from:"willyhoops"


I would like you to focus...  all your attention... on an area in the
middle of your forehead... so that your whole concentration ... 
becomes completely focused...  on a point... in this area...  and I
would like you to imagine...  this point...as a tiny  white ball of
light... now hovering just in front of your forehead...  just floating
in mid air... right in front of your forehead...  and this tiny white
ball of light...  is in every way... the size and appearance...  of a
tiny distant star... a shimmering glowing star...  shining  brightly in
the night sky...  radiating  energy and  light...  and you may very
soon...  feel a  slight  tingling sensation...  or  feel a warm
comforting glow...  as  you  become aware...  of  the  radiant
vibrations...  coming from  this  tiny white ball of light...  that
shines ever more brightly...  as  it hovers just in front of your
forehead...

...and NOWwww... 

I  would  like you to...  see this tiny white  ball  of  light... 
slowly  begin to float upwards...  just gently lift up  into  the
air...  higher and higher... until it reaches a point... about a foot 
above your head...  and as it hovers  there...  just  above your
head...  I want you to see it begin to grow in  size...  and as it
begins to expand...  shining more and more brightly...  you become more
aware of the radiant quality...  of this  illustrious object...  see the
purity of its colour... like the pure white of freshly fallen snow...
feel its radiant warmth... like a gentle heat from an open fire...
maybe even hear its faint vibrations ...  as it grows larger and
larger... giving off a more brilliant light all the time... and as it
grows to the size of large ball ...  you instinctively become aware...
of its healing qualities...  sensing  that its radiant energy can heal 
disease...  quell  any discomfort...  revitalise and energise anything
it touches... and as it hovers there...  just above your head... 
glowing even more brilliantly...  you feel yourself drawn to this
healing energy...  more  and  more...as you sense its  purity...  and 
its  inherent goodness...   knowing  that  its  healing  qualities... 
have  no limitations...and know no boundaries... when it comes to
seeking out...  and destroying...  any disease or discomfort...  and 
you will  want to immerse yourself...  in this radiant  energy...  to
bask in its purity...  knowing that you can only benefit...  from its
wonderful healing properties...

...and NOWwww...

as  you  think  of this...  a beautiful white squeezebox begins  to 
open in your imagination... a wonderous device that plays celestial
music... whereas in the past this little gadget has annoyed you now you
see that it is a token of your boyfrinds love and devotion... you will
feel NO Jealousy as your boyfrind plays with his device... knowinf as
you do that all his travails with DAC converstion are to open his hear
to you and bring the gift of music to this wonderful relationship of
yours...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SB3 and external DAC - views


haha ... you are probably right... but i don't think any girl can put up
with a squeezebox... and sex is more fun than a sqeezebox...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SB3 and external DAC - views


Christ I said I wouldn't post again am already I am doing it. I really
didn't get a chance to test it all properly, and now I am not allowed
to! Very Sorry. Still you can rely on others - I hear many squeezebox
users have bought this product and if you get it and hear no difference
from the SB3 then just return it - unlike buying old stuff on ebay. But
still i would say if you hook your £200 CD player to CD IN and your
squeezebox to AUX1 IN and in a blind test can not tell the difference
between the two then forget about the whole thing.

In fact, I think it's going to be very very tough as I understand it
for this DAC to beat the benchmark or transporter. The trouble is that
the SPDIF sends a square wave with the data on... but this square wave
is not perfectly square but takes time to rise so it's difficult to get
a consistent start point in time for the wave. Add to this the fact that
the SB3 has some jitter anway compared to a very expensive DAC and what
you get is quite a jittery data signal being recieved by the DAC from
the SPDIF. If the DAC just relies on the square wave transistions to
build the output in time it is going to have issues, only by using PLL
or buffers etc can it overcome this. These techniques, although they
could be real cheap becuase chips are cheap, are currently seen as
complicated and only supported by the big boys like the benchmark or
music fidelity. The DAC market is tiny so the mass produced advanced
but cheap technology is not there. If everyone wanted a DAC the big
hifi companies would produce killer units for a fraction of the price
of todays model... but the SPDIF squeezebox etc is new and most people
will be happy anyway I guess so the market is growing but nowhere near
exploding.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SB3 and external DAC - views


i bought one last night and was testing when my girlfriend got home. she
flipped out that i had bough yet another gadget and i ended up taking my
transporter, many squeezeboxes, several speakers, hifis, boxes of cd for
ripping, cd covers for scanning, and a baxter robotic arm to the atic.
My days as a squeezebox nutter are over and you will hear no more from
me - at least for a several months. And i think i have the worlds most
expensive attic. here is little pic i managed to steal on the mobile to
remember it all by... from now on i am only allowed one set of speakers
in the house and my old yamaha hard drive player. at least i will get
more done with my life...


+---+
|Filename: 18-05-07_0647.jpg|
|Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2826|
+---+

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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] What Hi-Fi - audiophiles or audiofools?


yes itunes and media player do a much better job of tags and artwork and
are so easy to use... but they don't have that secure mode which is why
we all flagellate ourselves like medival monks with EAC and dbpoweramp
to flac :-)


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] buying a dac in london - shop please...


what from all the posts it looks like i am the only person here cheap
enough not to have a decent dac connected to the sb3!

i tried to get some good bargains on ebay and it all went horribly
wrong (i even bought one dac for £180+shipping, they didn't send it,
and pay pal will only give me $100 of the cost back the sods). you see
i am really into the multi room thing so i am kicking up a fuss before
i fork out for a bunch of benchmarks dacs etc. but maybe this is all
stuipd and what i really should do is tear up the floors and runs wires
everywhere all connected to one transporter and one hifi. but then i
have to find a tablet pc for a remote because the IR will not work from
other rooms. ahhh nighthmare.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] buying a dac in london - shop please...


"Maybe you'll be able to convince yourself one of those sounds better
than the SB"... You sound as if I am making this up! Time for a quote
from another source...

> 
> Review of Sonos Wireless Music Players in Stereophile
> 
> [ZP80 – Sonos equivalent of Squeezebox. ZP100 includes 50W
> amplifier]
> 
> To put the ZP80's performance into perspective, its analog outputs
> sounded significantly more refined than CDs played on the $150 Pioneer
> DV-578A SACD player that I bought as a reference for budget CD sound.
> In my report last month, I had expressed the opinion that the Slim
> Devices Squeezebox was pretty much equivalent to the Pioneer when it
> came to the quality of its analog outputs. Compared to the Squeezebox,
> the ZP80 had more solidity and image depth, as well as a little less
> treble hash. … While I don't recommend the unmodified Squeezebox
> … other than when used with its digital output feeding an
> external DAC, the ZP80's analog outputs are good enough to be used in
> noncritical applications, such as a bedroom system. 
> I didn't use the ZP100 in my listening-room reference system, so my
> thoughts on its ultimate sound quality are perhaps more of anecdotal
> than definitive usefulness. But the ZP100 provided sterling service in
> my bedroom system, driving the Celestion speakers to high levels
> without strain and with excellent woofer control. The treble balance
> seemed a bit more airy than I was used to with these speakers driven by
> a Linn Classik receiver, and the sound a little drier overall. The ZP100
> did sound very clean, however, and produced a wide range of dynamics
> from movie soundtracks fed to its line inputs. 
> 
> …While I feel the optimal way of integrating the ZP80 into a
> cost-no-object high-end system is to use its digital output to feed an
> outboard D/A processor, the sound of its analog outputs was acceptably
> good overall, taking into consideration the very affordable price. The
> ZP100, too, offers excellent value for money, and is a no-brainer
> purchase for setting up a distributed-audio system in a room that
> doesn't already have a sound system.
> 
> [In Conclusion]… It's just a shame, I guess, that these
> groundbreaking audio products didn't come from an established high-end
> audio company.
> 

Points:
(1) SB Sound is £75 Budget CD equivalent (not £150+ Hifi CD sound)
(2) SB is worse than Sonos
(3) Both of them are substandard and it's a shame established audio
companies have not gottern here...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] What Hi-Fi - audiophiles or audiofools?


yes everything does wav but the big problem with it that the offical wav
standard does not allow id3 tags to be attached. if you put an id3 tag
on a wav it might come through as a blip of static at the end when you
play! 

but we don't need to worry that much... thanks to conversion programs
we squeezebox users can stick with flac and convert when needed. i do
this all the time - converting to aac for my girlfriends ipod, atrac
for my sony nw-hd5, and wma lossless for my laptop and for friends.
good thing the pc is not in the bedroom for all the grinding away of
the hard drive.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SB3 and external DAC - views


Yea I am getting one so I will post tomorrow. I hope to pick one up
tonight from the guy who makes it. I will have a transporter, 4
squeezeboxes, and 4 DACs and 2 CD players one an old hard drive server
thing. I will do a group photo and post! Will test will cheap and
expensive sperakers if the Bfod does a decent job. Tonight only the
girlfried is at home... shame, nice to have friends to make sure you
are not hearing things.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Flac or Apple Lossless?


well take one of the cds you got a rip on already and scratch it and try
again! or buy one and scratch! 
it's vital you test dbpoweramp for this feature or you are waisting
lots of time! for 200 cds it's worth it!


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] SB3 and external DAC - views


I have the same problem and am as yet undecided. I have tried three
olders DACs from ebay all without luck. Two of them sounded so much
worse than the squeezebox it was shocking. The trouble is, I have
found, that an external DAC has a disadvantage compared to onboard DAC
due to jitter problems in SPDIF. This is why the external dac market
never really took off in the home market. As a result it may not even
be possible to find a reasonably priced DAC that does a good job. I
don't know yet. 

The fairly expensive
http://www.musicalfidelity.com/products/smlx/xdacv3.html is a modern
dac with PLL jitter reduction and it gets good reviews but it's much
more than a squeezebox and you are supposed to buy an exteral power
suppy as well. I havn't tried it myself.

If there were simple changes to the SB3 to make it better quality (eg
replacing the power supply) I would be very interested. There is a web
site making mods but not sure if they work.
http://www.boldercables.com/servlet/Detail?no=371


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[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] buying a dac in london - shop please...


I can buy a squeezebox for £200 or a transporter for £1,300 here in the
UK from www.ripcaster.co.uk

So for an extra £1,100 I can get a squeezebox with a quality DAC. But
it's still got a 35 character display and can't play 24bit 96kHz music
properly. Clearly it's going to last about six months and then be
redundant. Surely it's madness to buy the transporter when you can get
the benchmark 1 industry standard that audio engineers use for £700
that can cope 24bit properly and has ultralock buffering to avoid
jitter etc. 

But all I need a a DAC good enough to play through my £1,500 hifi. I
don't need a £700 killer just something good which the SB3 clearly
is not. Even my father who is 70 years old could tell the difference
between my yamaha cd / hard drive player and the squeezebox in seconds
- it's depressing. 

Can someone recommend a shop in London where I can go an buy a DAC and
take it back if I don't like it. I am so fed up with buying stuff on
dodgy ebay.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] What Hi-Fi - audiophiles or audiofools?


> the most effective compromise is to rip all your music to iTunes using
> the Apple lossless format: it sounds significantly better than any
> lossy compressions, yet is not as slow and hard-drive devouring as the
> uncompressed file. 

Hey he is comparng lossless to lossly here. He is NOT saying apple
lossless is better than flac. It's not such a sin to say this... After
all apple ipod is the most popular player and the squeezebox plays
apple lossless but the ipod does not play flac. So from one of point of
view he is correct that for most people in the world apple lossless is a
the best choice with the widest support. Of course it doesn't play in
Windows Media Player so I think only apple users would agree with him.
If you own a PC WMA lossless might get your vote.

If I had a complaint I would say he has not mentioned that apple
lossless eats battery life on the ipod. In practive the dreadful sound
quality of an ipod does not justify a lossless format. 256k AAC would
be easily enough.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Flac or Apple Lossless?

2007-05-15 Thread willyhoops


Think it's important to add that for Squeezebox users using flac instead
of apple lossless will minimize cpu usage on your server. Because the
squeezebox does not speak apple lossless the server has to decompress
on the fly before wireless transmission. The same point applies to wma
lossless. So for squeezebox users use flac whenever possible.

Try to maintain your collection in flac and batch convert from flac to
other formats when required by other devices. Eg for acc or apple
lossless on an iPod use dbPowerAmp or foobar. For an iPod, aac at
256kbps will give much better battery life than lossless for no
noticable reduction in quality on that (less than audiophile) device.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] what is jitter


Ah reading about it more that paper is not talking about what i though I
think. It is talking about jitter in exactly the sense that AndyC is...
except they are adding a twist between edge to edge jitter (typically
500ps and which we get published figures for) and ideal clock jitter
which takes into account the shape of the square wave compared to the
ideal. Confusing stuff. I can't see any articles about how important
clock accuracy is (eg the 2.5ppm $6,000 DAC figure compared to the
50ppm normal quartz clock accuracy). I am giving up and finishing where
I started - which is that built in dacs eg on cd players/sb3/transporter
don't suffer audible jitter and have a big advantage over problematic
spdif connections, and PLL or buffering are vital features in an
external DAC.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] what is jitter


That makes sense but remember that the difference between note c0 and
c#0 is 16.35kHz and 17.32kHz. Thats sounds like a small difference...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] what is jitter


Andy sorry for the confusion... Point taken: a crystal that's 50ppm too
fast would result in a sample rate of 44.102205kHz. But, provided that
each and every one of those samples was clocked into the DAC at precise
intervals of 1/(44.102205k) seconds, there would be no jitter at all.

Ok. But in this paper is that what he is referring to? Eg if I play
music from a clock that's 100ppm too fast then maybe he is saying some
people will be able to hear the difference between it and a clock which
is absolutely correct.

> In this paper the term jitter is used to mean:
> “Deviation in timing of transitions when measured with respect to
> an ideal clock.”

If so, was my calculation right anyway?... the quartz in the squeezebox
is accurate to 50ppm (unlike say the expensive temperature adjusted
$6,000 DAC oscilators) but still good enough.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] what is jitter


well, stating the bleeding obvious, the analogue output from the sb3 i
didn't like is not a spdif jitter issue 

like i said the 1995 DAP Little Bit Dac i am guessing had a jitter
issue connected to squeezebox. its an old dac with no jitter protection
i believe.

andyc was one the one making the remark that pll does not perfectly
solve jitter issues only buffering. i am just interested in the subject
and also in a good dac for my sb3... sounds like i should try and find a
0.5s buffering new dac for $500 or less. so far have not seen one.
buffering dacs all looks real expensive. soon i will try two old pll
dacs and see how they fair.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] what is jitter


No I get exactly what jitter is and how it works- thanks for your
article- very good (of course the clock speeds are set the same it's
just tiny inaccuracies that cause the problem as you already pointed
out). I mentioned jitter in CD extraction to avoid confusion. All I am
interested in is SPDIF jitter.

I am really not interested in paying $6,000 for a DAC. I am trying to
replace a Yamaha CDR-HD1500 hard-drive / CD player with a squeezebox.
It cost me about $1,000 a few years ago including 250Gb hard drive and
I have been happy with it but Squeezebox with wireless connection and
tags is a a much better idea. My frustration is getting the analouge
out good enough to match this mid range cd / hard drive player. I was
hoping to find a DAC which did good enough PLL or perfect buffering for
just a few hundred dollars. We shouldn't need to spend $6,000 to get a
half second buffer that removes all jitter.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] what is jitter


have a look at this on wiki...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitter

> In the context of digital audio extraction from CDs "jitter" causes
> extracted audio samples to be doubled-up or skipped entirely. The
> problem occurs because the Philips CD specification doesn't require
> block-accurate addressing. As a result, the extraction process will
> restart a few samples early or late, resulting in doubled or omitted
> samples. These glitches often sound like tiny repeating clicks during
> playback. An approach that has produced good results is to do jitter
> correction in software. This involves performing overlapping reads, and
> then sliding the data around to find overlaps at the edges. Most DAE
> programs will perform jitter correction.

So jitter can and is used in the context of digital audio extraction...


Anway, the jitter I am really concerned with is related to the SPDIF
connector. As AndyC says it's due to differences in the clocks on the
external DAC and the SPDIF source. Use of a phased locked look reduces
this... I was interested in to what extent it can eliminate it. From
Andy's post it looks like not entirley which makes we worry about
finding a decent external DAC.


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[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] what is jitter


I have been confused on the subject of jitter for a while and recently
came across some answers that i though i would post here in case it
helps others (or maybe everyone knows this already). If i am wrong let
me know!

There are two types of jitter the Squeezebox users should be aware of:

(1) Jitter introduced to the CD when it is ripped due to errors in the
digital audio extraction. You can hear this clearly as clicks in the
playback. Programs like EAC and dBpoweramp should remove jitter to some
extent and will report it back to you as checksum errors in the rip.

(2) Jitter introduced by the SPDIF cable when you attach your
Squeezebox to an external DAC. I recently bought a 1995 DAP Little Bit
Dac and connected it to my squeezebox but found the playback quality
much lower than my modern Yamaha CDR-HD1500 hard-drive / CD player.
Inside the music I could hear faults, added confused complexity that
was clearly incorrect. A more modern DAC I bought didn't have this
problem.

from: http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/825/index.html

> The standalone digital/analog converter emerged as a product category in
> 1987 with the appearance of the Arcam Black Box and the Marantz CDA-94,
> closely followed by the PS Audio Link. The idea was that putting the
> sensitive D/A-conversion and analog stages in a separate enclosure with
> its own power supply would maximize the sound quality when compared with
> packing these circuits in the same box as the transport. However, it
> turned out that the routing of the digital data between transport and
> processor in the form of an S/PDIF- or AES/EBU-encoded bitstream could
> introduce word-clock jitterwhich undid much of the sonic advantages
> (See this for more:
> http://www.stereophile.com/features/396bits/index.html).

By 1997 jitter reduction technology (Digital Signal Processing
Techniques) overcame many of the limitations of SPDIF input. However,
advances in CD DACs made it extremely difficult for external DACs to
outperform quality CD Players and today the external DAC market is
quite small.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox

2007-05-13 Thread willyhoops


can we talk about sep 11th now? :-)


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


Ah so these bum deals have generated a lot of publicity, thrown a lot of
confusion on the topic, and given the record companies a bad name. Still
maybe it's getting carried away to junk the whole industry on the basis
of that.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> 5. EVERY SINGLE PENNY that the record company has spent "on behalf of
> the artist" (which includes all of their advance, all of the marketing,
> and all of the associated "corporate hospitality" - such as lunches for
> the executives in swanky restaurants) is deducted from their royalties.

That's very interesting and sounds very strange. It's certainly not the
way book publishng works which i have exxperience of. I did a search on
Google and came across this which said something silmilar:

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties6.htm

but it sounded so strange i looked into more professional web sites
desinged for real artists needing adice. They mentioed confusion arounf
the iddue and then i found quite a good one:

http://www.musicforlondon.co.uk/MusicContractsSite/recording_agreements.htm

> ROYALTIES
> 
> The rate is usually comprised between 10% and 14% of the retail price
> of the records sold or between 13% and 18%of the published price to the
> dealer. Indies usually redistribute 50%. 
> They are received after the recoupment of the advance and the recording
> and video costs. 
> 
> PROMOTION
> 
> Promotion costs should not be recoupable. 
> Out-of-pocket expenses for promotional purposes, incurred by the artist
> should be reimbursed by the record company. 
> The record company may provide promotional "tour support" 
> Video costs are usually recoupable by 50%. The remaining 50% is
> recovered from commercial exploitation of the video. 
> 

You are clearly mistaken on EVERY SINGLE PENNY part but the deal is not
as sweet as I originally thought.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


That's an interesting, optimistic and fun article. Freakonomics indeed.

But I think the problem is people can convince themselves that
something is not stealing when it is in order to justify their desires.
Rarely do you hear criminals saying I did it because I was greedy...
they usually come up with some lame justification like so and so
deserved it.

You can see on this forum that instead of admitting that they are
greedy as they pirate CDs many here have now developed a copyright
should be abolished and the record companies deserve it viewpoint. 

Also anyone who stole from Paul's bagel business could see the human
victim easily but with pirate cds they have to use their intellect to
grasp the significance of the problem. Clearly a problem if you think
Sep 11th was a plot...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


thats a cool article...

> By measuring the money collected against the bagels taken, he could
> tell, down to the penny, just how honest his customers were...
> 
> As it happens, his accidental study provides a window onto a subject
> that has long stymied academics: white-collar crime
> 
> A street crime has a victim...But white-collar crime presents no
> obvious victim. Whom, exactly, did the masters of Enron steal from? And
> how can you measure something if you don't know to whom it happened, or
> with what frequency, or in what magnitude? 
> 
> Paul F.'s bagel business was different. It did present a victim. The
> victim was Paul F. 
> 
> [...and they didn't steal from him...]
> 

This has a brilliant parallel in the file sharing debate... People who
would never steal cash from an old lady will happily go out and steal
from record companies by pirating thier CDs. Why? Becuase unlike Paul
F.'s bagel business they can't see who they are stealing from or how
much difference it is making. Great stuff.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> 9/11 absolutely was an inside job, no possible doubt

I am curious - Is this a joke or do you really believe it?


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


how about this?


+---+
|Filename: pic.jpg  |
|Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2784|
+---+

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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


provide some evidence for it! 
not to mention the logical arguments...
HAVE YOU READ THE TWO ARTICLES I ALREADY POSTED HERE?
Not from a folk singing lesbian... actually from a major national uk
newspaper! oh yea, and if you are not from the uk... the newspaper is
the best here after the Financial Times and has a left wing slant...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


ah here is willyhoops the troll...


+---+
|Filename: 14.jpg   |
|Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2783|
+---+

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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


Here is the troll...

[image: http://www.whatwhatclub.co.uk/images/14.jpg]

:-)


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


well i knew it would annoy a little... but come on - have you ever had
an intelligent rational debate with a folk singing lesbian? :-)

willy the 'troll'


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


I will be here tonight dressed in a smoking jacket so feel free to
contine the debate in person if you live in London...

www.whatwhatclub.co.uk


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


ah i checked on wiki... she is an uneducated lesbian folk singer and
outspoken critic of the RIAA. well she must be smart then...

i am looking to invest but nothing yet...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


Thats a nice story and its keeping sales alive at the moment. But when
the consumer looses all interest in physical CDs, why would he download
a free lossless CD and then like it and then buy exactly the same thing
again. RIAA reports sales by value including both CDs and Digital
downaloads as down 6.5% in 2006 and year on year falls in several
previous years as well. But in a future without DRM the numbers are
expected to get much worse. When you buy from allofmp3.com or file
share artists and record companies get nothing. Hence the move away
from selling music to making money off live tv and events being tested
by the major lables. This is disasterous for smaller artists.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


I saw the article by Janis Ian. I can't see the bit where he got to 2%
but it looks like a complete junk article. For example:

> There is zero evidence that material available for free online
> downloading is financially harming anyone. In fact, most of the hard
> evidence is to the contrary.

Even the copyright abolish fans here are surley not arging that file
shaming has had no financial hard on anyone. 

There is no quality control on the internet. If you search around you
will find that September the 11th was a US / Israeli plot as well. And
that they never landed on the moon... Do you believe these things as
well?


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> from 10 euro cd artist gets maybe some 20 cents if they're lucky

So you think that 2% of the CD sale price does to the artist if they
are luyky. Common sense should tell you that is junk. I was guessing
arount 10% same as a book but more for very established artists.

A quick check at a harvard law web site gave me this:

> 
> * Currently, when a CD is sold [in the United States], 35 percent of
> the retail price goes to the store, 27 percent to the record company,
> 16 percent to the artist, 13 percent to the manufacturer and 9 percent
> to the distributor." See Strauss, "Pennies That Add Up to $16.98: Why
> CD's Cost So Much," New York Times, July 5, 1995, Section C, page 11,
> column 1. 
> 
> * In Great Britain, a typical popular-music compact disc costs aprx.
> $17 (U.S.).  Of that amount, 17% goes to the retail store, 50% goes to
> record company, 17% goes to taxes, and 17% goes to a combination of the
> composer, the music publisher, and the recording artist.  New recording
> artists typically get only 7% of retail price, while established
> artists get as much as 15%.  However, both are commonly responsible for
> studio charges and other expenses.  The net result, under current
> regime, is that new artists often end up with nothing. 
>


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


mark-e-mark

> I would like to see more discussion around the trust relationships and
> their security enforcement mechanisms...

If you mean you would like to learn about DRM and hacking etc then i
can give this quick tutorial:

Today we can use encryption to completely protect data from any hackers
and even government agencies – read wiki about encryption. So why
did they crack HD DVD recently?

Because the consumer needs to be able to play DVDs his computer had to
be able to decrypt them. So Microsoft put the secret key for unlocking
the DVD inside Windows Media Player. Then some smart bloke in Russia
looked inside the WMP memory while the DVD was playing and found the
key. Another approach taken by another hacker was to invade the
operating system with a special device driver it did not notice that
read the video stream out of memory after the DVD has been decrypted.
It’s real hard / impossible to do DRM without hardware. Microsoft
tried with all sorts of stuff but really they are fighting a loosing
battle until Intel & AMD come up with a new generation of DRM secure
chips. Even then it will be hard.

However if you have a ‘smart card’ credit card with your
pin number is stored on it, you will never get the information off
because you have no key to unlock it and they never give you any
software with the key inside for you to deprogram. Everything that
happens with that card takes place in hardware they control. Even if
you get out some volt meters and hacksaws etc the hardware is tamper
resistant so you can not get inside with destroying it. Read about
smart cards on wiki. This is in contrast to HD DVD running on Windows
or XBOX where the hacker can write programs and control the in side of
these computers.

Of course another form of hacking is to get into someone’s
computer. There are lots of way of doing this including guessing a
password. Because computers are hugely complex things designed to do
many things they contain many faults / weaknesses. For example,
Microsoft one day realised it was possible to create a specially
crafted “.jpg” file which internet explorer would get so
confused reading (buffer overrun attacks) that you could cause it to
run code that would take over your computer! Of course they fixed it as
soon as they could after finding the problem, but when the published the
fix the world learnt about it - and today anyone who has not applied the
fix is now in danger from hackers using this technique. All Operating
Systems contain numerous faults like this but Windows get the most
flack because it’s the most popular one to attack, it runs on
peoples home computers, and it is a vast operating system with vast
amount of legacy code designed to support applications written years
ago. Their latest OS, Vista, addressed many security issues but as a
result broke a good percentage of the worlds existing software.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox

2007-05-09 Thread willyhoops


> ...foundation that collects the tax on blank CD's... CD's for
> photography...It's not easy to think of something taxable that is
> associated only with listening to music  

Oh god what papers do you read! There is a famous and obvious solution
to this... Microsoft pays a % of the sale price on every Zune to the
record companies to compensate for piracy. Apple was asked to do the
same but refused. Indeed it's a tall order for manufactureres to do it
voluntarily. The obvious way to distrubute the money is based on survey
of pirate content although this is hard to measure for real small
artists... But as file sharing goes ballistic recovering enough money
to compensate for lost sales is going to add unrealistically to the
price of the machines.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox

2007-05-09 Thread willyhoops


the album was not free, they were just sending a free promo one to a
journalist for review. no doubt they expect to sell cds and downloads
when apple let them, that hardly invalidates the complaint against
piracy (file sharing) and the importance of making money from selling
music to the small artist.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox

2007-05-09 Thread willyhoops


i thought i would never write again on the subject here, but this post
just annoyed me too much:

[qoute]Some system of copyright protection is essential ... [but] The
balance is hard to call, but I would fear that use of DRM (which
strongly favours the copyright holder) would push the balance towards
highly marketed artists, which would certainly not be a result I
personally would like to see.> 
> 
> My explanations of how not selling music creates a media like world of
> live TV / big concert / t-shirt sales that hits small artists but which
> the big names can live with has not beeen enough.
> 
> Neither has the last article from the guardian about the demise of the
> small artist...
> 
> So here is yet another...
> 
> http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/04/has_illegal_downloading_gone_t.html
> 
> Here is an extract from it:
> 
> Last week, I received a promotional CD of Ma Fleur, the new album by
> Cinematic Orchestra, a group on the independent label Ninja Tune.
> Before I'd even played it (it's very good by the way), I was hooked by
> the blurb on the sleeve.
> 
> Usually, this is the bit of legal boilerplate where the label informs
> you that illegal downloading is outright gangsterism and anyone who
> practises it will be dragged outside to be shot like a dog, after which
> their head will be exhibited on a spike outside the BPI headquarters as
> a warning to others.
> 
> But this one is different. "Before you copy, burn or upload these
> recordings," it begins, "please take a moment to think about what
> you're doing and what you're not doing. You are not 'sticking it to the
> man'. You are not 'striking a blow against outdated copyright laws'. You
> are not 'liberating content from the corporations'. Nor are you
> 'promoting our records for us'. You are making it much harder for the
> musicians in Cinematic Orchestra to make anything like a living wage
> for creating the music which is good enough to give to friends and
> associates."
> 
> ...justifications ring hollow, especially when it comes to independent
> artists... Filesharing raises the artist's profile? True, it can stoke
> demand for live shows, and for licensing to TV, movies and advertisers,
> but word-of-mouth promotion doesn't work if you're giving someone an
> album instead of just telling them about it. According to Ninja Tune's
> Will Ashon, who wrote the Ma Fleur text, the difference between an
> independent album losing money and breaking even can be as little as
> 1000 copies.
> 
> I'll leave the last word to Ninja Tune: "By all means pirate the latest
> corporate spew from major label central. But don't pretend it's the same
> thing as copying this, because one day, when we're all gone and all
> that's left is two or three giant multinational conglomerates putting
> out lowest-common-denominator bollocks, you'll wish you hadn't."


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


yes adam the idea would be for everyone to get tags as rich as yours
plus much much more as well. of course just becuase you can search by
performer, composer, instrument, composed year, performed year etc etc
doesn't mean you have to. for most people they would just like the
images and notes and most song words.

anyway i am can tell when i am not wanted :-) this 'troll' will go
elsewhere.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> If I look at the entries in CDDB or freeDB ... mosttimes they consist a
> lot of errors

you see even fools can contribute to a debate...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


funkstar... suppose for fun the record companies did a real great job of
the tags so even you were impressed ... how much would you value that? 

andy_c doesn't care how good they are. suppose the record company
helped radiohead write the tags themselves and put whatever they liked
in there for their fans...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


ok ancy_c you are not so mad but servies clearly is. 

still, i am interested in feedback from others about tags.

i think seeing album art and correct consistent tags and song words
scrolling will make a huge difference to the market for digital music.
Just the small step of seeing album art on the ipod video made a big
difference to me for example. i would say for a classical fan the all
media guide database etc is such a mess tags are almost a write off
currently. of course the record companies could fix this with the cd
text but they they have no intention of doing this because it helps to
prevent ripping.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


well you are still all mad but let me ask one thing... do you really all
think tags are unimportant? when i buy an opera it comes with a booklet
of all the words, a description of the recording, a few pics etc. one
of the sad things to me of digital music is the limited tags. not being
able to see the words scroll in time with the music especially silly
given we are living in the 21st centuary. i rip my cds and then take
the booklet out and keep that and throw away the cd. but having it
digital and properly integrated into my player would be real nice.

how many people think having real rich tags would be real nice?

my hunch, seeing the popularity of mp3tag and programs to print out a
music collection including images, is that rich tags would be real
popular (although it's something that is still catching on).


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


i am sorry not to  have responded for a while. I decided to take the
discussion to a more enlightened crowd. the debate here helped to
sharpen my arguments so many thanks.

It comes down to 

(1) Is DRM possible?
Yes cost effective DRM using harware Secure Cryptoprocessor /
Decompression / DAC chip with tamper-resistant properties for dedicated
harware players like squeezebox/ipod is very possible. Under $50 per
device but with large investment to produce the harware. Analogue
recording of the output would be possible but would result in lower
quality and tag loss. 

(2) Would consumers buy it?
For classical the 24bit/96khz and rich tags would be very attractive as
long as there was confidence in the dac. Real potential to see dramatic
sales as consumers upgrade their entire collection. Young people
listening to pop would probably stick to mp3s. Questions on the
remainder.

(3) Would the world be a better place with DRM?
Probably - the inability to sell music is likely to create an less
original and more populist industry. A world with free 128k mp3s and
drm protected 24bit rich tag audio sounds interesting.

(4) Would record companies invest in it?
Need to figure out if the pay market would be big enough to justify the
cost of developing this DRM.

(5) What about subscription service?
Online subscription service is hot area in wake of DRM failure - but
risk consumers downloading every cd and distribute. We can market our
secure hardware to this market as well - very nice.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Linn Records now doing FLAC

2007-05-04 Thread willyhoops


let us know what its like - that's very interesting. did you buy the
same recording in 16 bit and 24bit? that would be even better... maybe
you could post some exxamples so we can all try out 24bit?


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> Q: How does 'perfect' DRM help small independent labels and artists?

If you had been reading the posts and stories you would know that's it
the smaller lables and artists that are getting killed currently. The
big names are dumping the little guys and concentrating only on mega
names that can sell t-shirts and massive live events and dvds. It's
going to end up with a few big pop names and a few people posting thier
home recorded music on myspace. Personally I am gutted for the classical
industry.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> What's at issue is how to maximze the benefit to the public good. If
> there were no copyright there would be less incentive to create art and
> invent things, but if there is too much (like an eternal term, or life
> of the author + 70 years) it doesn't create [much] more of an incentive
> [to create], but only hurts the public by restricting access. Therefore
> there should be an ideal finite period for copyrights which maximizes
> the public good.

Yes I certainly agree with that sensible observation. Personally I
would happily strip copyright five years after the artists death or 20
years after the production. Who care about their relatives staying rich
forever or someone living off something they got lucky with 30 years ago
(star wars?). So old films and music and books and designs and
inventions I would strip of copyright. 

However the world would not work if copyright lost meaning. I don't
think there are many people who seriously think that should be the case
(if it was, China would mass produce everything anyone else in the world
invented, and pay them nothing for it, and the US economy would collapse
overnight), and just because we like free music doesn't mean it should
be an exception.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> Consumers are never going to love something that prevents them from
> doing something they want to do

That's why I want to add lots of extra value and make changing player a
non issue so the consumer can get more than he looses. so sorry but yes
he can love this if done just right.

> It's very difficult to design secure systems in which both the key and
> the message are in the possesion of the "enemy"

Well what you actually mean is that the key at both ends is in
possesion of the enemy. So the message must get encoded by the enemy
server and get decoded in the tamper proof enemy hardware and come out
analogue from there. it's not really that hard - just need this
harware.

> Then there's the question of is it a good idea, would it make our
> society better - that's a much harder question

Yes absolutely thats the most interesting bit of the argument. I am
convinced it's the case and you have all my arguments. If people are
real honest and think on it for a bit in a smart economist like way
rather than as a little man, then I think they will see that a digital
future without copy protection is a bleak future indeed.

Thanks for getting what i am saying.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> To stop music copying, you either need to convince most people that it's
> clearly morally wrong (which will be hard, because [i think] it isn't),
> or make the law enforceable 

yes yes yes...

so since people can't be convinced it's wrong (or in my argument don't
care) that leaves only enforcement (if it's the wishes of the artist
who owns the material and does not feel like giving it to you for
free). 

that's why i am desribing a drm that would be secure and which, i
think, consumers would love. then we can all be happy - artists,
consumers, business and the tax man.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


my political compass is 
Economic Left/Right: 0.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.49 
which is bang in the middle and a bit surprising.
i guess i am a mass of contradictions :-)

you argumnet about 90% will pay and 10% will cheat would be ok if it
was true. but the trouble is its not like that. even if we know whats
right most of can't resist if we can get away with it. hence the
amazement at people who had brief cases of cash into the police rather
than keep them. also the low percentage of people who don;t sneak an
extra bottle of duty free in thier bag is they know they can get away
with it.
every cd in the world all for free on file sharing web sites is far too
much of a temptation. especially if you are 16.
good as i am if my firnd has a cd i want ripped for my squeebox of
course i will borrow rather than buy it. surely you are not going to
tell me this is 10% behaviour.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


No i am just real right wing and quite smart and a bit bored and like
playing... Wanted to be a politician but everyone found me
obnoxious… I have done enough now and will resist the temptation
to write more.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


> Being opposed to DRM doesn't mean that one is opposed to copyright

Not in your case but now think rationally: 

DRM is a device that intellectual property holders use to protect
illegal use of their digital product. In a world where everyone is
perfectly honest it would not be needed. It's never been needed in the
past becuase data was not digital. It's becoming the critical issue of
the day as data does move digital.

It's absolutely clear that people are not perfectly honest, in most
people are only prevented from breaking the law by fear of punsihment
or physical devices that prevent them. That's why houses have locks on
the door, why airports have scanners so nutter don't blow themselves
up, why most countries make you carry an id card, why most countries
don't let you buy handguns, and we have prisions filled with people (by
the way did you know that in america you have the largest prison
population in the world both by number and proportion - a stereotype to
keep you happy :-). 

DRM is very obviously a necessary evil.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


now i wrote and article on the subject and put lots of examples. is
there anyone out there who can explain to all these wallies why sky
digital encription has never been broken, why credit card comany sim
cards have never been broken, why mobile sim cards have not been
broken? have a look at smart cards on wiki. the concept of tamper proof
harware is not new and its silly to say you can't have a dac in one.
burr brown dac's cost about $20 it's the stuff around that really adds
up. amd are working on secure areas inside thier new processors so drm
can be properly implemented on the pc.

if you all opposed to drm why don't you switch off your cable tvs. and
forget about video on demand - who is going to pay for that when a
russian guy can subscribe once and put all films on the web. and this
stuff about buying books is silly. lets start up a compnay that sells
photcopies.

sorry it's like talking to children...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


Pale Blue Ego Wrote: 
> How would this work, exactly? It sounds like all devices, hardware and
> software, now and in the future, would have to license the codec and
> DRM scheme for this super wonderful format. One company would have
> complete control over the whole recording, distribution, and playback
> chain. If they decided to charge $20 per song, drop the tags and
> lyrics, and reduce the sound quality, what recourse would consumers
> have? If they control the DRM, they can change the terms of the
> contract any time they want. And what happens when the DRM is cracked?
> Throw everything away and start over? And what about the analog hole?
> Couldn't you just record it to an open format by digitizing the analog
> output or using a microphone? And what about artists or hardware makers
> who refused to play along? Jail them? What about music from other
> countries? Our laws don't apply there.
> 

Well how about one company making a a Secure Cryptoprocessor /
Decompression / DAC chip with tamper-resistant properties and only
analogue outputs. Anyone who wanted to build a device would use that
chip in thier product. With good economies of scaale and this component
being beyond most manufactures thats a nice solution as well. With the
product available off the shelf small players would have no problem
getting in. Same as Windows PCs can be buiult by anyone.

In the same way why put the vendor though the hassle of running a web
site maintaining the users backups and taking payments etc. A global
portal which did all this and everyone uses brings the cost down and
makes life nicer for the consumer. If you are a band you put a link
your track on the global portal. This is going to be much cheaper than
selling CDs in shops so the price will come way down as the retailer
cut goes to zero. 

All this hardware security, encription, web site with backup and
encrypted keys etc should be managed by an industry consortium.

If it's broken. The system above is a secure as the chip on you creit
card. It's not going to be broken. If someone working at the compnay
released some details then legal action must prevent web sites
publishing details or files.

Analoge recording is OK becuase the quality is lower and the tags are
missing. That's part of the idea. Some poor people will stick to old
CDs and analogue recordings but everyone who can will upgrade. It's
kind of nice becuase the kids can still play pirate mp3s but the grown
ups with money can get the quality product.

Other countries - if they want this technology they will have to play
along. In practice iTunes sell music to must of the world anyway.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


well i like a good debate but this was not much fun. i wrote up my
thoughts on the subject and will email to various enlightened people to
see if i am really as mad as you all think. i have an academic friend
who contributed to the mp4 standard and is on the patent pool.. if he
sends me a great write up i will post here so you know you are all
loosers :-) and if he says i am mad you will hear no more :-)

http://www.willyhoops.com/AudioDRM.htm


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


Haha No I am really serious... 

The program I wrote to tag which took three weeks to write is here:

www.exceltagger.com

I figured i may as well make it freeware :-)

And here is the robotic arm:

http://www.mfdigital.com/baxter.html

Sad but true...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


Ps I don't normally answer silly points but SACD is not taking off
because the economies of upgrading all our CD players don't make sense
and we don't want physical media in the future anyway.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


For the record i am not a media company stooge but i do work in finance
and have a more sensible view of the world that most people who think
big business is all evil etc (except of course the companies they work
for or have invested in), and drm can't be stopped even though we know,
for example, that the fbi can stop porn on the net and the us government
have stopped online gambling.

Most of all i am disgusted at how much potential there is in the
squeezebox and yet how dreadful the reality is. i spent three weeks
writing a tagging program powerful enough for my needs and i am buying
a $700 robotic arm to scan my cd collection. my girlfriend keeps says
"William why are you doing all this stuff... Obviously they are going
to come up with a better way". I keep saying to her not if the general
public don't wake up to the importance of drm.

I know paying for music will be a bit of a bummer but if we start
buying it again the quality will go up and the price will go down so it
will be worth it!


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


the point is that without drm (basically where we are now becuase itunes
drm is dead) music sales collapse, artists stop making music unless its
mega bucks pop t-shirt sales stuff, our economy shrinks a bit, and the
record companies won't release fancy new formats as digital files we
can copy to our devices. 

so life would clearly be better if drm was possible... and once you
start thinking that way you realise how well maybe with a bit of
lateral thinking and tough anti piracy legislation...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


well patrick, can i narrow this down... suppose for the purposes of
argument it did work... then don't you agree the world would be a
better place given the many points i have made?


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


and from that article (which i had alreay seen being a drm debate fan
and a prop trader concerned with share prices and trends):

--

Despite selling a respectable 35,000 copies of their debut album,
Tragedy Rocks, and making the top 40 with the single Lottery Winners On
Acid, the band were last year dropped by their record label, Warner
Music.

Like its major-label rivals, it [Warner] is struggling with the
structural changes to the record industry and, say critics, is
increasingly unable to invest in long-term artist development.

The experiment is being watched closely by the industry and other
artists struggling with the conundrum of how to make money at a time
when CD sales are collapsing and margins are decreasing...

so it's like Sun's Open Office. if you can't sell, you may as well give
it away for free adn hope it works out well somehow in the future...

--

that's hardly an argument for why drm is bad!!!!


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


Everyone is saying DRM is dead for music, and EMI is in crisis, and in
panic has decided maybe they are right and is now tyring to see if they
can sell some digital music after the failure of iTunes DRM.

But at the same time the industry knows it needs copy protection on
DVDs and consumers are happily buying HDCP TVs and every manufacturer
is selling them. Why music one thing and films another... that makes no
sense...

The herd thinking is often wrong...

* Suppose you created a format which was 24bit recordings so it is
"better than cd quality"..

* And suppose you embedded lots of text and images in the files so you
can see words and pics and documents and stories in a whole new
experience that goes far beyond todays mp3 files

* And suppose the files are playable on a variety of devices like
portable ipods and hi quality boxes like the transporter

Now suddenly you have something that consumers really want and there
are no files like it in the world and ripping Cd's can not compare

All of a sudden people will buy that. It's not like crappy iTunes DRM
that gives you worse quality that you can get from ripping a CD but
with restrictions...

OK DRM is not perfect and can be broken but that can be made hard and
dangerously illegal. A new high quality format creates a lot of digital
files which only exist in DRM standard and anyone who has them is
breaking the law... unlike CDs which can be legally scanned... you
could never have a file sharing web site with these files
unprotected...


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


yes of course i read your posts... the sim card makes the data
unbreakable unless one has both the card and the data and has time to
run the data through it. that's a step forward from today but as i
said, after that kernel mode drivers, hdcp paths and digital signatures
and the force of law have to be relied on to prevent him converting to
an unprotected format. scan someone's hard drive and if you see the
signature he is handling stolen goods. this is all a step far ahead of
today where you can upload a protected apple file and i can download
and break into it. worse i can download sample files and break into
them. platform independence comes like hdcp from manufactures signing
up to standards.

but the important point i am also trying to make is that DRM will only
take off if the content is superior to what we get from ripping a cd
ourselves. eg distribute 24bit recording compressed to to give file
sizes as big as flac but with vastly superior sound. also very rich
tagging and art.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


No, that's the way DRM works today but not in the future. When you buy
by credit card you type your pin into the machine and it gets validated
by your sim card not the oline connection... the nubmer is stored in
there... has anyone managed to break into the sim - no (although
someone once made a little progress towards it)... in fact in the
Mondex and talking about electronic money based on this sim harware
it's totally secure.

So the music would need to be encripted at the server side and decoded
on the fly inside the sim 'cpu'. 

Of course it's not perfect becuase the output comes out afterwards so
if you have both the sim and the music you can turn your music in an
open format if you are a russian programmer- but that's where we talk
about protected kernel mode drivers and HDCP. that technology is good
enough combined with the force of law.

do all this with in SB9 and Transporter9 and emi will push $$$ at you
is my view... 

ps: and i will never need to rip another cd again :-)


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


yea i know everyone is against drm but thats because drm today sucks
today, and because when you buy protected audio content the quality is
less than you get from ripping a cd yourself, and the added tags are
simple and no better than existing mp3 tags. but with the right
software + hardware development all these concerns can go away.

a sim card drm so that when you buy music you can download a version
encrypted against a couple of sim cards that you own... and when your
srm is visible on the network any device can use it to play your
protected files... so maybe that sim sits in your pc or your squeezebox
or ipod it doesn't matter.. 

i am saying this is the holy grail that would cause an explosion of
music sales and solve the problem of distributing intellectual
property. 

it's the vision the record companies need to work towards but dont
have the skills to implement  today they are hostage to one self
interested company - Apple. solving these problems are critical to the
future. todays it's cd piracy, tomorrow it's films, one day it will be
books. 

so i am saying yea people would buy more music because the record
companies will have the confidence to create and distribute better
content. And from the users point of view he can't copy his friends
collection but all the ripping and tagging and messing about will
vanish. 

then the squeezebox will no longer be a niche product but something
anyone with any level of computer knowledge will be able to put into
their living room.

anyone with the vast skills required to build a real sophisticated drm
that makes everyone happy would make a fortune.


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[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] DRM lessons from the Squeezebox


Since I started using the Squeezebox I have developed a new enthusiasm
for music, and my purchasing of CDs has gone through the roof. I also
noticed others on this forum saying the same. So how come CD sales are
down 20% year on year again? 

Of course the answer is that although in general hard drive storage of
music dramatically increases ones appetite for music, CD sales are
down because of increasing piracy. Hard drive storage also makes piracy
far far easier than in the past.

Squeezebox audiophile fans like ourselves are just a special case
because we need lossless encoded flac files which are generally not
available from friends or file sharing web sites. Indeed such is our
demand for music that not only do we increase our rate of CD
purchasing, we also spend hours carefully ripping and tagging our
music.

>From this, record companies should learn that they could dramatically
increase demand if they found a piracy safe method of selling digital
music that offered customers something more than the zillions of mp3
files floating freely around the world today. Good as my tagging
efforts are, they are nothing compared to what would be possible if the
record companies really embraced the embedding of text and images into
music files. Also I could save hours of my life not having to rip CDs
anymore. 

So I think the record companies need to 

(a) Create a new DRM standard that is truly platform independent and
that customers feel safe with  eg using a SIM card. If the customer
looses his sim and his hard drive, he must be able to get another and
download the music again.

(b) Make sure the audio is at least CD quality and possibly even better
(eg 24bit).

(c) Fill the new standard with text and images  eg the words of every
song, at least a pic for each track etc etc.

(d) Create a new HDCP equivalent path for digital audio connectors to
protect the content from piracy.

(e) Push Governments to support their efforts by making encryption
breaking tools illegal.

Neither Apple or Microsofts DRM efforts to date come anywhere near
accomplishing these things.

The trouble is who is going to create all this for them? Only companies
like Apple and Microsoft have the skills to push such a far reaching
vision. Sony would be next on the list but the company appears to be
floundering because it tries to tie people into proprietary formats and
it cant write good software.

Maybe they will fail and the future will become music on demand
services. Then you pay a monthly subscription and get access to
zillions of CDs. However its unclear if all the bandwidth that would
entail is feasible... and it still requires new audio formats and
standards.


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Re: System Balancing ï¿½ - your thoughts please


When I do dinner parties I like to do quick listening tests - well at
least with the guys and before the wine has started taking hold :-) 

My last one was only two days ago on portable mp3 players. I have an
Apple iPod Video 80Gb, a Sony NW-HD5 20GB and an iRiver HP-120 20Gb and
a special edition top end Sony D-EJ01 CD Walkman. We tested all these
devices with high quality Sony MDF-F1 Headphones. For the jukebox
players the music was in a very high bitrate format so audio
compression problems could be ruled out.

The most obvious first point is that the iPod and the Sony D-EJ01 CD
Walkman had lots of volume, the iRiver was OK, but the Sony NW-HD5
didn't go loud enough.

I held all the players in my hand and pulled the headphones socket out
and switched it into different devices for the test. I also turned the
volume down each time so the user then had to tell me how hight he
would like it. 

The results of the test were unamious (always nice): the Sony D-EJ01 CD
Walkman won. The NW-HD5 came next, then the iPod and iRiver came way
behind. The iPod just sounded kind of lifeless compared to the NW-HD5
and CD Walkman. It annoyed a couple of people to see their beloved iPod
loose so bady.

It's a shame that these big computer companies like Apple can't do a
decent job of the music playback. If sony can make a lovely sounding CD
Walkman so can Apple - it's just lazyness. I kind of feel the SB3 is the
same - if they had put a little bit of extra effort in which wouldn't
have cost much more I wouldn't need an external DAC or an expensive
transporter.


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Re: System Balancing ï¿½ - your thoughts please

2007-04-30 Thread willyhoops


mine is:

cables Â£25
sb3 Â£200
dac Â£200 second hand 
integrated amplifier Â£450
speakers Â£1,000

if had the budget it would be

cables Â£25
sb3 Â£200
dac Â£200 second hand 
integrated amplifier Â£450
speakers Â£4,500  (quad electrostatics)


I went to a cool and famous hifi shop (Thomas Heinitz, Notting Hill)
once and the mad old chap running it (Thomas himself who has since sold
the shop) it explained to me how almost all your cash should be spent on
speakers. he had this Â£15k valve amp someone had ordered and he was
playing with it before they picked it up and doing demos for all his
customers.. Hardly anyone could hear the difference between the 15k amp
and a decent normal one... but the difference between various speakers
was huge.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Advice on DACs - eg Shek d2?

2007-04-23 Thread willyhoops


thanks for that advice... i just bid on this which looks nice on
ebay...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DPA-The-little-bit-DAC_W0QQitemZ260109872543QQihZ016QQcategoryZ3272QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

since i need a few of these thinbgs maybe i cab buy your shrek when
your sb+ arrives!

£1,000 on the SB+ is too much for me.


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[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Advice on DACs - eg Shek d2?

2007-04-23 Thread willyhoops

I have been testing the analogue output of the SB3 against a couple of
mid range cd players in my house including the yahama HRD 1500 which is
an old fashioned 250GB hard drive player I have been using a lot
(http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/av/products/hf/cdrhd1500.html)

It's pretty obvious that the DAC quality of the SB3 is lower than these
players. Not just me, I put the girlfriend to a blind test. Note I am am
not confusing myself with audio compression becuase I was playing a wav
on the yamaha vs a flac on the SB3 and the CD on my Denon (which are
all identical).

I don't want to fork out $2,000 dollars for a transporter in every room
but I havn't been able to find an amp with spdif that can do a decent
job of driving the Quad 21L speakers I use in non critical rooms. I
also don't want to spend $1,000+ on the benchmark DAC1 etc.

Can anyone please reccomend a lower priced DAC for giving the quality
of a standard mid range CD player like the Denon / Yamaha CD player
with 16bit audio. If it makes a difference I am a fan of Classical
Choral works.

I saw the Sigtone Shek d2 DAC on ebay uk at £160 (or $320). What about
this?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sigtone-Shek-d2-Non-OS-TDA1545A-TDA-1545A-DAC_W0QQitemZ230117189843QQcategoryZ81741QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] sb3 / transporter sound test

2007-04-20 Thread willyhoops


ah i didn't know yours predated the transporter. cool.

how about building an ipod dac? you know you can buy these docking
stations that you put the ipod into and there is an analogue out on the
back... what about building one of those with a good quality dac. could
also have an spdif out for auo buff people who have external dacs. also
an spdif in for the squeezebox crowd. i am assuming that through the
digital ipod connector you can get access to the digital output
somehow.

think this would be a good seller and would love to invest in this. i
don't think there is one on the market that would satisfy the prop
audio crowd. the squeezebox is great but the ipod is thousands of times
bigger in terms of sales. itunes is so simple to use it makes the ipod
accesable to the general public while the squeezebox with flac, eac and
wireless setup is a much more niche market.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] sb3 / transporter sound test

2007-04-20 Thread willyhoops


yea i could get a universal remote and rely only on that.. i will have a
look at some and see what i think. just put off the idea after my friend
with one told me he spent £400 and it was covered in buttons and
gigantic.

---

thanks for explaining why don't they put that simple explanation on the
ir blaster page. maybe embarrassed :-)

-

did you know the answer two my other two questions - 

If I have an IR input jack do I need the IR Blaster plus the 'simple
phono-plug to phono-plug cable' to control?

And if I don't have the IR input jack then I just buy the IR Blaster?

---

do you sell transporter and sb3 stuff by the way? i saw your cool
looking sb3 player. thought about it instead of the transporter, but I
succumbed to the silly human instinct that puts faith in big brands.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] sb3 / transporter sound test

2007-04-20 Thread willyhoops


Ah thats great... so i can really disable the analogue volume and make
the remote control the amp volume afer all. 
Thats fantastic and exactly the way it should work! 
Many thanks for pointing this one out. I will order these things now.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] sb3 / transporter sound test

2007-04-19 Thread willyhoops


thanks very much for confirming.. i saw all the comments about a cd
getting clipping and the wireless spdif not being as good as the cd
player spdif... but clearly this is imagination etc.

before i give up on the volume control issue: can i ask please: we know
that no cd player has a volume control but that's not enough to convince
people. can i ask if the apple airport has this feature? i looked on
wiki and it suggested not...

sean, there is a tendency for pc companies like logitech to overload
their product with features which appeals to the more downmarket
consumer. eg i still use my logitech wireless keyboard from years ago
becuase i can't get one without ugly unwanted buttons. apple laptops
are on the other hand known for their stylish simplicity. likewise
expensive hifi with it's source direct button. i think if you really
want to move into the stylish market you need to ditch that darn volume
control or at least update the souftware so it can be disabled. the
stylish and sensible approach would be to disable the volume control in
the sb3 and transporter and add functionality so that the volume control
on the handset can be setup to control the volume on your amp no matter
what brand. then i would be real happy!


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] sb3 / transporter sound test

2007-04-18 Thread willyhoops


i can't be bothered to argue about the volume control feature and i
already live with the 'feature' and check it all the time becuase
friends end up turning it down and screwing the sound and endangering
the amp by turning it to max then changing input and blowing the house
down...

but the real question is has anyone connected the digital out to a
soundcard and checked the reproduction is perfect as described in my
first post?


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[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] sb3 / transporter sound test

2007-04-18 Thread willyhoops


has anyone connected the digital out of their squeezebox to the digital
in of their sound card and compared a wav file streamed by sb3 or the
transporter to the recording via the digital out? eg eac has a compare
two wav files feature and some hi end soundblaster cards have an
optical digital in.

i have seen a few posts saying that the digital output of the sb3 clips
even though it never did in the original cd. also that hi-fi magazine
claimed they could hear a difference between wireless transmisson and
using the transporter simply as a dac with a cd played plugged directy
into it. these strage reports would be resolved if someone checked that
a recording of the digital out produced an identical wav file to the
original.

of course this assume the volume is turned to 100% (god only know why
we have a volume control in a transporter / sb3 anyway. it's as silly
as putting one on a cd player)


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying Transporters in the UK


ah you have been married too long... my fiancee is a serial ripping
machine :-) still, dbpowerAmp and her don't get on - and there is
always a chance that at end of day I find she accidently clicked
something and all the results are useless. 

my excel flac editing program is fantastic. i can point it at c:\music
and it dumps all the tags on 50,000 odd tracks into the spreadsheet
very quickly or i can load subdirectories of c:\music instead. i can
run global edit replace "J S Bach" with "Bach". I can zoom in with
autofilters, sort by up the three columns blah blah. It's a revolution
compared to tag & rename etc. Will post it as freeware on the net
shortly. applied for the domain www.exceltagger.com but it's not up
yet.

thanks again for feedback on transporter. can't wait for it now. right
now i am using SB3s with Onkyo CR715 midi systems plugged into Quad 21L
speakers for the dining room, bedrooms and study. But in the living room
I have a much bigger system with no digital optical in, and since i
never got around to buying an external dae i can't use the sb3. the
transporter will bring the living room into sync with the rest of the
house.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying Transporters in the UK


thanks thats really great feedback. are you happy now with your
transporter? any complaints at all?

also did you use the ripcaster cd scanning service or do you know about
it? i am totally fed up scanning cds in the buggy nightmare which is
dbpoweramp and the slow as hell eac. i built a program for editing the
flac tags in excel so i can edit tags to get their output just the way
i like it.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying Transporters in the UK


If you want to save every penny then I would consider buying mail order
from a small company in the USA like the one i mentioned before and
talking to them so they send it to you in a box maked "faulty unit
repaired" at maybe $45 for 5 day delivery. i think thats the standard
and common way to get cheap electronics in the uk. for US electronics
that's the route. for camera eqipment you go to hong kong and find the
company from ebay.

Frankly I am ok with to paying up to get it from the UK as long as it
arrives within a few days. The four month wait for the opus has driven
me crazy.


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Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Buying Transporters in the UK