[Golden Ears]

Firstly, Carnegie Hall was never an opera hall (house), it was designed as a concert/recital venue.

Secondly, you would typically want both; to close mic a singer/performer AND capture some of the venue’s reverb. Virtually always (for many decades), some sort of multi-mic setup/mic array will be used, in addition to a close mic, so that the direct sound verses reverb balance can be adjusted during mixing. This is because too much hall reverb will make the performer/s sound distant and muffled, while too little will sound unnaturally dry and close/present.

Lastly, once the balance of reverb to direct sound has been decided and the final mix is finished, there is no way to reduce the amount of reverb. It is baked into the recording and cannot be removed, and it certainly cannot be removed by speakers, cables or other audio reproduction components. There’s two potential caveats to this assertion: 1. For the last dozen years or so, there has been DSP software available that can reduce/remove reverb but it’s only partially effective and is almost exclusively used in the audio post (TV/Film) industry, rarely if ever in the music recording industry. 2. Certain types of audio processing can, under certain conditions, create the perception of more presence (a closer presentation), audio compression for example or boosting the mid/high freqs with EQ. However, this is only the perception of more presence, the actual reverb is not reduced.

No, in fact quite the opposite, it would make the opera singer (or other musician) sound more “powerful”. Without a close mic, the singer would sound far more distant, more muffled and weaker. However, with only a very close mic (and no other room/distant mics or additional reverb) this could, under certain conditions, be perceived as somewhat less powerful because obviously, a very close sound does not need much power to sound loud.

G

All true.

I’m really not expressing what I meant. Perhaps treble boost and possibly because MQA does toss some of the higher inaudible frequencies that Can cause a cascade into the audible spectrum as they are sun and difference frequencies.. Those ultrasonics are removed and in a sense it’s a type of compression of the signal. If you combine a 35khz tone with a 32khz tone Summation ton of 67khz is inaudible but the difference frequency of 3 kHz is not.

I have always found that tweeters it only go to 20,000 cycles, Somehow they seem to miss a sense of presence and air . I seem to think the bare minimum cut off should be about 32-35khz, but seem to feel extension even if down a few db at 45khz is desirable. I could be mistaking some high Frequency break up resonances for that sense of air for instance some ribbon tweeters tend to ring as do metal dome tweeters. But for the most part I do identify those resonances as displeasing and try to avoid them.

Usually I’m pretty good to identify different types of distortion, distortion from Kodex, compression, driver resonances , speaker wire distortion, room resonances reflection etc.

When I tune systems of extreme audiophiles - I can’t monkey around trying 1 billion different things because they’re going to feel that I’m moving their system out of this sweet spot. I’ve got to identify the problem immediately or i’m never allowed to touch their systems again.

The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society is the largest audiophile society. Add to the senior executive vice president system which is the most resolving system . We’ve never tallied up the price, but it’s pretty excessive. There are a few systems that sound quite a bit better for less money. But his system is extremely complex. Still you can hear chokepoints at the crossover, he’s got the Martin Coltrane Ii loudspeakers.

In any system there are a multitude of chokepoints and distortions. The idea is to fight the biggest battles first, and the most audible battles first. Certainly if you were to measure the system with microphones you might find issues that might seem bigger, but if they are not as audibles other issues you’re better off focusing on the biggest battles.

We’ve played around with MQA through TIDAL. And found that Qobuz was superior.

If you had Speakers that were not very responsive to transients intend to have overhang, then MQA might seem beneficial. Particularly if they were a bit muddy sounding.

So for instance if you had PSB loudspeakers as compared to say quad ESL 57s MQA might remove some of the PSB smear and seem worthwhile , but once you move up into better headphones and better speakers I don’t see it having any benefit whatsoever.

IMHO.

I just find it a overly forward presentation that to my ears is subtractive in some of the same ways digital acts as a subtractive filter in the midrange.

 

[iFi audio]

Firstly, Carnegie Hall was never an opera hall (house), it was designed as a concert/recital venue.

Wasn't aware of that! Cool info, thanks!

 

[xAndrex]

Guys what do you think about Amazon music unlimited? Is a decent choice for stream audio?

 

[gregorio]

If you combine a 35khz tone with a 32khz tone Summation ton of 67khz is inaudible but the difference frequency of 3 kHz is not.

If you combine a 35kHz tone and a 32kHz tone then there are no sum and difference tones at 67kHz and 3kHz, they have to actually be created somewhere. This can happen in the ear itself but not in this case because both the original tones have to be audible (IE. <20kHz or lower). It can result from speakers with a non-linear response to ultrasonic freqs. The other place it can theoretically happen is in the digitisation process, in the form of “aliases” but in practice this doesn’t happen due to the use of anti-alias filters. Apparently, MQA seems to have a serious flaw in this area because aliases are allowed through.

In any system there are a multitude of chokepoints and distortions. The idea is to fight the biggest battles first, and the most audible battles first.

In a modern digital system, there are in fact exceptionally few audible chokepoints and distortions, even with relatively cheap components. Transducers and room acoustics are the big exceptions though. Any half decent amp, DAC or correct specification of cable will have chokepoints/distortions below or way below audibility but room acoustics for example can cause distortions hundreds or thousands of times greater and well inside the range of “audible”. It’s therefore strange that so many audiophiles appear to concentrate their efforts on improving the inaudible differences and ignoring the audible ones. Hats off to you, if you do it the right way around!

I just find it an overly forward presentation that to my ears is subtractive in some of the same ways digital acts as a subtractive filter in the midrange.

Clearly there appears to be some serious faults with MQA, for example aliases and noise in the hearing spectrum which either shouldn’t exist at all or should be well below the threshold of audibility. However, this is not the case with digital in general, there is nothing acting “as a subtractive filter in the midrange”.

G

 

[gregorio]

Wasn't aware of that! Cool info, thanks!

It was originally called “The Music Hall” and was renamed (after its benefactor) a few years after it opened. There was talk of it being redesigned to accommodate operas, after a fire caused the Met to close for an extended period, but it never happened.

Incidentally, the opening performance in 1891 was conducted by Tchaikovsky.

G

 

[chef8489]

Guys what do you think about Amazon music unlimited? Is a decent choice for stream audio?

Ive been using amazon music for quite some time. In dec I had an issue pop up that exclusive mode wasnt working which was weird for my pc to dac. Trying to get it sorted.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Guys what do you think about Amazon music unlimited? Is a decent choice for stream audio?

I guess Tidal and Qobuz are better because the desktop app has bitperfect audio. I signed up for the scamazon premium and I haven't tried the desktop app. I read enough details here not to want to use it and anyway, I'm using Bluesound streamers, everything that serves bitperfect is supported by Bluesound.

The scamazon APIs all the streamers have to use are horrible, the experience on the normally great BluOS app with scamazon is a nightmare. Audio quality is fine, but it's hard to find music and sometimes hard to play it. I guess it's better in the desktop or phone apps but with no bitperfect desktop app it's not a hifi solution.

 

[chef8489]

I guess Tidal and Qobuz are better because the desktop app has bitperfect audio. I signed up for the scamazon premium and I haven't tried the desktop app. I read enough details here not to want to use it and anyway, I'm using Bluesound streamers, everything that serves bitperfect is supported by Bluesound.

The scamazon APIs all the streamers have to use are horrible, the experience on the normally great BluOS app with scamazon is a nightmare. Audio quality is fine, but it's hard to find music and sometimes hard to play it. I guess it's better in the desktop or phone apps but with no bitperfect desktop app it's not a hifi solution.

how is it not bitperfect using exclusive mode?

 

[gimmeheadroom]

how is it not bitperfect using exclusive mode?

Exclusive mode is required for bitperfect, but it is not sufficient. The app itself has to do bitperfect and according to the guys in the scamazon thread, it does not.

 

[chef8489]

Exclusive mode is required for bitperfect, but it is not sufficient. The app itself has to do bitperfect and according to the guys in the scamazon thread, it does not.

and how are they determining it is not bitperfect?

 

[GoldenSound]

and how are they determining it is not bitperfect?

You can output to either a bitperfect digital virtual audio device such as VB-Hifi Cable, or output via SPDIF to a device which can record SPDIF bitperfect then compare to the original track.
I tested a few months back and found that Amazon was bitperfect, but only if you disabled all DSP volume levelling (which is enabled by default), AND manually adjust your device sample rate every single time the track sample rate changes. Amazon's exclusive mode for some reason does not adjust sample rate at all which means it is often resampling.
So it CAN be bitperfect but only if you're willing to adjust DAC settings every few songs. it's kinda dumb they've still not fixed that

 

[chef8489]

You can output to either a bitperfect digital virtual audio device such as VB-Hifi Cable, or output via SPDIF to a device which can record SPDIF bitperfect then compare to the original track.
I tested a few months back and found that Amazon was bitperfect, but only if you disabled all DSP volume levelling (which is enabled by default), AND manually adjust your device sample rate every single time the track sample rate changes. Amazon's exclusive mode for some reason does not adjust sample rate at all which means it is often resampling.
So it CAN be bitperfect but only if you're willing to adjust DAC settings every few songs. it's kinda dumb they've still not fixed that

Thanks for the reply. Right now I cant even get it to output it with exclusive mode. dec I started getting an error on the app and it wont do it. Been dealing with Amazon trying to get them to fix the issue. One day it just stopped working and no idea why.

 

[GoldenSound]

Thanks for the reply. Right now I cant even get it to output it with exclusive mode. dec I started getting an error on the app and it wont do it. Been dealing with Amazon trying to get them to fix the issue. One day it just stopped working and no idea why.

Yeah unfortunately the software is the main reason I never recommend Amazon HD to anyone. It's terrible.
It's really annoying cause there's no actual 'perfect' music streaming service right now even though some of them so easily could be.

Amazon HD:
- Terrible UI/Software/Navigation
- Not bitperfect unless you change settings constantly

Tidal:
- No lossless versions of an increasing number of tracks due to MQA replacing so much with no ability to opt-out

Qobuz:
- Mostly great, but terrible recommendation system (fixable if you use Roon though)
- Smaller library than other services, though this is improving

Spotify:
- No Lossless

Deezer:
- Has lossless files, but they refuse to add a bitperfect/exclusive mode output option, so you can't play the lossless files losslessly/bitperfect. So stupid.
- Refuses to work with Roon to allow integration.

Apple Music:
- Actually pretty great if you use it on Apple devices, other than the fact that some of apple's own high end devices like the Airpods Max don't support lossless
- If using it on windows, it outright will not let you stream lossless, because 'why on earth would you want something of such quality on such a plebian non-apple device'
- On android it does not get around the 44.1khz->48khz resampling issue, meaning most content cannot be played bitperfect.

If Tidal just stopped using MQA for everything, or at least allowed us to stream the ACTUAL lossless version of a song (not the MQA version with flagging removed), it'd be basically perfect.

If Deezer added bitperfect output, and maybe got Roon support added, it'd be basically perfect

If Apple Music stopped treating anyone not using an apple device like they're undeserving of lossless music, it could be basically perfect

Right now the only one without major easily-fixable problems is Qobuz, but then their library is still smaller than others which can't be fixed overnight but is still a concern.

 

[iFi audio]

It was originally called “The Music Hall” and was renamed (after its benefactor) a few years after it opened. There was talk of it being redesigned to accommodate operas, after a fire caused the Met to close for an extended period, but it never happened.

Incidentally, the opening performance in 1891 was conducted by Tchaikovsky.

G

Wow, you sure know a lot about the place

Thanks for all insights about it!

 

[chef8489]

Yeah unfortunately the software is the main reason I never recommend Amazon HD to anyone. It's terrible.
It's really annoying cause there's no actual 'perfect' music streaming service right now even though some of them so easily could be.

Amazon HD:
- Terrible UI/Software/Navigation
- Not bitperfect unless you change settings constantly

Tidal:
- No lossless versions of an increasing number of tracks due to MQA replacing so much with no ability to opt-out

Qobuz:
- Mostly great, but terrible recommendation system (fixable if you use Roon though)
- Smaller library than other services, though this is improving

Spotify:
- No Lossless

Deezer:
- Has lossless files, but they refuse to add a bitperfect/exclusive mode output option, so you can't play the lossless files losslessly/bitperfect. So stupid.
- Refuses to work with Roon to allow integration.

Apple Music:
- Actually pretty great if you use it on Apple devices, other than the fact that some of apple's own high end devices like the Airpods Max don't support lossless
- If using it on windows, it outright will not let you stream lossless, because 'why on earth would you want something of such quality on such a plebian non-apple device'
- On android it does not get around the 44.1khz->48khz resampling issue, meaning most content cannot be played bitperfect.

If Tidal just stopped using MQA for everything, or at least allowed us to stream the ACTUAL lossless version of a song (not the MQA version with flagging removed), it'd be basically perfect.

If Deezer added bitperfect output, and maybe got Roon support added, it'd be basically perfect

If Apple Music stopped treating anyone not using an apple device like they're undeserving of lossless music, it could be basically perfect

Right now the only one without major easily-fixable problems is Qobuz, but then their library is still smaller than others which can't be fixed overnight but is still a concern.

Tidal doesnt offer as many playlist and such I like as amazon and spotify for my discovery of new music. I get almost half off too which is a shame, so I really dont use tidal, plus the lack of true lossless. Spotify is fine for my family and through alexa, but not really though my pc and my headphones. If I could get amazon working it would be a better option or if spotify would go lossless like they keep promising it be much better.