Quality sound

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log man said..

sotired said..
By boring, I mean it sounds dull, as if I wasn't sitting there listening to someone play live. Not an over amped 'live', but as if I was sitting there listening to an acoustic set.

On my home system I like to believe that I can hear cymbals, and kick drums as if I were only metres away, and still able to hear the lyrics easily.

I guess one of the reasons I am an advocate of using equalisers is that the response from speakers is never linear, and thus would rarely have a response the same as what the engineer that recorded the track had.

I do agree, you are right in that it is up to what the individual likes, but I must say I was underwhelmed by this system that was demoed to me.

I know next to nothing about instruments, but there is a track on a Jimmy Barnes acoustic album that has a few notes played on a grand piano, and for me, that sounds brilliant, as if I were there in person. That's what I want to hear.

I hesitate to say it but how good is your hearing. I know after 20 years of playing in loud/ very loud bands my hearing has dulled at both ends of the spectrum......though not as bad as a drummer I worked with who now has bad tinitus and has no idea where sound has come from. Most Hi Fi gear is better than the ears that hear it. I realised that after I got a Sheffield HiFi test disc and heard 15k........or didn't !!!!!!!

Nah, no problem. I wonder about that myself sometimes, but I am pretty sure my hearing is excellent. I have had the occasional night out with ringing ears the next morning, but not that many times.

I guess the only way to find out is to do some sort of test, but I tend to have the opposite problem where I hear everything and can't filter too much out.

In reality, I think my colleagues sound system was bought based on other people telling him this is the only way to listen to music, and he fell for it. To me, if it doesn't sound good, it doesn't sound good.He also has "AC power regulators", and as a bit of an electronics engineer, this sounds too much like snake oil to me. Why would you need to regulate AC (how can you!), when the DC side is using a regulator anyway.

He also has spikes on his CD player, and his speakers, and his amp. These seem to be a sensitive topic for some, but on an amplifier that is solid state, what is this supposed to achieve? I would argue that a CD player has no need either as its a digital stream and the laser tracks the bitstream. Its not like vinyl where the stylus might be influenced by vibrations.

I think the audio market is still full of special salesmen that market stuff that you really can't justify.

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sotired said..

In reality, I think my colleagues sound system was bought based on other people telling him this is the only way to listen to music, and he fell for it. To me, if it doesn't sound good, it doesn't sound good.He also has "AC power regulators", and as a bit of an electronics engineer, this sounds too much like snake oil to me. Why would you need to regulate AC (how can you!), when the DC side is using a regulator anyway.

Not quite HiFi, but my PC speaker system used to click and pop and hum and I couldn't isolate it (other than turning it off) They run off a 240V AC adapter.
I now have a UPS that outputs 230VAC (+- 0.25V) and the noises have stopped.

Logs on the UPS show voltage shifts of +- 45V! within 0.5 hours (Anywhere between 202.57V and 254.04V!)
The average is 248.2V over a month. So much for 240v ;)

www.apc.com/us/en/country-selector/?ref_url=/products/configure/index.cfm?base_sku=SURTD3000XLI&totalwatts=200

Real time UPS.

The input voltage varies, the output is always filtered to whatever you set it to. 230V in my case. Over or under volt, it swaps to Battery.

I could watch the input voltage jump around on the UPS screen and hear the clicks and pops in the speakers, as soon as they're plugged into the ups, its silent.


Speakers are Cambridge Soundworks that I bought back in 2001. No where near the level you guys are talking about...

A ups would be a good way to protect that high end gear though, and you can listen to some tunes while your neighbours sit in the dark during blackouts.