hi fi and finding out what you been missing...

TTony

Slightly more seriously, this discussion has just prompted me to stick a CD on the CD player, and plug in some headphones (because all the old speakers, and the old amp, and the old turntable, and the old - etc - are all in the loft).

These are the same headphones that generally get plugged into an iPod or similar for listening to stuff when I'm travelling, so it's a reasonable comparison - I've not used special hi-fi headphones or anything.

What a difference.  Very positive, very difference.

It's been a while since I've listened to a CD (rather than a ripped CD) and a long time since I've listened to a CD on a proper CD player (rather than the CD drive in a PC, or the car).  

To be fair (to myself), most of the time that I'm "listening" to music, it's as a secondary activity whilst I'm on a train, or in a car, or mowing the lawn or whatever.  So convenience always wins out over quality - and quality would be wasted in those situations.  But I'd forgotten how good it can sound when properly listened to on semi-decent equipment.  Need to listen actively more often.  Thanks for the prompt!

blindlemonade

strumjoughlamps said:

I have one of these in the bedroom

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-DA-E650-Bluetooth-Subwoofer-Devices/dp/B008HOB8MU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1376667647&sr=8-4&keywords=samsung+bluetooth+speaker

Gumph! £165!

TTony said:

That's an easy one.

Fettle the bikes in the living room.

Hmmm... now I need a ramp to get the bike out of the back door of the garage, and another one to get in through the patio doors...

CloudNine

TTony said:

Slightly more seriously, this discussion has just prompted me to stick a CD on the CD player, and plug in some headphones (because all the old speakers, and the old amp, and the old turntable, and the old - etc - are all in the loft).

These are the same headphones that generally get plugged into an iPod or similar for listening to stuff when I'm travelling, so it's a reasonable comparison - I've not used special hi-fi headphones or anything.

What a difference.  Very positive, very difference.

It's been a while since I've listened to a CD (rather than a ripped CD) and a long time since I've listened to a CD on a proper CD player (rather than the CD drive in a PC, or the car).  

To be fair (to myself), most of the time that I'm "listening" to music, it's as a secondary activity whilst I'm on a train, or in a car, or mowing the lawn or whatever.  So convenience always wins out over quality - and quality would be wasted in those situations.  But I'd forgotten how good it can sound when properly listened to on semi-decent equipment.  Need to listen actively more often.  Thanks for the prompt!

Tony, totally agree with this. I still buy CD's. Some of my mates swear by high quality MP3's, lossless etc. But CD's (on a decent system) always sound better to my ears.

strumjoughlamps

TTony said:

Slightly more seriously, this discussion has just prompted me to stick a CD on the CD player, and plug in some headphones (because all the old speakers, and the old amp, and the old turntable, and the old - etc - are all in the loft).

These are the same headphones that generally get plugged into an iPod or similar for listening to stuff when I'm travelling, so it's a reasonable comparison - I've not used special hi-fi headphones or anything.

What a difference.  Very positive, very difference.

It's been a while since I've listened to a CD (rather than a ripped CD) and a long time since I've listened to a CD on a proper CD player (rather than the CD drive in a PC, or the car).  

To be fair (to myself), most of the time that I'm "listening" to music, it's as a secondary activity whilst I'm on a train, or in a car, or mowing the lawn or whatever.  So convenience always wins out over quality - and quality would be wasted in those situations.  But I'd forgotten how good it can sound when properly listened to on semi-decent equipment.  Need to listen actively more often.  Thanks for the prompt!

this is where I am at, have now ordered 16 cds today, all albums I already own via Amazon MP3/iTunes, going to be very interesting listening to both formats..

like you, a lot of the time I have had music on its been second/background to what I was doing but I am now in a position where I have house space and the time to sit down and enjoy an album or 2, I have 19715 songs on my iPod, I skip track here, shuffle music there, create playlists and its great, but its going to be nice to sit down with a glass of something nice and listen to an album.

Axe_meister

Got my old Sony f440e amp out (was Sony's answer to the pioneer A400) hooked up my linn LP12 with mission arm and sure moving coil cartridge. Had to buy new speakers mind. Some Tannoy floor standers. What a sound

chillidoggy

blindlemonade said:

strumjoughlamps said:

I have one of these in the bedroom

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-DA-E650-Bluetooth-Subwoofer-Devices/dp/B008HOB8MU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1376667647&sr=8-4&keywords=samsung+bluetooth+speaker

Gumph! £165!

TTony said:

That's an easy one.

Fettle the bikes in the living room.

Hmmm... now I need a ramp to get the bike out of the back door of the garage, and another one to get in through the patio doors...

Have a word with Emp?

holnrew

I saw a man sat in a cafe the other day, with AKG headphones, and a couple of boxes under his iPhone. I assume one was a preamp.

Anyway, he looked like a right cock.

ICBM

CloudNine said:

TTony said:

Slightly more seriously, this discussion has just prompted me to stick a CD on the CD player, and plug in some headphones (because all the old speakers, and the old amp, and the old turntable, and the old - etc - are all in the loft).

These are the same headphones that generally get plugged into an iPod or similar for listening to stuff when I'm travelling, so it's a reasonable comparison - I've not used special hi-fi headphones or anything.

What a difference.  Very positive, very difference.

It's been a while since I've listened to a CD (rather than a ripped CD) and a long time since I've listened to a CD on a proper CD player (rather than the CD drive in a PC, or the car).  

To be fair (to myself), most of the time that I'm "listening" to music, it's as a secondary activity whilst I'm on a train, or in a car, or mowing the lawn or whatever.  So convenience always wins out over quality - and quality would be wasted in those situations.  But I'd forgotten how good it can sound when properly listened to on semi-decent equipment.  Need to listen actively more often.  Thanks for the prompt!

Tony, totally agree with this. I still buy CD's. Some of my mates swear by high quality MP3's, lossless etc. But CD's (on a decent system) always sound better to my ears.

I totally agree too. I keep all my music on the computer crunched down to 128kbps - to keep the file sizes down to the point everything will fit on an iPod Classic - and that's absolutely fine for background listening when I'm in my workshop - the "hi-fi" is an old 1950s Goodmans mono cabinet the size of a fridge anyway . For proper, 'active' listening I have CDs. I don't see the point in higher-rate mp3s because they're not as good as CD*. Lossless audio may be fine but it takes up a *lot* of space - even my computer hard drive wouldn't be big enough to hold everything I've got at full CD quality.

(*Some people will say otherwise - it could well be down to the quality of the audio output converters in the computer vs the ones in the CD player, but for practical purposes it comes to the same thing since the end result is still that the CD sounds better.)

strumjoughlamps said:

this is where I am at, have now ordered 16 cds today, all albums I already own via Amazon MP3/iTunes, going to be very interesting listening to both formats..

I buy most of my CDs in charity shops - you can buy a *lot* of music when it's £1-£2 an album! Many are CD copies of music I've already downloaded - last week I came back with 22 albums, I think 15 of them were ones I already had in mp3. That's a bit more than normal I admit...

strumjoughlamps

Okay I am liking my iPod less and less, yes its great for convenience and portability but for a sit down relax and listen to an album time its now a no no..

I ripped a couple of my mp3 purchases to cd yesterday to do a test and it was blantantly clear which was better which I couldnt 100% understand as it was  mp3 purchased music ripped to cd but like I say it was obvious the cd version was less muddled, punchier and a wider soundstage.

monquixote

The performance of uncompressed audio playing through a decent soundcard from a PC will be demonstrably better than any CD player. (This is why Linn don't make CD players anymore.)

Generally the reason people experience PC audio as sounding worse is because of the shit quality of converters in Laptops and PCs. 

Myranda

For music I have a crappy laptop... a craptop if you will... so I was thinking for getting one of these

plugging it into one of these

and then listening with some of these

Re-rip my music as FLAC and then enjoying. I believe the headphone amp also has speaker outputs so I could also get some bookend speakers for when I'm less inclined to wear headphones (any more heatwaves for instance!)

Phil_aka_Pip

Sennheisser cans are good. FLAC gives you back what you put in - unlike some other compression algorithms. I recognise but can't quite place the trademarks on your little grey boxes, but I've seen it in quality HiFi mags. You could be on to quite a good idea. I may be wrong but you may require sensitive speakers to respond well to any signal provided by the headphone amp - IMO if you want speakers you should consider an amplifier that was actually designed to drive them. Doesn't have to be new, there are plenty of perfectly good s/h amplifiers on the evil bay.

Myranda

They're ProJect, DAC and Headphone amp come to about two hundred monies.

Point about speakers is they will be the ginger-stepchild of the setup so don't need to be fancy

ICBM

strumjoughlamps said:

Okay I am liking my iPod less and less, yes its great for convenience and portability but for a sit down relax and listen to an album time its now a no no..

I ripped a couple of my mp3 purchases to cd yesterday to do a test and it was blantantly clear which was better which I couldnt 100% understand as it was  mp3 purchased music ripped to cd but like I say it was obvious the cd version was less muddled, punchier and a wider soundstage.

Yes, but that's not comparing mp3 to CD, it's just comparing the fairly poor converters and output section of the iPod - which is designed to drive headphones - to those in a proper CD player. You're not increasing the quality of the audio at all by burning an mp3 to CD.

monquixote said:

Generally the reason people experience PC audio as sounding worse is because of the shit quality of converters in Laptops and PCs. 

And Macs, despite the reputation they have for being the choice for musicians. Obviously pro musicians use outboard interfaces.

monquixote

I have those headphones. 

They are bloody great. 

strumjoughlamps

ICBM said:

Yes, but that's not comparing mp3 to CD, it's just comparing the fairly poor converters and output section of the iPod - which is designed to drive headphones - to those in a proper CD player. You're not increasing the quality of the audio at all by burning an mp3 to CD.

yeah that's what my final conclusion was, the 4DAC of the ageing CD Player is doing a better job than the iPod.. I tested the iPod through a 3.5mm to phono lead and a 30pin to phono lead, the 30pin had the edge over the 3.5mm but CD was far superior.

strumjoughlamps

well I have been and treated myself to a new stand to house it all, few tidying up bits to do but its looking alright and the stand IMO is a bargain at £39.95..

Phil_aka_Pip

@Myranda ProJect have a reputation for excellent VFM

U can get some good speakers on the bay too

Myranda

The ProJect stuff has had really nice reviews and a very simple aesthetic which I like a lot for a brilliant price... music in Flac and some good cans should make for a very pleasurable listening experience...

Just have to afford it with all the other stuff I need to get at the moment

Rocker

To play FLAC files on a PC, you need software like the [free] Foobar2000.  USB to DAC, DAC to Headamp.  Sorted.  There are Headamps that include USB & DAC functions, one box instead of two.  Might be worth checking out.