Jump to content

computermike

  • Posts

    8
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Country

    United Kingdom

Retained

  • Member Title
    Newbie

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

  1. I know where the real fault lies, but I am sticking to my position. 1. The whole regional position is untenable in the long run, not to say just plain wrong. Most countries where there is any market allow downloads, certainly the UK and the rest of Europe which is the original area mentioned. Any that do not, then the big multimedia companies are best placed to bring pressure towards harmonisation. Copyright issues can be different, but somehow CDs, films etc. still get sold. The main reason for the regional variations remains the big companies trying to maximise their profit (not I should mention the artists cut, they in general want to reach as many people as possible.) A few years back CDs in the UK were about twice the price as in the USA; CDs by British artists, performed, produced and manufactured here were still twice the price. Eventually the complaints got too much to ignore and a government commission, completely whitewashed the companies, but by sheer coincidence prices halved overnight. This is happening again, the markets outside the USA are fragmented and each smaller and in the main with less consumer power, so the big companies are restricting downloads and when they are allowed they will be more expensive. 2. To pretend to live in the USA in order to gain access is deception. It may be minor but it is still dishonest, and I do not see why I should have to deceive in order to get something to which I should be entitled. 3. If the situation is to change then there has to be pressure which can be either political pressure to force change or financial pressure by not buying the product. Political pressure is unlikely to do much in a world where the direction is to more stringent copyright laws and enforced DRM. I alone have little power and HDTracks may not have much; but if no one does anything the situation will just continue and likely get worse. Mike
  2. To be honest, the fact that they impose geographical restrictions (i.e. discriminate) is enough to stop me using them even if the restrictions can be overcome. There are some legal differences but there are plenty of companies that have managed easily enough. They can't be bothered about us, then they do not get my business or my recommendation! Mike
  3. The basic principle of RAID is that it keeps (at least) two copies of everything; the different types of RAID do this in different ways to give different levels of security and performance. The benefit of course is that you are less likely to lose data since if one disk fails the other is available while the dud one is swapped out. The downside is that you halve the available space and may get slower performance. To use RAID you need two disks (in theory it could be two platters in a single drive but that is a bit useless when things go wrong). Typically a NAS would have space for example for two 2TB drives and when set up for RAID you would end with 2TB of storage space for the cost of 4TB. When considered as a form of backup, RAID has the disadvantage of being all in one place so many forms of disaster would affect both original and backup. Personally, I prefer to backup to a disk on a different machine, or at the very least a different external drive and in the cloud as well. RAID is really meant for volatile, heavily-used business systems. Mike
  4. Hmm. I'll try and check some of these, but I note that these tests were run in 2007; I think they are a few versions down the line from there! Mike
  5. What issues were they? I have been using it for a couple of years with no problems. Mike
  6. Medieval CUE Splitter (PC) will split a single wav directly to wavs. I am not sure how good it is at embedding other data as I only use it for splitting. Mike
  7. Hi, You ceratinly can start with this system, but to be honest something more powerful would be better. To be more specific, don't try to upgrade to Windows 7, it probably would not run anyway but would degrade performance. The processor is 32 bits and there is nothing you can do about it. This sort of processor and memory is OK for playing audio, even HD, but Windows does have a habit of running its own processes in the background which can mess things up so you should shut down everything that you don't need. If you want to rip your own CDs you will need a USB CD drive and then install search for EAC and install it. To playback get one of the many USB DACs and hook that into your system, or straight to headphones. You can run JRiver or perhaps Foobar2000 might be a bit better on such a machine. When I am away and in hotel rooms I do most of my listening through a similar spec. Samsung netbook with a USB drive to hold all my CDs in FLAC format, and an Arcam rPac through to Senheiser 'phones. If you are really into computers you can get a lot more out of limited power machines by running Linux instead of Windows, but you have to know what you are doing! In short, if you can afford it get a more powerful machine with at least a twin-core processor, 32 or 64 bit doesn't matter, more memory and its own CD drive. You will want a USB DAC anyway. Mike (just coming up to 65 myself!)
  8. Hi I am not sure about availability outside the UK, but I have just bought the new Arcam rPac Arcam - rPAC - USB DAC / Headphone Amp and I am very pleased with it. It is reasonably small, a bit heavier than others but not too much and powered from the USB port. Mike
×
×
  • Create New...