Comment by noodlesUK
6 years ago
What’s intensely frustrating about this is that audio equipment is one of the few areas where old high end kit is still absolutely fantastic for current users. I have an NAD 3020 from the 1980s which works perfectly with the same pair of speakers that it was bought with. I can’t say the same about other tech, but audio just doesn’t age at the same speed.
I can’t say the same about other tech, but audio just doesn’t age at the same speed.
People's ears have not changed, and the ability to reproduce sound has been nearly perfected. If you're not too picky/audiophillic, like most people, the requirements are even lower.
Literally the only "improvements" that are ever going to happen to audio in your lifetime will be a) internetifying it and b) adding more restrictions to how you use it.
We've hit peak audio (best reproduction, no restrictions on usage) and it's only downhill from here.
I look forward to my 2025 speakers that only work for an hour a day unless I pay for extra time credits.
"Do you wish to play a) music b) music and local radio c) music, local radio and podcasts [BEST VALUE]?"
We had indeed excellent analog audio for many decades. But there are still very exciting things happening which are improving the audio quality a lot - expecially in the middle and lower range of the spectrum. There are great pure analog setups, but they require a lot of very expensive and bulky technology, none the least, large speakers and a carefully set up room with good accustics.
Modern digital technology makes this so much easier and more. There are excellent digital power amps, where you have power amplification on one chip integrated with the DAC. Just looking at some of the features of a simple Homepod, there are exciting technologies involved, which could improve also higher end audio. First is driving the bass speaker in a feedback loop. In classical audio technology, you would have a power signal and have to rely on the speaker to transfer this into motion with as little as possible of distortion. Which required the speaker to behave like a perfect spring for different frequencies. So this is a very difficult task, making the speaker expensive and often imperfect. Homepods drive their bass speakers in a feedback loop, the desired position of the membrane is calculated and an electric circuit drives it into that position. It does no longer depend on the mechanical properties of the membrane, also allowing for much higher motion range than in a classical speaker. Also, the active monitoring of the room acoustics with several directional microphones is an improvement vs. classical set up amplifiers, even if they had a microphone input for set up.
So I don't see us hitting peak audio at all yet, that makes for exciting times for music lovers.
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In terms of storing/transmitting/digitizing, yes.
Distortion levels from speakers are still far from negligible-- by negligible I mean so low as to be extremely likely to be inaudible.
High power amplifiers are just now reaching a point where there are efficient amplifiers with negligible distortion; though they've been pretty good for a fairly long time.
There is a lot that can be done in terms of immersive spatial audio, unfortunately the trouble and cost of installing an array of speakers ... limits deployment. :)
There is also a lot that can be done to use DSP to ameliorate poor room acoustics, this stuff exists, but it isn't super widely deployed.
> peak audio
Nah, there are plenty of other things, like positional audio. I remember (through a pleasant haze of nostalgia) my old A3D-based sound card in the 90s as being even better than modern EAX stuff.
Potential improvement in that area can be both through simply adding speakers, and through tuning per-speaker output to forge better audio-cues. (To wit, Head Related Transfer Functions applied to headphones, possibly even with custom parameters for different peoples' heads.)
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What about things like Dolby atmos that use 3D noise wave cancellation/amplification technology to effectively do to surround sound what 3D glasses did for the TV
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The improvements are all in headphones. Wireless and noise canceling are legitimate needs and they are getting better.
People's taste has changed though. Your speakers from the 80's generally can't be driven as loud with current music, as modern music tends to be a lot more bass heavy (obviously a lot more pronounced with techno and other electronic music, but also with pop music).
The response curve from speakers has also reflected that, a lot of them are bass boosted in the amplifier or are designed with a bass boost in them.
I have some fairly nice speakers from the 70's (a couple of different sets, one homebuilt), and Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane sound a lot better from them than Katy Perry or Tiesto.
Sure, but new Sonos speakers are not that. They are a moderately okay speaker with wireless networking and control software that consumes an app-mediated digital byte stream, and then in the speaker decodes it to audio to perform playback.
If you want good speakers, you don't buy a device that's 50% streaming audio circuitry, you buy a same-priced speaker that's actually a good speaker.
I wrote the Twitter thread and I use a Marantz 2230, for what it's worth. All my own audio equipment was recycled at some point.
I think one of the interesting aspects is that performance plateaued in a lot of ways.
If you look at the S/N and distortion specs on a new affordably priced receiver, they won't be meaningfully better than a mid-range unit from the late 70s/early 80s. All the new HDMI and 20.7 Dolby Surround does nothing for two-channel MP3s or CDs.
Because the performance is equal, it's allowed build quality to shine. 15kg of heatsinks, capacitors the size of Coke cans, and big old TO-3 transistors are probably going to outlast propriatery digital doodads and amp-on-a-module designs built to minimize costs.
I'm more of a JVC fanboy myself, but I've been working on a Kenwood KR-6200 recently. 45 years old and one dead bulb. Unacceptable!
Ehh, S/N has improved so much since the 80's that the noise floor of today's low-end receivers are significantly better than basically all high-end equipment from back then, especially if you include the DAC.
My Carver amp and Dahlquist speakers I run all day every day. Bought them in 1980.
I retired many computers in the 80's and 90's in perfect working order. None of them will power up today.
Concur that the 80s era Carver amps are outstanding.
Absolutely! I have a 1999 Sony amp and some older (1980s) Wharfedale speakers.
Nothing I've bought in the last 25 years sounds remotely as good as them.
And plugging in a Chromecast audio has given it immortality.
What's the current best alternative to a Chromecast Audio, now that they're discontinued and no longer as readily available?
My current living room setup is a Chromecast Audio connected to an AVR via the optical out connection, which powers my speakers, but I'm curious if there's any alternatives. The eBay sellers are really starting to price-gouge, and I'm not naive enough to believe that my Chromecast Audio will last forever.
I have replaced my Chromecast Audio with Raspberry Pi with a Snapcast client. On the Snapcast server side I run a DLNA renderer ("gmrender resurrect"). This allows me to cast audio synchronously to multiple speakers using the Android app Bubble UPNP. Basically, instead of clicking the cast button in an app, I select share, then Bubble UPNP. One advantage to this is that I can "cast" Youtube and get the audio, which Chromecast audio does not support.
Btw, Snapcast works great.
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You can use a small computer and remote control it somehow.
Or use a Chromecast Ultra and connect to the hi-fi with a hdmi to audio (spdif, 3.5", ...) or hdmi to vga+audio (and don't bother connect the vga to anything)
I have a Google Home mini connected via Bluetooth to my amp, with 25 year old Gale speakers. That works for casting, and of course directly controlling by voice. I previously tried connecting an old Echo Dot via the wired connection, but the quality was a bit rubbish. I'm guessing a crappy DAC in the Echo or something. The sound via Bluetooth is great though.
...until Google kills Chromecast
I'm kind of glad I went with Squeezebox (formerly slim devices) 10 or so years ago. The entire server and client system is OSS, written in Perl on Linux (OK, that bit's annoying now, but was nice when I still used perl). The audio hardware is (still) great, and the software is hackable and I can SSH in to my speaker and change things if I need/want to. Most annoying thing is the constant cat-and-mouse game with hacked-on suppport for streaming services.
If you are into this, I can suggest you take a look at this gear: https://mobile.twitter.com/amiteque
A boutique outfit from Shenzhen makes that.
My speakers are twenty years old, but I got them last year. I am probably their fifth owner, as there is an entire community passing these things down the chain. In a similar vein, I've gone back to my TAG watch as my Apple Watch 1 just popped its screen off.
> audio equipment is one of the few areas where old high end kit is still absolutely fantastic
Yep. I picked up a massive old high-end Denon receiver with pre-amp inputs and use a cheap newer receiver to decode surround digital audio and pump it through that 40 pound beast. Sounds incredible.
I inherited a pair of speakers my dad bought in the early 80s. They still work well, though the amp died last year and I wasn't able to repair it.
You can get a number of small amps these days that will plug into the speakers and sound great.
Many will also support Bluetooth so you can stream to your stereo.
Bluetooth is the biggest joke foisted on audio. Even at its best there is mandated compression, which means the highest quality signal will be mashed into a lowest common denominator piece of garbage.
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Do you have a link to these small in-speaker housing amps?
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Indeed, and it won't lose any value as you use it either. In fact, a lot of vintage equipment only gains value. My speakers are older than me by more than a decade (1972) and cost me £10 plus about £15 to repair the foams that perished a few years ago.
Millennial audiophools need their 192kHz 32-bit playback. Grandpa's sound system just won't cut it for reproducing those refined ultrasonics.
I don't think it's the reason.
A pair of good speakers is the most useful equipment in audio. If I'm a millennial audiophool and want 192 kHz / 32-bit PCM, I'll simply put a new DAC in front of the original Hi-Fi amplifier. I won't throw the perfectly usable system away.
I think this was a sarcastic comment. Obviously "reproducing the ultrasonics" don't actually matter for music reproduction....
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Grandpa's sound system was analog, not digital (as are all sound systems at some point before the speakers because sound is analog)
In fact I actually have a 192khz, 32 bit dac connecting my PC to a Technics stereo amp from the 80s.
Pithy snark only really works when you actually understand what you're talking about.
Spot-on.
I have an Apple USB-C to Headphone jack (named the AppleDAC by some of the people I know online) at the core of my setup- it goes from an HTPC (with a type-A to C adapter) to an older Akai amp. Works great for what I need it to, and for $8.99 + adapter, the thingies are lovely- if you have a TRRS headset, the AppleDAC will enumerate as a headset and it just works, too.
Melding new and old tech is where it's at, IMO.
You really do need a high quality DAC for a modern system. Older systems won't have a DAC at all, much less a good one.
That is a big deal unless it's a system 100% dedicated to vinyl.
Good thing those can be added after the fact.
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The same millenials who are buying Bluetooth speakers at unprecedented rates?
It's almost like the word "millennial" is completely void of meaning...
Who ever would have thought labeling three decades worth of people across the whole globe with a single label AND THEN trying to draw generalisations from it was a fools errand?
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As if the average Millenial can afford expensive audio equipment.
The oldest millennials are now 38 years old.
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Even 256kHz 48-bit can't even get close to what I need when it comes to pitch-shifting an audio sample up even one single octave. It produces audible 'warbling' like a poorly-encoded MP3, or a badly-fatigued guitar string.
We aren't close to peak audio, yet.
Assuming you're talking about pitch shifting without changing speed, that warbling doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the source sample. It's just how the pitch shifting algorithm works.
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Exactly an octave is easy... just discard every other sample and smash the remaining ones together.
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Why, specially, are audiophiles worthy of scorn on HN?
Show some damn respect for others interest.
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