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Showing 1 of 12 conversations about:
Can you hear a difference?
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ATLMikey
1
Apr 27, 2018
My experience has been the cheaper the gear, the easier to hear Hi Res, on a world class Rig, redbook is staggeringly good. so good, the last thing you think about is resolution or format. Same goes for tweaks.. The stronger the rig, the higher its integrity in not being affected by outside influences. mp3 is the absolute LAST way to listen to music if you respect music as well as your experience. Even .wav sounds better than flac in AB comparisons for me. Unfortunately the best audio repro costs. If a company claims that their $500 DAC sounds as good as the big boys, not in my experience. I actually set out to prove that the newest DAC technologies can and do sound as good as the $10K +, But all it takes is a really well designed $10K plus DAC to sit your ass back in the chair so you can think about it a little. Trust me it sucks, I'm not wealthy, but I do spend an unnaturally high amount for my gear because its the most important physical/material experience for me. Yep, I'm old enough that it passed up food and sex.. I am immersed in Audio most likely around 70% of my time.
Why would you even accept something with the name Lossy ? You dont even need to hear it.. they have told you up front ...
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ElectronicVices
2937
Apr 27, 2018
ATLMikeyAppreciate the contribution, $10K is past my personal return on investment threshold for all but maybe a future pair of speakers. Of my lossless files Redbook quality still makes up 85% or so of the content and I agree that quality equipment only enhances one's enjoyment. My personal mp3 collection dates back 20+ years and some of the content just isn't worth re-ripping.
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nwimpney
219
May 15, 2018
ATLMikeyIt doesn't work that way. lower quality gear won't be improved by better sources. That's ridiculous. If anything, the opposite is true. Cheap(bad) gear will sound bad regardless of the source quality. Good gear will just give you a clearer picture of that source, whether it's good or bad.
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ATLMikey
1
May 16, 2018
nwimpneyOK, so let me be more distinct. I am speaking of Best Buy type gear. $2000 Receivers by any of the big Japanese companies lets say, I dont consider them bad or cheap, they are good. on the other hand we have a true hi fi rig. Lets say the goal is to sound "real". The HiFi rig sounds real with 16/44.1. The receiver is anything but. So to push the HiFi rig any higher is a task, theres really nowhere to go. The receiver has a LOT of room to go. Therefore formats like MQA, and the hi res stuff are more easily heard. A source would be the component that plays the files, and for the sake of this discussion I am referring to file type, my rig shrugs off the hi res stuff. DSD can sound horrible comparatively. I undserstand its different strokes for different folks, im an OCD freak about my Rig, and I could care less about the type of car I drive, and my house is no mansion, but the rig is sacred, its worth half of the value of my house. It has its own electrical system that comes from the meter outside. 4- 8 foot ground rods in the earth right outside the room, Master tape recorder from a recording studio, along with vintage master tape dubs.. you get the pic.. I'm audio insane..
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nwimpney
219
May 16, 2018
ATLMikeyBut my point is, that if there were anything audibly worse about 16/44 audio than those other high-res formats, the most perfect audio system in the world would only make those differences more apparent. I believe that your system sounds very good with 16/44, what I'm disagreeing with is that a cheaper system will make the differences more easily heard.
It's not like you add up the "goodness" of all of your equipment and sources, and that defines how good the overall sound quality is. It's more like subtracting all the "badness" of the equipment and sources, and what you're left with is the overall quality.
In some cases if one part of the chain is bad enough, it can mask other problems, but there's never a case where one part can be good enough that it makes up for another deficiency elsewhere.
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ATLMikey
1
May 16, 2018
nwimpneyI see your point and agree. You cant take crap and make crap salad... or can you ? I'll leave that to the cooking forum. First off let me say I'm simply going from experience .. when I speak with other audiophiles that have high level rigs, most say the same thing.. format does not matter so much.. maybe digital or analog, but not between low and high bitrate PCM. Between DSD and PCM yes but youve got to be intently listening. strangely, many times DSD sounds worse. In other words Ive got a server chock full of 16/44, 24/96, 24/192, DSD, Double DSD, etc. When I am listening there is really no distinction.. Most of the time when I am amazed at how great the music sounds, its 16/44 with top shelf production. That being said, the only people/customers I hear talking about Hi Res or MQA are the non audiophiles or the fledgling audiophiles. When I ask them if it makes a difference or if they can hear it, its unanimous, "sounds better".
So again, I am going from experience not theory of what makes sense logically. Logic can be thrown out the window with high end audio. (see: audiophile fuses)
I think you can add up the goodness because the starting point is always shit. Mp3, radio, etc. Every tikme I add a higher level piece my system sounds better. So the goodness absolutely adds up, Subtracting the badness means we start from where ? "perfect sound" whats that ? But I agree with you that you cant add something thats not there to begin with..
Cheers
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