Newbie Testing question

[JFS737]

Hi all,
Been lurking for years. I searched but could not find anything so maybe you can point me or provide insight. If I were to wish to do some critical listening (192 kpbs vs CD), I am wondering if I'd be better served by headphones or speakers? I know the room is less than perfect but really am wondering which is a better plan (or maybe neither will have the build quality to reveal anything?). My system is Yamaha RX-A4A, Goldenear Triton 3+, and grado SR-60. (Soon to get a Hypex amp from Buckey but not yet!). Also it'll be served by a Bluesound Nano sending ripped FLAC files and MP3's saved to an external disc.
Is this system up to resolving the music enough to discern? What to use? Speakers or headphones in general and in my case?
THANKS for any thoughts!

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi all,
Been lurking for years. I searched but could not find anything so maybe you can point me or provide insight. If I were to wish to do some crtical listening (192 kpbs vs CD), I am wondering if I'd be better served by headphones or speakers? I know the room is less than perfect but really am wondering which is a better plan (or maybe neither will have the build quality to reveal anything?). My system is Yamaha RX-A4A, Goldenear Triton 3+, and grado SR-60. (Soon to get a Hypex amp from Buckey but not yet!). Also it'll be served by a Bluesound Nano sending ripped FLAC files and MP3's saved to an external disc.
Is this system up to resolving the music enough to discern? What to use? Speakers or headphones in general and in my case?

I think it depends how your brain is wired. Some people really enjoy headphones, most don't. I can not listen to headphones very long, and only use them for editing a critical splice while editing. In general most prefer good speakers.

 

[Kingnoob]

Hi all,
Been lurking for years. I searched but could not find anything so maybe you can point me or provide insight. If I were to wish to do some critical listening (192 kpbs vs CD), I am wondering if I'd be better served by headphones or speakers? I know the room is less than perfect but really am wondering which is a better plan (or maybe neither will have the build quality to reveal anything?). My system is Yamaha RX-A4A, Goldenear Triton 3+, and grado SR-60. (Soon to get a Hypex amp from Buckey but not yet!). Also it'll be served by a Bluesound Nano sending ripped FLAC files and MP3's saved to an external disc.
Is this system up to resolving the music enough to discern? What to use? Speakers or headphones in general and in my case?
THANKS for any thoughts!

I use headphones at night for music if everyone is sleeping.
Is the amp for the speakers they seem high sensitivity? You running out of power ?
Best you can do is compare both. My sennheiser hd 350bt don’t quite have the bass if my other setups using speakers. Otherwise they are pretty decent in comparison. Occasionally they cause ear pain but most of the time I’m fine. So they must be brighter Then my Klipsch icons. I looked into Goldenear and def tech but those towers were heavy! And expensive.

 

[JFS737]

I love my Tritons, the bass is really tight and they don't fatigue. My Grado's are low end, but seem even more detailed than the speakers. I wonder if that's not just a thing with headphones vs speakers. They don't have the same bass however.

 

[m. zillch]

If I were to wish to do some critical listening (192 kpbs vs CD)

There's no audible difference between music recorded at CD res (uncompressed PCM 44.1kHz/16-bit) and 192kHz in proper testing. It doesn't matter what ears and gear you use; what matters is if you are a human being or not. [. . .And if one understands what constitutes a proper test. It must be blind, precisely level matched by instrumentation, guaranteed to be from the exact same master, if there is fast switching between the two they must be perfectly synchronized or the latency of one will make it stick out like a sore thumb and defeat your attempt to make the test truly blind, and the results must show meaningful statistical significance.]

 

[Joe B]

Hi all,
Been lurking for years. I searched but could not find anything so maybe you can point me or provide insight. If I were to wish to do some critical listening (192 kpbs vs CD), I am wondering if I'd be better served by headphones or speakers? I know the room is less than perfect but really am wondering which is a better plan (or maybe neither will have the build quality to reveal anything?). My system is Yamaha RX-A4A, Goldenear Triton 3+, and grado SR-60. (Soon to get a Hypex amp from Buckey but not yet!). Also it'll be served by a Bluesound Nano sending ripped FLAC files and MP3's saved to an external disc.
Is this system up to resolving the music enough to discern? What to use? Speakers or headphones in general and in my case?
THANKS for any thoughts!

When I compared audio formats in the past I used my headphone rig rather than my 5.1 system. I downloaded files from 2L-the Nordic Sound's "Test Bench". The files were of the same piece of classical music, all from the same master, but of varying formats (44.1/16, 96/24, 192/24, DSD, 2xDSD). These different files were made from a 352.8/24 master. Playing back in foobar2000 allowed me to switch between files in a fraction of a second.
As a "test" for my own personal edification, I believe this approach was sound (pun intended...I taught 6th grade).

What gear you use and how you use it does matter. Listening on your speakers, you need to ensure that you are bypassing all DSP functions and bass management (if DSP is on, your AVR is probably converting the incoming digital signal to 32 bit for the DSP chip). If your Yamaha AVR has something like a "pure direct mode" where DSP and bass management are "off", listening to your speakers should be a good way to go. My AVR at the time (Anthem 520), could not handle DSD nor was it friendly for turning on/off DSP functions and bass management.

Have fun!

 

[m. zillch]

Hi-res sound has been around for many decades. If it was truly audibly better than CD scientists would have found at least one individual who can hear it by now (under controlled/verified conditions) and named them. They haven't.

Some marketers such as 2L took down their bench test page page once they saw individuals like me exposing the public to how to easily use the files* to conduct valid, proper double blind, level matched, synchronized, statistically analyzed tests such as with the free Foobar component "ABX":

*(assuming they are indeed truly from the same master and precisely level matched/ synchronized)

 

[Joe B]

Hi-res sound has been around for many decades. If it was truly audibly better than CD scientists would have found at least one individual who can hear it by now (under controlled/verified conditions) and named them. They haven't.

Some marketers such as 2L took down their bench test page page once they saw individuals like me exposing the public to how to easily use the files* to conduct valid, proper double blind, level matched, synchronized, statistically analyzed tests such as with the free Foobar component "ABX":

*(assuming they are indeed truly from the same master and precisely level matched/ synchronized)

2L-the Nordic Sound has won 46 American Grammy Awards since 2006. They are not a marketing company.
Your last comment questions their method and the purpose for the bench test page in the first place. Paranoid?

 

[JFS737]

Thanks guys, seems like my gear may not be the issue. I was under the semi-educated assumption that humans can't tell CD from Hi Res and may not be able to tell 320 from CD... but I was assuming 192 vs CD would be discernable. I can tell 128 from CD as I did test that a few years ago. Really I was just wondering if folks are getting better results with headphones vs speakers when doing such things.
My headphones would also use my AVR, so not much would change there.... and yes, my Yamaha has "Pure direct" where it bypasses the DSP and "some" circuitry is "suspended".
I feel like my (Retail) $3k speakers would outperform my $75 Grados, but in listening the headphones are decent and it surprised me a little.

 

[lovinthehd]

My take....don't waste your time. MP3 perhaps you'll hear a difference with vs a cd it was derived from and helps if you know what tells to listen for. As was said, provenance is important so to make sure you're comparing the same mix/mastering with the only difference being sample/bit rate (or compression codec) as well as level matching/blind. Curious, why is this important to you? I prefer speakers in any case, don't like wearing headphones unless I have to.

 

[m. zillch]

2L-the Nordic Sound has won 46 American Grammy Awards since 2006. They are not a marketing company.
Your last comment questions their method and the purpose for the bench test page in the first place. Paranoid?

They sell Hi-Re$, so in my vernacular they "market" it, and obviously they aren't going to expose you to what valid testing published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society has found: CD resolution, (uncompressed 44.1kHz/16-bit music) is audibly transparent under real world use conditions, so bigger numbers get you nowhere.

If I were wrong about this and "some" people can hear a distinction then scientists who test this would have found at least one and published their findings on him/her. So far none have ever been located. Even president, founder, and chief recording engineer of the audiophile-focused AIX Records, Mark Waldrep, Dr. AIX, who sells real deal Hi-Res (made with mics that indeed can record content beyond the capabilities of CD's high frequency limit, as I believe 2l does as well) eventually threw in the towel after years of searching for such a golden-eared listener and had to eventually admit (see underlined text below) my camp was right all along:

""After the first HD-Audio Challenge seem to indicate that people even trained listeners with above average systems — couldn’t pick out an HD file from a Redbook CD, I began to have serious doubts about my previously held position. The hundreds of people that have participated in the second round of the HD-Audio Survey, have confirmed the results of the previous project. It is no longer possible to claim that “hi-res audio” is an important next step in the evolution of audio. HD-Audio is completely unnecessary for the reproduction of hi-fidelity. It is a very good thing to record using 96/24 PCM audio but for the distribution of music, it’s nothing more than a sales slogan."

From his website: Real HD-Audio.