CommonTater

Good to see someone from a technical background commenting... I learned pretty early on that if you believed unquestioningly everything you read that you will -never- contribute anything new in your field. Without being -too- arrogant I have invented several things which I would never have found if I stuck to "common knowledge". LOL... now ain't that the truth. The first thing I learned in life and electronics is "Question Everything"... I also have a couple of patents floating around with my name on them. It is certainly the case that if measurements do not show a difference when a difference is observed, then at least one of the important parameters is not being taken into consideration or measured. A cute little story for you and the rest to much on... For the first couple of years I worked in electronic service I was with a company that did 3rd party repairs for several stores. One of the lines we serviced had two receivers, one a cheap plastic thing the other was nicely packaged in a gold face metal case. The cheapo sold for $249.00 including speakers and everyone said what a load of crap it was. The luxury one sold for $799 minus speakers and was met with near universal praise from local music buffs. Now here's the rub... These two units had *exactly* the same guts in them. Power supply, boards, components, everything exactly the same. In fact there was a telltale in that the cheapo had odd serial numbers on the boards and the luxury one had even numbers... For a lark, I traded guts between a pair of these things --cheapo guts in luxury case and visa versa-- hooked them up to the same speakers... and guess what... Our customers preferred the luxury one's sound, every single time. True story... And a real teller for what goes through people's minds.

ok, guys... This nasty old pragmatist can now see that he's stepped into a den of religious-like ferver where anything not ascribing to the doctrine du place is going to end up in a constant round of attempting to out piss one another... Well, guys, that's a game I don't play. Chris: It's been a slice, but I'm outa here... you may remove my messages if you choose.

Base Video is a boot option for computer systems that are not working correctly. These do not set any mode or do anything special that you cannot do in normal mode from control panel. Which is why I'm baffled by the problems you're having... Ok... now lets be sure what have you been setting *exactly*... Start with a normal bootup on your usual computer monitor, forget Base Video for the moment, it doesn't exist... In the Control Panel->Display dialogue you should set the resolution. Then in Advanced Settings from that dialogue you set the refresh rate and color depth... for Sharp these have to be set to 60hz and 24bit color. They default to the highest rates your *current* monitor will handle. Since the sharp is not Plug and Play you will have to set them manually. Also... what model Radeaon Chip/Card do you have in your computer? And... are the drivers up to date? I know this is terribly frustrating, but I'm betting that it's something quite simple, once it's figured out...

Well, if the current mixamp isn't giving you the sound quality you want, you might try the "HeadRoom" amp. I've listened on a coupld of these and I will suggest they're pretty impressive. HeadRoom One thing you might consider for your HT surround is swapping out the satellites for something a little more substantial. Polk Audio has a couple of excellent mid-price bookshelf speakers that make excellent sats. Polk Audio If you shop carefully you will find these on sale at the "big box" stores like Future Shop. They're very bright sounding, so when coupled with a Sub you get a very good bang for your buck. Although you didn't ask, it seems that you're setting up separate systems for each use. This may or may not be a good idea... If you can get your HT system up to mid to high end sound you might want to conisder unifying everything through that. One thing that is not often pointed out is that with numerous speakers in a room, the ones that are not in use will still react to sound and may have some surprising "coloring" effects on what you hear.

Where can i send my résumé for that gig? LOL... Me too! Seriously though, when's the last time you saw a reviewer get totally honest: "This ______ is a piece of crap!" ... I've only ever seen it once in reference to a Lynksys Router. Blunt Honest Review

I would be interested in a more clear description of what you're trying to set up... What is your "ideal" setup in your situation? If you're a gamer do you want positional audio (5.1, 7.1 etc)? Are you wanting specialized speakers? Are you mainly a "can man" interested in headphones? etc. As a general guideline... I would steer a gamer into a home theatre setup with at least 5.1 audio, distributed around the gaming space. Get a sound card with TosLink (optical SPDIF) output and connect that to your home theatre receiver. Even a low end HT setup will blow away the best "computer speakers" you're going to find and will often do it for less money. The real trick is *speakers*. Whatever differences you hear will be 90% speakers and about 10% electronics. Avoid Plastic housings at all costs! A good set of MDF wood or cast metal (my fave) speakers will improve your sound remarkably, even on a somewhat modest amplifier. The same with headphones... don't skimp. A good set of cans will deliver utterly amazing sound. Listen to several before buying, headphones are an extremely personal choice. Don't be sucked in by specifications... Manufacturers love to lie about this stuff. For example: Many will claim 100+ watts for an amplifier that --by measurement-- only delivers 10. They will similarly claim much higher than achievable signal to noise ratios and lower than possible distortion specs. All in the interests of hawking a cheaply made product. You want to know if an amplifier is well made? Pick it up. Featherweights don't deliver. Finally: Don't take the trip into "ratings hell", you'll regret that. Most reviewers are "paid to praise". The only honest rating is the one you give... Hope this helps...

For a musician, M-Audio is the way to go. First, these boards are actually designed for studio use by pro-musicians. As such they have input and output levels and connections that interface very nicely with mixing consoles. They also have MIDI ports used by keyboard instruments and controllers, as well as a whole whack of "MIDI-enabled" stage equipment. M-Audio also includes the Ableton music creation software which is quite possibly as good as it gets short of custom written packages for recording studios.

I must say that with all these designers and company representatives on this thread talking about improved sound and better cables I am surprised that not a single one of them has any measured data of any kind to present to support their beliefs and opinions. sq225917 lands right on something I've been saying for *years*. I started in electronics as a hobby in the mid-1960s at the ripe old age of 17, in 1973 I turned it into a career that spans both audio and digital worlds. Since I began this you could count on your fingers the days when I have not been involved in audio in some way or another. At one point I designed and built an entire system from scratch... blank sheets of paper all the way to equipment sitting in my living room. My friends have dubbed my tendency to make small part value changes or wire-mods in amplifiers and various equipment "The number"; as in "Have you done the number on this one yet?" I have also designed a fair bit of stuff over the years, both audio and digital, both commercial and personal. Needless to say, during this time I've frequently encountered the world of audiophiles and many times heard their claims of one thing being better than another. Very often these differences, even when well and clearly described, are beyond elusive to test equipment or careful inspection. Often the only available conclusion, given the inability to prove the effect, is that they are imaginary. This is not to say there's anything wrong with wanting perfect sound but maybe --just maybe-- you should be basing your discernments, at least in part, on science. Many of the comments before I somehow stepped on this landmine, were to the effect that hearing is far from perfect. Pointing out, in fact that we don't tend to remember the exact sound of things. Perhaps this is a hint that in at least some cases we should not be trusting our ears to guide us to the truth. Maybe the truth is that we hear what we want to hear. I, for example, will hear worse 50 times before I hear better. If something is better, I most often discover this by substituting something worse... very seldom does it work the other way around. I know this and I use it in my discernments. But I also know that when I don't hear a difference there probably isn't one there to hear. I mean no disrespect to anyone here but I do think in a lot of cases we get ourselves into self-deception and are actually preyed upon by various companies knowing this about our natures. And it's not just audiophiles... hot rodders, bicyclists, videophiles and computer geeks get the same treatment. Companies actually count on it as they pull those $12.00 USB cables (wheel covers, pedals, video switches, cooling pastes, etc.) out of the boxes and stuff them into the ones with the big price tags on them. The proof, as they say, is in the putting... Where are the oscillographs showing bit timing errors (jitter) from a bad cable? Where are the spectral analyses showing better frequency response from 12ga braided speaker cables? Exactly how is $90+ for a 6 foot USB cable justified? More broadly, where is the proof that the ridiculous prices I see people pay for a lot of this stuff is justified in any way?

In this USB case, beads are less important for the case where both ends are grounded to the same ground point through casing. In these configurations, the cable shield is mere extension of the case. That and most VGA and DVI cables are *unshielded* where HDMI cables are usually shielded.

480mbps does not necessarily reflect line frequency. For example two 1s in a row do not cause a transition from 1 to 0 to 1, they just leave it as a 1 for two bit times... cutting the frequency in half (deliberately so, I might add). When you consider all binary patterns in a serialized byte the only two that will even approach 480mhz are hex AA and 55, which are comprised of alternating 1s and 0s. These will result in 240mhz if the link is running at full speed. Beads are a very good idea at those frequencies... not because of audio effects, because you don't want an antenna coupled to the listening port. Secondly, if RFI can affect the master clock frequencies in *any* device, the only possible description is "piss poor design".

Beads make quite a big difference. Sometimes analog VGA cables are good demonstration for the cable effects. These days pretty much all VGA and DVI cables have beads. HDMI and Display Port cables are different story for some reason... Ferrite beads never hurt any cable, especially if you live near a CBer. The big reason video cables are beaded is frequency. The frequencies carried on USB cables seldom get above about 200khz where as video cables can get into tens of megahertz. When you have a listening port waiting for 7 and 10 mhz signals, the risk is very high that it will turn into a receiver for the local ham bands with the cable acting as an antenna...

Wow! You compared cables all the way up to $30? Believe me, any 6 foot USB cable more expensive than about $10.00 is designed for no other reason than separating you from your money. And *Power cords*... really guys, you gotta be kidding. An under-rated power cord might cause some power supply regulation issues in a high powered amplifier but on a CD player??? Look, I'm plenty picky about what I hear. I've even been known to climb into an amplifier and make modifications to improve it's performance but at some point you've got to think things are getting just a tad ridiculous... Expecially when you are standing at the counter contemplating a $90.00+ USB cable or a $60.00 power cord... Really. The problem here is applying "audio think" to digital systems. There simply is no audio on a USB cable. It has 4 wires, +5vdc, rxdata, txdata and ground. That's it... 100% switching digital signals. That audio can be mathematically *derived* from these signals does not mean it's actually there in the digital pulse train. But just to make the "I can hear it" crowd happy I will give you this little anechdote to much on... I took one of my cables and cut the ground wire... THAT I could hear... the silence was deafening.

By the way, anybody know if the subject of jitter has ever been covered by the IEEE? Endlessly. When the gigabit lan was in prototype and testing phases, they realized that clock stability and bit timing were going to be major issues at such high data rates. Jitter, of an extreme kind (more than 40% of a bit time) can and does cause data errors which in turn require re-sends and they in turn knock the crap out of your transfer speeds. It was also discussed as "bit displacement" during the early work on USB 2 and again on 3... However, the pulse widths on USB are considerably wider than on LAN ports, so it is ultimately far less of an issue.

First of all, lots and lots of people have their PCs connected to their television sets... It's called a Home Theatre PC or HTPC... It's entirely doable. No a television set is not going to give you plug and play compatibility. Windows will see it as a "Generic Non-PNP Monitor" but that should not matter. Boot your system into a normal PC monitor... now set the resolution of your video card to match one in the TV using the directions I gave you earlier. Please note: Not all cards will support all monitor modes... not all TVs will support all card modes... find one that matches between the two. For example try 800x600 60hz at 24bit color... this is easy to set in control panel. It will be stretched horizontally or may not fill the screen because 800x600 is not a wide screen mode, but try it anyway... Unplug the VGA cable from the monitor and plug it into the TV set... does it work? If not, then my only remaining suggestion is that you're going to have to get a technician to come in and set it up for you.

Jitter, the mistiming of digital pulses in a communications channel is a problem for the receiving mechanism. If you look at the image I attached to an earlier message you will see how this is overcome in most modern systems. The use of a very narrow sample window placed center-clock of the data stream pretty much eliminates any transmission line jitter from the received data. That is, by utilizing a narrow sampling window the edge timing of the pulses is irrelevent so long as they do not overlap the sample window. For clarity we are talking about a pulse width in microseconds and a sample window usually in tens of nanoseconds. When dealing with serial data such as a USB line, we have to use a UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) chip to convert this data from a serial bit stream to something useable by the connected device, a Digital to Audio Converter in our case. The process by which this is done inside the UART is to first latch each bit into a Shift Register that pushes the previous bit over one position and grabs the new bit value from the sample window then waits for the next bit... Shift registers explained Once the required number of bits are accumulated in the shift register, we have a parallel output X bits wide that can be transferred to other devices. At this point the parallel data is latched by a separate logic device, curiously called a Latch, whitch holds the data until the next group of bits is ready in the shift register. Latches explained Once the data is latched, it will remain stable until it is actually changed. Depending on data rates on the serial port that could range from a few microseconds to a matter of days. The latch doesn't care. It just holds the data until it's changed. At this point we are 2 steps removed from the serial data stream and the data can be handed to the Digital to Analog Converter. Digital to Analog converter example Whatever bit displacement may occur on the serial data stream is guarded by three things, the sample window, the shift register and finally the latch, before it is handed to the DAC. Using crystal clocks at many multiples of the data rate (typically 256 or 512 times) it is possible to extract the audio from the data in a very precise manner that is wholly independent of the bit timing of the serial data stream. Moreover, if we introduce a buffering scheme using memory under control of a micropocessor, we can remove the data even further from the serial stream, storing several seconds of data in memory before handing it to the DAC. This further removes the digital to audio conversion from timing and arrival issues, even allowing the USB stream to stop for brief intervals without notice. The process is a long way from a "bit at a time" conversion to audio. Even a DAC that works "byte by byte" from the latch, without internal buffering (which would be a really stupid design) still operates at least 2 layers removed from the data stream. What puzzles me so deeply is how anyone can reasonably claim to hear miniscule mistimings in the USB stream in the audio output of one of these devices. I spent a fair bit of time last night and this morning listening with half a dozen USB cables, ranging from the $1.79 things from WallMart to a gold plated one that set me back almost $30.00 (for a 6 footer!)... nada, no difference, not even by oscillographic measurement.