First impressions: KEF LS 50 Wireless. Mind blown.

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Dunnersfella

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#2235575 12-May-2019 19:55

I would never ever, in a month or Sunday's call Klipsch Heritage speakers as coloured.

I remember reading a NZ forum (okay it was darklantern) where one member was posting how he felt Klipsch Heresey's were coloured but couldn't name the source, the amplification or what sort of room he was listening in when he established his perspective... and it was 10 years ago.

So yeah.

It was in relation to a review on Darko... which was effectively saying the Klipsch are speakers without makeup. I have spent long periods with Heresy's and Forte's and I couldn't agree more.

https://darko.audio/2018/08/music-without-makeup-the-klipsch-heresy-iii-loudspeaker/

And I assumed your Klipsch experience was limited as you had only referenced Klipsch and Bowers & Wilkins once... and that was a sweeping statement without mentioning model / partnering kit / when sampled etc.

It's easy for me to make an assumption when reading sweeping generalisations about different brands of speakers - all while heavily pushing the speakers you've recently purchased... for no reason.

JimmyD

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#2235589 12-May-2019 20:39

Fred99:

All other things being equal, you really shouldn't be able to tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit, so almost certainly something else was going on in the a/b audio samples you were listening to.

24bit has advantages for music production/editing, not distribution / listening.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded.415361/

Active (bi-amped) speakers offer huge advantages over passive speakers. Wifi solves one of the problems that present with active speakers and conventional home hifi music sources, you're not stuck with unbalanced (RCA type) line level leads, which are okay only over short distances.

That coaxial design is used by some pro studio monitors, it has advantages for near-field listening. FWIW, despite what some audio expert sites say, that you can't or shouldn't use nearfield speakers for midfield listening, that's just BS. They might not be loud enough is the only issue. Conversely, using midfield speakers for nearfield listening may present issues, especially if the drivers (tweeter/woofer) aren't vertically aligned and close together.

Like you said, all things being equal, there should be no discernible difference. In fact, this brilliant article argues that 24 bit may sound worse due to the limitations of how our ears work. Basically, our ears have trouble with the higher frequencies and thus they may have a similar effect to an out of phase radio. I believe many people can tell a difference between 24 bit and 16 bit because of the way they are mixed and mastered. It's no secret that albums of the past 25 years sound poor due to the added compression in the loudness wars. I believe most 24 bit versions instead have higher dynamic range due to less compression, thus we are able to hear a discernible difference. It would be nice if we didn't have to purchase a 24 bit album or a vinyl record in order to hear songs with more dynamic range.

Fred99

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#2236822 14-May-2019 18:50

Yup.

That page has some audio files which *might* indicate whether there's intermodulation from ultrasonic signals. That's possibly what some people are hearing, "a" difference that's noticeable, but they think it's an improvement - when it probably isn't.

FWIW, I tried that with my system with PC and external DAC, studio monitors. I can't hear anything, I don't have a mic capable of picking up ultrasonic frequencies. But for example with the 30/33kHz sample, if I turn gain up to full on everything and hold my cellphone with spectrum analyser in front of a speaker, it shows a trace of 3kHz signal, a few dB above background noise in the room. I can't hear it above that background noise in the room.

There is possibly one point to using 24 bit with HTPC etc. You could lose an audible amount of bit depth / dynamic range if you turn software volume down and turn volume up using gain in the DAC, preamp etc. 24 bit is probably better than 16 in that case. It's probably better to set software gain high, and hardware gain low (using analogue gain control), rather than the other way around when listening at loud-ish volume. Of course if you set that, then want to turn the volume down to low levels using the software gain control, then it's no problem.

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