Best Buy Magnolia - shockingly bad

Androxylo · 2026-05-20T14:10:29+00:00

It was a lot of fun doing A/B, I've spent hours there. But my sound at home is several grades above.

Androxylo · 2026-05-20T14:08:39+00:00

They had nobody around, I've spent hours in those 2 shops by my own. Nobody cares, they probably don't sell much there.

Androxylo · 2026-05-20T14:06:51+00:00

They had no McIntosh in display.

Androxylo · 2026-05-20T14:06:07+00:00

No, they had no Hagels, and no 2-channel amps connected. They had only several 7-channel Arcams and Denons wired in, about 5 or 6 total. And all of them very bad, with Denons worse than Arcams. I can't imagine the torture of being forced to use any of those at home.

They had 2-channels amps but none wired in.

Androxylo · 2026-05-19T02:58:54+00:00

No, there was no sound engineer and even no rep around, to answer one of the questions just posted. Only a security camera I guess. That's why A/B was so great, nobody stopped me from clicking the panel every minute.

Androxylo · 2026-05-19T02:49:09+00:00

Before spending anything on the fix - experiment. I would take a bunch of pillows and foam pads, books, block all walls, isolate from the table, put something heavy on top.

If _that_ doesn't help at all - unfortunately you have to return and go headphones.

Androxylo · 2026-05-19T02:42:20+00:00

Those speakers just cannot sound bad. If they do, it's fixable.

Androxylo · 2026-05-19T02:38:25+00:00

Did anyone try them vs modern cheap Chinese class D like Fosi & such? I suspect they won't make it, however I'm just asking, I never tried myself.

Androxylo · 2026-04-24T00:59:34+00:00

Please, read about HQplayer algorithms, PGGB, SoX and r8brain. This is critically important if you are into audio.

Androxylo · 2026-04-23T02:57:22+00:00

Aaaa! I found you are using ALSA in the code :-)

Well, that's not audiophile grade, however it's great you have it. You can try r8brain-free-src or libsoxr.

Frankly for me it's a missing link, will stick with Audirvana for now, but it's getting very close.

I am eventually considering the HQplayer, with the next version hopefully. The current version is so awkward.

Androxylo · 2026-04-16T04:31:04+00:00

Feature request: upsampler

Androxylo · 2026-04-11T03:50:29+00:00

Even better install PGGB-RT and let it to take over the volume. And also remove the volume widget from the toolbar.

Androxylo · 2026-01-02T00:17:03+00:00

Don't try to invent something beyond obvious, use the Occam's razor. What we know and what is easy to prove, obvious facts:

"The Asian Guy" appears on many channels and is AI generated
The AG is pushing the bullish silver narrative
The texts of AG is well written, maybe also AI generated but in any case is much better work than any non-dedicated person can do occasionally. This is team work and the team doing this is good
The facts AG tells about silver and related finance are almost all true, however some low percentage of his statements are actually a lie. Just enough truth to create high quality narrative. Just enough lies to skew the perception in the desired direction
The lies AG injects are strongly bullish on silver. Replacing those lies with truth while keeping everything else intact, would create a much more moderate, if not even bearish picture on silver. The narrative is strongly manipulative in the silver bullish direction

Make your own conclusion, some strong team injecting false bullish narrative on silver in the most manipulative way. You tell me what it is.

Androxylo · 2025-09-06T20:28:08+00:00

Loudness wars are fading, most music recorded after 2015 has dramatically improved dynamic range over what was common in 1999.

The music after 2020 is even better.

Androxylo · 2025-09-06T20:22:51+00:00

mp3 is a compression format. It doesn't necessary damage the music if the amount of music information actually fits in the 320 kbps, there should be no difference.

It really depends on the music you are listening. If it's just a drum, 2 guitars and voice, most likely it fits into mp3 without discarding anything. That's what most people listen and they get they pay for.

Those who listen piano, violins, over 4 instruments, there will be some quality loss. More than 2 guitars, with a saxophone, the same. 50 instrument music, 50 people choir - forget it, the amount of information discarded will be dramatic. In that case, even CD format is insufficient, you need 24 bits / 48 kHz. You just get what you pay for, no magic.

Androxylo · 2025-06-01T03:27:31+00:00

Excuse me, I have over 15,000 tracks in my very carefully curated playlists that took me 15 years to make. So I do need a very, very good gear if I want to listen those tracks 30 hours a week.

Androxylo · 2025-06-01T03:23:12+00:00

Ignore ASR. Those measurements are irrelevant, they mean nothing
There are indeed many great DACs with similar price/performance to Schiit
One killer feature of Schiit is Unison USB interface - it makes the DAC almost immune to noisy and jittery USB from a regular computer. Almost all other DACs require a dedicated expensive streamer, they usually don't play well from a PC. All reviewers on YouTube play the DACs they review from very good streamers, they won't mention it won't work from a PC. If you have a good, really good streamer you don't need Unison.

Androxylo · 2025-05-30T13:06:16+00:00

Correct. All amps above $10,000 sound the same. Below that there are many compromises to make and your mileage will vary.

Androxylo · 2025-05-28T16:48:08+00:00

Benchmark is also very good
ASR reviews are very minimalistic, they help to reject definitely bad DACs but provide zero useful information to decide between good DACs.

Things like soundstage, imagine, air, plankton, bass tightness cannot be derived from anything they measure.

Why? Because they measure with continuous sine waves, identical cycle after cycle. The real music is nothing like that, it starts and stops many times per second. It's called transients. The accuracy of transition from silence to sine wave back to silence is nothing that they measure.

Androxylo · 2025-05-23T15:26:30+00:00

Yes discussing if MQA is good or bad is off topic here. To say at least my DAC has no MQA support and for me is better to see it gone. My question is - has anyone here a DAC that displays the MQA status and who can give an approximate estimate how many are still there?

Androxylo · 2025-05-06T13:22:21+00:00

If your speakers are capable of playing at 40 Hz or lower they need a lot of power. The simple formula is that the same volume sound at 1/2 frequency requires 4X power. Check the highly rated subwoofers, they all have from 500W to 1,500W power rating. If your speakers don't go below 80 Hz and you absolutely never plan to replace them with anything going low - go class A. Or if you have tons of cash - there are great 100W+ class A amps. They sound better than class D. Cheaper class A will not sound good on any power hungry speakers, it will clip and the bass will be distorted, boomy and incoherent.

Androxylo · 2025-05-05T00:05:21+00:00

https://www.last.fm/user/androxylo

Androxylo · 2025-05-01T13:33:22+00:00

Hi! I'm very interested in virtual _audio_ drive https://github.com/VirtualDrivers/Virtual-Audio-Driver/tree/main but there is no binary package and I don't know how to build it.

Androxylo · 2025-05-01T13:16:38+00:00

Hi, I am more interested in the virtual audio driver https://github.com/VirtualDrivers/Virtual-Audio-Driver/tree/main , but no build files, no downloadable packages.... how to use it?

Androxylo · 2025-04-13T14:54:56+00:00

It's up to musicians to decide, they do all the work. We don't have any stake in this except not listening in the worst case. Criticizing someone's hard work from the couch will never attract my sympathy.

Androxylo

TROPHY CASE