Several concerned FM have warned @Decadent_Spectre of the dangers of such loud listening levels.
He can still read well
Anyways, do take care
(i didn't go 'there' at all, whatever that means. now that out of the way...)
Absolutely! And let’s not forget other significant variables like synergy between components in the audio chain, the quality of the recording used to evaluate, room acoustics, our hearing ability and listening capabilities all of which are difficult to define, standardise and measure.
its not that incredible. If you use Z weighted measurement and have speakers that can produce substantial output in excess of 110db below 20hz in room, measurements will easily come in excess of 110db primarily due to the bass response without being too excessive on the ears.
Since you asked an open ended question (perhaps rhetorical but i choose to believe it to be the former), I do care! Whether you care about me caring is another matterSo, is it the DAC that’s the X factor here, or is it that bits don’t matter? Well, here’s a better question - who cares?!? As long as you’re listening to the music, and not your system, all will be well with the world
. I'm also happy to report that all is well (in my world) notwithstanding. 
Yes, I did look at the Zen Stream, albeit briefly. To be honest, I’m a simpleton when it comes to digital audio; terms like Roon and DLNA fill me with dread
I felt the streamer would be overkill since I only needed a way to play Apple Music wirelessly. In that respect, the Zen Blue is ridiculously simple to operate; switch on Bluetooth on the iPad, open the Music app and hit play. And, at nearly half the cost of the streamer, the Blue was clearly the Lifebuoy option - sastha, sundar, tikau 100% agree. even then, synergy is still not objective enough for the measurements to capture correct? we still need to understand what these 'objective' variables are which define a perfect synergy (counting the room acoustics out) correct? i feel we are not even there yet. IMHO of course, happy to be corrected.
probably there is a reason why AI is coming at arts/craft/snobbery before anything else. low hanging fruits i suppose (speaking as a snob/self proclaimed artist myself)aah once we do that we could also measure objectively as to which RasMalai is tastier and which mango is better !!
( of course its the Mallika !)
Lots of surprises there. When our assumptions are challenged (Hires always sounds better than MP3, Wired streams are always better sounding the BT and so on, it’s a perplexing revelation. I guess after pondering over these a while and getting no satisfactory answers we come to the “who cares as long as I am enjoying my music”I usually don’t get into these ‘x > y’ debates; life is too short to get stuck with a single music format. 85% of my music listening is via original CDs, 5% is via 320 kbps mp3s downloaded from mp3million and burned to CD-R, the rest is via Apple Music. The latter allows me to check out albums I might want to buy, or create playlists for tracks that I won’t. (Yo Yo Honey Singh is reserved for parties where I’d be stoned for playing jazz!)
Till recently, I was hooking up an iPad to the internal DAC in my Cayin tube amp via USB cable and streaming lossless. Since it was a wired connection, this created two problems:
Which is why I decided to pick up an iFi Zen Blue v2 Bluetooth streamer. Sure, I’d be giving up ‘HiRez’ audio for a paltry 256 kbps file, but I really didn’t care. As long as I was discovering new music, the audio quality didn’t matter.
- Changing tracks involved a long trek to the console from my couch potato location.
- At parties, I’d often experience a cardiac arrest as inebriated friends would hover over my setup, refreshing beverage in one hand, stabbing at the ipad with the other as they searched for their favourite tracks.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the Bluetooth stream sounded better than the iPad directly connected via USB! In the new setup, the iPad is streaming via BT to the iFi, which in turn is connected to a Denafrips Pontus via coaxial. (For some reason, the iPad to Pontus via USB never worked)
So, is it the DAC that’s the X factor here, or is it that bits don’t matter? Well, here’s a better question - who cares?!? As long as you’re listening to the music, and not your system, all will be well with the world
Quite understandable. It took me the better part of a decade trying to wrap my head around the concept of a digital streamer in an era where Intel NUC PC's existed. And it'll probably take me another or two to understand the function/advantage of Roon.Yes, I did look at the Zen Stream, albeit briefly. To be honest, I’m a simpleton when it comes to digital audio; terms like Roon and DLNA fill me with dread
In my limited experience with Roon - 5-6 months odd. There are certain advantages to Roon - for digital media/streaming consumers, specially with a large library of local files. The ability to put it all in one place & not having to run about with multiple softwares/apps etc.Quite understandable. It took me the better part of a decade trying to wrap my head around the concept of a digital streamer in an era where Intel NUC PC's existed. And it'll probably take me another or two to understand the function/advantage of Roon.
I see. That makes sense. On a basic level, i understand that it orqanises the library of local files etc. and provides a single interface to control all roon ready hardware. I used a 3 month trial version of Roon in 2018 which was bundled along with the Chord Mojo. Back then, I found it a bit inconvenient/complicated (can't remember which one) over playing files directly from Apple Music and Spotify. For local files, i was using Windows Media Player in which I had been compiling playlists since 2005 and didn't feel the need an additional interface which had another learning curve. However, as i write this response and try to reason it out, its starting to make more sense
- as my digital sources have grown, there is an element of convenience offered over Plex, which I'm currently using to access local files on my various digital devices. . It seems it made little sense to me earlier as the value proposition vis-a-vis the use case scenario had not presented itself. Thanks Chander.still, compiler error, missing closing paranthesisLots of surprises there. When our assumptions are challenged (Hires always sounds better than MP3, Wired streams are always better sounding the BT and so on, it’s a perplexing revelation. I guess after pondering over these a while and getting no satisfactory answers we come to the “who cares as long as I am enjoying my music”
BTW aac kills anything above 16khz as far as i know (need to google tomorrow). so if you're not sensitive to that you may not hear a difference
Both MP3 and AAC starts killing frequencies above 16 kHz gradually. This can be seen in any spectogram of the music file.
I thought I was the only one who looks into missing brackets, parenthesis, etc. I think people who write programs notice this more often. In fact I must have read that post 2 or 3 times to try locate the closing round brace before giving up.still, compiler error, missing closing paranthesis
yes, but i think aac first does an HPF (correction, LPF) on 16khz on the analog signal and then looks for the compression optimizations, whilst mp3 puts lower weightage on the higher frequencies during encoding. could be wrong though
