arnyk wrote: > Bell Labs (who no longer exist) concerned themselves with far more than > mere telephone conversations. Given your probable age you should > remember when about half of all movies featured "Western Electric Sound > System" in their credits. If you are familiar with large corporate > arrangements of the day, Western Electric was the manufacturing division > of American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) and their research devision > was called "Bell Labs" IOW, high quality sound was part of their agenda. > > There is a principle called extensibility or scaling. Basically, in very > many cases high performance is obtained using the same basic principles > as is used to achieve lower level performance, they are just logically > extended by carrying them a little further. This is abundantly true for > audio. If modest frequency response and distortion yields good speech > performance, extending the relevant technology along existing clear > paths yields far better performance, and excellent high fidelity will > result. This is particularly true of audio, and even more true of > digital audio. It shows up in the development of digital audio in that > many of the same research organizations as developed digital > switchboards extended the same basic technology and within 10 years > their digital hardware were producing commercial digital recordings that > sound excellent to this day. > > > > That is a pretty brave dare because if you actually do it, the resulting > sound is actually pretty good, and it gets even better when leave a > component that is superfluous for recording and playback namely Skype, > out of the system. OTOH, even the sonic and visible performance of Skype > continues to improve. > > The technical performance of modern PC sound systems is in the same or > better than best audio CDs, and in fact millions of audiophiles use > their computers or cell phones (whose basic audio systems aside from the > cell phone system) is comparable or better than the best audio recording > and playback systems that were in use for the most critical professional > work not that many years ago. In fact most technical advances beyond > current cell phones and PC's have no scientifically demonstrable audible > advantages. > > > > What a wad of Poorly informed falsehoods!
Hi yet again Arny! Still catching up here. I hear you about Bell Labs, they were a big outfit. I believe it was 2 of their engineers who inadvertently discovered the Cosmic Background Radiation that resulted in the general acceptance of the Big Bang hypothesis for the origin of the universe, although they were trying to eliminate what they initially perceived as interference with equipment they were using for a different purpose altogether. Part of Bell Labs remit may well have included high quality sound reproduction, but I should imagine that in those days the focus would primarily have been on cinema sound systems rather than domestic ones. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this. As I recall the DIY approach to quality home sound reproduction was much in vogue through the 50's & 60's with many people building their own amplifiers & loudspeakers based upon freely available designs. Times have changed. The reason that I suggested using Skype was precisely because its main design priority must have been to get acceptable results given hardware limitations. I accept that as these hardware constraints relax, better & better performance will be easier to achieve. You would have a similar constriction if you interposed a telephone landline or indeed a mobile phone call but it would be more difficult to use an external microphone which would feed a decent signal into either of those communication systems, which is why I suggested Skype. The only reason that I raised this point was to reference the kind of real world applications Nyquist in the 20's & Shannon et al in the 40's/50's were directly concerned with. I take your point about extensibility, & this is great because we don't have to keep we inventing the wheel. There must be some additional design input in coming up with something that works well in a new area though, surely? I expect you'll tell me that this is a poor analogy, but an ox-cart (which is designed for neither comfort nor speed) does not need pneumatic tyres on its wheels even though they are round (basic principle ready to be extended). A stretch limo (which favours comfort, but would not corner well at speed) will definitely want pneumatic tyres on its still-round wheels. Finally my sports car (which has a firm ride some of my passengers have found to be lacking in comfort - shame, but which will wriggle its way around Goodwood at speed) has low-profile pneumatic tyres on wider than standard but still round wheels, which incidentally are lightweight to boot to reduce the "unsprung" weight on the outside of the firmed-up suspension system. I think that there has to be a limit on this "convergence" thingy that Apple is so keen to market, advances in technology notwithstanding. I am not forced to be "out & about" all the time in the way that many people are these days, so I have a not-smart mobile phone to keep in touch with texts or if I am out. It has a qwety keyboard for texts & a speakerphone so that I don't have to hurt my nech holding it up to my ear. It has 2G internet with a dedicated Facebook button, neither of which have I ever used to date, & do not expect to use in the future. It does have a basic camera which would undoubtedly be useful if I had the misfortune to be involved in a RTA, but the good fortune to survive it. However sophisticated an iPhone may be, it still can't rival my D-sensor format Nikon SLR for creative flexibility, particularly with regard to control of depth of field whether for landscape (to maximise sharp focus range), portrait (often to reduce the sharp focus range to emphasize the subject & reduce the intrusion of the background) or for macro shots (where you're desperately trying to obtain sharp focus on the whole of the subject itself). Some of this control is a function of the physical size of the camera body & the lens(es) - a F-sensor body or medium format would offer more possibilities still, but are too heavy for me with my arthritic spine (including of course my neck). Wide straps & padding help, & I usually manage to get some fitter person to lug my kit bag with the spare lenses (selected only for the day's project to minimise the load, but still... ). Finally I do my t'interweb stuff using my laptop via my fibre-optic broadband with a fixed tariff. I'm prepared to be called old-fashioned, as well! Whilst the iPhone's technology might be adequate, I don't know how long the battery would last if it were able to generate an adequate signal to drive my HD800S headphones... I'll take your critique squarely on the nose, I'm here to learn after all. I am starting to get warm just wearing this outfit, though! :D Dave :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106914 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
