mkl

" anything but Eddie Bauer or some other brand of khakis, Abercrombie&Fitch/Eddie Bauer/Geoffrey Beane/whatever else sweater or shirt " I always wear a t-shirt (ragged) and cargo pants (bottoms ragged) or jeans. I never have a problem:) Ofcourse, I also don't mind fiddling with stuff if noone will help me sometimes... But seriously, I can recall not finding help sometimes, and in many other avenues (mostly hotels it seems..). But at audio stores I've never had a problem which I related to my age. -mkl

First off I.A.N.A.P.D (I am not actually a professional designer) However... I respectfully disagree, I think the color choice is great. Earth tones are very in, and subtely I think the choice of earth tones for an electronics device is very good for some markets. It suggests a more natural, non-electronic feel for the product. This could do well in magazines where the readers are not overly technical, (ie. scared of very complex modern gadgets) On the other hand, the font is very rounded, giving it a more up-to-date modern feel. I think the juxtaposition of the two concepts really gives it a middle of the road quality that appeals to the extremes of both groups (the technogadget loving geeks, and the people who afraid of the complexities of modern electronics) The overall package has a pretty nice design, reminds me a lot of work by the designers republic, http://www.thedesignersrepublic.com/ , one of my favorite graphic artist groups. These guys got their start doing all the design for the british band Pop Will Eat Itself, excellent album covers and inserts. They've since gone on to doing a lot of popular design, swatch watches, sony, supergrass, etc. If you're into graphic arts, they are a definite "must see" (especially their old pop will eat itself lp covers ) -mkl

I've bought > 300 cds from amazon in the last year. Not a single problem with shipping. Last week I did get one cd where the little clippy things that hold the cd in place was broken...but I've gotten cds broken like that in the store too:) All in all, I've never been disappointed in amazon. Great indie selection of movies and music, almost always free shipping, and its usually faster than I expect. -mkl

Personally I'm not a cable nut, but the quote you have above sounds a lot like some people on this board that have faith in cables:) "I know what these Klipsch speakers are capble of, and if you don't buy these cables, your system just won't sound right" So maybe he wasn't trying to "jipp" you, maybe he honestly believes the cables made them sound better:) The entire situation seems to be less "don't buy from XXX" than, be smart, do the research and pay what you feel is a fair price for the merchandise that you'll be happy with. To some people the return policy, and general ease of purchase is a good reason to go to places like best buy, especially in areas without decent hi-fi dealers. -mkl

Yeah, I really hate people who run businesses and try to make money. Those bastards. Oh wait, I bill clients everyday...Opps. Come on people, why the sudden hate for best buy? because they are a big corporation? I love best buy, its a nice place to go for electronics, especially in my area where there aren't many electronics stores. The profit margin you imagine isn't nearly as large when you realize the costs of running a business. And if they are that large, more power to them, they are doing something right. -mkl

LOL.. "but long ago enough that times and the way of life has changed, and for memory-loss to set in. when i look back on being a young young kid, all i can remember are the happy things that were in my life... i dont have very vivid memories of crying after a nightmare, or hurting mysef falling off something, etc. i imagine a similar thing would happen to these people" 1. My post above was supposed to reflect the fact that each generation feels that the older people are out of touch, and yet when that generation grows up to be old, they realize the wisdom of the people they thought were foolish or out of touch. Since you didn't get that out of my post, here it is again. Woah! I can see you reaching for your keyboard to yell at me for insulting you, I'm not doing that, maybe my post above just wasn't clear enough,so im re-iterating. 2. There is a vast difference between being a young kid and the memories you have then. It's just illogical to say the people you are talking to on this forum can't remember vivid memories from their lives. Yes, most people do not remember things that happened to them very very early in life, however this seems to be a trait innate to the human condition. Trying to say because of this that a middle age person can't remember things from the time they were 20, or 30 seems ridiculous. Memories formed after the age of mental maturity seem to be retained for life, unless the person is stricken by a illness. (I had a 103 year old great grandmother that could recall with great clarity things that happened before the year 1900:) ) I don't think anyone here is suggesting you are a total slacker. The problem is, the only thing we as a community have to judge you by are your posts here. So the only way we can determine if your posts have merit (which is important when deciding if we want to trust your audio advice) is by studying your posts to see if what you say is intelligent and can be trusted. I too, hate it when a conversation sinks to the level of "picking on" grammatical errors (although it can be quite amusing when the other person is so upset by it) but it is important to remember that it is one of the ways people are determining if your posts are relevent. It is especially important if you enter the computer field. Most of exchange of information in that business is conducted via e-mail to clients. If your email reflects poor intellect , it goes a long way with the clients. Also keep in mind, when a poster argues and throws a hissy fit when something is posted negative about them, and doesn't respond calmly and clearly, it just makes other people see them as immature, regardless of age. -mkl

" musicians, and even the current generation think a little different than you did in your day. so" I am a musician, and of the "current generation". The only thing I can say is please don't speak for either of those groups as a whole in the future. If you look at movies, books, music, each generation thinks the older generation of that time is too conservative (I'm not speaking about politics, just conservativeness in general). However, when that generation grows up, they realize that what they preceived as conservativeness, is really just a better understanding of the world via experience. A key thing to remember when talking to someone older than you is, THEY have been your age, and you have not yet been theirs, so it's possible they have some deeper insight into things:) -mkl

"Just look at how crazy he goes when someone suggests an alternative instead of SVS. " Actually, I have found that ears doesn't just blindly recommend SVS, infact, he usually suggests other things. It all depends on what the person who asked the question is looking for as far as price/performance/size etc. -mkl

You might want to included a description of your room, and what you are going to use the Heresys with, music, movies or both. I'm sure people who have used a much wider variety of subs will answer this, but I think my svs 20-39 sounds great with my Heresys. At first I only used the SVS when watching movies, and left it off for 2 channel music.(just because I really liked the way the Heresys made music sound before I got the sub, no use messing with perfection;) ) However, I quickly found out the greater bass extension of the SVS blended very smoothly with the Heresys and made them sound much more well balanced. -mkl

"The "thing" was a work of art compared to this monstrosity" Hey now, I drive a Thing (1973), and it's the best looking car ever made! Well, I drive it in the summer, during the road salting months I leave it in the garage:)

Another installment of the soap opera that is prod's audio life. I was just starting to be impressed, all of his recent posts (that I read anyway) seemed to be of high quality, with none of that pesky teen-angst coming through. Here are my opinions prod (some of them have already been stated by others it looks like) 1. If "image" is what appeals to you (ie if you just care what people think of your system, not of its actual quality) you probably should steer clear of Klipsch anyway. Any one of thousands of snobby "Audiophiles" would already laugh at anything done recently (or in a lot of cases, ever) by Klipsch ,in my experience anyway. 2. I already have more klipsch than I know what to do with, but since your Reference speakers are now the laughing stock of your highschool, I'll take them off of your hands (cheap ofcourse, I mean, they are crappy speakers that are sold in bestbuy) 3. Not that I think this even matters, but just because a company sells a lot of something, doesn't make it bad. Being exclusive does not equal being quality . In the same vein being quality does not mean it must be sold in shops that require an appointment. With any luck, the klipsch will sound better than the other speakers in best buy, and people will think your reference speakers must really rock. Since the klipsch's are more efficent, they are going to sound louder in those best buy audition rooms, and we all know that louder= better! Personally I don't care where the products I buy are sold, as long as the quality is what I expect. Who cares what other people say about your system, be secure with the fact that you enjoy it. Screw everyone else. And if all else fails, get your 8000$ b&ws or whatever you were stuck on before. Enjoy your quality speakers and sub, and forget about what the "audiophiles" say. -mkl

Well, the way I figure it, I would take a Britney Spear's song, and have Bose headphones for my mp3 player. Within 10 minutes of listening to the mp3 player, someone would show up either to 1. Tell me that Britney Spears sucks, or 2. Tell me that Bose sucks and how I should get new headphones, Either way I'd be rescued. -mkl

I'm using the Marantz 8200 marantz right now and I love it. I don't see many people on these boards using them, but I feel the Marantz is very musical for a A/V reciever and I have been greatly impressed by it. I'm sure you'll get more opinions/comments from this crowd (especially about the Bose;) ) -mkl

" minimum $30000 per year" Thats about every private college these days it seems.

Nope, no C# work at all yet. I'm sure at some point in the future I'll check it out...probably on personal time though, everything at work always needs the unix support as well. I have heard good things about c# and xml integration, and since XML is the current buzzword, I've been doing a lot of stuff involvng xml. Guess I need to buy Visual Studio .net now:) -mkl

"And, the mac is useless as a programming platform, if you do that sort of work. " I do that sort of work, and would never say osx is useless as a programming platform. All of the programs I work on need to be compatible with several flavors of unix and then windows. When you are working in vanilla c/c++ and other cross platform languages (I use a lot of tcl for gui work) macs are just as capable as any other system. If I had the choice Id be doing all of my c/c++,tcl work on a nice G4 laptop, or a dual g4 with a 22" cinema display But alas, I'm working on one windows box, and one linux box. -mkl

Problem: Mexican radio station in bckground of ALL music Solution: Turn off the other music. Now you have just the Mexican radio station. Problem solved. I'm on a mexican, oh oh, radio I'm on a mexican, oh oh, radio I wish I was in Tiajuana Eating barbequed iguana I'd take requests on the telephone I'm on a wavelength far from home I hear the talking of the dj Can't understand just what does he say? -Wall of Voodoo "Mexican Radio" -mkl

"There is a huge following with Linux simply because so many people don't like the whole Microsoft monopoly thing" In my experience most people don't use Linux because they hate Microsoft, they use linux because they are experienced users who realize that Windows just isn't as capable. I'm sure there are a few linux users who just don't like microsoft, but the vast majority of us have a higher motivation for using linux, the power and flexibility of a *nix based system. -mkl

"Kain, I would suggest PC. It has been my experiance in the past, that there was a lot more software written for PC" That was true befor Mac OS X, however since X is freebsd based you get a whole new realm of apps. This probably isnt an advantage for your typical user, but for power users its great. You get a ton of unix apps (which are free/open source) available with just a recompile. (Check out sourceforge.net) All in all MacOS X is a great, highly stable OS, and the G4 laptops are well designed and very very attractive. -mkl

Maybe I'm reading this post wrong and I just don't understand what you're saying. Let me go through it point by point. (Disclaimer: I am a professional computer programmer who has worked on/with several compression programs/algorithms) "MP3 IS by definition a "lossy" compression scheme because it is a compression scheme. Lossy or Non-Lossy as applied to compression schemes is merely a matter of definition." I'm not clear what this is saying. All compression schemes are NOT lossy. It seems like you are saying all compression schemes are lossy and lose data. This just isn't the case. Some schemes when you uncompress the data you get the exact same data that you had before compression, others you can never get the original data back after compression. MP3 is one of the ones where you never get the original data back. "What can be done however is create an algorithm that states that every bit (ie every 1 or 0 ) shall be evaluated in relation to the 1's and 0's around it and handled accordingly. Therefore algorithims may be constructed in such a manner as to selectively drop bits according to the context within which they occur." Bits are not "dropped" in the way they can not be recovered in a non-lossy compression scheme. In a non-lossy compression scheme patterns are typically found and shorter strings are used to represent these strings throughout the data. For a general idea of how this works...imagine I was trying to compress a file that had "mklmklmklmklmklmklmkl" in it. Instead I wrote "mkl*7" to the file, and in my decompression program, it knew that anything with a *7 after it, meant the previous string 7 times in a row. I have just used 5 characters to represent 21. When my decompression program runs on "mkl*7" it produces "mklmklmklmklmklmklmkl", the exact same data in the original with no loss of data. This is an oversimplified example, but hopefully it will allow you to see how nonlossy compression works. In a lossy compression scheme, bits are dropped and they can never be recovered. This is usually used for things that dont need the exact bits reproduced (like mp3 copies of music, where they arent expected to be perfect, they throw away the high and low tones in the music. Or jpegs, where they do a sort of average of the colors around a pixel to decide what information to store.) "It is therefore reasonable to state that there is no such animal as a perfect copy " This simply isnt true. Perfect digital copies,are perfect digital copies. This happens all the time. When something digital is copied, the same thing comes out the end. If this were not true, it would be like an analog copy, where every time you make a copy of a copy more and more errors propogate through the bits. If you take an mp3 file on your harddrive, make a copy and send it to a friend, who makes a copy of that copy and sends it to a friend...the 4000th person to get acopy of a copy has the EXACT same bits as the original mp3. If this were not true, burning/compying computer programs would not be possible. If even 1 bit on a binary computer file (like an executable program) is changed it would not be the same program. This is easy to see : Lets say you have just one binary number and that binary number is 2. (10 in binary) If the error could be introduced as the program was copied you could end up with 01 which is 1, or 11 which is 3 or 00 which is 0. These kind of changes in a binary file would leave it unreadable in most cases. Every bit is important. That is why if you are transfering a file over a modem or network and somehow even one bit gets changed incorrectly in transmitting, you can have a curropted file. So it is true that there are PERFECT copies. I can copy an audio cd, onto a blank cdr, and run a "diff" utility, which displays ANY difference in even a single bit, and both copies will be EXACTLY the same. Unless ofcourse you have a faulty cd burner, but that is simply an exception, and you'd know it, because if you tried to copy a file it would come out changed or corrupted. Lets sum it up: 1. Compression schemes do not all by definition LOSE any data. A. Lossy compression (like mp3,jpeg etc) lose bits that you can NEVER get back. b. Non-lossy compression (like .zip etc) compress the data , but you can get the original data back at any time. 2. True digital copies are perfect by definition. Every digital copy of a digital file/media is going to be exactly the same as it was going in. (unless intentional errors are introduced, but thats a whole different story) Wow, that was entirely too long of a post. I hope it explains things however:) -mkl

How would the system know you are at reference level, since all speakers have different efficiency? -mkl

" I don't believe it disgards anything if done with good software. If it is indeed a compression format and it does discard information that it is not a compression format !! So what is it ?" There are two types of compression schemes, Lossy and Lossless. (see http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci214453,00.html ) From that page: "Lossless and lossy compression are terms that describe whether or not, in the compression of a file, all original data can be recovered when the file is uncompressed. With lossless compression, every single bit of data that was originally in the file remains after the file is uncompressed. All of the information is completely restored. On the other hand, lossy compression reduces a file by permanently eliminating certain information, especially redundant information. When the file is uncompressed, only a part of the original information is still there (although the user may not notice it). Lossy compression is generally used for video and sound, where a certain amount of information loss will not be detected by most users" The quality of software has nothing to do with wether mp3 losses information. By definition of the mp3 algorithm, it throws away information, never to be seen again. -mkl

"the Identical size file and the internet data bases will still find the CD as the original which they use bit size I believe to do this" Nope, thats not how CDDB works (at least, not the standard cddbs protocol) They operate on the TOC and time of each track. So even if you recorded blank silence, if you had it the exact same length and in the right order, a CDDB would think it was that cd. Since mp3 doesnt change the LENGTH of the tracks, it still shows up. To sum all my posts up, it is FACT, not my opinion that mp3s permanently discard information in order to compress. (and naturally not all compression loses data, but lossy ones like jpeg and mp3 do) -MKL

" at all or even mp3 to cd's" " I still say MP3 back to redbook is dead on Identical." Nope, It is NOT identical at all. Maybe you can't hear it..but where do you think the extra information goes? Mp3 is a LOSSY compression scheme. It literally throws away some information, there is no way to revert back to original raw audio. I have written compression schemes a lot like mpeg layer 3 (mp3). If you don't believe me here is the first link I found on google: (There are probably millions if you search for mp3 and lossy) http://www.mp3-converter.com/mp3codec/lossiness.htm From that link "and it's important to understand that all MP3 files, no matter how well-encoded, have discarded some of the information that was stored in the original, uncompressed signal." If you want a lossless (no audio data is lost) compression scheme for audio, look at monkey's audio http://www.monkeysaudio.com/ Monkey audio loses no information, so you can revert back to the original file. The compressed file sounds just as good as the original since its all the data , just compressed. In mp3, highs and lows are the first to go! -mkl

Just curious, can you hear the difference between a 256Kbps MP3 and the original cd? I find that the percentage of me picking which one is which is just to close to random. Although on certain songs I typically have a better chance (Mostly female vocals and piano). Overall though, I really have to strain to even trty. So I consideer 256 cd equivalent (on my system, with my ears) -mkl