Is audiophile equipment all snake oil, or does it really work?
>>110185857I dont see tubes, so No.
>>110185857usecase?
>>110185857That is really cool. Does it also come with a modem?
>>110185857not when using a computer to listen to music, no.thats introducing way too much interference in the chain.a pure chain is just speakers, amplifier, record or CD player. thats it.
>>110185857I definitely hear a difference after swapping from Razer Kraken to DT990 + DAC, however, I do miss the random muffled bass raping my ears sometimes.
>>110185857That specific thing is basically snake oil for the most part.
>>110185857there’s a lot of snake oil and a lot of stuff that sounds better than ~$200 hardware
>>110185958>what is a USB isolator
>>110185958>>110186226Alternately,>what is Toslink / S/PDIF
>>110185857>I throw a fishnet in the ocean. Will it catch one of every fish for me?If you have good hearing, you’ll notice the sound of $20 KOSS KSC75s plugged into a 10 year old MacBook Pro compared to a /g/ approved ThinkPad. If you can’t notice a difference there, the answer to your question is a resounding NO.
>>110185857No, it's not all snake oil but it definitely has the most amount of bullshit out of any hardware based hobby bar none even though it is trivial to measure performance and understand the physics behind sound reproduction. Unfortunately there are still lots of boomers with lots of money that believe in audiophile nonsense and they shell out ungodly amounts of money for it. On the flip side, all the tools and science you could ever need to understand and make your own high fidelity sound reproduction systems are available for free on the internet, so you can spend your money where it matters (transducers and cabinets).
>>110185857Network hub? Like an actual hub, not even a switch? Those things are still in use these days?
>>110185857There are diminishing returns like everything else. I have Topping DX9 it has the best AKM chip and annoyingly sounds the same as SMSL DL100 that is probably the lowest cost device equivalent of DX9. DL100 uses CS43131, a cirrus logic trash compared to the what DX9. What cirrus logic makes is not better than realtek. So, yes you can take CS43131 that cost almost nothing and have easy implementation and put in 2000$ device and slap all audiophile bullshit claims you want, it measure and sound good enough. DACs advanced in the last 10 years so much that you can get endgame DAC at the cost of good mouse. If monitors advance the same rate you will be able to get 2000hz 8k 45 inch monitor for 500$ in 2036, it is this ridiculous.
DACs were a solved thing decades ago. Buy an audio interface if you need to record, a USB DAC if your onboard audio can't drive your headphones etc.
>>110186770>you can get endgame DAC at the cost of good mousean endgame dac is a 5$ chinkshit usb-c dongle, i doubt you can get a good mouse for that price.
>>110185857>emotional impactthat says it all isn't it? it's fucking with your feelings, how you "feel" about it, has nothing to do with reason. it's about the stories they tell, not about the product. humans are deeply retarded like that
>>110185857If it's "improves everything for everyone" then it's snake oil. If it's good for some but not the others it's probably not snake oil. Solve the problems you have directly instead of looking for a vague upgrade. For example if you have no hiss, no hum and it's loud enough then you don't need a DAC/amp, even if it "measures" better or has more flowery reviews. Objective snake oil is also a thing, where a difference can be shown but it doesn't matter.
>>110185857My $120 mp3 player was worth the money because I can just push the skip track or pause buttons in my car without having to look at my phone screen and it holds all my music in a 500gb sd card. There's a line out jack too. Not sure if that counts as audiophile equipment but it does its job well.
Snake oil, "dacs" max out at whatever came with your device (or $5 chinkshit usb dongle) level. The only important aspects of headphones are comfort and noise reduction. Any cable is fine as long as rats havn't chewed through it.
>>110192330>$120are we talking USD?
>>110185857Of course it is. Lol. Music is haram anyway.
>>110192475yeah. it may be more if you don't get it used.
>>110185857You really need to go out of your way to track down music that is recorded and mastered for this kind of gear. Which invalidates like 99% of music.
>>110185857Some does, some doesn't.Good speakers? Makes an enormous difference.High quality DAC and amplifier? You need at least midrange speakers to hear a difference between a fancy DAC and high end amplifier vs the headphone jack in your laptop connected to a self amplified speaker. But it makes a real difference when you have good speakers.Silver plated oxygen free copper wires? "Balanced" differential signaling instead of common ground? Maybe if you're connecting distant equipment together with 50 m of wire. Otherwise not really.Ultra expensive wires, audio pebbles, cable lifters? No difference.Fancy cables for anything that isn't carrying audio like power cords, network cables, network hubs, SATA cables, HDMI wires? Downright stupid. (Noisy power is a thing though, but dumbass $1000 power cables won't fix it, a power conditioner will but only if your power is excessively noisy, else the capacitors in the power circuitry of your equipment will take care of any minor noise.)
>>110185857>Is audiophile equipment all snake oilEven if it isn’t, nobody in the recording studio is thinking about these things as much as audiophiles. Nobody in production is either, which is why the loudness war happened. Audiophilism is a hobby built around the idea of playing music recorded with a level of care that excludes practically all music ever recorded.
>>110192631Musicians don't care because they don't think in terms of sound quality (I mean unless it's really really bad), but in terms of what's being played.
>>110192557>Fancy cables for anything that isn't carrying audio like power cords, network cables, network hubs, SATA cables, HDMI wires?HDMI does carry audio.But a gold plated TOSLINK cables take the crown.
>>110192663People don't understand that digital signals don't need any of that shit. Either they work perfectly, or they randomly cut out or sound garbled. Not some subtle change in high treble details like you might legitimately get from other changes to an audio system.Digital cables can cause ground loops that make analog outputs buzz though, but some fancy cable won't help while running a shitty cheap wire between the units to ground them together will. Or optical. Optical is the true solution to ground loops. Now if only they'd add more modern features like more channels to it.
>>110192631True, everyone who's doing any soundwork these days is still targeting 128 kbps mp3s tier quality for streaming platforms and bluetooth headphones. Working within the framework of these limitations and shaping soundscapes accordingly. I think that DJs that produce their own music like deadmau5 are the real audiophiles left in the biz. Nigga got a real ass doubleganger of the only Dolby Studio in existance set up at home and has a metric ton of metal like rare synths of all varieties. Big DJs have to perform on stadion tier audio set ups like on big electronic festivals like tomorrowland and transitions.
>>110185857It doesn't matter.People want to believe that it's better and there is a market for it.If you care about it, you'll look at un-sponsored reviews and build yourself an opinion.
>>110192647Yeah any small to mid tier life performance is gonna end up sounding kinda shit, depending on the gear and sound technicians. Getting them to record anything is a monumental task for studios and producers. Cuz they barely know jack technical shit. Managers had to tard rangle all those metal bands with cocaine and alcohol fueled recording sessions and try to keep them their ego clashes at bay so they didn't kill themselves or each other.
>>110185954Oh ho ho! So you're inquiring about the premium package? Well, starting at $9999.95, you get..
>>110186239Bloat
>>110186420It is 95% bullshit. Audiophile industry is build upon cope of aging people who are losing their hearing range. They are trying to recapture it. A growing sister industry is build on the same principle, gayming-tier mice and other peripherals. Aging generation X, millennials trying to recapture the reflexes and dexterity of their youth.
>>110185857It doesn't work but I can't be mad at it.Audiophile equipment is more an aesthetic and a way of building shit.More often then not it's much better than mass produced consumer gear and I can appreciate it none the less.Even just a power cable for example. Does it need to be 10 gauge and pure copper wires AND plugs? No but it's nicely made none the less.Do you need an Ethernet switch to be nicely machined out of aluminum with enough isolation to stop God himself striking down and smiting your network? No but it's cool. That shitty realtek chip has also likely never seen such a clean electrical environment. It'll outlast all of us.
>>110185857Audio is like thisyou pay $500/hour for a 910 hookeryou pay $50000/hour same 9/10 hooker with clown makeup
Why does Realtek make a $5K controller is the real question
>>110192557>Good speakers? Makes an enormous difference.Yeah, tho after a certain point you need to do room treatment>>110192631I don't know what I hate more, dynamic compression or faggots shitting up perfectly good music with shitty lo-fi filters because they think they're the next Nujabes
>>110185857>Is audiophile equipment all snake oilMostly yes.
>>110193766The controller is $5.
>>110193955I am blind apparently
The trick is to buy gear oriented toward audio producersIf you want a really clean and pristine DAC (99.9999% of people don't need this and don't have good enough ears to hear the difference, including myself), you buy RME, Apogee, Lavry, Lynx or Mytek.If you want really good speakers, you buy top-of-the-line studio monitors. $10,000 ATC speakers will cost as much as audiophile snake oil, but they will make a real difference, and that's what they use in expensive L.A. recording studios.But I think the vast majority of people who want good audio quality can be satisfied plenty with prosumer gear.If a non-musician asks me for a pair of good headphones to use at home, I tell them DT770 32ohms, they aren't the best and aren't what I use (I prefer Austrian Audio stuff) but they are easily available, solid, have an immersive sound, which is completely fine if you just listen to stuff on Spotify while playing Minecraft, and perhaps the occassional FLAC.Same for speakers, Yamaha HS5/7/8s are good enough for most producers, and you can buy them everywhere.The best way to have a discerning ear is to actually make music yourself. You will notice much more details about stereo image, frequency balance, etc. even on $20 Sony headphones if you have a previous experience in mixing.
>>110194044Thanks grok
>>110192679>Optical is the true solution to ground loops. Now if only they'd add more modern features like more channels to it.ADAT can carry 8 channels of 48khz audio or 4 channels with double the sample rate, and it's 1990s tech.MADI can carry 64 channels of audio over optical. There are also proprietary solutions like Dante which can a huge number of channels over Ethernet.But the thing is, do you work in a studio where they record orchestral works? Because I don't see what would be the use case for a 384-channel MADI interface other than this.
>>110194044Nah all the gear aimed at bedroom producers is too neutral for you average normalnigger. They need their bass boost equalized shit with digital enhancements out the ass.
>>110192894Depends on the PC, honestly. It's genuinely useful if your PC's audio outputs AND USB outputs are both noisy.
>>110185946Good sound.
>>110185857Just buy a used Yamaha rx v361 and a Yamaha eq 70 and call it a day. Spent 86 bucks and it sounds better than my friends $5700 setup tuned by some professional faggot. He gets pissed because everyone comes to chill at my house because my setup bangs so hard. Hifi is a term we use for dumbasses who by expensive shit and have no clue what they are doing.
>>110185958Nigga, i just want to connect my headphones to a network switch. Is it really so much to ask?
>>110185857I don't know. On one hand, I can definitely tell the difference between cheap headphones and nice ones, or between a car with poverty-trim speakers and one with a premium sound system. But I'm not sure how much "cable slugs" or "sound crystals" come into any of that...
>>110185857I went through a very mild case of audiophilia when building/upgrading my HT system from absolute poverty tier.The problem is getting addicted to chasing diminishing returns. My $2k receiver sounds absolutely objectively better than the previous $200 one. But I doubt I'd be able to hear a difference between the $2k and a $20k one. If there even is an objectively measurable difference and improvement above certain price level in that class - which I suspect there isn't. Another part of the problem is getting used to things. I was used to my poverty tier setup. Now I'm used to my high-mid range setup. But if I heard another setup in the same class or one above, I might think it sounds better, while it simply sounds different.So really most audiophiles are idiots with too much money and no impulse control who can't tell objective improvements from preferential changes.
