The All Purpose Advice Thread - Part 2

I am having good luck with my Bose QC Gaming headset. I use it for work (all day), and it is Teams-compatible. It has a detachable boom mic, when attached, you MUST use USB into your laptop (this may be a disqualifier). When detached, it’s a fully functioning Bluetooth headset for listening (with noise canceling off or on at your choice) only. (There is no mic capability over Bluetooth that I’m aware of…). But it’s solid; I’ve 4 years on mine now, and it’s travelled to Germany, Spain, UK, Ireland and all over the US, in addition to being my daily headset in office.

So, its limited blue-tooth connectivity might be an issue for your use case(s)?

 

First reflections are going to be really interesting, here. If a relatively linear response is something you'd like, then a speaker with well-controlled directivity and some form of room correction (whether it be baked into the speaker, amp, or part of an external system like minidsp) might be a good idea.

Kef makes solid Coax systems in both powered and passive configurations. I think they excel in a wide range of settings thanks to some smart design choices. You could also consider Buchardt's offerings as well, although they don't have the directivity benefits of coax. Since you mentioned filling your house with sound, a floorstanding speaker would probably be ideal for your situation for higher SPL capability. For example, you could try Kef R7 metas with a schiit vidar 2, Kara/freya, and an optional minidsp DDRC-24, Or an all-in-one solution like the minidsp SHD power or Nad m10v2. Just note the ESS dacs and class-d amp implementations. A neat thing about the new R series is that they incorporate a roughly -6dB bass shelf at the lowest registers of their response to compensate for room gain as a result of close wall placement. If cost is prohibitive, Kef's Q series isn't half bad when it goes on sale (although at that point you'd also want to consider other, non-coaxial options as well), and dsp can always be added later down the line.

Alternatively, if, like originally stated, you want a massive wall of sound over all else, consider the philharmonic BMR series of speakers. Nicely built and finished, with ridiculously massive horizontal dispersion- they throw a crazy stage. I can't vouch for how they'll play in such a tight space, though. Horizontal dispersion isn't the end-all-be-all in many cases, and can sometimes cause problems with reflections. The BMRs should be a little needier in terms of amplification than the Kef's, but any of the aforementioned amps should do fine.

 

I have the BMR Monitors, v2. The finish on these is fantastic, SAF easily met.

Soundwise, the left speaker is about 2-6 inches from its right wall, right is a few feet from its back, and left wall, with the console in between.

Imaging and staging is affected - still sounding very good. When I pushed the TV back and covered the top of the console, I got a matching amount of stage depth. The images are in the right places, just a little fuzzy.

They do like a good amp with lots of headroom. I initially used a T+A Amp 8, then a Vidar, now an Ayre K-7xe.

P.S. The Phil True Minis and Ceramics are good deals and just give up bass to the BMRs.

 

I'm not sure if this post should go here, thanks in advance for correcting any mistakes.

I'm planning to buy a Wavedream for my gear, but my DAC is connected to gaming consoles via an HDMI splitter and Toslink for isolation and to avoid ground looping. I noticed that Wavedream only has coaxial and AES for general purposes.

The audiophile playback will be through I2S DDC so there's no problem.

Since my house is not properly grounded, my PC sometimes has leakage currents that affect the case, HDMI, and other shields like USB, so perhaps it's not wise to ignore this issue.

Should I buy coaxial isolation stuff like this, or can some cheaper Cable TV Audio Isolation Transformer on Amazon do this job well?

 

I am not an engineer or an electrician, so better advice might come soon, but... Is it impossible for you to take a wire to ground? As in, connect to a conductive water pipe (if everything there is not plastic, as it is here) or even to a buried rod?

Back in the day when vinyl was my primary source, I did not find it effective to just connect the earth wire to the supplied screw on the amplifier: there was still some hum. I was able to take another wire to a nearby copper pipe. This solved the problem.

NB. This was actual audible stuff, not audiophile just-in-case. And it was only a turntable problem. Although it did fix that electrical prickle from cases of other components.

 

Yes, I have a hot water pipe, but it's short and doesn't go underground so I only connected it to my tube amp in the past, which solved some of the humming issues.

I don't know its ground impedance, so I never tried connecting multiple devices to that.

 

I didn't even know that term. I doubt if it could be critical?

There was a measurable number of volts on my ground lead (which was a bit of old lamp flex) but it was never going to carry much current. Unless someone spilt a glass of water into the amplifier, maybe!

I hope what I am saying makes sense and was not electrically dangerous. I know it worked, in several houses.

 

So I'm very likely moving to New Zealand in a few years because I'm a hiking junkie and I'm telling myself "You chose not to have kids--that's the opportunity this has bought you." I'm excited for the adventure but there's a lot to figure out and I'm a big planner. One of the things I'm wrestling with at this point is how to think about moving to 220V. I intentionally bought a headphone amp with 115/220 capability, but my speaker amps, DAC, and phono stage are 115V and they're all, well, not super cheap. I'm sort of interested in the Hypsos as a way of handling the conversion, but a) is that dumb and b) that would only take care of two components as I understand the device. Anyone have experience with this sort of move and might share how you approached it? Did you just bite the bullet, sell everything and re-buy? Looking back, would you do anything differently?

 

Many years ago I moved from US to GB. I had a stereo speaker system with an integrated amp, turntable and CD player. All of them were OK w/50 Hz power, so all I had to do was buy a 220V > 110V transformer with sufficient power to drive all 3.

 

I did the same in reverse >20 years ago. I'd decided it was time for a new amp so replaced my 230V NAD 3020 with a new 115V Rotel, and got a 100W Hammond 170AE to use in step-up configuration to run my turntable, tape deck, CDP & tuner. Plenty of power for all those, and it's still running the same CDP & tuner.

If you're envisaging still having twin Aegirs you'll need, er, quite a few watts (does each Aegir 1 really draw up to 450W like Stereophile says?) - but I see the keywords "in a few years", and you've already asked about Aegir 2, so...

If you see yourself still running dual mono speaker amps or any sort of monster class A item, I'd wait until you're closer to move time and then look for something with 230V. For the DAC, phono stage, and maybe some future components, you'll be fine with a modest step-down unit.

 

Thanks, that's helpful perspective. I don't feel super wedded to the Aegirs and they're the least $ anyway.

 

Feel sort of dumb asking this, but does anyone have any general advice for inserting and removing large triode tubes from their sockets? I’m getting some Elrogs in soon for the Studio B and the last time I swapped out 300B’s six months ago or so I was wriggling/rocking one of them hard enough to coax it out while removing that I started to get a tiny bit of play in the socket’s screw threads securing it to the top plate of the chassis, which concerned me given what that could mean for the solder joints underneath it. I tightened the screws again, but yeah. Feels like I’m doing something wrong each time I change a tube, but maybe this is common. Any advice helpful. A little Dexoit did seem to help some.

 

@Rustin Cohle, NZ is 230v 50hz. Sometimes the 50Hz can be an issue for gear built for 60Hz. Some gear have transformers with dual primary windings that can be reconfigured from 115 to 230. All it requires usually is changing internal jumpers, which usually need soldering. You need to do research on each unit.

 

I did wonder about @Rustin Cohle 's Rega P8 - but it looks from the guide linked here that its motor is 50 Hz regardless of market, and he'll be able to keep using his current Neo power supply (with a 230VAC to 24V DCAC wall-wart to power that).

Edit: Forgot to insert the link to the P8/Neo PSU frequency info; fixed.

Edit 2: in red. Dummy, I should remember this because I use one myself. The Rega PSUs take 24V AC, which they then rectify to DC & filter before sending it to the oscillator to create clean 24V AC.

 

As someone who occasionally thinks of moving back to 110v land, It’s probably helpful to think about what you want now rather than what you want in your ideal future. Life happens, and more likely than not your intentions will not match reality at that later stage. If at that point that you do make the move, and you decide to take your stuff with you, you’ll find a way to make things work (e.g. voltage transformers). It might also be good to give you pause about your purchases (do I want to bring this with me in the future?) by being more deliberate.

What I’m suggesting is, live your life now. If you change your life, your accoutrements will likely change too, and if not you will find a way to make things happen that will best serve your needs at that time.

 

This is sage advice. Thank you and everyone for chiming in with helpful responses.

 

Tapping the hive mind to learn more about the effects of digital EQ.

I’ve been listening with a Roon EQ setting that doesn’t change much in most songs for a while (only deepest sub bass, no audible FR difference for most music). Now that I deactivated it, I think that upper mids are coming to the front a little more, space and separation is a bit better, and so is timbre/micro detail. Very subtle, but still.

I want to learn about what unwanted effects digital EQ might have according to theory (I think I heard something about phase changes once?), how audible that might be or not. What differences there are in this regard, if any, between a parametric EQ and Convolution etc.

Can somebody point me to good resources, be it defending or refuting unwanted audible effects?

Thanks in advance!

 

Just to add to the muddiness, just like not all analog EQ are created equal, neither are digital EQs.

 

I can say a quick word or two about it in practice. I use a Linux system, with JACK audio, and Calf plugins. Control, patching, etc is via KXStudio utilities.

Of course, it's all free. I don't see why, in the world of FOSS, that should make it inferior. (@Psalmanazar ?) but... can I honestly say it makes no difference to audio quality? No I can't. It might be the software, it might be because I'm cackhanded at pEQ. It might be the miscellaneous stuff that happens playing music on a non-real-time OS, albeit with tweaks. I don't notice with speach, but with music it seems to degrade slightly.

If you want to do anything Linux based, there is a forum: Linux Musicians.

 

Although, the Roon one is really good. Most of what folk hear when new to EQ is that even simple changes in one or two spots, especially if a boost, can result in masking of other frequencies that can feel like something has been removed.