Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Wed Feb 20 07:39:33 CST 2013
A friend has a set of ear-phones or should I call them ear-muffs. I have not investigated these devices but he says their sound quality is excellent and he is a bit of a audio-phile but their price is somewhere around $1200.00 and they play 128 bit sampling with some kind of computerize noise elimination. ...but don't quote me as I do not even know the name of the product. ;-) I have found that many people completely rely on their Smartphones/iPhones for all their music and therefore have no idea what real sound quality is...a quiet room, little light, a tea or a scotch and a beautiful stereo system. Enjoy your new music. Jim -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 4:42 AM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] OT: A big day Hi Jim Thanks, I will. MP3 - in its low sampling versions - is terrible but, I must admit, serves a purpose. Listening to music on the street with traffic noise doesn't call for true hi-fi even though it is possible. MP3 and WAV files can be very good, and my wife has a pair of mid-range Sennheiser earphones which play surprisingly well. The real strange thing is, that broadcasted audio quality hasn't evolved a single step for the last 40 years or so while technology has moved a quantum leap going digital with DSPs and computer control and digital recording. DAB radio listening could be excellent but most channels, even those with classic music and public service, use limited sampling rates to save bandwidth and compression of 3-6 dB or more to obtain a "sound wall paper" suitable for cars and cheap players. Even transmissions from summit meetings, where money and equipment cannot be an issue, carry most often an awful sound. I just don't get it. /gustav -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] På vegne af Jim Lawrence Sendt: 19. februar 2013 19:25 Til: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Emne: Re: [dba-Tech] OT: A big day Congratulations. There is nothing like a great sound system...something that those who only listening to MP3s and the like will never truly understand. It also seems you have the right music, with the right media to be able really appreciate such a nice system. :-) Enjoy Jim -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 9:47 AM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: [dba-Tech] OT: A big day Hi all More than 30 years ago when in the audio business, two of our clients - audio-visual producers - asked for new top-notch monitor speakers for their studios. We toured several suppliers listening to the well-known brands, quite expensive, and then we stopped by at Technics as they had gained much attention due to a major lift in quality. That settled it. I still recall how we listened carefully to our selection of "difficult" music but our real test was the reproduction of high-quality recorded human voice which is far more difficult to reproduce than most are aware of. There was no doubt - the SB-7000 speakers with the phase-correcting speaker alignment were convincing and the price couldn't be matched: http://www.thevintageknob.org/technics-SB-7000.html At that time I neither had the money nor the space for such speakers but ever since I've dreamed of obtaining a set of these. By pure accident, Saturday I browsed a local second-hand site, and there they were, right in front of me on the screen, at a bargain price - and I have the room. Through the years I have struggled with some compact wife-friendly speakers - very good of course, but still - nothing beats a 15" high-quality speaker (except an 18" but they are so rare). Now, this set could really be anything - burned out units or misbehaved in many ways. So I had to go and listen: I brought some music that can bring down most systems and reveal any sort of misbehaviour: Chick Corea, My Spanish Heart, and Miles Davis, Tutu, on CD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Spanish_Heart It was like coming home! They reproduced perfectly and exactly like I had imagined with the transparent and completely neutral sound I remembered. They've two owners only, and no disco youngster had succeeded destroying them. So, today I picked them up and can hardly wait to get home and power them up. Should this day come? From time to time I thought No and resigned ... but today: Yes. Through the years I've kept (some sort of intuition or instinct?) this bright Sony amplifier to power them: http://www.thevintageknob.org/sony-TA-N86B.html Though I have quite decent equipment to feed this, I might be looking for the matching preamp: http://www.thevintageknob.org/sony-TA-E88B.html But that's another story. /gustav _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com