My solution for Dynamic Range Compression: Cheaper Amp and Speakers

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by abbeyroad2, Aug 21, 2015.

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  1. abbeyroad2

    abbeyroad2 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Haha I know. The concept does seem laughable I know. It's a few items I threw together I had in the house. A quick fix for sure. It will buy me time to pursue further options. Doing a simple google search for "stereo receiver made for modern compressed audio" doesn't give me specific answers. And doing this on a budget appears to be nearly impossible. Unless one goes with cheapo components.
     
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  2. Dennis0675

    Dennis0675 Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Ohio
    I know exactly what your talking about when you say you cant listen to the loud recordings for a long period of time. I am a recent convert to analog and I think that is the best part for me, I can listen for 8 to 10 hours without feeling exhausted.
     
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  3. Dennis0675

    Dennis0675 Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Ohio
    By the way, I think your logic is spot on. If your system gets too far ahead of your source, you hear more of the limitations or flaws of the source.
     
  4. ukrules

    ukrules Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kentucky
    I had to ditch the CD of Z by My Morning Jacket since it is very loud. "What a Wonderful Man" made my ears bleed! This week I have been playing around with Spotify and Rdio using a Roku LT into my stereo. That same album sounds less harsh which is interesting.
     
  5. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL

    There's always the classic method for tasty poisons; take them in small dosis. I blast one metal record as loud as I can take it and wait at least 72 hs. for my ears to recover. Works for me. And my wife. Not so much for my neighbours though:winkgrin:
     
  6. coltlacey1

    coltlacey1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kenai, Alaska
    @abbeyroad2 what kind of "heavy metal" do you listen to? my curiosity has peaked haha.
     
  7. coltlacey1

    coltlacey1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kenai, Alaska
    by the way, by different forms I actually meant the style of heavy metal haha that's why I had asked in my previous comment
     
  8. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL


    Whaddaya mean by ¨style¨ ?!:laugh:

    [​IMG]
     
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  9. F1nut

    F1nut Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Mars Hotel
    abbeyroad2, your RTi8's are the wrong Polk speakers for music. They were designed for HT use, hence the Reference Theater improved. For music, the older SDA's are excellent and the newer LSiM's are pretty good as well.
     
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  10. abbeyroad2

    abbeyroad2 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Wow thanks for the tip. I researched them pretty good but I guess I never looked to see if they were better for music or theater. They are excellent to be sure when watching TV or movies.
     
  11. abbeyroad2

    abbeyroad2 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Thrash. Definitely thrash right now. As a teen a friend of mine loaned me Metallica's Kill em All, Ride The Lightning, and Master of Puppets. I was HOOKED. I'd never known that music could sound so heavy and aggressive. The heaviest song I'd heard up to that point (age 14 in 1988) was Styx's "Queen Of Spades". I really took notice of the galloping guitar in that song. Metallica's form of thrash took that gallop to another realm. I've been a metal fan ever since. Usually can't tolerate growling vocals but I still love that thrash-style sound. Lately it's been some more obscure bands like Violator, Havok, and Battlecross. Also really digging Exodus, Slayer, Dark Angel, Death Angel, Deliverance, Tourniquet, Iced Earth, Iron Maiden, Machine Head, Nuclear Assault, Panzer, Destruction, Opeth, Sabaton, Sanctuary, Testament, Vio-lence, Dimmu Borgir etc. I realize some of those aren't technically thrash but all are very heavy. And all of them are heavily in my rotation right now. I do have to stop and mix in some calmer stuff to break up the pummeling. The Beatles, Stones, Doors, Gov't Mule, Allman Bros, CCR, etc.
     
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  12. abbeyroad2

    abbeyroad2 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    The SDAs and LSiMs seem pricey for my budget. But I'm definitely interested. The LSiM bookshelf speakers may be what I need.

    Listening to this style of music, one can see why my ears take a beating with modern recordings. I don't play the music too loud unless something really is speaking to me. I would have to partially blame my lack of tolerance for the over compressed music on my Onkyo/Polk setup. With modern recordings these speakers are really irritating. With some calmer Jazz or Classical the speakers are just oh so sweet. But that sweetness doesn't translate to thrash metal on this setup.

    Last night I swapped out the Panasonic goodwill cheapos for some Pioneer SP-BS22's I picked up last Christmas. Wow! Paired with the Sony STR-DE197, the Pioneer's sound VERY good. (I've tried these speakers with my Onkyo A-9050 and wasn't impressed.) I backed off the bass just slightly while listening to Havok and the sound was great to my ears. Still a budget system but with a better speaker. Maybe the Pioneers are more musical than the Polks? I will continue with the Pioneers for now. I might have to stick with a bookshelf speaker for my next upgrade. I've been looking at a NAD integrated amp. Bookshelf speakers may be just what I need with the NAD C 316BEE.
     
  13. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    Cheaper amp and speakers certainly isn't the solution as it's the excuse for bad mastering. If you do a good master it will sound better on any level of equipment. A system with wider deeper soundstage and smooth low distortion sound is likely to wring a little extras out of a compressed source without adding to the nasties.
     
  14. coltlacey1

    coltlacey1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kenai, Alaska
    if you ever want to go deeper on the heavy route there is quite a lot more, and it can get very heavy. one that is still odd to me but I am fascinated with is Portal from Australia. Generally though, portal doesn't fit in well with my listening. Just depends on the mood I suppose. currently listening to this - https://wiegedood.bandcamp.com/releases just found it this morning. very good stuff but most people don't find it amusing.
     
  15. abbeyroad2

    abbeyroad2 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Opeth, Moonspell, Dimmu Borgir, Borknager... that's about as heavy as I can tolerate. I just sampled Portal. Great music. Always have a hard time with the barking or grumbled, growling vocals though. I've listened to hundreds of clips on youtube that start off so promising only for me to be turned off by the black metal style vocals.
     
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  16. coltlacey1

    coltlacey1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kenai, Alaska
    Haha it is understandable. Portal honestly gives me a headache but I keep coming back to it. The strange droning is what does it. Did you listen to dimmu borgir older albums at all? They are more symphonic BM style now but back in the "for all tid" days things were a bit different
     
  17. coltlacey1

    coltlacey1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kenai, Alaska
    good to know though. we have a thread in the music section where I post a lot of stuff and a few other post aswell just incase you want to search for more BM style music at some point. here is another I found recently. very cool music, definitely on the lighter side but still pretty good. if I remember correctly it started out as a female one person band https://myrkur.bandcamp.com/album/m
     
  18. Sneaky Pete

    Sneaky Pete Flat the 5 and That’s No Jive

    Location:
    NYC USA
    I have noticed the better the system the worse compressed masterings sound. Squashed masterings sound OK on computer speakers and cheap ear buds, passable on the car stereo, bad on my office stereo and terrible on my main system. :)
     
  19. abbeyroad2

    abbeyroad2 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I'm into the later Dimmu Borgir stuff. Apparently the hard core fans have called them "sell-outs" because of this.
     
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  20. abbeyroad2

    abbeyroad2 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    This has been my exact experience. I have yet to try any hi-end equipment with an over-compressed metal CD. Maybe my local McIntosh dealer will let me play Christ Illusion? Not likely haha.
     
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  21. coltlacey1

    coltlacey1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kenai, Alaska
    yeah, I like it all for the most part. I am a hardcore black metal fan but I like all the styles. anyway, Ill let you continue the discussion with people that have ideas to offer!
     
  22. testikoff

    testikoff Seasoned n00b

    Maybe it's just me, but I simply try to say no to releases with DR butchered. Case closed... :)
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2015
    Larry Johnson, rtrt, ukrules and 2 others like this.
  23. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    My own experience is that the right style of good gear can sound better with compressed music than trying to use low end gear to muddle the sound enough to get compressed recordings to sound listenable. I've been aiming my own headphone based system to be able to sound good with both compressed recordings and well recorded and mastered audiophile recordings. It can be done. But does result in certain compromises. My main objection to compressed recordings is that they tend to make a system sound $10X worse than it is capable of. For example, a compressed mastering played on a $5000 headphone system sounds about equal to a $500 headphone system playing a Mofi or AF version of the same recording. At the same time, that $5000 headphone system will sound better and more listenable playing that compressed recording than the $500 headphone system will playing that same compressed recording. It's a situation that sucks. But what are you going to do if you want to listen to some music that only exists in a compressed mastering? My solution is to have a good headphone system that is able to make that compressed mastering sound listenable so I can at least listen to it. I sometimes enjoy listening to drone metal or stoner metal and other music of that sort, so I need a system that allows me to listen to recordings like that. If I want to listen to music that is recorded like that I need a system that obliges and lets me listen to recordings like that. At the same time I also want to be able to listen to audiophile style recordings and be able to hear and appreciate what they have to offer. And classical music recordings. So I need a good system for that. I'm working towards that balance. I'm close. But not quite there yet. I'm aiming equipment choices in that direction. But I'm still likely to end up with a system that merges two or three different headphone amps, along with two different DACs, and two or three different headphones to finally achieve the balance I'm striving for. It would be much simpler and less expensive if I didn't have to deal with crappy sounding compressed recordings. But what are you gonna do if you want to explore some of that music? I'm not going to ignore 20+ years of music just because it was all recorded poorly. My system needs to adapt to that.

    That's a long winded way of saying that high quality gear can help compressed recording sound better if you choose the right sort of high quality gear. It's also possible to spend even more on a system that sounds exceptionally great with audiophile music but sounds worse with compressed music. The choice for which direction you want your system to go is yours. Choose wisely or your wallet will suffer more than necessary (not that it won't suffer anyways if you're gotten a taste for what sounds good).
     
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  24. wiki

    wiki Member

    Some of the bands I listen to, especially in regards to heavy metal, are newer groups that unfortunately are tainted by crappy mastering. For instance, I am pretty sure all Rammstein's albums are DR6 or so. The recent addition of a tube amp to my set up seems to smooth out some of the clipping sounds. Once I get the Maverick Audio D2 DAC delivered, I will be using the tube output of that to play my CDs & digital sources. So the set up will be digital music --> Tube driven DAC --> Tube amp --> Home Theater Receiver. I imagine that if one stage of tube amplification makes modern recordings a little more bearable, two layers of harmonic distortion should cover up digital defects quite nicely. Of course some cringe at the idea of tubes because the pleasant sound they give technically IS a type of distortion, but to me it sounds good and that's all I really care about.
     
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  25. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I agree, badly engineered material is much more enjoyable to listen to on mediocre equipment than hifi equipment because it obstructs some of the offensiveness and replaces it with its own colorations and distortion
     
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