matthewb.eth on Warpcast

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by popular request (okay just @ted and @nicholas) here is an overview of our hi-fi setup: * but first, why? listening to music can be either a passive activity, like background music while cooking or commuting, or an activity that demands your full attention. if the latter, then the quality of your experience is shaped by the ability of your system to reproduce music. this means everything from source (streaming, CD, vinyl, reel-to-reel tape) → amplification → volume control (preamp) → speakers and all of the cables in between. maybe this all sounds dumb (who cares about cables???) but until you have a once-in-a-lifetime experience listening to a really great system, you won't know what you're missing from your favourite music. not just technical qualities like detail or extension, but emotion, texture, and meaning. hi-fi is a great real-world example of plato's cave, because once you've heard what you're missing... you can't unhear it. [1/4]

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* speakers: dutch & dutch 8c they look pretty normal, just big "bookshelf" speakers, but they are high-tech under the hood. 8c are some of the only speakers in the world with a cardioid dispersion pattern, meaning that frequencies >100Hz only radiate forward and don't interact with the walls nearby. this makes them basically immune to whatever room you stick them in, so they always sound great. the biggest challenge in hi-fi is usually the room, not the speakers/electronics. they have two 8" subs on the back and use close placement to the wall behind them to extend their frequency range flat to 20Hz. the average speaker you've heard probably extends to 100Hz or 80Hz, meaning that you're missing several octaves of low-end info. despite their modest size, I'd characterize the 8c as having a big immersive sound with great detail and extension. they can be ruthless though and will reveal flaws in production, which can be annoying. @nicholas listened to them extensively at our place, maybe he can chime in.

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@baseddesigner.eth

that’s some advanced setup

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