Scott Wilkinson (Home Theater Geek) (23:34)
So let's see. Hey Wizardling, good to see you. I really like to let's see. Dms7362 I really like to watch movies with spatial audio on my AirPods Max through my Apple TV. Spatial audio doesn't work with my 4K UHD movie discs. Any way to get spatial audio from UHD discs into the headphones? I'm not a hundred percent sure about that. And by spatial audio I assume you mean immersive audio like like Atmos and what have you. I thought the AirPods AirPods Maxes had a spatial audio up mixer. I'm not sure about that. And probably if you're playing a disc and it's got and it's and it's Atmos and you maybe plug or are you using wi Fi or a Bluetooth? Depends on which codec you're using. Some of the later ones might have spatial audio in them but but it depends on whether or not the device that is sending the Bluetooth is able to up mix it into spatial audio or send it as spatial audio. In the case of a uhd blu ray 4k uhd movie discs they will often have Atmos. A lot of them do. So can that be translated into Spatial audio for the AirPods AirPod Max would depend. If you're playing a disk, it's going to go into a receiver and I assume you're going to get the Bluetooth from the receiver or the preamp processor. And that depends on whether or not it will upscale or up mix I should say into immersive audio or transmit it if it's already there over Bluetooth. In fact let me just quickly look and see here if Bluetooth Atmos. Let's see if any of the I don't remember whether Bluetooth talking about Atmos Bluetooth speakers but I'm talking. I don't see anything about Atmos 2 headphones. That's a, that's a question I'll have to spend a little more time researching because it depends on whether the Bluetooth codec carries that information or not. Shreen Sometimes I have trouble with these screen names. ShrinCompter Shrine Compter KEF would be a good option. Yes, KEF is a great speaker company. Do they make wireless surrounds? I'm not 100% sure. Jammer B. Andrew Jones Wireless at ELAC Andrew Jones hasn't been at ELAC for a while, several years. So they wouldn't be Andrew Jones. I don't think he ever designed any wireless surrounds. So whoever's there now, maybe they've started doing wireless. It's a good question. Wizardling says what is my Recommendation for compact 2.0 speaker system that still has bass that isn't MIA? Don't expect miracles, just something that has a decent setup for built in speakers. So I guess what that means is you don't want a subwoofer and that is going to be tricky. My question, my follow up question for you is what's your budget and what's your size limitation? Can you have big floor standing speakers? Can you spend a lot of money? Because if you can then yes, you can get a 2.0 system with good bass. But if, if you have to have small ones and they have to be cheap, I would say not. I don't think so. Donnie Murdoch says yes, I love Flac Flac, which is one of the lossless audio codecs which is what I use to listen to high res audio streaming from a company called Qobuz. Q O B U Z It's very much like Tidal T I D A L in that they stream high resolution losslessly compressed audio. I chose Qobuz. I used to have both of them but I ended up dropping Tidal and just using Qobuz because they tell you on each track. What is the resolution? And Tidal didn't. And when I was doing a lot of reviews, I wanted to know what's the resolution of this track? Is it 4896? I mean sorry, 9624 or 4824 or CD quality or what? And Qobuz gave me that information, so I kept them and dropped title. Wizardling is saying think Thinking for portability. 2.0 for less cables. 2.0 for less Cables. Less hassle. Moving but not wireless. No need for that. Okay, good move meaning you want to move this system from room to room. I don't assume you mean like move, you know, oh, I'm going to move from this city to that city. Probably means more moving than once every few years or whatever. So that's what I'm guessing that you are meaning. So when you tell me what kind of budget you have, I can maybe make some recommendations. Berserk says I have used Sony home AV amps for the last 20 years. They all have 5.1 sound. Can you use speakers you have or buy. And I mean you can use speakers you have. And I mean any. The Sony amps let you configure the speaker loudness and placement to easily set up any group of speakers. You could easily do this for $2,000. One thing that comes to mind when you're mentioning that is you can configure the speakers. You can use speakers you want. Any, any speakers. It depends on the impedance, the nominal impedance of the speaker and whether or not the amp can drive it. Most speakers, most sort of mid range speakers have a nominal impedance of 8 ohms, maybe 4 ohms. Most amplifiers can drive that, but if the speaker dips into the 2 ohm range, you have to have a pretty special amp to be able to drive that without causing problems, maybe even damaging the amp. So when you say any I, I have to ask about the speaker impedance. The Sony amps let you configure speaker for configure the speaker loudness and placement to easily set up any group of speakers you're talking about. I think probably relatively recent models that let you put speakers in various places and then compensate for that with correction algorithms that make it seem like they are where they're supposed to be, that is front, right and left at about 60 degrees or so, surrounds at 110 degrees center in the middle. So if the Sony amps let you do that, and as I recall they, they started doing that a Few years ago. You know, that's really good, but you want to make sure that your impedance of your speakers matches the impedance output of the amps. I should say the output impedance of the amps. In most cases it'll be fine, but in some more esoteric cases it might not. And Lava Being says assuming the room has carpet and can hang drapes. Yes. You don't want a room with hardwood floors and, and lots of glass walls. That's going to be too reverberant. Wizardling says we used egg cartons back in the day. Yeah, I remember those days well. And you know, they provide some measure of acoustic damping and help if the room is too reverberant. And Wizardling says draping cheap curtains over the walls and using rugs for bare wood floors works and is cheap. It's true. Gobek says you talk about high def recordings and listening to them. Being elderly, wonder if listening to recordings that can reproduce the high frequencies is of any value. Great question. Really great question. Because being elderly, I will admit to that. I am now elderly, I am a senior citizen, I get my senior discounts and I take advantage of as many as I can. And you're exactly right. As we age all humans, our high frequency perception drops, no question about it. And so what's the value of listening to high res audio? And the answer is there may not be any. You certainly no one can hear above 20 kilohertz even if there's information up there. But there are arguments to say that that information up in the ultrasonic range affects what we can hear. There are what are called difference tones or combination tones, which are combinations of the ultrasonic frequencies that manifest in the audible range. And if there are things up there and they cause these difference tones down in the audible range, you'll hear them. There's also a theory that I read somewhere recently that ultra high frequencies coming out of speakers, this doesn't apply to headphones, but coming out of speakers actually have an effect on your skin. And so it's not hearing that you're here, hearing that, perceives it, but, but a tactile sensation almost. It's not high volumes and you know, rippling on your skin because the sound waves are so loud. It's, it's a theory. I, I don't really know if I believe that or not. I have to do more research on it. But there are mechanisms apparently by which ultrasonic frequencies can have a perceptible effect. So now listening to high, listening to high res audio on headphones. Yeah, that's probably not. Except for this. These combination tones, difference tones that may have some effect in headphones that even I'd be able to hear. Interestingly, I did. I. I've had multiple audiograms taken of my hearing, and there is a dip in the, I'd say, I guess, 2 to 6 kilohertz range, probably due to playing in rock bands as a youngster and big bands, big, you know, jazz orchestras, where I'm in the trombone section and the trumpets are right behind me, blasting right into my ears. I did that for many, many years. And I played in a few rock bands in college. And those can get really loud, really loud. So that is. That has probably caused the notch in my hearing. But interestingly, the audiogram, I go to an audiologist, they're rare, but I found one whose audiometer, that is the device that tests your hearing, goes all the way to 20 kilohertz. Most audiologists have audiometers that only go to 8 kilohertz because all they're really concerned about is whether or not you can understand speech. But there are a few who cater to musicians and they want to hear all the way to 20K, my audiogram. Actually, after the dip, I got back up to 20k. I could perceive 20k. I was astonished. Not that it's, you know, important really, but even at my age, I couldn't believe it. But there it was in an audiogram. Unbelievable. Wizard link. Everybody's hearing degrades at different rates. That's also true if you have not been subjected to really loud sounds for over long periods of time, over your life, not, I mean, constantly, but, you know, repeatedly. Then if you haven't been exposed to that, then your hearing is going to degrade much differently than those of us who have. Now. Youngsters love to go to concerts, and concerts are really, really loud. I think I've told this story before at ces. One year, some years ago, JBL put on a concert with KISS in a hotel ballroom. And I went and I wore hearing protection and I brought my sound meter during each of their songs. It was in the 120 decibel range. It was like, oh, my God. So, yeah, you go to enough of those concerts, you're gonna lose some hearing easily. No question. And it's not going to be immediate. That's. This is the pernicious thing about it. It's going to be over time, it's going to be delayed. You're going to go to that concert, you're going to come out with your ears ringing. Maybe temporary, maybe not, but you're going to go, oh man, that was loud. But then two or three days later you go, oh, okay, I'm fine. 20 years later, you're going to have permanent hearing loss. So please, please, please protect your hearing when you go to these really loud concerts. You're going to thank me 20 years from now.
