Tidal swallowed the MQA cool-aid, but even so they do support pretty high quality streaming (no provenance). There's 24/48 lossless on Apple Music (but without any real provenance check), Spotify does stream 384kbps lossy, which should be good enough (but there's the politics, and resulting loss of artists), Amazon can do better than CD bitrates, but again, without any provenance.
My personal issue with HD audio streaming is that for $20/month I want to know what I'm getting and how it originalted. So far, that's a dead end. As a resul, interest is lost. By "provenance" I mean information as to what the original file was and what they did to make it HD. There is a lot of stuff that originated at 16/44.1 that has been up-sampled to 24/OMG, and that accomplishes nothing, and it's not technically HD Audio. But it's just a value thing, I don't but any real stock in the audible improvements in HD Audio anyway. Just don't make me pay for it then.
Yes, precisely. I'm listening to music because I like it. No one has any assurance that they're hearing anything remotely resembling what was intended by the people who made it, unless they have the cd. So I just get those and I don't worry about it.
I have a very good CD player and some excellent classical recordings. Used one of my best CDs and went back and forth between it and streaming music over the Internet. Absolutely no difference in the size and depth of the sound stage between the two sources.
There is no question in my mind that the speakers are by far the main determinate in the sound stage. Your advice on this subject really has no value to me.
What streaming service? I just listend to a bunch of so-called and labeled HD tracks on Amazon Music via the app. Out of 6 tracks tested (all classical), 3 were horrible, much worse than anything on CD with all kinds of lossy codec artiffacts, the other 3 were OK. Just OK. Nothing blow up anyones skirt. I have the same issues with other services, it's not a once/done thing at all, and because they don't tell you anything about how you got the music, it's just an expensive crap shoot. CDs are fine, and very consistent. No lossy codec issues!
I believe the above to be absolute fact.
Classical fan. This tread has really grown in the few days since I last posted. I looked back through the thread and could not find a picture of your system. I don't don't know if you posted it or not. It's possible that there are some things you could do that won't cost much. Although in my experience, while you can get pretty good sound from AV components. I have never heard one that could do really good 3D sound stage except for very high priced units. Theta made one twenty five years ago that was a multi channel preamp that cost about 8 thousand dollars or so that could do 3D sound stage. I have not heard one since that time that could compete with simple analog preamps.
Now, there is a difference between good sound and "high end" sound. The latter attempts to recreate a musical experience that sounds "you are there" scary real. I think this is kind of what you are wanting to get. There are too many compromises in an audio A/V receiver to get this. And this also requires very high quality speaker cabinet design to get it combined with good room placement. Room placement is often the hardest to get right unless you have a dedicated room you can use for audio listening. Just putting up a bunch of acoustic panels might help but it won't get you there if the electrical chain and transducers can't do it.
By the way, the Piccolos should be able to create a fairly good sound stage if up on proper non resonant stands and the cabinets were well built. In this case, I believe it is your AV receiver that is limiting your audio re-creation of 3D space.
Now, there is a difference between good sound and "high end" sound. The latter attempts to recreate a musical experience that sounds "you are there" scary real. I think this is kind of what you are wanting to get. There are too many compromises in an audio A/V receiver to get this. And this also requires very high quality speaker cabinet design to get it combined with good room placement. Room placement is often the hardest to get right unless you have a dedicated room you can use for audio listening. Just putting up a bunch of acoustic panels might help but it won't get you there if the electrical chain and transducers can't do it.
By the way, the Piccolos should be able to create a fairly good sound stage if up on proper non resonant stands and the cabinets were well built. In this case, I believe it is your AV receiver that is limiting your audio re-creation of 3D space.
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ok, i will try one last time. in order to be more practical and to have the absolute context of what i wrote and will write, i suggest :
Please select 3 tracks of classical piece as your reference, album and track please, so we can be exact.
i will find and listen to those 3 tracks (unless i couldnt find it on streaming services, then i hope you can select another set of 3) if its in my library, cds and spotify.
after i listen to them, i will give you my impression of the staging of those tracks and i will take photo of my system and room with descriptions.
fyi any tracks if available on cd/flac/lossless/hi-res and spotify, spotify always have much smaller and significant decrease in depth of imaging. to give you an idea what sort of quality of spotify, every track in spotify is max at 320kbps, it doesnt have content above 15khz due to compression (i have measured it).
Are you talking about local streaming of non compressed files or web site based audio streaming. If the latter and you cannot hear the difference between that and your CD player. That is a good indication that your AV receiver is significantly lowering the quality. Seriously, there is so much digital noise inside of a AV receiver and so much complicated circuitry that it is amazing that they sound as good as they do.
Agreed.
Disagreed with 1. completely and 4. Relating to the electrical chain. The room and transducers in their enclosures have a massive influence, electronics far, far less.
Bad speakers sound terrible in a bad room.
Bad speakers sound better in a good room.
Good speakers sound OK in a bad room, but their best in a good room.
All that is true with no electronics changes at all.
Assuming the electronics are not junk (the Denon he has is not), the impact will be minimal, and should be addressed after the elephants are herded. The biggest electronic factor is amp source impedance, sometimes viewed as damping factor (same thing, one is the inverse of the other). That can change the frequency response of a speaker. The problem is, you won't know what the designer intended. Could be he tuned for a DF of less than 10, or a DF of 150. The difference is significant. But since you don't know, it's another crap shoot, and pick your flavor. At its absolute worst a change in DF from 10 to 200 might make a 3dB difference at some frequency. There is no point in DF above 200 since any speaker cable will only bring it back down to 200 or less. On school of thought says anything higher than 10 is fine, another says 150-200 is the target. In reality, if you want to hear your speakers as designed, you need to know what amp was used to tune them.
To scale this, 3dB change in FR as a result of amp output Z and speaker Z is audible, but but subtle. Speaker FR changes much more than that model to model. In room response can change speaker FR by much more than 6dB, and below 100Hz, you can have 20dB changes quite easily. You don't fix any of that with an amp change.
Well, this is interesting. I have been using web site based audio streaming. A combination of various radio stations that stream classical music, KUSC in the US for example, and a dedicated service such as Classic FM Opera from the Netherlands.
And I believe what you are telling me is since they all sound the same as the CD player that the AVR is essentially reducing the quality in all of the sources to same level. In other words, if the amplifier was a lot better I would hear more of a difference between a locally played CD and the streaming service. With the CD, of course, sounding much better.
So, if this true then I should be shopping for a new amplifier rather than worrying about new speakers. Back to square one.
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Agree with most all of what you said. I agree acoustic interaction with transducers is massive and complicated mess. I have studied acoustics as a hobby for many years. I think in larger rooms with larger speaker systems. Especially musical reinforcement systems the acoustics and transducers dominate the sound quality of the whole system. However, this is not as much true in small home rooms were often few acoustic measures can be taken. In this case most have to focus on the quality of the electronics and speakers.
To get the best sound you have to address as many of these factors as is economically possible. Also, frequency response is not the only factor in sound quality. There are micro dynamics of timbre and room cues that are in the recording that are usually not heard through A/V receivers. These small sounds are often completely lost in large room acoustics. So I can see how you might see things the way you do.
All I can say is that I am getting pretty good sound stage and 3D dimensionality in my modest system which has pretty much, not very good room placement and acoustic treatment.
can you describe your system and photo of the room please? as this topic is quite interesting...
Yes, but it is not as bad as you think. There is no reason to disgard your AV system as you probably use it for watching movies. The speakers are capable of much higher sound quality and you have not yet realized their potential. You might try experimenting with an inexpensive passive volume control on e bay connected directly to your CD player and then to some good amp. Now here is the rub. Really good amps are expensive, but you might try one of the better sounding professional amps that are in the 400 dollar range. These amps are designed for musical reinforcement and are more designed for ruggedness and power output. But some of them do sound pretty good. The other option is a good used amplifier off eBay.
Usually, a local CD player will sound much better than a compressed streamed internet signal. Much of the subtle music cues you want to hear are lost in the compression process. And yet, it's amazing how good those compressed streams can sound. They have come a long way. Twenty years ago they were terrible.
Also, of you are running the CD player with the digital output to the AV receiver you are using the DAC's in the AV receiver. If the CD player is a good one. It might have a better sounding audio DAC for music than the AV receiver does. It might sound better running it into the AV receiver with it's analog inputs and making sure the AV receiver does not do any processing of the signal.
This thread may be relevant: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...d-soundstage-with-stereo-reproduction.383287/
dave
dave
OK. The room is 10.5' wide by 12' deep with an 8' ceiling. The speakers are about 3 feet out from the front 10.5' wall. I sit about 2' out from the opposite 10.5' wall in a very high back padded chair. As a result, I receive almost no sound from the wall behind me. It is all blocked by the high back of the chair.
One of the 12' side walls contains a large window about 6' wide. That leaves about 3' of wall on both sides of the window. The opposite side wall is a large double sliding closet door about 8' wide.
There is very thick carpet throughout the room. And that is over an equally thick pad, which in turn is over a wooden second story floor. The floor in this room is very sound absorbing. Probably could not be any more so.
KUSC streams at 120kbps, couldn't determine the codec, but most likely mp3. Same rate for Classic FM Opera, confirmed mp3. A CD is 1411kbps, so these streams are bit-rate reduced by nearly 1/12. Bit rate looks dynamic too, so possibly coded Joint Stereo. Both sound OK for causual background listening, but not very good for serious active listening. Not even AAC HE. Pretty typical radio streams, nothing special.
Small house, fixer upper. Only one main living room for couch, TV and music listening. This room still needs renovating but right now I don't want to spend the money on it. Let me criticize my system regarding the acoustic problems. Speakers to close to the walls should be more out in the room. Too much furniture bunched together. Too many hard surfaces between the speakers such as the glass TV stand and the TV. Coffee table in front of couch. I move it into the kitchen for serious music listening. No acoustic treatments of any kind on walls or floor. This is just about as bad as it gets. I have a plan to make a less reflective TV stand and center speaker which might improve sound stage a bit. At least I have 9 foot ceilings in this 120 years old house.
I built these quazi Watt/Puppy clones about 25 years ago and now I am planning on building my last speaker system. It will be a little bit larger and a four way system with cool looking cabinet. This was the only furniture and TV layout that I could live with and get the surrounds installed how I wanted them. It's a multi purpose room so it has lots of compromises. I could shift the speakers out into the room a little bit and to the left but than would block the front door and a chair.
You might notice a power protection device under the TV. This is an inexpensive rack mount that I use to protect the TV and the Rotel monoblocks which are just visible under the center channel speaker.
This brings up another topic. To get the best sound out of your system you will have to use some kind of AC mains filtering. I have a monster power conditioner on the main AV rack. And it made a big difference in sound quality for the music listening system. I use to have a Theta Pro Prime 2a DAC but sold it as I needed to experiment with high resolution formats. It was a good sounding DAC for redbook digital. But now I use a cheap Topping E30 combined with a linear power supply and up sample everything to DSD in Foobar on the computer. The sound is amazing for the amount of money spent. Even with the poor acoustic setup.
A/V rack is in the closet. Out of the way.
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thanks mate. cool looking speakers. sometimes having a table is a good thing as it adds body (100-400hz bump) to the music hahah
IME, for better acoustics, symmetry and same type of acoustics diffuser and absorber (if using any) is critical.
That doesn't even make logical sense. Analog sources are sampled at 24/48, and that's what the DSP runs at, except for 64bit internal bit depth. Digital sources are passed through to the DSP, up sampled for the processing, spit out to the DACS at 24/48. There's nothing in the chain that would reduce the quality, and if you bypass the DSP, nothing is changed but volume.
Oh heck no!
Well lets see. The AVR selects inputs, digitizes analog inputs, applies volume control and outputs the bit stream to the DACS, then on to the power amps. Nothing there to change anything, other than a possilby light weight output Z. In>out FR is ruler flat, noise is down in the LSB range, and no time-domain issues to speak of in the audio band.
Now speakers...if you only look at FR, they're all over the map. All of them. The good ones less, and hopefully voiced with a gently and smoothing falling high end. And the bass, of course, is all about the room, and a bit of the woofers. And if you look out in the time domain, you see resononces hanging on past the initial output creating all sorts of "color", driver timing issues, phase shifts, the whole kettle of fish. Then linearity...massive IMD and THD, even at modest SPL.
Ok, so which is the bigger modifier? Which needs the most work?
Yeah, I know, go buy an new amp. 🤦 🤦
No value to you is implied, and how exactly would you be able to tell any difference, given your evident gear problems? 😉