If your ear is good enough to hear the difference between 1% and anything less, you should start a blog.
If your ear is good enough to hear the difference between 1% and anything less, you should start a blog.
That makes me think of the $400 wooden "Hi-fi" volume knob.
Seriously, if you have super-human hearing, sure.... But for the 99.999999999999% of the rest of us....
Considering the bulk of my listening stock is hardcore/hate music....a lot of the elitist "hi-fi" is lost on me. My system is more aimed at home theater anyway.
That being said, I just got a Yamaha RX-A760 a couple weeks ago, from a local brick and mortar (was more surprised there is still ONE to be found anywhere). Left the house, bought it, returned, and got it swapped out with the old one, all before she got back from the grocery store.
She didn't notice it's a different receiver.
Indeed.
http://gizmodo.com/363154/audiophile...-a-coat-hanger
If it sounds better to you that's great, but the best ears in the most controlled environments can maybe reliably detect 1% vs. 2%, but 1% vs. .1%? Nope. We're just not that good.Further, when music was played through the coat hanger wire, we were asked if what we heard sounded good to us. All agreed that what was heard sounded excellent, however, when A-B tests occured, it was impossible to determine which sounded best the majority of the time and which wire was in use.
Amplifier distortion figures are for dick waving on the internet; most people will struggle to hear 1% THD in a lab, with a test signal. With actual music? Not a chance. I seem to recall 5% or maybe 10% before it could be heard in music.
However suppose for a minute it's a real thing. Well the bad news is that your speakers are introducing at least an order of magnitude more distortion into the final output. It's like trying to eek out the last 20 bhp out of a top fuel dragster shod with crossplys on the rear - it's not the bottleneck.
Forget the speakers - the room is the weak link!Originally Posted by Mr Wonder
I just learned that there are new Dolby Atmos and DTS-X sound processing technologies. Does anyone have any experience in them yet? I'm wondering if they will catch on. It sounds intriguing. Instead of surround sound on a strictly horizontal plane. They are adding height, to make it truly surround you in 3D.
Atmos actually uses more speakers to direct sound from above, either with speakers in/on the ceiling, or bouncing the sound upwards. While DTS-X does it through processing power, using your existing speakers.
I'm not sure how good DTS-X would be compared to Atmos. Part of the draw to me, would be to take some of the sound elements out of the main speakers and use them in the new overhead speakers. I don't see how they can direct an explosion on the right, and a chopper flying overhead-right, from the same speaker.
[edit: Gah!!! Stupid big picture]DTS:X has no official requirements for the number of speakers or their locations in your room. Simply arrange your speaker system to best fit your space. Then let the receiver’s auto-calibration and object-based surround processor sort out the details. It will determine where to best send dialogue and sound effects.
DTS:X also lets you manually adjust sound objects. You can boost hard-to-hear dialogue above other sounds in your center channel. That’s a big plus over simply turning up the center channel volume.
I see more applications for DTS-X that Atmos. I think Atmos is the more theater-esque technology, but most people I know have six speaker systems and haven't even moved to nine... now they're being asked to move to 11-14? I don't see it happening.
Being in an apartment, the added shit on the new receiver is lost. I need a house. I miss watching movies at proper theater volume and earthquake levels.
Heh. Just saw this too. Good timing.
Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that Dolby Atmos surround sound support was coming to the Xbox One -- but only for Blu-ray playback, and only for those enrolled in the console's preview program. Today, though, the company says that it'll soon offer full Dolby Atmos support for games on both the Xbox One and in Windows 10.
I still only have a 5.1 system that I was always happy with and which is now almost never used.
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