Since reading some slightly negative comments about the DAC section of my CD-player I was thinking about a tuning …and now that I was reading about the once euphorically praised Accuphase DP-800 / DC-801 combination is this idea in my head if it would make sense / work ( to achieve a significant better performance ) if I’d buy for example only a used DC-801 …has anyone experience with tuning this Teac player and this or other Accuphase DAC‘s….?

Please help me understand! Picture is of Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones from Rewind greatest hits 1984 vinyl, recorded from vinyl to Audacity, exported to MP3 320. I understand the black is where 320 cuts off, I get the blue line at the top is extremely high electrical interference from the turntable or monitor, but why the clear block at 16khz? Is there a digital file somewhere in production that's done this?

This is a record from 1984! Was a digital file used between the original master and pressing the greatest hits?

https://preview.redd.it/1tbblx582twc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae5f58412c02cd3c6c9cc06cdb42095bc71ea1ab

https://preview.redd.it/yfzrgvu8aswc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=999a166cc6400562096b12d675e8b2842a9335e9

Every audiophile needs a pair of these Avantgarde Acoustic Duo XD Floorstanding speakers ($28,000)+. You'll swear you got a job at Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory while you connect them to your Krell KSA-i400 40th-Anniversary Reference Stereo Power Amplifier ($36,500)* with the world's most "revealing" PAUL'S REFERENCE AudioQuest Dragon ZERO Speaker Cable ($68,000)^.

Time to win back your friends' respect by getting this triple pack (or move on over to r/BudgetAudiophile with the rest of your ilk).

+: https://www.ebay.com/itm/226113068672?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160811114145%26meid%3Da1af8402074b43abbd27136af2acf8fb%26pid%3D100667%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D186364085876%26itm%3D226113068672%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2351460&_trksid=p2351460.c100667.m2042&LH_RPA=1&LH_BIN=1

*: https://hifiheaven.net/product/krell-ksa-i400-40th-anniversary-reference-stereo-power-amplifier/?utm_source=Google%20Shopping&utm_campaign=New%20Website%20Feed%202023&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=93485&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjpvEi7ffhQMVJhitBh3aXwDfEAQYCCABEgLQKvD_BwE

^: https://www.psaudio.com/products/pauls-reference-dragon-zero-speaker-cable?variant=43692491604258&currency=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gc_id=20193779750&h_ad_id=659778742287&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItOS7orbfhQMVOTOtBh2cKAR5EAQYBCABEgIjYfD_BwE

REvolution of KEF 207 onward. Analysis of classic KEF Uni Q paving the way to their reboot with the Blade and LS50... From the LS3 5a the days when looks didn't matter to the age of gorgeous curvaceous design and gloss.

It's a thorough analysis of KEF's history in terms of technological context and innovative evolution.

https://imgur.com/gallery/J44IOz0

Okay, this will sound silly to most of you, but my friend is having a budget wedding. The venue is a large banquet hall (hiiiigh ceiling). 175 guests, dance floor will probably be 50 or so people. The wedding is approaching and he doesn’t have a dj or pro sound booked.

Anyway, we discussed me DJing his wedding. I can mix vinyl well and have an extensive collection of new wave, funk, disco and house records. However, I only DJ at home on a set of L100 classics and a naim uniti star amp.

I know I’ll need a sub, which I’m willing to rent or buy. But how realistic is this? Can the L100s classics (with a big sub) fill a 1000-1500sf dance floor in a 6000+ sf banquet hall?

Is this absurd and better avoided?

Or if this is the route I was taking, what kind of sub should I get? And what should I be mindful of? Speaker placement etc?

TL;DR - I've officially concluded that there is not one format to rule them all. This may have been obvious all along, but it's now very clear to me.

As a background, been getting into the audiophile hobby over the last several years - started dabbling in vinyl in 2017ish, but like many people, went much deeper in the last few years. I'm also an amateur musician - not a great one, but enough that I like to think I have a decent ear for details.

I've primarily been collecting vinyl lately, and it's been a blast (albeit, an expensive blast) - but when I was a kid, everything I bought was on CD. I have a big collection of old CDs from the late 80's / 90's / 2000's.

Recently, I bought the Jar of Flies vinyl reissue. I've been kicking myself the last few years for not buying the Music on Vinyl press when I saw it on shelves in the 2017/2018 timeframe, so was excited it was finally getting reissued. To say I was enormously disappointed in the reissue is an understatement. Poorly pressed, mastered too bright, lots of distortion, etc. The disappointment was so strong that I went into storage and dug out all my old CDs and an old CD player. Plugged the player into my new speakers, not expecting much...

...but I was blown away. My original Jar of Flies CD is so much more dynamic, balanced, and clear than the recent vinyl reissue. This led me down a path of listening to a few other favorites from that era - Nevermind, Superunkonwn, Ten - and I was frankly blown away by all of them. Superunknown and Ten I actually think sound better on CD than the versions I have on vinyl. I also spent decent money on an original European vinyl press of Nevermind, which sounds amazing - but the original CD is really damn close, and of course with none of the surface noise.

So I kept going. One of my other all time favorite albums is Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age. Listening to the CD, I had the entirely opposite reaction - brickwalled to hell, no space between the instruments, and a complete wall of sound compared to my vinyl copy, which sounds much more dynamic and wide.

Another, Tales from the Punchbowl by Primus, which I don't own on vinyl - but compared to Tidal streaming - and it was also pretty compressed and loud on CD. I've always known about the loudness war, and been able to hear it in certain cases, but some of these CDs from the mid-late 90's / early 2000's bring it to the next level (Songs for the Deaf is one of the worst offenders, but others like Californication and Stadium Arcadium by RHCP are pretty bad too)

I have always known conceptually that format doesn't make as much of a difference as mastering - but this exercise made me realize how drastically different mastering can be between different formats. In the end - I'm now even more sucked into the audiophile hobby and I'm excited to continue to go down this path (and maybe even start comparing some of my dad's CD copies of albums from the 60's / 70's / 80's to the original vinyl copies I inherited from him)

i have this office that is around 6’x7’ that i was thinking about turning into a room for listening to music. how much would the size of this room affect the sound?

the best I've listened to is evangelion jazz night, without a doubt.

Anyone else seeing lots of crazy prices on local marketplaces? For example $600 for re-foamed CV E315 without grilles… I mean this is crazy right?

I have full range speakers currently that (due to placement) will gradually fall off at ~80 Hz, get close to inaudible at 68 Hz, and then peak hard (full volume at 50 Hz before going inaudible at 40 Hz (with a light bump at 30 Hz) in my sitting area. I am in the process of treating the room, but it is a bit of trial and error trying to not have foam wedges littered in every corner lol.

I am planning on purchasing a subwoofer that I will be placing in a more ideal location, but will setting the LPF at 80 Hz have issues with that peak at 50 Hz on my mains? Would it make sense to run a HPF at 80 Hz on them, or will doubling up at those peaks not have as detrimental of an effect?

Sorry if this is a stupid question!

Gallery

As an audio engineer, I often mix and master tracks then test them in different environments just to be sure everything is balanced.

You cant get more different than these four!

• Living Room Music setup (Custom "Eggs" & Valve Amp)
• Home Theater (REVEL Gem 7.1 15" Sub + Proceed Amps)
• Home Studio (Mackie cheap things, Slate VSX)
• Main Studio (K&H0300 and Auratone center monocube)

Main studio is currently being upgraded to:

ATC SCM45A Pro 3-Way Pair + BURL B2 BOMBER DAC IK MULTIMEDIA ARC STUDIO ROOM CORRECTION

I haven't listed all the music production analogue gear.

I had to build a home studio during the pandemic as I couldn't gst people together to record or work in the main studio. Also, couldn't make noise so I had to work on canz. The Slate VSX are now my go-to for almost all my work.. the software and implementation of the idea (recreation of real listening environments using acoustic modelling and 3D spatial effects) is amazing.

But, we aren't allowed to talk about that here.

Emotiva B1+ speakers have two holes at the bottom for screw mounting. The spacing seems to be non-standard, from what I am able to find, with 1 and 3/8 inch separation.

​

I would like to mount VESA stands to the bottom, for steep downward tilting, using something like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XUF2GBI Wall mounting is not an option for me, and I prefer not to drill into the back.

​

Is there a VESA adapter plate that fits the bottom of these speakers?

​

Thanks

I’ve had a pair of old Polk RT25i speakers for about 6 months. They’ve been ok, but I’ve not been super impressed with them. The other day I picked up a pair of Canton Plus D speakers at Goodwill for $10. I have never heard of the brand before, but they looked and felt quality and I had nothing to lose at only $10. Well I put them in place of my Polks, and I like the Cantons much better! They seem to be a lot clearer and detailed and the bass goes a little deeper. Does this sound right? Is Canton a good brand?

Hi all, I've read various r/audiophile posts about the best iOS apps for playing back high quality audio files on a mobile iOS device, but my situation is apparently a bit unique. I've seen recommendations for Vox, Foobar, Qobuz, Doppler and good old VLC, but I'm not sure they're what I'm looking for.

I have a lot, and I mean a lot, of lossless (mostly FLAC) music files that I've recorded of myself and my students, so lonnnng file names and no cover art. They're stored on a NAS in my local network, so I'm not really looking for something that plays nice with streaming services, or the player for a streaming service. And I won't go into why I won't use iTunes or the native iOS music app.

What I do need is an app that will handle lossless files with long file names, and can play them or download a local copy from a local network share over wifi. The UIs for most of the apps I've tried don't have scrolling titles or landscape mode (which helps with reading long file names) and seem to depend on cover art to help choose songs for playback and playlists, which doesn't help in my case.

Do any of you audiophiles know of an iPhone-friendly app you'd recommend? If not, I'll go back to VLC and try to figure out the various "undocumented features" that I've found so frustrating in recent versions.

Thanks for your time and advice!

Hi,

I bought this Pioneer PD-X88 CD player on a whim. It's not much to look at. Just a black box with square buttons. I had a bunch of CDs lying around and no player.

I am actually enjoying this player more than I want to admit. It's so 80s. Comparing the sound with my Bluesound Node (2021), I can tell that the Pioneer is not effortlessly smooth and neutral. The Pioneer sounds bright with a bump in the bass. It's subtle enough to not distract from the music. I think that this is making me feel nostalgic for when my parents were playing CDs in the living room with an 80s Rotel CD player. Newer DACs or CD players just don't have that sound. I know that folks online are so hung up on measurements and performance. This CD player feels like an escape from that. For less than $100, you can achieve the vintage 80s sound. All you need is an amp with an RCA input.

I can always switch the input to my DAC for "more performance"... whatever that means. And I hear you typing "You can just use EQ". And I say no! How do you make your DAC sound less smooth? LOL

Do you think that people will collect vintage DACs/CD players for that reason? I believe that all modern DACs will eventually sound the same with subtle differences. The target is neutral.

I used to have carpeting all over my first floor and noticed the upper sonic end didn’t “shimmer” like I thought it should. I would cup my hands behind my ears and notched this had a better upper end frequency sound to me. I have since removed the carpet and the upper end sounds better and there is negligible difference now if I cup my hands or not behind my ears and face the direction of the speakers. My theory is that doing the cupping behind your ears removes a lot of the sound waves bouncing in the room and mostly brings the waves directly from the speakers. Is this probable or no way?

Sansui + Yamaha

Can an engineer please explain to me how the below works in the Qed 40i interconnects:

"Another addition is the introduction of one Oxygen Free Copper Conductor and one Silver-Plated Oxygen Free Copper Conductor to carry the same audio signal.

According to the company, the idea behind this switch is to allow, “…an alternative route for high and low frequencies, reducing the ‘smearing’ and disruption of the audio signal which would otherwise occur in a single, one material conductor configuration"

https://theaudiophileman.com/performance-audio-40i-interconnects-news-qed/

Thanks