Obscure equipment edition. This is a thread for the discussion of home audio and theater equipment. You are free to post any questions and advice. Post your equipment, poorfag or richfag.
Recently picked up this Vector Research VCX-300 and it works. It also makes my rack look complete. I have one complaint though, music sounds a little dull and muted - lower volume than they should be. There's a adjustment knob and switch, and an equalization/tape type switch, but so far bias adjustment does nothing. Haven't noticed much difference with the two (old) tapes I have when flipping the tape type switch. I can tell the equalization/tape type switch works on my tapes, setting it to 120μS for Type I tapes but the sound is still dull. Lack of owner's manual doesn't help, either. Would anyone happen to know what I should be doing?
youtube is currently killing music and audio in general by serving 160K vbr opus by default, and it goes lower to 70K and 50K which are honestly tolerable and almost indistinguishable from each other. they could just switch to 50K stream and no one would even notice, and that's at less than a third of previous bandwidth can someone with at least somewhat non-shitty headphones compare these? is 50 kbps opus the endgame for audio? >posting this in audiophile thread yeah, fuck audiophiles btw
Austin Brooks
post some opus sample files. I thought 160k opus was the future?
Is it a three head or not? It needs to have three heads to make adjusting the bias workable I think.
Juan Long
You dullness and lack of highs sounds like an azimuth/ alignment problem. Is it with tapes that are not recorded on that deck?
Kayden Miller
Can anyone recommend a good parametric equalizer client for JACK?
Ian Howard
two heads Revisited my tape deck again to make sure and it was just my other testing tape has wear, causing it to sound dull. Noticed that as I played it there was also odd panning of the channels on it.
would i be fine resampling my 24/96+ library to 24/44.1 i have done abx testing and can tell zero difference no matter the equipment i use i just don't want to, eventually, be in the possession of equipment that would reveal a difference here (and by equipment i mean ears too, never know what the future holds)
Storage is cheap, just buy more storage if your material is worth anything.
Zachary Sanchez
i don't want to waste unnecessary space, and i just copy my entire library with no conversion to my DAP so i'd prefer not to have to upgrade from my 400GB sd card for a while longer and cutting the sample rate would give me a ton of space back. i don't want to change the bit depth because i've heard it can have a measurable impact on bass response (despite some of my best sounding music coming from CD sources like the 1st japan release of Bad, but i digress)
Bentley Ortiz
My father is big into Hi-FI systems, as of right now we have
>Sony Amplifier, some jap equalizer and sony speakers in my student dorm >Full grundig Hi-Fi system in my hometown room (equalizer, reverb, amplifier, 2 big ass german subwoofers and 2 tweeters, some grundig thing for controling lights with sound) >another full german Hi-Fi system in my brothers room (can't remember what, but some 5 pieces) >some 7-8 pieces of random high quality Hi-Fi stuff in his room (I know he has a marantz deck and amp, can't remember other things) >living room with full Hi-Fi syste, some german CD jukebox, and 4 subwoofers + 4 mid-range speakers >full basement of these things
My father is literally a hoarder, he buys these for old TVs, usually exotic portable ones >old thinkpads >wathces >tfw my father is a weirdo and I just now realize
Thomas King
Is there any guide on 2 subwoofer placement (I don't think I want more in my room)? I like one subwoofer that I have now, but it basically requires to stay in one place and not move if I EQ it to more or less flat response. I tried experimenting a little bit with speakers as "subwoofers", it seems that I should place one in the corner and place another to somewhat fill "gaps" and have more even response across the couch (not necessarily flat, just even) and then eq it. Are there better methods for just 2 subs?
Grayson Edwards
in that case 96k convert to 48k and 88,2k to 44,1k use flac level 5
Grayson Butler
You won't be sleeping nicely if you do that conversion. Trust me. So just buy storage.
Another option - convert files, rent a studio with top tier equipment and rooms for a few hours (if you have such possibility), prepare for blind test (you need to know what to listen for, etc), do that and then you MIGHT have some sleep. But probably buying storage is cheaper than going to a studio of such caliber and guaranteed result.
Lucas Hall
sell it all for vintage prices and get something decent
idk why its sideways. also, should i drill a hole so that the high speaker is actually solidly attached? my uncle gave me these, and he never fucked with them, so apparently they came like that
I want to buy a new speakers for my computer what's the best one under $200?
Jose Martin
Just looks like the screws have come out. I'd take the remaining screw out, lay a thin bead of glue around the edge of the hole, press the tweeter back in, use slightly thicker screws, and be careful not to put too much torque on them or they'll strip out.
Matthew Moore
Klipsch pro media 2.1 For $200, it's about as good as you can do new.
It sure is old. They're still building them. I can buy a set on Amazon.
Jose Sanders
I used to have a set of speakers that looked an awful lot like these, but they were Technics. The bottom "woofer" was actually passive since it's a sealed cabinet. Is your set the same way?
Carson Howard
the whole thing is passive
Hudson Harris
audio is worse than buying a sports car in ya 40s
Brandon Campbell
why on earth is the topping t60 so huge compared to the smsl 98e?
Henry Cook
Integrated linear power supply vs external bricque. Two massive, manly toroids, brah.
that makes sense. too bad it caused so much interference, I probably would have liked its impressive girth.
Eli Bell
Wanna build a 5.1 home theater setup for the first time, but also wanna pick the speakers individually so I can use some really good stereo speakers for also playing music on FL and FR. Can I use any speakers with an AV receiver, or do I have to pay attention to some sorta Amps or Watts or Ohms?
Also unrelated to the home theater but I don't wanna buy expensive stuff just to find out that something doesn't work the way I imagined it so I gotta ask: Can Windows 7 send audio simultaneously out of the audio jack to some stereo desktop speakers and out of USB to a headphone DAC?
Logan Hughes
Seeing this thing on Craigslist kind of makes me wish I hadn't given all my tapes away in the early '90s.
input power and impedence will tell you if the amp will work with the speakers for your needs, if the speakers input power is higher than the amps output, it will be quieter than their full potential. and impedence affects that
Lincoln Stewart
Alright, so the impedance has to match or be similar at least? And what happens if the amp output is higher than the speaker input? It's probably unlikely with big music speakers and an AV receiver, but will they blow immediately or only when I turn it all the way up or something?
they should only blow up up if you turn it up really high.
say the wattage is 400 at an impedance of 4, at impedence 8 it would be the same as 200 watts at 4 impedance. basically if you double the impedance, the effective wattage is halved
Andrew Taylor
finally brought them in from the car, >all drivers work >look butt ugly >grilles present, but rough
>previous owner replaced the midrange capacitors, originals were 2 bi-polar schott 350uf 330v connected in series.
I'm going to have to do the rest of the capacitors, does anyone know why they might have wired those capacitors like that? wouldn't it effectively be 1/350 + 1/350 ? I'm not sure I have enough money to duplicate the original cap setup
also, i'm a little sad they didn't come with the stands.
and i should mention i think most modern speakers are rated at 4 impedence. so for my setup my old speakers are rated at 200W 8 impedence. the amp is 200W 4 impedence, meaning the amp is half the ideal power. but even at the effective 100W its at, its pretty loud and more than enough for my small room setup
Nolan Russell
>tfw slept on a storage locker bundle of massive horns salvaged from an old movie theatre
take a look at the spectra with spek. even with commercial 192khz files there was never any musical content above 48khz, usually just interference and/or noise (pic related). usually, there wasn't even anything of note above 22khz. also most records don't benefit from being 24bit, esp. vinyl rips which doesn't have the dynamic range in the first place.
Not particularly obscure, but MiniDisc was the only portable recording media that competed for cassette, and was a total game changer for me. Portable playlists at CD quality* ! The 90s portable players were bleeding edge - you could listen for 20 hrs on a single AA!
Wouldn't that only happen at deafening volumes already? Unless your speakers were super-sensitive.
Bentley James
Currently using: random 90's Sony amp with its radio tuner and cd player dac in amp is being bypassed, using an Amb Labs Gamma2 as a DAC feeding the amp with the cd player going to the DAC with TOSLINK Other DAC channel is being fed by a Cubieboard 2 running Volumio Second output of the DAC is feeding an O2 headphone amp Powering Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 and an AKG K701
What do you think? I should probably just build a custom amp or something. I also have a good Technics set from the 80's stashed away right next to an Yamaha one from the 70's.
Nathaniel Gutierrez
i like these. i had a few and i think i still even have one somewhere that i last used around maybe 2002 did they finally come up with a way to drag & drop files from a computer onto the discs?
Carson Clark
i don't see any pics of your mommy user. so, no.
Aiden Russell
fuck it, i'm just going to resample and dither everything to 16/44.1 i have all of the releases catalogued anyway so i know where they came from which is arguably more important
Daniel Williams
sound will be a little bit shittier but it doesn’t matter
