On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:08:46 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 00:22:09 -0000, "JustMe" wrote:

Direct Cut = Sun Dive. It's not
difficult.................... :-)

I now have a voice to put to your words - thanks!

Here I am, brain the size of a planet,

???

:-)

(No comment - wouldn't be fair.... ;-)

and they want me to explain why
vinyl is obsolete........................

Go on then, I'm all ears

Well, there's certainly not much keeping them apart...........

and then perhaps you could explain just how CD is
*not* obsolete....???

That would be because it still dominates music sales, and there is no
replacement which has proven to have superior sound.

Or are you suggesting that MP3 128 is an *improvement* on CD?
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

In article , Iain M Churches wrote:

"Andy Evans" wrote in message
...
Can we start a baroque versus contemporary music flamewar, or is it
off-topic here?

Only is we have a quorum of two people prepared to call each other
'****s' for 192 posts. We could start a genteel discussion, but the
shock may not be good for our systems.

Count me in. I like both genres, so I could flame from either
direction. That might be fun:-)

Period instruments, until you get used to them, sound decidedly
odd to the modern ear. A fortepiano by Mathaeus Heilmann
circa 1770 tends to remind many of the joanna in the public bar
of The Frog and Nightgown.

Too true. I like fortepianos in context, but I am still not sure of
the horns used by Concentus musicus Wien as conducted by Harnoncourt in
his Teldec Bach Brandenburgs. The opening of No.2 came as a real shock
at first hearing. I think they're probably OK - but only after several
auditions to get used to them.

--
John Phillips

In article , Jim Lesurf wrote:
About the closest my taste gets to such things is a liking for the Organ
music of Messian or Alain...

Messiaen - now you're talking. I think I'll put on Jennifer Bate's disc
of "Les Corps Glorieux" in a moment. Drat! No flamewar after all :-(.

--
John Phillips

In article , Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:

IIRC, most recent FreeView STBs have a radio button which gives
immediate access to a favourites list. So you don't need to use the TV
screen menu.

An annoyance with the Nokia 221T DTTV RX is that although you can change
channel by pressing in the required channel/station number, this is firmly
split into TV or Radio. To change from TV to radio or vice versa you have
to go via the menu navigation systems, so this involves more fiddling
about, and you tend to need the TV to watch the menus. Daft GUI and
ergonomics! Means you end up tending to switch on the TV to listen to the
radio via DTTV.

Although I am in a poor area for DDTV I do want to see if I can put in
a good high-gain antenna and maybe a masthead amplifier to get over the
downlead attenuation. So, are there any suggestions for a specific DTTV
box with:

- coax or optical digital audio output
- radio selection without the need for going through a video menu
- channel display on the box

--
John Phillips

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 14:04:00 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

Interestingly the 'shortfall' I'm noticing with DAB (the CD-like 'thin',
'flat' and 'lifeless' presentation) is less pronounced on Classic FM which
can (I think - haven't made a serious comparison) actually sound better than
R3, listened to at some distance. (Remaind unlistenable 'close-up and
personal' though.....)

The parallel I see between DAB and CD is being reinforced on a daily basis
here atm - there's not a day goes by without some flyer comes through the
door mentioning DAB and I've no doubt whatsover that, now the industry has
woken up to what Joe Public will pay for a Radio (they got there in the end,
didn't they? :-), the unstoppable groundswell of 'digital cheap and easy'
will come into play once again and DAB will sweep all before it.

Be interesting to see the 'pundits' here starting to justify it, which will
be easy for them to do as soon as someone throws a sop to the 'bitrate
bitching' atm and shuts them up.....

Not a matter of justification, just a matter of you not knowing what
you're talking about - again.

Firstly, Jim has already suggested why you'll find FM less 'thin' than
DAB - Optimod compression crushes transients (just like overdriven
valve amps), and gives additional warmth to the sound.

Secondly, DAB is nothing like CD, but it *is* very like MP3, and has
the same problems *if* the bitrate is too low. With a high enough
bitrate, it's as good as any other compressed medium, e.g. Dolby
Digital, DTS or indeed MP3, which at more than 256kbit/sec, is pretty
much indistinguishable from CD to me, and to anyone I've ever seen
report on the matter.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

I am still not sure of the horns used by Concentus musicus Wien as conducted by
Harnoncourt in his Teldec Bach Brandenburgs.

And the Teldec Cantatas - which I personally love. There's notes in that saying
the hornists weren't used to the instruments, had to learn stuff in a hurry
etc. These were early recordings.

=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

Nick Gorham wrote:

Tat Chan wrote:

Yes, the alpha was great in many ways, too little too late for dec
though. Great floating point processor, much faster than just about
anything else at the time.

another case of a company with an excellent engineering department, but poor
marketing. DEC has the fastest architecture in the market for a long time, and
they were 64 bit long before Intel. Just proves that good technology alone isn't
enough to save a company.


VMS
has a lot of good things going for it, but IMHO it was made for sys
admins and actual use as a working system, wheras unix was made for
developers, so thats why I much prefer unix, I can be a hell of a lot
more productive on nix than VMS

I have no experience with VMS, but I do like Unix. So I take it there isn't a
Bash/Korn shell like interface on VMS?

Ah. My only experience with a RTOS is vxWorks.


Ok, yes, if I remember thats Vertex with a unix like second layer above
the hard RTOS, but I could be wrong.

don't remember, but I do recall that it had a Unix shell like interface!

In article , John Phillips
wrote:


Although I am in a poor area for DDTV I do want to see if I can put in a
good high-gain antenna and maybe a masthead amplifier to get over the
downlead attenuation.

FWIW unless the downlead is long, if you use good co-ax the losses should
be small. My experience/impression is that ignition interference is more of
a problem than a conventional low SNR. For this, an antenna with a balun,
and foil-screened co-ax may be worthwhile. Not all antennas and cables fit
this requirement.

Also, FWIW I bought and use a low noise UHF preamp from Maplin as it was
listed as having a low noise figure, and this reduced the effect of
ignition interference here (from devices in our house).

So, are there any suggestions for a specific DTTV
box with:

- coax or optical digital audio output - radio selection without the
need for going through a video menu - channel display on the box

I would also flag up one other 'issue' that may be relevant.

You may wish to 'daisy chain' the DTTV box with other items via SCART. If
so, take care as although boxes like the Nokia do have a pair of SCARTs ,
not all accept RGB *in* and pass it through. Ditto for some VHS recorders,
etc. Hence being told the unit can be chained, and has a pair of SCARTs
does *not* guarantee RGB.

I must admit I was baffled to find that many units have a pair of scarts,
but won't pass through RGB. Seems daft to me. But there you go...

Here I was somewhat impressed in the end by just how well DTTV works. I'm
using a TX that is over 75 km away, with a small loft antenna. Bar
occasional ignition interference we get excellent results. The TX power is
well below 'analog' TV, yet the results here are far better as we only get
poor analog reception.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Tat Chan wrote:


What is the 'curse' of analogue tape? I thought that the "master" tape
was the best hi-fi source, as it doesn't get better than the master
tape. Have recording studios have moved on to digital media (digital
recording on tape, or straight to hard drive)?


It must by nature be the best *recorded* source. But even with the very
best analogue tape systems, differences were easily heard between the
source material and that tape - those comparisons made while it was being
recorded.

By "source material", do you mean the actual perfomance itself or another
tape/CD/etc? I don't see how one can hear differences between source material
and the tape, as the tape would be played back via monitors, but the
performance, is live.

All pro machines (well nearly all) had separate record and
replay chains, so you could listen to the actual recording a fraction of a
second after the source - ie a near direct AB comparison under identical
listening conditions.

an analogy would be the 3 head cassette deck?

Yes, I see how a near direct AB comparison can be made, but the source in this
case would be another replay medium, wouldn't it?


snip rest of info

thanks for the info.

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 17:42:26 +1100, Tat Chan
wrote:


Nope, as the Beeb system isn't linear, but uses sliding bits. It's
probably equivalent to 15-bit linear PCM, hence more than adequate for
the dynamic range of FM radio.

Sliding bits? Is that another name for the sampling used in, say the A-law or
Mju-law schemes?


Remember, there is no point in having a bit depth greater than the
dynamic range of the medium. There is no known music master tape with
a dynamic range greater than 80-85dB, i.e. 14 bits.

But no one told the SACD and DVD-A people ...