A-men brother!
I completely agree with you especially on the mediocre state of audio. I woke
up to this in a horrible way not that long ago and posted something to the list
about it. I tried to listen to some classical music recently, a piano
performance by Andre Watts and oh my God the audio sucked! I’m not an analog
snob I have always liked digital and analog for what they are and I have heard
really mind blowingly good digital recordings and representations but my iphone
was not one of them. I even tried attaching the iphone to a wired set of AKG
K240DF reference cans and it still made me cry.:( I guess it’s the compression
or some part of the process made it feel to me like all the life had been
squeezed out of the recording. I was hearing the notes but the expressiveness
and the actual fine characteristics of the notes as well as the room seemed
lost. I feel it’s a fail when I’m focusing more on the imperfections of the
recording than the content. The thing is of course it’s not nearly as
noticible with a lot of popular music. That’s not a knock on popular music, I
likes my hiphop just as much as the next person but the recording techniques
you use to record E40 are different than the methods of recording the Boston
Pops and so forth. SO I think for me this realization of the state of audio
was a bit like the frog being slowly boiled in water. I listened to recordings
where it didn’t matter for so long I just got used to it slowly and then when I
stopped to pay attention it was to late. My friends using all that extra space
for lossless recordings and carrying around all the extra headphone amplifiers
and such makes a lot more sense to me now.
I’m also as guilty of the step back in audio as you mentioned. I used
to have a fantastic component system that I built exactly as you detailed. It
took me years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a great sounding
Class A amplified system with woofers that cost more than my Disney vacation
and CD transports that cost more than my Mini cooper. Today, I have a Sony
sound bar sitting in front of a Samsung television that has Bluetooth for my
other devices to connect to it. I suck☹
I wonder if it’s possible to build a good system today assuming one didn’t
compromise on sound quality and money was no object. Do the Krell’s of the
world still exist? Last time I looked a lot of the companies I liked were gone
like Thor Audio or enlightened audio design. Might be a worth while project.
Then again, is the content even worth making the effort for? Assuming I was
even able to build the kind of system that came close to what I used to have
would the content even justify that kind of performance or will it be so
compressed and processed that I might as well sell out and use my same crappy
system because it won’t matter. Start with garbage and end with garbage all
that. Thinking it through and reading your post makes me think the headphone
jack is the leased of our problems.
On 6/26/16, 7:56 AM, "Ricardo Walker" <macvisionaries@googlegroups.com on
behalf of rwalker...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Scott,
I’m with you hear, with the exception of the point about DRM, all the other
points felt trivial to me. He talked about having different spec cords. Not for
nothing, people who own Apple products been dealing with that since the first
iPod came out using a firewire connection. lol. Some how, people’s head didn’t
explode having a firewire cable, and also having a Mini USB cable to charge
their brand new digital camera. Same thing when they switched to USB to 30 pin
to get Windows PCs into the mix.
In the article, I don’t believe I saw any mention of wireless headphones, and
how its really starting to pick up in the market. Look around. As soon as you
saw Beats, Sennheiser, Clipsh, B&O, Bower and Wilkins, Bose start making their
top of the line consumer cans wireless? The worm had turned.
I remember saying this on the list when the talk of removing the headphone jack
just started, and people said, well, BT audio isn’t good in comparison to
wired. You are absolutely correct. But you know what? In audio, we are
intrenched in the its good enough era. When people were using Apple ear buds
and saying they sound great? I knew I was definitely in the minority. Many
people still buy replacement headphones at 99 cent stores, or at the checkout
line at the supermarket. lol. I think 1 reason why this side of the argument
keeps coming up is because blind people on average, care more about how things
sound than people who can see.
And even more so now. Here’s an example. When I was a kid, People wanted big
screen TVs, sure. But you know what people really wanted? a top end audio
system. they would plan out how they were going to budget for the thing, and by
components for the next 3 years to get it how they want it. Now? Its like, oh.
Just pick up a sound bar from Walmart or, get a UE boom. lol. When it comes to
audio, most will go for convenience over quality, especially wen we talk about
mobile audio which is how much more of our music content is consumed now
anyway. So when the author of the article talked about wait until you need to
charge your phone and listen to music I’m like, huh? In 10 years or so, almost
everyone will be rocking wireless headphones so, who cares? lol. And yes, the
3.5mm headphone jack is indeed everywhere. But look at all the BT ready
devices we have around us just in the last 10 years of Bluetooth really being a
thing.
Anyone see the new BT earbuds Samsung are coming out with? truly wireless BT
earbuds. With built in heartrate monitors. etc? No one cares how they sound
really. Just be good enough, and pack it full of goodies for the gym rats.
> On Jun 26, 2016, at 6:49 AM, Scott Granados <sc...@qualityip.net> wrote:
>
> Ok two points here, very sad day that you have to edit another publication to
> make it available here. And btw, you missed a word that will almost
> certainly get the moderators panties twisted in to a neat little bunch.:)
> Even though that word is totally acceptable on your BBC btw.
>
> That being said, I think the poster of this article has a drug problem.:) Ok
> hyperbolic but a little true, I think the positions are nuts. The only one
> that sways me a little is the DRM argument. However, this does not scare me.
> I remember back in the digital audio tape days, while DRM killed the
> consumer DAT market the units I used along with everyone else in the
> recording game at the time had a neat little dip switch that you could set to
> disable DRM.:) You usually had one dip switch for sample rate, one for drm
> and maybe 1 or 2 related to clock functions. Flip the dip and bam, no more
> DRM. So I expect in future if I order my adapters from Caruso Music instead
> of Best Buy I’ll be fine. (if you see my point) (the commercial gear is
> usually better and almost always more open) And yes the ridiculousness of
> the state of things is not lost on me I just point out that it it is not as
> cut and dry as proposed.
>
> The rest of it is bunk, nobody says you have to use a wireless technology,
> dongles are not bad, I like dongles because they allow me to customize my
> tools to the way I need them and getting pure digital out has a lot more
> benefits than downsides. Since the media is entirely digital in the first
> place and there’s no way to store analog content in a modern phone you can’t
> make the argument that you want an analog signal path through the whole
> system for audio quality reasons, since it starts digital leave it digital as
> long as possible. I can add the D/A convertor of my choice that meets the
> spec I want and not be tied to the cheap give away DAC they include in the
> phone. Likewise, I can sample with the quality I want and dump it back on
> the bus of the phone with out the phones cheap ADC getting in the way not to
> mention quantization error as the internal sampler drifts from my external
> digital sound source. Unless I’m missing something, phones are not including
> word clock time for me to sync with.:)
> What if I want to build a set of highend headphones. I could take that
> digital signal, pull it up all the way to the users head and include an
> amplifier made with nice MOSFET transisters and a healthy overclocked
> beautiful analog devices or maybe a higher end Burr Brown in each can
> attached right to the transducer with a minimal amount of analog signal path
> for signals to bleed in and out of. Not to mention with a digital signal
> right to the can I can do much more highly accurate sound canceling
> calculations. That’s just one example I can think of off the bat.
> I’m just not convinced by this article. IF we extended out this guy’s
> argument we should never have digital television because analog was the way
> it’s done even though digital television is far far better. What do you all
> think?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 6/25/16, 9:39 PM, "M. Taylor" <macvisionaries@googlegroups.com on behalf
> of mk...@ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> Hello Everyone,
>
> Here is an interesting article that I thought you'd like to read, the URL to
> which is located at the end of the text.
>
> NOTE: I edited out the 1 profane word that appears in the original text so
> as to bring this piece in compliance with our list policies.
>
> Enjoy,
>
> Mark
>
> Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid, Have some
> dignity
> By Nilay Patel on June 21, 2016
>
> Another day, another rumor that Apple is going to ditch the headphone jack
> on the next iPhone in favor of sending out audio over Lightning. Or another
> phone beats Apple to the punch by ditching the headphone jack in favor of
> passing out audio over USB-C. What exciting times for phones! We're so out
> of ideas that actively making them shittier and more user-hostile is the
> only innovation left.
>
> ditching the headphone jack on phones makes them worse
>
> Look, I know you're going to tell me that the traditional TRS headphone jack
> is a billion years old and prone to failure and that life is about progress
> and whatever else you need to repeat deliriously into your bed of old HTC
> extUSB dongles and insane magnetic Palm adapters to sleep at night. But just
> face facts: ditching the headphone jack on phones makes them worse, in
> extremely obvious ways. Let's count them!
>
> (Also, here is a list of reasons you might actually prefer Lightning
> headphones, by my friend Vlad Savov, but let's be clear that my list is the
> superior one.)
>
> 1. Digital audio means DRM audio
>
> Oh look, I won this argument in one shot. For years the entertainment
> industry has decried what they call the "analog loophole" of headphone
> jacks, and now we're making their dreams come true by closing it.
>
> Winter is coming
>
> Restricting audio output to a purely digital connection means that music
> publishers and streaming companies can start to insist on digital copyright
> enforcement mechanisms. We moved our video systems to HDMI and got HDCP,
> remember? Copyright enforcement technology never stops piracy and always
> hurts the people who most rely on legal fair use, but you can bet the music
> industry is going to start cracking down on "unauthorized" playback and
> recording devices anyway. We deal with DRM when it comes to video because we
> generally don't rewatch and take TV shows and movies with us, but you will
> rue the day Apple decided to make the iPhone another 1mm thinner the instant
> you get a "playback device not supported" message. Winter is coming.
>
> 2. Wireless headphones and speakers are fine, not great
>
> I am surrounded by wireless speaker systems. (I work at The Verge, after
> all.) And while they mostly work fine, sometimes they crackle out and fail.
> It sucks to share a wireless speaker among multiple devices. Bluetooth
> headphones require me to charge yet another battery. You haven't known pain
> until you've chosen to use Bluetooth audio in a car instead of an aux jack.
>
> Bluetooth: next year it'll work great.
>
> 3. Dongles are stupid, especially when they require other dongles
>
> Shut up, you say. All of your complaints will be handled by this charming
> $29 dongle that converts digital audio to a standard headphone jack!
>
> Have some dignity
>
> To which I will respond: here is a photo of Dieter Bohn and his beloved
> single-port MacBook, living his fullest #donglelife during our WWDC
> liveblog:
>
> Photo of macbook with a bunch of dongles
>
> Everything is going to be great when you want to use your expensive
> headphones and charge your phone at the same time. You are going to love
> everything about that situation. You are going to hold your 1mm thinner
> phone and sincerely believe that the small reduction in thickness is
> definitely worth carrying multiple additional dongles.
>
> Also, they're called [redacted] dongles. Let's not do this to ourselves.
> Have some dignity.
>
> 4. Ditching a deeply established standard will disproportionately impact
> accessibility
>
> The traditional headphone jack is a standard for a reason - it works. It
> works so well that an entire ecosystem of other kinds of devices has built
> up around it, and millions of people have access to compatible devices at
> every conceivable price point. The headphone jack might be less good on some
> metrics than Lightning or USB-C audio, but it is spectacularly better than
> anything else in the world at being accessible, enabling, open, and
> democratizing. A change that will cost every iPhone user at least $29 extra
> for a dongle (or more for new headphones) is not a change designed to
> benefit everyone. And you don't need to get rid of the headphone jack to
> make a phone waterproof; plenty of waterproof phones have shipped with
> headphone jacks already.
>
> 5. Making Android and iPhone headphones incompatible is so incredibly
> arrogant and stupid there's not even explanatory text under this one
>
> 6. No one is asking for this
>
> Raise your hand if the thing you wanted most from your next phone was either
> fewer ports or more dongles.
>
> I didn't think so. You wanted better battery life, didn't you? Everyone just
> wants better battery life.
>
> Original article at:
> http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/6/21/11991302/iphone-no-headphon
> e-jack-user-hostile-stupid
>
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