Fun Stuff > BAND
Why aren't hipsters allowed to like compact discs?
3Z3VH:
--- Quote from: supertankguy on 17 Sep 2007, 06:48 ---
--- Quote from: 3Z3VH on 15 Sep 2007, 08:23 ---On any sound system that doesn't cost a fortune, 192k is just about the limit of it's audio range. You don't start getting into audio detail better than that unless you are pushing at least 120W/Speaker.
--- End quote ---
That doesn't make any sense at all. Power has nothing to do with frequency response. Generally speaking, power governs the volume, frequency response and shape of the speaker govern the detail.
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People who enjoy music, tend to listen to said music at a volume where they can hear all the detail the music has to offer. If you do not have a decent high-wattage sound system, the highs will not be nearly as crisp, and the lows will sound like they are full of static. Also, in any audio system that isn't meant to push high wattage sound, you will NEVER see high quality capacitors or torroids, which are the most important components in the amp, that allow you to push clean sound out of any given speaker. You can have the cleanest audio signal in the world going into your amplifier, but if the amp and speakers aren't up to the task, that pristine signal will still sound like crap.
supertankguy:
Uh, right. But 120W/speaker is an obnoxious amount of power unless you're talking about subs, and even then I'm seriously doubting an ear could perceive that much difference in detail given the frequency ranges involved.
pilsner:
One thing to keep in mind with frequency range is that there is a lot of variation from person to person in terms of what can be detected. For instance, the grand CD vs. Vinyl debate is sort of silly when you are dealing with frequencies below 20khz because the 44.1k cycles/s sampling provided by CD quality sound is generally accepted by experts to recreate the original waveform in its totality at those frequencies.
Where vinyl fanciers have a real point is with regard to frequencies above 20khz which may be omitted in the sampling -- the so-called inaudible range. But inaudible for whom? For instance, it is indisputable that there are frequencies audible to most teenagers but inaudible to most adults (hence the special cell phone ring that only teens can hear). Furthermore, >20khz frequencies are more important with certain types music (classical, jazz) than they are with others (easy listening, top 40, underproduced garage).
So if you are someone blessed with exceptionally delicate hearing who happens to like classical or jazz, you may be justified in investing several thousands of dollars in a rig that would be completely wasted on someone with poorer hearing who listens to nothing but Interpol and Franz Ferdinand. Incidentally, there are higher encoding formats than the 44.1k cycle/s sampling rate that go a lot farther into the "inaudible" range, as has been pointed out earlier in this thread. With the advent of DVDs and the Super Audio CD format, there is no physical barrier to putting out single disc albums with these higher encoding standards -- but the demand for that is almost completely flat.
I'm not aware of a single expert who has suggested that vinyl can come close to competing with Super Audio CDs. If you know of such a claim, I would be interested to hear it.
3Z3VH:
--- Quote from: supertankguy on 17 Sep 2007, 14:15 ---Uh, right. But 120W/speaker is an obnoxious amount of power unless you're talking about subs, and even then I'm seriously doubting an ear could perceive that much difference in detail given the frequency ranges involved.
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Obnoxious for whom ?
I am one of those people who goes nuts over Home Theatre and Home Audio technology, and I can tell you without a doubt, there was a fair and noticeable difference when I stepped up from a 100W/channel Dennon amp, to a 120w/channel Emotiva amp, using the exact same speakers. For instance, in the movie Master and Commander, when canonballs would hit the ship, before you would hear the ball hit and a bunch of wood cracking, but with the new amp you could hear each splinter hit the ground. It takes someone who is interested in the details to hear them, but they are there.
And by Home Theatre standards, 120w is middle-ground. There are Bob Carver (Sunfire, not the Carver Brand) theatre systems with upwards of 400w/channel, and subs with upward of 2700w Amplifiers in them. And I only mention Sunfire equipment because that is what I would like to own, there are systems by McIntosh that quadruple that in pure Wattage.
supertankguy:
The power output that your amp can produce and the amount of power your speakers need for you to "hear every splinter" are two different numbers.
That 2700W monstrosity you linked is a subwoofer/amp combo and it actually is able to output sound that is almost loud enough to permanently damage your hearing (this is massive given the frequency ranges). Smaller coned speakers generally don't require nearly that much power to output a louder sound. The 400W amp you linked is designed to be mated with 90dB or higher midrange speakers (or at least I assume, since that is the rating on the midrange speakers on their site). Furthermore, that amplifier output is 400W peak per-channel, 200W RMS (it's in the manual PDF they have linked).
As an aside, I like how their marketing department has Joule's law listed as a feature of their amplifiers. The power doubles when you halve the impedance?! Egads! It's as if somehow other amplifiers don't follow the same electrical properties and instead run on chicken bones and voodoo magic. Don't believe all the hype about higher powered amps, it doesn't necessarily mean better sound quality usually those numbers are thrown around by the company's marketing team, it's far more important to purchase equipment that matches (characteristically, not necessarily in brand name or whatever) than it is to grab the highest power components you can. I really and truly hate most audio equipment marketing, since it focuses so heavily on characteristics that aren't actually descriptive of the product. I've seen 1000W amplifiers advertised that could only put 1000W into a theoretical one or half Ohm load, but they advertise them that way because it's technically correct. It's truly ridiculous.
pilsner: I was mentioning frequencies in relation to subwoofers (and thus, how it probably didn't matter). I agree with you about sampling rates though. The Nyquist theorem basically states that you need to sample at two times the highest frequency in the signal to be able to accurately recreate the signal. So if you enjoy music that is very active up in the 22kHz range you're pushing the limit for CD sound quality and would probably notice the difference if you switched to a medium that had an increased sampling rate.
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