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Author Topic: JH Audio Angie (Universal)  (Read 19835 times)

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Anaxilus

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #40 on: April 15, 2015, 03:11:52 PM »
Quote from: music_4321 on April 15, 2015, 01:23:13 PM
Dear Señor Anaxilus,

Do us a favour and tell us if your ultra uber resolving gear reveals issues with the following track, particularly in the sibilance department: http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/When+Poets+Dreamed+Of+Angels/4iitLW?src=5

If it does, either your gear ain't good enough and the Angies (and AK240) rule, or the Angies suck and you and your gear rule…or a friendly compromise: our sibilance tolerance levels are different.

Using my Laptop (JRiver 20)>GO450>Leckerton UHA6Smk2>UERM custom modded:

First thing's first. Your grooveshark linked track of the 'reissue' or 'remaster' sounds quite LOUD with quite a bit of compression making everything go wub wub and blurring the imaging and transients. I went ahead and looked it up here to see if it was my imagination.

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=david+sylvian&album=

Lo and behold, it's not. Just to reconfirm I decided to go to that venerable audio reference library in the sky known as youtube to see how your grooveshark remaster compared to other prior non-remastered tracks. Lo and behold again, we now have natural reverb and decay with clean imaging and transients that are actually natural and not compressed. Even using youtube's shitty compression which is another separate issue.



As for sibilance, on your Grooveshark track I do detect and ever so slight elevation of 'sss' over the natural sibilants in his vocal speech patterns but nothing too overly fatiguing for long term listening. However, on the youboob track the sibilants are much much more natural and completely unfatiguing. No surprise as your grooveshark track has had loudness applied in the mastering making everything pop more (including vocal sibilance). So if you hear absolutely no sibilance on either track I have a hard time accepting your rig as more accurate since I can detect a clear difference in two separate masters (unless you've added compression in your upload process or rip which I doubt).

When you can hear vocal sibilance naturally just talking to a person just by saying something like, "your gear suckss" I don't find it something that needs to be oppressed or removed by upstream gear. So if your AK240 and Angie didn't reveal those differences, maybe that's something we all should look at when considering an uber-resolving piece of kit. YMMV.

PS-OJ tends to prefer a hint of warmth just fyi (I've heard most of his gear and tonal preferences in person and that's my opinion. Marvey likes it even a hair warmer up top than OJ) and it has nothing to do with ruler flat measured neutrality in FR. Warm and sibilant upstreams can both measure flat. No surprise.
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OJneg

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #41 on: April 15, 2015, 03:27:09 PM »
FWIW I think that original posted sounds unnatural and fatiguing, but I don't find it overly sibilant. It doesn't make me rip my headphones off.
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Anaxilus

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #42 on: April 15, 2015, 03:36:24 PM »
Me neither. Not ear ripping. Just a hair over where it should be as the difference from the original master indicates.

Other tracks that have zero sibilance issues on my rig:









So if an audio rig reveals one track has issues, and others don't, isn't it more revealing (i.e. transparent)?
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"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." - Lao Tzu

"The Claw is our master. The Claw chooses who will go or who will stay." - The LGM Community

"You're like a dull knife, just ain't cuttin'. Talking loud, saying nothing." - James Brown

music_4321

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #43 on: April 15, 2015, 03:47:16 PM »
Thanks for your reply, Sr Anaxilus.

I have to apologise as I didn't actually listen to that Grooveshark track myself (just found the track and posted a link to it [it was thanks to you, incidentally, a few years back, that I learned there was a place called Grooveshark]). I actually only have the original (1987) CD, and was not convinced by the remastered version of it when it came out, which, incidentally, Mr David Sylvian had nothing to do with.

Now, I'm not so sure whether compression would actually affect sibilance in this case, or affect it that much (I'd need to compare both versions to be sure), but I'd say it mostly affects dynamics, including, of course, (natural) decay.

"So if you hear absolutely no sibilance on either track I have a hard time accepting your rig as more accurate since I can detect a clear difference in two separate masters (unless you've added compression in your upload process or rip which I doubt)." —— With my rig I have no sibilance issues (like I do with a couple of phones), but I do detect a 'natural' elevation (careful here) of the "sss", but nothing worrisome at all. No, no compression added, just a straight FLAC rip.

"PS-OJ tends to prefer a hint of warmth just fyi (I've heard most of his gear and tonal preferences in person and that's my opinion. Marvey likes it even a hair warmer up top than OJ) and it has nothing to do with ruler flat measured neutrality in FR. Warm and sibilant upstreams can both measure flat. No surprise." —— One of the great things about good recordings/masters is that there's a sort of warmth (or now we call it that!) that is, er, very natural, to these ears, natural in the sense of resembling what we hear in the real world; many modern recordings and ear/headphones enhance treble (and bass!), as you very well know, which in turn adds artificial brightness and detail (as I sometimes say, do we actually look at life through a microscope (or a magnifying lens) in real life?)

What upsets me the most, apart, obviously, from Mr OJneg not having ordered the Angies yet, is that none of you said, "Nice track, music_4321/Sparrow!".
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Anaxilus

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #44 on: April 15, 2015, 03:53:26 PM »
Sibilance is a vocal dynamic. Compression just makes everything louder, not sure why sibilance would be immune to that effect in my opinion. I do agree with what you are hearing. A very natural elevation on the original.

Thx for the kind note on Grooveshark G. And yes that's good music bro. :)p5
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"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." - Lao Tzu

"The Claw is our master. The Claw chooses who will go or who will stay." - The LGM Community

"You're like a dull knife, just ain't cuttin'. Talking loud, saying nothing." - James Brown

Za Warudo

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #45 on: April 15, 2015, 04:20:28 PM »
Secrets of the Beehive is one of my favorite albums.
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music_4321

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #46 on: April 15, 2015, 04:38:35 PM »
Quote from: Za Warudo on April 15, 2015, 04:20:28 PM
Secrets of the Beehive is one of my favorite albums.

Secrets of the Beehive is indeed a great album, but, more importantly—at least for now, anyway—, have you placed an order for your Angies yet? Some of us need to make a living one way or another, you know, and my shilling services have to bear fruit veeery soon.

(Do note I now also sell A&K and JHA bumper stickers, beer mugs, coffee mugs, pens, toothpaste, aprons, baseball caps, Mexican hats, and so on.)
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spoony

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #47 on: April 15, 2015, 06:08:02 PM »
It is indeed a great album, though Orpheus is a lot more sibilant than the track you linked, the 's's and 't's sound a bit whistly and unnatural for me, should they?

Here's another track that's ALWAYS been a unnaturally sibilant for me:
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Griffon

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #48 on: April 15, 2015, 07:06:55 PM »
OK a new member here, and a happy Angie owner (also a migrant from HF hypes of Layla). I'm in line with the sparrow's impression that I don't need to crank the volumes up too high to get the smoothness and details. From portable devices (zx1 in my case) Angies are good, but they really shine with proper desktop gears. On the go Angie and Noble 4 serves me very well.
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proedros

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Re: JH Audio Angie (Universal)
« Reply #49 on: April 15, 2015, 11:54:22 PM »
Quote from: spoony on April 15, 2015, 06:08:02 PM
It is indeed a great album, though Orpheus is a lot more sibilant than the track you linked, the 's's and 't's sound a bit whistly and unnatural for me, should they?

Here's another track that's ALWAYS been a unnaturally sibilant for me:



albums like these , should be listened in good quality , say a great vinyl rip (the new ear candy is VR , gentlemen) at least 16/44 FLAC

listening to music off youtube from a 1000$ iem , sounds like driving a ferrari in a mud road

not worthy of the car/iem ,and doesnot let the car/iem show its true nature/potential

cheers

btw , sparrow you should check the albums David Sylvian did with Mr Holger Czukai from the famous/genius Krautrock band CAN

good (ambient) stuff

cheers again
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