Home Theater/Personal audio thread...

[thomasmryan]

the little combo sounds pretty good in the brz. i tried it today and have some new respect for the stock system. i tried dsd files and a few .wav files. lots of buttons for filters, converters and a cool eq with 16k possible frequencies.



i listen to mostly rock with a few female vocalists thrown in. from norah jones on piano to tool. i like tight bass and the sustain of a piano. sarah mclachlan and natalie merchant are frequently played. theres the odd stuff like floyd, talking heads, yes, radiohead, donald ***en, amy winehouse and the normal rock; stones, tom petty, supertramp, rage, pretenders.... mostly 2 channel but some 5.1 in various media

[Vracer111]

My experience as well with the base stock system in my FR-S... good portable player connected to the aux-in and sounds REALLY good. Only problem with my FR-S was the loud noise-floor at speed, was simply unlistenable... but stopped/parked sounded really good. My Nissan Frontier system is even better and has much lower noise-floor level, but still not quite good enough at highway speed. Need to do some sound damping and get it Lexus level quiet...

[thomasmryan]

dead silence is a beautiful thing.

[Hypnocracy]

Originally Posted by thomasmryan

great thread.


just picked up an oppo ha-2se and the first version of the onkyo dp-x1 to playback dsd files.

both have balanced outputs and i am unfamiliar with the advantages as i have only used normal headphones/earphones.

A balanced electrical signal runs along three wires: a ground, a positive leg, and a negative leg. Both legs carry the same signal but in opposite polarity to each other. ... Unbalanced cables are less complicated, but they're much more susceptible to noise problems.

[thomasmryan]

thanks, unknown.


the oppo pm-2s arrived on friday....super nice and on par with the new portable devices. mo better on the 105 but i haven't tried the big amp. the neighborhood will get some relief but no promises on the servo sub staying off for long.






i dabbled into pulling and converting a few dvd-audio files to wav files with foobar. i was quite surprised to find rar zipped files but most had 2 channel in 24 bit. the surround files have a leslie effect even when downmixed.


the little onkyo can convert wav to dsd for the oppo headphone amp. sucks the battery dry like a champ but the sound is silky. you can even detect the anger in rachel yamagata's voice. lol



still looking at cables to run balanced mode. my confusion of the term 'balanced' stems from the tied grounds in an xlr cable and the inversion to eliminate noise. imho, balanced as it pertains to cans is analogous to playing tug-of-war with a stick instead of a rope. there is no floating ground on the headphone wires, just the shield so i couldn't visualize where the errant noise signal could dissipate.



a couple sisters from hornytown used to come into the shop when i worked downtown. they where quite the hoot.

[Hypnocracy]

Originally Posted by thomasmryan

thanks, unknown....

a couple sisters from hornytown used to come into the shop when i worked downtown. they where quite the hoot.

Sweet...I have relatives from East Ridge Tennessee...spent some time in Soddy Daisy too...

This is a good read on balanced vs unbalanced...

https://audiouniversityonline.com/ba...lanced-cables/

I feel that for short distances at the typical home unbalanced is fine...is Balanced better? Absolutely...especially for when you are being paid and want to be sure the sound reproduced or recorded is as intended.

[MuseChaser]

Originally Posted by Hypnocracy

Sweet...I have relatives from East Ridge Tennessee...spent some time in Soddy Daisy too...

This is a good read on balanced vs unbalanced...

https://audiouniversityonline.com/ba...lanced-cables/

I feel that for short distances at the typical home unbalanced is fine...is Balanced better? Absolutely...especially for when you are being paid and want to be sure the sound reproduced or recorded is as intended.

There are tradeoffs. For long runs of low-level signal, i.e., microphone feeds, or in areas with the potential for a lot of external noise generation, balanced lines are much preferred. Having said that, balanced lines also require the addition of a transformer in the line (internal in the equipment, although external transformers are available when one needs to match balanced signals with equipment that requires unbalanced inputs). The addition of a transformer CAN influence the sound. One of my go-to mic pres in my recordinf gear is a Great River with both balanced and unbalanced mic inputs. For acoustic music where the utmost in fidelity (air, clarity, soundstage, imaging,,,whatever buzzwords you wanna use) is desired, the unbalanced inputs really shine. The balanced inputs work great and still sound very good, but tend to work better with consistently loud inputs and music that lends itself to compression and processing. I'd describe the sound as "chunkier."

So, I would not agree that balanced "is better." In high noise environments or long runs, yes. When you don't need balanced connections for those reasons, unbalanced has the advantage of less unnecessary stuff in the signal path. Just my experience.

[Hypnocracy]

Being an old deadhead taper...I have a Sound Devices MP2 (branded as a Shure FP2) external mic pre...love the Lundal transformers for long mic cable runs and have the attenuators needed when all that gain is not required...and a AETA 4MinX all in one mixer/recorder with four channels of the finest analog preamps (it has two channels of digital preamps if you have digital microphones too) to be found on a portable battery powered device...Those are used with MicroTech Gefell M200/M210 and Milab VM44 Phantom powered microphones...all balanced inputs

I have Unbalanced 9v PIP preamps for lower end electret AudioTechnica AT853 microphones running into handheld recorders.

I’ve made really nice recordings with both...one costs approximately ten times as the other...can I say one setup sounds better...absolutely...but not ten times better.

[thomasmryan]

i ordered a 'balanced' headphone cable for my headphones from periaptcables. it really tightens things up on the lower end.



https://periaptcables.com/

[JD001]

Originally Posted by thomasmryan

i ordered a 'balanced' headphone cable for my headphones from periaptcables. it really tightens things up on the lower end.



https://periaptcables.com/

I haven't tried the balance set-up.. I have a pair of IE Shures that I connect through a portable amp to my phone etc.. Good sound when on the move.

[thomasmryan]

i couldn't stand my own curiosity of what the difference would be and the periapt cables seemed like a good value.



the portable onkyo player has a 11 band eq to fix the 'darkness' of the oppo pm-2s but foobar lets you eq (31 bands) to record/convert both l/r channels if you rip blurays or dvd-a. (mkv and vlc programs are quite handy).



lot's of play time for norah jones, natalie merchant, sarah mclachlan and sheryl crows globe session scad.

[cjd]

Originally Posted by thomasmryan

i ordered a 'balanced' headphone cable for my headphones from periaptcables. it really tightens things up on the lower end.



https://periaptcables.com/

Could be difference in amp output stage or even cable impedance.