https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1003614822/ponomusic-where-your-soul-rediscovers-music
So supposedly this will be the FLAC portable device...
Snake oil of the highest order
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
Hopefully it doesn't have any petroleum-based plastic or heavy metals in it, since he's Mr. Environment now. At least, based on the comments he made (and clearly was paid to make if you follow the money trail) when he drove his three diesel tour buses up to the oil sands and Fort Mac.
Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 14, 2014, 09:03:59 AM
Snake oil of the highest order
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
He's certainly taking a risk of having this fail miserable and thus his own lyrics come back to haunt him...
Saw it on the tube
Bought it on the phone
Now you're home alone
It's a piece of crap
I tried to plug in it
I tried to turn it on
When I got it home
It was a piece of crap
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/neilyoung/pieceofcrap.html
Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 14, 2014, 09:03:59 AM
Snake oil of the highest order
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
(http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/cochlea-and-responses.png)
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k292/ArianaMess/StarTrekSpockFascinating.jpg)
Quote from: Thorin on March 14, 2014, 10:47:06 AM
Hopefully it doesn't have any petroleum-based plastic or heavy metals in it, since he's Mr. Environment now. At least, based on the comments he made (and clearly was paid to make if you follow the money trail) when he drove his three diesel tour buses up to the oil sands and Fort Mac.
Well not even thinking about buses consider this:
You want people to think about not relying on fossil fuels so you set up events across the country where people will use fossil fuels to get there, use fossil fuels to keep the event going and then use fossil fuels to go back home
Go charge your coal powered car and drive it around with a smug look on your face (because outside of a few select locations Hyrdo/Nuclear/Wind power is not what lights amplifiers around this country)
I like Neil Young's music (particularly Harvest Moon) but he's become an industry muppet now and it makes me sick
He should go dust off his Bob Dylan collection and listen to
Maggie's Farm
Quote from: Mr. Analog on March 14, 2014, 11:05:47 AM
He should go dust off his Bob Dylan collection and listen to Maggie's Farm
He's too old, so that
ain't gonna work.
;)
I see what you did there
I don't, but heres a pie chart:
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S9sgl7UjOe4/UVT8bjO9keI/AAAAAAAACN0/Z2zZfsplYpk/s1600/4093056+_5ae7af327886d195355ebd2b8e3fbdae.png)
Quote from: Tom on March 14, 2014, 03:04:07 PM
I don't, but heres a pie chart:
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S9sgl7UjOe4/UVT8bjO9keI/AAAAAAAACN0/Z2zZfsplYpk/s1600/4093056+_5ae7af327886d195355ebd2b8e3fbdae.png)
'Splaining in 3 easy steps:
1. Google, lyrics Bob Dylan Maggie Farm
2. Notice italics in above posts
3. Nod with understanding
My biggest problem with Neil Young speaking out against the oil sands wasn't that he spoke publicly about an opinion that he had, but rather that after the tour he said he didn't really know what he was talking about, and then some investigative journalism actually found a money trail from a California environmental lobby group that paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to go on this tour and say these things. So it wasn't his opinion, but he tried to deceive us into thinking it was his opinion; meanwhile he was just saying whatever people with money told him to say.
And that taints what he's purportedly saying about this music player. Does he actually believe the words that are coming out of his mouth, or is he trying to deceive us to get money?
It's money. or he's an audiophile that actually believes the tripe he's talking about.
Quote from: Tom on March 15, 2014, 10:28:01 AM
or he's an audiophile that actually believes the tripe he's talking about.
Is the Home Stereo Dead? (http://www.ehow.com/ehow-tech/blog/geek-vs-geek-is-the-home-stereo-as-dead-as-spoiler-alert-beethoven/)
A debate, of sorts, about modern audio technology and bit rates and fidelity and
speaker sizes etc.
Contains a half-joking quote "...At the risk of sounding like an old man telling technology to get off his lawn..."
For most people good enough meant portable radio quality audio, it has for a very very long time
I look at things like iPods, docks with speakers, computer speakers, etc as the modern equivalent to transistor radios which were ubiquitous at the time and also derided for their lack of audio quality, or even old tube radios, you can hear griping about it in the 1934 Cole Porter song "Anything Goes"
QuoteAnd those pains you've got
(If any brains you've got)
From those little radios.
Going back even further there was a lot of competition (and some underhandedness) between Berliner Gramophone and the Victor Talking Machine company where playback was generally in two categories: the cheaper machines and the fancy high end gear (like the Victrola). All this gear played music, but some did a better job than others, the point is that there's a listenable threshold where a tin funnel or AM radio is "good enough" for most people
then again... http://youtu.be/UBcPx8RvHR8
AM is great for music that was recorded in the 50s. ;)
Quote from: Mr. Analog on May 27, 2014, 11:02:31 AM
then again... http://youtu.be/UBcPx8RvHR8
NERD OVERLOAD!
But in a good way. Great comedic minds and great comedic performance, along with some great comedic minds* talking about comedy. Gotta love it.
*and yes, I gotta include Chris Hardwick in there, he's proven himself over the year imo, when you see his early hosting stuff compared to in recent times nowadays how much more quick-witted he is able to think on his feet. Every ep of celebrity bowling is awesome, for example.
Quote from: Tom on May 27, 2014, 11:08:01 AM
AM is great for music that was recorded in the 50s. ;)
I disagree, high fidelity stereo recording for big labels was the standard by the mid-to-late 40s so you can find decent quality mixes for a lot of the better music from that period onward. What started happening was a rush of small time record labels making their own masters in basically a garage were more interested in finding a new talent they could sell to a big label and recorded a lot of demos that eventually got airtime and became recognized classics. If you can imagine the scene from "Brother Where Art Thou" where the guys are singing into tin cans at the transmitter while a demo platter is being cut at the same time.
Home stereo became commercially available in the 40s and started to gain traction with many recording artists of the time.
For example, here's The Harmonicats' version of "Peg o' My Heart" recorded in March 1947 in high quality stereo:
http://youtu.be/_QWa-76_-oM
(it charted for 21 weeks in
Billboard, peaking at #1)
To give you an idea of what the big labels were capable of just about anything by Decca (and subsidiaries) sounds pretty amazing, for example Buddy Holly's "Everyday" sounds as fresh as the day it was recorded (May 29, 1957)
http://youtu.be/ty31QY5ZGHo
Decca by 1954 had an impressive array of stereo equipment for recording live music (rather than mixed in post) called the Decca Tree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decca_tree)
That said AM is really great for what's called "Wall of Sound" style of production developed by Phil Spector. It was specifically designed to sound good on AM radio and jukeboxes. If you had an AM station sitting just outside the US running an overpowered transmitter next to a large body of water you could get some big sound out of the AM band (think of "The Big 8" CKLW Windsor Ontario or any of the "X" AM stations out of Mexico blasting sound into Texas / SoCal). So a lot of Motown and Doo Wop sounds great on small speakers because that's mostly what it was designed for.
I dunno. A lot of older music I hear sounds like it was recorded onto mono lo-fi. It's grainy, and tinny... But I probably picked a later year than I should have ;)
Though that buddy holly recording is a bit... I can't find the right word for it. Maybe the sound is intentional. But his voice doesn't sound quite "right" to me.
It depends on the artist, the recording process and where the digital copy came from. There's a lot of crappy second hand copies that made it on to CDs in the 80s and 90s and generally dominate what you'll find online. I have an original first run copy of Dion and the Belmonts "Presenting Dion & The Belmonts" (1959) that sounds amazing compared to some of the tracks I've been able to find online. Most likely tape masters were made in the 70s for 8-track and then used again in the 80s for CD release and then again for subsequent re-releases in the 90s and 00s to maintain copyright. Which is a shame, the original LP is a really well mastered work IMO
Buddy Holly sang from the throat on that particular track, not something a lot of singers do because it's hard to maintain and sounds weird, but it's sharp as heck and has a lot of depth.