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ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022
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This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022

 

DAC - is this the latest "snake oil" hi-fi product?

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This post has 52 Replies | 2 Followers

Carolpa
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Carolpa replied on Wed, Jul 18 2012 11:56 AM

Chris Townsend:

Carolpa its what we call irony.

it would be irony if he did know were he was talking about. I would call it teasing. 

 

kokomo
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kokomo replied on Wed, Jul 18 2012 12:01 PM

Hi Puncher, I'm not sure what you mean by 'the true stereo experience'.

As far as I'm concerned it means being able to create a sound stage, which spans across  left/right, but emanates from 3 points - left, centre & right, to make the whole.

Taking centre as an example it's not always possible to successfully identify a centre positioned vocal and backing vocals from left/right when listening through speakers and even then one needs to be positioned in the 'sweet spot' to best capture it.

Listen through earphones however and it's spot on.

As an aside, 'phasing', popular at one time (eg Small Faces' Itchycoo Park, The Move, some Bach Boys to example a few, is very difficult if not impossible to experience properly except through headphones. I remember years back listening to the end of 'A work song' from the Beach Boys' Surf's Up album and the vocal phasing at the end felt like my brain was being twisted around. A weird effect.   

Puncher
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Puncher replied on Wed, Jul 18 2012 12:20 PM

kokomo:

Hi Puncher, I'm not sure what you mean by 'the true stereo experience'.

As far as I'm concerned it means being able to create a sound stage, which spans across  left/right, but emanates from 3 points - left, centre & right, to make the whole.

Taking centre as an example it's not always possible to successfully identify a centre positioned vocal and backing vocals from left/right when listening through speakers and even then one needs to be positioned in the 'sweet spot' to best capture it.

Listen through earphones however and it's spot on.

As an aside, 'phasing', popular at one time (eg Small Faces' Itchycoo Park, The Move, some Bach Boys to example a few, is very difficult if not impossible to experience properly except through headphones. I remember years back listening to the end of 'A work song' from the Beach Boys' Surf's Up album and the vocal phasing at the end felt like my brain was being twisted around. A weird effect.   

A normal stereo recording wil be presented in front of you, front left to right with some sense of depth of field. Listening through headphones gives the left to right field but you are positioned pretty much on a line between the left and right speaker, i.e. the centre field information is positioned inside your head rather than some distance in front of you.

Also during mixing and production using monitors, some of the left channel information from the left speaker reaches your right ears and vice versa. This is reproduced when listening to speakers and so you hear (pretty much) what the artist/engineer/producer heard/intended. When listening to headphones you don't get this crossfeed of signals, hence it sounds different.

To try and compensate for this you can get either crossfeed boxes, or plugins if you're listening on a computer, that attempt to simulate the acoustics of a real world environment by mixing a small amout of left signal into the right headphone and vice versa.

Alternatively you can get binaural recordings that have been produced using an artificial head with microphones in the ear positions . This gives a recording that will reproduce what the head really "heard" at the position it was situated during the recording.

Search for crossfield plugins or binaural recordings if you want to experiment - in practise most do not bother however I posted to point out that normal headphone listening, regardless of the quality of the headphones, is subtely different to listening to speakers.

Ban boring signatures!

moxxey
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moxxey replied on Wed, Jul 18 2012 2:34 PM

Carolpa:

it would be irony if he did know were he was talking about. I

I'm high up in tech publishing, I'm clueless and love it. That's irony.

Chris Townsend
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Ignorance is bliss, especially if you have already personally owned most of the kit :-/

Beosound Stage, Beovision 8-40, Beolit 20, Beosound Explore.

moxxey
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moxxey replied on Wed, Jul 18 2012 2:50 PM

Chris Townsend:
Ignorance is bliss, especially if you have already personally owned most of the kit :-/

Too true Chris, too true.

I did hear your advice on the BV10, just as a sideline. Keeping it for the foreseeable. Just can't justify moving up to the BV12, even with a trade-in. Will be interesting to see what the forthcoming BV11 is all about. If it is an upgraded BV10, that could make an interesting upgrade, perhaps next year. I think, in the meantime, I'll compliment the BV10/BL11 with BL3s.

Chris Townsend
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I was thinking the same if the 11 is a good upgrade. Speakers for me from now on.

How can that German B&O site be selling 3's, 9's and 11's so cheaply???

Beosound Stage, Beovision 8-40, Beolit 20, Beosound Explore.

Evan
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Evan replied on Wed, Jul 18 2012 3:32 PM

IIRC, the German B&O numbers are priced per speaker.

Beo4 'til I die!

Evan
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Evan replied on Wed, Jul 18 2012 3:46 PM

Soundproof, what speaker is in your avatar? 

I have seen this once before (months ago) on the internet and have since been regretting not learning the name of the speaker - its beautiful!!

Beo4 'til I die!

Puncher
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Puncher replied on Fri, Jul 27 2012 8:28 PM

On the subject of binaural recordings, I notice B&W are offfering some live binaural recordings on their website, along with normal HD recordings, to support their range of headphone products.

Ban boring signatures!

soundproof
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soundproof replied on Fri, Jul 27 2012 11:28 PM

Evan:

Soundproof, what speaker is in your avatar? 

I have seen this once before (months ago) on the internet and have since been regretting not learning the name of the speaker - its beautiful!!

It's the OMA Imperia horn speakers. Wonderful.

 

http://www.oswaldsmillaudio.com/Products/imperia.html

John
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John replied on Sat, Jul 28 2012 7:36 AM

soundproof:

Evan:

Soundproof, what speaker is in your avatar? 

I have seen this once before (months ago) on the internet and have since been regretting not learning the name of the speaker - its beautiful!!

It's the OMA Imperia horn speakers. Wonderful.

 

http://www.oswaldsmillaudio.com/Products/imperia.html

 

Can I just say how pleasureable it is to see you posting here again Soundproof; I've sorely missed your posts.

Hope to continue to see you here as you have time to contribute etc

Trust that you and yours are all well..

Kind Regards

John... Cool

 

Evan
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Evan replied on Thu, Aug 9 2012 4:20 PM

soundproof:

Evan:

Soundproof, what speaker is in your avatar? 

I have seen this once before (months ago) on the internet and have since been regretting not learning the name of the speaker - its beautiful!!

It's the OMA Imperia horn speakers. Wonderful.

http://www.oswaldsmillaudio.com/Products/imperia.html

Thank you! I have been dreaming of these for a while. Very cool speakers! Did not know they made other gear either Smile

Beo4 'til I die!

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