The future of music and/or hi-fi enthusiasts

PBirkett said:
Joints suck!

This is progress....

pb6_400.jpg


;)
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Tweeter at the bottom angled up - interesting configuration. :cool:

What's the crossover point?
 
julian2002 said:
merlin,
ditch that firewire botch job and get a squeezebox and decent dac.
cheers
julian
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But Julian, I get all of every track through Firewire ;) Plus the squeezebox has all the aestetic appeal of Joan Rivers waking up with a hangover - you need a Roku mate :D
 
merlin,
forget about the squeezebox in drag - ladyboy roku, the squeeze box is far more manly in it's original state. :)
cheers


julian
 
julian2002 said:
merlin,
forget about the squeezebox in drag - ladyboy roku, the squeeze box is far more manly in it's original state. :)
cheers
julian
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If by manly you mean ugly as sin then the concensus is that you are right mate ;)

The Roku has the styling to even look OK at Gary I's pad. The Squeezebox would look at home in WM's garage :D I particularly like the Squeezebox's interpretation of music, leaving out bits of songs so that you can sing along and fill in the gaps. It's like having your very own PC pop quiz :D
 
PBirkett said:
Why not....
.......

especially given the absolutely tiny differences between MPC and WAV, of the nature that very, very few people can detect. So far, on my visits around the internet, I have not yet found any evidence that ANYONE at all can tell them apart (given a reasonable enough quality setting like 6 or 7 like I refer here), but I await to be proved wrong.



Resistance is futile. One day, you will all be assimilated :D
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Just a question about your assertions that people can't hear the difference.

What exactly are these 99.9% of people that can't hear the difference doing the comparisons on? If you tell me that they're using true audiophile grade equipment then I'll accept it. But considering that 99.9% of the population don't use equipment anywhere near that quality and that also the odds are very high that the people on the internet that can't hear the difference are very likely to be replaying them on their PC speaker systems (which no matter how fancy are still crap) or using their PCs as a source through at best budget-mid priced components. I think I'll believe the greater likely hood which is that the reason there is no audiable differences is because the systems being used just aren't up to the task of enabling you to hear the differences.

On top of which there is the FACT that 99.9% of the population think the massively distorted noise that eminates from most "suped up" car stereos or club PA systems is the best thing they've heard ever.


GTM
 
merlin said:
It remains for me to be convinced Julian. Certainly Apple Lossless sucks - give me a WAV anytime.
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Hmmm....does not compute. The output into the DAC from Apple Lossless is 100% identical, bit for bit, to WAV. With what hardware/setup were you doing the comparison?

On the iPod I can't tell the difference between WAV and 320kbps MP3, nevermind Apple Lossless - and that's using decent headphones.

Michael.
 
GTM, I am more than happy to send you a CD with an MPC compressed set of files and an original set of files, if you wish.

There is plenty of reading on the musepack site, but also Hydrogen Audio forums which if you do a search you will find plenty to keep you going. Some of the people on HA forums have very good equipment, FWIW. Admittedly, the 99.9% figure is grabbed from the air, but the point remains that I feel you would be doing very well even with the highest quality equipment to guess them apart from the original.

I am more than happy to knock up a CD which could be posted around containing music of people's choice, if they so wish.
 
Hodgesaargh said:
Paul are you not interested in new music?
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Take a wander around some of the bigger HMV and Virgin stores. I think you'll find that majority of new releases are also available on vinyl.

At the Virgin on Union Square (in NY) last week I was amazed just how many new releases were available on vinyl. Some, like Bjorks latest "Medulla" were even available on 180g pressings.

Michael.
 
michael,
i'm with you on this one.

merlin,
your recent change in speakers probably has more impact on what you hear than switching from wav to flac / alc.
cheers


julian
 
Paul Ranson said:
I'm not interested in being up to date. I am interested in stuff I haven't heard before.
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Then you're in luck. There's about 900 years worth of music for you to explore in a variety of styles from Gregorian Chant to the latest out pourings of Busted
 
PBirkett said:
Why not....



Maybe if you have unlimited funds :rolleyes:



RAM has very little to do with what you are saying.



I have broadband and a typical MPC album is around 100 Mb, which even at 60K per second would take around 30 minutes to download. A FLAC album can be anywhere up to 500 Mb and therefore could take as long as 2 hours 30 minutes to download at 60 K per second. Rarely is anyone fortunate enough to get 60 K per second. And if you can tell apart an MPC Q6+ album apart from FLAC (or WAV) then you have better hearing than 99.9% of the population, and as such, the differences are not worth bothering with/getting upset over.

By your reckoning, we should not bother at all with compression even if it does not impact the sound in any way. So lets increase the album to 700 Mb and watch as it takes at least 4 hours to download, if you are lucky.

Lets go back to the storage thing for a moment.

Say you have a 200 Gb hard disk. Fairly cheap yes? About £80 or less these days. Now, say you have your operating system and programs on and that leaves around 150 Gb for music. That is 1,500 CD's stored in MPC format, and I reckon many people on here have far more CD's than that. In FLAC, potentially you reduce that capacity to around 300 CD's. So to store music in lossless, and have the luxury of 1,500 CD's then you will need 5 200 Gb hard disks. That is not only a LOT more expensive but also a lot more noisy. Store them uncompressed, and then you end up with about 200 CD's capacity.

I dont know how many here will agree with their huge disposal incomes, but for mere mortals, storing uncompressed, or even losslessly, is very much a waste of disk space IMHO, especially given the absolutely tiny differences between MPC and WAV, of the nature that very, very few people can detect. So far, on my visits around the internet, I have not yet found any evidence that ANYONE at all can tell them apart (given a reasonable enough quality setting like 6 or 7 like I refer here), but I await to be proved wrong.



Resistance is futile. One day, you will all be assimilated :D
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I still dont see what the problem is re. funds. Most of us here dont bat an eyelid at spending £500+ on kit so why should real hardcore computer audio fans. I dont see this as a show stopper. You can buy a terrabyte of storage for around that price now. In a couple of years that will be just one hardrive.

So again for a purely home system why bother with compression? It doesnt make sense to me. Especially if I have all the CDs already anyway. Way to much effort. I'm sorry if you cant pursuade me otherwise. The argument just doesnt convince me. Sorry but thats how I feel.

I'll sit happy with my CD collection during a thunderstorm while you go beavering away frantically making sure your data is all backed up before it goes 'pop' quite literally. ;)
 
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