Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iTunes 4.6 Now Available
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
stevietheb said:
Ever hear of playlists? They even have ones that auto-update called smart playlists. If you want a "Library" of all songs by Wayne Newton make a Smart Playlist that grabs by artist and so on. The big library is meant so you can have a selection of all your songs (library) and drag them into your desired collection (playlist). Is there something that a different library would do that is not already there?
windowsblowsass said:
oops sorry, it's actually a switch not a router but is that basically the same thing? the reason i got that rather than a hub was because isn't a switch more smart at routing data? but then maybe it's assigning addresses and stuff which conflict with the AirPort or something....
anyways, my main concern would be compatability with like a university network. what I mean is, then you'll have a single ethernet cable for both LAN and WAN and presumably the university will use some kinda fancy router for it's network, so does this mean you would have the same problems I had with not being able to access both the LAN and WAN from one ethernet connection?
evil0ne said:
Ok, yes I could just check the ones I want to update and uncheck the ones I don't want to, but I would love to have a separate iPod library. Everything I have is encoded in Apple Lossless or is an iTMS file. After encoding into 192 AAC, I would like to have one for 192 and iTMS and another for Apple Lossless and iTMS. That is one advantage I see of multiple libraries.
BTW, I use Libra (search on VersionTracker) for this functionality currently.
Chase
evil0ne said:
Yes, multiple libraries would help me enormously. I have a laptop with not enough HD space for all my songs. I'd like to have part of my library on my internal HD and the rest on an external. The problem now is that with one library, when I unplug the external iTunes doesn't know, and can't remove those songs from the library. They look like they can play, but they can't. It's annoying.
runeasgar said:
Dude, I wasn't busting on your speaker because they are cheap, I pointed it out because your sooo concerned about audio quality, and claim that the AirPort Express isn't good enough (even though it is and you're just misunderstanding it) and then you have totally crap speakers. It's ironic that's all. There's nothing wrong with a $250 set of speakers, but you just happen to have the worst $250 set of speakers I've ever heard. (and by the way, the other poster who mentioned it was right, the Mackies are way overpriced)
Your whole concern about the sound of the quality of the AirPort Express is totally unfounded for two reasons
1) It's wrong, with the digital out the APE has nothing to do with the sound quality, it's basically like a wireless optical out for your computer at a really good price too.
2) Your current equipment isn't any better. The audiophile is not a pro piece of gear and you wouldn't even be able to tell with your speakers.
All of your complaints are based on a lot of mixed up misinformation. Before you spend any more money on this stuff you should educate yourself more, and not based on what your friends tell you, or some salesman at guitar center, or a forum, or especially rags like stereophile and audiophile. Books and professional engineers (real pros, not home studio guys) are the best sources.
There's real science and math behind this stuff, but a lot of people want to turn the topic into something subjective, nearly metaphysical. While what sounds good is subjective, what certain processes do to audio is not.
Upsampling does not make a digital signal sound better, bit it can make cheaper analog filters in D/A converts sound better by moving the nyquist frequency beyond the audible range. Reading a 16bit file as 24bit doesn't make it sound any better, it just adds 8 zeros to the end every sample, there's no more dynamic range. Higher sampling rates do not add more "digital harshness" than lower sampling rates, they allow the digital signal to encode higher frequencies beyond the audible range, which is why many engineers don't care about higher sampling rates. Greater bit depth does give you significantly more dynamic range and a lower digital noise floor, which is why 24bit audio is quite popular. The difference between modern A/D/As just isn't that great anymore. Mostly its the analog sections that are better (every A/D or D/A has a hardwall analog filter) At higher sampling rates the filter doesn't matter so much so cheaper D/As sound much better at 96k than 44.1k, but a high-end D/A with a great filter may not sound any different at all at 96k than 44.1k.
Whew, well don't take my word for it (I have a feeling you won't), go check up on this stuff yourself, from good reputable sources. I'm not pulling your leg.
Oh, and the AirPort Express rocks.
And Oh #2: I got my MOTU 828mkII and Event TR5s for under a grand. The Events are nothing to brag about, but I like them, and the 828 is awesome.
runeasgar said:
Maybe you've already been told this a bunch of times, but Airtunes has an optical out. So, as long as you have lossless audio on your computer, it gets sent to AirTunes as LOSSLESS, to which you can output to the optical out, which is a digital signal. How you convert the digital signal is none of Apple's business, and shouldn't be. Want to play it on expensive speakers? Well, nowadays, many systems have optical in.
The signal is only 16-bit 44.1khz if gotten from a CD. Your 24-bit 96khz stuff will still be the same quality.
edit: well i see the poster above me already did a fine job.
-Matt
runeasgar said:
"Untrue. D/A optical in is not common for good D/A converters. As I said.. you find optical on crappy built-in D/A converters. They are built into a pre-fab stereo system, or directly into a speaker."
Yes it is. In pro audio, ADAT (optical) is used all the time.
"The majority of D/A converters you will find will not have an optical in. If you are looking at studio grade equipment, or even low end home recording equipment, or just audiophile-type equipment, you won't often find optical in."
Again, wrong. ADAT. The studio I work at has four ADAT cables carrying 16 tracks of 44.1/16 back and forth to the computer.
"Now.. did I hear something crazy about digital being perfect a ways back? I seem to recall someone talking about how could I hope for "better quality than digital" or something like that. Digital is.. without a doubt inferior to analog. The best digital equipment will not outdo the best analog equipment. I'm sorry.. but there is really nothing to argue about there. To get good analog quality out of digital would require a more dynamic method of storing information than binary, or a very very very large hard drive that is very fast and a perfect A/D converter."
Plenty to argue about. Any test you can dream up will show analog to be a far inferior medium to digital in terms of fidelity. If you put something on to analog tape or vinyl then what comes out will not be the same as what went in. It might sound better, or worse .. but it won't sound the same. The very best digital will sound the same ... or close enough for 99% of people not to be able to tell the difference.
Seriously, I don't wanna flame someone with my first post here but you're talking some real rubbish.
"Untrue. D/A optical in is not common for good D/A converters. As I said.. you find optical on crappy built-in D/A converters. They are built into a pre-fab stereo system, or directly into a speaker."
Yes it is. In pro audio, ADAT (optical) is used all the time.
"The majority of D/A converters you will find will not have an optical in. If you are looking at studio grade equipment, or even low end home recording equipment, or just audiophile-type equipment, you won't often find optical in."
Again, wrong. ADAT. The studio I work at has four ADAT cables carrying 16 tracks of 44.1/16 back and forth to the computer.
"Now.. did I hear something crazy about digital being perfect a ways back? I seem to recall someone talking about how could I hope for "better quality than digital" or something like that. Digital is.. without a doubt inferior to analog. The best digital equipment will not outdo the best analog equipment. I'm sorry.. but there is really nothing to argue about there. To get good analog quality out of digital would require a more dynamic method of storing information than binary, or a very very very large hard drive that is very fast and a perfect A/D converter."
Plenty to argue about. Any test you can dream up will show analog to be a far inferior medium to digital in terms of fidelity. If you put something on to analog tape or vinyl then what comes out will not be the same as what went in. It might sound better, or worse .. but it won't sound the same. The very best digital will sound the same ... or close enough for 99% of people not to be able to tell the difference.
Seriously, I don't wanna flame someone with my first post here but you're talking some real rubbish.
runeasgar said:
It looks like its optical connector is like that of a minidisk recorder, in which a 3.5mm stereo phono jack and "TOS-link" optical jack are the same hole. Anyhow, it's a nice addition. We have a Sony home theatre amp with two optical inputs, one for the DVD player and now one for this!
runeasgar said:
THAT is the MOST ILLOGICAL thing I have ever heard, in my entire life. Earlier, you said you'd ignore those who didn't agree with you. Then, many, MANY, people prove you wrong, and because you can't defend yourself, you argue against points even you find illogical.
This is an online bulletin board. You don't have to worry about impressing us with your so-called knowledge, or worry about walking away with pride or honor. Learn from this experience.
-Matt
P.S.- I am very sorry if by the time I post this, and have read through the next 6(!!!!) pages of the post, you have already understood your incorrect ways.
runeasgar said:
The Digidesign Digi 002, and 002 Rack both have digital in, supporting up to 8 inputs. But everyone hear involved in audio knows that Digidesign has no impact on the professional recording studio world, not with that silly Pro Tools program.
Rog210 said:
Haha, sorry, all these numbers have gotten me in a tizzy (never gonna use that word again, i promise!). I just hate when people have terrible arguments, then change what they're saying midstream because they can't stand to be wrong. Edited and fixed.
Digital vs. Analog
I know this doesn't really relate to iTunes 4.6, which I'm not getting for the moment as I don't (yet) have an AExp and the other updates to it don't appear to be significant.
I'd just like to settle the digital vs analog debate (or at least add my voice to it)
Digital (CD) provides high quality mass-produceable audio that can be replayed to a reasonable standard relatively cheaply (i.e £30 portable CD player). For this reason it has taken over the world, and for a majority of people the decreased quality of MP3/AAC is not much of a sacrifice for even more portability, particularly when coping with the relatively uncomplex and un-dynamic (a bit of a neologism there I think) music found in the Top 40 / Billboard charts. When wishing to recreate Digital music on a high end stereo system the components need to be of extraordinary quality and on several recordings, even on £10,000 components, music simply doesn't sound "real" - you can't close your eyes and really fool yourself to think that Miles Davis is playing away in your front room!
Analog, however, is more difficult to mass produce, is more liable to damage (can't spread Jam on vinyl
) But can recreate a much more lifelike playback. This is because vinyl playback is only limited by the characteristics of the microphone and studio where the music was recorded/mastered (I admit there are different grades of vinyl in use today that can alter characteristics such as background noise - but with Vinyl now a relatively "audiophile" choice, most records are produced to a high quality). The bandwidth (lowest Hz to Highest Hz) of Vinyl is whatever the microphone/studio can produce. CDs don't have this luxury due to the need for compression. It is believed (I'll have to find a reference) that although the human ear has a "bandwidth" of 20Hz to 20,000Hz, Frequencies outside this have an effect on the audible frequencies leading to a more real reproduction. In addition, digital relies on splitting the audio into tiny segments and this brings in more scope for inaccuracies in the exact timing of notes and instruments - although this is not marked, it contributes to the slightly unreal sound of digital. I was really surprised when I first compared Miles Davis' Kind of Blue - a very dynamically difficult recording to reproduce - on a £5,000 CD player and a £5,000 Record player. The difference was marked, even though the CD sounded amazing, the record was crystal clear and I really believed Miles was hiding in one of the corners secretly playing away!
However, I still have a 300+ CD collection that's still growing and sounds great on my measly £1,000 system, and my PowerBook does have a few MP3s on it, but when I want a really high quality recording I choose vinyl. When all albums are produced in 24bit 96KHz studios and released on DVD-Audio format (the same quality), then digital will be the best sound you can get, but I stongly suspect that studio quality will rise further by then too.
(I should get one of those signatures saying how great Macs are but I'm new here)
I know this doesn't really relate to iTunes 4.6, which I'm not getting for the moment as I don't (yet) have an AExp and the other updates to it don't appear to be significant.
I'd just like to settle the digital vs analog debate (or at least add my voice to it)
Digital (CD) provides high quality mass-produceable audio that can be replayed to a reasonable standard relatively cheaply (i.e £30 portable CD player). For this reason it has taken over the world, and for a majority of people the decreased quality of MP3/AAC is not much of a sacrifice for even more portability, particularly when coping with the relatively uncomplex and un-dynamic (a bit of a neologism there I think) music found in the Top 40 / Billboard charts. When wishing to recreate Digital music on a high end stereo system the components need to be of extraordinary quality and on several recordings, even on £10,000 components, music simply doesn't sound "real" - you can't close your eyes and really fool yourself to think that Miles Davis is playing away in your front room!
Analog, however, is more difficult to mass produce, is more liable to damage (can't spread Jam on vinyl
) But can recreate a much more lifelike playback. This is because vinyl playback is only limited by the characteristics of the microphone and studio where the music was recorded/mastered (I admit there are different grades of vinyl in use today that can alter characteristics such as background noise - but with Vinyl now a relatively "audiophile" choice, most records are produced to a high quality). The bandwidth (lowest Hz to Highest Hz) of Vinyl is whatever the microphone/studio can produce. CDs don't have this luxury due to the need for compression. It is believed (I'll have to find a reference) that although the human ear has a "bandwidth" of 20Hz to 20,000Hz, Frequencies outside this have an effect on the audible frequencies leading to a more real reproduction. In addition, digital relies on splitting the audio into tiny segments and this brings in more scope for inaccuracies in the exact timing of notes and instruments - although this is not marked, it contributes to the slightly unreal sound of digital. I was really surprised when I first compared Miles Davis' Kind of Blue - a very dynamically difficult recording to reproduce - on a £5,000 CD player and a £5,000 Record player. The difference was marked, even though the CD sounded amazing, the record was crystal clear and I really believed Miles was hiding in one of the corners secretly playing away!However, I still have a 300+ CD collection that's still growing and sounds great on my measly £1,000 system, and my PowerBook does have a few MP3s on it, but when I want a really high quality recording I choose vinyl. When all albums are produced in 24bit 96KHz studios and released on DVD-Audio format (the same quality), then digital will be the best sound you can get, but I stongly suspect that studio quality will rise further by then too.
(I should get one of those signatures saying how great Macs are but I'm new here)
Which ever way you slice it, vinyl isn't a very good medium for a number of reasons: poor dynamic range, distortion, pops and crackles, etc.
I'm talking in terms of fidelity.
It has other non-fidelity components which do make it pleasing to the ear though.
CD isn't great either, 44.1/16 is about the bare minimum for a decent sound and it amuses me that people spend a small fortune on a system to play back this inhernently flawed medium.
Around 60 kHz and 24 bit would be perfect:- massive dynamic range (though this seems to be irrelevant in this decade of super compressed and brickwall limited recordings) and a sample rate high enough to move and filter artifacts well out of the human range of hearing. 88.2 and 96 kHz are slight overkill but much better than CD. 192 kHz is marketing fluff and can actually sound worse than 96 kHz.
DSD (SACD) has it's own major problems.
Sampling rates are one thing but its the implementation that counts and every CD player has analogue circuitry which can massivly effect sound quality.
I'm talking in terms of fidelity.
It has other non-fidelity components which do make it pleasing to the ear though.
CD isn't great either, 44.1/16 is about the bare minimum for a decent sound and it amuses me that people spend a small fortune on a system to play back this inhernently flawed medium.
Around 60 kHz and 24 bit would be perfect:- massive dynamic range (though this seems to be irrelevant in this decade of super compressed and brickwall limited recordings) and a sample rate high enough to move and filter artifacts well out of the human range of hearing. 88.2 and 96 kHz are slight overkill but much better than CD. 192 kHz is marketing fluff and can actually sound worse than 96 kHz.
DSD (SACD) has it's own major problems.
Sampling rates are one thing but its the implementation that counts and every CD player has analogue circuitry which can massivly effect sound quality.
Fair point
I definately agree that CD is not adequate. I'm still waiting for DVD-Audio to become mainstream before I upgrade my system. I would just say that on top end (I'm talking silly money with minimum £1000 cartridges) Vinyl should certainly not crackle or pop (my record player doesn't even do that really) and background noise is greatly reduced to the point of being very hard to discern during silence even at quite a degree of amplification.
Dynamic range is really down to the cartridge and even on mine there is a really nice range giving amazing instrument separation (I haven't heard as good separation on CD... yet) and distortion shouldn't be an issue, although I had a U2 album which was a dissapointingly poor quality pressing, but as I said before most vinyl is pressed to an extraordinary high quality nowadays.
Ultimately, I currently prefer vinyl for the fact that more titles are available (at more sensible prices) than for SACD (as you say - a fairly poor format) and DVD-A (which is still stupid prices over here) and on high end decks vinyl really sounds so real - and isn't that what fidelity ultimately tries to achieve?
I definately agree that CD is not adequate. I'm still waiting for DVD-Audio to become mainstream before I upgrade my system. I would just say that on top end (I'm talking silly money with minimum £1000 cartridges) Vinyl should certainly not crackle or pop (my record player doesn't even do that really) and background noise is greatly reduced to the point of being very hard to discern during silence even at quite a degree of amplification.
Dynamic range is really down to the cartridge and even on mine there is a really nice range giving amazing instrument separation (I haven't heard as good separation on CD... yet) and distortion shouldn't be an issue, although I had a U2 album which was a dissapointingly poor quality pressing, but as I said before most vinyl is pressed to an extraordinary high quality nowadays.
Ultimately, I currently prefer vinyl for the fact that more titles are available (at more sensible prices) than for SACD (as you say - a fairly poor format) and DVD-A (which is still stupid prices over here) and on high end decks vinyl really sounds so real - and isn't that what fidelity ultimately tries to achieve?
Montserrat wrote:
"I definately agree that CD is not adequate. I'm still waiting for DVD-Audio to become mainstream before I upgrade my system. I would just say that on top end (I'm talking silly money with minimum £1000 cartridges) Vinyl should certainly not crackle or pop (my record player doesn't even do that really) and background noise is greatly reduced to the point of being very hard to discern during silence even at quite a degree of amplification."
I agree that, with a good system, many of the problems are not as audible, but they are still there and are inherent in the medium.
"Dynamic range is really down to the cartridge and even on mine there is a really nice range giving amazing instrument separation (I haven't heard as good separation on CD... yet) and distortion shouldn't be an issue, although I had a U2 album which was a dissapointingly poor quality pressing, but as I said before most vinyl is pressed to an extraordinary high quality nowadays."
Separation isn't a function of dynamic range. 24 bit is great because the only limitation is the noise floor of the analogue circuits so it'a around -120 dB, depending on the converter in question. Vinyl has a dynamic range of around half that. You'll notice it more on classical recordings:- you can go from barely audible to very, very loud with digital but you'll find vinyl will struggle to capture these extremes. That may be one characteristic which makes vinyl pleasing to listen to.
"Ultimately, I currently prefer vinyl for the fact that more titles are available (at more sensible prices) than for SACD (as you say - a fairly poor format) and DVD-A (which is still stupid prices over here) and on high end decks vinyl really sounds so real - and isn't that what fidelity ultimately tries to achieve?"
Not really. For instance, HIFI speakers often aren't accurate in their frequency response. They're designed to sound 'good' but not 'accurate' Studio monitors don't flatter the music, they're accurate and you hear the music warts and all.
"I definately agree that CD is not adequate. I'm still waiting for DVD-Audio to become mainstream before I upgrade my system. I would just say that on top end (I'm talking silly money with minimum £1000 cartridges) Vinyl should certainly not crackle or pop (my record player doesn't even do that really) and background noise is greatly reduced to the point of being very hard to discern during silence even at quite a degree of amplification."
I agree that, with a good system, many of the problems are not as audible, but they are still there and are inherent in the medium.
"Dynamic range is really down to the cartridge and even on mine there is a really nice range giving amazing instrument separation (I haven't heard as good separation on CD... yet) and distortion shouldn't be an issue, although I had a U2 album which was a dissapointingly poor quality pressing, but as I said before most vinyl is pressed to an extraordinary high quality nowadays."
Separation isn't a function of dynamic range. 24 bit is great because the only limitation is the noise floor of the analogue circuits so it'a around -120 dB, depending on the converter in question. Vinyl has a dynamic range of around half that. You'll notice it more on classical recordings:- you can go from barely audible to very, very loud with digital but you'll find vinyl will struggle to capture these extremes. That may be one characteristic which makes vinyl pleasing to listen to.
"Ultimately, I currently prefer vinyl for the fact that more titles are available (at more sensible prices) than for SACD (as you say - a fairly poor format) and DVD-A (which is still stupid prices over here) and on high end decks vinyl really sounds so real - and isn't that what fidelity ultimately tries to achieve?"
Not really. For instance, HIFI speakers often aren't accurate in their frequency response. They're designed to sound 'good' but not 'accurate' Studio monitors don't flatter the music, they're accurate and you hear the music warts and all.
It would have been great if Laser Disks had had an audio only version. All the aural advantages of analogue with the physical advantages of a non-contact, laser-read, plastic-coated disk. LD provided all of the optical, mechanical and production technology for CDs anyway. Royal Dutch Philips had to get their money back on LD somehow.
runeasgar said:
The problem with looking up anything on the Internet is that you get a wide range of opinions. Some that will support you argurment and others that won't.
When I looked up updampling on google here is on link I found.
http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/344/
Now I am sure. It is important to remember three things about all of these products: 1) other than making active the lowest 8 bits of a 24-bit word, no new audio information is created by any of these products; 2) as susceptibility to word-clock jitter increases with sampling frequency, it is always possible that upsampling audio data can make things worse, not better; and 3) no matter how good these upsampling products can soundand the dCS, Bel Canto, and MSB products indeed sound excellentthere is no conceptual difference between them and traditional CD playback systems.
This article seems to suggest that upsampling doesn't do anything.
Maybe you could suggest a link that will end this argument, one way or another.
Stewie said:
Perhaps we should just agree that it's "in the ear of the listener" and that there is no definitive "best" sound. Arguably, the highest quality reproduction isn't always the "best" - if you prefer your sound a bit different. It's like trying to debate the best food, or, more accurately, the best reproduction of a dish someone was served. Some judge "best" as "most like the original". Some judge it as "best tasting" - a very subjective thing.
In the end, aside from definitively determining the function of the 1/8 inch optical/audio port, this side thread has done nothing positive except explore the wide range of differing opinions.
There is no perfect reproduction of sound if the reproducing instruments (the speakers) are not identical to the original instruments and in an identical setting. Even a perfect recording will preserve only what the microphones heard, and, even if they are perfect, the listener would not be in the same room as the performance (typically) or in the same position as the mics were and so would perceive it differently even if it could be perfectly reproduced. In the end, all that matters is that the listener enjoys the sound.
Montserrat said:
First of all I have to say I like the sound of good quality vinyl too. However this is more a subjective matter. I'm afraid you rate the quality of vinyl a little too high.
The dynamic range and channel separation aren't as good on vinyl than on standard CD. The average cartridge gives you about 35db channel separation. The best cartridges I've seen manage about 40-50 db at best. CD however processes the audio channels individually so the approximately 90 db dynamic range also gives you 90 db channel separation. Even on cheap CD players.
Montserrat said:
This is incorrect. Vinyl does not have a "unlimited" frequency range. In fact I think you'll find most records can't go beyond 20kHz. Also the cartridge will have some limitations although the best ones are better than what CD can achieve Also due to the fact that the record playback speed (rotation speed of the disc) stays the same from the beginning to the end of the record, the "groove speed" gets slower towards the end of the record. This will degrade the sound quality and bring more distortion to the sound. The CD works with a servo system that changes the rotation speed throughout playback. Therefore the sound quality stays the same from the first till the last track on the CD.
breaking the law?
Breaking the law? I purchased the song, and i should be able to use it how i like, as long as i dont share it, give it away, or something to that extent. Its just like making backups of dvds. If you own the product, you can use it in any way, jsut as long as you dont use it to steal others dvds. Im not blaming Apple, i am just informing the public of the update and a relation to real life.
~Nate13
nacl99 said:
Breaking the law? I purchased the song, and i should be able to use it how i like, as long as i dont share it, give it away, or something to that extent. Its just like making backups of dvds. If you own the product, you can use it in any way, jsut as long as you dont use it to steal others dvds. Im not blaming Apple, i am just informing the public of the update and a relation to real life.
~Nate13
This has turned into a subjective argument, so I'm not going to bother including myself in it anymore.
Needless to say, we all have our own 'opinions' about things, there are those who agree and disagree, and this was an entirely unneccessary conversation in the first place.
I got what I wanted, a method by which I can utilize the APE to wirelessly stream higher fidelity music to my speakers.
Also, I've heard my speakers with and without the audiphile, there is no comparing the two. The clarity of the speakers is 3 fold with the audiophile, and that is well worth the money. If you think the converters in an APE are going to be as good, well, that's why this conversation needs to end. That's a ridiculous argument coming from people who either can't tell a 3 fold increase in clarity with their 'unbelievably good speakers' as opposed to an APE or built-in soundcard (rubbish), or they've never heard it and just want to make unfounded statements regarding a lack of difference.
Anyway, I'm out, like I said, this argument has turned subjective and unfounded, and I for one have found what I wanted to find, and I leave this argument with but maybe 2 statements out of this whole conversation holding any relevance whatsoever. So as for the rest of this, it goes in the trash where all the rest of pull-it-out-of-your- garbage goes.
EDIT: It's also gotten incredibly off topic.. and it was off topic to begin with. As a final word, if you can't tell the difference between a soundcard and an audiophile on the m-audio system I have, then you are hard of hearing and don't need to be mixing anything. Anything you mix/record is likely to be full of noise and artifacts that you are unable to hear. I for one don't want you mixing/recording an artist that I enjoy listening to, only to find out that the music is full of unpleasant noise and artifacts, or that your inability to recognize a difference in clarity has translated to a lack of clarity on the recording.
Needless to say, we all have our own 'opinions' about things, there are those who agree and disagree, and this was an entirely unneccessary conversation in the first place.
I got what I wanted, a method by which I can utilize the APE to wirelessly stream higher fidelity music to my speakers.
Also, I've heard my speakers with and without the audiphile, there is no comparing the two. The clarity of the speakers is 3 fold with the audiophile, and that is well worth the money. If you think the converters in an APE are going to be as good, well, that's why this conversation needs to end. That's a ridiculous argument coming from people who either can't tell a 3 fold increase in clarity with their 'unbelievably good speakers' as opposed to an APE or built-in soundcard (rubbish), or they've never heard it and just want to make unfounded statements regarding a lack of difference.
Anyway, I'm out, like I said, this argument has turned subjective and unfounded, and I for one have found what I wanted to find, and I leave this argument with but maybe 2 statements out of this whole conversation holding any relevance whatsoever. So as for the rest of this, it goes in the trash where all the rest of pull-it-out-of-your- garbage goes.
EDIT: It's also gotten incredibly off topic.. and it was off topic to begin with. As a final word, if you can't tell the difference between a soundcard and an audiophile on the m-audio system I have, then you are hard of hearing and don't need to be mixing anything. Anything you mix/record is likely to be full of noise and artifacts that you are unable to hear. I for one don't want you mixing/recording an artist that I enjoy listening to, only to find out that the music is full of unpleasant noise and artifacts, or that your inability to recognize a difference in clarity has translated to a lack of clarity on the recording.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
wdlove said:Updates are always good. Thank you Apple for making it free.
Uh.... the update is to help them sell Airport Extremes. Why wouldn't it be free?
runeasgar wrote:
"It's also gotten incredibly off topic.. and it was off topic to begin with. As a final word, if you can't tell the difference between a soundcard and an audiophile on the m-audio system I have, then you are hard of hearing and don't need to be mixing anything. Anything you mix/record is likely to be full of noise and artifacts that you are unable to hear. I for one don't want you mixing/recording an artist that I enjoy listening to, only to find out that the music is full of unpleasant noise and artifacts, or that your inability to recognize a difference in clarity has translated to a lack of clarity on the recording."
I doubt any artist would let you near them with the gear you've got.
You have a strange argument: having a go at people who can't tell the difference between crap and slightly-less-crap while ignoring people who use top end gear every day, professionally, and have been doing for years.
Damn, you're a funny guy.
"It's also gotten incredibly off topic.. and it was off topic to begin with. As a final word, if you can't tell the difference between a soundcard and an audiophile on the m-audio system I have, then you are hard of hearing and don't need to be mixing anything. Anything you mix/record is likely to be full of noise and artifacts that you are unable to hear. I for one don't want you mixing/recording an artist that I enjoy listening to, only to find out that the music is full of unpleasant noise and artifacts, or that your inability to recognize a difference in clarity has translated to a lack of clarity on the recording."
I doubt any artist would let you near them with the gear you've got.
You have a strange argument: having a go at people who can't tell the difference between crap and slightly-less-crap while ignoring people who use top end gear every day, professionally, and have been doing for years.
Damn, you're a funny guy.