the 940 sounds with his music, lossless or lossy doesn't make much difference there.
 
 
You have to admit ac500, that compression is a minor component in a total audio system.  If we stopped posting youtube links on head-fi, and only talked about cables and expensive CD players, well... I don't think that's audio, that's more like... being a collector.
 
If you think lossless makes a huge difference, it makes you sound a bit like a USB cable lover. <3
Click to expand...

 
I see both sides of the coin here.
 
YouTube has never sounded good to me.  The difference is big enough for me to no longer enjoy a track over YouTube that I would enjoy "done properly".  Then again, I don't do YouTube that often for that reason... maybe it has improved.  It'd be easy for me not to notice.
 
I think the way YouTube poorly impacts the music lies in more than just compression.... maybe not though.
 
In the context of assessing how something sounds with your gear,  I personally wouldn't point someone in the direction of YouTube, because I think it misrepresents just how good (or bad) the music is reproduced on said gear.  This becomes especially true when the gear becomes of higher quality as it tends to reveal even more problems.
 
I see the convenience factor of using YouTube, but I wouldn't personally point someone in that direction to get an idea of how a headphone will sound with their music, because I personally think it is a bad representation.  This might just be my opinion... maybe I'm a huge snob 
cool.gif

 
 
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 5:57 AM Post #2,917 of 3,855
I do like that YouTube tracks are posted however, because then if someone actually has the track (or the means to obtain the track) and test it for themselves, this can prove very useful
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 6:05 AM Post #2,918 of 3,855

Quote:
kiteki said:
Just to fill you guys in, PomPWNiuS is a kid that won $400 on a lottery ticket for christmas, and I told him to buy the SRH-940 second hand, so he found one on amazon.com.
 
He just wants to know the basics of how the 940 sounds with his music, lossless or lossy doesn't make much difference there.
 
You have to admit ac500, that compression is a minor component in a total audio system.  If we stopped posting youtube links on head-fi, and only talked about cables and expensive CD players, well... I don't think that's audio, that's more like... being a collector.
 
If you think lossless makes a huge difference, it makes you sound a bit like a USB cable lover. <3
Click to expand...


I'm pretty vocally against USB cables around here. I know how and why youtube suffers from rather severe audio compression, from a technical point of view (I've written compression algorithms of my own before, although not mp3, let's just say I quite well understand the basics). It's very real (unlike the people who claim there's a difference between WAV and FLAC).
 
Anyway... poorly compressed files sound really really bad, and nobody (I mean NOBODY) here would deny that. From both a technical and subjective standpoint, highly compressed audio sounds... bad. It does not contain enough information to retain all the audio details. The question is just, what compression quality is "good enough"? Personally I never found a vast difference between anything 128kbps and above, which is why I said youtube at 128kbps should sound fine. But it doesn't. As for why, it's more complex technically, but in short it's just poorly done transcoding.
 
And if I had my SRH940 with me right now of course I'd listen to those (after tracking down higher quality versions) and give my impressions, but I don't at the moment.
 
Like Audiohead said, I wouldn't want to make a recommendation or evaluation based on music I know historically suffers from compression transcoding artifacts. And beyond that... I wouldn't even want to listen much for my own to something with bad compression artifacts... it just doesn't sound as good.
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 6:06 AM Post #2,919 of 3,855
 
Even if youtube isn't perfect, if you feed it into $10,000 speakers................... you see my point, I hope.
 
 
I think it's important to discuss the same music sometimes, for example here is a song that came with my T51, it's good for testing soundstage - http://soundcloud.com/kiteki/teclast-song
 
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 6:12 AM Post #2,920 of 3,855
If you feed a poorly compressed audio source into even an HD650, it's a pretty bad waste of an HD650 -- and HD650s are really good at hiding compression artifacts. Seriously, have you heard poorly compressed audio? It's absurdly bad. Now of course I'm not saying all youtube is that bad, but there's a spectrum between bad and good compression - it's not binary. Presumably if you PROPERLY compress at 128mbps it should surpass human hearing, but the youtube video's I've heard sound far far worse than 128kbps.
 
I've never had an issue with soundclound sound quality though.
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 6:18 AM Post #2,921 of 3,855
Since you are talking about how bad youtube audio quality is let me chime in here. It isn't bad unless it's 240p. Even at 360p you can have some good sounding songs and some terrible ones. IF i am on the go and need music i am satisfied with youtube. I own the srh940 btw. Not that bad but in all honesty the vocals have this weird fake sound to it. Am i the only one who notices it?
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 6:21 AM Post #2,922 of 3,855
 
Quote:
ac500 said:
If you feed a poorly compressed audio source into even an HD650, it's a pretty bad waste of an HD650 -- and HD650s are really good at hiding compression artifacts. Seriously, have you heard poorly compressed audio? It's absurdly bad. Now of course I'm not saying all youtube is that bad, but there's a spectrum between bad and good compression - it's not binary. Presumably if you PROPERLY compress at 128mbps it should surpass human hearing, but the youtube video's I've heard sound far far worse than 128kbps.
 
I've never had an issue with soundclound sound quality though.
Click to expand...



You do mean that not-so-full-sounding, somewhat hollowish with disjointed treble kind of artifact sounds?
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 6:42 AM Post #2,923 of 3,855
 
Perhaps when I hear bad quality on youtube I assume it was uploaded like that... idk...
 
I see your point there is some 'unknown' compression happening, and that soundcloud and grooveshark are better.
 
I usually click around a bit on youtube looking for the better sounding version, before adding the code "&fmt=18" made a huge difference, almost like mono to stereo, that doesn't happen anymore it sounds exactly the same but sometimes I check out of habit.
 
 
On a similiar topic, I don't think high quality acoustic recordings in lossless are necessary to judge headphone/speaker/IEM.
 
Electronic music in 192kbps is still a vital part of Hi-Fi, imho.
 
I know even the very best MP3 320kbps compression can still be discerned from Flac, but I haven't trained myself to do that.
 
I have trained myself to hear the difference in upsampling a bit.
 
Dec 29, 2011 at 7:51 AM Post #2,925 of 3,855
Well usually , when I submit a song from youtube, I try to find a version that sounds enough good.
I  believe that youtube performs  a slight additional  "loudness compression", that's why it's worse than just a regular lossy compression.

Anyway,yesterdays I  was listening to some  buddah bar compilations again, and I  thought that a particular song was interesting on the srh940.
The pops of vinyl, then the guitar that comes slowly, then a sensual voice .... Nice.
 
Ayoe Angelica - Dr. Jekyll



 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 6 (members: 0, guests: 6)
Back
Top