There’s a lot of articles on the net about modding and enhancing the sound quality of your audio equipment by replacing components etc. But you never see measurements to backup their claims. Well, I’ve been busy the last two days taking a ten year old middle range CD player and trying to make it to sound really good. But I also have done measurements before and after doing the mod (within reason) and so far it actually confirms that modding really works (if done right). Now, let’s face it, the best measured equipment isn’t necessarily the one that sounds the best, but still, it’s interesting to see what kind of effects different modifications have.My best sounding DAC does not measure as well as some other ones I have. And I have started to get quite the collection.
Will be back with a writeup and test diagrams when I’m finished…
Over a year ago this guy contacted me to get permission to use this picture for an album cover. I sent him a high res copy and told him that he could use the picture but that he had to send me a copy of the album when it was finished. My guess was I would never hear from him again. But to my surprise I got an email from him yesterday asking for my address and if I wanted the album signed by the artist! Things like this makes me believe in the human being again. I just assumed he would forget to send the album, which is what I probably would do.
The people who adds music type tagging at Spotify must be on crack. You select “Alternative, Punk, Hard Rock” and sometimes you get like pop songs for 14 year olds. Very irritating. I know that people really mark up some tags weird, but this is ridiculous.
?The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.?
Steve Jobs
Well, let’s face it. The iPod have changed my interest in music during the last few years.
With my 5 gig first generation iPod I had most of my music coded in 128kbit MP3 due to the constraints of the number of songs. The first year I put up with the included earphones and really didn’t think of upgrading.
But finally I got a Koss Porta Pro by recommendation from a friend. These headphones are not audiophile, but good enough to make me realize how much better MP3 files coded in 160 or higher sounded. But to accomondate that kind of upgrade in sound, forced me to buy a 15gb third generation iPod to fit more songs. So I recoded all my music to AAC in 160kbit and faced out older songs when I could get my hands on a higher quality version. The third generation iPod worked excellent for me for over three years. Then I upgraded my headphones to some in-ear headphones which took the sound quality up a notch again. A month ago I bought a iPod Classic 160gb and now have all music in lossless full quality.
But guess what, I bought a vinyl record player a while ago. Some would say that it’s a step backwards, but have to disagree. There is something about listening to vinyl. It’s like smoking a pipe, It’s a bit more involved. An other good aspect of this is that I’m forced to actually listen trough a whole song. But one thing is for sure, you need to invest in rather expensive equipment to get good performance from vinyl. But one can still find interesting records dirt cheap. It really is the black gold.
So finally my new speakers is playing music. And how they play! I got myself a new Class-A amplifier to have something nice to drive them with. At first they sounded a bit short on the bass side, but now after about 20 hours of listening, the bass starts to improve. I’ve never believed in the “burn-in” of speakers, but I have to say I’ve been mistaken.
I invited some friends over for a music listening party. A lot of records and an even larger amount of beer made for a beautiful evening.
At the same time I ordered my new amplifier, I also ordered a new DVD player with DVD-Audio and SACD playing capability. So I rush out to get my hands on a SACD record, but the only one I could find was the slightly overplayed Dark side of the moon by Pink Floyd. But it was a good test record because I have two different mastering versions on cd, so comparing was easy. And to my surprise the CD (actually Flac played through my Squeezebox) sounded better than the SACD one! So I had to check that the player didn’t play the normal cd layer, but no, it played the SACD layer. The singing voices on the SACD sounded muffled compared to the Japanese pressing of the CD. Also the pinpointing of instrument placements in the stereo image was not as good an coherent from the SACD. The player a Pioneer 696 is a low budget player so it could be it. But I’ll crank up the manual and check so I haven’t done something stupid with the settings.
After getting my Emu 0404 USB 2.0 Audio Interface I have started to rip my vinyl record collection. I want to retain as much as possible of the amazing sound of vinyl, so I rip everything in 24bit 48khz. Why not use 96khz? Well, my preferred playback device, the Squeezebox only supports 24/48 unfortunately.
The people who adds music type tagging at Spotify must be on crack. You select “Alternative, Punk, Hard Rock” and sometimes you get like pop songs for 14 year olds. Very irritating. I know that people really mark up some tags weird, but this is ridiculous.
Well, let’s face it. The iPod have changed my interest in music during the last few years.
With my 5 gig first generation iPod I had most of my music coded in 128kbit MP3 due to the constraints of the number of songs. The first year I put up with the included earphones and really didn’t think of upgrading.
But finally I got a 
After getting my 
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