Tidal Plans and Pricing

[Worldwide Beagle]

Being a musician myself, all I’ve ever cared about is a system that sounds decent enough. Can I hear all the instruments clearly? Is it not overdriven? Is it balanced?

Beyond that, it’s sit back and appreciate the composition, the performances, and yes, the production. Half the fun of Pink Floyd Albums is how damn well they were recorded.

Everything else to me is just a dick measuring contest by people who think listening to music is somehow a competition.

What did Henry Rollins call these folks? “Record player players.” My guess is half of them wouldn’t know a II, V, I progression from a hole in the wall.

@joec , tell us how you really feel?

Why should the absurd expensive snake oil of high end audio be any different from high end autos? $9000 interconnects are just as obscene at $9000 car coatings. PT Barnum was most correct.

When I was GC for Genesis Speakers, I would tag along to CES. I often ran the demo room. You ain't heard nothing until you heard The Wall on $125k speakers plus massive Audio Research tube amps. At that point, you heard everything Roger and the guys put in their music. The worst WAF I ever saw. But amazing none the less. WAF=wife acceptance factor.

 

[xponents]

@joec , tell us how you really feel?

Why should the absurd expensive snake oil of high end audio be any different from high end autos? $9000 interconnects are just as obscene at $9000 car coatings. PT Barnum was most correct.

When I was GC for Genesis Speakers, I would tag along to CES. I often ran the demo room. You ain't heard nothing until you heard The Wall on $125k speakers plus massive Audio Research tube amps. At that point, you heard everything Roger and the guys put in their music. The worst WAF I ever saw. But amazing none the less. WAF=wife acceptance factor.

Okay, WAF definitely needs to be added to the forums acronym dictionary

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

as a recovering audiophile

when the beagle speaks

listen

By chance (or fate) I lived a mile or so from a former NASA engineer who was into audio. I was invited to his home to listen to his system.
Money could not buy what he did to his "living room". He had a set of (he built) mono-block tube amps that were water cooled to to maintain constant temperature. Literally, there was a "trench" along the outside wall of his listening room to "vent" the hot water spent from cooling his tube amplifiers. He had Faraday cages on every wire in the system. I can't even explain how much science he used.

He told me the plinth he used on his "ask me and I might build one for you" turntables weighed about 90 pounds. He told me that at demos he cut the rubber band that connected his plinth to the motor .... and his customers could not detect a change. "This is not possible" , his Japanese cost- no- object customers would say.

So I sat in the "sweet spot" and he ....of all things...put on an LP he said he found at a flea market. Pink Floyd

Two, rather modest, floor speakers (Merlin ...circa 1990s)
NO surround. no other speakers in the room (which was acoustically engineered = "tuned" ... like the Lucid interior )
It was "Sterio". I did not believe it, so when he left the room I pulled up the acoustic foam he had in the corners....no speakers.

I have never recovered from that. Sterio. Two speakers.

Goosebumps way under states what I experienced. This was from an LP purely analog source, with tube amplification.

The Luicd with Dobly Pro and Tidal Atomos .... is pretty close to that.


(I literally, shit my pants at that listening session).

 

[joec]

@joec , tell us how you really feel?

Why should the absurd expensive snake oil of high end audio be any different from high end autos? $9000 interconnects are just as obscene at $9000 car coatings. PT Barnum was most correct.

When I was GC for Genesis Speakers, I would tag along to CES. I often ran the demo room. You ain't heard nothing until you heard The Wall on $125k speakers plus massive Audio Research tube amps. At that point, you heard everything Roger and the guys put in their music. The worst WAF I ever saw. But amazing none the less. WAF=wife acceptance factor.

Hey, I’m not saying it’s snake oil. I’m just saying beyond a point, all the extra oomph is lost on my old, tinnitus-ridden ears, anyway. All I need is to hear is clarity.

What I meant by dick measuring was coming from another thread, where folks are getting into “bass wars” with their car audio systems. Which, like most auto-related modifications, I consider throwing money at something often to make it actively worse.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Thanks @Bunnylebowski , now I can't get Good Times, Bad Times, out of my head. I remember taking some of my law school loan to buy a Thorens.

Wasn't everything mixed for vinyl until the mid to late 80's? And they just dumped those masters onto the first CDs. I ignored CDS until the early nineties, but still used tube preamp and Amps.

I guess I should clarify as things were mixed on analog tape back then, but mastered for consumer vinyl. Engineers would have a vinyl cut made before final mastering just to make sure it sounded right. I’m assuming you’ve read George Martin’s book about recording the Beatles called “All You Need is Ears”, it’s mind blowing to read his accounts of pre-tape recording, when the only consistent device available to ensure an accurate pressing onto the record lathe was….gravity. That’s right, they’d drop a weight like a grandfather clock which would consistently turn the record cutting machine.

Regardless though @joec is correct, almost zero creators of what you’re listening to gave a shit about MIT silver cable or whatever, if it had the “feel” they were trying to create with the song, then that was the right piece of equipment whether it was a “Realistic” Radio Shack amp or an Audio Research nuclear reactor level tube setup.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

as a recovering audiophile

when the beagle speaks

listen

By chance (or fate) I lived a mile or so from a former NASA engineer who was into audio. I was invited to his home to listen to his system.
Money could not buy what he did to his "living room". He had a set of (he built) mono-block tube amps that were water cooled to to maintain constant temperature. Literally, there was a "trench" along the outside wall of his listening room to "vent" the hot water spent from cooling his tube amplifiers. He had Faraday cages on every wire in the system. I can't even explain how much science he used.

He told me the plinth he used on his "ask me and I might build one for you" turntables weighed about 90 pounds. He told me that at demos he cut the rubber band that connected his plinth to the motor .... and his customers could not detect a change. "This is not possible" , his Japanese cost- no- object customers would say.

So I sat in the "sweet spot" and he ....of all things...put on an LP he said he found at a flea market. Ummmagumm

Two, rather modest, floor speakers (Merlin ...circa 1990s)
NO surround. no other speakers in the room (which was acoustically engineered = "tuned" ... like the Lucid interior )
It was "Sterio". I did not believe it, so when he left the room I pulled up the acoustic foam he had in the corners....no speakers.

I have never recovered from that. Sterio. Two speakers.

Goosebumps way under states what I experienced. This was from an LP purely analog source, with tube amplification.

The Luicd with Dobly Pro and Tidal Atomos .... is pretty close to that.


(I literally, shit my pants at that listening session).

That’s an awesome story. What a tweaker to have built that setup, Jesus. My car is my listening room, my other setups are a joke (definitive technology towers with built in woofers, Deftech center speaker and ELAC surrounds going through mediocre Onkyo 5.1 amp and my other room is just a Samsung Atmos sound bar with discreet surround speakers which also gets the job done but isn’t impressive) because I don’t care that much anymore and it has hit the Wife Allowance Factor. I’m happy with all that and desire nothing more, it gets the job done. I can’t watch a movie playing back over TV speakers though, and a lot of soundbars are garbage, the Samsung was the only passable one I found below Sonos.

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

Lloyd Walker audio

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

Okay, WAF definitely needs to be added to the forums acronym dictionary

It's no joke. There is not a hifi speaker designer in the last 30 years that does not deal with WAF. Well known industry term.

Some say WAF came about after the era of the great bookshelf speakers of the 60's and 70's evolved in massive speakers like the Infinity IRS. My wife still asks me why all speakers need to be bigger than bookshelf size.

 

[xponents]

That’s an awesome story. What a tweaker to have built that setup, Jesus. My car is my listening room, my other setups are a joke (definitive technology towers with built in woofers, Deftech center speaker and ELAC surrounds going through mediocre Onkyo 5.1 amp and my other room is just a Samsung Atmos sound bar with discreet surround speakers which also gets the job done but isn’t impressive) because I don’t care that much anymore and it has hit the Wife Allowance Factor. I’m happy with all that and desire nothing more, it gets the job done. I can’t watch a movie playing back over TV speakers though, and a lot of soundbars are garbage, the Samsung was the only passable one I found below Sonos.

TV speakers to me are basically useless, and you should at least get a sound bar or some nice individual speakers IMO.

It's no joke. There is not a hifi speaker designer in the last 30 years that does not deal with WAF. Well known industry term.

Some say WAF came about after the era of the great bookshelf speakers of the 60's and 70's evolved in massive speakers like the Infinity IRS. My wife still asks me why all speakers need to be bigger than bookshelf size.

Definitely did not expect that... and now I want to see those bookshelf speakers!
.

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

My car is my listening room, my other setups are a joke

Bunny I love reading your posts. Lloyd Walker pushed me over the edge. I had been an Audio Asylum nut and Steriophile subscriber for a while.
I took an empty bedroom and began "treating" it. I got the Everest book and kept it in the shit room so I could re-read it daily. I pounded in a second grounding rod and star-grounded everything in the room, on an isolated circuit. I was pure tube and analog, and tested it against a Sony SCD1

Everyone ... everyone ... within seconds ... said the vinyl playback was with out a doubt ... (I don't want to say better, which is what they might say)

music.


so when I say I spend hours in the wee hours listening to music in my Lucid.


no shit

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

I took some photos of Lloyd Walker's home test-bed system, and posted them on Audio Asylum decades ago.
I was so young and stupid. He was pretty upset ... his system was "experimental", and in no way represented what he was selling to his "high end" customers who were into status, not emotion; who wanted "pretty", not music. As a scientist... my mind was blown...I had no idea people bought high fidelity music playback systems for "status". All I cared about was the engineering, and the emotion.
I had the photos taken down, at his request.

Yes I ended up buying some of his stuff. And, again. And, again.

But ... I still have the analogue versions of the photos of his "lab", if anyone wishes to see the master's work.

 

[xponents]

I took some photos of Lloyd Walker's home test-bed system, and posted them on Audio Asylum decades ago.
I was so young and stupid. He was pretty upset ... his system was "experimental", and in no way represented what he was selling to his "high end" customers who were into status, not emotion; who wanted "pretty", not music. As a scientist... my mind was blown...I had no idea people bought high fidelity music playback systems for "status". All I cared about was the engineering, and the emotion.
I had the photos taken down, at his request.

Yes I ended up buying some of his stuff. And, again. And, again.

But ... I still have the analogue versions of the photos of his "lab", if anyone wishes to see the master's work.

I would love to see the pictures, actually! Please do post them!

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

Pretty much anything Tidal makes me cry. I love my Lucid = my portable hi-fi listening room, that seats 5, and blows the doors off of a Ferrari.

(oh... and refuels at home
(oh ... did I mention 130 mpg ?

 

[Lucken]

That’s an awesome story. What a tweaker to have built that setup, Jesus. My car is my listening room, my other setups are a joke (definitive technology towers with built in woofers, Deftech center speaker and ELAC surrounds going through mediocre Onkyo 5.1 amp and my other room is just a Samsung Atmos sound bar with discreet surround speakers which also gets the job done but isn’t impressive) because I don’t care that much anymore and it has hit the Wife Allowance Factor. I’m happy with all that and desire nothing more, it gets the job done. I can’t watch a movie playing back over TV speakers though, and a lot of soundbars are garbage, the Samsung was the only passable one I found below Sonos.

I’ve got that same Samsung soundbar (990B?), sub & surrounds hooked up to my 8K OLED. For what it is it’s fine and it does earn a high WAF.

BTW, when we spoke of WAF over at the AVS forums, it always stood for ‘Wife Approval Factor’. A minor point, but still.

 

[MJAir23TheGoat]

Being a musician myself, all I’ve ever cared about is a system that sounds decent enough. Can I hear all the instruments clearly? Is it not overdriven? Is it balanced?

Beyond that, it’s sit back and appreciate the composition, the performances, and yes, the production. Half the fun of Pink Floyd Albums is how damn well they were recorded.

Everything else to me is just a dick measuring contest by people who think listening to music is somehow a competition.

What did Henry Rollins call these folks? “Record player players.” My guess is half of them wouldn’t know a II, V, I progression from a hole in the wall.

I’m gonna guess the vast majority here won’t get the Henry Rollins reference .
Black Flag was epic during the punk era. Henry ROCKED

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

You mean Jimmy ?

or Sonny?

"was in a practice room working on a piano piece when three sharp notes came through the wall like they were shot from a nail gun."
Sonny Rollins, is in the house.

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

BTW, when we spoke of WAF over at the AVS forums, it always stood for ‘Wife Approval Factor’. A minor point, but still.

I still think it's acceptance, and it's use far far predates AVS. No one really spelled it out as we all too well knew it's import to marketing. It goes back to the early days of Stereophille,Absolute Sound. But, either way, it stands for the same thing: "you are out of your mind if you think you are putting those monstrosities in the living room!!"

People like to say the bravest man was the first to eat an oyster. I say the bravest man was the first married man to set up a pair Infinity IRS in his living room.

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

Regardless though @joec is correct, almost zero creators of what you’re listening to gave a shit about MIT silver cable or whatever, if it had the “feel” they were trying to create with the song, then that was the right piece of equipment whether it was a “Realistic” Radio Shack amp or an Audio Research nuclear reactor level tube setup.

Let me add a comment I think you will agree with. I know that sound engineers and audio pros DID give a shit about what they were using. They just were not sucked into buying snake and oil cables and tweeks that were grossly overpriced and often worse performing that much cheaper solutions. 18 gauge Walmart lamp cord makes shitting speaker cable - it just does. And the $5 Radio Shlock interconnects are horrible and you can hear the difference on a good system. Its not just the crummy wire, but the pot metal connectors, spot welding.

Long ago, I discovered that it was the great Pro Audio engineers that got it right - they knew quality, function and useability and appropriate price. Long ago, I started making my own cables using pro audio bulk cables from Mogami, Canare, Grimm and Gotham., and Neutrik and Amphenol connectors. I use a silver bearing solder. They ALL HAVE ONE MAJOR FLAW: they cost too little. Pro's do not care, they are not recording music to brag about cables. If you do not already know, "High End Luxury Audio Retail" cables have margins of 10 to 1 or more. Thank God Monster Cable is out of business. Noel perfected the idea of making spiffy looking but cheap shitty cables, and paying off the guys at Best Buy and the like to talk people into buying them. he made a fortune selling schlock until he got wiped out in crypto.

So, long story short. Real quality and real performance in an audio product does matter. Its just sometimes hard to find amongst the hucksters.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Let me add a comment I think you will agree with. I know that sound engineers and audio pros DID give a shit about what they were using. They just were not sucked into buying snake and oil cables and tweeks that were grossly overpriced and often worse performing that much cheaper solutions. 18 gauge Walmart lamp cord makes shitting speaker cable - it just does. And the $5 Radio Shlock interconnects are horrible and you can hear the difference on a good system. Its not just the crummy wire, but the pot metal connectors, spot welding.

Long ago, I discovered that it was the great Pro Audio engineers that got it right - they knew quality, function and useability and appropriate price. Long ago, I started making my own cables using pro audio bulk cables from Mogami, Canare, Grimm and Gotham., and Neutrik and Amphenol connectors. I use a silver bearing solder. They ALL HAVE ONE MAJOR FLAW: they cost too little. Pro's do not care, they are not recording music to brag about cables. If you do not already know, "High End Luxury Audio Retail" cables have margins of 10 to 1 or more. Thank God Monster Cable is out of business. Noel perfected the idea of making spiffy looking but cheap shitty cables, and paying off the guys at Best Buy and the like to talk people into buying them. he made a fortune selling schlock until he got wiped out in crypto.

So, long story short. Real quality and real performance in an audio product does matter. Its just sometimes hard to find amongst the hucksters.

Yeah all 100% accurate. Audio engineers definitely require high quality gear but not audiophile gear. I don’t know a single mixer or sound editor who’s wanted anything fancier than Meyer HD1, Mackie or Genelec monitors. Most film is mixed on JBLs, Genelecs or Dynaudios, never heard anyone ask for anything fancier than that. And yes cables do make a BIG difference as do DACs, but we never asked for anything more than Apogee or Lexicon because we knew they were reliable and didn’t need to spend zillions of dollars when we knew about only 1% of audiences who would hear what we would do would care or notice a difference anyway.

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

I still think it's acceptance, and it's use far far predates AVS. No one really spelled it out as we all too well knew it's import to marketing. It goes back to the early days of Stereophille,Absolute Sound. But, either way, it stands for the same thing: "you are out of your mind if you think you are putting those monstrosities in the living room!!"

People like to say the bravest man was the first to eat an oyster. I say the bravest man was the first married man to set up a pair Infinity IRS in his living room.

this man is divorced.

.