BF2S Forums Tech: Open thread

uziq wrote:

DesertFox- wrote:

I've stuck with wired peripherals for everything because I don't want to deal with the inconvenience of charging at all. I do get annoyed when my phone earbuds get all twisty, but that's a smaller price to pay to me to have them just ready at a moment's notice.

right, precisely. plus audio cables, you know, can connect your devices to amplification equipment. cables have better impedance. cables drive audio better! unless you want to carry a decent-sized bluetooth receiver and small DAC amplifier around your neck like a fucking bridled horse, or something.

it's insane to me you have to charge earphones every 10-12 hours. current-gen iPhones and Macs have better charge cycles than that and they're fucking computers. a MacBook with an 8-core processor - including its own in-built audio chip and output - lasts longer than a pair of bluetooth earbuds. i mean, how is that good? i can go and work from a cafe for a day without taking my power adapter, but i'll need to remember my black presentation tray charge-carry case for my fucking earphones?

'it lasts up to 12 hours!' right, so, on a given work-day at the office, when i am listening to music for 5 or so hours, plus any given commute on either side, i already have to think about remembering to charge my earphones ready for the next day? great, another device with an almost daily risk of crapping out on me.

'having no cable is so convenient! you just have to remember to carry a case and charging station with you wherever you go'.

fucking lmao. i'm used to taking my earphones out with me whenever i go anywhere in the city. they can be coiled and slipped into my coat or jacket pocket. why the fuck am i going to take some egg-head charging station with me wherever i go, to ensure that my earphones actually have enough charge to work, or that i don't lose one of the damn things like a piece of spare change? it's literally like someone who wears glasses having to carry a glasses case or cleaning kit with them whenever they leave the house. who does that?!?

for anyone who actually wants to use them intensively, listen a lot, get the most out of it, etc, bluetooth earphones are a horrible solution.

I don't think you've ever had bluetooth earbuds if you complain about battery life. No good ones die on you. You're not wearing earbuds for 12+ hours. The case is also a speedcharger so you can use them again at full charge in a matter of minutes. I was sceptical about this at first too but using them I don't think I've ever seen mine drop below 10%.

As for the case, you always put them in there anyway so it rarely if ever happens that you take them out but forget the case.

Not having a wire is always more convenient than having a wire. I'll concede that sound quality at the moment is probably even better with wired buds, but I don't think that's going to be the case forever either. Nonetheless they're still very good.  I also have to stress that I train a lot and wired buds fucking suck there. That's also usually the reason the wire & connector break.

I don't think I'm obliged to write a 5 paragraph review. In a sea of choices it's hard enough to figure out what the good ones are. The galaxy buds plus fit my preference and you could easily find good reviews for them online.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-12-27 01:50:32)

Ok suppose you get fantastic wired earbuds you still have the issue that smartphones and most music streaming services just won't give you the very best audio quality either. You're paying hundreds extra for a pair of buds only really best used with actual professional sound systems.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-12-27 02:31:58)

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Re: $250 wired SE525

tl;dr can't seem to find for $250 atm, would probably have to wait for some flash sale I imagine.

Aonic 4 ($300) is around the 535, but is supposed to be a replacement for the "lesser" model than 535. Aonic 5 ($500) is supposed to be the "replacement" for the 535. But its price is within the custom fitting range, which I might consider going to get done if not for covid-19. Interesting nozzle swap option though. Some reviewers prefer the 4s. I wish I could find more on the new Shure Aonics earbuds.

i don't know enough about the aonic series, they're new and i am not really deeply invested in shure gear. but it's very decent stuff and they're particularly noteworthy for clean, spacious mid-range, which would suit an awful lot of the genres you described.

etymotic are worth a check too if you're still shopping.

many reasons to use headphones/earphones over speakers, particularly for high-end audio.

speakers are loud and not appropriate at all hours, particularly if you live in an apartment or shared housing (relevant to many people). think beyond your likely experience with naff pc speakers here: 'proper' full-range speakers will be kicking out rumbling low end even at low volumes, which is extremely hard to mask at any volume.

speakers are much harder to control. past a certain level of investment, you need to treat your room. whether that's even something as simple and casual as putting in some heavy rugs and curtains to absorb nasty sound reverberation, all the way up to spending $1000s on bass traps for the corners of your room, sound diffraction materials to control shrill echos and reverbs, etc. you will quite literally be wasting your money if you buy high-end speakers and place them in an untreated, inappropriate room. the listening environment and space is half of the equation. it's no good having echoes and refractions bouncing around all over the place. (some ultra-high-end speakers will come with built-in DSPs to try and digitally model the space they're in and adjust accordingly, but that's much of a muchness.)

if you want to experience the 'full range' of sound, it's pretty easy on a nice pair of headphones/earphones, particularly if you're on a constrained budget. a mid-range pair will go down to sub-bass frequencies pretty nicely and give you that 'oomph', as well as giving an impressive sense of depth and a wide soundstage. with good hi-fi speakers, you're often looking at a subwoofer. if you think a room is hard to treat and balance properly with regular stereo speakers, square that difficulty with the addition of a subwoofer and its extremely unruly long wavelength sound waves. a subwoofer will annoy your entire neighbourhood and, nine times out of ten, just plainly not sound good in your home set-up without extensive set-up, treatment, and expertise. it's very hard to reproduce tight, punchy, controlled, elastic low-end in a home set-up; more often, it just makes a muddy booming noise, which is, er, 'impressive' to people who want to make loud noise, and of little other value.

people are NOT confined to using a smartphone with decent earphones/headphones. i don't know why you make these ridiculous assertions. once again it's larssen wading knee-deep into a discussion he knows nothing about. this is a pretty big industry and none of these brands are marketing their in-ear monitors at the smartphone market. as i just said above, even plugging a good pair of earphones into your gaming desktop or laptop will make a significant difference to audio quality over default apple buds or whatever bluetooth crap you're peddling. in CASUAL listening uses they are a MARKED improvement. please stop pettifogging.

as i've said above several times, good headphones are NOT made for 'on the move', either. they are intended for at-desk or armchair listening. high-end headphones are huge, heavy, often times quite fragile, might have extremely long cables, have next to no sound isolation (i.e. open back, which produces a better listening experience), and leak sound to all hell. nobody is taking their grado headphones on the train.



^ this is an extremely common use case and set-up. it is situationally better than speakers for a whole host of reasons. considering how many people nowadays spend their lives in front of a desktop, at a desktop pc, browsing reddit (or bf2s), or whatever, having a discreet earphone/headphone set-up attached to their main media/desktop set-up is hugely desirable. we are not talking 'professional sound systems'. we are talking someone downloading FLAC files to their windows pc and listening to $200 headphones. it is a very good and worthwhile purchase.

i won't disagree that speakers are the best and most immersive experience, but earphones/headphones just scale a lot better on an average consumer budget. to unlock 'wowser'-tier speakers you can easily spend thousands, if not tens of thousands.

Last edited by uziq (2020-12-27 05:10:14)

my recommendation made perfect sense. in the $150-300 bracket, IEMs are a very strong contender for all-round use. they don't require as much power to drive as headphones and they're more portable, i.e. they're as suitable for tiny-amplification in-built smartphone outputs, and will also scale nicely with a proper listening set-up too. wired IEMs are generally very good, especially if you're smart about it and buy a pair with a replaceable cable. a good pair of earphones should have a sturdy, thick, metal-core or sheathed cable, in any case. a good pair of IEMs will last 24 months (normally with warranty); even better if after that you can just replace the cable and repair them in a modular fashion.

the answer is: yes, there is a marked and definite difference between $50 earphones and $300 earphones, even on a phone. again, as above, IEMs are made to be driven by very low signal impedances. not everyone chooses to consume music on their phone via shitty streaming apps, either. it's entirely possible to load a phone with high-quality mp3s or FLAC/AAC files. i mean, who the fuck streams music from a desktop pc or laptop? why would you ever choose spotify as your preferred listening option when you likely have, er, 1Tb of storage media right in front of you? even purchasing on the apple music store will get you significantly better audio.

furthermore, there are a range of ultra-portable DACs/headphone amps available for phones and portable players. i'm talking USB-stick size amplifiers that will significantly upgrade your sound, on the go. certainly less cumbersome than a fucking charging dock/carry case. look into a range like the dragonfly audio DACs. for an extra $100 or $200 you can take your IEMs to a superb level of audio.

https://www.audioquest.com/page/aq-drag … eries.html



yet again you mostly don't know what you're talking about, i'm afraid. it's that simple. you saying that nice IEMs can only be used on phones and hence only get lacklustre results is just wrong on about 7 levels. good earphones sound better than bad earphones, period. phones can be made to sound good. there are a range of file formats and apps available. there are other accessories. none of which is available when you buy into some bulky, dumb bluetooth technology, 'becuz no cables!!!'

basically, the breakdown is as simple as: (1) wired always sounds better than wireless and (2) IEMs are perfectly good all-rounders for the mid-range consumer. if you want audiophile and you're prepared to pay $1000+ for amplification, $100s of dollars for sound treatment, etc, then, yes, certainly, i'd recommend a long list of headphones and speakers too.

Last edited by uziq (2020-12-27 07:14:21)

some companies offer earbuds that have a replaceable cable and a bluetooth option. RHA do a decent option. might not be in stock during the xmas season though as they’re quite a small company. you can have your cake and eat it with some options.

ok, but they don’t sound anywhere near as good nor will bluetooth ever sound anywhere near as good. it’s technically impossible.

newbie has a $300 top-end budget. i am recommending wired options based on the fact an altogether different tier of sound quality is available at that price point, plus a wire has the advantages of being compatible with any number of devices, including amplifiers and DACs and desktop listening options that, yes, will take the listening again to another level.

this isn’t marketing hype, your continual need for your own gym buds to be ‘really good or at least very near it’ and for more expensive options to be ‘overhyped silly USB sticks’ is just inane. adults are talking about good sound gear here, go throw around some logs or whatever it is you do when you’re defragging your smooth normie brain.

sennheisers make earphones from about $40 up to about $1000. i dunno? they’ll probably have good warranty and after sale support? about the best i can say to you.

the ipod player is actually still pretty good. they’re desirable on ebay, especially the larger 160gb ones or whatever it was. pretty sure you can mod them with your own storage too. the firmware is rock solid and their onboard DAC is better than the iphone, so will drive any earbuds or headphones with more juice. would recommend.

as if you have an iphone.

I've been mulling a new computer build for a while now and trying to get into an ITX case.
I wanted something tall + thin but big enough to hold a large GPU. Not going for water cooling or anything special, but ITX MB w/ M.2 and a few SSD's.


I think I finally found a winner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKpNt1o6l_Y

At some point full towers were the thing everyone wanted, right? Now small is better. I went with a midtower for my last two builds. I almost regretted it after struggling to fit everything into the midtower I have but by the grace of God I managed to fit two Hard disk, and two SSDs into the thing.

The bigness of the tower wasn't the issue with the full tower that made me get rid of it. The issue was the weight of the damn thing made transporting and working on it a workout.

My tower sits under my desk, it could twice as big for all I care.