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MP3 + (4)

The fascinating story of the origins of those high priced headphones all the kids are wearing these days.
posted by COD on Feb 7, 2013 - 114 comments

Articles last month revealed that musician Neil Young and Apple's Steve Jobs discussed offering digital music downloads of 'uncompromised studio quality'. Much of the press and user commentary was particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of uncompressed 24 bit 192kHz downloads. 24/192 featured prominently in my own conversations with Mr. Young's group several months ago. Unfortunately, there is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space.
posted by Sebmojo on Mar 6, 2012 - 332 comments

The Lexicon BD-30 is a THX-certified Blu-ray player with "Anchor Bay's award-winning Video Reference Series technology" that retails for $3,500. However, reviewers at Audioholics recently discovered that the BD-30 is nothing more than a non-THX-certified $500 Oppo BDP-83, placed in a new exterior, chassis and all, and marked up by $3000. At least one review forum stands by its assessment claiming that the Lexicon is superior to the Oppo. [via]
posted by Prospero on Jan 18, 2010 - 75 comments

Sennheiser, a family-run company with an interesting history of searching for audiophile quality, has created what it boasts as "the new standard for audiophile headphones." But will it matter in the long run, when the next generation of listeners enjoys the "sizzle sound" associated with lower bitrate MP3s? (via) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Mar 16, 2009 - 118 comments

Journalist Accepts $1 Million Challenge: Do $7250 Cables Sound Better or Not? (Or they could use these $43,000 cables instead). At least, it sounded like acceptance, even to James Randi. But then... maybe not. So while you're waiting to find out if you should spend that much for cables, maybe you can buy something from this collection of fine audiophile products. $400 for a pair tweeters may not be too bad. You can use them with your $350,000 amplifier, and your awesome-looking $100,000 turntable. Make sure you set aside $13,416 for a decent power cable, though, or you're just wasting your money.
posted by The Deej on Oct 21, 2007 - 147 comments

The audio toolbox for the audiophile:
CD ripper - Exact Audio Copy (Windows)
Media Player - Foobar2000 (Windows)
MP4 Encoder - Nero MP4 command-line encoder (Windows, Linux soon)
Audio techology forum - Hydrogenaudio [more inside]
posted by Sharcho on May 5, 2006 - 56 comments

Won'tcha do us all a favor and start ripping those CDs at a higher quality if you're going to share. Thanks.
posted by panoptican on Dec 27, 2005 - 62 comments

Extreme Hi-Fi Buff. "...A further modification to loudspeakers that I found well worthwhile is to fill the cabinet with sulphur hexafluoride gas, SF6, in place of the air..."
posted by Spoon on May 28, 2002 - 18 comments

Are you an Audiophile? I found this article on Slashdot, but I know some folks here don't read that site regularly and I think it's worth parroting here. I thought I was going a little overboard with my Technics SL-1200mk2 turntable the other week, but this is crazy. Or is it crazy/beautiful? Anyone here approach the depths of some of these music fans?
posted by moz on Jun 13, 2001 - 22 comments