The All Purpose Advice Thread

Discussion in 'Advice Threads' started by purr1n, Sep 26, 2015.

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  1. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    I haven't ripped CDs in a long time, but the last time I did was with dBpoweramp. I didn't do much auto-tagging, as the formatting never seems to be the same, and I like to pick what hi-res art I can. Takes much longer, but in theory I only do it once and the way I like it. I used Tagscanner to redo a large part of my collection to get it all consistent.
     
  2. dasman66

    dasman66 Self proclaimed lazy ass - friend

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    I'm a fan of dBpoweramp CD Ripper - metadata is pulled from 4-5 different sources and you get to choose what you want to use. The CD album art is also pulled from multiple sources, but sometime I end up resorting to scanning the art myself if I have an older CD that had many different releases/different art.
     
  3. Rob the Comic

    Rob the Comic banned from ASR

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    @gixxerwimp - thank you, that is great help. It is confusing; I figure the guy in the Hi-Fi store foisted the unit without the DAC on me and from what I gather it is an option I could get from Heed. I was under the impression that a DAC may improve overall sound, but if it is ostensibly for media files I am good to go. I originally thought the USB useful but I’m an old guy and have about 10,000 CD’s ha ha, so I have cancelled all the streaming services - Tidal’s lossless files are crazy (The Stones first 2 albums and none of the 70’s??? Not even Floyd’s DSOTM) and I don’t like Spotify or Apple (don’t you love when you cancel Apple Music, they leave all the unplayable artwork you then have to delete manually from your phone and the music I actually purchased through the Apple TV now no longer plays through it; not sure that’s even legal). Anyway the Canalot is lively and on the bright side, so it is a good match with the LCD’s. Thanks again.
    Rob
     
  4. Rob the Comic

    Rob the Comic banned from ASR

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    Thanks @Enigmatic. You are correct with the USB and I have an old guys CD collection so it’s of no great consequence.
    Rob
     
  5. Rob the Comic

    Rob the Comic banned from ASR

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    The wife got me the latest iMac for my birthday and it has no disc import slot; I too miss the ease of the old iTunes option. I picked up the LG external drive and it exceeds expectations. Does exactly the same as the Apple Super Drive for a fraction of the cost; I think mine was $60 AUSD IIRC. Pleasantly surprised at how good it is with finding the correct artwork (like Reginald Goodall’s Der Ring Des Nibelungen in English no less). I haven’t had the need to rip anything but imagine it works with Toaster. Imports everything except Blu Ray which is fine for me.

    Rob from Sydney
     
  6. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    How about Shure SE535? High end is not exciting but super efficient they are and bass tilted.
     
  7. imackler

    imackler Key Lime Pie Infected Aberdeen Wings Spy

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    I can't remember but isn't the bass on the SE535 super linear, like surprisingly so? Almost like etymotic like when graphed?
     
  8. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    :eek:o_O:D
    I just checked your CD player's rear panel and it has S/PDIF out. So if you get the Bifrost 2, you won't need a preamp/switcher as you can connect both CD player and computer USB to the BF2 and use the convenient remote control to switch between inputs.

    Sony DAPs (at least ZX2 and ZX300 IME) are fussy about the embedded artwork having the pixel X/Y dimensions of the image defined in the EXIF properties. A lot of album art available online does not have these values defined and won't display on the DAP. You'll have to extract the cover image, open it in any image editing program, and then save the file. During the save process, the pixel dimensions should be written to the EXIF properties. Then re-embed the cover into the file.

    I believe this was discussed in one of the Sony DAP threads. Have a look around.
     
  9. pure5152

    pure5152 Friend

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    Does anyone know of an audio plugin for macs/linux (unix) that can add varying amounts of harmonic distortion? I want to play with my theory that adding certain amounts of 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion can actually make things sound more "pleasing".
     
  10. Baten

    Baten Friend

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    I like TwinTube VST/AU. Not sure there's a trial though but IIRC I think there is. Not super distortion configurable, but sounds very tubey to my ears :)
     
  11. pure5152

    pure5152 Friend

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    Thanks baten for the plugin recommendation! Probably unintendedly, it led me down the path down what "VST" and "AU" means, which led me ultimately to my solution: using SoundSource to control system-wide audio output on my Mac, then installing third party Audio Units (free ones for now to test proof of concept) to modify the sound (i.e. add harmonic distortion, eq, etc.). It works beautifully! And yes, adding harmonic distortion to my 3F did make it sound more "tubey".

    Tangential, but while doing research I realized that the notion of "adding harmonic distortion to make something sound more full/warm etc" is actually pretty well-known in the mixing/mastering industry.

    Check out this sound demo that shows a/bing between a mix without/with added harmonics: https://talkinmusic.com/how-to-enhance-sounds-by-adding-harmonic-excitement/

    I'm sure this is not new info, but it does suggest that you can get similar benefits of a tube amp with a solid state amp with harmonic distortion digitally added. I think it may be worth trying/exploring?

    P.S. Soundsource has a "free trial" where it allows you to use it feature-complete for 20 minutes per launch, and then after 20 minutes it distorts the sound by 20% (ouch). Still, this provided me a quick and easy way to see if adding harmonic distortion makes things more "tubey" so I'm happy.
     
  12. Baten

    Baten Friend

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    Yeah that's what I tried :) it works pretty well I just tire of it pretty quickly. Ideally, the mastering should already perfect (imo). But if you have spare time it's pretty fun to experiment with VSTs :D
     
  13. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Not when you listen to it, wanted to find the FR graph but...I cannot find any innerfidelity measurements anymore.
     
  14. ergopower

    ergopower Friend

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    Try this. It's from a new audio website ;)
     
  15. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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  16. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    The tool is very nice. So ER4SR and XR, XR in particular, almost follow the SE535 below 1kH (maybe -3dB down) , but in direct comparison, when I owned both, SE535 always sounded to me both darker with more bass.. Maybe because SR and XR have mids really elevated.
    And I would still go with SE535 because they were the most comfortable IEM I ever used.
     
  17. tommytakis

    tommytakis MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    Hi Friends,

    Does anyone know what the leather strap is on this modded Fostex? I tried messaging the guy who posted the photo with no response :(
    [​IMG]
     
  18. Gazny

    Gazny MOT: ETA Audio

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    Looks like a Beyer dynamic pad, I think you can use a ZMF pilot pad as well
     
  19. tommytakis

    tommytakis MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    that's what I suspected first, but I've read people saying that the beyer headband pads are a tight fit and they had to remove the original fostex pads to make it fit. This seems to have thicker padding as well with some kind of Velcro mechanism? maybe it's a variant of the Beyer pad... who knows haha

    I'm not a fan of the Pilot pads due to ugly aesthetics (Sorry Zach <3) They're a bit too wide and doesn't contour with the actual size of the Fostex headband
     
  20. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    @tommytakis get the Co-Pilot Pad. It's thinner but works great. Won't kill your hairdue.
     
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