In article ,
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
Dave's right - my A3 doesn't lock the steering when you switch off the
ignition. OTOH, it turns out that the BMW which started this off was
one of the new ones with a push-in 'key' and a separate engine
start/stop button, so I have no idea what would happen with that one.
I do know that if you hit the engine start button within ten seconds
of removing the key entirely in those BMs, the engine will start!

You sure? It was a quite old 318.

--
*I have a degree in liberal arts -- do you want fries with that

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:41:09 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
Dave's right - my A3 doesn't lock the steering when you switch off the
ignition. OTOH, it turns out that the BMW which started this off was
one of the new ones with a push-in 'key' and a separate engine
start/stop button, so I have no idea what would happen with that one.
I do know that if you hit the engine start button within ten seconds
of removing the key entirely in those BMs, the engine will start!

You sure? It was a quite old 318.

Not sure, but that was the buzz in the office.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

A bit more than 250 fps, clearly not a problem to read the first two
digits and IME you take a 'snapshot' of a three-digit number in a
quick glance, you don't pick up the individual digits except by
deliberate concentration.

17{blur}. Like I said, didn't want to risk taking my eyes off the road
for a second look!

Just to get back on topic... do you reckon if you replaced the HT leads
on that rather lovely sounding V6 engine with OFC or pure silver
leads... would it make the engine sound any better? ;-)

(I speak in jest of course, but you can actually buy "performance" HT
leads at places like Motorworld...)

Of course, there's a definite possibility that your brain is of
non-standard construction.....

Well I've suspected that to be the case ever since I found out that
other people don't actually see the world as falling green glyphs. :-P

Very impressive, one can see why major corporations beat a path to
your door! :-)

Actually I've got quite a few blue chip companies on the books here. And
before you ask, no, I'm not at liberty to discuss them. All I can say is
that there are several big players in the mortgage intermediary market.

Do you have anything which isn't really just a PC?

Got some old Acorn kit kicking around, couple of StrongARM RISC PCs (and
another one with ARM710), an A7000, few A5000s... good for holding the
door open these days. Shame, cos when that stuff was new it was light
years ahead of anything the Wintel camp could offer.

There's no problem whatsoever with using stuff that's "really just a
PC". The likes of FreeBSD, NetBSD etc (and Linux to a lesser extent) can
give you top notch server performance on cheap x86 hardware... which
because it's *nix means you can charge the customer a small fortune for
maintaining it.

Or alternatively you could do the "Richer Sounds" approach... sell
cheaper and sell more. Which is the approach I've taken. By using
open-source software for servers, and cheap fast x86 hardware, I can
undercut anyone trying to offer Windows based servers and make just as
much profit from it.

But hey, even Mac runs on x86 now.

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

My favourite 'oops' is jumping out of a manual back into an auto, and
attempting to declutch at the first junction I come to. Certainly gets
the attention of whoever's behind me!

My most spectacular "oops" was when I'd been driving a Mercedes C200 for
a couple of weeks (courtesy car while my A4 was being repaired... after
some oxygen thief from Pakistan who had a slightly poorer grasp of the
Highway Code than the English language slammed into me on a roundabout,
writing his car off and doing about £5k worth of damage to mine - all
cosmetic I might add)... which was an automatic. Got back into mine, was
on the way down to Bristol to meet the then-gf... came off the sliproad
at the M4/M32 interchange, lights were red, braked to stop at the
lights... thunk stalled it.

Of course, 2 weeks of driving a toy and I'd forgotten to put the clutch
down.

Being a diesel, and being on a downhill slope, not a problem. Declutch
quick-smart, put it into second, bring the clutch up, restarts. Then
declutch, brake, neutral.

I did a couple of times try and stick it in first without putting the
clutch down, but within a couple of hours I was used to manual again.
Not sure if the A4 has syncromesh on first, but it wouldn't go in
without putting the clutch down (so I'm guessing that's a no then).

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation

Thus spake Jim Lesurf:
Snipped
I've now found the HFN letter by Baxadall [1] I had in mind when I
made some earlier comments. This used some microphones and a speaker
to add controlled amounts of distortion to the sound of a 'live'
piano. To sum up the results, he found that listeners could hear
distortion at levels around 2 percent with fair reliability, but by
the time it was down to 0.5 percent they showed no signs of being
able to hear it.

Yet if the same distortion was recorded and replayed without the piano
playing, it was easily audible.

At 0.5%? I'm sorry but I don't understand why Baxendall went the route of
adding distortion to a live recording. Surely the temporal relationship
between the live fundamental tones & the added harmonics would be smeared,
let alone the phase relationship (& vary with listening position) unless it
was just to refute a dodgy theory.

His test was for the 'Bob Stuart Hypothesis' that added distortions
might have an effect when accompanied by the sound they altered even
if the distortion in isolation was inaudible. This was a
counter-hypothesis to PJW using nulling to argue that when you nulled
amp distortion and got no audible result, then the distortion must
have no audible effect.

I don't understand the postulates behind the Bob Stuart Hypothesis.

Thus Baxandall's test supported PJW and refuted Bob Stuart's
hypothesis.

As I would expect.

The result was in line with some similar tests using 'grunge boxes'
which I have read about where even long-term use showed no signs of
the listeners being able to hear distortion at the same levels as
Baxandall found to show no sign of being audible.

I suspect we are fairly tolerant to harmonics. Piano is particularly good
instrument at revealing frequency modulation artefacts such as wow or
flutter (as it happens.)

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 22:48:50 +0000, Glenn Richards
wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

A bit more than 250 fps, clearly not a problem to read the first two
digits and IME you take a 'snapshot' of a three-digit number in a
quick glance, you don't pick up the individual digits except by
deliberate concentration.

17{blur}. Like I said, didn't want to risk taking my eyes off the road
for a second look!

Just to get back on topic... do you reckon if you replaced the HT leads
on that rather lovely sounding V6 engine with OFC or pure silver
leads... would it make the engine sound any better? ;-)

Actually, I much prefer the sound of the wide-angle V6 in the A4, the
A3's VR6 screams rather than roars. YMMV. I use six-nines silver in
mine to bring out the delicate treble quality.

(I speak in jest of course, but you can actually buy "performance" HT
leads at places like Motorworld...)

Indeed you can - but that's often got more to do with the
brightly-coloured insulation than the electrical properties.

Of course, there's a definite possibility that your brain is of
non-standard construction.....

Well I've suspected that to be the case ever since I found out that
other people don't actually see the world as falling green glyphs. :-P

Don't get me started on glyphs.........

Very impressive, one can see why major corporations beat a path to
your door! :-)

Actually I've got quite a few blue chip companies on the books here. And
before you ask, no, I'm not at liberty to discuss them. All I can say is
that there are several big players in the mortgage intermediary market.

Ahhh, the ultimate parasites! :-)

Do you have anything which isn't really just a PC?

Got some old Acorn kit kicking around, couple of StrongARM RISC PCs (and
another one with ARM710), an A7000, few A5000s... good for holding the
door open these days. Shame, cos when that stuff was new it was light
years ahead of anything the Wintel camp could offer.

Indeed. My own '80s experience of small-scale computers is largely
based on the HP 9000 industrial range, stunningly fast for their day,
but with a 'user hostile' OS. Enter 'format c:', and it did it right
away, and very quickly.......

There's no problem whatsoever with using stuff that's "really just a
PC". The likes of FreeBSD, NetBSD etc (and Linux to a lesser extent) can
give you top notch server performance on cheap x86 hardware... which
because it's *nix means you can charge the customer a small fortune for
maintaining it.

Aaah, you've discovered where the money is, huh? :-)

Or alternatively you could do the "Richer Sounds" approach... sell
cheaper and sell more. Which is the approach I've taken. By using
open-source software for servers, and cheap fast x86 hardware, I can
undercut anyone trying to offer Windows based servers and make just as
much profit from it.

But hey, even Mac runs on x86 now.

Indeed it does, which must have blown a cold draught through the
Motorola boardroom..........
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

Just to get back on topic... do you reckon if you replaced the HT
leads on that rather lovely sounding V6 engine with OFC or pure
silver leads... would it make the engine sound any better? ;-)
Actually, I much prefer the sound of the wide-angle V6 in the A4, the
A3's VR6 screams rather than roars. YMMV.

Well... all I'll say is that over the few days I had the A3, I
repeatedly found myself turning the music down when accelerating off a
roundabout for example just to hear that lovely V6 noise. ;-)

There's only one thing that sounds better than a V6, and that's a V8.
It's the tickover noise that makes the difference. But either is pure
music, at least to the ears of the true piston head.

Before I bought the A4 I currently have, I tested a 2.5 TDI Quattro.
That also made a rather nice noise, think low-revving V6, but with a
touch of diesel rattle overdubbed. However once you're inside the car
you don't hear the rattle, and for a diesel it does make a nice noise.
Unfortunately because it's got half a ton of V6 sat in front of the
headlights it didn't feel as well balanced as the 1.9 TDI version that I
ended up buying.

Because of the extra weight of the 2.5 it's actually slower off the mark
than the 1.9 (at least the 130bhp version). But if I was towing
regularly I'd probably go for the 2.5, simply because of the mass of
torque it produces.

Haven't test driven the 3.0 TDI, but it'd be interesting to see how that
compares. IIRC that's a V6 as well, so shouldn't be that much heavier
than the 2.5, but produces 220bhp (and torque to match). So the power
should overcome the extra weight. Problem is with that you'd probably
get about 25mpg... which kind of defeats the point of having a diesel in
the first place (I get 45-50mpg out of the Quattro, and got 50-55 out of
the FWD version I had previously).

I use six-nines silver in mine to bring out the delicate treble quality.

I think this belongs in uk.rec.audio.car :-P

(I speak in jest of course, but you can actually buy "performance"
HT leads at places like Motorworld...)
Indeed you can - but that's often got more to do with the
brightly-coloured insulation than the electrical properties.

Yup. They're intended for boy racers... who spend most of their time
under the bonnet anyway, cos they've probably boiled their coolant.

Of course, there's a definite possibility that your brain is of
non-standard construction.....
Well I've suspected that to be the case ever since I found out that
other people don't actually see the world as falling green glyphs.
:-P
Don't get me started on glyphs.........

Follow the white rabbit...

Very impressive, one can see why major corporations beat a path
to your door! :-)
Actually I've got quite a few blue chip companies on the books
here. And before you ask, no, I'm not at liberty to discuss them.
All I can say is that there are several big players in the mortgage
intermediary market.
Ahhh, the ultimate parasites! :-)

Not quite. If you're anything other than a "standard" case, it's often
cheaper to go through a broker. Being self-employed (and therefore
having to go self-cert) I'm not a "standard" case, so have been able to
get a considerably better deal by getting a favour returned from a
couple of my clients.

There's no problem whatsoever with using stuff that's "really just
a PC". The likes of FreeBSD, NetBSD etc (and Linux to a lesser
extent) can give you top notch server performance on cheap x86
hardware... which because it's *nix means you can charge the
customer a small fortune for maintaining it.
Aaah, you've discovered where the money is, huh? :-)

Damn right. ;-)

Buy hardware for about £350, including a TFT monitor. Add £90 for an OEM
WinXP license (bill of materials comes to under £450). Sell to customer
for £695 - but that's a fully installed system, with on-site maintenance
extended to cover it.

And with the joys of remote access, I can do most admin stuff without
leaving the office.

But hey, even Mac runs on x86 now.
Indeed it does, which must have blown a cold draught through the
Motorola boardroom..........

"Ummm, we've just lost our biggest (and only) customer... we're buggered!"

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation

In article , Paul B
wrote:
Thus spake Jim Lesurf: Snipped
I've now found the HFN letter by Baxadall [1] I had in mind when I
made some earlier comments. This used some microphones and a speaker
to add controlled amounts of distortion to the sound of a 'live'
piano. To sum up the results, he found that listeners could hear
distortion at levels around 2 percent with fair reliability, but by
the time it was down to 0.5 percent they showed no signs of being able
to hear it.

Yet if the same distortion was recorded and replayed without the piano
playing, it was easily audible.

At 0.5%? I'm sorry but I don't understand why Baxendall went the route
of adding distortion to a live recording.

He did not say. However it may be that this avoids the 'undistorted' sound
actually having to pass through any equipment at all. In particular, avoids
any 'masking' by the 'undistorted' sound being reproduced by an imperfect
loudspeaker.

Surely the temporal relationship between the live fundamental tones &
the added harmonics would be smeared, let alone the phase relationship
(& vary with listening position) unless it was just to refute a dodgy
theory.

He reported setting up the system for specific listening locations, so may
have dealt with the above to some extent. Also, any 'extra' imperfection in
the distortion superposition might as easily have made them more audible,
not less. However he didn't comment on this in detail IIRC.

His test was for the 'Bob Stuart Hypothesis' that added distortions
might have an effect when accompanied by the sound they altered even
if the distortion in isolation was inaudible. This was a
counter-hypothesis to PJW using nulling to argue that when you nulled
amp distortion and got no audible result, then the distortion must
have no audible effect.

I don't understand the postulates behind the Bob Stuart Hypothesis.

PJW Had conducted tests where the signals 'before' and 'after' a power amp
were cancelled out, thus producing a result which nominally only contains
the 'distortions' introduced by the amp. He showed that with some amps this
residual was too quiet to be audible. Then the hypothesis he made was that
given this, it could be expected to have no audible effect when the music
*was* playing. Hence that such distortions were irrelevant and claims that
the amp had a 'sound' due to them would be nonsense.

This assumes you can apply linear superposition as part of the argument.

BS argued that linear superposition may not apply in such cases due to the
nonlinear behaviour of human hearing. Thus it may be that distortion
components that were - in isolation - inaudible might have an audible
effect when combined with other, audible, sounds. e.g those that prompted
the distortions.

Thus Baxandall's test supported PJW and refuted Bob Stuart's
hypothesis.

That was the implication of the results.

As I would expect.

? Don't know why you say that. I would have 'expected' it from linear
superposition, but BS's counter hypothesis was a quite reasonable one, can
could be tested. It was tested...

The result was in line with some similar tests using 'grunge boxes'
which I have read about where even long-term use showed no signs of
the listeners being able to hear distortion at the same levels as
Baxandall found to show no sign of being audible.

I suspect we are fairly tolerant to harmonics.

But of course as soon as you play a chord, or play a note that has multiple
strings not in unison, then intermodulation may be created by nonlinearity.
Leading to non-harmonic components being added that were absent from the
orginal sounds...

FWIW There have been other tests reported which also indicate that with
music, people could not reliably hear distortions much below 1 percent.
However these generally used arrangements to distort a reproduced signal,
not arrangements as Baxandall used. Hence the choice of arrangement does
not seem to affect the results much - although there may well be a problem
with using speakers that themselves produce distortion as this may then
mean the listeners are comaring almost identical sounds regardless of if
the added distortion is employed or not! Hence, perhaps, Baxandall's
approach to avoid this.

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

Glenn Richards wrote:

Indeed it does, which must have blown a cold draught through the
Motorola boardroom..........


"Ummm, we've just lost our biggest (and only) customer... we're buggered!"


Then again, Motorola have their fingers in a few more markets than
Intel. Looks to me that part of the reason Mac went to Intel was
processor speed, and I would have thought if the market was that
important to Motorola they would have fixed that.

Wonder what IBM plan to do with the PowerPC that must still be a good
market for Motorola, and there is always the playstation 3.

--
Nick

In article ,
Glenn Richards wrote:
Do you have anything which isn't really just a PC?

Got some old Acorn kit kicking around, couple of StrongARM RISC PCs (and
another one with ARM710), an A7000, few A5000s... good for holding the
door open these days. Shame, cos when that stuff was new it was light
years ahead of anything the Wintel camp could offer.

There are at least two of us on here still using RPCs. ;-) And they're
still fine for much of the things I use a computer for - as well as not
having the constant battle with viruses that most have.

--
*The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.