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In Reply to: RE: Stereophile: Computer Audio Without Computers posted by Sprezza Tura on December 11, 2014 at 19:57:47
Just shows the MAC book pro is not very good.
What do you consider you SOTM Mini?
Follow Ups:
Latest TAS talks about the Window's configuration beating Mac in sound quality.
Was there too much hype around Mac or is it a usability thing similar to why the publications are trying to distance computers from products like streamers which are just dedicated computers?
PeterZ
Or could it be that Microsoft and Apple generally don't advertize much in Audiophile publications?
Just a guess. ;-)
traces on the mother boards, power supplies, etc etc, on this JUNK....
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
No, if they are trying to "distance" computers from streamers/file players. which is total speculation, it is probably because their writers have not a clue of how to set up a computer for audio playback correctly.
You have Art Dudley reviewing 5 figure DACs and just last year he was using iTunes, had no high resolution files, and was using a printer cable into his DAC.
VERY interesting point. Never thought about it though you are also probably seeing a lot of ARM or Atom processors with a Linux derivative driving them such as phones and tablets.
PeterZ
Follow the money! ;-)
I think Abe got it right when he stated that regardless of the computer or OS, a decent DAC's overall sonic character will be heard across all transports.OSX and Windows do sound a little different from each other. Tweaking both operating systems can improve the sound. But remember, we are a hobby of small differences. Small differences to an average listener are big differences to us. I believe Robert Harley wrote an editorial in The Absolute Sound about this.
I also believe that one's system and taste will also influence what OS sounds best to a listener. I run both OSX and Windows on the same computer, and in my setup, I prefer Windows 8.1 64 with Fidelizer Pro 6.2. But OSX Yosemite with Audirvana Plus 2.X is not far behind.
Edits: 12/12/14 12/12/14
"Small differences to an average listener are big differences to us.."
And there is where it has all gone wrong. Different is not better. Listening for differences is the ultimate hell. You can't possible do that and listen to music.
I couldn't agree more.
Most of the small differences that I hear are minute compared to changes that I make to the recordings that I restore and remaster. In many cases these small differences are unrelated to realism or artistic merit. Sometimes they are differences in distortion and it's clear that both versions are unsatisfactory.
Worrying about these differences as a consumer strikes me as beyond idiotic. Some of these differences might matter to equipment designers or recording engineers, since the time spent chasing after small improvements can be amortized over multiple units. A consumer will better served by saving his money to buy more and better recordings and saving his time to listen to these recordings.
Of course it is possible that people are hearing bigger differences than I am. Perhaps it's because they worry too much and fiddle with too much equipment rather than taking the time to set up what they have in the most effective possible way.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
What makes easier to get caught in the vicious cycle for CA enthusiasts is that comparisons are relatively easy and fast to do..switching playback software, comparing file formats, and endless other categories..
Where the disc and vinyl based audiophiles can do endless comparisons, they require system shutdowns, and quite a bit of lag time. Comparing cartridges, tone arms, power cords, speakers, tubes, and isolation devices are not instant A/B switches. Most just stop at a certain point.
I still try to make my own field recordings with reasonable gear so I can do just as Alan Shaw of Harbeth does, which have a personal reference. He records his daughters voice to help voice the speakers. Not state of the art, the being familiar with original event offers benefits.
I see. Making recordings accounts for your sanity. You have perspective and you have a real reference. :-)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Sanity? I am not sure.
You should see the looks when I bust out a reel to reel deck with vintage microphones on occasion..I might as well have had a wire recorder as far as anyone under 40 is concerned.
Most of the live recordings that I made were done in analog, typically on a two track Tandberg machine at 7.5 IPS, using a pair of AKG C-451 cardiods. I still have this equipment and used it to transcribe the 1970's vintage recordings to my web site. The piano recordings were pretty close to transparent when played back through a pair of Snell A-IIIs located a few feet from the piano, but only after quite a bit of adjustments to the microphone positions.
As a kid I had a wire recorder. Can you say wow and flutter, especially after passing a knot that had been used to splice a wire break?
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
That is quite a rig...I wish I had a Tandberg..although my dad had one of their receivers..built like a Sherman tank.
I was amazed by this story. Woody Guthrie's daughter received an anonymous package in the mail consisting of a few cans of wire. She had no idea what they were, but it turned out to be the only known recording of Woody in front of an audience. The found the equipment needed to master it and it was released. She said it was a method of recording used in the 40's for just a few years before tape became the standard.
I got the Tanberg tape recorder for $200 second hand in 1975. The microphones were about $100 each. To put matters in perspective, my wife gave two recitals in Jordan Hall. The NEC recording department made these recordings of these concerts using the Ampex machine in the Jordan Hall recording booth. (I was familiar with this booth, at least as it was a decade earlier.) I still have the bill for each recording session, about $80 per concert, including tape all spooled onto 7 inch reels with leader tape between pieces.
A bit of history... I used to record/broadcast lectures in Jordan Hall at the "Ford Hall Forum" when I was in college in the 1960s. (One of these was given by Ayn Rand. Quite the bunch of groupies after this event.) I once made a live recording of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from Sanders Theater. This was just a matter of turning on the equipment and checking it out and pressing PLAY. The levels had already been determined during the rehearsal earlier in the day. (With a 2 dB allowance for the musicians playing louder in front of an audience.). Other recording sessions that my buddies and I did involved Bob Dylan, Doc Watson, Malcolm X and Benny Goodman. It was in the course of this work that I learned the difference between live microphone feeds (the reference) and everything else. The college radio station at the time was mono, so FM broadcast was at least decent quality. However, even then the difference between the signal up the cable to the transmitter vs. that back through the monitor was dramatic. Even full track 15 IPS Ampex 350 tape recorders were obviously not transparent to live microphone feeds. In those days we were using KLH 6 speakers for studio monitors.
At WHRB in those days there were two groups, the "techies" who built and maintained the equipment and the "control men" who ran the equipment, recording live concerts and doing broadcasts, live or pre-recorded. I was one of the "control men". We considered many of the techies to be sub human. Our basis for this was their obvious deafness. We were responsible for the quality of the broadcast sound and sometimes the equipment malfunctioned. Our job was to detect this and switch to working gear and then arrange to get the defective gear repaired or replaced by the techies. The usual problem was cartridges and needles used to play LPs. On more than one occasion we would summon a techie and complain that a cartridge was distorting playback. The techie would listen and say, "Sounds OK to me.". This is why we concluded that many of these people were sub human. When we ran into these problems we would solve them by deliberately destroying the defective cartridge, so that even a deaf "techie" could hear that there was a problem.
In these early 1960's days the equipment was mono and tube based. The electronics sounded good. Later after the studios moved, a new bunch of techies designed solid state equipment based on discrete op-amp circuits. Fortunately, I had graduated before this and subsequent sonic debacles. I'm sure that all of this new equipment sounded entirely "OK". That was the problem... I identify today's "objectivists" with the deaf techies from this earlier era. Their attitudes remain, even if their slide rules and pocket protectors are gone.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"I got the Tanberg tape recorder for $200 second hand in 1975."
The Tandberg had good sound quality but the old joystick transport were sometimes finicky. The newer 3 motor 9000x was nice though. Liked the sound of the Tandbergs better than the B77 or the Crowns of the era. Could not afford the Crowns or the Revox as a teenager but a friend had both and also three Tandbergs. I owned a Pioneer RT-701 which sounded pretty good also.
What a great post. Brings back memories. I guess I get my love of recording and tape from my dad. He bought Revoxes in the mid 60s and recorded everything he could from radio broadcasts and he would haul it around and record anything, even lectures.
Do you still have that BSO recording? Did you archive to digital?
I think you make some very interesting points concerning mic feeds and the distortions that can occur going downstream.
I love reading about recording technology from that period.
No, the ultimate hell is posting about it on an internet chat board.
The MacBook Pro can sound vey good compared to the network players. Just a few tweaks :)
Haha. There we go...LOL.
.
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