How to make hifi sound like lofi beats to relax and study to...

I was really shocked by how poor that thing sounds.

Or an AM radio.

I thought my tweeters had died

I'm not happy with this kind of sound comparison. That can a) sound completely different with your ears and in your home. b) Depending on what I had for lunch and my mood afterwards, the result may differ. Joking aside, I mean that it's completely subjective. A frequency response analysis would be very helpful. What do we want to achieve here that the bass, middle and treble controls cannot do? A better noise ratio? Then this is the absolute wrong measuring method. Using spectrum analysis and distortion factor measurement is mandatory. Such a preamplifier should actually only do one thing: adjust the level to the norm with as little noise and distortion as possible. In addition, with the record player, the dynamic compression based on the physical medium must be reversed by a filter. Introducing sound shaping elements (or the desirability of them) into the equation is a bad thing as you introduce unnecessary variables into the equation, like all over-engineering is. BTW: You can criticize every single point i made and be right with it. That the sound fits to your liking is the goal. This is legitimate and, ultimately, different for each of us. .oO (I just sometimes don't understand the whole uprising because human ears aren't necessarily the crown of creation. Especially when we get older, hehehe)

It’s still not enough for him

Bigger the glob, better the job!

maybe Colin.. for a future video can get a vintage Marantz or Marshall ... and compare it with the SONY... "listen" (with a CD player.. instead of a Turntable) if there really is so much difference as the Pro guys say ... :-) --- For those who have not seen the previous video... Colin @This Does Not Compute.. compare these little crap boxes ... with a real Hi-Fi amplifier.. (a SONY if I remember correctly)... and obviously... they sound bad compared to a real applicator......... and it wasn't even a professional Amp like a Marshall or a Marantz .... it was a mid-range end user SONY Hi-Fi........

Don't delay, use more flux today!

@@ThisDoesNotCompute And another piece of advice that Lois would also give: We cut the wires before soldering! Not afterwards. Unfortunately you can never see that, because everything is under flux flood :) Thanks for the video and for showing the preamps. P.S: Have you ever thought about it: Simply changing components in this way can have an impact. With a precisely set operating point of a transistor, it can make a difference if the subsequently changed effective resistance of an expensive capacitor is suddenly in the circuit. Of course you have to measure that. Then you know whether the whole effort made any sense at all :) If you can't provide this evidence, then .... No, it doesn't matter because tinkering is fun.

aye i always laugh when i see videos on youtube about this

I can hear s little difference. But who knows how much is getting lost in translation.

Not necessarily. A common thought is that a lossy format or filter I'll call C when applied to two less lossy things such as A & B where A & B are of two distinct distinguishable qualities will make each of A & B equal in terms of quality or fidelity. Sometimes this will be true and sometimes it will not be true. For example take a piece of graph paper with a quarter inch grid and on one row for 6 inches black in every square and call this line A. On a 6 inch line several inches below line A black in every other square starting with the first square being black and call this line B. Let each black square represent data and each blank square represent lost data. Line A obviously is lossless and line B is lossy. Now apply another lossy scheme equal in terms of total lost data to that found in line B equally to both lines by leaving the first square of each line unchanged and erasing the next two squares then leave unchanged the fourth square and repeat the pattern for the next 5 inches on each of line A and B. The end result is line A which started with 24 data points is reduced to 12 data points and line B which started with 12 data points is down to 6 data points but you can still tell which line A or B was of better quality with respect to data. Presumably my little example also applies to audio data so without knowing precisely how the KZfaq scheme meshes with each audio format one can not really make a guaranteed conclusion as to what to expect. Also, it in general is an interesting math problem and while that is my field I honestly don't know if a theorem has been validated from some conjecture regarding this issue but it would be a bit fun to work something out regardless. Footnote: If you say yes but the the lossy scheme that was applied equally to line A and B was equal to data loss to that of line B and not worse as KZfaq must surely be then try this scheme. Erase the first 3 squares then save the fourth square and repeat. Line A then has been reduced to 6 data points and line B has been reduced to 0 data points and again the difference in quality is still notable.

Or maybe there's actually no difference.

No Schiit!

@@misterhat5823 You can say that again, especially when the low-end preamps are absolutely Schiit beyond belief.

I was listening through the HD6XX from Massdrop and could only notice a little less harsh highs with the music hall mini.

Are those the equivalent of the HD650s?...anygood?

yeah.. listening with DT880's and a Creek OBH-11.. difference is pretty minimal at best..

well , so i don't buy momentums.. listening to dynaudio's there is plenty diff

You must have really bad ears, i can hear every change.

It's similar because Nobsound=Little Bear. Same company.

I'm not sure I'd be able to get to producing a video like that soon, but it's definitely some food for thought. In terms of old receiver vs new receiver, as long as you're comparing similar technologies (i.e. both are class AB, etc) I think the differences won't be dramatic. Newer equipment will have the benefit of better precision in parts manufacturing and modern soldering/assembly processes, but for non-audiophile equipment it'll be designed down to a price. Since vintage gear has the benefit of depreciation over time, you could pick up something that was very high-end in its day for a much lower price now. In the end, the better value is simply whatever fits in your budget and sounds good to you -- don't let yourself succumb to analysis paralysis.

Thanks for the advice! Based on your input I found a wonderfully well kept 1981 Yamaha R-500 for $50. It sounds perfect. I appreciate the input, it really shook me out of overthinking!

Only thing it would affect is noise really.Even cheap, modern op-amps have decent parameters, that high cut on the second preamp is a design flaw, and that harsh top sounds like improper cartridge loading(input impedance). Also those big electrolitics have no effect in RIAA curve, they just remove dc bias and filter the power supply.

I doubt that would help, the designers have probably cheapened (as in simplified) the circuit, heavily distorting the curve. A rebuild would only remove audio distortion, not repair the distorted curve.

@@paulstubbs7678 Indeed, a mod and repair. I know that sometimes the mod can be difficult or useless if the PCB (printed board) is badly designed in the first place. This only leaves the space for reusing the outer of the amp case for aesthatic purposes if possible.

I have a pair of ATM50x myself, there didnt sound like much difference in the Music Hall. Little Bear sounded no different.

@@s_ludge huh well I was like using a surround sound amplifier from sony as the audio souce (It has hdmi so I connected my pc up to it) and that could be the problem (or it could be my hearing since I can only hear up to 18000 - 18500Hz!

@@s_ludge make audio comparisons via youtube is basically worthless since yt as high and low frequency limitations

@@t_leite Making audio comparisons with your own two grown ears is pretty useless. No offence, but as said, these are your individual own pair of ears. Everyone has a different pair as yours and they are all good, pretty and important:) Just use something like audacity in FFT mode and then you can make reliable statements. Even with a video on KZfaq.

made no difference at all with the new tubes.. and if you wasn't looking at the screen how would you know which one was playing? improved dramatically?? little bear sounded shite.. the other cheaper pre amp sounded better after the upgrade

@@09danstart I looked up after hearing. Derp. And I didn't say anything about the music hall.

These days I’m using a Panasonic GH5. It’s served me very well.

A pity he didn't have a download link - I don't know why anyone tries to evaluate audio via KZfaq

Or, how about this... there's no discernible difference!

My friend purchased the FX Audio 03 and got me intrigued so I bought one as well. Took the advice of some of these youtubers and did modifications like replacing the caps with 5% Wima 1uf 250v., matched pair of GE 5654's and did some op amp rolling- I currently have OPA 2132's but am waiting to receive some OPA1612's. I am not sure how much time was put on the new parts on the video, but one thing you have to do is put 50-70 hours minimum of break in to the parts or you won't hear ultimate results as the top end will sound harsh and edgy when parts are new. But, after the break in time woah! look out!.. I can't believe the transformation! The proof was doing a before and after comparison with my friend's stock unit. After listening to my modded out version all night on his system (he has Martin Logan's so the resolve of this system is high) we plugged his stock unit back in and it sounded muddy and rolled off by comparison. On my system, after the mods, the FX Audio 03 pre has made my system sound faster and tighter like I just plugged in an amplifier that had an added 300 -400 points extra dampening factor. the bottom end is so much tighter, less woolly and more delineated. I am running it through an auxiliary input on the preamp side to my Kenwood integrated with one kaveat: I have determined the Aux input can safely handle as much as the 10:30 position on the FX Audio 03 volume before it pushes that circuit on the Kenwood into distortion as the output of the FX Audio 03 is just a little too hot to run up any more. The rest of the gain I control on the Kenwood integrated and for a full sound I can run that volume control as much as 11:00 or 11:30. Even though I have spent at least as much as the preamp in parts for upgrade, I don't know another pre amp under $1000 that can give me this performance. My next step is to run it directly to my power amp but I haven't summoned the bravery to do so yet. Also, since there is only one input, it limits my choices and would force me to constantly reconnect source components. Luckily most of my sources run through my DAC (streaming, CD transport to DAC and optical from my TV set so it already covers many ball parks). I haven't experimented with an inexpensive phono pre as I already have a pretty good one that will run a moving coil but I don't think the inexpensive Chinese ones will give you very good performance without heavy modifications and even then, the phono circuit of an even inexpensive Japanese receiver will be way way better. As the video presentation here has determined, the RIAA circuit in these Phono preamps just aren't very good.

mmm no they are not in the sonic path..

the blob works like a looking glass hahaha

That's too bad. You can have a tech bypass those and get a decent one.

How retro are wee talking? 1980s 8088? 1990s 486? Late 90s Pentium? You can play dos and early windows games, learn to program with tight limits, make midi music, read/write floppies, attempt to get it online, etc. Check out the vogons forum