[Toe]

Quote:

Originally posted by taipeileviathan elnero and toe mentioned some audio technica phones... i've kinda avoided those in my quest because my bro used to have a pair but i found them rather bright and a little fatiguing. i've never tried the w100's tho... any comments on this? side comment: i do appreciate that audio tech phones usually look good tho... which is always a plus on a college campus...

You were more than likely listening to AT's more mainstream stuff, not their high-end, rarely available outside stuff.

Quote:

Originally posted by slindeman Etymotic ER4P ($270) META42 Amp in Serpac case ($200 or under)

Quote:

Originally posted by a1leyez0nm3 I suggest: Ety ER4P (with S adaptor) - $250 on ebay Meta42 - $?

Something that's always boggled my mind: why the hell do people reccomend the ER4P when it's plainly stated that they will be used with an amp?

Why not just get the ER4S and forget that little extra cost & hassle of an adaptor?

 

[puppyslugg]

Quote:

why the hell do people reccomend the ER4P when it's plainly stated that they will be used with an amp? Why not just get the ER4S and forget that little extra cost & hassle of an adaptor?

I kinda don't get that either. taipeileviathan isn't
trying to drive phones with a portable player.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by TaffyGuy Alright now I just look like a tool. Thanks for taking the worst possible context MacDEF

Sorry

Quote:

As far as the iPod, I AM NOT TRYING TO DIS THE IPOD, but since I'd like to think I'm pretty keen on math, I think that $400/$700 is something like 60% of his funds. Now when we're going for bang/buck, i don't think 60% of the funds going to source is a very good idea.

Good point. The one exception would be iPod + good headphones.

 

[elnero]

TaffyGuy,

Here we go again.

So tell me what exactly do my posts not say but "imply". All I was saying was that, to quote someone else, if mp3's "float your boat" that's great. If not then don't use them. I do think it's rather immature to imply there is no difference and you yourself have stated that there is one so I really don't see what your point is. Your first post though was rather critical of anyone pointing out that there is a difference and you tried to prove through some magazine article that there isn't one.

Just for reference I listen to mp3's quite a bit at work, coming out of a crappy soundblaster card and listening on pretty crappy Panasonic headphones, I can still hear the difference. (god I can't wait for my 280's) I rip my own files to oggs using Exact Audio Copy and have downloaded and ripped a ton of mp3's as well. I pretty much won't go below a 192 khz bit rate because to me it sounds like things get really bad below that. My point here is that even on crap I can hear a pretty big difference and I wouldn't even want to think about it on my home system. In fact when I get my 280's I expect that I'll be doing alot more listening to CD than mp3's.


MacDEF,

You and I seem to see eye to eye on a lot of these debates.

Phil

 

[JaZZ]

elnero: The sound quality depends highly on the quality of the encoding algorithm.

Not to be misunderstood: I guess I would be able to differentiate between highest quality MP3s and uncompressed music on my speaker rig – but I haven't the opportunity to do such comparison, because my CD player doesn't play MP3s. I don't give much attention to tests such as the one of the «c't magazine» – if 90% of the auditory is rating 128 kb/s equal to the CD quality, I can't take that seriously. The difference is too obvious for me – and not only for me: e.g., without any bias and impact from my side, my son wasn't satisfied with the 128 kb/s encoding of his MIDI composition.

But the crucial point is that for portable use, with a portable device and with headphones, well ripped MP3 at least with 256 or 320 kb/s is barely distinguishable from CD. The sound difference between different devices, be it PCDP, MD or MP3 players, are clearly bigger. And as regards handling and portability, nothing comes close to an MP3 jukebox, which makes it unneccessary to carry any additional CDs or MDs with you and gives you a lot of comfort, e.g. playlists and shuffle play of your whole (or the best of your) music collection. Soon I'll spend my holidays in the Swiss mountains. I'll take my Archos jukebox and my EMP with me – and won't miss my home CDP at all, as long as I have no comparison possibility.

And for ultra-portability, nothing comes close to an MP3 player with the ER-4. Especially one of the iPod's size.

JaZZ

 

[Oliver :)]

Quote:

Originally posted by MacDEF Do a search and you'll find some good criticisms of that "test" -- one of which was that they never qualified what makes an "audiophile." Someone who claims to be one? I have lots of friends who claim to be "audiophiles"... as they listen to their Sony minisystems.

Well, define audiophile. When I say that I am audiophile it means *to me* that I get a kick out of *sound*. Sound as itself, more than just to state "I like music". Of course, excellent reproduction demands an excellent system, but one cannot deny that some certain mini-systems produce interesting and pleasing results (aka "man, great sound!") when it comes to playing *music*. Heck, even my iBook's crappy little speakers sound nice, especially with those 56kbps blues-streams, but I do not listen to it for *sound*.
So does audiophile automatically mean that you have to spend wads of money for your system, or does it mean that you know what good sound is and you enjoy it?

Regarding MP3 - I do not care whether I can hear the difference from 320kbps to CD. Compressed material serves a purpose, it is small, so more convenient to store and carry. AAC will make it even better. But, again *to me*, the "audiophile" will always prefer the best available format on the main rig, because, well, you could well miss something...

 

[elnero]

JaZZ,

Was there anything about my post that stated anything other than what you said??? I agree that for portability mp3's are great. I was merely stating to a "budding audiophile" who was told that mp3's have the same sound quality as CD that this statement is simply not true. Mp3 is a lossy format. THIS IS A FACT! It's not something I made up and I personally don't care whether you or anyone else can hear the difference or not. I was correcting an untrue statement. With that I suggested that maybe a PCDP player that plays mp3's as well might be a good choice because you get the best of both worlds.

What exactly is your point of telling me "The sound quality depends highly on the quality of the encoding algorithm" when you then go on to state that yes there is a difference but it doesn't matter to you??? GREAT! I'm really happy for you. But what exactly are you trying to tell me? If you want to somehow try and disprove my statements go right ahead and blow whatever hot air you have but don't direct comments at me to try and confuse things and make it sound like I'm wrong, especially when you yourself agree with me in your own post.


Phil

 

[mnemonic]

What about compressed digital audio formats besides mp3? mp4/aac, wma, ogg?

 

[elnero]

mnemonic,

There are various formats out there, some are lossy and some are not. The lossy formats such mp3, ogg, wma etc... all must do away with a certain amount of information in order to achieve the smaller files sizes. This tends to go against the grain of audiophile sensibilities as we are always trying to get the most out of a recording not lose some of it right off the bat. Formats that compress and aren't lossy like Monkeys Audio don't do away with information at the expense of larger file sizes. I guess a good analogy for a lossless compressor would be it's kinda like a zip file. When you uncompress a zip file you haven't lost anything. I'm not that familiar with lossless compressors as I don't feel the file size difference is great enough to bother with and they don't really share the support that mp3's and to some degree oggs have.

Edit:

Hmmmm, an even better visual analogy would be to take uncompressed video and using quicktime save first using either the animation codec at 100% (lossless). Save another using a high quality lossy compressor like Sorenson. Now play them both back and you will see some pixellation and smudging with the sorensen codec encoded video. It's probably nothing serious and quite livable for most purposes but for those who require the utmost video quality the animation codec encoded video is a must.


Phil

 

[mnemonic]

Actually, I'm well aware of the difference between lossy and lossless audio formats. I was looking for a comparison of other non-mp3 compressed (and assumingly lossy, in this discussion) formats. I found a pretty helpful website on the topic.
http://ff123.net/64test/results.html
The person conducted a series of double-blind audio tests with mp3Pro, Ogg Vorbis, WMA8 and AAC. A dozen or so audio samples were used, all encoded at 64kbps (while almost no one listens to audio at such a low bitrate, the relative differences between formats presumably would still exist at higher bitrates). Anyways, he concludes that of the tested formats, mp3Pro on average produces the best quality, with ogg at a close second.

Notable is the fact that normal mp3 is not included in the tests. I've heard from others that all of the formats tested are significantly better than mp3, though I have yet to test this myself.

 

[elnero]

mnemonic,

Sorry misunderstood the question. I guess it still has relevance to what I was saying before though.

Thanx for the link, I don't tend to give alot of credence to tests like that though, and theres seems to be alot of holes in the methodology. It is an interesting read though.

It does state that "However, I don't agree with people who have claimed that results at this bitrate have relevance at other bitrates. Additional tests must be performed to say anything meaningful about codec performance at other bitrates." so your presumption that the same would be true at higher bit rates appears to be incorrect from the testers own point of view.

Phil

 

[TaffyGuy]

oh lord, look what i've done. sorry folks.

Quote:

So tell me what exactly do my posts not say but "imply".

elnero, that last part about implication was sort of edging back to my orininal "comic releif" strategy. kind of one of those childish last ditch efforts to have the last word, you know? (i admit that i'm wrong, BUT I'M RIGHT, DAMNIT!!)

Quote:

i want an mp3 player cuz i've heard that with proper ripping techniques, mp3's are just as good as cd's

I see that you were responding directly to that; it didn't catch me the say way because it didn't strike me with the same feeling of "absolute" that it did with you. i think the point is that 128 kbit mp3 are reaaallly obvious, but its true that you can get good sound out of mp3's done right (albeit not perfect...)

Quote:

I don't give much attention to tests such as the one of the «c't magazine» – if 90% of the auditory is rating 128 kb/s equal to the CD quality, I can't take that seriously

Umm, with a more thorough read, I believe you'll find that 90% of the testers "picked out" the 128 kbit files, which (yet again) implies that they could tell the difference and noticed the artificats contained in them.

Quote:

So does audiophile automatically mean that you have to spend wads of money for your system, or does it mean that you know what good sound is and you enjoy it?

okay, i don't know exatly how to go about this, but i think it *does* mean that you have to spend wads of money for your system, and i *don't* think its necessarily something that you want to be proud of; but i think most of them are

the term audiophile seems to be linked with a kind of obsession, and i'm not sure if that obsession would really permit listening to 56kbit blues on an iBook w/o somewhat a bit of irritation. Perhaps these uppity self proclaimed audiophiles weren't the real deal, it was a *benchmark* to *put things into perspective* and not to prove, or criticize or whatever. oye.

sent this thread on a downturn worse than the july market

 

[redshifter]

i see a lot of recommendations for mp3 players, slimx, etc. and good portable amps. not to slam these--i'm sure--fine portable players, but do any of them have a line out? if not, doesn't this defeat the purpose of having a dedicated headphone amp?

 

[elnero]

I believe the slimX has a line out.

 

[elnero]

TaffyGuy,

lol

I consider myself an audiophile, I only wish I had the wads of money to throw at the hobby. Seriously though, I don't think you need alot of money to be an audiophile, In fact some really wonderful products can be had for very little money. To me an audiophile tries to find the best sound in his/her price range. I really think when you start getting into the reeeaaally expensive gear the law of diminishing returns comes into effect. So the $20,000 super system really isn't 10 times betters than the Hi-Fi rig you set up for a couple of grand. Or the $10,000 Orpheus really isn't that much better than lets say a Cosmic with a pair of HD 600's. But to those who can afford it and really care about that extra few percent of fidelity, all the power to em, cause it's the really expensive products like that that lead to innovations for the average consumer. That good ole trickle down effect. Just my 2 cents worth.

Phil