http://www.stereophile.com/news/050905debate/ (http://www.stereophile.com/news/050905debate/)
Just want to thank Arny for this. You saved me over $1000 on the anthem receiver I was going to buy. After listening to the debate I decided to stick with my 1978 vintage Sony separate tuner/amp and spend a few dollars on used paradigm atoms. After dialing the bass knob -8 (why do they port bookshelf speakers ugh) I'm immersed in affordable HiFi sound as opposed to overpriced placebo. This should be required listening for every new user. Using the vu meters on said amp, I discovered it takes less than 1 watt of power to fill my small living room with sound...any cheap avr can do that. All that's left is tuning the subwoofer to deliver those deepest freqs the atoms cannot. While I'm sure Mr Atkinson is an intelligent individual he failed on the most important aspect. He claimed that short tests of unknown music makes it difficult to produce anything but a null result. Fine. Offer up abx testing using your favorite music. Something he refuses to do. Thank you again, Arny, you saved me a lot of money.
Somewhere, in an alternate universe, let's call it "the stereophile forums", there is surely a post exactly like this, thanking Mr Atkinson for his advice and viewpoints.
Oh, does your subwoofer's volume knob go to 0? I have no love for subwoofers because the ones I've experienced all deliver far too much bass, even with their dials at the minimum level-- when they have a dial at all. I don't need my cups quakin' in my cubboard, thank you very much.
Somewhere, in an alternate universe, let's call it "the stereophile forums", there is surely a post exactly like this, thanking Mr Atkinson for his advice and viewpoints.
I think I've seen that post thanking John for his advice several times.
Of course the part about money saved, not so much! ;-)
BTW I would be more pleased if money saved on senseless upgrades to electronics were redirected to loudspeakers or room acoustics, where the cost benefit ratio can be very impressive. ;-)
Somewhere, in an alternate universe, let's call it "the stereophile forums", there is surely a post exactly like this, thanking Mr Atkinson for his advice and viewpoints.
Oh, does your subwoofer's volume knob go to 0? I have no love for subwoofers because the ones I've experienced all deliver far too much bass, even with their dials at the minimum level-- when they have a dial at all. I don't need my cups quakin' in my cubboard, thank you very much.
Well I quickly browsed those forums, and had to leave once I ran into the article about AC cord 'sound signatures'. Now, unless I am wrong about this, and I trust others more knowledgeable to correct me, don't the transformers inside the amps power supply convert AC to nice neat stairstepped DC power? Or are those current transformers subject to 'transistor jitter' XD. As far as the subwoofer, I tend to cross them over at 60hz or less to avoid boominess and standing waves, and definately avoid those without gain control.
The debate was interesting. I was especially interested when Arny was talking about his website and the samples that could be used to train your ears, though.
I really can't ABX at all, even with supposed 'killer samples'. Unfortunately, the website seems to be gone
The debate was interesting. I was especially interested when Arny was talking about his website and the samples that could be used to train your ears, though.
I really can't ABX at all, even with supposed 'killer samples'. Unfortunately, the website seems to be gone
Arny?
And as far as abx'ing killer samples, I'm in your boat too. I tried 'lead voice', and was able to get up to lame -v3, at -v2, no way, and I had to really crank it up and drive my ears batty to hear the distortions. Apparently it's obvious to other people even at -v0 or -b320 *shrug*. But I never use killer samples to determine my encoding needs, I don't listen at the volumes I had to use, nor do I listen to anything remotely that irritating. I just pick random tracks from my own library, line up multiple encodings at various settings and keep going up until it's not blatantly obvious.
I decided to stick with my 1978 vintage Sony separate tuner/amp and spend a few dollars on used paradigm atoms.
And maybe add some more dollars for a soldering iron and some new capacitors...
After dialing the bass knob -8
Protip: Place the speakers are atleast 6' from the wall and corners
I was especially interested when Arny was talking about his website and the samples that could be used to train your ears, though.
I really can't ABX at all, even with supposed 'killer samples'. Unfortunately, the website seems to be gone :(
The Wayback Machine at archive.org (http://archive.org) is how I went back to look at it:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://pcavtech.com/ (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://pcavtech.com/)
That interview was on 9th May 2005, IIRC, so this version would have been fairly current at the time:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050509083050/...w.pcavtech.com/ (http://web.archive.org/web/20050509083050/http://www.pcavtech.com/)
The Training Room page didn't seem to come up on that date so I jumped forward to the December 2005 version:
http://web.archive.org/web/20051219053422/...ining/index.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20051219053422/http://www.pcabx.com/training/index.htm)
Hey thanks! Gonna grab those test files before they disappear again!
Oh yeah! Thanks a lot, Dynamic!
That website recalled my memories in rec.audio.pro...