franepici

yes, for music downloads, but not for ripping LOL

hi everyone, I'm upgrading itunes on my wife's ibook, and I read something strange in the release notes talking about the new functionalities of the 8.1 version: "allows importing CDs with the same sound quality of itunes plus" now, the itunes plus standard is just 256kbps AAC, so what's the point?

Hello Chris, In order to reply to your question I can base myself on what I practically experienced: I had 2 laptops (an Acer and a HP) that had battery going down to zero performance (and I really mean zero, so that would give energy only for 4-5 seconds) after 6-8 months of constant plug-in use. My wife's ibook is 6 years old, she used it always alternating days of AC plug with days of battery use, and it still lasts a bit more than 2 hours. Then, besides laptops, also other devices like cellphones (also using Li-Ion batteries) have the same behavior: I have an old sony ericsson from 6ys ago (I guess I bought it when my wife bought her ibook ), on which I almost always make complete charge/discharge battery cycles, and still now the battery lasts a lot. It must be also said that, by what I read from other posts, it seems like macs seem to manage the battery recharge a bit better than normal laptops, and maybe they have been designed in order to preserve the battery as longer as possible even if constantly plugged. However I still believe that a complete cycle of discharge / charge once a while is only beneficial to the batteries, and the "physiological" calendar life of a battery is much longer than would be if damaged by the constant full power charge (take a look at my examples). Francesco

Even lithium batteries tend to be easily damaged if put continously on AC and with warm/hot temperatures, which are easily reached within the case of a laptop. some dock stations work in order to avoid full charge of batteries or alternate small cycles of charge / discharge; this is why your laptop may have survived all those years still being always plugged in. take a look at this article from tesla motors (those who have created the first really competitive li-ion electric car) and you will learn a lot about li-ion batteries. In particular, second and third lines of section "calendar life", where they also refer to the laptop batteries. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=39 in my opinion, if you were planning to have always the computer in a fixed location, an imac instead of a macbook would have been better, however if you let the battery discharge completely and recharge for 2-3 times a week this should preserve your battery life for long time. As regards the cable frying, it's a bull**it hope it helps Francesco

I don't think that the wifi itself, as protocol, can be a bottleneck. the 802.11 G standard has a theoretical bandwidth of 54 Mb/sec, which in reality is about 24,7 Mb/sec. The bitrate of compressed and even WAV files is much lower than this...

Just for info, as I have not tried it, Styleaudio from Korea has released last year this 24/192 USB DAC: http://styleaudio.typepad.com/styleaudio_hifi_usb_mini_/2008/07/new-carat-peridot-introduction.html I have their UD1 and I am satisfied with it

A not too expensive USB DAC that can also be used as headphone amp, and has furthermore RCA and digital out is the StyleAudio Carat UD1. You can find info here: http://www.styleaudio.co.kr/ http://styleaudio.typepad.com/styleaudio_hifi_usb_mini_/2008/03/carat-ud1-overv.html Price in Europe is around 100€

very clear, thank you very much

Well yes, I agree, the UD 10 seems not to have been primarily thought as pure DAC, but more as interface exchange out of a computer. However their website talks explicitly also about this possibility of use. I own one, I use it just as a DAC and I am satisfied with it. The jack out may be a bit less comfortable than a RCA out, but frankly it works fine and I do not see the reason why the sound quality should be worse than a RCA. Just listening now to AC DC - Black Ice through the UD 10

Hi everyone, We all know that FLAC is a lossless format that use a compression method than doesn't eliminate music information, but works more closely to the ZIP or RAR principle, right? well I would have a question about the bitrate... WAV has a fixed bitrate of 1411 kbps. When I played several FLAC files through foobar I realized that the bitrate was slightly different each time, and of course lower than 1411: I found in fact values for example of 1035 andf 1104 kbps. well, 400 kbps less are really no data being taken out compared to a WAV? what those 400kbps would carry on a normal WAV file? I am interested in getting a deeper understanding of these lossless compression methods... thank you in advance for your contributions, Francesco

just wanted to say that I got it today, and it perfectly works. Thank you for the effective suggestion

Use your ears, Luke!

thanks a lot. after reading your message I looked for "ground loop isolator" on the net and I found a very good link giving clear explanations: http://www.epanorama.net/documents/groundloop/ I will look for an antenna ground loop isolator, hope to easily find one. thanks again

well, then maybe the difference in volume that I have out of the UD-10 is less relevant than yours. let's say that to compensate it I have to make an increase of 1/8 turns or even less

I guess he just meant the same I said in my message, increase the volume a bit