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Author Topic: The All Purpose Advice Thread  (Read 139949 times)

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Claritas

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1320 on: August 29, 2015, 09:00:05 PM »
I'm getting tired of lugging a CD player and discs to meets so I'm finally going to (slowly) move from CDs to, I presume, FLAC (?). Is Exact Audio Copy the way to go or something else? I'll be using an upgraded Lenovo Thinkpad from 2010, if it matters.
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munch

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1321 on: September 03, 2015, 05:07:24 AM »
hi uh so...

what's the current recommendation for portable use circumaural headphones with some bass/warmth but not dull? midrange forward would be sweet.
budget whatever but probably no more than $400. sold off some stuff and now I need new closed-back portables... :)
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Riotvan

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1322 on: September 03, 2015, 11:21:01 AM »
Hmm momentum 2.0?
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munch

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1323 on: September 03, 2015, 06:42:28 PM »
I do think those are good, but the midrange seemed a little recessed to me? slight V-shape in the upper mids.
not sure if amping them will help since I only tried out of my phone (iphone 6) but I could try :)
thanks!
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aufmerksam

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1324 on: September 03, 2015, 07:47:28 PM »
For circumaural, read up on the Beyer DT150 and DT250. They have both been measured and discussed here. DT150 is ~$300, DT250 is ~$200. I think both are excellent value propositions if you want real closed headphones with decent resolution and neutrality (generally hard to do with true closed headphones). Both are pretty indestructible, which is nice for true portability. Both are true closed, which means little to no leakage, and excellent isolation. I prefer the 150, but many prefer the 250. If I am honest, the 250 looks less like a lego took a shit on your head.
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Sorrodje

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1325 on: September 05, 2015, 09:33:20 AM »
I'm lurking around building a measurements rig and i need some experienced advice for a soundcard.


- I'd appreciate it to be decent as a desktop dac/amp for my ZMF Vibro X ( power hungry bastard ) so a powerful amp would be truly appreciated.  At least the soundcard should be a decent USB DAC on which I can plug a dedicated amp.
- Good for measurements
- Linux full compatibility.
- External / USB . I' use a laptop on its dockstation at home.
- Basic ( not zillions settings and features) , I look for good value.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2015, 10:37:29 AM by Sorrodje »
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Deep Funk

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1326 on: September 05, 2015, 10:35:45 AM »
Quote from: Claritas on August 29, 2015, 09:00:05 PM
I'm getting tired of lugging a CD player and discs to meets so I'm finally going to (slowly) move from CDs to, I presume, FLAC (?). Is Exact Audio Copy the way to go or something else? I'll be using an upgraded Lenovo Thinkpad from 2010, if it matters.

EAC is good. Try out some software that is recommended and decide for yourself. The challenge is simple: which software does exactly what you want and works for you? Finding the settings and setting the process up make the difference.
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Psalmanazar

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1327 on: September 05, 2015, 05:30:14 PM »
EAC, with correct drive offsets, secure mode, test and copy, and Accurate Rip.

There is a detailed step by step guide on a certain website. The public version of that guide is for a prior version of EAC and some things are different. I advise you follow this guide exactly to not screw up. Screwing up is annoying as drives can take up to an hour to read and check everything. I've had damaged and miniature CDs take all day.
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munch

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1328 on: September 06, 2015, 06:50:32 AM »
Quote from: aufmerksam on September 03, 2015, 07:47:28 PM
For circumaural, read up on the Beyer DT150 and DT250. They have both been measured and discussed here. DT150 is ~$300, DT250 is ~$200. I think both are excellent value propositions if you want real closed headphones with decent resolution and neutrality (generally hard to do with true closed headphones). Both are pretty indestructible, which is nice for true portability. Both are true closed, which means little to no leakage, and excellent isolation. I prefer the 150, but many prefer the 250. If I am honest, the 250 looks less like a lego took a shit on your head.

haha the 150 sure are ugly, unfortunately!
I tried the 250-80Ohm and I found the sound to be very uneven - channel imbalance mainly?
I would rather not deal with QC a la Beyer, seems like most people experienced this :(
and comfort was rather bad. curse my big ears.

AstralStorm recommended modded AKG K55x - considering those.

otherwise, Audio Technica ATH-M70X I quite like- just not sure if $349 good, yet. a touch bright...
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Hammy

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Re: The All Purpose Advice Thread
« Reply #1329 on: September 07, 2015, 09:57:10 AM »
Quote from: Claritas on August 29, 2015, 09:00:05 PM
I'm getting tired of lugging a CD player and discs to meets so I'm finally going to (slowly) move from CDs to, I presume, FLAC (?). Is Exact Audio Copy the way to go or something else? I'll be using an upgraded Lenovo Thinkpad from 2010, if it matters.

If you're going to be ripping classical music I would suggest going with dBpoweramp. It costs $40 but well worth it. The first time you rip a box set of complete Bach organ works you will be "oh my god this is so worth the price". The alternative is to spend hours manually fixing tags and typing in track names.

The big advantage for dBpoweramp is metadata lookup. Tagging data. It gets classical metadata from AMG (AllMusic Guide), SonataDB (a dedicated classical music DB), and MusicBrainz. Then does an intelligent merging of all those sources to get you good tagging data. dBpoweramp uses AccurateRip (dBpoweramp developed AccurateRip) so you know the rips will be good and not full of glitches.

Second choice would be CUERipper which is a part of CUETools. It's free. A good ripper. Gets metadata from FreeDB, MusicBrainz, Discogs, and its own CTDB (CueTools DB). It verifies rips with AccurateRip and its own CTDB. It's a good ripper.

Third choice would be Exact Audio Copy. It's a PITA to set up. A PITA to get configured for good metadata lookup. It's possible to add the CTDB metadata lookup to it so it can get data from MusicBrainz and Discogs. It is able to verify rips with AccurateRip and also with CTDB if you add in the CTDB module. But in general, EAC sucks for ripping classical music. The people who use EAC a lot rip lots of rap, pop, and rock. They don't rip classical. If they did rip classical they'd switch to a different ripper.

Ripping should take a couple minutes per disc. Unfortunately many laptop drives are not good for ripping and will rip very slowly. If your laptop drive is slow you'll need to look at getting a USB CD drive that is good for ripping.

MusicBrainz is getting better classical metadata for more CDs. But at the same time has become annoying by standardizing on things like Cryllic names for Russian composers. Which means you'll need to manually correct those things. Which gets to be a PITA. dBpoweramp won't have those problems.

Rip to FLAC files. A file for each track. Don't rip to full disc CUE files that rip the disc to one large file.
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