Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

get this:

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stop masturbating at the back...

what are you using for measurements?

50hz boost is a common "room node" iirc and unless you have a beefy sub then not having anything under 35hz is hardly surprising.

yeah, nothing I listen to needs <35hz, that's for sure.

I found that a better curve for the tannoys was to reduce the hump by about 50% then follow the gradual roll off (rather than the flatter target shown above).

using a umik into the imac

umik

Nice that looks much simpler than the old Behringher mearurement mic + phantom power + decent soundcard you needed last time I looked (about 10years ago) at this sort of thing.

it's pretty easy. I'm going to hit someone up for a mike stand and clear the room so I can have a proper crack at it before the trial runs out.

you are welcome to have a shot after that, if you fancy it...

Thanks, tempted but my listening room is somewhat compromised with kids toys and the like, will think I will hold off on any tweaking until I at least get my turntable back in action - so probably not for a couple of years yet! :)

Looking at a Rega Planar 2 at preamp to connect up to my Ruark MR2 powered speakers. Anything else I should consider at this price point?

Finally getting my LP12 out of storage and want to get it fettled and updated (Cirkus, PSU etc)..... Anyone have any recommendations for someone to do it? I'm currently looking at Peter at Cymbiosis, but wondered if there's anyone in the London area I should try?

^^new? buy my sony and have £££ to spend on a cart. it will piss on the rega

I've got a Rega 3 that's sitting in a cupboard, recently upgraded the motor (Rega 24v kit). Should be listened to rather than gathering dust, interested?

I also have a load of old shit on cd.
All under the bed. I would fucking love to just give it to someone and get a drive all loaded up and labelled and backed up to a cloud thing that my phone and home computers could play.
For a reasonable price though.

@BRM @pjhobs interested in both. Want to Pm me some details?

you and me both, will have to trudge through them myself if I want to hear them again..

Did you try REW, it's free software but very comprehensive. The 50hz is a room node that most of us in London have. REW will provide settings for a parametric eq which levels it out while doing the least possible damage to the surrounding frequencies. I think you can create a parametric eq to sit over your computer outputs if you're on a Mac. I have a MOTU D8 which handles the output to to my convertor which has a parametric eq built in.

REW also shows a psychoacoustic smoothing of the measurements which helps to get a better idea picture of what the measurement is.

Nothing below 35hz is pretty normal/acceptable for music, there's a bit more down there in movies.

Mind you, looking at the flat response you got from the Dirac processing, you'll not get anywhere near that with a simple parametric eq. My near field system is about that flat naturally, but you would expect that from PMC.

yeah, I downloaded that after doing a bit of research, but it all went a bit [scanners.gif] after the measurement part. I was planning on doing a bit of reading and seeing how it all works. dirac is pretty easy (but about 450 bananas for the minidsp).

The problem I have is that my speakers are next to the alcoves with a shelf over them.

Most full range setups have issues in normal rooms. Yours do look a bit all over the place and Dirac is doing a lot to balance it out. I think it's typical of HiFi software early days, big money and slightly patchy software with a limited shelf life. In 10 years this stuff will be built into the OS.

It probably does represent good value if you want ruler flat hifi though. The 2 speaker systems I have that can get near it naturally are £4.5k and £6k. They both have dsp built in too.

REW can fry your brain to begin with, best to take it slow and you get there in the end. It's easy enough to stay in the shallow water but it helps if you understand the different types of tests and results. Otherwise just stick with RMS and play with that for a while.

I went through ripping all of my CDs years ago, using a laptop and external CD drive and some automatic software (iTunes at the time) made it pretty painless to do while watching television or reading or whatever. Nuts swap the CD every five minutes when the laptop beeps. Do it every evening and after a week / month or so you're done.

I have a USB drive if you want to borrow?

How about I give you the CDs and a drive?
I'm joking I'll move the office pc downstairs and crack on with it.

dB Poweramp is a nice bit of software for ripping but obviously lots of others will do the job too.

Personally, I can't abide iTunes.

Yep, I'd agree with DB PowerAmp. Nice features in terms of tagging, simultaneous rips to multiple formats, verification, etc

Do you have any room treatment with those systems?
@BRM I would (and am going to shortly) spend money on acoustic treatment before worrying about digital solutions - you're not going to deal with room modes with EQ/etc.

Anyway, I always thought Hifi was about stuff that sounds (and looks) good over 'flat', otherwise no-one would be buying anything except monitors.

I'd love to have my speakers in the middle of the room, a single chair 2m in from the back wall and egg crates glued to the walls, but sadly an Edwardian maisonette (and my wife's sanity) means that can't happen.

I'm not after a flat response (the target curves aren't) - I have 70s tannoys dcs and valves - I am fucking around with it because it is interesting and a billion times quicker than box-swapping for checking ways to change/improve the sound.

A mate of mine runs GIK UK They have some nice treatment stuff that doesn't look like acoustic treatment.