AudioPhiles are full of shit

Penrowe said:
CDs are trash. Not because of any flaws to the medium itself, they were a clear improvement over tape and records in terms of quality that could be reproduced but every single producer since their introduction has just been compressing the everloving shit out of every song making it damn near impossible to find a halfway decent CD rip that isn't clipped to high heavens.
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Yeah but the CD master is better than the iTunes or Spotify master, which is normalized to an even LOUDER specification, with less dynamics, and a lower bitrate. I hate streaming, its just more trash.
 
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I agree audiophiles sniff their own farts way too much. But my $1300 AVR sound system sounds 100x better than my old $250 Logitech system.

My $120 Marshall headphones sound 100x better than my old $40 gaming headset.

And 4k HDR looks substantially better than 1080p on a 49 inch+ TV.
 
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ffo kcuF said:
I agree audiophiles sniff their own farts way too much. But my $1300 AVR sound system sounds 100x better than my old $250 Logitech system.

My $120 Marshall headphones sound 100x better than my old $40 gaming headset.

And 4k HDR looks substantially better than 1080p on a 49 inch+ TV.
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I think there is a law of diminishing returns with audio equipment. For example, you can buy Pink Floyd's Meddle on CD for $15. You can also buy the 7½ ips reel-to-reel of Meddle of Ebay for $1500.

Does the reel-to-reel sound better than the CD? Most likely.
Does it sound 100 times better?
 
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Shroom King said:
I think there is a law of diminishing returns with audio equipment.
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There's probably a reverse, especially with the exotic stuff. More expensive = more crap.

I just wish that before people lap up metaphor laden reviews on sites and videos, please, please understand that at the end of the day, that is a vibrating membrane you are listening to, not some Warhammer/Tolkien Unobtanium.
 
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Penrowe said:
CDs are trash. Not because of any flaws to the medium itself, they were a clear improvement over tape and records in terms of quality that could be reproduced but every single producer since their introduction has just been compressing the everloving shit out of every song making it damn near impossible to find a halfway decent CD rip that isn't clipped to high heavens.
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I think CD and digitally produced music in general is only partly to blame for this. The producers have also been leveling the volume of every layer, as well as increasing the base volume, so that every instrument plays at closer to the same intensity. IIRC, the "Loudness Factor" was a big mixing element that pop music more widely adopted sometime in the 90s, and they've REALLY started abusing it in the 2000s-2020s. It makes some background effects of a song more clear over the radio, but it absolutely demolishes the fidelity of the track overall. There IS a reason why boomers and hipsters collect vinyl, and it's because there was simply a wider range between loudness and softness back then. At the end of the day, it's not really the compression, they have all the space they need for good audio quality.

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This is a song from Metallica's Death Magnetic. The top waveform is the CD release, the bottom is the un-loudened version that was DLC for Guitar Hero III. How wild is it that DLC from some now-defunct video game has the definitive version of this album? When I see that top waveform, I get the impression that someone just recorded radio static.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war Go ahead and give this a read, it's pretty interesting.
 
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While audiophiles are full of shit, it's undeniable that modern mastering (and particularly most remasters of older work) are pretty awful.

I picked up a Dual 1019 turntable for pennies at auction, some 90s B&W speakers and now I'm collecting older vinyl pressings of albums I like and the amount of extra detail from music mastered with actual dynamic range is astonishing.
 
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I agree, they shill hundreds of dollars for a shitty speaker or headphones just to listen to shitty watered down pop music like if some average speakers or headphones don't do enough justice, because I found average headphones do a Russian pop song to be impressive enough. Modern Mastering making music artificially louder to drown out the detail ruins it.
 
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ArnoldPalmer said:
I think CD and digitally produced music in general is only partly to blame for this. The producers have also been leveling the volume of every layer, as well as increasing the base volume, so that every instrument plays at closer to the same intensity. IIRC, the "Loudness Factor" was a big mixing element that pop music more widely adopted sometime in the 90s, and they've REALLY started abusing it in the 2000s-2020s. It makes some background effects of a song more clear over the radio, but it absolutely demolishes the fidelity of the track overall. There IS a reason why boomers and hipsters collect vinyl, and it's because there was simply a wider range between loudness and softness back then. At the end of the day, it's not really the compression, they have all the space they need for good audio quality.

View attachment 5688767
This is a song from Metallica's Death Magnetic. The top waveform is the CD release, the bottom is the un-loudened version that was DLC for Guitar Hero III. How wild is it that DLC from some now-defunct video game has the definitive version of this album? When I see that top waveform, I get the impression that someone just recorded radio static.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war Go ahead and give this a read, it's pretty interesting.
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Whoever mixed "Death Magnetic" probably HATED Metallica as even the band acknowledged that the entire album was fucked in the mixing booth after the recorded it.
 
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I currently have two set of headphones, a cheap AKG, which good for their price and a Audeze LCD-2 closed back, and there is a huge different is sound quality between the two. However, my AKG ones don't sound bad by any means and are still my go to ones while out and about, because at their price point not a big deal if they get damaged or something else.

Now not all more expensive headphones are better, those cheapo AKG are better than many big brands such as Beats, where people pay for brand rather than quality. And anyone who goes on about the bass, are full of shit, they just want something that boosts bass at the cost of sound quality.

End of the day, the cost of headphones is more about the personal cost you put onto it your self. My Audeze LCD-2 was very much worth it for me, but others way not be able to see the worth in them even if they do sound better. Even with me, I would be hard pressed to ever spend more on headphones than I did on my LCD-2s even with sound improvements a more costly model could bring me.

Same deal with TV's, yes the latest OLED TVs will look better, however, would having that better TV improve you enjoyment of movies/tv shows/games over a much cheaper LED TV?
 
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Digital audio is superior technology. Recording a vinyl disc to digital should sound the same if you have a decent audio capture device.

Vinyls suffer from distortion once you reach the end of a side. That's why maxi-singles are produced. (https://www.yoursoundmatters.com/vinyl-record-inner-groove-distortion-simple-explanation/) archive.
Several vinyls have their bass under 80hz recorded in mono, because of groove limitations and it is easier to master like that.
Vinyls in general are rated at 60db dynamic range instead of 90db of CD.

Despite that, the issue of digital recording is that the people that master/marketing guys are stupid and got involved in loudness war.
Or they just put raw recordings of old songs without any mastering.

The claim that vinyl record sounds better than CD is not always false. There might be dedicated engineers that make sure a record sounds good and engineers that are lazy and just slap the audio or amplify it.
This is why I have both CD and Vinyl recordings in my audio file collection. Depends on case. But to test all comparisons takes a lot of time. So I mostly listen 80s-90s albums on CD and newer ones on vinyl/sacd.

Audiophile community is filled with a lot of snakeoil.
Avoid spending a lot of money on belt driven turntables, gold plated cables or ultra expensive amplifiers.
16-bit CD quality is good enough resolution for me. I even use mp3 when I play outside and I cant listen to all details.

What I believe it influences the most the sound quality in desceding order:

1. The headphones/IEMs/speakers
2. Soundcard/Amplifier
3. Audio file
 
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Its funny because theres nothing stopping them from bouncing whatever they have mastered in the studio at the highest possible quality these days. We have the internet and lots of storage now. Streaming standards only matter to people saving money on bandwidth or who are on a cell phone. Vinyl and CD arent even relevant to the idea of downloading whatever is directly rendered from Pro tools. I still would buy vinyls but all i want is max quality of whatever you got.
 
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ArnoldPalmer said:
This is a song from Metallica's Death Magnetic. The top waveform is the CD release, the bottom is the un-loudened version that was DLC for Guitar Hero III. How wild is it that DLC from some now-defunct video game has the definitive version of this album? When I see that top waveform, I get the impression that someone just recorded radio static.
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i only listen to their best album saint anger
Lunar Eclipse Paradox said:
I agree, they shill hundreds of dollars for a shitty speaker or headphones just to listen to shitty watered down pop music like if some average speakers or headphones don't do enough justice, because I found average headphones do a Russian pop song to be impressive enough. Modern Mastering making music artificially louder to drown out the detail ruins it.
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truth

ok so to address the comments yes modern remasters suck but that is not the fault of the headphones and i have pointed out remasters and streaming sucking before personally i don't notice it much for example people rip on megadeths remasters but i did not notice much though CD is verifiabley better also i am buying some HIFI/audiophile headphones called the crinacle zero 2 named after the audiophile youtuber they are 20 bucks so im gonna see if they beat my walmart headphones
 
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i440BX said:
I think it is good. I have TruthEar Hexa and it is the best audio device I ever listened to
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i got them for 3 reasons

1 i enjoy crinacles channel
2 i want to try HIFI out and see if im wrong
3 its just as cheap as my walmart headphones so im hoping i get the bang for my buck
whogoesthere said:
Reminds me that most people have never used such a device, or else they would know what a piece of shit it is.

I also dream of wrecking DATs by shoving VHS's in them over and over again until the tracks are dust.
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some audiophiles swear by reel to reels lol i just like how they remind me of 70 radio guys
 
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