Richo
Member
With the huge takeup of digitized music storage and distribution there has literally been an explosion in hardware and software for audio over the last decade.
I thought a thread on getting the most from your equipment and maximizing the quad experience would be pretty cool.
I'm pretty new to the quad scene but I've been experimenting !
Please feel free to jump in and offer your own tips / tricks for achieving better separation on playback (I'm sure you guys have heaps).
I guess like alot of folk, I'm using a PC to output stereo files (mp3 / flac) to a 70's matrix decoder. Its a fairly simplistic setup but I've found a few things that helps my old 70's hardware decoder boards perform as well as they possibly can.
Source: I'm using winamp, its stable when you throw multiple tens of thousands of tracks into its playlist (unlike a hell of a lot of others that just lock up).
I've also just started playing with a really cool plugin for winamp called stereotool. Its freeware and I scanned it as virus free, grab it here: http://www.stereotool.com
It has a preset called "increased stereo" that does make a difference. Its a subtle difference but it works on the tracks I've tried so far (about 50). It doesn't do anything weird to tracks that traditionally decode well (A/B'd them) but it does enhance those marginal tracks into decoding for better separation and even gets some small separation happening in tracks that previously wouldn't. Impressive and well worth more time investment to see what it can really do.
I don't use any software Eq, I find a hardware one far better.
Soundcard: use a good soundcard, your signal is only ever going to be as good as your soundcard and its DACS.
Hardware Eq : I was hesitant to use an Eq on the signal at first because you read everywhere about "removing components from the audio chain" and how it is a good thing to do. Well, I had a think back to when I was a young man and playing in bands and recording music in a pro 48 track DAT studio. Those guys run an audio signal through tremendous amounts of circuitry / effects loops. I'm calling scare mongering, ignorance or hot steaming BS on the not adding componentry to your signal chain proponents.
Obviously adding stacks of crap componentry is going to add to the noise floor but when using good audio gear it shouldn't be (and isn't) an issue.
That said, I found that the ability to tailor the sound to my room's acoustics a great asset. I also discovered that adding a 1dB boost to every frequency band and using that as a baseline for the Eq curve gave me stellar results. The audio seemed to really sparkle and separation was definitely subtly enhanced. I think those old decoders are pretty sensitive to getting a strong, clean signal to work with.
Hardware Eq is also cool because of the 30hz band slider (mines an old sansui Eq). Running a straight quad system with no sub means you're going to miss some bowel loosening bass but being able to boost the 30hz band was a nice way of getting some back. The 12" drivers in my speakers handle it fine. Again, keeping it subtle and not coloring the sound but using it to extend the bass frequency range of your speaker cabs is a great attribute.
Be careful with too much gain from the Eq though, it is easy to overload your amps input stage and generate distortion if you get too radical with the levels. Remember that with Eq's, less is more.... keep it subtle.
Speakers: Using different speaker pairs that are similar in size / power handling for the front to rear split also works well for me. Each driver / cab combo has a slightly brighter or darker sound which helps give the listener an increased perception of separation. Its actually pretty cool. I've found using the brighter pair as rears gives the best results on the equipment I'm using.
So thats about the extent of my successful experiences / experiments so far, what sort of stuff have you guys tried out and what works for you?
Cheers, Richo.
I thought a thread on getting the most from your equipment and maximizing the quad experience would be pretty cool.
I'm pretty new to the quad scene but I've been experimenting !
Please feel free to jump in and offer your own tips / tricks for achieving better separation on playback (I'm sure you guys have heaps).
I guess like alot of folk, I'm using a PC to output stereo files (mp3 / flac) to a 70's matrix decoder. Its a fairly simplistic setup but I've found a few things that helps my old 70's hardware decoder boards perform as well as they possibly can.
Source: I'm using winamp, its stable when you throw multiple tens of thousands of tracks into its playlist (unlike a hell of a lot of others that just lock up).
I've also just started playing with a really cool plugin for winamp called stereotool. Its freeware and I scanned it as virus free, grab it here: http://www.stereotool.com
It has a preset called "increased stereo" that does make a difference. Its a subtle difference but it works on the tracks I've tried so far (about 50). It doesn't do anything weird to tracks that traditionally decode well (A/B'd them) but it does enhance those marginal tracks into decoding for better separation and even gets some small separation happening in tracks that previously wouldn't. Impressive and well worth more time investment to see what it can really do.
I don't use any software Eq, I find a hardware one far better.
Soundcard: use a good soundcard, your signal is only ever going to be as good as your soundcard and its DACS.
Hardware Eq : I was hesitant to use an Eq on the signal at first because you read everywhere about "removing components from the audio chain" and how it is a good thing to do. Well, I had a think back to when I was a young man and playing in bands and recording music in a pro 48 track DAT studio. Those guys run an audio signal through tremendous amounts of circuitry / effects loops. I'm calling scare mongering, ignorance or hot steaming BS on the not adding componentry to your signal chain proponents.
Obviously adding stacks of crap componentry is going to add to the noise floor but when using good audio gear it shouldn't be (and isn't) an issue.
That said, I found that the ability to tailor the sound to my room's acoustics a great asset. I also discovered that adding a 1dB boost to every frequency band and using that as a baseline for the Eq curve gave me stellar results. The audio seemed to really sparkle and separation was definitely subtly enhanced. I think those old decoders are pretty sensitive to getting a strong, clean signal to work with.
Hardware Eq is also cool because of the 30hz band slider (mines an old sansui Eq). Running a straight quad system with no sub means you're going to miss some bowel loosening bass but being able to boost the 30hz band was a nice way of getting some back. The 12" drivers in my speakers handle it fine. Again, keeping it subtle and not coloring the sound but using it to extend the bass frequency range of your speaker cabs is a great attribute.
Be careful with too much gain from the Eq though, it is easy to overload your amps input stage and generate distortion if you get too radical with the levels. Remember that with Eq's, less is more.... keep it subtle.
Speakers: Using different speaker pairs that are similar in size / power handling for the front to rear split also works well for me. Each driver / cab combo has a slightly brighter or darker sound which helps give the listener an increased perception of separation. Its actually pretty cool. I've found using the brighter pair as rears gives the best results on the equipment I'm using.
So thats about the extent of my successful experiences / experiments so far, what sort of stuff have you guys tried out and what works for you?
Cheers, Richo.
