Hrodulf

Here's an example - https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/e9fa960a-8284-45cf-9ba3-cd516041a00a

I've never been able to hear the UMG watermark. What should I be listening for?

https://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermark

Lame car analogy to follow: You have a track car without limitations. Would you rather have a 1.6 L R4 engine boosted to squeeze it's tits off at 400 kW, or would you rather have a 5 L flatplane V8 outputting the same number?

@Priidik I think Purifi did a good job explaining that at high excursion you get less effective piston area due to surround flex.

That is one thing. Then there are the spring (compliance) factors of surround and spider. Compliance is only neglected to be linear - it really is not. Then there are excursion dependant mechanical losses. We haven't even touched on motor stuff. A dynamic driver really is as complex as a woman. Purifi has nailed all of these drawbacks to a great extent; and it shows both listening and measuring.

Honest question, why not copy/paste here? I dont give views to other forums/sites.

@Walderstorn these guys pay me an honest wage for the article, so they own it. Not fair for me to post anything here.

Definitely a good reason. Thank you for explaining. I will give that view then!

Yay! Let us hope that it is beyond rescue.

Mqa company going away does not mean Mqa encoding going away. For example, it's probably worth the purchase price of the tech for Tidal to keep the current library management and the income stream from top tier customers.

I believe @yotacowboy also referred to them recently as “lifeless insipid garbage”.

After spending a week with it (though I didn't dick around with EQ) to me the lifelessness reminds me of listening to a pair of Magico standmounts at an audio show. technically outstanding, but essentially communicate very little emotive information.

I've been intrigued by the Anubis for a while. How's the sound?

@Armaegis been using just the built-in HP out. It's a decent high-nfb opamp sound, but nothing special IMHO. For one I don't find it leagues above the likes of ADI-2 DAC/Pro.

If would could get Amazon, Apple or Spotify roon support a lot of us would probably jump. Fuck all these services that are gatekeeping.

Apparently they invested big in podcasts then realized engineering hits is impossible.

I do like Roon a lot, but I must admit that the main reason why I use it is that it allows me to stream Qobuz to all my devices.
If Spotify had lossless, ideally also > 44/16, I’d probably jump ship. Even more probably if streaming local content was possible with Spotify, too, but I don’t really have so much of that.

I sometimes get calls. Always gives me chills - first thought is, it has burned down and the house with it.

@Priidik if there's a call, then there are survivors!

Survivors. You mean... It could have been worse!

I generally don't find it annoying. Tried Crinacle's IEM tool to PEQ my Mk1 Monarchs to it. I do like that treble resonances were largely fixed. And some extra mid bass was added. Is there a way to PEQ headphones to the SBAF target?

@purr1n I think the real tragedy of Olive is that even within Harman's own stable of companies his findings are rarely put into practice. Again - I don't hate the on-ear target, but it's an interesting question whether the method of asking people what they like is a valid basis for a neutral target. I.e. the popular target is a marketing tool, not science.

Auto EQ on GitHub uses Harman if I’m not mistaken. It’s too lean bright. I like using Crin’s site to auto EQ to his target and adjust from there to personal taste.

Dusk and Monarch are both dope! I was actively rotation between Blessing 2/Variations/Monarch Mk II this year myself

Thanks @netforce! If possible, can you comment on how big is the gap between Blessing 2 and Monarch 2?

The B2 has a larger bore size and sometimes the back themselves out easy. Just a tip from a B2 user. Not much I can fault with them at their price though. Really well built and pretty solid all-arounder. I would prefer a bigger bass shelf and better treble + extension. Mids are nice though and bass isn't bad, just walking a tight rope of balance

@crenca One word: marketing.

I already saw dozens of my normy friends swear by lossless through their Raycons. Like what the fuck?.

Interesting @nishan99 . I won't complain it actually helps me and other audiophiles for whom lossless is audible (through the main rig). Heck, I sometimes convince myself I can tell the difference through the Bose QC35's when I'm on the treadmill...;)

They actually have nearly completed the longest and most thorough market research ever. They have concluded, "it's a waste of time and the huge majority of our users do not care". ergo, there will be no Spotify hifi. :)

@Cryptowolf MSRP should be under 3000USD/pr. I've heard them with non-Hypex electronics and they seemed very good. My own mains use the same compression driver and it's one of the best on the market right now. Some guy on DIYA wrote that it outdoes his Be TAD horns in some regards.

So does this work the same as a port-baffle unity horn? or is there something more going on closer to slot porting?

@yotacowboy while it looks similar, the principle isn't akin to the Danleyesque unity horn. The woofers are front loaded by the slot and back loaded by the cab/port to create an equal acoustic load on both sides. At least that's what the lead acoustician told me. The slot placement allows for a virtual coax source to manifest as seen in the polars.

Yes, but *before all that*

Sean Olive was a pioneer of making people aware of the existence of bias in the audio world. He built a wonderful setup to silently shift speakers behind an audio-transparent curtain so that listeners really could not see what they were hearing.

... He showed that preferences changed a lot.

One of the things he found was people who voted for their own products when they could see them preferred others when they could not.

I thought this was amazing, since, technically, he worked in the marketing department!

BTW, who is Jordan Peterson? I've heard the name.

(Never mind... I googled.)

Ahh, SIno's Nonsense ADvertising I see.

Certain Chinese with a "science" marketing site ... let us not forget the genuine genius of Jeff Zhu, Holo Audio, also Chinese.

If you're serious, look at BOCA bearing for full ceramics. If you don't want to overpay, get the bare balls and pull the seals/cages and go hybrid. for hybrid, it's worth it to go with Si3N4. over time they'll eat the races but SS races are a good bit cheaper to replace. basically just buy a new SS cartridge and swap the silicon balls over again.

Good to know @yotacowboy ! I went with Zealous ceramic hybrids, which are almost 2x the price of SS, but should last longer. If they do last 2x the mileage of SS, then I'll be happy. However I am kinda concerned how they deal with rough roads. Time'll tell.