Any audiophiles here?

kingfriso wrote: I'm audiophile enough to refuse every cd/mp3 if I can get (in theory, some vinyl is hard to get) a vinyl copy of the record.

The difference between 192kbps MP3 and loseless audio is absolutely squat for me, and if there is any difference, it's not worth the extra hard disk space.
I'm not really an insanely audiophile-ish person, I honestly don't really own an expensive audio systems. My main thing is about production really. I cannot listen stuff (or just not as often) that has really poor production.
Examples, such as metal albums with guitar tones that are a horrible, grating mid scooped grind (... And Justice For All, Cowboys from Hell) tend to make it a difficult listen for me. I'll probably end up selling me copy of AJFA purely for that reason alone.
 It's just so much easier to sit through an album with bigger and warmed guitar tones (like Colors by Between the Buried and Me with it's big low mid chunk and pretty much all of Pelican's stuff for example) for me personally because you're not being blasted with excesses of low end and high end.
Once I get a more permanent job however, I will upgrade my studio monitors to something more high end so I can take advantage of the well produced albums in my library.

I'm audiophile enough to refuse every cd/mp3 if I can get (in theory, some vinyl is hard to get) a vinyl copy of the record.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ you should be able to identify 128kbit MP3 even on a half-way decent system. As for whether you should use 192, 256 or 320kbits ... who cares? If you already have most of your collection at 192kbit, why go through the trouble of re-ripping it all again.

Exercising your futility of course.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ exactly. Personally, I don't ever think about that when I listen to music. A few years ago when I started to rip all my 1000+ albums as MP3, I was concerned ... but whenever I listened to the tracks - especially those that I had listened to on CD countless times over the years and knew in and out - I found no difference to the originals, and that really encouraged me to accept MP3.

I have tried to tell the difference between a cd, a 320 kbps mp3, and a 256 kbps mp3. At a reasonable listening level I noticed no difference between any of them. I have even been thinking about reripping my cds to 192 kbps. I have everything from 128 to 356 on my mp3 player, and I never notice which is which. The only time I notice bad quality sound is when the recording itself is bad quality.

So, considering that we're on the subject of audiophilia, my longtime headphones have finally betrayed me; anyone have some phones they're especially proud of or feel like making a special recommendation?

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ I really am. Just finished listening to this fine album on my computer: http://www.emusic.com/album/Kotebel-Ouroboros-MP3-Download/11447196.html Heavily recommended to ... anyone really, I cannot imagine any Prog fan not liking it.

Just got around to checking this out, super nice tunes; thanks

I don't know much about the actual tech details between Mp3 and Wav files, but i do notice that ambient sounds feel like they have a slight bit more range, and are more prominent and pristine when comparing a CD vs MP3 of the same music. Of course, if you were listening to some pop song you probably could hardly notice the difference, but listening to music like Isis or GYBE, the difference feels quite obvious to me. 

^ If you are happy, be happy.

A modern sigma-delta DAC semiconductor costs around $0.10 to make and wipes the floor with the DACs from 30 years ago, but it is the associated circuitry around it that elevates it from adequate to hi-fi and then finally to audiophile. With all the best intentions in the world, a PC motherboard, chassis, power-supply and cooling system is not designed to be an hi-fi environment. A DAC on a motherboard not can be hi-fi and a high-quality soundcard may have impressive specifications, and coupled to some good quality speakers may sound very good, but it will never be audiophile since it is impossible to isolate the digital systems from the audio path - even on the soundcard you cannot get away from the PCI bus and all the associated rf radiation that emanates from the edges of the digital signals.

Edited by Dean - July 04 2009 at 11:10

cobb2 wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: I think this is the real problem: Some people simply refuse to believe that if you remove 82% of the original, the result can still sound exactly like the original (judged by human ears). I think this line may sum up the audiophile problem with MP3. They know audio data is missing and may be pychosematic (bad spelling)  to what they are hearing- it can't be as good can it? therefore it isn't