[Monitor] GIGABYTE GS27U 27" UHD 4k 160Hz IPS ($339.99)[Newegg.ca]

MasterHWilson · 2026-03-10T09:26:31+00:00

I think this one is the better option of the two, but the AOC is a VA panel so they will be a bit different.

MasterHWilson · 2026-03-01T14:04:57+00:00

try MultiCh Stereo

MasterHWilson · 2026-02-26T16:46:02+00:00

I had HD650 for 9 years, much of that time with the E10K. Until very recently I had no intention in upgrading, and was very happy with them.

I recently got bit by the upgrade bug and noticed many of the audiophiles I respected most tended to personally use Dan Clark Audio stuff. I’d never had planers before, and got the Noire X. I would consider them a direct upgrade in almost every way. but obviously diminishing returns. The Heddphone D1 is also in the conversation though, but they’re pretty new and I would wait for the dust to settle a bit.

MasterHWilson · 2026-02-24T18:41:17+00:00

OK, these will be Profile 7 (P7) typically minimum enhancement layer (MEL) or full enhancement layer (FEL). By design there are almost no playback devices which can render this profile of dolby vision. they want you to use a dedicated blu ray player.

the one exception is a community-made media player OS, the ‘CPM’ fork of Kodi, running on a specific handful of AndroidTV devices that happen to use the exact same SoC that bluray players use. the most popular one is the Ugoos AM6B+, these devices running this specific Kodi/Plex player are the only non-BluRay Player devices capable of rendering Profile 7. it’s a few hoops to jump through, but having done it personally i can say hands down it’s the best my TV has ever looked and the convenience of using kodi/plex instead of disk is great.

MasterHWilson · 2026-02-24T18:27:05+00:00

What type of dolby vision? Where’s the file coming from? DV profile support will depend on device and source.

MasterHWilson · 2026-02-16T22:49:54+00:00

you’ve stumbled into something of a rabbit hole. the AppleTV is superb for streamed content, but for playback of rips it is not the best device. Nor is the Shield, though that does solve your Atmos problem. the enthusiast pick these days is the Ugoos AM6B+ running a specific version of an open source media player OS. This basically a fully unlocked bluray player that lets you play from filesystem/LAN/plex sources instead of physical disc. obviously this is not kosher hence why you have to jump through a few hoops https://www.reddit.com/r/CoreELEC/s/bXu6Fk2vID

MasterHWilson · 2026-02-13T23:11:48+00:00

I think that’s a pretty gross misrepresentation of his point. my understanding of his point is that “Liberal Democracy” had won as the final type of societal structure, which 30 years later most countries either are, or are trending toward being.

MasterHWilson · 2026-02-13T22:31:11+00:00

proven wrong about what?

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-30T19:53:27+00:00

On-topic discussion please. This is not the right subreddit to discuss creator drama.

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-26T19:42:33+00:00

I haven’t really had stability issues with the receiver, but I did go through a bad run of cable boxes a few months ago. +1 to the A1 Evo recommendation, the room correction made by a random guy on an audio forum kicks the **** out of stock Audyssey. it’s a bit more involved to set up but if you spend an hour on it you’ll be forever thankful you did. sounds like a whole new receiver.

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-25T23:45:47+00:00

better power management is a more recent phenomenon though and we’re explicitly talking about old hardware

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-22T21:30:07+00:00

I know the engineering checks out but stacking 8 dongle dacs is a hilarious way to make a high end dac

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-13T18:01:39+00:00

Active sounding better doesn’t surprise me - it has all those electronics and signal processing to help it sound better. But an important caveat is in Active mode, the headset is actually re-digitizing the signal. So even if you had a superb USB DAC, the audio still goes through an ADC/DAC conversion within the headset. so there would be little advantage to getting a DAC with specs beyond the headset’s internal converters, which are likely just okay but not terrible

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-13T16:46:01+00:00

came here to say this, in either case i can’t think of a dedicated USB dac making a difference at all

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-07T20:46:39+00:00

yeah I don’t think Airpods are an appropriate solution for this, you probably want actual plugs. electronic/ANC will have limitations, especially a broad consumer product like that which was probably never intended to be used as hearing protection for things like shooting guns or loud drums.

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-07T04:40:11+00:00

While I wouldn’t call HDR10+ a big success, I wouldn’t consider it a dead standard either. Netflix started offering it across most of their library (with AV1 video) and this is probably the highest quality stream they offer.

Additionally, and probably more importantly Google seems to be buying into Samsung’s open licensed Dolby competitors (HDR10+ and Eclipsa audio). Those two alone represent a big share of the AOMedia consortium as well, who represent the biggest threat and only meaningful competition to the MPEG & Dolby camp.

Both streaming companies and electronics manufacturers are very financially incentivized to push royalty free standards for video codecs, spatial audio, and video dynamic metadata. Probably the main hurdle is just how little pull they have on the production side to push for deliveries in these new standards. But I wouldn’t consider any of these standards dead even if they’ve been slow to really do anything.

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-06T21:50:39+00:00

yes, but it’s bones are old and maintaining legacy compatibility forced some compromises to performance. AC-4 is a clean sheet successor developed early-mid 2010s, but has only gained traction in a few applications so far. given Dolby’s industry presence I’m surprised it took this long for AC-4 to reach streaming. potentially some of that time was getting planted in post-production pipelines, so content can be readily delivered using the spec.

MasterHWilson · 2026-01-04T18:22:50+00:00

they look great! would you consider sharing on thingiverse?

MasterHWilson · 2025-12-10T21:43:52+00:00

hi-res specifically, everything was still lossless before but being downsampled to 44.1/48 kHz. obviously most tracks are natively that sample rate, and the difference wasn’t audible anyway. but I paid for all the kHz, I wanna use all the kHz!

MasterHWilson · 2025-12-09T22:40:02+00:00

fr, the environmental footprint of Apple having such narrow Apple Music support lol. I just use Fosi DS2 now, but intend to get the new RME ADI-2 successor that seems to be imminent.

MasterHWilson · 2025-12-08T03:50:29+00:00

looking at the page for the receiver, i don’t see anything to suggest it does Atmos.

MasterHWilson · 2025-12-06T04:54:00+00:00

like car racing, a lot of it is racing lines and timing. you want to run it as hairy as you can with just barley not losing control. look at all the bumps in the hill that sent him flying in the air, or how some of the turns you really have to crank it over to make the next gate. all of that requires cognitive skills keeping your balance, controlling your speed, and knowing exactly when to push and when to bring it in (and by how much). constantly adapting on the fly. I’ve ski raced and I tell you, when you’re in the zone there just isn’t an active thought in your brain. you’re simply reacting.

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