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1: Films/DVD Asylum, A different wish list (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-05-17, 20:33:56 (67.149.138.234)
1. All DVD flags should be correct, i.e. cadence, mpeg structure, etc... 2. One disc for the movie, one or two for the extras, just fill the disc with good quality audio and video instead of smashing .......
2: Propeller Head Plaza, Availability (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-05-03, 11:24:39 (209.254.32.50)
Here's what I'd *like* : Hard disk based music system, storing everything in lossless audio. From 44.1/16 to 192/24 linear PCM. A drive that can rip CD, DVD-A or SACD. A bunch of RAM so the player can .......
3: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Ipod question (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-05-02, 06:58:14 (209.254.32.50)
Do you have the mp3's selected to upload to the iPod, or do you sync everything? /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
4: Computer Audio Asylum, Seconded (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-04-29, 20:59:39 (67.149.138.234)
I've ran radio signal emulators off of a PCI card (National Instruments) as well as audio test setups from the same company using similar hardware. CPU load had no measurable effect on the output in e .......
5: Computer Audio Asylum, Flash (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-04-06, 07:56:25 (209.254.32.50)
>For example, you can build a totally fanless PC (no fan in power supply, passive cooling etc.) and solid state hard disk (eg. high capacity compact flash or similar). The actual music files can be st .......
6: Radio Road, Audiophile sat radio player? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-04-03, 10:12:26 (209.254.32.50)
Isn't that kind of like saying "Audiophile MP3 player?" Except for the very low bitrate lossy AAC compression, the pre-encoding EQ and massive companding, I'm sure it sounds great ;) /*Music is subjec .......
7: Computer Audio Asylum, ALAC and EAC (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-03-30, 08:21:13 (209.254.32.50)
It can be done, but there are issues. http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t49935.html /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
8: Computer Audio Asylum, Problems (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-03-26, 21:26:36 (67.149.138.234)
CPU, you only need enough RAM to buffer effectively. It should only take a few megs if you have a halfway decent/modern hard drive. I've seen more problems with flaky sound drivers and/or bad hardware .......
9: Films/DVD Asylum, Review: Imposter (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-03-25, 20:32:05 (67.149.138.234)
My friends and I have been on a P.K. Dick bender recently, we've recently seen A Scanner Darkly and Imposter, lining up the recent remastered Blade Runner next (prepping for Ridley's version coming up .......
10: Computer Audio Asylum, SB PCMCIA on sale (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-03-25, 20:09:22 (67.149.138.234)
I'm not shilling for Newegg, but they have the Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA card on sale for $39 when you use the code “EMC322CREATIVE” This is a great card for laptop users, the output is as clean as you can g .......
11: Computer Audio Asylum, Nope (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-12, 17:56:58 (67.149.138.234)
The analog and digital outs do nothing when ripping audio CDs. The audio information is extracted as data, the only factor to worry about is accuracy. If the rip was good (with error correction turned .......
12: General Asylum, HDTV Tuner card (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-12, 07:13:31 (209.254.32.50)
You can purchase an HDTV tuner card that can pick up broadcast HDTV and some cable HDTV if it isn't encrypted. See here: http://www.hauppauge.com/ /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
13: Computer Audio Asylum, UPnP - Finally (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-12, 06:24:46 (209.254.32.50)
A halfway useful application for UPnP, I assume you're running Myth .20 with the built-in UPnP service. Can you watch your shows from Media Player, or does it only handle videos and music? /*Music is .......
14: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: CDRW's (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-10, 09:13:52 (67.149.138.234)
CD-RW's may not be readable in all players, though the problem tends to me more prevalent in car and portable players than in regular home players. Other than that, not much difference. /*Music is sub .......
15: Isolation Ward, Quick Questions (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-06, 11:53:24 (209.254.32.50)
> . We could argue he did it to boost the price of the alarm clock.... Wasn't it like $295? A bit much for a fancy power cord, no? Maybe if he sold them for the cost of the alarm clock + the cost of t .......
16: General Asylum, Re; Pears and pineapples (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-06, 09:18:55 (209.254.32.50)
You're right, I should not have used an unqualified determiner. That should have read: "My system has significantly lower bass response." Now what was wrong with the rest of my post? You seem to think .......
17: General Asylum, Proof (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-06, 07:12:51 (209.254.32.50)
> Again, there can be no universalizable proof that ANY product can work..... I bought a car recently. It gets me from home to work and back again. It's 100% effective in this capacity. I can prove it .......
18: Computer Audio Asylum, Distros (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-05, 17:50:11 (67.149.138.234)
Here's a list of media-oriented distros: http://linux-sound.org/distro.html JackLab looks promising, but it's boot-dvd only. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
19: Computer Audio Asylum, Lossless compression (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-05, 10:12:02 (209.254.32.50)
Here are common lossless compression codecs and their status: Apple Lossless - closed source/proprietary FLAC - Free and open source Monkey's Audio (APE) - closed source/proprietary Shorten - closed s .......
20: Isolation Ward, You have a lot to learn! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-04, 12:23:17 (67.149.138.234)
You see, there are all sorts of extremely complicated physics involved in the seemingly mundane process of audio reproduction. There are cosmic waves and quantum effects and electromagnetic fluxuation .......
21: Isolation Ward, You have a lot to learn! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-04, 12:23:17 (67.149.138.234)
You see, there are all sorts of extremely complicated physics involved in the seemingly mundane process of audio reproduction. There are cosmic waves and quantum effects and electromagnetic fluxuation .......
22: Water Cooler, Windows Vista first impression (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-02-01, 08:31:28 (209.254.32.50)
We just got the Enterprise Edition with our MSDN subscription (it's the same as the Business edition with some extra stuff added, and no activation required, sometimes.) I had an extra Dell Inspiron 8 .......
23: Digital Drive, No (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-01-29, 06:36:20 (209.254.32.50)
Timing/jitter isn't an issue, and, if you are using a decent ripping application, most read errors aren't an issue, either. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
24: General Asylum, MSB iLink (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-01-19, 08:28:51 (209.254.32.50)
This looks interesting... http://www.msbtech.com/products/iLink.php I could give a crap about the fancy cradle and RF transmission, but modding the iPod for digital output is very interesting. Has any .......
25: Computer Audio Asylum, USB Drives (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-01-08, 10:22:02 (209.254.32.50)
Are they running the FAT32 filesystem? I think XP doesn't like sharing FAT32 filesystems, but I'm not sure. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
26: Water Cooler, Re: Computer security software (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2007-01-04, 13:12:54 (209.254.32.50)
1. AOL free antivirus. It's based on AVG antivirus, which is excellent and fast 2. Spybot Search+Destroy, and Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition. All the antispyware you probably need. You need to .......
27: General Asylum, Verify? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-12-27, 20:46:42 (67.149.138.234)
Have you verified the burns to make sure there were no errors? I'd also try again with another two CD's, to rule out differences in the CD's themselves. Even though they are the same brand, quality co .......
28: Films/DVD Asylum, Woodies (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-12-14, 06:46:36 (209.254.32.50)
Heh. The best lines are when they are trying to decipher an actor's or actress's non-reaction to something. "Anger? Confusion? Hunger? What are you trying to convey?!?!?!" Another good line from Death .......
29: Films/DVD Asylum, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-12-12, 12:41:02 (209.254.32.50)
I have rediscovered these through the magic of obsessive internet collectors. There are a few episodes available on DVD, and the theatrically released movie, however, most episodes are not available d .......
30: Films/DVD Asylum, Somewhat agree (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-12-10, 11:35:17 (67.149.138.234)
I thought it was a very good movie, but not great. I thought the storyline was a bit too predictable, and a bit contrived at points. However, it was so beautifully shot and technically superior to alm .......
31: Films/DVD Asylum, Disney, Pixar, and 2D Animation (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-12-04, 06:26:26 (209.254.32.50)
I was looking for information about Pixar's next release, and came across this interesting entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Animation_Production_System It's Disney's old 2D an .......
32: Computer Audio Asylum, Relative (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-27, 11:47:58 (209.254.32.50)
A decent, low noise NI-DAQ with pre-rolled audio SW is *MUCH* cheaper than an Audio Precision Dual-Domain Cascade 192, and has about 90% of the functionality. Of course, the AP has been around a while .......
33: Computer Audio Asylum, Odd (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-25, 17:21:23 (67.149.138.234)
Could be a number of things. An error about not accessing a TTY usually means it can't kick open a shell, or command prompt, or it can't fire up X, the graphical user interface. Could you list your co .......
34: Video Asylum, Sharp (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-21, 11:20:54 (209.254.32.50)
I've heard the newer Sharp Aquos are excellent. I'm looking at the high end 32" model myself, though it's a bit over your price range (retails for around $1,200) I haven't demoed the exact model I'm l .......
35: Films/DVD Asylum, Bingo! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-19, 12:16:33 (67.149.138.234)
> Plus recently I caught him on some late show and his shtick never arose above... shtick. Not funny at all. The audience sounded like a laugh track. It was pitiful. Now there's a succinct, to-the-poi .......
36: General Asylum, Looking (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-18, 19:21:38 (67.149.138.234)
I've seen looking glass, it's basically a 3d version of CDE which, again, was heavily influenced by NeXTStep (object based desktop, the wharf) Where is NeXT today? Merged with Apple, it's x86 port of .......
37: Films/DVD Asylum, Not quite (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-18, 19:05:28 (67.149.138.234)
It's just that when anyone dissects comedy they come off as pretentious or an unfunny stiff. Analyzing comedy is like trying to analyze why something is beautiful, or why a song is catchy. You can try .......
38: General Asylum, Fun fun fun! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-17, 21:25:43 (67.149.138.234)
> Well Apple didn't invent the portable mp3 player either. They copied others and improved what was already on the market. There really was nothing like the iPod on the market when it was released. Cr .......
39: Films/DVD Asylum, Wow (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-17, 13:29:13 (209.254.32.50)
Two longish paragraphs to tell the reader that he didn't think the movie was funny. It's a comedy, you either think it's funny or not. Analyzing comedy is the business of people who don't get comedy t .......
40: General Asylum, Hi-fi iPod (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-17, 12:51:15 (209.254.32.50)
Here's my ideal system: - Same form factor as the current iPod - Add S/PDIF out AND in - Add 44.1KHz/16 and 48KHz/18 recording capability - Add the ability to play back ogg/vorbis, flac/vorbis and APE .......
41: General Asylum, Zune first impression (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-16, 12:44:41 (209.254.32.50)
I was at a store and they had one you could play with. I mostly checked out the interface and build, since they didn't have any music I would care to listen to loaded on it. It's big, bigger in every .......
42: Computer Audio Asylum, Yes (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-13, 12:58:32 (209.254.32.50)
Just add on another USB2 hard drive, format it, and tell iTunes to look in that HD as well for music. I forget exactly where it is, it might be buried in options. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.* .......
43: Computer Audio Asylum, Problem - You're using WMP :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-08, 11:00:56 (209.254.32.50)
Seriously, try the following: 1. Check IBM/Lenovo's website for an updated firmware for your CD-RW drive. It could be that the firmware doesn't recognize the CD-R media, which is a common problem. 2. .......
44: Computer Audio Asylum, Gumstix (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-11-07, 10:00:05 (209.254.32.50)
Linux machines the size of a pack of gum. http://www.gumstix.com/ There are machines even smaller than this, but you start trading off functionality. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ ::: TOPIC:: .......
45: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Linux PC alternatives, player, setup help (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-10-17, 11:53:30 (209.254.35.161)
Ubuntu is very popular, as is Knoppix. Both can be run entirely from CD, albeit slowly, or easily installed on a hard drive. Mandriva may be worth a look, as well. The free version of Redhat is called .......
46: Computer Audio Asylum, iPod (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-09-27, 09:17:27 (209.254.35.161)
Nope, the iPod shows up as a USB hard drive would, just like any other MP3 player. The method in which the music files are stored is somewhat obfuscated, mainly to speed the software's ability to sort .......
47: Video Asylum, DVD Players vs. Software (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-09-01, 10:40:42 (209.254.35.161)
An interesting article on a range of DVD players pitted against ATI and nVidia hardware video scaling and playback. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
48: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Weee! :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-27, 19:29:08 (67.149.138.234)
> Hey, if you quack like a duck ... Um, OK... > You do realise, don't you, that kernel streaming is *part* of WDM Of course. So what? waveOut resamples, kernel streaming doesn't. Same driver model, tw .......
49: Computer Audio Asylum, Weee! :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-27, 00:09:02 (67.149.138.234)
> No, not really, hence the widespread misunderstanding. DLLs in Windows are *not* just a passive collection of shared routines, unlike a Unix .so library. DLLs in Windows can also behave similarly to .......
50: Computer Audio Asylum, I like nitpicking, it's my hobby :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-25, 10:59:06 (209.254.35.161)
>DLL is a Windows specific concept. Other operating systems have >similar but not exact analogies. Yep, but as far as the end user is concerned, it's a file with some routines that apps use. >It's im .......
51: Computer Audio Asylum, DLL Hell (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-24, 14:11:50 (209.254.35.161)
>It is many years since I was seriously involved in PC programming so >I may have forgotten, or things may have changed radically, BUT >my understanding of DLLs is that they are shar(ed)(eable) librar .......
52: Computer Audio Asylum, Computer horse power (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-21, 19:32:17 (67.149.138.234)
> I don't know much about using the mobile processors with desktops. I think it has enough power to handle the loaded programs and DLLs without impacting sound, but I am not sure. Playing audio is not .......
53: Computer Audio Asylum, No sense (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-20, 20:24:26 (67.149.138.234)
> I am thinking that, with vitual pc, I may be able to defeat all non-essential processes/programs in a sound only system. I can get rid of usb and other peripherals and may be only have low rez video .......
54: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Changing server from a pc to a mac. (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-16, 06:00:43 (209.254.35.161)
> Can I do this? Yes :) > can I simply plug the HD in to a mac or does everything have to be reripped? If you get an external USB2 drive enclosure (usually around $50), I'm pretty sure you can plug in .......
55: General Asylum, You mean trinary? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-15, 20:02:14 (67.149.138.234)
Used in limited fashion is some odd data communication devices of the 70's, to get the error rate down over transmission lines. Electrically it looked something like -5V, ground, or +5V. It didn't wor .......
56: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Obvious question... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-13, 20:18:04 (67.149.138.234)
> Anyone who is content to listen to MP3 can't be particularly discerning. Umm... OK. > Ps I said nothing about FLAC. I commented specifically on Apple Lossless and more specifically on the end result .......
57: Computer Audio Asylum, Obvious question... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-13, 19:30:17 (67.149.138.234)
Can you hear the difference blind? Have someone control your iPod for you, flip back and forth between the two files, and see if you can still hear a difference. I can't, I encode everything using FLA .......
58: General Asylum, Re: Favorite "Technical" movies (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-08-05, 20:27:01 (67.149.138.234)
My wife got me a bunch of Columbo seasons on DVD, and quite a few of the rich antagonists he faces have impressive audio setups, especially the conductors. I've noticed that House, MD has a Sota turnt .......
59: General Asylum, Accuracy, by level of insanity (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-07-30, 20:17:09 (67.149.138.234)
1. Using NTP (Network Time Protocol) and sync'ing to pool.ntp.org. Accurate to between a few tens to a couple hundreds of milliseconds. 2. Using a GPS plugged into the serial port of your computer. VE .......
60: Computer Audio Asylum, Why bother? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-07-24, 21:34:52 (69.14.231.16)
For the cost of a limited production, well isolated and low noise power supply, you could probably buy a decent USB DAC, or just use an optical connection to a decent outboard DAC. Problem solved. If .......
61: Computer Audio Asylum, Depends (of course :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-07-24, 07:18:19 (209.254.35.161)
> Regardless of how often you use the hard drive, don't expect it to last significantly longer than a few years. Depends on usage patterns and, mainly, how well the drive is ventilated. Heat kills dri .......
62: General Asylum, Caig, and another suggestion (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-07-24, 06:50:53 (209.254.35.161)
Is the root problem with the cleaner, or with poorly-plated connectors? If you don't like using chemical cleaners regardless, you can try the model railroad method and use a hard pencil eraser. It usu .......
63: Films/DVD Asylum, EFX (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-07-05, 21:55:21 (69.14.231.16)
The rather dodgy effects sort of ruin the movie for me. They could have done a much better job using lower-tech effects and models, instead of trying to do before-it's-time compositing. The color proc .......
64: General Asylum, Not really repros (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-07-05, 21:41:54 (69.14.231.16)
Much of DWR's stock is in-production pieces from Herman Miller, the company that made most of the famous Eames and Mies pieces to begin with. Expensive, yes, but the market isn't huge for 50's modern, .......
65: Computer Audio Asylum, Cards (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-23, 12:19:54 (69.14.231.16)
The 2496 and the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS (PCMCIA) are the best recording cards I've personally worked with. Great noise floor, low IMD, and excellent frequency response. Above those, the Audiophile 1 .......
66: Computer Audio Asylum, Try this (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-21, 14:03:22 (69.14.231.16)
Rip the CD twice, creating two different CUE/BIN files, without treating it. Kick open a command window, and compare the two by typing "fc /b filename1.bin filename2.bin" If they are different, then t .......
67: General Asylum, My wife... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-21, 13:56:37 (69.14.231.16)
Someone tried to sell my wife some speakers in the parking lot of a mall. "Do you have a good stereo?" the guy asked. "Yeah kinda, my husband is into stereo stuff," she said. "These speakers blow away .......
68: General Asylum, A few... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-21, 10:24:04 (69.14.231.16)
Port Rhombus by Squarepusher - a very intricate synth bass line that bounces along quickly, sometimes diving down the scale in 16th notes. Making Plans for Nigel by Primus (cover of an XTC song) Pines .......
69: Computer Audio Asylum, How about FO IEEE1394? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-20, 13:06:13 (69.14.231.16)
Here: /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
70: Computer Audio Asylum, One will probably be created (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-20, 09:13:19 (69.14.231.16)
SATA is a very robust standard, since it's serial, single ended, and the cable lengths are pretty standard. High end cables won't buy you much, if anything, in terms of data integrity or bandwidth. Th .......
71: Computer Audio Asylum, NEC (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-17, 07:59:34 (69.14.231.16)
I have the previous model NEC (3540) and it's a great drive. EAC works very well, the only drive I have that reads CD's better is the Plextor Premium, which I resort to if the NEC doesn't work. I have .......
72: General Asylum, CDRW (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-16, 20:53:36 (69.14.231.16)
CD-RW discs are formulated quite differently than CD-R's. In fact, sometimes they won't play on an audio CD player (they reflect light differently than a regular CD) As for underspeed burning regular .......
73: Digital Drive, O RLLY? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-14, 17:26:45 (69.14.231.16)
Yes, a car battery makes a lovely, somewhat stable power source. Unfortunately, attached to the battery are alternators, ignition coils, lights (sometimes of the strobe-LED variety) a few computers, p .......
74: General Asylum, SCSI (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-13, 15:54:17 (69.14.231.16)
Granite digital's SCSI cables are fantastic, mainly as the SCSI standard is very finicky about cable lengths, distance between connectors, impedance and termination. You'll have more SCSI "voodoo" pro .......
75: Films/DVD Asylum, I'd see it (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-11, 18:00:49 (69.14.231.16)
My mom saw it and said it was pretty good. I like the radio show enough to see the movie, I just hope he mics it half sanely so you can actually hear the dialog, unlike Gosford Park. He's made a coupl .......
76: General Asylum, Image files (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-10, 06:22:01 (69.14.231.16)
Pretty much all CD copier software takes an "image" of an audio CD or CD-ROM to copy it, usually in some sort of propriatary format. Alcohol uses a low level driver shim to suck data straight out of t .......
77: Films/DVD Asylum, No problem. (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-06, 15:26:12 (69.14.231.16)
I worked at a video store for two years, I watched just about *everything* :) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
78: Films/DVD Asylum, And God Created Woman - the remake -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-06, 11:56:14 (69.14.231.16)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
79: Films/DVD Asylum, Funny... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-05, 08:11:40 (69.14.231.16)
I would have thought you would have nominated The Young Ones for best TV show :) I forgot to add that one to my list... "Vivian! Where did you get that howitzer!?!?!" "Found it!" /*Music is subjective .......
80: Films/DVD Asylum, Television as film (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-04, 19:55:51 (69.14.231.16)
As my film professor liked to say, "If it's on film, then it's film." That includes, ostensibly, television shows. What are the best shows/episodes, IYHO? Mine, in no particular order: Twin Peaks - Th .......
81: Films/DVD Asylum, Seen it on DVD (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-06-04, 19:15:59 (69.14.231.16)
A coworker had it on DVD and we watched it at lunchtime. The film quality looks as good as it's going to get from a 16mm camera strapped to the nose of a car. The transfer is pretty good, though somet .......
82: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Quality (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-31, 17:48:47 (69.14.231.16)
> Amarok use by default Xine. Xine and XMMS use OSS renderer by default. They all still use Alsa, in it's OSS compatability mode. It would probably be more effficient to use the native Alsa output mod .......
83: Films/DVD Asylum, Nope... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-31, 06:56:11 (12.173.211.146)
Bills Khakis shorts have VERY deep pockets :) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
84: Films/DVD Asylum, Not quite (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-31, 06:51:57 (12.173.211.146)
$12, we went to a matinee and I had a coupon. Besides, our AC at home is on the fritz, and the theater was freezing :) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
85: Computer Audio Asylum, Quality (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-31, 05:55:08 (12.173.211.146)
Most players sound the same on Linux because most of them use the same libraries for decoding and playback (audiofile or libsndfile for wav, mad or libmpeg for mp3, etc...) They also all use alsa for .......
86: Films/DVD Asylum, Quick thoughts on The Da Vinci Code (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-30, 20:27:36 (69.14.231.16)
So I finally saw it tonight, in a wonderfully frigid and mostly empty theater. 1. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about, there are some interesting ideas bandied about, but the film seems to cover e .......
87: Films/DVD Asylum, This Quiet Earth -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-30, 05:05:25 (69.14.231.16)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
88: Films/DVD Asylum, I agree (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-26, 06:14:43 (12.173.211.146)
I don't belive there were Romans, or Greeks, or Egyptians, or Jews. It's all made up by those countries as a ploy to boost tourism. They used evil Disney technology to make all those ruins look old. S .......
89: Propeller Head Plaza, Minireview - Good Night and Good Luck (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-24, 22:20:01 (69.14.231.16)
Saw it last night at home. Not as good as I thought it was going to be. I liked the quiet direction, but not a whole lot seemed to be happening. We had all these interesting side characters that didn' .......
90: Films/DVD Asylum, Minireview - Good Night and Good Luck (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-24, 22:20:01 (69.14.231.16)
Saw it last night at home. Not as good as I thought it was going to be. I liked the quiet direction, but not a whole lot seemed to be happening. We had all these interesting side characters that didn' .......
91: Computer Audio Asylum, Right... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-24, 22:08:52 (69.14.231.16)
> and isn't it amazing that the iPod appears to violate patents of Creative Inc., warranting a major lawsuit (and counter lawsuit that Apple seems to have been prepared for in advance...)? You mean th .......
92: Computer Audio Asylum, Easy (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-24, 11:17:55 (12.173.211.146)
All the companies who blantantly rip off Apple designs. Isn't it amazing how many of the new portable music players look like iPods? /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
93: Propeller Head Plaza, Not quite (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-24, 07:24:41 (12.173.211.146)
> If I suggested that Baxters had made a super tasting chicken soup - that I did not know what ingredient they had used that was any different to other soup producers but, in my opinion, it tasted goo .......
94: Computer Audio Asylum, Huh? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-22, 13:51:26 (69.14.231.16)
What problems have you found with g4u? It works pretty well for me. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
95: Films/DVD Asylum, I thought it was a given :) -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-22, 06:09:47 (12.173.211.146)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
96: Computer Audio Asylum, Moral #3 - Open Source is your friend (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-22, 05:29:05 (12.173.211.146)
g4u, or "Ghost for Unix" will do just about everything True Image or Ghost will do, and it's free. It's a quasi-command line interface, and takes a bit of reading to get going, but it's at least as go .......
97: Films/DVD Asylum, Experience (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-19, 12:36:38 (12.173.211.146)
So we'll have a, possibly, sharper image that won't degrade as film does with repeated screenings. This still won't help with: - dirty lenses, discolored screens, blown speakers, improperly set-up sou .......
98: Video Asylum, Audio selection (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-19, 08:13:53 (12.173.211.146)
Many DVD's allow you to select what type of audio to use in their main menu. When you put in a DVD, see if there is an "Audio Options" menu item on the DVD's main menu. Often there is an option for "S .......
99: Computer Audio Asylum, Nebulae (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-16, 06:27:01 (12.173.211.146)
Some people think that the extra processing power needed to decode Apple Lossless (or ALC) on the iPod introduces more noise into the audio output, compared to wav. They both sound the same to me, on .......
100: Films/DVD Asylum, Eh... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-14, 12:51:59 (69.14.231.16)
I started watching ER now and then with my wife a few years ago, and we stopped watching after it's downfall into soap opera medocrity soon after. I just didn't care about any of the characters. Now w .......
101: Computer Audio Asylum, Sorry to hear... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-14, 11:02:40 (69.14.231.16)
Fixing computers is kind of fun, sorry to hear about your medical problems. At least you can be your whole family's full time IT department, as much of us are anyways :) I ran through most of the cour .......
102: Computer Audio Asylum, Suggestions (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-13, 20:59:35 (69.14.231.16)
This should be enough for basic playback, probably not enough if you want to do fancy realtime upsampling or EQ. I'd find a used or OEM copy of Windows 2000 or XP home edition, 98's USB support leaves .......
103: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: PhD warning (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-13, 20:56:53 (69.14.231.16)
>BTW - setting up a router to share a cable modem doesn't mean that your now a MCSE and MCSA. I've wiped my router's firmware and replaced it with an embedded linux distro, it now runs an NTP daemon, .......
104: Digital Drive, More info please (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-12, 22:13:03 (69.14.231.16)
I'm guessing you are doing some sort of upsampling, and when you launch a new app, it resets the clock rate of your M-Audio back down to 44.1KHz. Try turning off all windows sounds in the Sounds & Aud .......
105: Computer Audio Asylum, Computer science (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-12, 22:09:24 (69.14.231.16)
Just because he's a computer science guy, doesn't necessarily mean he knows anything about maintaining and/or repairing computer hardware. At college I used to have to teach CS majors how to save thei .......
106: Computer Audio Asylum, More help (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-12, 22:00:38 (69.14.231.16)
These are special instructions that CPU's can use to speed up multimedia applications. The most common are: 3dNow! - Limited to some AMD processors, it's being abandoned in favor of- SSE/SSE2/SSE3 - T .......
107: Computer Audio Asylum, Sorta (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-12, 11:06:41 (12.173.211.146)
It works on a Mac, that doesn't mean there are any players that support it. At least, I don't know of one offhand. Here's a compiled binary for it: http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/libsample .......
108: Computer Audio Asylum, You mean libsamplerate... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-12, 08:25:27 (12.173.211.146)
AKA secret rabbit code? That works on OSX as well. I'm not sure of a player that uses it, I'm sure there's one out there. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
109: Computer Audio Asylum, A few (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-12, 08:21:32 (12.173.211.146)
Knoppix and Ubuntu are very easy to use and install, and there are a few variants of each designed for multimedia applications. I use gentoo linux on my MythTV PVR, which is a bit of a pain to configu .......
110: Films/DVD Asylum, Good movie (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-11, 10:55:11 (12.173.211.146)
Probably the best Steven King adaptation, not including The Shining, which wasn't a very faithful screenplay. I think it was much better than Forrest Gump, which took the oscar that year. /*Music is s .......
111: General Asylum, Another possibility (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-11, 06:26:54 (12.173.211.146)
... other than the less powerline noise theory, is that you are more relaxed and able to concentrate more at night, with fewer distractions, and, possibly, less noise outside (birds, cars, people.) Be .......
112: General Asylum, Bad sound at CES? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-10, 20:32:33 (69.14.231.16)
That NEVER happens! :) I prefer planars, but I've heard the smaller McIntosh speakers and they don't sound that bad for box speakers. I find their solid state electronics to be very accurate and uncol .......
113: General Asylum, McIntosh (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-10, 08:12:50 (12.173.211.146)
XRT2K speakers MC2KW 2000W monoblocks C1000C pre MCD1000/MDA1000 CD player & DAC MR85 tuner MS300 music server (supports flac :) MVP861 DVD/SACD player Probably in the mid $100K range for the whole se .......
114: General Asylum, Search the PC Audio forum (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-09, 06:47:18 (12.173.211.146)
This has been gone over dozens of times in there. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
115: Computer Audio Asylum, FLAC Composer field (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-09, 06:26:06 (12.173.211.146)
The newer versions of FLAC are part of the Xiph/Vorbis project, meaning you can use the ogg/vorbis style of extensible tag fields. You can add any fields you like during FLAC encoding with the -T flag .......
116: Vinyl Asylum, Fixable (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-04, 11:27:31 (12.173.211.146)
Those things have tons of aftermarket parts available. Possibly the most tweakable and repairable decks in existance, in the running with the LP12 at least. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ ::: .......
117: Digital Drive, Re: CD-R sound vs. CD? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-03, 07:15:17 (12.173.211.146)
Some people think that reburning CD's onto CD-R's reduces the amount of "mechanical jitter," or the small difference in timing in-between "bits" on the CD media. I've checked the jitter with a Plextor .......
118: Video Asylum, GeForce (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-02, 09:50:34 (12.173.211.146)
I use a GeForce 5600XT AGP card in my MythTV box, and it works great. It's only SVHS out, but the quality is excellent. Another benefit of the 7xxx series is you can use nVidia's PureVideo to use the .......
119: General Asylum, Some ideas (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-05-02, 09:04:35 (12.173.211.146)
Eminent Technologies used to make a sub/sat system using their small planar magnetic speakers, the LFT-11. I don't see it on their web site anymore, but there are probably some still floating around. .......
120: Digital Drive, Software (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-29, 20:17:21 (69.14.231.16)
Try here: http://www.pure-mac.com/audio.html I've used Audacity and Audiocoder. Audacity is totally free, if it doesn't do what you want, try out some of the other shareware. Pro audio software is usu .......
121: Computer Audio Asylum, It doesn't add spurious edges! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-29, 20:05:28 (69.14.231.16)
Don't you hate it when your CD ripper adds spurious edges? Also it futzes with the read head to increase read accuracy, or whatever. Looks like another box that does what a $300 computer can do, but w .......
122: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Digital audio (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-28, 12:20:46 (12.173.211.146)
Edirol UA-1EX USB audio interface. Around $80. Works pretty well for analog, and is as good as any other card for digital/optical. You'll need a TOSlink to 1/8" optical adapter, but they are cheap. /* .......
123: Computer Audio Asylum, Digital audio (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-28, 10:38:38 (12.173.211.146)
Sometimes you have to enable digital audio input in the soundcard driver's propriatary mixer, or control panel or whatever. Refer to the instructions that came with your sound card. /*Music is subject .......
124: Computer Audio Asylum, EPIA (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-28, 10:36:56 (12.173.211.146)
We use an EPIA variant at 1GHz to do 8 channels of real time audio analysis at work, and it works great. It looks like the 5000 is getting harder to get, the 1GHz 10000 isn't much more expensive. I'd .......
125: Computer Audio Asylum, Cheap (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-28, 06:45:45 (12.173.211.146)
Dell has some insane deals going on right now. You can pick up a relatively small Dimension 1100 w/ 2.5GHz Celeron, 160GB hard drive, 1GB RAM and 17" flat panel for $350. Even if you don't need all th .......
126: Computer Audio Asylum, Clarification (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-28, 06:41:19 (12.173.211.146)
What exactly do you want to do? Is the output of your keyboard some sort of optical MIDI, or optical digital audio? "MIDI player" is a very confusing term, I'm assuming you mean your keyboard/synthesi .......
127: Computer Audio Asylum, Woops (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-27, 20:33:37 (69.14.231.16)
I misremembered :) Actually, ICH6 let you do multiple RAID types across the same set of disks, so you can do RAID 5 and RAID 1 against the same three disks, or RAID 0 and 1 against two. Still not a go .......
128: Computer Audio Asylum, RAID 5 (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-27, 10:49:45 (12.173.211.146)
Just a reminder: For RAID 5 you need at least three drives. Four or five would be better. Some newer RAID controllers, like the ICH7R chipset from intel, let you cheat and do two drive RAID5 by doing .......
129: General Asylum, Sorta (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-27, 10:43:55 (12.173.211.146)
Keep in mind that they are NOT using MP3, but a tweaked AAC, I think. Still not full CD quality bitrate, but much better than MP3 at the same bitrate. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ ::: TOPIC: .......
130: Computer Audio Asylum, Yawn (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-26, 06:18:19 (12.173.211.146)
It's a small USB-Audio converter chip built in to a USB cable. Woo-hoo. "What? That's impossible!" Ugh, I hate Gizmodo. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
131: Computer Audio Asylum, Sound control panel (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-25, 19:14:01 (69.14.231.16)
Make sure you have the right "recording device" selected in the sound control panel, and that you have line-in selected as the source. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
132: Films/DVD Asylum, Re: The Sentinel (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-24, 21:45:14 (69.14.231.16)
> and a villian who escapes from a crowded shopping mall( after killing a few people including a CIA agent)by simply disguising himself in a jacket he steals from a sporting goods store.....or somethi .......
133: Computer Audio Asylum, Use audacity, it's free. (nt) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-24, 14:56:04 (69.14.231.16)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
134: Films/DVD Asylum, The Sentinel (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-22, 20:26:51 (69.14.231.16)
Brought to you by Radio Shack, GM, Chrysler and Panasonic. (Sutherland & Longoria roll up and BAM! 300C) Sutherland is Jack Bauer, working for the secret service. Douglas is this old guy who also work .......
135: Computer Audio Asylum, EAC Setup Basics (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-21, 06:01:04 (12.173.211.146)
Search is your friend. This topic has been beaten to death here and on other forums. Search for previous responses on this forum and on: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/ Also see: http://users.pan .......
136: Computer Audio Asylum, Stuff (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-20, 13:22:58 (12.173.211.146)
1 - SpeedStep is a taskbar applet that sits next to your clock. I'm not 100% sure, but I think Windows XP may control this natively. Basically it throttles your CPU speed down when you aren't doing mu .......
137: Computer Audio Asylum, Optimize (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-20, 06:09:34 (12.173.211.146)
Here's some stuff to try: - Make sure SpeedStep is cranked to "Maximum Performance" - Try disabling your ethernet interface (Right click on the LAN connection in the Network control pannel/folder) - T .......
138: Computer Audio Asylum, Intel? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-19, 12:45:51 (12.173.211.146)
> you work for Intel? Yeah, that's why I'm advocating VIA chips. (/scarcasm off) How expensive are those DT166s? Around $400 barebones? That much gets you a full EPIA or Mini-ITX based machine that's .......
139: Computer Audio Asylum, Small (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-19, 10:11:12 (12.173.211.146)
The VoomPC enclosure was meant for cars, but it's quite unobtrusive: http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.101/it.A/id.373/.f About 9" square, at 2" thick. A bit larger than the WYSE (it's ~6"x4" .......
140: Computer Audio Asylum, REALLY cost-no-object :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-19, 08:16:00 (12.173.211.146)
Apple Dual-core G5, in the basement Apple XRaid 7TB fibre-channel disk array (10,000 uncompressed CDs :) Keyspan USB remote control Plextor PX-716UF USB/FireWire DVDRW/CDRW drive RME Hammerfall HDSP 9 .......
141: Computer Audio Asylum, Linux (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-19, 06:46:39 (12.173.211.146)
> Its running linux though not Windows, that probably makes a BIG difference! It does, WinCE and XPe are pigs. Linux has optimizations for the Geode, as well, that Windows doesn't have. /*Music is sub .......
142: Computer Audio Asylum, Geode (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-18, 22:34:31 (69.14.231.16)
The problem is, the Geode may not even be as fast as a P350. They are based on the old Cyrix "Winchip" cores, which were very cheap, and VERY slow. They were considered slow when they came out, in 199 .......
143: Computer Audio Asylum, Flash is fun (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-18, 09:51:45 (12.173.211.146)
I've set up flash-boot computers before, and here are the problems I've found: 1. As a previous poster, um, posted.. flash chips have a limited number of writes before they die. I killed a 2GB flash c .......
144: Computer Audio Asylum, Problems (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-18, 09:46:31 (12.173.211.146)
These are really made for point of sale (cash registers.) Being based on WinCE may be a problem, if you are looking for USB audio drivers. WinCE may come with a generic audio USB driver that works, bu .......
145: Computer Audio Asylum, WMA (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-18, 09:41:29 (12.173.211.146)
If it's streaming windows media, you'll need SDP downloader, it's free. http://sdp.ppona.com/ If it's a realaudio stream, Mass Downloader *may* work. It's shareware, and a bit buggy. http://www.metapr .......
146: Films/DVD Asylum, The discreet charm of Kevin Smith (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-13, 10:18:03 (12.173.211.146)
My list of why Smiths' films are popular ('cause I like making lists of things) 1. His films are funny 2. His films are also dramatic without sucking out the fun 3. His characters talk more like real .......
147: Water Cooler, It's Science! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-12, 09:20:41 (12.173.211.146)
Experiment: Replace ordinary eggs in cake recipe with Cadbury Creme Eggs and observe results. Hypothesis: THIS IS GOING TO BE SO AWESOME I knew blogs would be good for something, someday. Found on far .......
148: Inmate Central, When your mind becomes obsessed with anything.... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-08, 20:52:49 (69.14.231.16)
A bit of odd wisdom from the movie Pi: http://leetnature.ytmnd.com/ Oddly applicable in audio as well... BTW, 1337 = LEET in computer-geek-speak, meaing elite, or very good :) /*Music is subjective. S .......
149: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Why run Windows on overly expensive hardware? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-07, 22:24:14 (69.14.231.16)
> Putting XP on that well designed hardware is very much the horse before the cart. Unless you just want the ability to run the occasional bit of Windows software on the Mac it would be a complete was .......
150: Films/DVD Asylum, Interesting! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-07, 22:07:46 (69.14.231.16)
Interesting quotes! Thanks for the information. Yep, a lot of his other work had heavy Chrisitan themes, if not an explicit topic of Christianity. However, some of his works I view as having some Chri .......
151: Films/DVD Asylum, Allegory (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-07, 12:34:35 (12.173.211.146)
> While basically true to Lewis' book, the resurrection allegory seemed only grudgingly included... Those objecting to the religious theme ought to just avoid the movie. Lewis didn't write the Narnia .......
152: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Why run Windows on overly expensive hardware? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-07, 06:24:08 (12.173.211.146)
> Completely ass-backwards. How about the ability to run Mac OS on the hardware of your choosing? Part of the beauty of MacOS is running it on (usually) very well designed Apple hardware. Apple starte .......
153: General Asylum, Sorta (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-06, 21:25:43 (69.14.231.16)
I'm not really into new age stuff, but I am into electronic music, which sometimes borders on new age/experimental stuff. Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works II (Classic, REALLY ambient stuff) Aphex T .......
154: Computer Audio Asylum, Clarifications (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-04-03, 10:33:16 (12.173.211.146)
> Using Apple Lossless you can assume 10Mb per minute of play. Say 400-700Mb per CD. Actually, that's how big uncomressed WAV files are (CD's store about 700MB of data) Typically, lossless formats wil .......
155: Films/DVD Asylum, Any subtitled :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-27, 06:24:49 (65.31.68.66)
Even with the original dub, I could only withstand watching for a couple minutes. I've got the subtitled Laserdisc release, my friend has the new DVD and I don't feel the need to get that release. /*M .......
156: Films/DVD Asylum, A few (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-26, 20:09:47 (69.14.231.16)
12 Monkeys Akira Glengarry Glen Ross Goodfellas Hard Boiled The Sting Quiz Show /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
157: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: EAC Question (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-23, 09:53:09 (12.173.211.146)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/index.php/t-500337.html Towards the bottom there are a few solutions. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
158: Films/DVD Asylum, Re: Urban and stylish groundbreaking films? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-22, 17:00:10 (69.14.231.16)
Delicatessen The Killer Eraserhead M /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
159: Computer Audio Asylum, Lifespan (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-22, 11:25:12 (12.173.211.146)
> Plus, how is anyone gonna verify or predict a mechanical product's lifespan ? It's not a mechanical product, it's solid state. Granted, the connector can fail, but USB connectors are trivial to repa .......
160: Computer Audio Asylum, High-resolution (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-22, 11:20:47 (12.173.211.146)
My experience with high resolution sources is limited. I've heard DVD-A's played on a laptop through a SoundBlaster 2ZS, and it's surprisingly good. As for upsampling, I like to keep everything at 44. .......
161: Speaker Asylum, At work... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-20, 20:46:44 (69.14.231.16)
At work we have a listening room set up with Genelec 2029A digital powered monitors with 1091A subs, fed through a TacT RCS digital preamp, driven by a dizzying array of digital sources. They are amaz .......
162: Computer Audio Asylum, The Future (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-20, 19:09:34 (69.14.231.16)
Stick with Apple lossless if you've already made the time investment in ripping to that format. If you have an urgent need to switch later, you can batch re-encode to whatever else you want later (let .......
163: Computer Audio Asylum, Hirez (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-20, 11:14:04 (12.173.211.146)
Your X-Fi should be able to play DVD-A discs, if you have a DVD-ROM drive. Computers can't play SACD's, but I think they can play the CD audio layer of SACD dual-discs. Some software players, like foo .......
164: Films/DVD Asylum, Paranoia (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-18, 13:23:27 (69.14.231.16)
I'm a fan of the quasi-paranoid, mystery/suspense/crime/espionage movies of the 60's and 70's. I haven't seen Blowup yet, but The Conversation is one of my favorites. Other good ones: The Three Days O .......
165: Films/DVD Asylum, Tone (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-18, 08:41:56 (69.14.231.16)
My friend, an avid "graphic novel" reader, and a fan of the original book, said they really toned down the storyline for the film. I've yet to see it, but it doesn't sound like it was faithful to the .......
166: General Asylum, Not fridays usually (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-17, 08:47:14 (12.173.211.146)
Friday's my wife and I go out with a bunch of friends from college, we try to hit a different restaraunt every time. We're usually out until midnight. Saturday nights, when I'm listening, will go to o .......
167: General Asylum, Nope (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-16, 12:31:21 (12.173.211.146)
I haven't heard RealityCheck CD copies, but I've heard a variety of tweaks from other manufacturers (fluids, rings, pens, fancy black CDRs, silver CDRs, stabilizers, etc...) and, erm, not heard a diff .......
168: General Asylum, Probably (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-16, 08:26:02 (12.173.211.146)
CD-R's have a subcode section letting the player know what type of CD it is (Audio CD, CD-ROM, CDi, CD+G, PhotoCD, VCD, etc...) It's sometimes called the book type, after the red, orange, beige, green .......
169: General Asylum, Position (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-16, 07:13:50 (12.173.211.146)
The RIAA's and MPAA's position, I believe, is that any copying or tanscoding is illegal, even if you own the media, and libraries loaning out CD's, movies and books is a violation of their copyright. .......
170: Films/DVD Asylum, Chaplin? Welles? Olivier? -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-16, 07:00:31 (12.173.211.146)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
171: Computer Audio Asylum, Needs (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-15, 18:00:36 (69.14.231.16)
It comes down to what you need. If you need a monitor, keyboard and mouse, go for the iMac. If you just need a headless (monitorless) box, or are going to plug it into your TV, get the mini. Oh, and t .......
172: General Asylum, Goldmine (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-15, 07:09:39 (12.173.211.146)
My new business venture, which will consist of selling any random item as an audio tweak. Coffee cups, small cubes of metal, bolts, bits of fuzz from my dryer's lint trap, bell wire wrapped around a p .......
173: General Asylum, Cryometallurgy (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-14, 06:12:46 (12.173.211.146)
Cryogenically tempering metal hardens it against mechanical wear. Razor blades usually become dull due to rust and oxidation from the chemicals in the shaving cream, not mechanical wear (skin doesn't .......
174: Digital Drive, Check computer forum (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-10, 08:15:40 (12.173.211.146)
This has been talked about to death, burried, dug up, stabbed, reburried, ad infinitum, in a horrible sysiphean loop, forever. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
175: Films/DVD Asylum, Amusing: SomethingAwful's IMDB entry for Merchant Ivory's worst film - The Stalwart Soul (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-10, 07:45:29 (12.173.211.146)
Starring Anthony Hopkins as Thomas Percy, Emma Thompson as Helenhelen, and Judi Dench as Thug #4. Also known as Operacin Hilaridad! in Mexico :) Don't read if you are offended by rather unbecoming b .......
176: General Asylum, Simplicity (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-09, 12:36:44 (12.173.211.146)
It's simple separating the wheat from the chaff in gearheadom. If a tweak purports to increase horsepower, the tweak will come with a dyno chart of the increased performance, ideally on a few differen .......
177: Vinyl Asylum, Pines of Rome (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-09, 08:04:20 (12.173.211.146)
Forgot which pressing, a system breaker if there ever was one. Last time I cranked it I blew a breaker. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
178: General Asylum, Anime soundtrack (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-08, 22:32:16 (69.14.231.16)
They sure are getting better than the cheesy 80's tracks :) The music in the first GITS movie was pretty good, but I'm really impressed with the soundtrack from Cowboy Bebop, loaded with tracks that s .......
179: General Asylum, Old gear (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-08, 13:09:13 (12.173.211.146)
One of my favorite recordings is "Are You Gonna Go My Way" by Lenny Kravitz. I don't care that much for most of the songs, but it's all recorded on wonderfully old tube gear. From the first track you .......
180: Vinyl Asylum, Ideal turntable motor? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-08, 12:01:39 (12.173.211.146)
A dual motor scheme with a high torque servo motor and AC motor wired into a single flywheel. The servo brings the platter up to speed, then the AC motor is activated and the servo deactivated. The co .......
181: Amp/Preamp Asylum, More isn't always more (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-08, 07:49:36 (12.173.211.146)
The tri-path chip maxes out at about 13.2V, or so I've heard. You can feed it more, but it will be pushed down to 13.2, at the cost of wasted heat. 12V should be plenty, anything over 13.2V gets conve .......
182: Speaker Asylum, DIY (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-08, 07:39:03 (12.173.211.146)
If you are halfway decent with a screwdriver, you can pick up a Dayton TITSK-10K powered 10" sub kit for around $360 from Parts Express. This is a fantastic subwoofer, and may be the best available fo .......
183: Digital Drive, Lektor (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-07, 07:03:13 (12.173.211.146)
I think that MI6 still has it, after Bond smuggled it out of Eastern Europe. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
184: Computer Audio Asylum, Clarifications (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-07, 06:59:28 (12.173.211.146)
1) The files can still be had, the MPAA doens't have a lot of pull in Norway/Iceland/Finland/etc... Google, and Bittorrent, are your friend. 2) I think the files get spit out as 96KHz WAV files, which .......
185: Computer Audio Asylum, Yep (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-06, 09:42:33 (12.173.211.146)
1 - Yes: http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/news.asp?newsnumber=14550899 2 - Probably Note: this is probably (stupidly) illegal. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
186: General Asylum, Re: Taxes in Canada (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-06, 09:35:29 (12.173.211.146)
Import tarifs + VAT + higher sales tax in general. Gets expensive quickly. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
187: Films/DVD Asylum, Don't ask me... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-06, 05:58:11 (12.173.211.146)
I watched Saturday night's Hustle and last week's The Office on my PVR. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
188: Computer Audio Asylum, 75 Wonderful ohms (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-05, 20:05:03 (69.14.231.16)
> If you are using two cable with a connection in the middle you would probably be better off with a 75ohm coax with real 75 ohm connectors such as BNC or Type F so you can get a real 75ohm connection .......
189: Inmate Central, Not really (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-04, 13:01:31 (69.14.231.16)
It's a bit of a problem with the big wind farm in Altamont, because it's located directly in the path of their migration routes. Not as much a problem in most other parts of the world. /*Music is sub .......
190: Tweakers' Asylum, Impressive (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-04, 07:03:59 (69.14.231.16)
That's some driver array. I wonder how well they image with all those varying driver topologies mixed in with each other. Those Hartley's are beautiful... /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ ::: TO .......
191: Films/DVD Asylum, A couple (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 19:40:44 (69.209.146.234)
Real Genius with Val Kilmer. Passed over as another stupid 80's teen college movie, it's quite a bit more intelligent than it's bretheren. It's pretty darn funny, too, with loads of geeky pranks and i .......
192: Tweakers' Asylum, Horns (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 19:21:36 (69.209.146.234)
I've heard whomping big horns in a variety of configurations, including an excellent pair of Hartsfield reproductions by, appropriatley enough, audio reproductions. I find full range horns have proble .......
193: General Asylum, First and a half (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 14:23:08 (12.173.211.146)
> Second, are you then saying it doesn't matter what kind of equipment and sound we get from our systems, because eventually we will adapt to it? It would certainly would save a lot of money and resou .......
194: General Asylum, Adaptation (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 12:30:39 (12.173.211.146)
Your senses adjust to stimuli to keep them within an acceptable range for analysis. Your pupils dialate in bright light, after a while soft sounds seem louder and loud sounds seem softer. An unbearabl .......
195: Inmate Central, Useful everyday hacks (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 10:41:18 (12.173.211.146)
Get out of your cell phone contract without paying a cancellation fee (only if you have free roaming, which many do) http://roaminghack.blogspot.com/ StationRipper, grab MP3's for free from internet r .......
196: Films/DVD Asylum, Academy Awards (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 08:37:17 (12.173.211.146)
Movie production company Participant Studios: http://www.participantproductions.com/ "Participant believes in the power of media to create great social change." Producers of Syriana, Murderball, North .......
197: Tweakers' Asylum, Ideal speaker configuration (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 07:14:09 (12.173.211.146)
So I'm toying with the idea of a dedicated listening room in the basement (super long-term planning :), and if I'm going that route I'll probably do my own speakers. From what I've gleaned on various .......
198: Digital Drive, Control (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 05:56:59 (12.173.211.146)
What cable are you using as your 'control' sample? /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
199: Computer Audio Asylum, Airtunes (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-03, 05:50:59 (12.173.211.146)
> I can't really use my Airport Express for my music because I have to access the internet wirelessly because of my setup. So you are using the Airport Express as a router/internet gateway? This is le .......
200: Tweakers' Asylum, Yep (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-02, 19:05:13 (69.14.231.16)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
201: Digital Drive, Intelligent playlist creation (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-02, 10:16:34 (12.173.211.146)
There are a bunch of apps that can cook up intelligent playlists like the Bose gizmo. There's AudioScrobbler, MoodLogic, MusicBrainz, and a dozen other web-only apps. MoodLogic is the big one, at leas .......
202: Computer Audio Asylum, Recording (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-02, 09:26:14 (12.173.211.146)
You can run into huge problems with unisolated computer connections when recording audio. I've seen noise come in from the computer's power supply (pulling the plug and running on laptop battery fixed .......
203: Digital Drive, So... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-02, 09:12:55 (12.173.211.146)
The box is actually several hundred feet on each side, and contains a complete symphony orchestra who will play any song you like. RCA analog outs only, though. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
204: Tweakers' Asylum, Bang / Buck (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-02, 08:06:10 (12.173.211.146)
The biggest bang for your buck (nearly free :) is to set up your speakers correctly, and fix, as best as you can, the acoustic problems in your room. You can do it by ear, but help is cheap. Grab an S .......
205: Films/DVD Asylum, A better reference (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-02, 06:20:59 (12.173.211.146)
Toy Story 2. Pure digital to digital transfer, hardly any compression artifacts, and a better than life color pallet. If a display device can handle it without choking, it's set up pretty well. Grante .......
206: Computer Audio Asylum, AV710 (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-02, 06:10:06 (12.173.211.146)
Actually, for the money, the AV710 is a great card. The Envy24 is a pretty decent chip, and doesn't do much damage to the audio stream, unlike some of the Creative cards. Here's a thread on Head-fi ab .......
207: Computer Audio Asylum, Ephpod (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-03-01, 07:04:44 (12.173.211.146)
It looks like Ephpod nuked the directory on the iPod. Older versions of Ephpod were notorious for doing this (the Windows 98/ME version isn't being updated anymore.) Look for an option in Ephpod to re .......
208: Computer Audio Asylum, New Mac Mini looks interesting... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-28, 12:06:27 (12.173.211.146)
It's now based on the Intel single and dual core chips, which seems to be working out pretty well. Same low heat/noise design. Two more USB 2 ports, analog and S/PDIF audio in and out, television outp .......
209: General Asylum, Used (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-27, 10:57:04 (12.173.211.146)
Because you can pick up a used, very nice, 5-channel Yamaha, Outlaw, Denon, Rotel or B&K receiver for a few hundred dollars. And, as someone else pointed out, when you are building a new receiver, aft .......
210: Digital Drive, Combination (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-27, 08:32:05 (12.173.211.146)
I'm not sure that, in general, a high voltage tube power supply living next to a digital power supply in the same chasis is such a good idea... /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
211: Video Asylum, Sorta... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-27, 07:16:33 (12.173.211.146)
> Now you blame the manufacturers? The real problem is Congress and all the voters who ignore what they are doing, Yep, I blame congress, for instituting the change in the first place. They should hav .......
212: Video Asylum, I think so (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-27, 07:04:33 (12.173.211.146)
It will play DVD+R/+RW, but I'm not entirely sure about dual layer. I don't see why not, it seems to play everything else, and dual layer has been around for a while. /*Music is subjective. Sound is n .......
213: Video Asylum, Value (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-26, 19:36:10 (69.14.231.16)
Oppo Digital OP-DV971H. DVI output only, but comes with a DVI-HDMI converter cable. All the bells and whistles, and picture quality rivals units costing thousands of dollars. /*Music is subjective. So .......
214: Digital Drive, Lossy (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-26, 15:38:45 (68.60.114.105)
The problem is that the lossy codecs remove so much information from the audio, that any difference in DAC would be trivial compared to the damage done to the source material. Analogy - if you have a .......
215: Computer Audio Asylum, Record settings (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-26, 15:24:38 (68.60.114.105)
There's a seperate panel to select which device you want to record from. In the standard windows mixer you go to the Options menu -> Properties -> click Recording radio button then OK. You then select .......
216: Planar Speaker Asylum, Not sure... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-26, 15:18:51 (68.60.114.105)
I'm not sure what kind of magnet you'll need, but Edmund Scientific has a good selection, as does magnetsource.com. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
217: General Asylum, Detroit area (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-26, 11:34:13 (69.14.231.16)
Audio Dimensions in Royal Oak Almas Hi-Fi in Royal Oak Overture Audio in Ann Arbor /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
218: Films/DVD Asylum, Burning DVD/CD (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-26, 08:29:08 (69.14.231.16)
> Let it be known that I DO NOT advocate burning DVDs and CDs By "Burning" I think you mean "Ripping/copying." What is wrong with copying a CD or DVD if you own it? Of course, copying a DVD may bypass .......
219: Computer Audio Asylum, Output (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-24, 20:31:57 (69.14.231.16)
As far as I know, WMP is pretty much welded into DirectSound, which in turn uses the regular kmixer output path. I guess it's possible to write another output plugin, in the form of some DSP module or .......
220: Computer Audio Asylum, Recording (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-24, 20:23:39 (69.14.231.16)
I'm not sure what M-Audio board you are using, but usually you have to select which line input you want in the mixer, and make sure you have the M-Audio selected in the Sounds & Multimedia control pan .......
221: General Asylum, Really? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-24, 07:36:06 (12.173.211.146)
You've auditioned that system? I mean, you must have, to come to such a conclusion... /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
222: Films/DVD Asylum, Golden age? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-24, 06:22:11 (12.173.211.146)
> There are a few good Am directors working in Hollywood: it ain't no Golden Age, as seems to be the case in Asia So, the combined film industries of the continent of Asia are collectively producing m .......
223: General Asylum, Protocol (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-23, 13:21:18 (12.173.211.146)
Here's a protocol I developed for the GSIC, which I don't think anyone used (at least nobody admitted using it.) It can be tweak easily for trying out RC CD's, basically you make two copies using the .......
224: Video Asylum, Try this... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-23, 11:47:19 (12.173.211.146)
1. Unplug your TV, let it sit for a few minutes 2. Plug your TV back in, and turn it on 3. Let it sit for a minute or two, turn it off, then turn it back on Repeat step three a couple more times. If i .......
225: Computer Audio Asylum, Decent cards (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-23, 10:50:49 (12.173.211.146)
M-Audio Audiophile 2496, 192, The Santa Cruz boards are pretty good, the older Santa Cruz era boards are somewhat better than the newer VIA EnvyHT-S based boards. Boards based on the VIA Envy24, howev .......
226: General Asylum, Too much information (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-23, 10:33:57 (12.173.211.146)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
227: Digital Drive, Veracity (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-22, 09:56:17 (12.173.211.146)
> I have contacted George who has been most helpful and has suggested a further trial of buckwheat pillows under the RC I assume that's for vibration damping. Does the unit not have enough vibration d .......
228: Video Asylum, One option (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-22, 06:56:56 (12.173.211.146)
Klipsch ProMedia D5.1 + Inexpensive+good DVD player, like an Oppo 971 Klipsch multimedia speakers are pretty good, and fine for a small room. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
229: Films/DVD Asylum, Better remakes (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-21, 18:41:50 (69.14.231.16)
I just saw the remake of the Italian Job yesterday, and was struck by how much better it was than the original. By no means were either film that great, but the remake was a lost more interesting to w .......
230: Video Asylum, argh... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-21, 17:42:30 (69.14.231.16)
> But you will still be able to play High Definition movies on your PC with the other Operating Systems in a downrezzed form According to Microsoft's PVP-OPM documentation, it will be digitally blurre .......
231: Computer Audio Asylum, Niches (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-21, 13:30:25 (12.173.211.146)
It's only a matter of time before someone cooks up a Linux distribution desgined for audio/media playback. The Linux audio drivers are much kinder to bitstreams than the windows counterparts, and offe .......
232: Digital Drive, Coax and SPDIF (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-21, 06:24:31 (12.173.211.146)
'RCA' or single-ended is also coaxial. Coaxial refers to a single wire connector inside another one, if you look at the end of an F-type cable connector and an RCA they are the same configuration. S/P .......
233: General Asylum, Erm, FLAC? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-21, 06:01:38 (12.173.211.146)
Get flac.exe from rarewares.org. run flac -d 'filename' will blow it out to a .wav /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
234: Video Asylum, The coming HDCP nightmare (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-17, 08:24:02 (12.173.211.146)
So, it turns out all those ATI video cards that have purported to support HDCP, don't even have basic hardware support for it. ATI lied. Want to watch a blue-ray or HD-DVD on your computer? You'll nee .......
235: General Asylum, Re: Equipment turn on/off order ?? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-17, 08:00:50 (12.173.211.146)
Amp first (takes about a minute to charge up, then settle down) Preamp right after the amp After the amp warms up, I turn on my sources My McIntosh gear seems to have no on 'thump' so I'm not that con .......
236: General Asylum, Microsoft bought HDCD a few years ago -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-17, 05:41:00 (12.173.211.146)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
237: General Asylum, Non audiophile doesn't always mean bad sound :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-16, 21:23:09 (69.14.231.16)
McIntosh MA5100 integrated with Camebridge Soundworks Model Six speakers. Mac's cheapest integrated with a mini-clone of the original Advents. Sounds pretty good. My iPod. Sirius radio (iffy compressi .......
238: General Asylum, Dominance (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-15, 20:20:50 (69.14.231.16)
In the 80's, Japan was going to take over the world markets. In the 90's, it was the European Union. Now it's China. I don't think it's going to happen, their current rate of economic growth is unmain .......
239: Amp/Preamp Asylum, Interesting rhetoric, a bit dadaist, isn't it? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-15, 17:47:32 (69.14.231.16)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
240: General Asylum, Really? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-15, 08:56:33 (12.148.60.177)
Didn't he use a proto-DBT setup to debunk Mesmer's quack magnetic healing gizmos? /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
241: General Asylum, HT Craziness (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-15, 07:05:34 (12.148.60.177)
Seven McIntosh XRT2k speakers ($40K each) Seven McIntosh MC2KW 2KW amps to drive them ($30K each) Whise 616 subwoofers ($32K each) McIntosh MC1201 1.2KW amps to drive them ($9K each) Lexicon MC12B ($9 .......
242: General Asylum, No (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-14, 19:13:14 (69.14.231.16)
My 214 has been plugging away, driving Maggie 1.4's, MGMC1's, then in bridged mode into my sub. It's worked flawlessly for almost 6 years, plus however long the guy before me had it. By applying 'loui .......
243: General Asylum, Canadian sale, probably a bunch of import taxes and VAT included -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-14, 06:27:10 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
244: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Audigy DAC (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-13, 18:39:20 (69.14.231.16)
Check under the "Chipset" column. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
245: General Asylum, Quickie (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-13, 13:54:07 (12.148.60.177)
To get really decent sound for $1500, I'd go used. As long as you purchase carefully, on both audiogon and eBay, you shouldn't get burned. I haven't, yet ;) Adcom GFP-565 preamp ~$300 (includes phono) .......
246: Propeller Head Plaza, Inspection (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-13, 10:51:35 (12.148.60.177)
I've heard that, in general, every 10 or 15 years have your home inspected, as if you were buying a new one. The inspector will check out your wiring as part of the whole speil, and let you know if an .......
247: Computer Audio Asylum, Minireview: Creative Labs Sound Blaster 2 ZS (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-13, 10:40:55 (12.148.60.177)
These are a PCMCIA version of the Audigy 2 ZS sound card. I bought a few of these for work, for doing very basic audio measurements. The audio engineer we have threw it on the Audio Precision to measu .......
248: Computer Audio Asylum, Reasons (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-11, 19:13:56 (69.14.231.16)
I compress everything using FLAC, mainly to save space. Hey, it's an extra 30-50% more space for free, why not? Especially becuase I use my media machine for storing PVR shows, videos, pictures, and a .......
249: General Asylum, Issues (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-10, 19:46:18 (69.14.231.16)
The problem I see with an interface like this is you loose screen real estate. You have much more precision with a mouse pointer, since it is a virtual pointing device, you can set things like acceler .......
250: Computer Audio Asylum, Interesting (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-09, 07:05:01 (12.148.60.177)
Interesting explaination. It's easy to see if a file is fragmented; just kick open Disk Defragmenter, hit 'Analyze', and hit 'Report' Thing is, the file has to be really fragmented to get the drive he .......
251: Computer Audio Asylum, Audacity (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-08, 12:41:47 (12.148.60.177)
It's not as fully featured as commercial audio editors, but it can do quite a bit. Can't beat the price (free :) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
252: Computer Audio Asylum, Sorta (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-08, 10:26:09 (12.148.60.177)
> ...even thought the files are identical, how can you be certain that there is not an audible artifact from a *compressed* file *uncompressing*? I can be certain because I used a debugging virtual so .......
253: Computer Audio Asylum, Byte my bits :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-07, 21:08:02 (69.14.231.16)
By "Rigid belief system" here, I assume you mean the collected body of 80 years of computer science and engineering knowledge. You seem to be assuming that audio is some sort of special case in softwa .......
254: Computer Audio Asylum, Correction (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-07, 19:25:23 (69.14.231.16)
Most hard drives have 2-8 *MB* of buffer, and my MaxLine's have 16MB, which isn't as badass as GB, but still... :) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
255: Computer Audio Asylum, ECE4610 (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-07, 19:03:10 (69.14.231.16)
Even on a seriously fragmented hard drive, the built-in 2-8GB buffer (16 on my badass MaxLine IIIs :) is plenty to alleviate any timing issues. On top of that, modern OSes set aside most unused system .......
256: Computer Audio Asylum, Testing (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-07, 12:03:04 (12.148.60.177)
Just to clarify, how *exactly* did you test? I'm assuming it's an A/B/C listening preference style test (which sounds better) How many iterations did you go through? I'm assuming it was double-blind.. .......
257: Computer Audio Asylum, Bits is bits (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-07, 11:58:38 (12.148.60.177)
If they weren't, in the computer domain, at least, and forgive me for shouting... COMPUTERS WOULD NOT WORK A non-deterministic computer system is a useless pile of plastic and silicon. It wouldn't eve .......
258: Computer Audio Asylum, md5 (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-07, 06:56:59 (12.148.60.177)
> As to the checksum - is that process really looking not only after the number of bits, but also, that their order is the same. It looks to see if ANYTHING is different. If one bit is off (odds are) .......
259: Computer Audio Asylum, Playback (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-07, 06:10:10 (12.148.60.177)
> Maybe, the flac-plugin in JRiver screws up, maybe the compression and/or decompression algorythm does not work properly, That would be my guess, the only FLAC plugins I really trust are for Winamp ( .......
260: General Asylum, Feed (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-07, 05:59:19 (12.148.60.177)
DirecTV probably gets their feed straight from the uncompresesed source. That's the way Dish gets their's, they then use their own compression, which I belive is some form of AAC. /*Music is subjectiv .......
261: Computer Audio Asylum, Latency (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-05, 20:08:21 (69.14.231.16)
> If you had a really high-latency drive, you might get drop-outs If the latency of your hard drive is causing dropouts, then audio playback is the least of your worries. Your hard drive is very, very .......
262: Propeller Head Plaza, Reasoning (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-03, 13:25:47 (12.148.60.177)
My reasoning is simply: 1. There are many "audiophile" labels left, which go extra lengths to produce quality recordings 2. If there was some process that would dramatically improve the sound of their .......
263: Propeller Head Plaza, Futurism (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-03, 11:05:43 (12.148.60.177)
Really? Mofi sells MP3s? Reference Recordings? Sheffield? Do any audiophile labels, which, ostensibly, put quality over everything else, cryo their discs? For upwards of $20 to $40 a disc, they can af .......
264: Propeller Head Plaza, Ubiquity (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-03, 08:09:35 (12.148.60.177)
It works so amazingly well, that over the course of the last 16 years, almost every audiophile label has adopted the process. Oh wait, no they haven't. No label I know of does this. The process has go .......
265: Films/DVD Asylum, Re: Satirical Film Ideas? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-02, 11:21:15 (12.148.60.177)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail - The bit with the two peasants in the field arguing about democracy; the trojan bunny, the witch trial... Sleeper has a bunch of good scenes Young Frankenstein /*Music .......
266: General Asylum, Adding dB (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-02, 10:48:23 (12.148.60.177)
I posted below how to add dB. If you're still confused: 19 + 19 + 26 If you add two of the same dB figures together, you just cheat and add 3, so 19db + 19dB = 22dB. Doing the math, 22dB + 26dB = 27.5 .......
267: General Asylum, Log (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-02, 06:31:25 (12.148.60.177)
I've just been having fun writing software that tosses around dB. First, you need to see what the dB measurement is referenced to. It's probably SPL, since they are positive. First, convert from decib .......
268: General Asylum, Old news (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-01, 10:50:25 (12.148.60.177)
Nope; you turn it off, it stays off. No data is sent thereafter. It's a user-configured feature. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
269: Digital Drive, McIntosh (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-02-01, 06:21:13 (12.148.60.177)
I've got a McIntosh MCD7008 CD changer that works great. It's based on the Nakamichi soundbank mechanism, which is really fast and pretty reliable. Nak doesn't make soundbank changers for home anymore .......
270: General Asylum, SVS (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-30, 13:09:56 (12.148.60.177)
I built my own sub for my maggies, it's based on the Dayton Titanic Mk. III 12", with a custom box. It works very well, and the kits you can get from parts express are easy to assemble. My friend has .......
271: Films/DVD Asylum, Altman to receive honorary oscar (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-30, 07:32:43 (12.148.60.177)
I'm assuming, for his 70's vintage films, 'cause he hasn't put out much in the last two decades that I would consider worthwhile. Gosford Park was OK, I'm sure it would have been great save for the ho .......
272: Water Cooler, Benefit/reward (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-30, 07:06:19 (12.148.60.177)
A bunch of my friends use Vonage, and they all love it. I'm seriously considering it. Pros: -Can be a LOT cheaper than old landline -Almost every optional feature of regular phones is included -Sound .......
273: Films/DVD Asylum, Comedy (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-30, 05:48:44 (12.148.60.177)
Blues Brothers, after Elwood first picks up Jake, the first thing he asks about is the car. The whole scene is great, but when Jake lights his cigarette with the car's cigarette lighter, then throws i .......
274: Propeller Head Plaza, Nope (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-27, 11:50:31 (12.148.60.177)
The 45 has been a common calibre since the mid 1880's, where it was popular with Turkish infantry rifles, later being adopted by the British and Americans. The 1911 .45 automatic popularized a custom .......
275: Computer Audio Asylum, UA-1EX (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-27, 11:40:42 (12.148.60.177)
I picked up a few UA-1EXs for general audio testing, and they work very well. My favorite feature: you can put them into a "dumbed down" mode where they will operate up to 16/48 using the generic USB .......
276: Computer Audio Asylum, What I have (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-27, 07:41:11 (12.148.60.177)
Usually I build my own machines, but last summer I picked up a Dell Dimension 9100, 3GHz P4, 512MB RAM, GeForce 6800, with Dell's outstanding 24" LCD monitor, for $1400. Basically, the monitor was fre .......
277: Digital Drive, Write offset (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-26, 19:24:09 (69.14.231.16)
Sorry, I misunderstood. Did you try setting the write offset using a CD offset check CD? It's common for the write offset to be different than the read offset. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ : .......
278: Digital Drive, Just get AccurateRip (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-26, 14:49:44 (12.148.60.177)
Just grab AccurateRip, and put the .dll in your EAC folder. It will set your offset automatically (from an online database) then test to make sure it's correct. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
279: General Asylum, I was talking about OEM, aftermarket doesn't care about durability -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-26, 05:05:48 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
280: General Asylum, Reasons (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-25, 07:37:22 (12.148.60.177)
1. An extra $0.50 of hardware ends up costing $20 in the end product. Mostly, it's due to testing; cars are harsh environments and every piece of a radio has to last for the life of the radio. A jack .......
281: Films/DVD Asylum, Not yet (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-24, 21:43:14 (69.14.231.16)
Probably not yet, but if he can influence (fix) how Disney is run, his shares are going to be worth a ton. From what I've heard, there are a few idiot officers who are ruining Disney. Diluting the bra .......
282: Films/DVD Asylum, Review: Hoodwinked (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-24, 09:21:51 (12.148.60.177)
Saw it last weekend with my wife, her 12 year old brother, and her 6 year old nephew, at an MJR theater. Average 3d animation, about what you'd see on a well animated TV show. The water was crazy, the .......
283: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: How Many Gigs (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-22, 18:12:28 (69.14.231.16)
60GB of ripped FLACs (about 180 CDs) , 5GB of MP3s (ripped, bought, free, etc...) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
284: Computer Audio Asylum, Full volume is OK (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-20, 12:24:28 (12.148.60.177)
Usually line-level interconnects are referenced to a 2V peak, most headphone outputs won't put out nearly this much voltage. More volume means better dynamic range over noise floor as well. /*Music is .......
285: General Asylum, Tone (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-20, 12:22:11 (12.148.60.177)
In general, EQ is frowned upon because it's usually done really poorly. Cello had the "Audio Palette" which had all kinds of high quality controls, as well as outstanding surround decoding, but it was .......
286: Films/DVD Asylum, Narnia/Potter Steel Cage Match (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-19, 10:40:09 (12.148.60.177)
> Have you seen The Chronic Ills of Nurdia, yet? All sorts of conservative christian allegory are woven into the C. S. Lewis story; unchallenging, sanitized Disney pablum for Conservatively reared kid .......
287: General Asylum, Tubes (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-19, 10:22:52 (12.148.60.177)
Not to mention, if they were glowing blue, you may be overdriving them quite a bit :) Otherwise, yep, that would be one heavily modded parasound... /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
288: General Asylum, Oxyclean (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-18, 21:57:39 (69.14.231.16)
Ozone may or may not be bad for you, but I've inhaled a bunch of it and it's nasty. Dried out my lungs and sinuses something awful. As for using it to clean out electronics, it would probably work gan .......
289: General Asylum, Wierd (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-18, 21:47:24 (69.14.231.16)
That's really odd, I can't imagine how 2.4GHz would creep into the range of audiability. At work we have a lab with 2.4GHz, 900MHz, FM band stuff and a bunch of other RF sources blasting away from tim .......
290: General Asylum, Nope (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-18, 10:23:16 (12.148.60.177)
Won't do it. There's an outside chance, if you have a QT movie encoded with an MPEG4 compatable format, WMP *might* be able to figure it out, but probably not. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ : .......
291: Computer Audio Asylum, Computerphilia (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-18, 08:36:26 (12.148.60.177)
Ars Technica has a system builder's guide every few months, if you're looking to build the ultimate all-purpose machine. I've linked to their most recent "God Box" article, where they list the best ge .......
292: Computer Audio Asylum, Quality (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-18, 08:11:49 (12.148.60.177)
WavPack and FLAC have the same audio quality, the data the codec presents to the sound card is exactly the same, I know 'cause I've tested it (soundcard driver shim that dumps to a file) I'm not sure .......
293: Computer Audio Asylum, More fun with hard drives (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-17, 17:37:30 (69.14.231.16)
RAID 0 doesn't give you twice the performance for most operations, and is really only useful for moving TONS of data around, as in video editing or editing dozens of audio tracks. Also, most on-board .......
294: Computer Audio Asylum, Input (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-17, 09:53:59 (69.14.231.16)
I can verify that, for recording purposes at least, the Edirol UA-1D and UA-1EX in basic driver, optical digital input mode are bit-perfect. They use the generic usb audio driver; when connected, they .......
295: Computer Audio Asylum, Keep drives alive (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-16, 11:07:30 (69.14.231.16)
How to make hard drives last longer: 1. Keep them cool, I have a file server that runs 24/7, with drives that have been spinning for years. The secret is the case I'm using (Antec) has a dedicated dri .......
296: Films/DVD Asylum, minireview (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-13, 12:45:43 (12.148.60.177)
I just saw it last night on my friend's home theater, we watched the theatrical version. I thought the first half was decent, but at 2 hours the plot was stretched thin. It would have been a good 1.25 .......
297: Computer Audio Asylum, Drivers (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-13, 07:13:43 (12.148.60.177)
Pretty much every video card is supported, though 3d acceleration support can be flaky if you care about that. Sound card drivers usually lag a few months behind windows, but, unlike windows, they are .......
298: Computer Audio Asylum, Yep (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-12, 10:32:36 (12.148.60.177)
It's Linux, not the Linus operating system. Linus is the guy in charge of the kernel :) I've got a homebrew PVR running MythTV running Gentoo Linux (DIY linux, you build everything yourself but it's S .......
299: Computer Audio Asylum, Quality (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-12, 06:13:13 (12.148.60.177)
It depends on what condition your CDs are in. If they are in really good condition, you probably won't notice a difference. If you're worried about it, rip a CD with EC on, and again with it off, then .......
300: Computer Audio Asylum, De-suckify XP (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-10, 05:55:45 (12.148.60.177)
1. Install SP2, and all critical updates. 2. Turn off error reporting, system restore, multiple user login + fas user switching 3. Turn your internet explorer cache down to 20MB (It's usually set redi .......
301: Films/DVD Asylum, Remake (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-07, 21:57:26 (69.14.231.16)
It's a remake of a 70's B-movie called "Parts: The Clonus Horror" which got a pretty good Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. They got a lot of mileage out of Peter Grave's appearance, mostly havi .......
302: General Asylum, Didn't care for them (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-07, 21:44:59 (69.14.231.16)
The stores in our area were always quite a bit more expensive than anywhere else. When they first opened they had a great, ecclectic selection of just about anything (magazines, books, music, videos, .......
303: Computer Audio Asylum, iPod Linux (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-07, 14:42:00 (69.14.231.16)
The best way to void the warranty on your iPod, install iPodLinux on it :) http://ipodlinux.org/ Drawbacks: Doesn't play high-bitrate compressed audio yet Battery life is a bit iffy Interface is not v .......
304: Propeller Head Plaza, Cable dissection (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-06, 14:12:02 (12.148.60.177)
Has been done to, at least, a Transparent audio cable: Swedish website's Transparent cable dissection ... with an english translation on Dan's Data ... Basically, a polystyrene cap and a Vishay resis .......
305: General Asylum, Re: A novel approach to creating a scratchless cd.. (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-06, 10:00:46 (12.148.60.177)
I'm not exactly sure how much difference this will make. Scratches on the bottom of the CD are usually not a big deal, if it's deep enough through the plastic to actually hit the aluminum, you'd be sc .......
306: Pro Audio Asylum, Got the Edirol (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-06, 07:57:22 (12.148.60.177)
They are really nice. We bought a few of the UA-1EX from sweetwater's. Features: USB bus powered WDM, ASIO 2.0, and MacOS CoreAudio driver support Stereo RCA ins and outs Optical digital in and out on .......
307: General Asylum, Deafness (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-05, 22:46:10 (69.14.231.16)
The problem is usually people playing them too loudly, which has a much greater effect than if you were listening to a speaker or headphones. With my Etymotics I usually don't need to have the iPod's .......
308: General Asylum, FYI (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-05, 19:12:11 (69.14.231.16)
The "MP3" format is a lot older than SACD. It comes from the original MPEG spec released in the late 80's. Therefore, SACD is much better than MP3's, as long as you can find something interesting to l .......
309: Computer Audio Asylum, I don't think so (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-04, 05:47:30 (12.148.60.177)
If a program uses FreeDB, it's probably because they don't want to pay Gracenote for the privalege of using their CD database (The CDDB, which is all user-donated CD track information, which they then .......
310: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Playback software... does it effect quality? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-04, 05:44:07 (12.148.60.177)
> is this the one tha double-triple checks each bit, when it rips?) All rippers do some basic level of error correction, EAC is generally considered to be the most accurate. > will it effect the quali .......
311: Pro Audio Asylum, Hmmm.. (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-04, 05:31:41 (12.148.60.177)
I'm just doing stereo 44.1KHz recording, latency isn't a big issue, so why do I need a firewire interface? Which firewire interface would you reccomend? /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ ::: TOPI .......
312: Films/DVD Asylum, Government agency concerned with supernatural forces? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-03, 11:51:46 (12.148.60.177)
*cough*Hellboy*cough* :) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
313: General Asylum, No problem (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-03, 11:49:20 (12.148.60.177)
As far as the CD is concerned, it doesn't care where the audio data is coming from, it's all the same. You'll have to burn the CD with iTunes, though, as it's the only thing that will transcode from A .......
314: Pro Audio Asylum, Help with basic USB sound recording (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-02, 22:37:50 (69.14.231.16)
I'm looking for a decent quality USB audio device to record audio. I'd like: 1. Simple setup, ideally computer-powered, ideally uses the generic Windows USB audio drivers 2. Low noise floor 3. RCA inp .......
315: General Asylum, Meta-review (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-01, 22:09:21 (69.14.231.16)
... at consumersearch.com, down towards the bottom of the page. I'm glad the Dyson works great for you, but other people have found problems. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
316: General Asylum, Hoover (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2006-01-01, 17:19:45 (69.14.231.16)
Hoover pre-windtunnel cannister vacuum, with the HEPA filter and regular filter bags. It works really well on just about anything. I've heard the Dyson's work really well, especially on hardwood floor .......
317: General Asylum, US Rules (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-30, 22:59:48 (69.14.231.16)
As far as I know, these are the fair use "guidelines" in the US: You can make a copy of any non-copy-protected media you own. That is, CD's are OK, records are OK, DVD's aren't, SACD's aren't. This in .......
318: Computer Audio Asylum, Legality (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-30, 13:06:32 (69.14.231.16)
Hard, completely legal way: Play the DVD on your DVD player, bring the analog audio out to your computer, record it... OR Play the DVD on your computer, set your audio recording software to record the .......
319: General Asylum, Best batteries (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-30, 11:41:20 (69.14.231.16)
I think it was Consumer Reports who tested a whole bunch of batteries to see which would last the longest. I think the fancy Duracells came out on top, lasting longer in just about every application. .......
320: Films/DVD Asylum, Modern history (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-30, 11:24:31 (69.14.231.16)
> (Sahara hardly qualifies 'cause it's just a location w/out any African theme, right?). Actually one of the main plot lines is a disease that's killing off several villages, with a whole Mugabi dicta .......
321: Films/DVD Asylum, List (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-30, 00:09:09 (69.14.231.16)
> Quick... name how many African theme films (with the exception of Out of Africa) you've heard of or seen? I love these games! Here goes: African Queen Blackhawk Down Casablanca Heart Of Darkness Hot .......
322: General Asylum, Benefits of used (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-29, 13:36:08 (69.14.231.16)
It's pre-depreciated, and in the near term, pretty stable price-wise. I can sell my 10-year old maggies for just about what I paid for them three years ago. The preamp I'm going to sell has depreciate .......
323: General Asylum, Just wait... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-29, 10:48:18 (69.14.231.16)
They're looking to plug the "analog hole." No more analog to digital conversion without industry approval. At least, not as long as you want to play it on any kind of electronic equipment that you can .......
324: Films/DVD Asylum, The Lion (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-27, 14:02:15 (69.14.231.16)
The lion isn't Jesus, per se, but an allegory for the moral of a bit of his story. If you've read the Narnia books, you'll find he most certainly isn't supposed to be Jesus. /*Music is subjective. So .......
325: Films/DVD Asylum, Please don't quote up E.W. (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-26, 23:10:46 (69.14.231.16)
As a magazine it's useful in that, if you're being attacked by someone in a doctor's office waiting room, you can roll it up tightly and use it as a makeshift cudgel. The cheaply stapled edges may do .......
326: Computer Audio Asylum, FLAC Speed (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-26, 09:11:56 (69.14.231.16)
Using the FLAC P4 ICL 8.1 build from rarewares.org, it only takes about ten seconds to encode per song on my 3GHz P4 at setting 9. The ICL processor specific builds are quite a bit faster than the gen .......
327: General Asylum, DVDs (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-26, 09:03:01 (69.14.231.16)
Columbo second season set, and The Secret Life Of Machines TV series which my wife found after weeks of searching on the web. I also got the Mythbuster's book, which I hadn't even heard about. My favo .......
328: Computer Audio Asylum, NEC Firewire (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-22, 09:01:15 (12.148.60.177)
NEC Firewire chipsets are garbage. They have problems with just about every type of Firewire device. We have some MOTU audio boxes at work that do not work at ALL with NEC chips. Avoid them like the p .......
329: Computer Audio Asylum, ASIO (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-22, 08:39:27 (12.148.60.177)
ASIO is, as you suspect, another way to get sound from and to a sound interface of some kind (sound card, USB interface, etc...) Usually, on Windows at least, an application will send or get sound thr .......
330: Computer Audio Asylum, For Windows users... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-22, 06:54:43 (12.148.60.177)
You can get Cygwin, which is a POSIX/Linux style environment that runs on top of Windows NT/2000/XP/2003, with all the nice command line features of *nix, like awk, sed, grep, m4, file, which, less, b .......
331: Computer Audio Asylum, A few more (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-20, 07:38:26 (12.148.60.177)
I'd get a new: 1. Case 2. Motherboard 3. CPU 4. Memory Use everything else from your old machine. The old eMachines cases were under-engineered, and anything new, and cheap, from Antec or Lian-Li is g .......
332: Films/DVD Asylum, Old junk (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-16, 07:03:26 (12.148.60.177)
I'm a big fan of Metropolis, I own both the cheesy 80's release and the new cut with the extra footage they've found, as well as the excellent Alloy Orchestra soundtrack and interesting anime remake. .......
333: Films/DVD Asylum, Really... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-15, 21:31:06 (69.14.231.16)
> Or you simply have not seen anything made before that time? Are you talking about the beautifully shot epics and European films of the 20's and 30's, with the laughably bad vaudevillian acting and c .......
334: Films/DVD Asylum, Is there, somehow, a lack of information on this? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-15, 07:01:58 (12.148.60.177)
Do a google search for "citizen kane analysis" or check on amazon for one of the few dozen books made about it. Take any intro to film class and the textbook will have a section dedicated to it, and y .......
335: Films/DVD Asylum, Prod sound (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-14, 10:54:37 (12.148.60.177)
Yep, ideally everyone should be in the same room playing off each other, but a good director can get good performances from talented actors in less than ideal circumstances. Of course, this assumes th .......
336: Computer Audio Asylum, You're probably good short-term (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-14, 10:16:30 (12.148.60.177)
Just tack on another big drive. I'm not sure how your computer is set up, but I'd move the 200 as a slave on the CD-ROM drive cable, and put a 400 on the primary IDE cable. Copy all your files to the .......
337: Films/DVD Asylum, Actors phoning in is old school (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-14, 09:57:06 (12.148.60.177)
>...that the whole process, however well done, means that actors are never in the same room with one another, as it were. It's been done since the first days of film, when actors didn't like each othe .......
338: General Asylum, But it has a graphical EQ with the cool bouncing LEDs! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-13, 13:21:45 (12.148.60.177)
:) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
339: Computer Audio Asylum, 5400? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-13, 08:00:21 (12.148.60.177)
5400RPM is plenty for just about any type of stereo audio work. It won't really speed up ripping, as getting audio off a CD is a LOT slower than getting it to a hard drive, and, unless you have a GigE .......
340: General Asylum, Anything with no moving parts -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-13, 06:32:24 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
341: Films/DVD Asylum, Re: You make it so tempting to agree! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-10, 21:00:12 (69.14.231.16)
> Jaws - I can't, but its popularity even among the more educated ones is something I don't understand. Even if you don't like the characters or plot or anything else, it's a technically brilliant fil .......
342: General Asylum, Re: no doubt a few years ago... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-10, 20:45:40 (69.14.231.16)
> ... you were saying cables are all the same, Nope, I used to buy fancy cables, but they tended to fall apart after a while due to shoddy construction. Just being connected to my gear, they'd stop wo .......
343: General Asylum, Question (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-10, 12:57:16 (69.14.231.16)
The question is akin to asking if anyone has tried bull testicle soup to cure erectile dysfunction. The product is so patently absurd the question begs a humorous response. > If you want to see desper .......
344: Video Asylum, Suggestion (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-09, 06:39:17 (12.148.60.177)
DVD/VCR -> TV via component video (Y/Pb/Pr) DirectTV -> TV via SVHS cable DirectTV -> DVD/VCR via composite (AV1 in) The last connection lets you record your DirecTV shows on your VCR or DVD. Switch b .......
345: Computer Audio Asylum, PC Power (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-08, 20:33:43 (69.14.231.16)
> Actually, I don't understand why changing cable will improve sound from a PC which works on a pure digital domain especially if you use external DAC? It doesn't. Bits is bits until it hits the USB D .......
346: Films/DVD Asylum, Generic art house trailer (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-08, 14:41:07 (12.148.60.177)
A person, alienated from those around them perhaps considering suicide, or homicide an understanding love interest a blase setting supporting characters with interesting personality quirks a clever tw .......
347: General Asylum, Heh... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-08, 12:59:26 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
348: Films/DVD Asylum, It's on my MythTV from last week... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-08, 12:00:31 (12.148.60.177)
My wife made me watch it and I'm glad. Some review I read said "The best Hitchcock movie he didn't make." and I agree. Go read the trivia about it on the IMDB when done, it's interesting. /*Music is s .......
349: General Asylum, "The speakers disappeared..." (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-08, 09:20:38 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
350: Video Asylum, Switching (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-07, 13:54:04 (12.148.60.177)
> But someone said that the video connection of the VCR must go through the receiver in order for the receiver to process the surround sound properly. That doesn't make any sense, unless the receiver .......
351: Films/DVD Asylum, 2001 (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-07, 10:57:26 (12.148.60.177)
'nuff said :) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
352: General Asylum, It's still probably not close to the Royal Device audio room (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-06, 13:08:37 (12.148.60.177)
Dual horn subwoofers made out of concrete and bricks in the floor fed by 16 18" subs alltogether. 110W dB/1W/1M sensitivity, 0dB down at 10Hz in-room. Custom horn speakers for the highs and mids, fed .......
353: Films/DVD Asylum, Ambiguity (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-06, 06:20:38 (12.148.60.177)
Actually, the poster said "Australia's ... best films ever," not the website, which looks like it's been scanned in from a magazine, and 'best' is as subjective as any criteria. What's the best song e .......
354: Films/DVD Asylum, This is a travesty! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-05, 13:35:00 (12.148.60.177)
I mean, people picked the movies they like to watch, and they chose the wrong movies! How dare they pick movies that are popular! /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
355: General Asylum, iPod cable strangeness (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-05, 09:50:25 (12.148.60.177)
So a company called MAS is making a fancy iPod cable with RCA ends. So why does it plug into the headphone connector instead of using the line level outputs of the dock connector? For an MSRP of $160 .......
356: Digital Drive, Re: Best sounding iPods? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-04, 20:18:36 (69.14.231.16)
>But I will also say Apple "Lossless" sounds "lossy" compared to non-compressed AIFF.. That's really bizzare, have you noticed this behavior playing from iTunes as well? I haven't played with Apple Lo .......
357: Video Asylum, Re: DVD Sound (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-04, 12:54:01 (69.14.231.16)
I assume what this means is that they have already done the theater/room processing for you. Movies are equalized to be played in huge theaters with massive arrays of speakers, so many receivers compe .......
358: Digital Drive, Criteria (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-03, 10:17:00 (69.14.231.16)
The iPod shuffle has the best batter life (around 5 or 6 hours,) having no screen or hard drive, but it has the smallest capacity and most limited control. It's amazingly light and small, however, and .......
359: Computer Audio Asylum, Winamp + ASIO (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-02, 21:38:08 (69.14.231.16)
If you are just listening to internet radio with Winamp, don't worry about kmixer. The (purported) damage it does to sound quality is nothing compared to the damage done by lossy MP3, Ogg or Windows M .......
360: Computer Audio Asylum, Differences (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-02, 21:34:17 (69.14.231.16)
> As long as your compact disks aren't scratched or fingerprinted you should not notice a difference in sound. That's the difference between EAC and other rippers, is that EAC works very will with dam .......
361: Computer Audio Asylum, Tada! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-02, 13:00:34 (12.148.60.177)
Name says it all. Grab the wave and split it up using the Nero wave editor, or CDWave for breaking out individual tracks. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
362: Computer Audio Asylum, Popular case (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-02, 11:19:33 (12.148.60.177)
I've seen a lot of people and companies using those cases. I'm not sure how efficient they are at cooling, but it's a decent price for a good quality case. I'm a fan of the Lian-Li PC cases (no pun :) .......
363: Films/DVD Asylum, Sooo... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-02, 10:40:08 (12.148.60.177)
You like some books and some movies but not others? Yes, people like different things. What does this matter? /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
364: Films/DVD Asylum, Purpose (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-02, 07:38:56 (12.148.60.177)
As with any film, you need to look at a documentary's purpose. If it's to educate, then it had better cough up some accuracy. If it's to generate interest in a subject, accuracy is secondary to engage .......
365: General Asylum, Missing panel (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-12-01, 11:16:30 (12.148.60.177)
"Wow Spence, that sounds like garbage! What's that, a 1950's Bell & Howell slideshow record player? At least it has a tubed amplifier, but that 5" alinco speaker isn't very resolving..." :) /*Music is .......
366: Films/DVD Asylum, Not *that* gorey (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-30, 21:20:30 (69.14.231.16)
At least compared to, say, Pulp Fiction. Mildly interesting to watch, some of the characters are interesting, and Mr. Stamp gets to throw a guy off a balcony with great panache. /*Music is subjective .......
367: Films/DVD Asylum, Woah (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-30, 21:17:34 (69.14.231.16)
That looks like the original theatrical release, which has the narration and awful editing. I don't think that's ever been officially released to DVD, it might be a bootleg. Look for the version below .......
368: Computer Audio Asylum, Check here (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-30, 11:52:59 (12.148.60.177)
http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html There's a command line interface for the Apple codecs through Quicktime called iTunesencode that supports Apple Lossless, so it should be pretty easy to whip up .......
369: Water Cooler, Sources (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-30, 08:00:06 (12.148.60.177)
Check out the Motley Fool, their website and radio show on NPR. Mad Money on CNBC is also a good show, though it's mostly about stocks, and Kramer's hyperactiveness can be an aquired taste. The advice .......
370: Films/DVD Asylum, Branding? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-30, 07:52:02 (12.148.60.177)
> Whether he meant to or not, Scorscese has branded Italian-Americans. I assume you're talking about Goodfellas/Scorscese, or Godfather/Coppola. No, I think Al Capone did most of that. Go to the inter .......
371: PC Place, Check the PC forum (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-29, 12:45:31 (12.148.60.177)
This question gets asked about every week. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
372: Video Asylum, HDMI is garbage (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-29, 11:38:21 (12.148.60.177)
I've been following the spec, and it's got so many covoluted solutions to self-imposed problems (mostly encryption/DRM) that I think it's doomed. They're already up to 1.2 of the spec, mostly for bugf .......
373: Computer Audio Asylum, Power Supply factors (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-29, 11:20:10 (12.148.60.177)
Like the other posters have said, you should be using an external USB or FireWire sound card for serious hifi listening, to get rid of the noise inherent in a PC environment. However, you should still .......
374: Films/DVD Asylum, Similar, not the same (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-27, 22:09:12 (69.14.231.16)
I saw Zardoz a *long* time ago, and mostly remember the plot, and, though it may have the same themes, Aeon Flux will probably be quite a bit different. The TV show, at least, is very different. It's .......
375: General Asylum, And liability (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-27, 12:20:56 (69.14.231.16)
TV's need a fairly hefty power cord, the inrush current when the CRT driver caps are charging up can get pretty high. They want to avoid the imbicile's money making strategy: 1- You buy a big TV 2- Yo .......
376: Computer Audio Asylum, Hard Drives (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-26, 11:14:46 (69.14.231.16)
> An older 5,400 rpm drive is a potential source of problems. A 5400RPM hard drive is plenty fast for basic audio applications. In the day it was the standard for multitrack audio recording, so doing .......
377: Computer Audio Asylum, DTS (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-26, 08:57:03 (69.14.231.16)
If they are DTS encoded, you need to play them back through a DTS receiver or surround controller. Usually you play them back in a DVD drive, which is connected through S/PDIF or TOSlink to your recei .......
378: Computer Audio Asylum, Moot point (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-23, 20:30:03 (69.14.231.16)
Sorry for being dense, but how does your saying that jitter is never moot in PC audio have anything to do with my comment on data transport of CD-ROM and hard drives? The conversation was about the di .......
379: Computer Audio Asylum, Couldn't find it (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-23, 13:40:57 (68.43.13.4)
I checked PF, but their site is nigh-unnavigateable, and couldn't find any mention of PC-CD audio jitter. Could you explain, briefly, how jitter is introduced into the IDE interface when CD data is be .......
380: Computer Audio Asylum, CD vs HD (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-21, 19:56:13 (69.14.231.16)
> Off the hard drive is noticeably better than from the cd-rom drive. Really, how so? Assuming the CD is fairly error-free, the data hitting the media player should be the same. Timing/jitter is moot, .......
381: General Asylum, Nope (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-21, 19:50:47 (69.14.231.16)
> I'm not defending Sony here, but it seems that if they could demonstrate that First4Internet misled them about the nature of the software, that they could sue the pants off them. There's no way Sony .......
382: Computer Audio Asylum, Not entirely sure (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-18, 11:43:40 (12.148.60.177)
It's probably pretty large. My friend has tens of thousands of songs in iTunes, and it's still pretty snappy (Dual 1GHz G4) I would say that support for codecs other than AAC and MP3, such as Ogg and .......
383: General Asylum, Of course! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-18, 07:55:52 (12.148.60.177)
Of course it's junk, 'cause whatever the salesman carries is a lot better. Does it sound good to you? If so, don't worry about it, save your money and buy more music. /*Music is subjective. Sound is n .......
384: General Asylum, Erm.. (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-17, 12:15:23 (12.148.60.177)
CAT is also California Audio Technologies, at least they also use the acronym. Confusing! /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
385: General Asylum, Sony sinks deeper and deeper (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-17, 06:31:55 (12.148.60.177)
Turns out the software they use to protect their valuable intellectual property and copyright, violates a bunch of programmer's copyright. It turns out they ripped off a bunch of LGPL and GPL'd code i .......
386: Computer Audio Asylum, Thanks (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-15, 21:56:56 (69.14.231.16)
Thanks for the clarification, got my maths confused. I must be using a buggy version of LAME as well, 'cause many songs encoded using joint stereo sound like garbage when compared to regular stereo en .......
387: General Asylum, Inside the skull, tickles the cranium -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-15, 10:22:12 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
388: General Asylum, Sure they do (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-15, 06:25:45 (12.148.60.177)
http://www.calaudiotech.com/ It's just awful. Product information from the PDF proofs of their brochures. C'mon, if you're selling $90K speakers you'd better have a professional looking website. CEC' .......
389: Computer Audio Asylum, Ask and ye shall receive (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-14, 20:55:59 (69.14.231.16)
Some solutions need some work, but here you go: Audio to MIDI conversion-o-rama /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
390: General Asylum, Yep (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-14, 20:53:15 (69.14.231.16)
Audiophile Grade lunacy. The Magnetic Wine Clip Molecularly aligned Penta Water Angel Light invisibility beam and living tissue destroyer, by the maker of the bear-proof suit, of course. Quadro Detec .......
391: Computer Audio Asylum, Nope (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-14, 13:02:06 (12.148.60.177)
When you fire up your CD/DVD burning software, tell it you want to burn a Data DVD. Then burn your .wav files as if they were regular files, and you'll be able to copy them back off the burned DVD as .......
392: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Lossless/Lossy Compression and the Sound Stage (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-14, 11:41:57 (12.148.60.177)
What usually kills soundstage in an MP3 is the joint stereo encoding, which records one channel regularly and the other as a kind of "difference track" with higher compression. Switch to regular stere .......
393: General Asylum, Catalog corrupt (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-14, 11:37:25 (12.148.60.177)
Sounds like the internal iTunes catalog is corrupt. Uninstall, remove any non-music files in the iTunes directories, then reinstall, and re-scan for your music. Upgrade to iTunes 6.0.1 while you're at .......
394: General Asylum, Do you trust your senses? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-12, 19:34:26 (68.249.8.240)
Your senses are easily fooled. You can't always belive what you see . I'd doubt what I hear, as well. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
395: Digital Drive, Digital levels (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-12, 18:53:09 (68.249.8.240)
It's simple, different CD's can be recorded at different levels. One may RMS at 85dB, another might be down around 75dB. It's all up to the producer and mastering engineer. A good mastering engineer w .......
396: General Asylum, Solution (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-11, 21:49:44 (69.14.231.16)
Buy a better dimmer, or a heavy duty light bulb with heavier filaments that don't resonate. How Stuff Works - Dimmer Buzzing /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
397: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Mpeg3 Ehancement (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-11, 21:28:08 (69.14.231.16)
The problem is that MP3 takes out big chunks of information that cannot be replaced, as you can see with the apparent brickwall filter they used at 15KHz. Adding echo to poor quality audio will result .......
398: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Different argument (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-11, 21:19:35 (69.14.231.16)
> usb bridges are universal and the chips form the basis of usb operation; not just cameras - I don't know why you say this. Oh, *that* type of bridge. There is a USB product class called a bridge tha .......
399: Computer Audio Asylum, Different argument (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-11, 05:26:36 (12.148.60.177)
>USB Bridges are not perfect. Some do not work well or at all with external drives I'm not sure what that has to do with digital audio, as bridges are usually meant for cameras. This is more of a func .......
400: Films/DVD Asylum, Review: Bewitched (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-10, 20:33:20 (69.14.231.16)
Slim pickings at the video store, my friend said. Holy cow. 1- Amaturish, made-for-E!-movie level directing 2- About 50% of the special effects were laughably bad 3- Insipid, unoriginal story (It's a .......
401: Computer Audio Asylum, USB Cables (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-10, 20:17:53 (69.14.231.16)
"First, USB cables cannot "sound" different...they either allow the data to pass through error-free or they do not." Seconded. Since USB is a message passing system, all data is buffered and reassembl .......
402: Films/DVD Asylum, Shiny things (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-10, 07:17:28 (12.148.60.177)
I was watching Napoleon Dynamite with director's commentary the other day, and in one scene where his girlfriend is talking on a payphone, he commented on how you can see another actor in the steel pa .......
403: Computer Audio Asylum, Depends on your player (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-09, 14:16:55 (12.148.60.177)
It depends on what methods of playback your media player supports. 99% of all modern media player apps support pure digital playback, meaning audio is read off the CD as data, not using the internal D .......
404: Computer Audio Asylum, Sometimes (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-08, 22:01:20 (69.14.231.16)
The problem is when a few bits, or worse, a pattern of bad bits, is fed into an audio compressor. Lossless will probably not be that much of a problem, but a perceptual lossy codec could wreak havoc w .......
405: Computer Audio Asylum, There's error free, then there's error free (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-08, 18:07:28 (69.14.231.16)
When a conventional audio CD player finds a bad bit, it attempts a quick recovery, and, if unsuccessful, ignores it. Odds are you won't notice a couple bad samples out of 44,000 per second. EAC accept .......
406: General Asylum, Maybach and car EQ (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-08, 17:24:28 (69.14.231.16)
The Maybachs I've heard sound pretty decent for a car. Keep in mind that it sounds good in the *back* seat, where you're going to sit unless you're the chauffer. They were kind of ripped up on the ins .......
407: General Asylum, Problems (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-07, 14:49:35 (69.14.231.16)
Usually it's a poorly behaving driver or something similar. Make sure your drivers are up to date, then check to see if there is a BIOS update for your computer. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
408: Computer Audio Asylum, Evil Apple Monopoly (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-07, 10:55:39 (12.148.60.177)
>I refuse to keep all my music in apple lossless b/c it's an evil Apple monopoly, which is against my religion. Er, so you don't like Apple Lossless because of some Apple monopoly. Is that a monopoly .......
409: Films/DVD Asylum, Review: Zathura (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-05, 20:36:39 (69.14.231.16)
Saw it tonight at the AMC Forum 30 theater. Pretty good kids-friendly movie. I saw it with my wife and her 11 year old brother, who really liked it a lot, and so did most of the kids in the theater, s .......
410: Films/DVD Asylum, You have to say the number!!! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-05, 20:23:32 (69.14.231.16)
I've got the excellent Criterion release, and after watching the director's cut, the original theatrical release is almost unwatchable. The plot is somewhat convoluted in the director's release, and c .......
411: Water Cooler, Clarifications (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-05, 20:19:43 (69.14.231.16)
"If it doesn't say "Pentium M" or "Centrino", it's probably one of the desktop processors." Since the original Pentium series, the laptop processors have been quite a bit different than the desktop se .......
412: Computer Audio Asylum, FLAC (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-04, 13:09:00 (12.148.60.177)
FLAC is probably the way to go. Supported by just about every major media player, except iTunes, under current development, some hardware support (PhatNoise, Rio, Squeezebox, Dell,) open source; it's .......
413: Films/DVD Asylum, Re: Shawn of the Dead (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-03, 13:05:30 (12.148.60.177)
I thought it was fun to watch, though not as funny as it could have been. There If you're into British electronic music the Ninja Tune posters and references are pretty funny, but rather obscure. /*Mu .......
414: Digital Drive, Wierd (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-11-02, 10:58:46 (12.148.60.177)
This is really wierd. Do the Sony CD's say "Compact Disc" and have the CD logo on them? I heard that they were suing companies that used the CD logo on copy protected discs because they aren't manufac .......
415: Inmate Central, Scooter? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-10-05, 11:00:31 (12.148.60.177)
A colleague is going to get a motor scooter for his 10 mile commute to work, replacing his truck for the daily commute. 50MPH top speed 49HP engine, so no special license or endorsements needed 4 cycl .......
416: General Asylum, I don't think so (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-10-05, 10:49:03 (12.148.60.177)
If you post a thank you, then someone else answers the question, do you post another one? Then another one after that? I just thank people in advance, it's easier and produces less forum clutter. You' .......
417: Video Asylum, Finished review: MythTV 0.18.1 (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-10-03, 08:13:48 (12.148.60.177)
Sorry, the last post got truncated. Here's the whole thing: I just updated my wife's PVR to MythTV 0.18.1, and I'm really impressed. MythTV is an open source (free) TiVo like application for linux, an .......
418: Video Asylum, Review: MythTV 0.18.1 (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-10-03, 07:55:48 (12.148.60.177)
I just updated my wife's PVR to MythTV 0.18.1, and I'm really impressed. MythTV is an open source (free) TiVo like application for linux, and, like linux, it's jammed with features that commercial imp .......
419: Computer Audio Asylum, Not that hard... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-10-03, 07:25:41 (12.148.60.177)
If you know what you are doing. You need a really good temperature regulated soldering iron, SMT tools, and a lighted magnifier on an arm would be helpful. Probably not worth the hassle in the end. /* .......
420: General Asylum, Naw, It's fine (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-28, 12:04:40 (12.148.60.177)
> What an unfortunate oversight on Apple's part. The Nano seemed at first to be nearly as durable as the Shuffle. It sounds like a problem with the quality control on the screen, which I doubt Apple m .......
421: General Asylum, Re: "Huge improvement": the audiophile definition (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-28, 11:57:36 (12.148.60.177)
Upgrades and tweaks usually produce a huge improvement, until they are directly compared with the previous configuration in a testing situation, in which case the improvement is subtle and requires a .......
422: Computer Audio Asylum, Firewire (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-27, 09:17:23 (12.148.60.177)
Firewire is probably the easiest and cheapest. I have personal experience with the Mark Of The Unicorn 828 and it's pretty bulletproof. Integrates nicely with CuBase as well. The Mk. 1 can be found on .......
423: General Asylum, Real Download (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-16, 11:12:20 (12.148.60.177)
www.real.com -> Download Realplayer -> Free Realplayer Download started right away, no problems. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
424: Water Cooler, Articling (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-14, 07:32:00 (12.148.60.177)
The link is screwed up, there are two http:// URI's. Just copy and paste the lower one into the address bar of IE and it'll work fine. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
425: Water Cooler, Yep, URL Extractor in FireFox opened it fine. What's your problem? -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-13, 11:00:47 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
426: Water Cooler, NYT is a paper of record, and is a valid reference -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-13, 06:49:19 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
427: Water Cooler, Quid pro quo, Clariese, Quid pro quo... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-11, 19:43:09 (69.14.231.16)
> Then the innocent baby suffers. How compassionate. "What about the children!?!?!?!" Oh dear. The welfare of a child is the responsibility of it's parents. Period. If you think it's someone else's re .......
428: Water Cooler, More A's :) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-10, 19:58:10 (69.14.231.16)
> What do you think we should do about poor single mothers? We should help them. Not the government. The government makes a crappy nanny. It's simple, if you stop subsidising bad behavior, that behavi .......
429: Water Cooler, Q-A-Q... Q..uack? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-09, 12:21:31 (12.148.60.177)
> Same with the effects of global warming leading to more frequent and more powerful tropical storms. Ignorance and denial are not the answers. "Known science" is what I'm saying the problem is, as it .......
430: Water Cooler, Q&A (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-09, 06:25:19 (12.148.60.177)
> - what is the role of government in protecting the environment (wetlands)? The environment is pretty hard to protect, if for no other reason we still don't know exactly how it works yet. The global .......
431: Digital Drive, CD archiving (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-08, 07:05:30 (12.148.60.177)
1. Download and use EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to copy the CD's, for an exact copy, turn on error correction, use AccurateRip, and set the offset of your CD reader (instructions on the EAC website) 2. Rip .......
432: Water Cooler, Tired of politics as usual? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-08, 06:54:57 (12.148.60.177)
So, in Germany, officially recognized political parties get some free advertising on TV during elections. This year the Anarchist party was officially recognized as a political party. As FARK likes to .......
433: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: I Need Hard Drive Recommendations.... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-07, 07:12:29 (12.148.60.177)
Maxtor MAXline III, I got two SATA units for about $170 each from Newegg. Not super cheap, but they are about the best general purpose drives you can buy right now. You won't find them at CompUSA or B .......
434: Water Cooler, Blame-o-rama (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-06, 08:17:31 (12.148.60.177)
1. Running a huge governmental beauracracy and managing diaster relief are two seperate skillsets. Then again, disaster management and running a US government agency do have quite a bit of skill overl .......
435: General Asylum, Informal review: Make Magazine (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-06, 06:47:25 (12.148.60.177)
This is possibly the greatest magazine ever produced, and probably the most interesting technical magazine published since the old Radio Electronics days. This level is excellence is to be expected, a .......
436: Computer Audio Asylum, CoreFLAC (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-01, 20:04:43 (69.14.231.16)
Here: http://coreflac.corecodec.org/ There are also plugins on that site for Ogg/Vorbis and WavPack. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
437: Computer Audio Asylum, Can't go wrong with FLAC (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-01, 10:14:22 (12.148.60.177)
Plugins for just about any software, including Nero and Windows Media Player. The nice thing about lossless encoding is if you later change formats, you can transcode with no loss of information/fidel .......
438: Water Cooler, Live feed from New Orleans (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-09-01, 09:01:22 (12.148.60.177)
The guys at DirectNIC, a data center and hosting company, are holding down the fort in downtown NO. I think they're the last remaining live internet connection in the city. Repelling looters, rescuing .......
439: Films/DVD Asylum, Great directors? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-31, 18:59:26 (69.14.231.16)
So by that definition Alfred Hitchcock wouldn't be a "great" director, as he did 99% thriller/suspense/horror pictures? Or Charlie Chaplin who was almost exclusively comedy? /*Music is subjective. So .......
440: Computer Audio Asylum, G5? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-31, 07:10:34 (12.148.60.177)
My friend's is whisper quiet most of the time. When he's encoding video or compiling something the fans do make a bit of noise, but usually it's just this side of silent. The highest clockecd PowerPC .......
441: Films/DVD Asylum, Huh? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-30, 22:34:07 (69.14.231.16)
> Elevating murderers to mythic status is reprehensible for any artist. Pesci's character gets killed. DeNiro ostensibly ends up in jail for the rest of his life. Just about everyone involved with the .......
442: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Thanks, but it didn't work. Anything else to try? (n.t.) (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-30, 12:50:28 (12.148.60.177)
Try ASPI layer version 4.60. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
443: Films/DVD Asylum, Brilliant movie (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-30, 11:01:32 (12.148.60.177)
When I worked at a video store during college, I would watch Goodfellas in half hour increments during my lunch break on the tape repair set in back. I probably watched it a dozen times a year. I can .......
444: Computer Audio Asylum, ASPI (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-30, 10:19:41 (12.148.60.177)
Try ForceASPI, which forces ASPI to install. The problem is ASPI doesn't *really* install unless an Adaptec SCSI card is installed. By the way, ASPI is a type of driver that windows uses to access SCS .......
445: General Asylum, Marker seal (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-29, 22:45:35 (69.14.231.16)
> but I color the edge of my trimmed CDs with a green permanent marker, which effectively reseals the disc. Magic marker ink is not a sealant. There are chemicals in the ink that evaporate, leaving th .......
446: General Asylum, Probably OK (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-29, 12:17:22 (12.148.60.177)
I've heard rumors that CD's can suffer from "laser rot" in the same manner as laserdiscs. I wouldn't think so, as laser rot stems from a problem introduced when gluing the two sides of a LD back-to-ba .......
447: Critic's Corner, Possibilities: (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-29, 06:36:16 (12.148.60.177)
1. They don't give out review samples 2. They don't advertise enough 3. They aren't "Big" enough to be reviewed 4. They aren't widely distributed enough I'm betting on number 2. /*Music is subjective. .......
448: Computer Audio Asylum, More (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-26, 20:11:56 (69.14.231.16)
> Not sure but it will support airport express, squeezebox, usb dacs Pretty much any basic USB DAC (that doesn't have custom drivers) will work. Macs are still heavily used in music production, so the .......
449: Computer Audio Asylum, Good! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-26, 08:30:31 (12.148.60.177)
> Is it possibe for audio from a computer to surpass a dedicated high end audio system? Yep. > Can a computer play SACD's? Nope, but some can play DVD-A (Some versions of WinDVD and PowerDVD.) If you .......
450: General Asylum, Output adapter on eBay (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-26, 07:01:15 (12.148.60.177)
Wow, the stuff people come up with. I'm all for the spirit of industrialism, but eBay is the home of wackball ideas. The Outpost speaker cable adapter 'Cause, as we all know, adding more connectors to .......
451: Computer Audio Asylum, BLER (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-26, 06:49:10 (12.148.60.177)
All this only matters if your CD's have a signifigant number of errors. Any relatively well taken care of CD will play fine with regular error correction enabled, which all (properly desgined) CD play .......
452: General Asylum, And obfuscations (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-26, 06:37:30 (12.148.60.177)
> In this case i am referring changes to soundstaging(earphones) and differences in the top-end extension, which is audible through the supplied ipod earphones. A loose fitting phono connector can hav .......
453: General Asylum, Clarifications (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-25, 19:52:14 (69.14.231.16)
> for some reasons, probably explanable, the ipod sound better in a flat, face-up position vs standing up or being held side-ways. Could be that your 1/8" phono connector on your iPod is loose, and la .......
454: Amp/Preamp Asylum, Haven't played with a whole lot (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-25, 07:40:44 (12.148.60.177)
But here's my limited list: -MLD7020 laserdisc player, one of the best I've seen. Really nice interface, built, like much of their gear, like a tank. -McIntosh C20, my friend has one. If you're in to .......
455: Computer Audio Asylum, Standard feature in CD software now (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-25, 06:54:58 (12.148.60.177)
In Media Player 9, and probably 7, 8 and 10: Tools->Options->Devices->Compact Disc->Properties Make sure "Digital" is checked, and "Error Correction" is checked. In WinAmp: Preferences->Plugins->Input .......
456: General Asylum, Sun makes workstations, Apple makes PC's, what's your point? -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-24, 11:50:25 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
457: Water Cooler, Illucid -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-24, 08:55:30 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
458: General Asylum, Paradigm (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-24, 08:47:09 (12.148.60.177)
You get a brand new SET tube amp. Say a nice Cary. You love it's sound. It's liquid and smooth, unlike the old push-pull you've had in your system before. It's wonderfully un-fatiguing. You can listen .......
459: General Asylum, I took the Pepsi Challenge (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-24, 07:44:19 (12.148.60.177)
When I was a young'un at the state fair. You got a whole dixie cup of Pepsi and Coke, maybe just under a cup's worth. Enough for two or three healthy pulls. I preferred the Pepsi, though I could tell .......
460: Inmate Central, Hybrids vs. Everything (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-23, 11:30:20 (12.148.60.177)
I'd wait a bit yet on hybrids, they haven't been fully battle-tested yet, if you are looking for a long term, drive until it's dead solution. An 80K mile warranty sounds nice, but double check on what .......
461: General Asylum, Why, what is *your* pyramid razor sharpener made of? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-23, 09:23:20 (12.148.60.177)
Silicon dioxide does a bang-up job. Are you claiming it does not? I also find that actually replacing the blades make them sharper, you can buy them pretty cheap at Costco. Also, electric shavers seem .......
462: General Asylum, Ooh, ooh! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-23, 08:18:13 (12.148.60.177)
Those pyramid razor sharpeners work great! As long as they're coated with of silicon dioxide, and you rub the pyramid over the razor vigorously for several minutes, that is. /*Music is subjective. Sou .......
463: General Asylum, Not quite (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-23, 08:08:04 (12.148.60.177)
Having an open mind means you are open to accepting new ideas that challenge your current beleifs. That you are skeptical about it means you need some solid proof before doing so. If a guy walks up to .......
464: General Asylum, Re: The sentence that stands out for me... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-23, 07:43:48 (12.148.60.177)
> etc: love, aesthetic taste, anxieties.... Sociology, human factors, psychology, etc... Granted these fields aren't as fundamentally experiment based as chemistry or physics, but there is quite a bit .......
465: General Asylum, More fun with science (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-23, 06:49:48 (12.148.60.177)
Happens all the time, everywhere. Remember the Coke taste tests? Pepsi was beating Coke in those semi-scientific, but huge sample-base, taste tests. So Coke came out with New Coke, which tasted more l .......
466: Planar Speaker Asylum, More maggie mates (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-22, 10:57:11 (12.148.60.177)
OK, I saw these for the first time today on eBay, and I don't get it. I've read the previous posts on these and I still don't get it. So you highpass your smallish maggies, you get better power handli .......
467: Propeller Head Plaza, If it sounds exotic and costs a lot it'll be in an audio product soon -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-22, 07:46:05 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
468: Films/DVD Asylum, Low key (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-22, 07:43:35 (12.148.60.177)
It starts out slow, then starts picking up. Here's what happens: WARNING SPOILERS!!!!!! So Miles and Jack are off for the bachelor weekend. They drink a bunch of wine. They hook up with some cute wait .......
469: General Asylum, Sample size (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-22, 06:51:54 (12.148.60.177)
And you don't even get into evaluating subjects. For tests involving critical listening, a hearing evaluation would be very useful. IE if subjects x, y and z can hear a difference and a, b and c canno .......
470: Water Cooler, Haha! (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-21, 19:09:46 (69.14.231.16)
In short, the Democrats are pissed off that the Republicans are getting away with all the hijix the Dems have gotten away with in the past. Politics is stupid. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ : .......
471: Video Asylum, Clarifications (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-21, 19:06:34 (69.14.231.16)
> That said, make sure you have the latest firmware (currently PlexTools v2.24) from Plextor for your writer. Plextools is a utility for Plextor drives, it is not the firmeware. The current version of .......
472: Critic's Corner, Sorta (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-21, 13:22:57 (69.14.231.16)
> Speakers that measure flat tend to sound a little bright. A lot of people don't like that and if your supporting equipment cannot keep the signal really clean, that brightness gets harsh really fast .......
473: General Asylum, An intro to the Intarweb (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-21, 09:42:11 (64.241.37.140)
You need a place to put your picture, there are many services that host pictures for free if you poke around. 1. Upload your picture to the hosting services 2. Get the URL of the picture on the servic .......
474: Vinyl Asylum, Table reccomendation please (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-21, 09:31:35 (64.241.37.140)
I'm just about done refurbishing my Pro-Ject 6.1 (cardas tonearm rewire, shielded motor housing, redone star ground configuration, RCA's that actually hold a cable, etc...) At the same time my wife is .......
475: General Asylum, Rule of thumb (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-21, 09:20:50 (64.241.37.140)
My rule of thumb is, after applying a tweak or listening to a new component, if I don't hear a big difference in the first ten or twenty seconds, there's no difference. After the first ten or twenty s .......
476: Computer Audio Asylum, Windows Media Player? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-19, 12:40:46 (12.148.60.177)
Check the settings to make sure you aren't using any equalization or DSP filters. That's all I can think of off hand. /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
477: General Asylum, Nothing to do with music (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-19, 12:37:05 (12.148.60.177)
Lesee... Insane damping to improve response Tweaking almost to the point of impracticality $80K worth of audio gear in a $2K vessel Endless cycle of testing and improvement Not a lot to do with music, .......
478: Computer Audio Asylum, What are you playing back the WAV's with? -nt- (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-19, 08:39:44 (12.148.60.177)
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
479: General Asylum, I remember... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-19, 06:32:33 (12.148.60.177)
Listening to my Dad's Marantz 6100 turntable, through his McIntosh MA5100 and a pair of Sennheiesr HD-414's, or original Advent loudspeakers. I remember when I heard my first CD, how lousy it sounded .......
480: Computer Audio Asylum, Re: Better digital (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-18, 21:15:38 (69.14.231.16)
Please read my response carefully. > Until you get into 'upper' mid-fi, I don't think it is a given that your dedicated audio is going to be better than a sound card. That is, noise floor of a sound C .......
481: General Asylum, Umm.. OK... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-18, 14:53:08 (69.14.231.16)
And Uri Gellar bends spoons through slight of hand, ditto with psychic surgeons, and psychics are basically cold readers, ditto John Edwards (not a very good one at that.) So the world is full of tric .......
482: General Asylum, Right... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-18, 14:08:53 (69.14.231.16)
'cause they've been scamming the tarot card readers, diviners, psychics, remote viewers, psychic healers and spoon benders for years. That girl who could read a newspaper blindfolded, but not with opa .......
483: Films/DVD Asylum, Other problems (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-18, 09:59:43 (12.148.60.177)
Towards the end I thought the characters started behaving unrealistically. The old horror film thematic crutch of "people running around like chickens with their heads cut off then getting into troub .......
484: Computer Audio Asylum, Better digital (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-18, 06:59:52 (12.148.60.177)
> Until you get into 'upper' mid-fi, I don't think it is a given that your dedicated audio is going to be better than a sound card. Except, of course, the usually lousy noise floor introduced by the c .......
485: Tweakers' Asylum, A few reccomendations (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-17, 07:07:16 (12.148.60.177)
Since the bed eats up most of the room, and I assume you have some sheets on it, you probably don't need to worry about first order reflections off the ground. You're probably sitting right in front o .......
486: Films/DVD Asylum, Last winter (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-16, 21:31:37 (69.14.231.16)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou The last movie I have seen where I honstely had no idea what was going to happen next. Then again, almost all the movies I've seen this year I knew *exactly* what wa .......
487: Tweakers' Asylum, Need more info (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-16, 11:59:59 (12.148.60.177)
First, what are you trying to improve? Bass or treble? Imaging? Do you notice any problems? We also need more details on the room. What's on the floor? What are on the walls? Windows? Doors? Plants? : .......
488: Amp/Preamp Asylum, Power (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-16, 11:54:55 (12.148.60.177)
My KSA-100S was tripping a breaker whenever the central air conditioner came on. Basically the compressor uses TONS of juice when it turns on, lowers the line voltage of the house, current use shoots .......
489: Water Cooler, Seconded (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-16, 11:51:31 (12.148.60.177)
My wife & I just went on a road trip with some of our friends. One has sleep apnea BIG TIME. He snores so loud he woke us up in an ajoining bedroom (2 bedroom hotel suite) You can hear him tossing aro .......
490: Critic's Corner, Elaboration (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-15, 10:25:10 (12.148.60.177)
From the 6moon's review (go-go gadget fair use!): "The Golden Sound Ultra Tweeters performed literal wonders with the $299 Onix LE1s..." "With the UTs out of the system, that wonderful sense of flow, .......
491: Critic's Corner, Better sound (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-15, 07:11:04 (12.148.60.177)
> How can you have better than the best attainable sound?! Simple, the component is already perfect, then ADDS even more goodness! It makes bad music sound good! It makes Tom Waits sound like Bobby Da .......
492: Films/DVD Asylum, For Bipartisanship... (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-13, 15:33:55 (69.14.231.16)
How about Hillary? Think Angela Landsbury in Manchurian, nice and sweet outside, but you can tell there's something off there :) /*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/ .......
493: Films/DVD Asylum, More fun with Bond (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-12, 22:11:44 (69.14.231.16)
I think the problem with the newer Bond films are the villans are pretty forgettable. None of them recently has been as menacing as Largo, or Goldfinger, or any of the range of actors who played Blofe .......
494: Films/DVD Asylum, View to a kill (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-11, 11:28:52 (12.148.60.177)
I thought it wasn't *that* bad. Granted, flooding silicon valley is sort of silly, and derivitive of Goldfinger, but, c'mon, it had Christopher Walken and Grace Jones! :) I think, by far, the worst in .......
495: Films/DVD Asylum, Re: Anchorman (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-11, 11:14:34 (12.148.60.177)
I saw it a few months ago at my friends house. There are about four minutes of really funny material in the whole movie, not worth the wait. The gang fight between the four different anchor teams was .......
496: Films/DVD Asylum, Gadgets (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-09, 13:40:34 (12.148.60.177)
> The lack of toys in the old days may have been less because of the film maker's desire not to use toys, as opposed to the lack of technology, compared with today. There were plenty of gadgets back t .......
497: Films/DVD Asylum, Watchin' Dr. No last night (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-09, 08:25:29 (12.148.60.177)
TBS had pan-and-scan version on at 8EST, then a restored widescreen version at 10. I guess they're cycling through all the Bond films over a few weeks. Watching it again for the nteenth time, I notice .......
498: General Asylum, Video card? (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-09, 07:19:35 (12.148.60.177)
Go to your display properties and see if there is a color correction curve control in advanced. My nVidia card started playing video that looked all washed out, turns out the gamma correction curve go .......
499: Water Cooler, Problem (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-03, 21:17:11 (66.101.23.125)
Instead of an IRS auditing people, you have some other body auditing companies, to make sure their books are in order. Not a huge problem, but you won't be eliminating as much bureaucracy as you'd thi .......
500: General Asylum, Another one (0.00)
Posted by jbmcb on 2005-08-03, 21:10:15 (66.101.23.125)
I was playing a really loud symphony (the Pines of Rome) maxing out the dissapation on my amp (200W stereo into 4-ohm Maggie MGMC1's) It was tooling along nicely, until the central air compressor kick .......
Found total of 500 records, Query: , Author: jbmcb in All Forums, Time: 2 sec.