if anyone wants the best out of their stereo system read here

[remotebandit]

Guys , you know when you just have a CD thats been recorded perfectly , well go get Missy Higgins album .

I had foxtel on b4 and on ch V they had a mini concert by missy higgins and it bloody sounded amazing so i thought for $25.00 ill go buy the CD ( yes i know from system of the down , tool etc to missy higgins ) but it bloody sound sensational sound quality .

Im the type of bloke that can listen to anything if its recorder and broadcast well with a proper sound setup , not a crap stereo . It also goes the other way , put my favourite song on a crap sounding stereo and ill switch it off .

Anyway , my car subbys havnt ever sounded so clean either .

Do yourself a favour and grab it .

Adam .

[justo316]

Mine sounds really good playing Rob Thomas's single strangely....

[remotebandit]

i dont like rob thomas except on the Snatana DVD but ill buy it and give it a go

[justo316]

Actually a lot of songs in particular rock my system....I get a bit pedantic sometimes though and tune it differently depending on the song or genre.

One that my subs cant handle is Chemical Brothers....dunno the song or album. I got it free, it's got an orange cover, has the single with the Verve singer.....anyway, the first song off the album absolutely rocks, but my stereo sounds like it's going to pack up and start crying when I try crank it. It's HUGE.

[BALISTC]

My system sounds good with Notorious B.I.G. pumping ;)

[opAsx]

Violent Work of Art - 10 reasons to hate.

my fave song on a good stereo, followed closely by - NIN March of the pigs.

both have got a lot of punch when up loud and clear sections to really pick up any probs on a stero set-up.

[James]

i love well recorded music no matter what genre it is. My micra has a Clarion DRX-9255 cd/tuner in it. dual 20bit burr brown DAC's, total audiophile, through an audiocontrol active crossover, then to Soundstream Picasso and Class A 5.0 amplifiers (hand made in the USA).. out of MB quart 3-way components with "musicomp" x-overs. current sub setup, two rockford fosgate punch power 6" mids in a wee little ported box.

the sound? astonishing....

actually just gutted the rear of the car out 2nite, re-doing some stuff :) i love good sound..

[JD]

"buy" music? huh... i've never done that before lol

P2P :)

sharing is caring :D

[James]

and you are the reason why music costs what it does today. (not saying i dont participate in these activities myself) but hey.... :)

[remotebandit]

hehe , yeah JD , im a big p2p person myself but if somethings good i always buy the CD as the quality uncompressed in nothing mp3 can match and believe me , ive spent $12,000 on my preamp - power amps and $6,000 on my speakers ( let alone over $3,000 to insulate and deaden the cinema room ) so im extreemly fussy with sound .

I just love to sit in the dark and have music powering out through the valve amps and just appreciating it , if i throw mp3s on that system , its the equivelent to watching tv with rabbit ears instead of DVD .

James , grouse system mate i can appreciate those amps . I have just pulled out a clarion drx-9575Rz out of my wifes car and its going on ebay soon so if your interested , let me know . Its got the mini disk stacker as well .

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[remotebandit]

2

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[justo316]

and you are the reason why music costs what it does today. (not saying i dont participate in these activities myself) but hey.... :)

I thought music was actually cheaper today than it used to be?

10 years ago it was 30bux for a new CD. Now you can get new releases around the $20 mark, maybe a bit more.

[remotebandit]

Correct , p2p has been an excellent thing for music but not only in the sense that prices have come down ( but that can be due to blanks costing ALLOT less than those days CDs peaked at $34.00 ) but if i go to P2P and type in a genre of music and give bands ive never heard of a go , there has been MANY cases i loved it so will go out and buy the CD . Classic example has been the cat empire , no one knew who they were 4 years ago but guess what , i did and i had their first CD cause i stumbled accross it on that P2P program otherwise i wouldnt know who they are ( well now i would ) .

I head cat empire , bought cat empire and publisised cat empire and it sold them a few more albums and cat empire is only 1 eg of bands ive downloaded and ended up buying cds from .

Another classic example is an italian entertainer called Joe Avati , this bloke did local gigs down here with not too much publicity but then 1 day got a call from a bloke in Canada who told him straight out that people have been downloading him off napster and they want him there , he flew down and made an absolute killing and he is now world famouse .

[justo316]

to be fair, p2p will always be supported by the nobodys in the music industry. But as soon as they are big enough that they want to be making the squillions, that's when p2p is evil.

[JD]

remotebandit, sounds like you have too much spare money lol

[remotebandit]

1 thing im more passionate about than RC is my home theatre , i sold a car to buy just 2 speakers last year so thats my extreem to have the perfect sound .

in saying all this , im now trying to find $400 to buy ops traveller

[justo316]

It still amazes me why some people insist on buying cds after downloading them.... I guess if you're an audiophile that might be justified, but damn, 20-30bux on a cd that you *think* sounds better :P

[remotebandit]

you mean *does * sound better ... hehe , compression loses quality .

I buy 1 concert DVD a week religiusly as thats all i really watch in my home theatre so with my projector there is no thought of copies and about 1 cd every 2 weeks .

Only reason i rip them to mp3 is so that i can use it in the lounge room with windows media centre and also so that i can burn 6 - 7 albums to a CD as mp3 and play them in the car stereo .

In saying all this , if its a band im not too overwhelmed with , ill just download p2p and thats that as its just music for variety and not quality .

[remotebandit]

hey justo , im not going you mate , just explaining my story as im just a fussy bastard when it comes to sound ... lol .

[justo316]

I'm a qualified audio engineer, and even I'm not that fussy...sheesh :P

[justo316]

Geez...that's bad. I've been lucky. Stood next to concert speakers a fair few times in my life. Played with my band each week (on and off) for the past 8 years or so in a garage we turned into a jam room. Car journeys turning into a SPL competition....yup, definately lucky so far.

[Matt]

theres a name for that? i have constant ringing in my ears, i worked for a DJ company in my teens, worked in an environment with loud, loud speakers for 5 years. but, i can still hear sound quality and soft noises. the only time it causes a problem is when sleeping at night and soft music or a movie on the PC is enough noise to override the ringing in my ears and i live with it without much of an issue. its such a non-issue that my close mates dont even know i have this.

[opAsx]

im partly deaf in one ear, but i still love music :)

i cant wait to get back to perth and set the theatre up again. **** i hate rental houses with small rooms :(

[justo316]

hell yeah matto. tinitus is bad. The little hairs in your cochlea vibrate which registers sound. Some of yours (and rc_kings) have been pushed so hard they've been bent over and can't get back up, thus causing constant 'sound'.

For some reason, I have a paper ad on the fridge for some contraption which helps alleviate tinitus by sending more sound in your ear to try and pop those hairs back up. It's from a magazine so I'm not sure how well it would work.

[James]

I'm with remote, mp3 is easy to pick VS cd. esp on a quality system. When you start setting up a real audiophile system, you start singling out the weaknesses, the media you use is always a weakness. Then you start finding cd's that are recorded in certain studio's, because they sound better.

I'm half way through setting up my home cinema, cant wait to get reciever/speakers/dvd. have projector and screen setup so far :)

[justo316]

This all sounds like excuses to justify buying new toys to the missus :P I'll keep them in mind ;)

[RohaN]

My first choice of career was audio engineering coz i love my music, but due to stupid private uni costs, i had to settle for working in civil engineering.
LAME!
Having been involved in the recording & live music environments in my spare time i recon most people, enthusiasts or otherwise can easily hear finer sounds in recordings through a good quality system for sure, but certain circumstances - like in a car for instance- i recon its almost pointless putting in a massivly high quality system for fidelity puropses. everyone knows that a cabnet is the most critical element in defining a speakers sound, so bolting $300 of driver alone to the inside of a cars door trim is a big fat waste of money in my book if you're after a Hi fidelity sound. but if the recordings being listened to consists of huge bass, shreeking treble & no mid is your bag, or SPL comps are your hobby then i spose 2 15" subs could be worth it %-6

car audio never made much sense to me, but i spose neither does paying $100 per meter for gold plated, voodoo enhanced RCA leads to connect your home system which in most cases is set up like a shambles in a weirdly shaped room.
i know that a good cable will make a difference, but people who pay rediculous sums for cables have got to be kidding themselves.
Placebo effect is high up in the audiophile cicrle
Awesome improovements in clarity are so easy to achieve with simple cheap ajustments to the rooms surfaces & speaker position. !super

[justo316]

Well said. And I totally agree.

I chose to use my car as a guinea pig for installing a stereo system (never done it before) so I did it on the cheap and by myself. Bugger $300 components in the front doors. I opted for a pair of cheap 6x9s in boxes. Luckily they fit nicely infront and a bit under the seats. A couple of floor stock 15" subs in an MDF box I made in the boot. Two demo amps later and my system is loud enough to cover up road noise while my windows are open on the freeway. All up, cost less than 1300 (incl deck and cd changer) and was a lot of fun to do on my own.

[remotebandit]

in house must quality , in car must be loud thumping ... hehe

rohnan , as you mentioned bout surrounding in the room , cause we built a new home , in the cinema room ive run 3 grage rockwool in the walls and roof , 9mm plywood going long ways on walls and roof and 9mm plywood on top of that going upways , then obviously the accoustic plaster over that again . I made the doors in the same manor and i built them myself out of solid wood then meshed some 1.6 grade wockwool between the 2 solid pieces that made up the 200mm thick door . This room sounds so dead that you think your in outer space and i swear that your ears actually start playing tricks on you when you walk in .

This makes a massive difference to frequency responses and reflective bounces of the signal , it would turn any boobox into a deep solid speaker ( within reason ...lol ) . Im crazy on the best sounding system and will go to extreems to get it as luckily for me , i still consider i have perfect hearing , i can also be at someones front door and can tell if their TV is on as i can hear the high frequency eht the transformer is pumping out to the tube .

But yes , surroundings and positioning can make or break your system , never assume the stereo you see set up in a salesroom is the sound your gonna get at home , its never the case .

[justo316]

You sound like you have the cash and inclination remotebandit...you should float the whole room!

[remotebandit]

some spend it on their cars and i spend it on my surround .

at the end of the day , its not even a years wage and doesnt have to be done again once its been done properly , plus being the new house and i dint go to this extreem, i would kick myself always wondering what it would have sounded like .

[RohaN]

Heh remotebandit, nothing like a DIY annechroic chamber!

sounds like you did a fine job isolating that room!
is the sound at all "flat" within due to all that damping? or do you still get i bit of inner resonance?

i spoke to a guy who spent 2 hours in an anechoic chamber (perfectly quiet, resonance free room) & he said after about half an hour of pure quiet, he could hear the fluids in his body sloshing around with the beat of his heart. apparently it drives people nuts.

Yeah i can still hear high frequencys up to 19Khz (i too can tell if a TV is on standby) which is pretty impressive for an 21 yearold drummer !super

[remotebandit]

yeah rohan , i havnt gone to the extreem of the bats on the wall but mate , its dead in there and i know this is a bad example but id assume youve had this situation if youve been in those rooms but half hour of silence makes your ears feel like they want to pop out of your head as you can feel your ear drums pushing out trying find any sound at all .

attached is a pix of inside the walls

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[remotebandit]

rockwool in ceiling as well

e107_files/public/43_crop_dscf0071.jpg

[RohaN]

nice!

I'd love a room like that, with a lock on the door,
One of my pet hates is trying to watch a movie or listen to a CD only to have a housemate decide to tune a motorbike or mow the lawn.

Was that proper acocustic rockwool or just genereal insulation?

Was it an expensive venture?

[remotebandit]

well rockwool is finished now and ive just checked my invoice and its called soundscreen made by csr I said rockwool as its still the common name for it so people know what i was on about . ive gone R3 all round and it cost me $34 a bag and i went through 36 bags due to the 2.9 meter high ceilings .

Between the $1200 for that and another $1000 in ply wood , then nearly a G for the doors by the time they were made , hung and framed , im sitting on 3Gs just to insulate it ( thats not including the plasterer to come back and put up the boral accoustic plaster . ( its all still in the process and will update pix when fully finished with the screen up .

Im also from the old school with regards to projectors so ive got a Sony G70 CRt projector . I dont care what anyone says , LCD / DLP cant come anywhere near in pix quality as far as movies go . DLP i wouldnt even bother with as the green delay ( rainbow effect ) is intolerable .

Ive attached a pix from my set up at the old house , colour is a bit crap due to camera settings .

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[RohaN]

McFLYYY!

nice again.
You Gotta love the CRTs, the image is just so crisp, people dont like them becasue of the bulk & allignment issues.
New 3 lcd DLP projectors are getting a lot better as are LCD.

If you're sitting the correct distance from a screen with a decent LCD, you shouldnt really be getting too much in the way of screen door effect anyway.

but yeah, its nice not to have it at all :D