Audio(phile?) / Hi-Fi Questions...

[klankymen]

I liked their bright sound. they may overrepresent the sound a little bit, but I definitely felt like the B&Ws dulled all the instrumentals. Voices sounded nice on the B&Ws, but the music was not as good.
Especially Brass and Synthesizer shone much more on the Klipsches.
I also felt that the percussion section set itself off from the remaining music (not overpowering it, but just kind of existing next to it, instead of under it) which made the music seem more dimensional.
And of course the soundstage was very impressive, though not as impressive as the Cantons (though they had 6.5" woofers, vs the Klipches 5ers - so that might contribute to their superiority there).

[ultrachrome]

Darn. I was worried you'd say that. Bright speakers can be tiring to listen to.

If you think it won't be a problem, go for it.

[klankymen]

hmmmm. the salesman also told me that bright speakers "make your ears burn" more easily. however he also said that he had Klipsches at home himself (and FWIW, his taste in music was probably alot closer to mine than most audiophiles').

But really I don't know a way to test the "longevity" of a bright speaker accurately, short of having one in my home for a couple weeks.

Edit: what speakers do you use? and what kind of music/movies do you use them for?

[ultrachrome]

All my speakers are diy designs. I listen to all kinds of stuff but rock is pretty much the main genre. Not that many audiophile recordings but a few.

Most movies I watch are dialogue driven, not many blockbuster type movies.

To me, if I can describe a speaker as "bright" I'm not going to be that happy with it. Given three choices, I'd choose the middle one, the one that does the least amount of damage.

Had you not heard the Klipsch, would you have considered the B&W's sound as dull?

[colin2]

I don't think you can really go wrong with B&W, though you may be paying more than you need to. I take it you've ruled out buying used gear, which is usually half the price.

You can usually test for listening fatigue with just a couple of hours of continuous listening. The problem is that speakers that sound impressive with a five-minute demo in the shop are often the same ones that make your ears hurt on longer listening.

I assume someone has also told you that the same speaker can sound quite different depending on what amplifier is driving it. Unless you're bringing your amp or receiver in to the shop, you're not getting a good idea of what the speaker will sound like.

In any case if you're going to pay full price from a dealer, the minimum you should be getting is a firm commitment that they will refund your money promptly and in full if after a week you decide you don't want the speakers.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

IMO, you should not ever notice the "sound" of the speaker; and the first thing you should notice is the sound of the music. My current benchmark is the Linaeum tweetered RCA/Radio Shack speakers . There are several DIY projects using this wonderful tweeter.

[klankymen]

First I heard cantons, then B&W, at which point they struck me as dull.
not until then did I hear the Klipschs.

OK, I'll have to negotiate the whole return thing. The guy at the store gave me an amp that he considered similar in sound to mine.

[klankymen]

hmmmm. another question.... is there any way I can get the media buttons (play/pause/ffwd/stop/etc) on the remote to my yamaha to control the playback of winamp? I understand the computer would need some sort of receiver, but beyond that?

[Greg F.]

bear in mind many of those links don't apply to me, as I am located in Bavaria.

-------------------------------------------

New Question: I have a receiver, and am soon to have speakers, so now I need to buy wires and connectors and cables and adapters and whatnot.

Due to budget concerns I would like to order from monoprice.com, which is somewhat complicated due to the fact that I am not located in the states. however a familiy member of mine is, and is coming to visit in december, and if I tell him what to order in time, he can bring the stuff with him.

However I want to make sure I get everything I need, since it would be tedious to have to reorder something.

Can you help me collect all the things I need, so I can avoid that stress.

I'm assuming I need speaker wire, of a low enough gauge to avoid quality loss, and enough to run 1 connection to each speaker, right?
also, do I need, or is, something like banana plugs recommended?
if so, how many do I need, and do I need some kind of tools to attach them to the wire? is a certain type recommended?
also, the optical port on my computer or playstation, what kind of optical port is that? I've found cables with several types of terminating connector on them - which one do I need, and what are all the others for?
Is there anything else I need to cable?
Can I pass digital audio signals over the same RCA cable as I pass analog signals over?
What kind of cable do I use to attach a (powered) sub to the receiver? RCA, right? just a single cable worth, right?

.... TIA, will edit in any questions I think of.

Klankymen; there are many Euro sites that sell the sames things I was linking to. You get so much more for your money if you DIY. Just trying to help. Check this site out:
http://www.tnt-audio.com/int.html

[klankymen]

OK, thank you for the help. I am looking through the links posted in this thread at the moment. One thing I notice is that the Projects all require some fairly precision worksmanship (strange - I reflexively typed that word with a 't' at the end) and a good amount of power tools.
The first part I can manage somehow... but the second part represents an obstacle to me. Power tools? I don't have jigsaw or a circular saw. I don't even have a dremel. The only router I own is made by linksys!

Unfortunately my father doesn't have any of these things either, so that limits my options of how to get at the tools. Of course I could go out and buy everything, but that would go well beyond the scope of my budget. I'm in a fairly small town, and I'm not sure where the next woodshop would be, or how unreasonably expensive it would be (yeah... that's Germany).

I'd appreciate any comments on the issue.

[ultrachrome]

OK, thank you for the help. I am looking through the links posted in this thread at the moment. One thing I notice is that the Projects all require some fairly precision worksmanship (strange - I reflexively typed that word with a 't' at the end) and a good amount of power tools.
The first part I can manage somehow... but the second part represents an obstacle to me. Power tools? I don't have jigsaw or a circular saw. I don't even have a dremel. The only router I own is made by linksys!

Unfortunately my father doesn't have any of these things either, so that limits my options of how to get at the tools. Of course I could go out and buy everything, but that would go well beyond the scope of my budget. I'm in a fairly small town, and I'm not sure where the next woodshop would be, or how unreasonably expensive it would be (yeah... that's Germany).

I'd appreciate any comments on the issue.

DIY requires some basic power tools. There are pre-cut cabinet options but that does limit you to specific designs if you want to avoid buying much more than some glue and clamps.

Looks like you are back to retail brands.

[autoboy]

Well, Klanky, it appears that you have been educated on audio since you first posted this thread. Good work. I hadn't visited this thread for awhile but it seems you are focusing on the right equipment for your tastes. To address the brightness issue, I have found that I only get listening fatigue when I listen critically at very high volumes on my "bright" Axiom M60s. During normal listening I don't get fatigue and appreciate the clarity of a brighter speaker, especially for voices during movies.

[CyberDog]

Hi

I have to advertise a little about finnish speaker manufacturing skills. I have listened many kinds of speakers during many years. But what had gaved me best impressions are Amphion spekers and also Gradient (out of my budget league thou). I think that they are now bringging Amphions to US also. And also some new ones from WaveDynamics and Aurelia.

[aristide1]

hmmmm. the salesman also told me that bright speakers "make your ears burn" more easily. however he also said that he had Klipsches at home himself (and FWIW, his taste in music was probably alot closer to mine than most audiophiles').

But really I don't know a way to test the "longevity" of a bright speaker accurately, short of having one in my home for a couple weeks.

Edit: what speakers do you use? and what kind of music/movies do you use them for?

Accurate speakers often sound bright with less expensive electronics. Its the electronics that are putting the edge on the signal more so than the speaker. Cheaper speakers often adjust for that by being a tad soft. This is why very often you need to buy everything at a similar price point, else you get a major league mismatch.

Accurate speakers are strictly a garbage in garbage out transducer, you get the info, warts and all. It gets to a point most commercial recordings start to sound like what they are; compromised.

[nici]

Yarr,i was going to suggest DIY but it seems thats not a viable option to you. You could save alot of of money though. It's good fun building speakers and amps too, and you can say "I did that" if someone asks what brand your system is ;)Im building some speakers and and amps at the moment. Almost ten years since i last built speakers. Anyway, have fun with whatever you decide to get

[Greg F.]

that building speakers cabinets is something that you either want to do or don't want to do. I actually don't cut out my own panels. I take them to a shop and they do it for me. It really isn't much. However, you have to want to do it
Another idea, and we are just knocking around some ideas here, is open baffle speakers. I know they do have these in Europe. They are somewhat "the latest thing".
Please understand I am not trying to "sell" you on anything, just trying to let you know what is out there and then you can make a more informed choice. An open baffle speaker is basically just a board with hole cut in it. Couldn't be simpler. You can hire someone to do it cheap.
A coax speaker has the tweeter firing right through the center of the bass driver. This makes for a good near field monitor as there is no "tweeter up, woofer down" syndrome. This can be very high quality sound. Hawthorne does ship to Europe. Also the German company Visiton, among others, has a line of suitable speakers which you can find by Googling.
good luck

http://www.hawthorneaudio.com/drivers.htm

[colin2]

Just a note in the general DIY spirit of SPCR:

I've made DIY speakers and it's a lot of fun. This is an inspiring site: http://www.t-linespeakers.org/ The "design information" section links you to some nice MathCad simulation software, a great way to generate simple designs and get a sense of the problems that speaker designers face.

These people: http://www.madisound.com/index.html are a nice source for parts and kits.

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/pjay99site ... rhome.html is a delightful site with a lot of sage advice.

But I would DIY because you want a fun project, because you like building stuff and enjoy learning by doing, not because you hope to save money. If you compare DIYing to buying good used gear, it's not really a money-saver especially if you impute any positive value to your time! Plus DIY gear has little resale value.

The other thing you have to figure out is whether aesthetics matter and how much room you have. Open-baffle speakers take up a lot of space. When you buy a B&W or Tannoy, a lot of what you're paying for is cabinetry and finish, and sometimes that matters.

[chrstphrbnntt]

....

[klankymen]

OK, bumping this thread again, as I've run into some problems.

I ordered some cables from monoprice, including a Digital Optical Cable (TOSLink), and they finally arrived today.

Problem A)
Whistling - Ok, this is an unusual problem. I attached the computer to my receiver (Yamaha RX-V659) using the cable, set up in my sound card to output signals via optical, and turned on the receiver. Set some music playing, and it worked great. I think I heard a slight improvement bypassing my crappy onboard DACs, but, then when I paused my music, I noticed something. The speakers were outputting a whistling sort of noise, going up and down in frequency, although not in a sinusoidal pattern, but rather random - like fast wind blowing through trees. This was noticeable even at standard listening level of -32dB. I tried moving the cable around in order to avoid interference, but no help.
Now what's weird, after experimenting around with problem B), all of a sudden problem A) subsided - mostly. Now the whistling is inaudible at listeining volume, but if I turn up to like -5dB I can hear it again. not that I'm complaining it's gone, but I'm worried it might come back as suddenly as it left.

Problem B)
Surround not working - After listening to some music, I decided I'd give surround movies a try. So I threw in a DVD (Pan's Labyrinth) and pressed play. so far so good, but the receiver was still displaying PCM. So I opened up VLC preferences, and set to "use SPDIF when availible"
Now when I playback a movie, the receiver displays Dolby as input, which is good, however the following is not. What the speakers are outputting is a ~0.2 second long piece of the movie audio, repeated ~5 times, and then followed by another little patch, looped several times. and so on.
This of course is completely unlistenable - anyone have any ideas?

[Matija]

Buy a sound card. Motherboard audio sucks in all possible categories and the drivers are usually unstable resource hogs.

[klankymen]

..... I thought with SPDIF the soundcard doesn't matter any more....
damnit!

Any recommendations on good soundcards that I can get in europe (for really cheap?) I can't even find the famous chaintech that everyone used to recommend here on newegg anymore - can anyone refresh my memory what the exact name of it was? had an envy 24 in it I think.

As for people talking about "cards not being designed for gaming" - what exactly is it that gaming cards can do that non-gaming cards cant?

[matt_garman]

I'll just add some random thoughts to this thread for anyone who may be interested. I wouldn't consider myself an audiophile, just a music lover.

Anyway, about a year ago, I read this review of the Sonic Impact T Amp. I could be hype or it could be the real deal, but I thought, hey, for 40USD, it's worth an experiment.

Fast-forward to today; I finally got one of those T-Amps as a gift. Now I need some speakers. Somewhere along the way, someone recommended to me the Audio Nirvana Fullrange Speakers. I bought a pair of their "Standard 8" model, and am now building the enclosures, the "1.3" model shown towards the bottom of this page.

I can't comment on the sound, as my speakers aren't built yet. But I have high expectations.

I used 3/4" birch plywood for to build the cabinets. I live in an apartment, so I just had the guy at Home Depot cut the 4x8 sheet of plywood for me. They've got those huge planar saws that make straighter cuts than I could ever hope to with my limited equipment. (Many years ago I built a 2x12 speaker cabinet for my guitar amp, using birch plywood. I made the cuts myself. It was fairly square, but it was really hard to make those cuts. I used a circular saw and a piece of metal clamped to the wood as a guide.)

In the end, I'll have very little invested in this setup, relatively speaking. If it sounds half-way decent, I'll be happy. But like I said, I have high expectations.

Other random thoughts: I don't think it's bad advice to take your favorite CDs to the store and listen to different available equipment. But the problem is, there are so many variables that what you get at home could sound quite different from what you had in the store, even with the exact same equipment. The shape and size of the room, as well as speaker placement, will have an effect on the sound.

For my TV, I just have a stereo (2.0) set up. My amp is a Pioneer Elite that I bought used off ebay. My speakers are Paradigm Monitor 3s sitting on homemade speaker stands. I'm quite happy with the sound. I stressed quite a bit when I bought those speakers, though. My usual way of making major purchases is to research relentlessly; and that's easy to do when comparing objective things like motherboards and hard drives. But not only is musical equipment subjective, it changes based on what components you have, placement, location, etc. Also, there's no obvious price range. You can buy speakers for $10 or you can spend over $10 thousand. Obviously, there's some degree of "you get what you pay for", but I'm sure I can't hear the difference between $7000 and $70,000 speakers. (But most of us can probably tell the difference between the $10 speakers and the $100 speakers!)

Another thing that's annoying, too, like was mentioned earlier in this thread: listener fatigue. When I was shopping for speakers (when I ultimately bought the Paradigms), one store employee told me that some manufacturers deliberately tune their speakers to sound better for very short listening durations, but that the same tunings will eventually drain the listener.

Having said all that, I'll close with a question: what's "the best" way to get the music data from the computer to the amp? (I put "the best" in quotes because we all know it's highly subjective.) E.g., I'm thinking the sound card built into my motherboard probably isn't top-notch. I've seen people recommend external USB sound cards to eliminate the chance of RFI within the case. I don't need anything more than stereo (2.0) support. Would the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 be good for my needs?

Matt

[alleycat]

I've got an M-Audio Revolution 5.1 which sounds pretty good. However, now that I've thought about it more, a USB DAC would have been a more flexible solution. If you change computers or get a laptop then you don't have to worry. And since you are a DIYer, you might want to build your own. There are some good kits out there. Here's one.

[aristide1]

..... I thought with SPDIF the soundcard doesn't matter any more....
damnit!

Any recommendations on good soundcards that I can get in europe (for really cheap?) I can't even find the famous chaintech that everyone used to recommend here on newegg anymore - can anyone refresh my memory what the exact name of it was? had an envy 24 in it I think.

As for people talking about "cards not being designed for gaming" - what exactly is it that gaming cards can do that non-gaming cards cant?

First turn down the setting on all unused inputs. Also verify your DAC is OK with another source. And see if the whistling is present with the onboard sound alone.

Also - Is the cable shielded? Turn off "spread spectrum" in the BIOS and see if the whistling remains constant.

[matt_garman]

A few quotes to establish context...

There are 3 ways to get the signal out to amplification: (1) digital out to an amplifier that takes a digital signal or to a DAC and then an analog amp [...]

The advantage of (1) is simplicity: amp that takes a digital signal, coax or toslink cable, computer. Sometimes people buy a soundcard anyway because they think it gets them a better quality digital output; I don't know.

The optical port is called Toslink which obviously requires a Toslink cable. An alternate digital connection is usually called coax and uses a standard RCA patch cable. In the past, coax was preferred as the Toslink part could induce timing errors. But that was years ago. Since then I've used both and don't notice any obvious difference in quality. However, both have a very noticable increase in quality over a standard analog signal so by all means use digital.

..... I thought with SPDIF the soundcard doesn't matter any more....

Klankymen's comment sums it up best: when using digital output (coax or optical), is there a difference between brands and integrated versus discrete sound cards?

For what it's worth, in my MythTV (HTPC), I'm using a Chaintech AV-710 to a Panasonic XR-55 via TOSLink (optical). I really like the sound. I'm looking to create a similar setup for my workstation. The question is: my motherboard (Abit IP35 Pro) has optical SPDIF output built-in (via Intel HD Audio). Is there anything to be gained by using, for example, my MAudio Audiophile 2496's coaxial SPDIF instead?

Thanks!
Matt

[Michael Sandstrom]

For what it's worth, in my MythTV (HTPC), I'm using a Chaintech AV-710 to a Panasonic XR-55 via TOSLink (optical). I really like the sound. I'm looking to create a similar setup for my workstation. The question is: my motherboard (Abit IP35 Pro) has optical SPDIF output built-in (via Intel HD Audio). Is there anything to be gained by using, for example, my MAudio Audiophile 2496's coaxial SPDIF instead?

I do not think there is any difference in digital output caused only by the choice between coaxial and optical. Driver capability is the one crucial property that differentiates digital output. For example, If the path of the digital stream in Windows XP travels through Kmixer, the stream will be degraded by resampling. Audiophiles want to send a bit-perfect digital stream from the source to final output by using either ASIO or kernel streaming. I favor soundcards with drivers that provide native ASIO over the digital output.

[aristide1]

Coax can be affected by cable length, Reflections are an issue. Don't know about Toslink from that perspective.

Many cards will not put out greater than 48KHz. The Chaintek is known to output 96K, with that ASIO business. To bad there's no list that fall into this category.