audio-tech

[elder thistle]

what does he want

[lone flame]

Also nice that you don't know what he wants but says stuff like "you cant find consensus without looking at their use case and preferences"

(meant for Jackson ofc)

[elder thistle]

yes

that is logical

[lone flame]

so like. before you start typing nonsense. maybe scroll up and get the context

he want to play games, listen to music, and edit stuff.
HD560s

[elder thistle]

that is not a use case

[unique wind]

[lone flame]

https://tenor.com/view/cummins-gif-12535975135255283466

He wants to use a Headphone for PLAYING GAMES!, LISTENING TO MUSIC, VIDEO EDITING

[elder thistle]

or at least its the implied use case of every audio reproduction device ever produced

[lone flame]

that are THREE USECASES

[unique wind]

cheeeeeeap

[lone flame]

he is bri'ish

so shipping etc will be insane

[unique wind]

it's so over

[lone flame]

no DROP on Europe

[elder thistle]

more detail is required before any guesses to what he wants could be made

[lone flame]

HD560s is a great allrounder

[elder thistle]

no it isnt

really nothing is though

[lone flame]

Because your opinion is better than the one of most people

[elder thistle]

no, because the premise of all-rounders is invalid

[lone flame]

look.
idc what your opinion is. and he probably wouldn't care too

my take was that most people would say that the HD560s would be the best allrounder in his 3 categories

you can go on many headphone discords, most people will say "HD560s"
espacially for 135USD new

in germany that shit costs 150€ in Britain 115€

thats a steal

[warm scarab]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/497302168005509120/796939980266143744/ezgif-5-2c5e06ac2e30.gif

[elder thistle]

you're not looking at product experiences

not most of the time anyways

how many people have personally listened to the 560s alongside the mc450

or how many against the 600, 6xx, k702, dt880 600r/250r, xs, x2hr or the newer one, 990 pro x

[warm scarab]

we should throw rocks at each otber

other

[elder thistle]

many discord servers are saturated with graph pounders

they are generally against product experiences

[lean grove]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/497302168005509120/796939980266143744/ezgif-5-2c5e06ac2e30.gif

[elder thistle]

basically you should be looking for comparisons between headphones instead of searching for a so-called all rounder

the former lets you build an idea of how other people generally think a headphone behaves

then you can check that against your own experiences and help people situationally

[lean grove]

This old argument again

Jeez

[elder thistle]

well see it this way

emmaboo has been told 2 different schools of thought and probably hasn't decided which makes more sense

all I can do after that is explain why I said what I said, and why I thought the other presented case doesn't work

it also lets other people chime in on either side

even if this server somewhat leans objectivist

but it's her job to search around and find these different perspectives

[warm scarab]

consult the chart:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/497302168005509120/796939980266143744/ezgif-5-2c5e06ac2e30.gif

[jolly vine]

I bought both the Simgot EM6L and supermix 4 about a week ago to see which suits me better. I'm not quite an audiophile. My sources have been in apple dongle on my phone and an ifi Uno went at home. Both supposedly have an output impedance of under 1 ohm.
I'm struggling to really hear the difference. Sometimes I think I do in the base but other places I'm not completely sure

[elder thistle]

maybe they're similar in design other than that dynamic driver

[bitter wave]

Hi, I've been wanting to buy an SHP9600, and I've seen it's $75 on Amazon and $55 on AliExpress. Should I pull the trigger?

[verbal fog]

honorable mention i swapped from my boston a60s to my tucked away large advents because my wall insulation is better than usual and man they do good the bostons are a fight to make them sound good but advents sound great just by default and theres probably a lotta factors but im happy

[terse river]

I thought these were supposed to be equivalent to 6xxs?

[lean grove]

They are. They're really good.

[regal moat]

What’s a good way to decide if you need earphones, headphones or speakers

[lean grove]

How much money you have

[regal moat]

I don’t see how money helps you decide what’s best for your use case

[lean grove]

If you have less than $100 get earphones.
If you have less than $300 get headphones.
If you have more than $400 get speakers.

[regal moat]

So speakers are just always better

[lean grove]

Not always

Headphones are convenient.

And are usually better for gaming

Well. Maybe better. A really nice speaker setup can be god-tier for gaming

But you have to put the work in. Make sure they're placed right and there's good room acoustics.

[regal moat]

That part I knew, it’s why I currently use earphones, they serve the purpose for gaming, a little less convenient but I don’t have to worry about hair dents anymore

[regal moat]

It’s a small room so I’d be pretty limited, in where speakers can go

[warm scarab]

if you have the room for them and you can seat them appropriately

they are always better for music listening

[regal moat]

I don’t listen to a lot of music

[warm scarab]

for gaming you need specifically well placed speakers and possibly diffusers to get direction information

[warm scarab]

what is your use case then

[regal moat]

Gaming and YouTube in my bed room

So rarely music and never movies

[warm scarab]

just get headphones, speakers arent worth it

or earphones

speakers are good for music and movies, both of which you dont do

[regal moat]

Not in my bedroom so yeah

What’s the deciding factor between earphones/iems and headphones?

Is it just preference of comfort or is there a significant difference in sound profiles

[warm scarab]

headphones can sound better in higher price ranges

but iems can get you really good audio for 25$

with pretty good imaging generally

[regal moat]

I haven’t seen any iems for that cheap, have I just been looking in the wrong place

A lot of the ones I’ve heard about are 125-300 which is quite high

[warm scarab]

it would be pretty stupid to buy iems for 300 honestly

even 100 is a lot but maybe you travel a lot or something

[regal moat]

Where can I look into iems?

The reasonably priced ones

[iron canyon]

Wtf
I accidentally clicked over to this channel and this was the first thing I saw

[zenith pawn]

if by that you mean very budget ($25), 7hz zero:2 is my anecdote but i've heard the truthear gate recommended frequently as well

[next anvil]

so what headphones would you recommend? because i’ll mostly be using the headphones for gaming

[regal moat]

Do you thin the miced version is also good
https://www.amazon.ca/Linsoul-7Hz-Crinacle-Zero-Microphone-dp-B0DLB3GFBF/dp/B0DLB47XV5/ref=dp_ob_title_ce?th=1

[zenith pawn]

probably. I think the mic is just in the cable and doesn't change the iem at all

not sure what the price difference is. if it's a lot then you might be better off just buying a separate microphone

[regal moat]

It's like a dollar difference after discount but before discounts normally the miced up is 4 cheaper

[lone flame]

Like experience. But idk anyone who enjoys Grado. And MC 450 looks like an Grado

These peaks are real. Not exactly at that potition

And yes. There are many against HD6xx etc. But most not 😄

But as always. You try to put your opinion and experience above all and say no to Intersubjektive thoughts

Also it seems like u don't know what "Intersubjektive" is

Look it up. And you understand what I mean

Like ofc idk if he would like the HD560s

But most people do for that price

So the chance is higher that he likes it too

It's just that simple

[broken grotto]

honestly, for me, I think this depends on you more than price of the thing

some people can't do in ear headphones

in which case, even for $100 you wouldn't want earphones

I tend to like IEM's, and I think that often like, "high quality sound," comes more from IEM's at cheaper prices, which si what I think Nils was getting at.

where as headphones get really good if you spend a little more.

but if you don't want to mess up your hair, or you wear glasses or something like that, headphones might not be a good deal either.

[regal moat]

Used to wear bulky headphones a ton during covid so they caused a big hair dent so I stopped

Rn I use a pair of apple earphones cause the mic is acc good, so idm the feeling of earphones in my ear, and prefer earphones over headphones

I don't think earphones are gonna be more likely to cause hearing damage so I am fine with going with iems as long as they work for gaming

[broken grotto]

and speakers are really only an option if you're in the room for them, and nobody lives with you.

because nobody likes that guy playing trash music that everyone can hear

[regal moat]

I don't play music or watch movies in my bedroom, nor live alone

[broken grotto]

yea I wear iems just so the hubs doesn't need to listen to what i listen to, lol

but either way, it's always a personal choice; you can get IEM's that cost $400+

or you can get speakers that cost $20.

[regal moat]

I am aiming for under 100 cad

[broken grotto]

and under 100 CAD you can prolly get one of the many, many plentiful chifi IEM's out there that sound really good.

if you need a mic i second those zero 2's

I'd be perfectly happy with those

[regal moat]

bbaovanc mentioned these so I grabbed the mic version to look at
https://www.amazon.ca/Linsoul-7Hz-Crinacle-Zero-Microphone-dp-B0DLB3GFBF/dp/B0DLB47XV5/ref=dp_ob_title_ce?th=1

okay cool

I don't know how good the mic is gonna be in these

[broken grotto]

most wire mics are about the same

[regal moat]

but for a dollar extra it seems worth having

[broken grotto]

they're almost always the same crystal inside that little tube

[regal moat]

Also this may be more of a driver thing or idk

but whenever my earphones disconnect from my pc even for a bit I can't get them to reconnect and pick up the mic without a restart

I can hear fine

but the mic doesn't work

[broken grotto]

winblows?

ehem, windows*

I've had all sorts of weird stuff happen with windows and microphones

[regal moat]

yeah

I have debated the switch but haven't had the will to just yet

[broken grotto]

if it's a USB interface it usually works fine, and my pcie soundcard is pretty reliable

[regal moat]

circular dongle earphones

[broken grotto]

but if it's like motherboard audio jack or something forget it lmao

[regal moat]

Similar thing happens on my laptop but doing stuff like replugging it, leaving the call and messing with the input voice settings fixes it in discord

[broken grotto]

I don't really voice chat very often so idk, i try to avoid calls as much as possible

[regal moat]

Fair

I hang out and game with a friend often

almost daily so mic stuff is a bit important for me

[broken grotto]

I think if i needed a microphone i'd go with something dedicated rather than integrated into the headphones

[regal moat]

I probs will to pair with the iems

but a downside imo is space

[next anvil]

hey i was researching a bit and apparently closed back headphones are better for fps games like fortnite or cod? should i get closed back headphones? as when i play single player story games etc i usually use my speakers, if so what ones should i get, i’ve been looking at beyerdynamic mmx 300 pro, but also have been recommended the razer black shark v3 pro and the logitech g pro x 2 lightspeed

[elder thistle]

I can only tell you that this is situational so many times

[elder thistle]

what games? what are you trying to hear or experience in these games, and is it for enjoyment or competiveness?

[next anvil]

mostly if i’m going to use headphones i’ll be playing comp games like fortnite and cod, btw i will be getting a separate mic the fifine tank 3 so if the headphones don’t have a mic that’s fine but if they do that’s also fine i’ll just disable the mic on the headphones

but when it comes to single player games i will just use my speakers as i prefer using them for those type of games yk

[elder thistle]

call of duty warzone?

[next anvil]

yh warzone, bo6, bo7 when that comes out

but i won’t play the campaign for bo7 and i still haven’t played the campaign for bo6 lol 😂

[elder thistle]

I'll need to do more research on these sound engines

[elder thistle]

but what I can say so far is that fortnite seems to be a little finnicky with rear imaging, and the warzone test audio I had listened to had the footsteps extremely quiet

so very loosely right now, the r50x seems like it would work

in the meantime, what kind of music do you usually listen to? anything you'd want to hear or experience more of in that music?

unless that's a low priority I suppose

[cedar quarry]

what budget earphones (like for example galaxy buds fe) are good?

[next anvil]

eh if i’m going to listen to music i’ll either use my ear buds when im out but if im at home either speakers or my alexa, and i listen to emo, goth type music, ill send my playlist if you want

[elder thistle]

oh ok

I mean if you don't plan to use it for music, that at least makes things easier

[supple robin]

Shockingly I have friends and need something to communicate them but also want to get some new headphones or iems. I like the idea of a boom mic but at the same time don’t believe I could get a headphone that’d sound good and work with the vmoda boom pro.

[elder thistle]

of course you could still use the headphones for a music, just a matter of how it'd behave + if you enjoy what happens

[supple robin]

Moondrop space travel 2 if sound is a priority and the QCY melonbuds pro if you don’t mind worse sound that’s a bit muffled in a way requiring eq but a more complete feature set.

[elder thistle]

I don't like the loose, undefined bass in the... original space travel

didn't know there was a 2

[cedar quarry]

I want good sound quality and good volume and somewhat decent anc

[elder thistle]

what do you define as sound quality tho

[cedar quarry]

anything as good or better than the cmf buds pro 2 or buds fe

[elder thistle]

I mean that's been the main discussion in this channel for a few hours now

[supple robin]

Probably just the cmf buds

[elder thistle]

there is no "good sound quality" without defining good

[supple robin]

I don’t know how the space travel 2s are but I’ve heard their better than the originals which was good already

[elder thistle]

there are many effects headphones and earbuds have on different music

lots of highly conditional behavior

[cedar quarry]

do they have ANC?

[elder thistle]

a lot of people seem to prefer low detail levels compared to high ones. but their opinion can change as soon as the next song appears, because the music triggers different aspects of the headphones. e.g crippling the instrument separation with metal music, whereas the same thing that caused this makes them sound very detailed and natural in calmer jazz music

[next anvil]

ok

[supple robin]

Yes but I’d check reviews of both

My og space travel didn’t perform well in windy scenarios with anc on and while anc helped block out noise, it wasnt amazing

[next anvil]

so what would you recommend then?

[supple robin]

Brother just give some subjective recommendations and tell em to watch reviews

It ain’t that deep

[icy moss]

any of yall pretty knowledgeable when it comes to wireless anc headphones? kinda in the market for some new ones unfortunately

no i didnt break them

could use some recs

[lean grove]

Ugreen max5 is pretty good, but the app is only available through sideloading.

[stuck bolt]

Stands hold the speakers

[abstract fox]

Gorilla glue

[icy moss]

im good

[icy moss]

ugreen makes headphones too?

damn

didnt know that

[lean grove]

They're pretty good. Don't have the bells and whistles that a lot of other headphones do, but with the jazz preset they are remarkably well tuned

they feel pretty nice too.

[broken grotto]

no, you need to spend 30 minutes asking someone who really isn't into the hobby 100 questions to find a pair of headphones they probably wont like anyway :p

i hate recommending, mostly because it's the case of what I like is not what you like, and even if it's "objective," there's always the subjective side of things as well.

partly why i generally just list off what I know is in the price range that is overall received as "good" in what i hear.

and also state what I like.

[zenith pawn]

objectivists when asked how to create a perfect model of the human hearing system to measure their frequency response

subjectivism is impossibler!!!

[green marsh]

nah theyll like it because theyd like whatever the fuck you recommended regardless

[elder thistle]

I won't have time to look at these sound engines until thursday/friday

[lone flame]

HD560s

Sound engine has nothing to do with a headphone

[elder thistle]

bs

[lone flame]

Just stop please...
A headphone is a analogue thing. It is not connected to the sound engine. So it has nothing to do with it....

If the engine is shit. A headphone won't make it good

It's just simple, shit source is shit sourcs

[elder thistle]

to reiterate on my best guesses, the r50x makes a lot of sense if you want to boost quiet sounds the most. it's capable of spherical imaging in most games that support it. additionally, the mc450 makes a lot of sense if you want to hear clearly through many overlapping sounds, and also can do spherical imaging

those are two options that make more sense than the 560s in most of these possible outcomes

[lone flame]

Bro just ignores the Psychoacoustics 👌

[elder thistle]

says the guy who just disowned the audio signal as part of what headphones deliver

[lone flame]

So headphones sound wide?

And this is not a Psychoacoustic effect called HRTF or on Headphones HpTF?

It's so simple to test. EQ your headphone to something terrible

Like +7db at 400 Hz. - 4db at 700hz lots of bass no Eargain lots of upper treble

And maybe some peaks and dips in between

It (atleast for me) woukd affect the "Soundstage" and "Imaging"

[elder thistle]

it would do you some good to have a bit of music production knowledge in relation to staging

you'd be able to answer your own question

[lone flame]

I do music

Staging is mixing and arrangement

And sound selection

And maybe some other stuff that does fly into my mind in that second

But still. It has nothing to do with a specific headphone

It's not what a headphone can do

[elder thistle]

it was a hard question anyways

[kind hawk]

Hello i have a scarlett 4th gen 18i16 and my friend gave me a brand new scarlet 4th gen 2i2 which one is better?

[elder thistle]

I'm not familiar with any differences aside from the ones stated in the name

the 18i16 obviously has more I/O

and the way that I/O is accessible is also probably different

having two interfaces though gives you a few extra possibilities with routing or sound design

and if you have a mac you can do composite device

[zenith pawn]

https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/1mgktsg/first_time_hearing_monitors_vs_speakers_holy_fuck/
this comes to mind given the context above

[elder thistle]

?

[zenith pawn]

DJs not being humans

[supple robin]

Agreed

[livid ruin]

Hd 560s, hd 560s old version with longer cable (ideally), hd6xx, hd6x0, ft1, ft3, akg k361/k371, pc37x, pc38x

[primal fulcrum]

.ogg

[frosty ocean]

If I have a CD/DVD set and the DVD includes a PCM track of the album at 16 bits and 48KHz, would ripping the PCM from the DVD be a better idea that ripping from the CD?

There's also a surround AC3 track with like 6(5(+.1?)?) channels. But it's "lossy" and reports 448kbps

Since most of these are for work, I wonder if I should make a folder with them all pre-mixed to mono

[frosty ocean]

Maybe I can make a wholesale copy of all my CD rips(already in one directory), and then load all of them into Foobar. And batch "convert" them to FLAC, with the mono downmix option set, and add the word "MONO" to the filename, and choose "source directory".

[supple robin]

Looking at the hyperx cloud 2’s

I’m so used to moondrop space travel tws and iems like zero:2 but I want something with a microphone

That doesn’t sound complete ass

[next anvil]

hey i’m summoning all audiophiles to come seek my aid, im wondering what’s better the razer blackshark v3 pro or the fiio ft1 wood closed back with the fifine tank 3 combo?

[elder thistle]

hard question

but I would not use the ft1 for comp fps

supresses quiet details, skewed distance scale not in agreement with most games, and finnicky direction of sounds likely because the driver and filters are huge

they also just arent as resolving as the ones I mentioned and a few more. more sounds will be missed when a lot of other sounds happen at once

not too unresolving though. maybe $120-ish average territory

and they do have precision with the directions of sounds, its just flipped frontwards/backwards irratically like a lot of planars do

[next anvil]

so what should i get then?

[elder thistle]

I had mentioned 2 models to look into since you're after comp fps, but I cant confirm their COD behavior

[modern barn]

https://youtu.be/JTP0naEO-LA

[elder thistle]

r50x and mc450

doesnt mean they're a great match for you, individual earshape can cause inconsistencies

[next anvil]

mc450? is that a headphones?

[elder thistle]

but worth researching

yeah thats my main out of the 60 I have

[next anvil]

what’s better the fiio ft1, r50x or the mc450?

[elder thistle]

I mention it a lot since its been lost to time and doesnt get discussed otherwise

I think your chances are best with the r50x

[next anvil]

why’s that?

[elder thistle]

the earpads are a little thin but thats the only thing that concerned me anyways. can still wear them for a couple hours

so basically,

the r50x is great with representing sounds vertically, horizontally, front/back etc. with max precision. this isnt super rare in the open back headphone space.

it has high sound separation, so sounds that overlap will be easier to tell apart and not get blurred together as much

they are also outstanding and likely best-in-class at making you more aware of quiet details that are sometimes lost on the mc450, often lost on the 560s or dt990, and basically always lost on the ft1 and he400se unless there is 1(sometimes) or no other sounds

[warm scarab]

ft1

jackson is just the antichrist of audio

so he must recommend obscure shit that 5 people appreciate instead

[elder thistle]

this can make enemies seem closer than they really are. but it depends on the game too. warzone seems to pair nicely with the r50x for judging distance

[next anvil]

so just get the ft1 ok

[warm scarab]

yeah for a 150$ish closed back i cant think of anything else you might want

[next anvil]

main games in order will be cod, fortnite then minecraft

[elder thistle]

the gadgetrytech discord is able to help with this too. I mostly trust the opinions floating around there

[warm scarab]

if you want to minmax competitive advantages

[elder thistle]

also I'm almost 20 minutes late for doing this so please dont just throw away my advice on a whim

[warm scarab]

dt880 250ohm may be the better pick

semi open back though

[elder thistle]

oh yeah beyers are cheap over there

definitely not my first choice but I'd take it over 560s and ft1

[warm scarab]

i dont know anything else with better imaging at the price point

[next anvil]

so what should i get for fps comp lol im confused

[warm scarab]

dt880 250ohm

if you want better gaming performance over all else

[supple robin]

Ft1 will be better than the razer

[supple robin]

If you want a set of closed back headphones with no sound leakage then get the FT1 and if you don’t mind sound leakage and according to Klaus better gaming performance then go for the DT 880

[sleek lily]

I made meeshter tom

[next anvil]

what one is better for comp gaming?

[warm scarab]

dt880

[next anvil]

why’s that?

[warm scarab]

better imaging

[next anvil]

ok

[next anvil]

are they better than the 770 pro or 990 pro?

[warm scarab]

yes

[next anvil]

ok

what one?

@warm scarab

[warm scarab]

wtf is circumnatural

the three styles have literally nothing to do with each other

[next anvil]

so what one lol 😂

[warm scarab]

none

find another listing

[next anvil]

it’s on amazon

[warm scarab]

this is equivalent to me putting the options on a shirt:
A: size medium
B: color blue
C: material cotton

these things have nothing to do with each other

did you MTL the page from your local language or something because these options have nothing in common

[next anvil]

i found out what they are circumnaural is 240 ohm the middle one is 32 ohm and the semmi is 600 ohm

[warm scarab]

there isnt a 240ohm variant of dt880

lmao

is it supposed to be 250

[next anvil]

250

[warm scarab]

if so then get that

yeah

[warm scarab]

grab 250

[next anvil]

wouldn’t i need an audio interface for that?

[warm scarab]

no

[next anvil]

ok

[warm scarab]

if your motherboard was made within the last 7 years

odds are it can probably run it

if not you can get an audio dongle to run it louder later on

[next anvil]

it’s a gigabyte x870 eagle

[warm scarab]

this information doesnt help me since motherboard manufacturers dont publish how they have used their chips in what way

you just have to go off of assumptions

[low fossil]

Is there much of a difference quality-wise between the Sony XM5 and the Bose Quiet Comfort?

(Costco's versions apparently are both soft-shell, so that's not really a relevant difference now)

[livid ruin]

do you mind open back headphones?

ft3 (350ohm) can be bought for like $170

they’re decent cana for the price

or get an hd560s

beyerdynamics can have sharp treble for some users

[zenith pawn]

unless you can hear frequencies of about 22 khz or above there shouldnt be any difference between 44.1 kHz and 48 khz

[frosty ocean]

Too late, I already ripped the PCM, split it using the CUE from the CD and converted it to FLAC

It's about 5 MB larger

[zenith pawn]

They're probably completely different models with a random word for the name

[zenith pawn]

well its fine becuase there shouldn't be any audible difference

[frosty ocean]

What about the 24-bit 192KHz?

[zenith pawn]

even more unnecessary

I think realistically you only need at least like 12 bit samples to make the quantization noise inaudible

[frosty ocean]

And yet Blu-ray goes even further beyond...

[next anvil]

how so? plus ain’t closed backs better for fps comp games?

[zenith pawn]

surely nobody actually outputs real movies in hi-res though on real blue ray discs

In the market

[frosty ocean]

But it's there...We could have just been using CD audio for all our audio for the past 40 years

At least this was simple and there was a PCM track. SACDs are a whole other can of worms I have to deal with

[livid ruin]

closed backs aren’t necessarily better

if the manufacturer implements it well, the reflections can benefit soundstage

[next anvil]

the fiio ft1?

[livid ruin]

but open backs nowadays tend to have decently good soundstage + you get immersion

[zenith pawn]

Idk what to do about SACD. right now I just have the regular CDDA track ripped on them

[livid ruin]

ft3 currently costs only a little more than the ft1 on aliexpress i suggest looking them up

[next anvil]

why those?

[livid ruin]

they measure a hair better

[zenith pawn]

Nevermind that's HDCD

[next anvil]

ok

[frosty ocean]

Go to Goodwill and buy a Sony Bluray Player with SACD support. Google will help you find a list of models.
You will need:
1 Bluray Player
1 USB Stick(about 2-32GB)
1 SACD
1 Destination PC
1 LAN

And courtesy of Sony's hubris, you can have all the audio files you want

[lone flame]

like 99% of the people cannot even tell the difference between 320kBit/s MP3 and Lossless xD

and if you can notice it. is it really worth it?

[zenith pawn]

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

for context on 24-bit 192 khz

[lone flame]

ye

16bit 44.1khz is totally fine

and if you have very healthy ears can can hear above 20kHz

48kHz is fine too

but also on that. Does it matter?

[zenith pawn]

it's somewhat affected by genetics as far as i'm aware

20 khz is VERY high

[lone flame]

i can hear above

[zenith pawn]

so even if you have good hearing you might still be far away from 20khz

[reef wagon]

i'm in my mid 30's and i can still hear around 20k. mildly annoying sometimes, but great in my profession.

[lone flame]

imo its easy

dont use YT and Soundcloud and youre good

[zenith pawn]

i don't know why youtube sounds so bad because the bitrate isn't that bad

[lone flame]

ok tbh. youtube got better over the past years

[zenith pawn]

unless theyre using CBR

[lone flame]

i hate youtube's "normalisastion" of volume

[warm scarab]

yt music might be the best lossy streaming platform atm

because they dont have volume normalization

[lone flame]

what they do is just pushing down the volume to idk what LUFS

[warm scarab]

i never knew sixteen tons sounded this until now honestly

[lone flame]

and its annoying bcs YT is quiet

[warm scarab]

yeah youtube doesnt

thats why its good

[lone flame]

and why is YT quiet? 😄

[warm scarab]

i mean

its not 0

[zenith pawn]

LUFS is supposed to be perceptually consistent

[warm scarab]

but its pretty tolerant

[warm scarab]

thats a good thing

[warm scarab]

and thats a bad thing

it fucks up the dynamic range

[lone flame]

every song i have is WAY quiter on Youtube

[warm scarab]

yeah

okay

good?

[zenith pawn]

i mean i think it just picks the max volume and noramlizes it to that?

[warm scarab]

its a great sign that the sound isnt fucked by normalization

[zenith pawn]

or does youtube compress the entire audio

[warm scarab]

its literally what it is

[warm scarab]

no

thats why its good lol

thats what every other platform does

[lone flame]

Youtube does make music quiter

[warm scarab]

they boost/compress the audio to whatever they deem standard

[zenith pawn]

i thought they normalized it to a specific LUFS value, and that that just means bringing it to a specific average perceptual volume :P

without compression

[lone flame]

its not the same Volume as the "Original file that was uploaded"

[warm scarab]

they dont

thats why its good

music is less loud sure

go turn up your amplifier

and you have so much more dynamic range than spotify

[zenith pawn]

just buy pre-loudness-war CDs 🧌

[warm scarab]

you have to spin your amplifier's knob more sure but I'll take that over compression

[lone flame]

Do you? its mostly the same file over the streaming platforms

[warm scarab]

thats literally youtube

and you are complaining about it

[zenith pawn]

this elton john greatest hits album i have seems like it has a lot more dynamic range than most of my library

[warm scarab]

yeah because they have zero normalization

[zenith pawn]

you got me confused with yakucho?

[warm scarab]

if you are not with me you are my enemy

die

[lone flame]

Spotify has no normalization 😄

[zenith pawn]

ive never used youtube music so i have no idea about that

[warm scarab]

it does have normalization

[lone flame]

no

just turn it off

and done

[zenith pawn]

songs uploaded to regular video youtube sound like garbage, but who knows if it was just a really terrible original upload

[warm scarab]

what happens if a song is below the needed lufs

?

[lone flame]

Turn this off and the Songs are exactly as loud as the Lossless files i have

[warm scarab]

no

the platform has default lufs

[lone flame]

you can turn it off

[warm scarab]

if you give it higher lufs than needed its okay

no you cant

it literally processes them to be standard

[lone flame]

Turn off normalization

[warm scarab]

bro

[lone flame]

you dont understand

[warm scarab]

everything is normalized to the required lufs spotify demans

the normalization you have on user end

that is a seperate normalization

that is a second process of normalizing the audio

[lone flame]

Spotify normalization is not at the upload

[zenith pawn]

https://tenor.com/view/minecraft-movie-natalie-emma-myers-this-guy-gif-4864182086371521559

[lone flame]

its YOUR client

[warm scarab]

no it is at the upload

[lone flame]

no

its not

and i can prove LMAO

wait

[warm scarab]

ok

[lone flame]

Left side is Spotify, right side is FLAC file from my PC

hmmmmm

[warm scarab]

its different?

uh

[lone flame]

its not the exact same timestamp?

[warm scarab]

thanks?

okay why are you posting it then

lmao

[lone flame]

look at LU

bro

[warm scarab]

oh

discord cuts it out

the shitty cropping thing

[lone flame]

ye click on the image

[zenith pawn]

bad time to be using my 1080p second monitor

[warm scarab]

i think this is because you were outside of the treshold for lufs

so it doesnt get normalized

[lone flame]

no

[warm scarab]

try uploading something from 1950's lufs

[lone flame]

You can literally turn off the Normalization

because it's client based

and NOT at the upload

your Client scans Playlists etc and looks at the Volume of each tracks and normalizes it that they all sound somewhat the same volume

and doesnt have such abrubt volume changes track to track

[warm scarab]

im pretty sure because you make the initial cuts for lufs by being above the required minimum

which isnt the case for old music

[lone flame]

so IF you listen to LOUD EDM and after that to idk, Hans Zimmer. Both gets somewhat equaled to make a more comfy experience

[lone flame]

This is for every music in Spotify

[warm scarab]

yeah

its not for youtube

thats the point

lol

here

[lone flame]

Just turn off Normalization and done

[warm scarab]

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=BSvORvIjZiU&si=fY1p0CJF9ohGvvEA

listen to this

https://open.spotify.com/track/1JVPMzVjeAgQ4s3VC0zhxl?si=ec8c580192f24041

vs this

hoping you have a spotify account because the preview will be at like 96kbps

you dont need yt premium the default rate is good enough

[lone flame]

there are multiple versions

https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/track/3P6OwCX7Ofiaaqtvujb6i5?si=49c6d980972a41d3

i have YT Premium bcs ads are annoying AF on phone xD

[warm scarab]

i have uh

youtube free

[zenith pawn]

why does the spotify version have like no bass compared to the youtube version

[warm scarab]

without ads

[zenith pawn]

am i going crazy

[warm scarab]

wont elaborate on this

[lone flame]

different versions

[warm scarab]

spotify has weird tracks

[zenith pawn]

boring music

[lone flame]

[warm scarab]

id recommend youtube music over spotify even if everything i said about lufs is wrong

just because the library is exponentially better

at no loss of quality

[lone flame]

some Soundcloud artist should get a Tunecore account and start getting on Spotify etc lol

[broken grotto]

I use Tidal a lot too, but youtube music is amazing

[warm scarab]

im pretty sure if you get like one premium music account as an uploader

it can publish all songs on every platform

amazon music, yt music, spotify, soundcloud

its how my mate does it

[lone flame]

YT Music is a mic between "normal YT Videos (MV)" and intentionally YT Music uploaded stuff

[zenith pawn]

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=h5_iS0GZpUs&list=LM

[warm scarab]

yeah id be happy if we could filter out regular yt vids from yt music

[zenith pawn]

ok so it lets me listen to some regular youtube vdeiso on yt music

[warm scarab]

but im okay either way

[warm scarab]

dude I was listening to yt music

[broken grotto]

sometimes it's nice that it includes videos, though

because if the song isn't a track or something it'll still play it in the car

[warm scarab]

and it randomly started playing videos of ukranians getting dronestriked with the autodj

i was like what the fuck is happening

[lone flame]

its nice that YT recognizes Music and just puts it on YT music automatically

but daily i just buy tracks

bcs im not a huge fan of "paying and not owning"

[warm scarab]

yt music gave me ptsd

[lone flame]

but

[warm scarab]

yeah ig you cant listen to that on spotify

w?

[lone flame]

i wish more streaming platforms had "turn off normalization" like Spotify

[warm scarab]

yt doesnt have it by default

id recommend it for that reason if i was a music publisher lol

[lone flame]

nopoe

YT Music does make stuff quiter

[warm scarab]

turn up the volume

[lone flame]

i did

[warm scarab]

stupid

[lone flame]

its no max

and its uhh. quiet

its like my Windows Media player at 30

[warm scarab]

i think something is wrong on your end

[lone flame]

nope

[warm scarab]

also yt's ui sucks

throw rocks at it

[lone flame]

this is YT music

like wtf

[zenith pawn]

what is the colored thing in the middle

is that the stereo balance?

[lone flame]

stereometer

or how its called xD

[warm scarab]

ui kinda blows

[lone flame]

this is the FLAC

[zenith pawn]

i need this song on cd

[warm scarab]

just turn up the volume bro

no headroom?

[lone flame]

YT music is at max volume

[zenith pawn]

fr if anything lower volume is better

[warm scarab]

its good for your ears

[lone flame]

i have 27dB of headroom on my AMP

[warm scarab]

ok

then you dont have a problem

[zenith pawn]

unless it's like really artificially low beyond use

[lone flame]

OH HELL NO

YT music sounds ass

wtf

[zenith pawn]

youtube doesn't sound as bad when you listen to it on iems instead of your phone

[zenith pawn]

also hold on is that -8 LUFS because that sounds like it would be really really compressed

[lone flame]

nonono

its not LUFS

just LU

[warm scarab]

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=nGiu48vkOHI&si=y_XXqN_obXa6MBWx

this slaps

i should get a gun

[lone flame]

ok have to take the quality back. had just volume matching issues

[warm scarab]

noob

[zenith pawn]

is it saying it's 8 LU quieter than the other (comparing two files), or what does 0 mean

[lone flame]

ok

seems like YT music has some downsides

and its not YT music intentionally uploaded music

[warm scarab]

it has every song thats copyrighted on other platforms

eurobeat my love

tbh spotify has eurobeat

but for the sake of argument im going to ignore that

[zenith pawn]

god damn

[lone flame]

running in the 90s lossless sound so awesome

[zenith pawn]

i just decided to click on an old EDM song in a playlist and i had to change the volume from like 40% to like 5%

[lone flame]

on yt music or where?

[warm scarab]

edm genre fucking sucks kinda

[zenith pawn]

yt music

[warm scarab]

got like 10dB dynamic range

[zenith pawn]

this is my first time using youtube music and i guess it made an auto playlist of my liked videos filtered for only music

[warm scarab]

no normalization bro

[lone flame]

but ye YR music is quiet

[warm scarab]

he said it was loud lmao

[zenith pawn]

edm does kinda suck but i used to be a gamer

yeah but this song is probably just literally loud and compressed to shit

[warm scarab]

nah there is good ones but the industry surrounding the genre is shit

[zenith pawn]

NoCopyrightSounds

[warm scarab]

everything is compressed to ass so that it can do its fart bass properly on some bar speaker

[zenith pawn]

glad it counts this as a song

[warm scarab]

i dont even know what the fuck this is

[zenith pawn]

it's a virus that kills linux users that don't have fonts

[warm scarab]

based

top this spotifycels

[lone flame]

Medic symbol, Recycle symbol, Tree, Cross and in the Middle an Tripod

https://tenor.com/view/war-of-the-worlds-gif-6494849701918915519

[zenith pawn]

i need a CD of earth wind & fire

[lone flame]

but fck YT music

its shit

to quiet

[warm scarab]

what my cheese box sees at 4am

[lone flame]

hosh fck i love that movie so much

imo the BEST Alien vehicle ever designed

[warm scarab]

i was too young to remember what the movie was actually like

but i liked it when i was like 7

[lone flame]

imo its just unique

[zenith pawn]

tiktokers have ruined the bridge of this song

[lone flame]

if Spotify drops prices by like 3-4 bucks

best streaming platform

with Lossless

and no normalization

[warm scarab]

how is the lossless looking

[lone flame]

[lone flame]

its like
You get randomly a message "Yo, u can use Lossless now"

[frosty ocean]

What about other people? What if they notice it? And I'm making backups of my CDs. Maybe I should switch to APE for my backups and use FLAC for my mono versions for work.

[lone flame]

IF you can notice it

ask yourself if that difference is really worth?

you can sit there casually enjoying

or critical listening

[frosty ocean]

Worth what?

Hard drive space?

yes

[lone flame]

Lossless

[frosty ocean]

What is "lossless"? That's not a cost

hard drive space is a cost

The extra 10 dollars to get a 256GB SD card for my phone is a cost

All it costs me is 10 dollars and some HDD space. is it worth it? yes

And now that I switched to Mono encodes, that 256GB SD card will last for double the albums that it was previously(give or take compressibility). Where before I was barely using more than 128GB

[lone flame]

meant the audio format

Lossless

24 Bit 192kHz is kinda useless

[frosty ocean]

You asked if it was worth it

[lone flame]

it was not like "is it really worth" like that its useless

[frosty ocean]

useless? It has a use. It plays music.

It would take more effort to encode to a lossy format

[zenith pawn]

the cd isn't that though idk what is going on

wat

[frosty ocean]

I have no idea. This guy is mad I'm using FLAC for my CD backups

[zenith pawn]

i feel like there has to be a miscommunication here

[lone flame]

100%

[zenith pawn]

cd isn't 24 bit 192 khz so it's a different conversation entirely

cd is 16 bit 44.1 khz

[frosty ocean]

I said I had one album that had a DVD version at 48000....

[zenith pawn]

i would be surprised if the dvd was not lossy anyways

[frosty ocean]

you mean, they took a lossy version, and encoded it as PCM?

[zenith pawn]

it's uncompressed pcm on the dvd?

[frosty ocean]

There are two audio "tracks". One is a Stereo PCM, and one is a 6(5.1) channel AC3

You wanna know the best part of this all

I don't even like the artist that much...

Lol, it's clipping...

or maxed

There's no easy way for the program to tell between the two...i think

[zenith pawn]

pretty common

[stuck bolt]

Sausage of an audio

[elder thistle]

that's surprisingly expensive

you should be seeing it around 120 pounds

[lone flame]

clipping in what exactly

most tracks clip at "True Peak"

and thats totally fine lol

as long as its not like +5dB or so

[frosty ocean]

It just looks weird to see them do that. Maybe I'm just paranoid and I never do it

[lone flame]

is that a surround mix?

or just stereo

[frosty ocean]

Stereo. Surround is in AC3, so it's kinda hard to work with it in Audacity

[lone flame]

ye

most programs are note able to show surround

so they push all the channels into stereo

[frosty ocean]

I think in Audacity's case, it might be a licencing issue...

[lone flame]

maybe

[sleek lily]

Ordered an iha6

Hopefully it's good

[broken grotto]

Das an expensive amp

[warm scarab]

@lean grove

can you send me that speaker frequency directionality gif

[steel escarp]

wait, why did you get iha-6

in 2025

what did you pay for it

[warm scarab]

ok dude i found it

L nils

[lean grove]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/382801814547988481/1249058609183330314/c5b_v.gif

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/382801814547988481/1249058822648107048/c5b.gif

[sleek lily]

Temporary option until the end of the semester where I can fix my ragnarok. Brown out took something in it out and tripped a protection which won't shut off.

Won't be an easy fix because voltages seem okay

Might be a messed up controller or something

But I do not have time to troubleshoot it this semester

[steel escarp]

@sleek lily ye but how much u pay for it

The IHA-6

[sleek lily]

350

In basically new condition in the original box too

Plus I got a new card I had to put money on the get a $200 rebate

So it basically cost me $150

[steel escarp]

Okay thank god u didnt pay over 600

[sleek lily]

It's a beautiful amp

Is it normal for people to pay 600 for it?

[white gate]

New price on IHA6 is about £900 iirc but they're fairly old now so they go for a lot less used

[steel escarp]

I think I paid like 600 euros for them back in 2022, brand new from aliexpress

I did get scared when I saw the prices its been selling for brand new recently

[sleek lily]

That's like 1.2k in USD? That's pretty insane. I ain't got that type of money lol

Tbh, I probably wouldn't even pay the $600 rate even with my rebate

[steel escarp]

yeah its not worth it for that money

[sleek lily]

Shame it doesn't have a speaker output

[zenith pawn]

Woah this is super cool

[broken grotto]

me, as a person who's worked in product R&D: I buy Audeze LCD-S20. I get package. I see that they reused the Audeze Maxwell molding and foam cutout

neat

somewhat smart, allthough, i will say it does come off as being kind of cheap and cost-cutty.

could have laser-cut the foam so it fits the LCD-S20's and not include the dongle cutout the Maxwell should have

source: https://gadgetrytech.squig.link/headsets/?share=Audeze_LCD-S20

if anyone wants to insult my choice of headphones

although if someone would like to chat about it I actually generally do like Audeze headphones, so I would like to know others' opinions of them. (please no youtuber regurgitation, though.)

[stuck bolt]

Got these on my stands and holy shit they sound different

[supple sand]

Chat give me a home tv setup reccomendation for less then 200 bucks

Can be used speakers

Doesnt have to be surround sound

Just clear, loud, good for movies

And preferably playing games on console

Tv is a 55 inch LG WebOs dont know the exact product id

[lean grove]

Check out options from edifier

[supple sand]

For a theather set up?

Dude they like 700 bucks

Like js looking for a sound bar with maybe a sub

[lean grove]

they sell like 30 different speakers and at least a few of them are in your budget

[supple sand]

I looked at their tv setups

It said 600 n 700

N for the other on it didnt say the price

[lean grove]

you didnt look very hard then,.

https://www.amazon.com/Edifier-R1700BTs-Active-Bookshelf-Speakers/dp/B0886B1TWC

[supple sand]

Lets say i bought these

Would I need a receiver?

And could i get a sub from marketplace and integrate it to the setup

[lean grove]

your TV would need to have an RCA output

and yeah you can hook up a sub to it

[stuck bolt]

https://a.co/d/5i7yQTP

Get a sub as well

https://a.co/d/8QwLVrk

A little over 200 in total though

[supple sand]

Thus is an active sub right?

[stuck bolt]

Yes

[supple sand]

Also ill prob get the r1700 firsts n a month later get the sub u reccomended

So like 300 bucks total

[stuck bolt]

There's the option of going passive subs and speakers but the introduction to an amp adds to the cost tbh

[supple sand]

Yeahh

I saw

Ill post some marketplace deals if i find some

To ask if thats better then paying 300 for these

[stuck bolt]

@supple sand or if you have 10 grand I can build you a pair 😉

[supple sand]

If i had 10 grand i would prob buy a yamaha Mt07 rn

Lol

Instead im gonna finance it 🥲

[stuck bolt]

That go vrom vrom tho

[supple sand]

Mhmmm

Sounds as goood

Lol

[supple sand]

Looks clean

Like

[stuck bolt]

4 way active

[supple sand]

Very clean

[stuck bolt]

Thank you 😊

[supple sand]

How much does smth likr that cost

[stuck bolt]

To build or to buy?

[supple sand]

https://tenor.com/view/fast-and-furious-state-weirdchamp-whats-the-retail-on-one-of-those-more-than-you-can-afford-pal-gif-13188796463410035069

[supple sand]

Well yo buy

Ig

Since i cant build lol

[stuck bolt]

Asking price is 9600. May go out if tariffs continue

To build... a lot

[supple sand]

Ohhh damn

[stuck bolt]

Lemme pull up the excel sheet

[supple sand]

Yeaaah its def not smth id buy even if i had the money tbh

Im more of a headphone guy

Lol

[stuck bolt]

Closes comparison

[supple sand]

Gahhdayummm dude

[stuck bolt]

Wait did i give you 9.6k lol 😆

I got 13k on my document.

Welp

To give you an idea of how much the components cost. Each speaker has 2 of these amongst other things. This PSU is 98 usd at the moment and to get them here has additional taxes 🙄

[left verge]

Hmmmm
I wonder how they expect you to remove the board...

[broken grotto]

.... what is that?

I've seen better board design in cheap Chinese knock off products.

[zenith pawn]

I think its upside down

[left verge]

Nope
The green is the 3.5mm cable

Going down

[zenith pawn]

The circuit board

It's the back of the circuit board

[left verge]

Trying to repair the volume wheel
Turtle beach headset

[left verge]

I think there's only one side, and its the side shown
Can't take off the cup

[zenith pawn]

It was supposed to be a joke of Lin saying the board looks terrible because its the back side

[warm scarab]

probably dirty potentiometer

bet you could get far with some cleaning

[broken grotto]

The board has no solder mask on the back.

Its cheap

Cost saving.

That tan color is the fiberglass substrate.

That's why is terrible.

Not because "its the back".

Plus, look at the mouse bites; they're crooked.

[green marsh]

lol you think youre supposed to be able to remove the board

[celest adder]

sorry (@)Linus
don't get the AirPod Pro 3
they are shite.
fitment is shite
sound quality is different, better in some ways worse in others
and best of all, they just bricked themselves, less than an hour after unboxing :)))))

[lean grove]

Linus never reads anything in the discord

[green marsh]

skill issue

[celest adder]

ofc I know that haha

[celest adder]

Skill issued by giving tim apol money

[lean grove]

Ive gone my entire life without giving apple a dime

[primal fulcrum]

Really? What did you have before them? AirPod Pro 2?
Do you use Android or iphone?

[haughty sandal]

https://youtube.com/shorts/chVpwR2yGyk?si=KnqTgIJG8zxF6ajq

[umbral charm]

What would be a worthy upgrade from a blue snowball? Have had it for afew years, paid like £20 for it. Has been fine (mostly) But starting to go on calls a bit more and it's picking up background audio more. Is there a decent upgrade that would help with that or even just a software that helps fight it?

[green marsh]

lots of commnuication platforms already have built in noise cancelling

[lean grove]

How close is the mic to your face

[umbral charm]

Yeah, only thing is Im using it all on discord already

[umbral charm]

Just infront of my screens. I have a keyboard + midi keyboard infront of it if that helps justify the distance

Like 45cm away

[lean grove]

That's part of the problem. Almost any mic is gonna have this problem if you don't have it in a well treated room or right up against your face.

Move it so that it's like, 20cm max.

Also turn off any auto gain in your software that you're using

[umbral charm]

I dont use any software rn

[zenith pawn]

what a buzzkill

[lean grove]

Your video calling software. Discord, zoom, teams, whatever.

[umbral charm]

Ah

Input sensetivity? I assume that's it for discord

[zenith pawn]

They have a noise reduction thing too

[left verge]

I can't?

[green marsh]

ofc not duh

[pulsar cypress]

do we do car audio here too?

[lean grove]

https://tenor.com/view/itysl-notreally-not-really-gif-21670106

[pulsar cypress]

[lone flame]

it would make big $ if he reviews the APP3

even if they are shite

[regal moat]

If I wanted to turn a Linsoul 7Hz x Crinacle Zero:2 wireless what are some recomendations?

[broken grotto]

depends if you want truly no wires

or are ok looking like an artist on a stage.

[regal moat]

I know about those small Bluetooth box things that you plug the wire into and I am guessing that connects to the phone

if that's what you are refering to for the "like an artist"

[broken grotto]

yeah, every time I see that it reminds me of watching live performances lol

but if you want like, to make them more airpods like

I think it's the FiiO UTWS5 is the model

https://www.fiio.com/utws5

There's other ones, too, like the iFi Go Pod, but idk if that's any good; it's also like $400 iir

[regal moat]

It sounds like it's probs cheaper to just buy wired earphones at that point

[broken grotto]

There are cheaper ones from like, Kinera, and some other cheaper brands but ymmv with those.

I don't mind the wires.

I don't particularly care if my music travels through air or not, and as someone who used to deal with wireless transmission junk I like the stability of wires.

[regal moat]

It's cause I still have my apple earphones but I lost my wireless beats recently

I was wondering if I could just make it a 2 for 1 kinda thing

where I use the Linsoul 7Hz x Crinacle Zero:2 for both pc gaming and just going out

but it's too budge to spend the money making wireless

[green marsh]

cheaper you say

[regal moat]

There is just no point to that tho

[green marsh]

"no point"

says who

who are you to determine what has a point or not

[regal moat]

It's such a high end and low production product that it's not worth bring up in discussions about prices as it is an outlier, I know some Iems get in the 500 dollar range but this is still much beyond that

Anyways tomorrow I buy my first IEMs:
Just need to look into the Linsoul 7Hz Salnotes Zero, HIDIZS MS1-Galaxy, and HIDIZS MS1-Galaxys before I lock in the Linsoul 7Hz x Crinacle Zero:2.
So time to watch a ton of vids and learn a lot of audio terms

[broken grotto]

most of the "audio," stuff you see in audiophile standards is arguably pretty low production

not as low as that, but on a scale compared to mainstream ones like air pods and such, it's way smaller.

[regal moat]

I'd imagine so cause it mostly meant for musicians

[green marsh]

a lot of them arent tho

[regal moat]

What's the typical high quality audio target demographic?

[green marsh]

audiophiles

people with more money than sense

[regal moat]

Doesn't that leave the goal of audio stuff a bit more vague?

[zenith pawn]

Audio in general is vague as shit and it sucks
I have decided video is better

[green marsh]

exactly

[regal moat]

I've seen terms like, warm, tight, bright, but those don't really make sense to me yet

Is that how you determine what fits your use case best?

[broken grotto]

They don't make sense to me either

I'm a terrible audiophile

[green marsh]

theyre just tonality descriptors

[lean grove]

Qudelix 5k. It's the best.

[regal moat]

I decided not to since most solutions cost more than the iems I am getting since I am looking at the very budge ones

[lean grove]

It's worth it. The amount of control you get from the qudelix let's you customize and improve $20 iems to be pretty damn good.

[regal moat]

Like what?

[lean grove]

Mostly the parametric EQ

You can do lots of precise eq adjustments, or use the autoEQ to have a program do it for you

[regal moat]

don't know what that is

[lean grove]

In theory it allows you to tune a device to sound like any other device

In practice there's limitations to measurement

So if you're not an EQ nerd it might be difficult to get into

[regal moat]

This is gonna be my first time touching audio stuff like iems and I am not super into it as a hobby so yeah

probs not the most useful to me but sounds cool

[lean grove]

It's endgame for the right type of people.

But yeah I get you

I think there's some much cheaper stuff that can do the parametric eq and still be worth it that aren't wireless

[warm scarab]

id recommend stuff like utws3 or 5, trn bt20s (idk which they have been constantly releasing different tws adapters) over qudelix 5k

5k is overkill for iems

[regal moat]

The TRN BT20 PRO I found for 30-40 cad doesn't look like a bad choice

I still need to pick some Iems to see if I like them first

[regal moat]

So after spending 4 hours looking at IEMs
The 3 I might buy are
Linsoul 7Hz x Crinacle Zero:2
KZ EDC Pro
Linsoul QKZ x HBB

Does anyone have any good or negative experinces with any of these?

[green marsh]

kz is a brand you should probably stay away from

they lie about their specs, paid people to make positive reviews, among other stuff

[regal moat]

I’ve heard stuff like that on both ends when I was searching stuff up and was given no context so that’s for the context

So avoid KZ and HZ

[green marsh]

the context is the crinacle collab

if you want to read more in depth

dont need to avoid hz

just kz

[regal moat]

It was like Hzsidi or something like that

[green marsh]

and whatever other kz sub brands there are

[green marsh]

oh i dont think ive heard of that brand

[regal moat]

HIDIZ

Found the name

Made like the Ms-1

[green marsh]

yeah doesnt ring a bell but there are so many brands that are good

or not doing shady shit at least

[regal moat]

It was something about a scandal about it botting reviews or something idk

[green marsh]

like moondrop makes some offering, truthear does too

[regal moat]

I did look into Truthhear stuff but It was about twice the price the other stuff I was looking at so I didn’t go too deep

[green marsh]

i dont recall if qkz was actually a sub brand of kz but i believe they are

[regal moat]

I saw something that said they are

[green marsh]

they have the hola as their 20 dollar offering

[regal moat]

Lemme take a look

Do you know if there is a miced version?

[green marsh]

scratch the hola it doesnt seem to be available to buy

[regal moat]

Oh damn

I just found a link to the Ali express too

It’s not there

[green marsh]

moondrop has the chu 2, tangzu has the waner

waner does come with a mic cable i just checked

[regal moat]

I did look into the waner but wasn’t sure if it was better than the HBb for gaming

Cause gaming is going to be my main use case

Marvel rivals is the game I play with the most audio clutter too

https://www.amazon.ca/Linsoul-TANGZU-Waner-S-G-Detachable/dp/B0BRVF5QXJ/ref=asc_df_B0C6QJZ574?mcid=70c7bf244ea23a0584e6fd7a2549388c&tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=706725267282&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6254798338416035230&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9000858&hvtargid=pla-2196493877268&psc=1&hvocijid=6254798338416035230-B0C6QJZ574-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1&th=1

Very pretty tho ngl

[green marsh]

hbb is a qkz collab so 🤷‍♂️

[regal moat]

Ah yeah

[green marsh]

but judging by the graphs it doesnt look that 'clear'

[regal moat]

Both lists I found it in also placed it in B tier

I think I’ll put the Waner on the list again

[regal moat]

I think sound stage and clarity where good signs for gaming but I have no clue how to read the graphs lol

[sleek lily]

Current scientific understanding points to sound stage relating largely to things like ILD, ITD, and some other factors.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4744263/

If you can find graphs relating back to those relations, it'll give you a good idea on soundstage

[white gate]

ITD and ILD in headphones is 100% dependent on the source content not the headphones

In headphones the perception of spaciousness is related to how the headphone reproduces certain HRTF related effects. (Hence the 2khz dip often being referred to as "the soundstage dip" etc)

[sleek lily]

it is mainly source related

but youd be hard pressed to find a headphone that's 100% amplitude independent

[white gate]

No it's 100% source related.

In a headphone the inter-aural-time-difference is down to how that is baked into the source. Your headphones do not have a varying difference in time to the eardrum between the left and right channel.

Same for ILD. Unless your headphones are broken or have channel imbalance (which wouldn't produce an inter-aural-level-difference that creates the psychoacoustic effect of stage anyway) they will be playing the same thing on each channel with identical volume unless it is different in the source content

[sleek lily]

in another server I actually made an amplitude transfer for the he6. it was pretty logarithmic if I am remembering my results right

which inherently will make that relation non linear

[white gate]

Like, there will be some differences between the left and right channel, but our perception of distance with relation to ILD, but in the case of a fixed/constant ILD like what you'd get in channel imbalanced headphones you just get the sound shifting to one side

[sleek lily]

time difference will be pretty close too, but headphones are inherently pretty inductive, so it wont be perfect depending on frequency and inductivity.

in the case of electrostatics theyre more capacitive if im not mistaken, but the same concept applies

[white gate]

You can test this by just measuring the phase response and testing for excess phase. 99% of headphones are effectively completely minimum phase. The only times this isn't the case is usually in multi-driver headphones with crossovers

[sleek lily]

it'd actually be cool to map out phasors for specific channel relations of an input for a headphone.

[white gate]

But yeah, this is why binaural content for example provides a far more convincing presentation of an "out of head" experience. Since realistic ILD, ITD and most importantly directional HRTF effects are baked in

(To be clear the directional HRTF effects are actually the really important part, they are TECHNICALLY a form of ILD but just calling them ILD is massively oversimplying things as it removes the directional aspect of it, and this is why both binaural recordings on headphones, and speakers, are both far more convincing than standard stereo content on headphones)

[sleek lily]

what definition are you going off of? the one that oratory was sending was just wrong. It implied minimum phase just meant within 360 degrees of input. In reality, most headphones have a slight inverse movement at the start of loading which makes them non minimum phase, but minimum phase also doenst mean no frequency related phase lag or lead. any device that isnt purely resistive will have this.

[white gate]

I'm referring to the actual definition of minimum phase
https://www.roomeqwizard.com/help/help_en-GB/html/minimumphase.html

This is fairly trivial to test

You measure the phase response of the headphone, and the frequency response. Then compare how the measured phase response deviates from what the minimum phase response of that frequency response would be

In the case of headphones, as stated they are in 99.9% of cases minimum phase devices, and so you see no excess phase.

[regal moat]

So what exactly am I meant to do if I wanna know if one of my 3/4 options is good for gaming

[sleek lily]

what is it that you think minimum phase is implying here? because this is related to if there is phase lead or lag at all that is frequency dependent, which is inherently true unless our headphone is purely resistive, but isnt related to their being minimum phase or not.

[green marsh]

Audio largely doesnt matter for gaming

If it works its good for gaming

[regal moat]

Some of the reviews mentioned that the iems made the audio more muddy and less clear when it came to directional sound so I just don’t don’t anything worse of