The All Purpose Advice Thread

Yep. Listened to a lot of it. Very interesting stuff. I've appreciated JJ's easy way of explaining stuff that he knows to it's scientific core for a while. He is a major influence in keeping audio sane (quite apart from having invented some of it!). Nice to hear you too.

If you could post somewhere, or drop me a profile post, when the video comes, that would be great. I will watch it. And probably a lot of others would too.

 

Yeah, there are some tracks that are just great to fall asleep to. Adagio for TRON comes to mind.

That's a brilliant idea. I'll see if I can get something to edit some tracks to put a long fade in some longer songs, and give this a shot. Great out of the box thinking there, much appreciated.

I was so focused on trying to rig up something at the bed with my phone, didn't think about editing a special list at the pc. I guess it seemed impractical at first glance. Hell, I can use my JBL LSR308's on my PC, which is in the same room, to just play a list from J River MC.

Even though it's across the room, I'm betting the sound from the 308s will reach the bed. I'd bet they might sound better than Bluetooth speakers.

Speaking of TRON, you might get a kick out of this. https://play.google.com/music/m/B4e...lections_from_TRON_-_PLAY_Symphonic_Orchestra

 

@Elnrik, If you wanted something a bit different to fall asleep to, you might take a look at MyNoise.

Might be something useful for you there, whether it is to relax, soothe the mind or simply block out the world.

 

Thanks, much appreciated!

Yeah, I've tried background noise. It doesn't distract the mind much, I tend to just block it out. Like the voice of my boss droning on in meetings, or a fan running in the background. Whereas with music the brain can focus on it, and once latched on it can slow down. Even then the mind can lose focus and wander and speed up again, so I have to concentrate on not thinking.

Give that a shot sometime - take four or five shots of espresso, then concentrate on not thinking (or moving). Good luck! haha =)

 

@Garns ~ The app worked well, thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks all for suggestions and help. I'll quit hogging up space in the thread now.

 

Very good! One last thought - if you do want to use PC and your good speakers you can install Foobar 2000 and the "scheduler" plugin which among other things can do exactly what you want:



First you set it up like this in the preferences. This means creating the action list item at the bottom first (adjusting numbers as appropriate) then the event list item at the top. Now after you queue up a playlist and start it playing, there will be a menu item File -> Scheduler -> Sleep timer which kicks off the action list, so playing for a bit, then fading out, then shutting the computer down.

Would recommend ReplayGain in this situation as well.

 

When I have trouble sleeping due to wandering thoughts, I cue up something downloaded from here on my phone and put it on repeat with everything above 2kHz shelved down to reduce sibiliance, stick a cheap earbud in one ear and roll over onto the other side. For me, the sound of a droning voice occupies my mind enough to stop my own thoughts. With the volume set so I can just hear it, I can usually drift off and not get woken up by it. If I do wake up, the droning voice is there ready to put me back to sleep.
http://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/category/game-of-drones/

Lunch time naps are one of the perks of working in Taiwan, and I do the same with the BBC Newshour podcast in one ear and an earplug in the other

 

I used to listen to Explosions in the Sky when I went to sleep. Most of their songs don't have lyrics which I find can be overstimulating, yet their music is interesting enough to distract me from any thoughts or concerns of the day.

 

Many thanks all. I'll be trying these suggestions soon.

 

BT SPEAKERS? I HAS INFO! I CAN BEEN VALUABLE TO COMMUNITY!
@Elnrik I'd like to suggest a BT speaker that I have:
https://www.amazon.com/TaoTronics-T...1502880930&sr=8-4&keywords=taotronics+speaker
It has 2x what look like 40mm drivers, maybe a bit more and a huge passive radiator on the back.
I like it, sounds great for the price and responds great to Sock Mod (TM). Just pull a cotton sock over it and it gets darker, smoother, punchier and way less shouty.
It can of course be further tuned by room placement and/or putting things behind the unit to mess with the radiator. Like, if a wall is behind it it gets punchier. That can be seen and heard in the video I provide further down in this post.
Also I personally like the option of 3.5mm input.
You can hear how it sounds and even compare to other BT speakers thanks to this guy, who records them binaurally:

Skip the first 3 minutes. At 3:50 he even puts a frequency response measurement on screen. Now he doesn't say who measured it or how and the actual measurement looks too good to be true, but after hearing it for myself it does sound as nice as the "measurement" suggest, with the exception of major upper mid splashyness and shoutyness, which Sock Mod fixed (again, it also makes it darker. Worth it, IMO)

Now I have some off topic questions.
Why the f is Marvey banned, lmao? Ok, I guess it's just some joke, so whatever. But... Then...
Why the f is Psalmanazar banned??? Is he coming back? He has contributed immensely to the discussion on here.

 

@Elnrik I suffer(ed) from PTSD as well and for me changing my diet, fitness and also getting a dog helped a lot. I find now that if i don't run for 2 days my sleep goes to shit and symptons come back. Here is some good info that helped me fix my sleep: http://sock-doc.com/cortisol-and-sleep/

 

Except that the eye opening experience that was modi multibit for me actually was quite rewarding for me. It is not lost on me that statistically speaking regression toward the mean always makes chasing another extraordinary experience like what that little thing did for me very likely to fail, but I feel compelled anyway. Thanks for being the only one with a real response.

 

Hi guys, been lurking in SBAF for quite a while ever since I decided to jump over from stereo to headphones. At the moment I'm really happy with my setup which consists of an Elise by Feliks Audio head amp, a pair of Sennheiser HD600 and the Schiit Modi Multibit DAC (Eitr incoming).

My problem is that after many months of extensive listening I still can't bear the brutal head clamp that the Senns put on my skull. I tried books, pulling the band, etc. according to the advice laying around the net but the clamp is still there. i'd like to ask you your advice on whether there might be a set of HPs that perform similarly to the HD600 but are physically gentler for long listening sessions. That would mean more or less a similar flat to mid-centric signature, but also faring well with my OTL amp which—people tell me—doesn't do low impedance cans very well, but it's also nominally somewhat underpowered (?). The Beyerdynamic DT1990 PRO got my attention recently, but reviewers mention that there's a head clamp force similar to the HD600. Please consider that I don't mind vintage finds (e.g. AKG K240DF?) if they fit the bill.

Mostly listening to Jazz and Classical, but also Electronic, Rock, R&B, and from there basically any piece of music that catches my attention save for thrash metal and the like. I don't mind a flat studio sound; in fact I'd much rather have a 'true' tone than a fun one, although I'm open to experimentation. Btw, since I put my Elise on GEC 6080 and Sylvania 6sn7w the sound signature on my head gear comes really close to my ATCs (see my signature); namely, a very tight mid-centric sound with a bit of roll-off on the lower frequencies.

No experience whatsoever with HPs besides my own gear, therefore I'm just looking for pointers to follow up on. I do also own a pair of Etymotic Hf3s which I really like (skull rape aside) but I'm sure there's lots to explore still.

Thanks, and sorry for the long post.

 

Modded HD800, short of that DT880 600 ohm (the Premium version with little clamp and not the Pro).

Both will work well with your Elise.

 

Edited for clarity.

 

*

 

I've stored my HD650 streched over a pillow for weeks. You can also bend the metal bands outward with (gentle) force before listening sessions. The HD600 can be as comfy as the dt880, it just takes some patience.

 

Working on it as we speak, thanks! Been at it for some time, but they somehow find their way to their original state... I'll keep at it though, try the pillow method too! Obviously a good set of headphones at a great price, I'm not anxious to get rid of them although I am itching to experiment more.

 

I remember bending the metal part on my 650 so much it was almost straight. You just have to be diligent with bending and use the correct technique. It took me half an hour and fatigued the heck out of my fingers but its worth it. You also extend the life of your pads this way. Ill try to find the link to the guide.

EDIT: here it is
https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones..._if/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=comment_header

I bent it straight and held it for 5 seconds, probably at least 10 times/side.

 

Hey fellas,

Quick question for you. If I have a headphone cable terminated to a balanced 3.5mm TRRS, can it also work safely when plugged into a single ended 3.5mm TRS output socket? Cheers.

EDIT: Can't find an image of the internals of a TRS socket to see if the ground contact would just sit on a black ring of the TRRS plug without making contact to one of the grounds.