Is high end computer audio worth it

[elel]

This thread is an attempt to draw off the discussion of this subject from another thread in the cpu and other component's section. It is therefore open to all opinions, so long as they are defended reasonably.

 

[builderbobftw]

Short Awnser?

No, No it's not.

High end audio setups are very expensive, and they offer no real improvment over what you can get with 50$ speakers and onboard sound.

Some people claim they can "hear the diffrence" but they are realy just delosional.

They are having buyer's remorse over wasting so much cash, so in thier mind they convince themselves that it is better.

And it makes them feel even better about themselves to try to get other people to piss away thier cash much the same way they did thiers, as if having more people do the same silly thing will somehow validate thier useless waste of cash.

In short, High end audio sound the same, just costs more.

Some people convinve themselves that it sounds better to justify buyer's remorse.

I doubt that in a blind test they could iddentify my Low end audio setup from thier super-duper setup.

The only diffrence? My setup is cheaper.

 

[elel]

I think that an important distinction would be what you are using your setup for. Some different categories would be; flash games, 'real' games, web surfing, cd listening, movie watching, sound recording, professional monitoring. I think that you would increase your budget for at least some of these?

 

[builderbobftw]

^ Honestly, realy, no.

There's just no tangible/signifgant benifts.

So why pay more for the same?

 

[astrallite]

Hmm, well I've spent around $4.5k for speakers, speaker stand, subwoofer, receiver, and power amp.

speakers: Paradigm Signature S2v2
subwoofer: Rythmik Audio F15 servo sub
receiver: onkyo tx-sr805
power amp: d-sonic 1100W ICEPower
stands: steel reinforced, sand filled studiotech

builderbobftw, feel free to fly over to california where I live, I bet you $2k if you think you can't tell the difference in a double blind test. If you lose, you can pay $2k - price of your tickets.

 

[builderbobftw]

So you've paid 4.5K$.

Congrats, thats enough $ to buy 2 of the most awesomest full builds ever.

You wasted every penny.

I'm not flying to californa, why don't you do a blind test you'reself?

It;s not hard, just get one guy to help you.

 

[astrallite]

That's what I thought.

 

[elel]

Even professional monitoring?
edit: oops, I didn't scroll down far enough, I guess you answered that

 

[astrallite]

There's no reason to buy anything more expensive than a Ford Pinto. It's just a car, and if anyone claims they can "tell the difference" they are just delusional and pissing away their money.

Oh, and by the way, there's no reason for me to test drive those cars to back up my statement. Why don't you go do it yourself?

Hmm, where's my green font?

 

[wolfram23]

Hmm I think that it can be worthwhile if you really buy great equipment. In the home theatre department, I've heard pretty standard quality sound varying greatly in price with little difference in actual sound quality. I have a very basic receiver at home with 5.1 sound, and it's a massive step above tv audio, and a good step over 2.1 but it's not tremendous. Then, I heard my uncle's sound system - top end harmon kardon receiver and 6 foot front towers and 5 foot rear towers and a big ass sub, the box was like a coffee table. And yes, you could really, really hear the quality. Of course, that was probably a $15k system. That's way too much for most people to spend, obviously.

Still, comparing my pretty crappy 5.1 system ($300, 300W, plus I bought new center, left, right speakers for about $60) to my dad's system ($1500) it's pretty significant. Crisper, cleaner, bassy-er. With mine I hear sounds "coming from behind me" with my dad's I hear sounds coming from 12.8 feet, 31 degrees to my back left lol. The point is, there is a big difference in sound but you need to be able to spend money on it.

I'd like to have the extra disposable income to spend $1000 on a really nice sound card, receiver and 5.1 speaker set up to use for PC and PS3 but that's just not feasable for me. So, I might go buy the $100 Logitech X-540 5.1 system which will be a really big step over my 2.1 system but to pair a sound card with that will probably be a waste given the onboard high def RealTek audio.

 

[astrallite]

Considering sound has the same radiating pattern as photons, that's pretty much like saying you are delusional if you thinking a 180W light bulb is any brighter than a 2W LED.

 

[builderbobftw]

^ Nope.

It's like saying you are delusional if you think a 180W bulb with a 2$ price tag on it is worse than the same exact bulb with a 4.5k$ price tag on it

 

[astrallite]

Where do they sell your $50 speakers for $4.5k? In Antarctica?

 

[builderbobftw]

What?

The point is that our sound setups sound the same, the only diffrence is:

1. Max voulume.

2. Angle at wich speakers are mounted.

 

[astrallite]

Cool story bro.

 

[elel]

Well said, wolfram. I'm not an audio expert myself, but I work at a manufacturer of top-of-the-line recording equipment (Cranesong Ltd., if you're curious). I come from the electronics side of the business, not audo, but it still means that I get to hang out with some of the better audio techs from my area. Last week our tech support guy got an e-mail from someone who was praising one of our products, the Avocet, to the sky. He said that he had a bunch of friends who (if I can remember the quote) 'believed that the only pure sound came from electrons sliding along red-hot plates in a vacuum'. He was talking about how he was going to bring the unit home and show them how clean transistors can sound if done right. No, this isn't advertising. If people can hear the difference between tubes and transistors, they can hear the difference between a $50 speaker and a $500 one.

 

[builderbobftw]

Thanks mate.

I'll try to tell it more often.

Buying High end Audio is like buying a Radeon 5770 (Your ears) and a Xeon 12 core (Your ausio setup)

There is no bottleneck becuase the 5770 (ears) wouldn't be able to tell the diffrence in frames (Sound quality) regardless of wtehrer you are using an Athlon x3 (My adudio) or a Xeon 12 core (your audio) becuase the GPU (Ears) is the bottleneck

 

[elel]

We're all willing to admit that if you say you're ears are like that - I'm sure that some people's are. But we're not willing to admit that about our own.

 

[builderbobftw]

Ok, Fine.

Lets say my ears are a 5770 and your ears are a 5870.

There is still a GPU bottlneck.

And for the record we had a test at my school and my eyesite was in the top 1% and my hearing si in the top 10%. I was so proud!

 

[saaiello]

This thread is an attempt to draw off the discussion of this subject from another thread in the cpu and other component's section. It is therefore open to all opinions, so long as they are defended reasonably.

Thank You for creating this thread so he can troll here all he wants noone will care here if he kept it up on my thread it was bound to get locked sooner or later.

Thanks mate.

I'll try to tell it more often.

Buying High end Audio is like buying a Radeon 5770 (Your ears) and a Xeon 12 core (Your ausio setup)

There is no bottleneck becuase the 5770 (ears) wouldn't be able to tell the diffrence in frames (Sound quality) regardless of wtehrer you are using an Athlon x3 (My adudio) or a Xeon 12 core (your audio) becuase the GPU (Ears) is the bottleneck

See you are stuck on the performance aspect when we are talking about the quality aspect.

astrallite's setup OMG I can garantee that setup will blow you away and its not about how loud a system can get I can buy a cheap 500 watt amp and hook it up to a cheap woofer and get 160db but thats not what we are talking about we want the quality we want crystal clear highs nice and smooth mid range and lows that just hint on the real thing being rite in front of you. The whole point is to make your audio sound as if the instruments are rite there in the room with you.

You keep talking about graphics cards and processing and bla bla bla you all over the place with your thoughts on this. Some people just can't hear the difference between it and those are the people that dont mind listening to those cheap setups. No one on this thread or on my thread are saying you have to or you need to go out and buy these setups we are just merely trying to educate a few people on what real sound quality is and thats the bottom line. All you are doing is trying to debate about money be better spent else where and well in a perfect world instead of spending 4.5k on a sound system astra would have given 4.5k to a needy family in some 3rd world country but guess what thats his choice to buy those nice expensive things and he gets the pleasure of hearing the most realistic sound you can get.

I have a pair of Paradigm cheaper bookshelf speakers and a center speaker from Paradigm hooked to a Yamaha Receiver and they sound dam good and I paid like 450 for the pair of bookshelf speakers and 400 on the center 10 years ago and they still sound absolutely amazing they are some of the best speakers I have ever heard.