On 2024-05-25, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2024 23:45:36 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On 24 May 2024 22:56:10 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> I remember audiophiles from back in the day. They could hook up an o-
>> scope
>>> and prove their system was reproducing 22000 Hz signals flawlessly. I
>>> suppose dogs appreciated it.
>>
>> So the ones you met would actually *trust* oscilloscopes? Because the
>> “true” audiophile didn’t like CDs because they could “hear the gaps
>> between the samples”. You could hook an oscilloscope up to the audio
>> outputs from your CD or DVD player and show that it was producing
>> flawless continuous waveforms, but that wasn’t enough for them: their
>> ears were hearing things that no mere electrical signal could reproduce!
>
> CDs? Who said anything about that digital crap? I'm talking about an era
> with 20 lb turntables with built in strobe rings so you could get the
> speed exactly right. Styli cut from diamonds mined by virgins in South
> Africa. Tone arms with verniers on the counterweights so you could get the
> tracking force exactly right. Built in spirit levels in case the world was
> tilting. Pure analog, baby.

People tell me you can't tell the difference between analog and digital, but
I don't necessarily believe them. To me (at least when I had ears) analog
seemed more "full." (If that makes any sense.)

> https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/at-lp7
>
> That's a modern day version. Even those new-fangled cassette things had to
> prove their worth.
>
> https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/749019831/the-voice-that-shattered-glass

I had a nice Technics turn table in the day with a decent quality Shure
stylus. Along with with my mid-to-lower end Panasonic stereo system it
sounded pretty dang good.

--
[Self-centered, Woke] "pride is a life of self-destructive fakery, an
entrapment to a false and self-created matrix of twisted unreality."
"It was pride that changed angels into devils..." — St. Augustine

On 2024-05-25, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On 25 May 2024 04:33:40 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>
>> CDs? Who said anything about that digital crap? I'm talking about an era
>> with 20 lb turntables with built in strobe rings so you could get the
>> speed exactly right. Styli cut from diamonds mined by virgins in South
>> Africa. Tone arms with verniers on the counterweights so you could get
>> the tracking force exactly right. Built in spirit levels in case the
>> world was tilting. Pure analog, baby.
>
> And those sharp needles wearing away a little bit more from the delicate
> grooves with every play. Not to mention embedding the dust ever deeper
> into the soft, yielding plastic, where you can never get it out.
>
> There’s a reason we normal people left that technology behind in the
> 1970s. That’s where it belongs.

And yet it's making a comeback with some audiophiles. I bought a ton of
records when CDs first came out. They were cheap.

--
[Self-centered, Woke] "pride is a life of self-destructive fakery, an
entrapment to a false and self-created matrix of twisted unreality."
"It was pride that changed angels into devils..." — St. Augustine

On 2024-05-25, RonB <ronb02NOSPAM@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2024-05-25, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 24 May 2024 23:45:36 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> On 24 May 2024 22:56:10 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>>
>>>> I remember audiophiles from back in the day. They could hook up an o-
>>> scope
>>>> and prove their system was reproducing 22000 Hz signals flawlessly. I
>>>> suppose dogs appreciated it.
>>>
>>> So the ones you met would actually *trust* oscilloscopes? Because the
>>> “true” audiophile didn’t like CDs because they could “hear the gaps
>>> between the samples”. You could hook an oscilloscope up to the audio
>>> outputs from your CD or DVD player and show that it was producing
>>> flawless continuous waveforms, but that wasn’t enough for them: their
>>> ears were hearing things that no mere electrical signal could reproduce!
>>
>> CDs? Who said anything about that digital crap? I'm talking about an era
>> with 20 lb turntables with built in strobe rings so you could get the
>> speed exactly right. Styli cut from diamonds mined by virgins in South
>> Africa. Tone arms with verniers on the counterweights so you could get the
>> tracking force exactly right. Built in spirit levels in case the world was
>> tilting. Pure analog, baby.
>
> People tell me you can't tell the difference between analog and digital, but
> I don't necessarily believe them. To me (at least when I had ears) analog
> seemed more "full." (If that makes any sense.)
>
>> https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/at-lp7
>>
>> That's a modern day version. Even those new-fangled cassette things had to
>> prove their worth.
>>
>> https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/749019831/the-voice-that-shattered-glass
>
> I had a nice Technics turn table in the day with a decent quality Shure
> stylus. Along with with my mid-to-lower end Panasonic stereo system it
> sounded pretty dang good.

Direct drive turntable, of course.

--
[Self-centered, Woke] "pride is a life of self-destructive fakery, an
entrapment to a false and self-created matrix of twisted unreality."
"It was pride that changed angels into devils..." — St. Augustine

Le 24-05-2024, RonB <ronb02NOSPAM@gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> I'm not an audiophile and I'm certainly not going to buy a $1,500 iPhone or
> $2,000 Mac simply to listen to music. What I've got sounds great to me.

Audiophiles don't use iPhones or Mac to listen to music. They buy a real
HiFi system. There are some physical limitations with what can be done
with 2 cm wide speakers.

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> wrote:
>Le 24-05-2024, RonB <ronb02NOSPAM@gmail.com> a écrit :
>>
>> I'm not an audiophile and I'm certainly not going to buy a $1,500 iPhone or
>> $2,000 Mac simply to listen to music. What I've got sounds great to me.
>
>Audiophiles don't use iPhones or Mac to listen to music. They buy a real
>HiFi system. There are some physical limitations with what can be done
>with 2 cm wide speakers.

I'm an audiophile, and all I need is my motherboard's audio and high
fidelity headphones. The speakers themselves are not high fidelity,
but are useful as a headphone jack that isn't on the computer case
itself, and for when I have company, wanting everyone to hear the
sound, I unplug the headphones. My old stereo system is still
collecting dust at my mom's house.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Sat, 25 May 2024 06:46:29 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

>
> And those sharp needles wearing away a little bit more from the delicate
> grooves with every play. Not to mention embedding the dust ever deeper
> into the soft, yielding plastic, where you can never get it out.
>

Not to mention the RIAA equalization required to overcome the limitations
of that ancient recording technology (which dates back to Edison). High freqs
has to be boosted and low freqs reduced by over 20dB. Then playback equipment
had to incorporate special circuitry to restore the balance. The same applied
to the tape medium.

On 2024-05-24 6:07 p.m., Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
> Le 24-05-2024, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> a écrit :
>> On 2024-05-24 2:29 p.m., Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>>> Le 24-05-2024, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> It's part of what I was saying about Microsoft not having an interest in
>>>> replacing the Windows core with the Linux kernel. Microsoft has no
>>>> interest in using a superior kernel as long as they have one that's good
>>>> enough to offer the world which is simultaneously under their complete
>>>> control. By using Linux, they're handing over control. They won't do that.
>>>
>>> Does it really look like Android lost control using Linux? Do you
>>> believe Microsoft couldn't do the same? If they can reduce the costs
>>> when keeping control, they will.
>>
>> All the power to them if they do, but I just don't see the corporation
>> using selling something they don't have complete control over.
>
> They are using Linux to run their azure servers. What do you want? They
> already do. They sell Azure, they sell Office 365. Office deployed on
> personal computers is the past. It's no more where the money is. They
> want the money.

If that's where they head, that's fine by me. I just don't expect them
to sacrifice complete control. In the end, having Linux as a kernel
would mean that manufacturers like NVIDIA would have no choice but to
open their drivers and that Microsoft itself wouldn't have to spend so
much of their resources on ensuring that hardware works right. It would
also make some of their other efforts, like Windows Defender, obsolete.
Considering how Microsoft released Android phones, the chances are not
so small anymore.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.

On 2024-05-24 6:29 p.m., rbowman wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2024 17:43:38 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> If they rely on Bing, people might as well just use Bing. I was rooting
>> for Brave Search to be decent, but I find it very inaccurate for my
>> searches. Bing, on the other hand, is rather good.
>
> I use Brave's search by default but it is noticeably poorer for some
> searches. I could definitely live without the AI generated summary. Most
> of the time you can tell which site it scraped.

Brave's efforts are commendable, but there is no denying that Bing is
better. Whenever I can't directly find what I'm looking for in Bing, all
I have to do is use Co-Pilot and I will get the answer I am looking for.
Just a few days ago, I wanted to know the exact command to do certain
things in the Linux terminal, and I was surprised at how good Co-Pilot
was for teaching me an operating system other than Windows.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.

Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
>On 2024-05-24 6:29 p.m., rbowman wrote:
>> On Fri, 24 May 2024 17:43:38 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>>
>>> If they rely on Bing, people might as well just use Bing. I was rooting
>>> for Brave Search to be decent, but I find it very inaccurate for my
>>> searches. Bing, on the other hand, is rather good.
>>
>> I use Brave's search by default but it is noticeably poorer for some
>> searches. I could definitely live without the AI generated summary. Most
>> of the time you can tell which site it scraped.
>
>Brave's efforts are commendable, but there is no denying that Bing is
>better. Whenever I can't directly find what I'm looking for in Bing, all
>I have to do is use Co-Pilot and I will get the answer I am looking for.
>Just a few days ago, I wanted to know the exact command to do certain
>things in the Linux terminal, and I was surprised at how good Co-Pilot
>was for teaching me an operating system other than Windows.

Heh, so you're back to Winblows, and using Bing to boot. God damn,
you change your mind like no one's business. My use of Win or Lin is
pretty consistent, the way I operate either one is more or less
equivalent. Linux is just more sleek.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On 2024-05-24 7:29 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2024 07:57:24 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> On 2024-05-23 11:03 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 23 May 2024 20:06:47 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>>>
>>>> By using Linux, they're handing over control. They won't do that.
>>>
>>> They’re losing control over the sheer complexity of Windows as it
>>> stands.
>>
>> This was the same problem they had in the mid-2000s when they rewrote
>> the core and implemented it into Vista. Looking back, they actually did
>> a good job. People forget that the beloved Windows 7 was just an
>> optimized Vista.
>
> Windows 7 was a cleaned-up Vista. (Also see: “Windows Mojave”.)
>
> Remember why Vista was late: the big reason was because somebody had the
> bright idea to reimplement core parts of Windows in Dotnet. This turned to
> be terrible in terms of resource usage (RAM, CPU etc). So they had to rip
> all that code out and start again.
>
> Even with that, they still couldn’t do things efficiently in Windows that
> Linux can do, and that still applies today.

Well, the mobile hardware I used between 2006 and 2009 definitely ran
better with Linux than it did with Windows. I used to use it exclusively
at work because the free tools it offered, like Devede, were fabulous
for what I was trying to do. I recall that the hardware itself allowed
me to install either open or proprietary drivers for the AMD GPU and I
couldn't tell the difference between both. I imagine that AMD's drivers
weren't open then, but the open ones worked just as well.

>>> Look at the ongoing quality problems with Windows releases. Delegating
>>> functions to Linux would actually be a way of regaining that control.
>>
>> When referring to quality, what exactly are you pointing at? The
>> security problems? Updates breaking the desktop?
>
> Buggy updates, and buggy patches to fix those updates, requiring more
> patches to fix the previous patches.

There is no denying that.

>> The desktop experience itself is rather stellar.
>
> With new “UI paradigms” introduced in one part but not used in another
> part? With the inability to properly support multiple desktops, which *nix
> systems have been doing for years, nay, decades? With a UI that is not
> adaptable enough to compete with the Linux-based Steam Deck for handheld
> gaming? With the advertisements gradually seeping into every part of the
> desktop?

The advertisements are definitely an issue, but not as big as the
privacy nightmare they're introducing. The way those advertisements are
presented, it feels as though there would be no way of competing with
Microsoft in areas such as office software.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.

On 2024-05-24 7:31 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2024 08:00:39 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> On 2024-05-23 11:08 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> This is a sign of declining investment on the part of Microsoft. Which
>>> in turn must be a consequence of declining returns on that investment.
>>>
>>> Making more use of Linux would be a way of saving money.
>>
>> Microsoft is still invested in Windows, but they are having trouble
>> finding every possible way hackers will use to break into the system.
>
> The security part is important, too, but look at the revenue part: why is
> Microsoft going to the extreme of pushing advertising into the Windows
> desktop experience itself? That’s a sign of trying to squeeze every last
> bit of revenue out of a stagnant or declining market.

What Microsoft is doing is no different from what Apple is doing. In
MacOS or iOS, they are selling their iCloud and Apple Music in much the
same way Microsoft will be selling their PC Game Pass and Microsoft 365.
It's annoying, but the bigger problem is that it puts them at a
significant advantage for those kinds of services over the competition.
With OneDrive, Microsoft 365 and PC Game Pass being so prominent, it
would be difficult to find an advantage in using Dropbox, WordPerfect
Office or Steam. Considering this, third-parties should stop trying to
develop for Windows and MacOS and try to make their offerings available
to alternative systems like Linux instead. For them, the market share is
small, and there is little benefit. However, if people realized that
Windows will always be Microsoft first (and Apple, Apple first) and the
only way to get something different will be Linux, they might start
making a version of their product available.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.

On 2024-05-24 7:42 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2024 17:47:24 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> I always hated that about the original iPod. It was by far the best
>> music player on the market, and its interface was excellent even if you
>> were using it in the car while driving, but the fact that you couldn't
>> copy back or forth was horrible.
>
> That was strictly a limitation of the original Itunes software, at
> least before Apple starting encrypting some data files on later Ipods.
> The open-source folks had managed to reverse-engineer the protocol
> <https://libimobiledevice.org/>. There was this nice pluggable
> filesystem called “ifuse”, which makes the entire contents of the Ipod
> look like a filesystem volume. Plus there was a Python module called
> “gpod”, which would let you manipulate the associated database,
> playlists etc, and copy files back and forth while keeping the
> database in sync.

Good to know, but that just confirms that Linux will always be playing
catch-up in supporting hardware. Most of these companies have no
interest in supporting Linux or letting people properly scour the
internal storage, so they will encrypt everything just to bother people.
That developers managed to offer this functionality to Linux users
eventually is commendable though.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.

On 2024-05-24 7:46 p.m., RonB wrote:
> On 2024-05-24, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> <snips>
>>>
>>> You would have better ears than I have to tell the difference.
>>
>> The ears are one thing, but even if you only know about the
>> specifications, you would know that what Spotify offers can't compete.
>> Apple's lossy codec is the best there is, so a song encoded at 256kbps
>> using it will sound magnificent no matter what kind of speakers you use.
>> If that is not sufficient for you, it also offers lossless at no extra
>> charge. Meanwhile, the default for Spotify is AAC at 128kbps, using an
>> inferior codec that is probably the one offered by Nero. High quality
>> there is 256kbps, more or less on par with what Apple Music offers at
>> the low end but, again, with a worse encoder. There is no lossless option.
>
> I'm not an audiophile and I'm certainly not going to buy a $1,500 iPhone or
> $2,000 Mac simply to listen to music. What I've got sounds great to me.

I think that most people are getting their phones the way that I got my
13: through their service provider at a lower price than if they bought
it outright for two years worth of monthly payments. I recall that if I
had decided to buy the iPhone 13 directly, I would have paid around
$1,300. Through monthly payments for two years, the total price amount
to around $900. That was if I wanted to actually own the device too. If
I had opted to lease it, I would have paid considerably less.

As for the Mac, you're buying one because you plan on editing videos or
making music. If that's not what you're doing, you want the Mac because
it has better battery life, better updates and a more comprehensible
operating system than Windows. Otherwise, Windows is fine.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.

On 2024-05-24 7:51 p.m., RonB wrote:
> On 2024-05-24, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
>> On 2024-05-24 11:32 a.m., Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>>> Andrzej Matuch wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>>>
>>>> On 2024-05-24 8:30 a.m., Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>>>>> Andrzej Matuch wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2024-05-24 3:00 a.m., RonB wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2024-05-24, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> <brevsnip>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Probably because some people think that Apple Music also requires Apple
>>>>>>>> hardware. Even without Apple hardware, the sound quality is superior as
>>>>>>>> is the selection.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You would have better ears than I have to tell the difference.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The ears are one thing, but even if you only know about the
>>>>>> specifications, you would know that what Spotify offers can't compete.
>>>>>> Apple's lossy codec is the best there is, so a song encoded at 256kbps
>>>>>> using it will sound magnificent no matter what kind of speakers you use.
>>>>>> If that is not sufficient for you, it also offers lossless at no extra
>>>>>> charge. Meanwhile, the default for Spotify is AAC at 128kbps, using an
>>>>>> inferior codec that is probably the one offered by Nero. High quality
>>>>>> there is 256kbps, more or less on par with what Apple Music offers at
>>>>>> the low end but, again, with a worse encoder. There is no lossless option.
>>>>>
>>>>> But is the "loss" noticeable to human ears?
>>>>
>>>> It is. There is an additional punch to the Apple AAC encoder that is
>>>> lacking in Nero's. Nero's does a good job, but it isn't as good. It's
>>>> better than MP3 though.
>>>>
>>>>> And if so, does it matter? I enjoy a tune the same whether I listen to it
>>>>> through earbuds, $15 logitech speakers, whether in quiet or a bit of
>>>>> background noise. Most of musical information is low frequency (under 5 kHz),
>>>>> though the harmonics increase that up to maybe 16 kHz.
>>>>
>>>> For people who aren't audiophiles, there isn't a difference in audio
>>>> quality, but they will likely notice the greater selection from Apple. I
>>>> also think that Apple has an excellent interface, with YouTube's being
>>>> the absolute worst.
>>>
>>> I stopped listening to YouTube while walking. Sick of commerials in the middle
>>> of a 10-minute tune. Also the slightest accidental touch of the phone screen
>>> can stop the playback.
>>>
>>> Switched to SomaFM... their Secret Agent channel has some good walkin' tunes.
>>
>> YouTube Music doesn't have commercials if you pay for it. It also
>> removes ads from YouTube itself, making for a much more pleasant viewing
>> experience there too.
>
> It doesn't have ads if you use uBlock Origin either.

True, but my being a Catholic makes me reluctant to use services in a
way that doesn't benefit the provider. I stopped blocking ads a while
back and pay to support the sites I most often frequent. If I am not
interested in paying and a site becomes needlessly annoying to use, I
simply check out an alternative.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.

On 2024-05-25 3:08 a.m., RonB wrote:
> On 2024-05-25, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>> On 25 May 2024 04:33:40 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> CDs? Who said anything about that digital crap? I'm talking about an era
>>> with 20 lb turntables with built in strobe rings so you could get the
>>> speed exactly right. Styli cut from diamonds mined by virgins in South
>>> Africa. Tone arms with verniers on the counterweights so you could get
>>> the tracking force exactly right. Built in spirit levels in case the
>>> world was tilting. Pure analog, baby.
>>
>> And those sharp needles wearing away a little bit more from the delicate
>> grooves with every play. Not to mention embedding the dust ever deeper
>> into the soft, yielding plastic, where you can never get it out.
>>
>> There’s a reason we normal people left that technology behind in the
>> 1970s. That’s where it belongs.
>
> And yet it's making a comeback with some audiophiles. I bought a ton of
> records when CDs first came out. They were cheap.

A while back, a friend of mine's husband was trying to sell me on vinyl
as I was buying some of his CDs. He was telling me how the sound is
better, this and that. The entire time, I was reminding myself of the
constant popping I would hear when listening to albums as a kid. The
slightest thing would ruin the sound on that vinyls.

If the technology were so great, video vinyls wouldn't have bankrupted
RCA in the 1980s.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.

Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

> Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>>
>> The ears are one thing, but even if you only know about the
>> specifications, you would know that what Spotify offers can't compete.
>> Apple's lossy codec is the best there is, so a song encoded at 256kbps
>> using it will sound magnificent no matter what kind of speakers you use.
>> If that is not sufficient for you, it also offers lossless at no extra
>> charge. Meanwhile, the default for Spotify is AAC at 128kbps, using an
>> inferior codec that is probably the one offered by Nero. High quality
>> there is 256kbps, more or less on par with what Apple Music offers at
>> the low end but, again, with a worse encoder. There is no lossless option.
>
>But is the "loss" noticeable to human ears?

Especially for us old folks. Most the "savings" in lossy compression
is a reduction in high frequencies. I'm more concerned with audio
quality than most people are, and I think that Spotify's sound quality
is quite good. But then, I'm old.

I think that I can still tell that my CD's are better, if they are
mastered well. OTOH, some of my old rock CD's have terrible mastering
(very little bass) and I find Spotify's mastering to be much better!

--
"Should standard cars and bicycles be free too you tight fisted fuck
up?" - "True Linux advocate" Hadron Quark

Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>>
>> You don't need to be audiophile the hear the difference, you need a
>> better system.
>
>Yeah, Chris's $15 speakers probably won't allow him to hear the
>difference between a lossless Apple Music song and some crappy 128kbps
>Spotify one.

Is Spotify 128kbps?

chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:

>I think that I can still tell that my CD's are better, if they are
>mastered well. OTOH, some of my old rock CD's have terrible mastering
>(very little bass) and I find Spotify's mastering to be much better!

I can't imagine using something other than Spotify, for streaming
music. Not a chance in hell that it'd be as smooth as their Linux
app, trying to use Apple BS or another giant corporate thing. The
codecs just aren't that important, ultimately, I worry about that in
my collection of actual files, not for streaming, it's good enough and
that is sufficient for me.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> rbowman wrote:
>
>> I remember audiophiles from back in the day. They could hook up an o-scope
>> and prove their system was reproducing 22000 Hz signals flawlessly. I
>> suppose dogs appreciated it.
>
>So the ones you met would actually *trust* oscilloscopes? Because the
>“true” audiophile didn’t like CDs because they could “hear the gaps
>between the samples”. You could hook an oscilloscope up to the audio
>outputs from your CD or DVD player and show that it was producing flawless
>continuous waveforms, but that wasn’t enough for them: their ears were
>hearing things that no mere electrical signal could reproduce!

Heh. I personally battled that kind of ignorance, on many occasions.
They would claims 0's and 1's "missed something" that analog did not,
for example.

When I touted CD's excellent dynamic range, one ignoramus fought back
with "What good is CD's high dynamic range, when if the signal drops
3dB the number of bits used is halved from 16 to 8?" Err... Half of
2^16 is 2^15, not 2^8. He was too stupid to understand that he was
effectively asking "What good is high dynamic range, if you have poor
dynamic range"?

Andrzej Matuch wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 2024-05-24 2:22 p.m., Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>> Le 24-05-2024, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> a écrit :
>>> For people who aren't audiophiles, there isn't a difference in audio
>>> quality,
>>
>> You don't need to be audiophile the hear the difference, you need a
>> better system.
>
> Yeah, Chris's $15 speakers probably won't allow him to hear the
> difference between a lossless Apple Music song and some crappy 128kbps
> Spotify one.

That's fine by me. I don't need a symphonic experience while hacking away
at code.

http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/pm/MP3-128k.htm

My opinion is that 128kb/s MP3 is great for mobile use and less critical
material such as metal or heavy rock.

:-)

--
There is always one thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
-- Joan Didion, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem"

RonB wrote:

>People tell me you can't tell the difference between analog and digital, but
>I don't necessarily believe them.

Well they can sound indistinguishable, but not necessarily. Move one
to a low-quality format, like vinyl, and they will sound different.

>To me (at least when I had ears) analog seemed more "full." (If that makes any sense.)

Vinyl's distortions are pleasing, to many people.

rbowman wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On Fri, 24 May 2024 03:41:48 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On 24 May 2024 03:05:54 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> ... Microsoft inherited the safe choice crown. The same process is at
>>> work in the consumer world too.
>>
>> Never worked for mobile devices, though.
>
> They must have had one of those fully automatic black rifles to shoot
> themselves in the foot so many times. The Pocket PC did okay for
> enterprises but the Palm was cheaper and arguably better. Then the Windows
> Phone 7 attempt wasn't compatible. Leaning from their mistakes the Phone 8
> wasn't compatible with the 7. The Metro fiasco didn't help. UWP was meant
> with skepticism by developers who had been burned by Microsoft's
> fickleness before.
>
> I don't know if all the blame can be laid on Ballmer but he didn't help
> any.
>
> https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-developers-can-now-bring-their-winui-3-apps-ios-android-macos-and-web
>
> I don't know how well that attempt is going.

Microsoft does better when they buy the technology... and keep their grubby
mitts off of it.

--
You may my glories and my state dispose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
-- William Shakespeare, "Richard II"

Relf wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> DistroMan, RonB, Uncle_Matuch, rBowman,
> Ahlstrom, DFS, ChrisV, Huntzinger & Crump,
>
> You guys should try (Up_Mixed) Stereo_To_Surround_Sound someday;
> until then, you won't know what you're missing.

I don't care what I'm missing. Happy with what I have.

--
You two ought to be more careful--your love could drag on for years and years.

> Jen Dershmender wrote:
>>
>>a properly adjusted phono cartridge doesn't do the things you speak of.

Are you claiming that RIAA equalization isn't an integral part of the
vinyl record/playback process?

>>Equalization is a factor in any recording process. Every mixing board in every recording studio has an EQ.

That doesn't invalidate what Fabian said about the special case of
RIAA equalization, stupid.

On 2024-05-25 8:19 a.m., chrisv wrote:
> Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>>>
>>> You don't need to be audiophile the hear the difference, you need a
>>> better system.
>>
>> Yeah, Chris's $15 speakers probably won't allow him to hear the
>> difference between a lossless Apple Music song and some crappy 128kbps
>> Spotify one.
>
> Is Spotify 128kbps?

Yeah, the standard bitrate is 128kbps. They allow you to have 256kbps if
you subscribe for their high end.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
TG: @AndrzejMatuch
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king.