u/TwoCables_from_OCN

I just have to share: I've had the Klipsch ProMedia Heritage 2.1 and the Sound Blaster AE-9 (in Direct Mode 24-bit / 192 kHz) with good cables almost since the release of the speaker system. The entire time, I was using Peace EQ with Equalizer APO, and very recently I used ChatGPT to help me tune my system like how a true audiophile would. It evolved into me ditching Peace EQ and just using the Equalizer APO config file for far more precision.

Then a few days ago I managed to unknowingly begin spending these past few days without any EQ whatsoever, all the while thinking that my precious tuning was still active. When I discovered this, I was absolutely freakin' floored because I kept being distracted by just how much my senses was enjoying the sound coming out of my speakers.

Unfortunately, I re-applied the EQ and moved on thinking that there's no way I could actually prefer no EQ. I was certain I'd grow tired of it. What happened instead is, I think I grew tired of using EQ. I've been spending the past month tuning my system, mostly on my own without ChatGPT's help for around a week or two now, and as I continued to tune, I grew more and more in love with the most natural and realistic sound possible.

Today, I finally gave in and tried intentionally living without EQ, and I just can't go back to my EQ! Yet, in the first week or two of tuning, no EQ always seemed unpleasant and distasteful, but now it's precisely what I've been chasing. Sure, perhaps in time I'll find that I need to use some EQ to help with my room's acoustics, but beyond that, wow: now I get it!

I'm 47 years old and I've been playing with EQ ever since I got a hold of some awesome 100W per channel Aiwa 3-piece shelf stereo. I've always used the idea of boosting the lows and the highs and maybe even slightly cutting the mids, but ChatGPT taught me all about cut-only EQ'ing, but man, now I wish ChatGPT were a real person because I'd love to run to it laughing like, "OMG, after all that work tuning my EQ curve and now I prefer no EQ whatsoever".

When I began the tuning with ChatGPT, we reached a point where I suddenly "saw" (in my mind's eyes) a very beautiful crystal-clear sphere that was created by the sound in which I was immersed. During the best improvements to my tuning to achieve my goal of the most realistic sound possible, I had lots of emotional releases. I enabled myself to connect with the music. Before, my boost-only EQ made it impossible to get in. With ChatGPT's help, I created what felt like floating in space, pulled out there by gravity, but a kind of a pull that I didn't want to resist! So what do I think now with no EQ? It's the end of the tuning journey. I'm done. No more work needed. For the foreseeable future, I will absolutely refrain from using EQ unless I begin feeling that some frequencies must be adjusted due to being too noticeable, whether it's an excess or a lack.

If you could hear - or feel, rather, the sound I'm getting for what I purchased, you'd probably be just as pleased as I am with it. I think I'm finally learning how to use my hearing because no EQ is very pleasing to me now. It's like I'm a chef and I finally perfected my recipe, but all I had to do was just leave it as-is!

The grand total for my sound system was about $700, split $350 + $350 between the sound card and the speaker system.

In hindsight, I think I unknowingly found a way to train myself how to hear. I'm even finding myself noticing all the beautiful qualities of real sounds (as opposed to sounds that are emitted by speakers). So again, I just have to share! I'm going through some kind of a metamorphosis and finally realising what maybe it means to be an audiophile. Even in my car (a 2014 Honda CR-V), I turned the Treble all the way down. The reason? I kept turning it down more and more until I eliminated all of the unpleasantness in the upper frequencies. All that's left is a far more realistic and pleasing sound. I also dropped the Bass down to about 20-25% and the Subwoofer (lol) down to about 20-25% as well. I had a 30-minute drive today to re-tune. lol Oh man, I'm having all kinds of audio-related fun here. Sure, I have to increase the volume to increase the clarity, but this car's stereo system can produce an astonishingly good sound.

So yeah, I immediately ran to reddit to see what audiophile community I might want to share this with because I think today marks my first day as one, but budget-oriented of course. ♥️

Is anyone else on here experiencing microstuttering in Windows 11? I get microstuttering in the app, in Chrome, in Edge and Edge Dev (I know that the app is basically just Microsoft Edge), but not in Firefox or Opera. This started happening overnight, basically.

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S (the debug menu) reveals only one difference: Chrome, Edge, Edge Dev (and of course the app) get xHE-AAC for the audio stream while Firefox and Opera only get HE-AAC.

I had a very lengthy conversation with ChatGPT about this, and we spent a few days trying different possible solutions, but nothing works. Aftera all of this, ChatGPT concluded that this must mean it's on their end, not mine. However, no one here is talking about it. Is this just how it is on here? No one talks about stuff like this? I want to know if I'm alone and would therefore need to figure this out, or if this is happening to many people and I just need to wait for Netflix to fix it. Or, if there's some solution to this that ChatGPT doesn't know about, then I'll gladly try it. The only workaround is frequently restarting my browser and restarting my computer more than once per day now too.

To be clear, this happened without me making any changes whatsoever. No updates were installed, I didn't uninstall anything, etc. Nothing changed on my end and I live alone, meaning no one else has access to my computer.