Re: MD: Re: Circuit City Responds
On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Dan Frakes wrote: The basics of my relatively modest home stereo, averaging seven years old (it was bought one piece at a time), are the following: $200 speaker system (PSB), $300 amp (NAD), $250 CD player (NAD). That's a $750 system -- not a Circuit City shelf system, but it didn't cost a fortune by any means. Yet even my friends who aren't into audio can immediately hear the difference between a CD and an MD with the same album (played through my MZR-50's line out). I'm sure that the MD sound might be a little better if played through a dedicated component player, but not enough to offset the obvious differences in sound quality. Nods. Though to be fair, you would have to do this on a system with digital inputs where both the CD and the MD are using the same DAC. DAC performance is often THE prevailing factor in how a digital medium sounds. For instance, I can hear a significant difference in the quality of sound coming from a CD being played in my toshiba 2108 DVD player depending on whether or not I'm using the Toshiba's DAC or the DAC in my Rotel RSX-965. The Rotel kills the Toshiba. I'm willing to bet that the DAC in the R50 (which I have sitting next to me right now) isn't all that hot really. No reason for it to be really since listening conditions for portables are rarely favorable. -Matt - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Circuit City Responds
On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Dan Frakes wrote: That's what I meant by "it's still a cassette, though" grin I'll take MD over cassette any day of the week for any purpose. I'll take MD over CD for anything portable. Just so no one doubts my passion for MD ;-) I was just pointing out that the assertion that it's impossible for cassette to sound better than MD is not correct. And here I was hoping for another analog vs digital flame war. Those are always fun. -Matt - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: My Diamond Rio Experience
On 28 Feb 2000, Stainless Steel Rat wrote: * Matt White [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Mon, 28 Feb 2000 22.05, actually, due to the phenomenon known as "aliasing". Right, however CD are still limited to 20kHz at pressing. DVD-Video's audio formats, dts and Dolby Digital (AC-3) have the capability to handle sampling rates up to 96KHz, providing a frequency response of up to 43KHz. That does not mean all DVD-Video discs will have dts (many do not), Dolby Digital (some do not), or sampling rates nearly that high (very few do). I wasn't talking about DVD-Video though. | Of course, those formats also do 5.1, which I find ridiculous, but that's | my personal opinion. I think that if you had five surround speakers plus a super subwoofer, you would think differently. No I wouldn't. 5.1 is fine for movies, but I don't see the point for audio. The whole point of stereo is to recreate the live performance feel in the room. To do this you need exactly two speakers. -Matt - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: MP3 -- Am I the only one that hates it so?
I think you make a very valid point that should be made in the "Will MD Survive?" thread as well. Namely that the majority of the world does not want to use their computer for a stereo or otherwise rely upon their computer for everything. Digressing from your post a bit, I think what MD proponents need to emphasize more than anything is how much of a pain in the ass CDs actually are. They are big, awkward, prone to damage and skipping -- and CDRs are even worse. Solid state devices look nice until you start talking about media cost ($200 for a 64MB memory stick? Are they serious?). Anyway, what will sell a format is its convenience. I'm not sure sound quality is really going to get it for us. Let me join with the others in saying that I really, really want a USB MD drive. Or an ATAPI drive that does MD-Data too :). Hmmm...what an utterly horrible post. I usually am more coherent than this :). -Matt --On Monday, January 24, 2000 10:25 AM -0600 "J. C. R. Davis" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The subject says it all: am I the only person in the world -- or even here -- that hates MP3? I mean, yes, it has definite advantages, such as trying out music or getting it free by downloading; but I hate having to depend on my computer so much. I think that a music medium shouldn't be so tied in to computers. I don't mind MP3 as long as it keeps its place: behind MD and CD. Portable MP3 seem stupid to me because ... well, it's tough to explain. It just seems so much easier and smarter to just transfer MP3s to MD (or CD). To me, that's the only reason it should be used -- and not as a stand-alone medium. It's so computer-intensive! Does anyone see what I trying to say here? J. C. R. Davis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: MD and Creative Soundblaster Platinum
Alan: I have the SBLive Platinum too. The problem you seem to be having seems more software related than hardare related. What you appear to be trying to do is transfer sound over SPDIF rather than the data connection. This is not necessarily what you want to do. What I would suggest is that you download a CD ripper and try to get tracks off your CD-ROM that way. Do a web search for "CD ripper mp3" and you should get lots of links. There is good free software out there if you dig a little bit. Good CD ripper software will allow you to extract audio tracks from your CD player much faster than going over the SPDIF output. Then from there you can just play them back as wave files using winamp or some other sound player. I wouldn't try randomly plugging the SPDIF connector in, since analog and digital audio formats tend to use very different voltages. Hope this helps, -Matt --On Thursday, January 06, 2000 1:20 AM -0800 Alan Dowds [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello all Does anyone have any experience with the SB Live Platinum, and LiveDrive II? I though it would be ideal for MD - optical ins outs, etc etc Sadly, I'm having awful trouble getting it to output digitally, recognise my CD-ROM drive, or do anything really. The software doesn't recognise audio CDs, I can't get any internal SPDIF input from my CD and it basically doesn't seem to work. Normal windows noises and DirectX works okay, games seem fine. My CD is a generic 36x (Ultima Electronics). Could that be the problem? The CD has what looks like a SPDIF out connector (which fits the SB Live cable), but it isn't marked as such, so may not be at all. Thanks Alan (Who's happy he didn't pay full retail for the thing) - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
