What is it you expect to hear from hifi gear that you have not yet?
The news. That I have won the lottery.
What is it you expect to hear from hifi gear that you have not yet?
One thing for me is a noticeable difference in streamers. I need to work on that.
17 responses Add your response
The approval silent smiling of my wife.... But nothing in S.Q. i dont really have a bit already.... I prefer then to keep my money safe.... And imagining some other crazy devices that work or simple thing that would do the work....It is more fun to create heaven yourself than to bought it... If someone give me a Berning ZOTL amplifier i will take it tough contradicting my last sentence.... Thanks in advance... 😁😊😎🤐 |
That cue that I hear from real musicians playing. It could be the kid next door practicng his trumpet inside the house or a high school band playing in the mall or on the football field...you immediately know it’s really people playing real instruments. I haven’t heard that yet from any HiFi rig. But I keep on pushing on! Cheers, Spencer |
@mapman Keep working on it. I've heard very significant differences in sonic quality from digital music servers/streamers. Ranging from my initial efforts at a dedicated computer set up, through an Antipodes DX II, then a step back with a Roon Nucleus (the Antipodes got overwhelmed by Roon's bloatware eventually), and now with a Taiko Extreme I have heard very significant progression. The Extreme has been an amazing improvement, providing digital music that is emotionally involving to the point that it competes with vinyl. No kidding. Source first! |
I am still mostly using Squeezebox Touch as my streamer with Ipeng controller app on Iphone. Wonderful device still, still sounds great and lots of functionality especially with add-ons to Logitech Media Server. DAC has also been mhdt Constantine (SS, NOS) for a number of years now. I also run Plex and use Plexamp app on my Iphone mostly with headphones (via headphone amp) and Carplay in the car. Plexamp is relative new and delivers very good sound quality. But am always looking to move on to latest and greatest. Just not sure what that would be and how it would be worth it for me when what I have sounds so dern good and provides so much flexibility. I’ve heard newer streamers at dealers and shows, have not seen or heard anything yet that makes me want to jump. |
I look for two things in a music reproductions system: 1. I want piano music to sound like it is coming from a real piano playing in the room no matter where I am in the room. 2. I want to be in the next room and have the music trick my mind into believing there is a live performance happening in the adjacent room. I have occasionally heard systems where the sound was coming from another room and I wasn't sure whether it was live or recorded and that is an ultimate system to me. There are probably some systems that can do it or come close but most are not really audiophile systems. I should have added a third item and that is for orchestras to produce the weight and feel they do in a live performance from the system. One of the problems in achieving these goals is that recording engineers either do a poor job of recording or the way they mix it destroys the information needed to fool the ears/brain. The focus recording engineers have on keeping all of the audio coming from the center/center channel means they have turned a stereo signal into a mono signal. There was a time when they did binaural recordings and I recall the excellent recordings that the owner of an audiophile store in Miami did of the New World Symphony with two mics suspended on cables in the venue and those recording were just incredible. Most of the recording done today are horrible with the engineer/producer panning and moving instruments all over the place when they are in fact stationary during a performance. |
Whether your DAC support 24 bit 48KHz, 96KHz, 192KHz, etc. really doesn't matter. Recording studios only use 48KHz so anything above that is fake. It is like playing back a 720P video signal on an 4K TV. It will try and upscale the signal but it is adding in things that were not in the original signal (hardly high fidelity). You can't add detail that was not there originally. Sure you can have a computer (a lot more computing than any DAC does) try and guess what the missing parts are by analyzing the surrounding information but it is still a guess and can be wrong. Music is a complex waveform that can and does frequently change in unexpected ways thus delighting the brain with interpreting what it is hearing. |
@barjohn, You might find this an interesting read: Thinking Outside the Box -- Listening Outside the Room or the Bouncing Sound | News & Views | Ohm Speakers | Custom Audiophile Speakers for Music & Home Theater |
