Audiophilia

[Overcast]

So as of recently I've begun to think I have something akin to an addiction or a sick fetish. When I was 13 I first heard the brand name Sennheiser which my old drama teacher said we needed if we wanted microphones that didn't suck ass. Which sought me to search out the high quality devices they made, I only found a large quantity of things I'd never afford. Or so I figured. Then I grew up.

Last year I started making my own paycheck, and the first major gift I offered myslef was a pair of relatively affordable Sennheiser headphones. It was like listening to all my music for the first time, so many details had escaped me in the lack of quality and the clarity created a physical exhilaration in my mind. I grew amused and began to invest in headphones, low profile earbuds like the Yuin PK2's, no audio seal so good for public listening without losing track of reality and still cheap enough to replace. A pair of SHURE SRH440's for dragging around the world with my laptop. High quality, hardy and affordable just in case. A headphone amp to increase fidelity on low gain devices like my cell. SOUNDS. I could not live without quality noise.

These days I'm not lying when I say that sex is a dissapointment compared to The Glitch Mob's Between Two Points on a well made pair of phones. The physical reaction from my body and mind far more supreme then anything short of a perfect climax. I feel truly happy when fully immersed in music.

Am I alone in this?

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Definitely not. I know some people who are absolutely in love with high quality sounds and listen to FLAC only on expensive hi-fi headphones.

I myself am totally fine with 320kbps mp3s and my AKG headphones which fit on my head so nicely.

Having a better set of headphones definitely enhances the experience of listening to music, though. My aforementioned AKGs are the closest thing to a hi-fi pair of headsphones I ever had and they really made me enjoy various artists, like Venetian Snares.

[Overcast]

Oh, what kind of AKG's are they? Also, I'd probably have a much more rediculous pair, maybe with a DAC, a preamp, a primary amp, and a computer full of FLAC if I wasn't so mobile these days. It is definitely something I'll have to save till I have my own place where they can sit in the relative saftey of my computer room. Also I only know a bare few mobile media devices that can play lossless files like that, typically made for the audiophile crowd as well and also terribly expensive. It is quite the hobby, and half of it is figuring out where quality ends and snobbery begins. xB

[A Zarkin' Frood]

I'm using AKG K512, which are their cheapest, I think. They aren't true hi-fi headphones I've been told, but they sound good enough for me, perhaps because I never had the pleasure to go on an audio wankery with a real hifi thing on my head. The main reason I'd prefer them over other brands is that they fit on my head without hurting my ears.

[Seil]

Me dad's in the same boat, but he's going the BOSE route. Personally, I think y'all are nuts.

[synkr0nized]

I am all for being an audio snob, but to compare it to climax is pretty silly.

[Overcast]

I'm using AKG K512, which are their cheapest, I think. They aren't true hi-fi headphones I've been told, but they sound good enough for me, perhaps because I never had the pleasure to go on an audio wankery with a real hifi thing on my head. The main reason I'd prefer them over other brands is that they fit on my head without hurting my ears.

Yeah AKG doesn't really enter that whole hifi thing until you hit about a buck fifty. I think my favorite I've had so far that were cheap enough that I didn't have to stare longingly at my bank account like that one scene from Air Bud was pair Beyerdynamics. I forget which type though. But I scored a deal at like 50 bucks.

Me dad's in the same boat, but he's going the BOSE route. Personally, I think y'all are nuts.

Seil tell your dad BOSE are crap and for the money he is spending there are much better headphones out there. Both BOSE and Dre's Beats are a fun measure in hype over quality, while they are not terrible by any means they are certainly nowhere near as good as they could be for the price. And BOSE doesn't even have the style to make up for it.

I am all for being an audio snob, but to compare it to climax is pretty silly.

Silly but true in my case. I remember my first sexual experience as a drab disappointment and every one since then a practice in trying to make it better than the last one in the hopes that eventually it will become as fun as every creep I listened to growing up made it out to be. But honestly I felt a great deal more feedback in my body and mind in music than nearly every sexual experience that I didn't do all by myself.

[DarkDrgon]

hahaha, you kids and your mp3s and headphones. you want real quality music, get yourself a good record player and some vinyl. you will not be disappointed

EDIT: Oh god I don't know if I sound more like a hipster or an old man. Eh, screw it. time for some more Cash, then maybe a dip in the moder with sleepless nights

[Overcast]

Bah, you old audiophiles are always trying to make me convert to analog. But do you know how hard it is to get a good quality vinyl record of everything that you want to listen to? I won't disagree that there are far less hoops to jump through in order to get some high quality noise, but digital media is abundant as hell and sometimes a fairly underground recording will never make it to vinyl. I may have a collection some day, but I'll have to wait for someplace to keep them.

[Pip Boy]

I think Im with Synk on this one. If you've heard music and you've had sex, and you prefer the music, then you might not have been doing the sex right.

[Overcast]

I don't just hear it anymore, with certain songs I feel it. If you don't really get what I mean by that then I couldn't imagine that you'd understand why I place it above sex.

[Nique]

hahaha, you kids and your mp3s and headphones. you want real quality music, get yourself a good record player and some vinyl. you will not be disappointed

Don't vinyls by their very nature have a lower sound quality then digital media? Someone please explain.

[Overcast]

Here we go.

Audio quality for an audiophile is primarily based on the reproduction of hearing the music live, naturally. The two primary means of hitting this is through a digital or an analog recording. Analog being vinyl and digital being file. When creating an analog recording you are simply attempting to convert the air pressure caused by sounds into an analog signal, an AC voltage which is then converted into the varying degrees on the medium. This can be either grooves in a record or the magnetization of a tape, the medium is read by a player recreating the voltage to create the sound on the speaker. Digital sound is similar but without the medium, an analog voltage is collected and converted to binary, before converting back into analog to be used in the speaker.

For the sake of both the initial sound quality will be decided by the artists. High quality recording devices, will create the initial analog signal which will either be applied to the master copy for the vinyl record or the analog to digital converter that will hopefully have a high frequency sample rate. After this the master copies will be multiplied into mass quantity, for the sake of vinyl devices there is only one level of quality and it is usually fairly high, but not without its natural flaws. A digital copy on the other hand is typically compressed to conserve space, which can cause some loss, hence why most audiophiles are addicted to lossless formats. Then finally they will be applied to the devices you use to listen, audiophiles attach themselves to high quality speaker systems or headphones so they can fully take advantage of the quality of the audio they are using and hear EVERYTHING.

SO! No, vinyl is not intrinsically lower quality than digital. They are just about equal with their own degrees of personality.

[PyrosNine]

Vinyls apparently have a "hum" thing going on by their very nature of vinyls, that apparently proves pleasing when put on top of the recording, thus the listener perceives that the music has a "fuller" sound. The reason why they can't stand digital and CD music is because it lacks that "hum", even when the CD/digitial sound is 1:1 the recorded sound. There was a science of sound thing that explains it all.

Rant begins here
On the subject of Audiophilia, I have nothing but HATE for the idea! Nothing personal, but being half deaf means that buying new, better headphones does absolutely nothing for me! Especially since the point of headphones is to split the audio stream into two: one for the left and right ears. And my right ear does not work, so I'm missing 50% of the sound. Sometimes this just means I miss a few separated rhythms, sometimes this means I miss the insane guitar riffs that match the vocals, and sometimes this means I miss the vocals themselves, and have to flip ear pieces!

Surround sound is just a creation of the world, just to FUCK with me, as my friend shows me his room and his surround sound, High Definition, Heavy bass, and plays some of his music, and says "Man, isn't this awesome?" and I can't tell any difference other than thanks to the Bass, the floor and my lungs are vibrating!

So when I hear people talk about how great a sound is, how perfect it is to have $500 headphones made custom in France or some shit, how just SEXWORTHY the noise is going between the headphones and their two FULLY FUNCTIONAL ears, it makes my teeth grind! Imagine, if you will, standing next to a person who has been in a wheelchair all their life, and then talking about how much you love walking in the exact same terms as your Audiophilia.

"When I wear my pathmaster elites, I just feel those nice, warm feelings of feet meeting the ground with every step! Let me tell you friend, when I go for a short walk around the neighborhood, I am not exaggerating when I say it is better than sex! Ha ha! Quite!"

/rant.

[Overcast]

Indeed, my love of headphones seems like a big old handful of salt when I'm talking to people like yourself or the painfully deaf Mernarker. Though I think if you were to be all audiophilic that you'd probably live in speakerland with my brother. No surround sound, just one big ass high definition speaker connected to a preamp and an amp with another amp and subwoofer for the songs that need one that pumps out the full range of the noise with none of that ear discrimination that my headphones got. But then again that could be like me saying to someone who doesn't have legs that they could always get those awesome hook legs that some people consider an unfair advantage at track events. Still there are answers to it, but most of them attract the police if you aren't careful. >>

[synkr0nized]

Audio quality for an audiophile is primarily based on the reproduction of hearing the music live, naturally.

I disagree with this. Some things as recorded in studios are of better quality. In fact, quality is the name of the game for me.

But perhaps I am assuming a different definition [or even word] than you.


And I'm going to continue beating a dead horse and note that if enveloping yourself in the full immersion of the music is honestly a greater experience than the one thing our bodies are wired to enjoy the most that must kind of suck. ;)


In any case, I've annoyed people along this topic by pointing out poor audio balance, tinny sounds, lack of range, etc. in their sound systems in cars and at home. I cringe when someone speaks proudly of their five dollar desktop speakers.

[Overcast]

Indeed we are talking about it differently. What I meant is exactly as it sounded when it was made, not like being in the middle of a sweat crowd while the sun is beating down on your head and you know that last speaker just blew and nothing is going right. That kind of live.

And I'm not saying every incarnation of sex. Just bad sex. Good music is better than bad-mediocre sex.

And yeah I have too, luckily this is a hobby my brother takes seriously as well and as such he has infected it in his friends. I hardly ever have a chance these days.

[Krylo]

I'm disabled, wah wah wah

Shhh. The fully functional human beings are talking about ear sex.

[Aldurin]

I have something similar to this thread topic where I can't get enough of certain well-made BGM's (refer to the hand-held Sonic games, specifically SA3). I mean I have listened the shit out of the tracks from the Chaos Angel zone twice over, and then I have other ones like the final boss music of Mario and Luigi: Bowser's inside story, two tracks from Resident Evil 5 (the final Majini track and the battle against Jill), and other stuff I can't remember off the top of my head.

[Amake]

I see no reason to compare music against sex when you can have both at the same time. Wondrously, painfully, exquisitely slow music and sex at the same time for preference. If you ask me.

Don't ask me about sound quality though. I once lost a bet where on one hand there was a quality sound system playing a song recorded in some kind of outlandish 1 400 or possibly even 14 000 kbps format, and on the other a vinyl record recorded on home video and played on Youtube through a pair of five dollar speakers, and I failed to guess which was which.

[Overcast]

My mind cannot wrap around how that is possible unless that song was just awful. But I do remember trying to match my most orgasmic song at the time(I believe it was Evil Bee) to something like that. And then we found out we didn't like the same music, and APPARENTLY listening to headphones ina blindfold while fucking is weird.

[Seil]

Seil tell your dad BOSE are crap and for the money he is spending there are much better headphones out there. Both BOSE and Dre's Beats are a fun measure in hype over quality, while they are not terrible by any means they are certainly nowhere near as good as they could be for the price. And BOSE doesn't even have the style to make up for it.

Speakers, man, speakers. Stereo speakers.

[Overcast]

Those are terrible as well for the same reasons. =D

[CelesJessa]

I cringe when someone speaks proudly of their five dollar desktop speakers.

I can't stop looking at the speakers in front of me right now that are held together through the power of tape.

I like music but I have no money and I'm stingy. $6 headphones work just fine for me besides, listening to music in headphones are for people who don't like to sing along to their music when nobody is around.

[Overcast]

In that you are wrong CJ, I love singing along!

[CelesJessa]

Singing along while you have headphones in are for people who like to be given funny looks.

[Overcast]

Only if I'm singing it's raining men or I feel like a woman.

[Fifthfiend]

These days I'm not lying when I say that sex is a dissapointment compared to The Glitch Mob's Between Two Points on a well made pair of phones. The physical reaction from my body and mind far more supreme then anything short of a perfect climax.

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt148/fifthfiend/reactions/a6015fe2782e98e012bcd5b07b76dbc1d68.gif

[Overcast]

Was good seeing you too, sexual chocolate.

[Krylo]

Only if I'm singing it's raining men or I feel like a woman.

Which is all the time.

[synkr0nized]

I can't stop looking at the speakers in front of me right now that are held together through the power of tape.

Uh oh.
At least you have some kind of headphones. I know people who blast music out of laptop speakers like they're a home theatre system.

[Overcast]

Yeah, though the influx of small speakers pumping big sound is really starting to bud these days. I think my favorites are from Harbeth, but I've only really heard them in stores since they are expensive enough that buying one is a life decision. Typically one you do when you are blowing your tax return check.

[Aldurin]

Uh oh.
At least you have some kind of headphones. I know people who blast music out of laptop speakers like they're a home theatre system.

I thought there was supposed to be some kind of safeguard to prevent that level of ignorance.

[Krylo]

I thought there was supposed to be some kind of safeguard to prevent that level of ignorance.

The safeguard is the shitty sound quality.

[akaSM]

I have a pair of Sony EX-90 something something, I don't think they're bad. Also, my laptop speakers don't seem that bad >_>.

[Overcast]

Everything you own is terrible. I know, I'm an expert. Nah I kid, but when shopping for Sony headphones remember the following mnemonic, "Sony is good at MURDER." This is to point you toward their MDR line, pretty good stuff in there.

[Mondt]

These days I'm not lying when I say that sex is a dissapointment compared to The Glitch Mob's Between Two Points on a well made pair of phones. The physical reaction from my body and mind far more supreme then anything short of a perfect climax. I feel truly happy when fully immersed in music.So, I haven't been around these parts of the internet in a while, but I was just derpin' around...

And I only recently decided that Between Two Points is basically my favorite chilled out song. That thing can take you places. Add on Drive It Like You Stole It a few minutes later and woah. ...woah.

Anyway, I am currently sitting on some $80ish Bose. I know Bose are all jacked up in price blah blah pay for name buy sennheisers, but it was a gift. I've been looking into other headphones. Some stuff I read said open ear headphones end up with better quality, but I kind of like the feeling of being immersed in the music that closed ear headphones give. I know pretty much fuck all about optimal listening experience as I am only an entry level audiophile (what's the difference between high quality mp3s and FLAC? Nothing to me!), but I do enjoy learning about things. :D

[Overcast]

Well open ear headphones do have better quality, but they kinda force you to share your music with EVERYONE ELSE. Which I feel like is rude, and kinda eliminates the idea of headphones altogether. Even worse they can bring noise outside to you. But yeah I did own the same BOSE you have at one point, I know because all I needed to hear was $80 BOSE and remember thinking, "Well those are $80, my last Senns were that expensive, must be pretty good." That was about when I learned the bad news.

Closed headphones, as a whole are my favorite. With a properly made pair you get a damn near perfect seal that keeps your music to you and the world out.
And while there are some alright noise reduction headphones with hear-thru technology, none will ever be on par in quality to non-noise reduction phones of equal price. THOUGH they aren't really good for going out in public, being completely separated from reality can be a bit bad for your health in any place with traffic.

Me, I use my Yuin PK2s for that. Yuin pretty much makes the only good earbuds. Since they go in the ear they don't really share your music like earpads or open phones, they are open though so you can hear the rest of the world, and they look cheap as hell so that you don't attract muggers(shutup, Chicago can be pretty ghetto sometimes). =D