thesurfingalien

Hi John, A few years ago, I started a topic "Is it not time for a new audio-interface?". Response to it was little, and was pretty much shut down by Chris C., who posted he thought that with modern DACs, there was no need for another interface... Peter

Wilhelm, While I applaud your English skills, I believe you are trying to convey thoughts and ideas you can only properly express in your native tongue. This can make your posts a little hard for others to fully understand. I also believe you might miss what others are trying to tell you, causing you to misinterpret their words as insulting. As an English teacher in Brazil, I often correct written compositions from my students. Even though these may be grammatically correct, I often cannot fully understand what the student really wants to express. Simply because they think in Portuguese. Besides that, I believe there are some cultural differences at play here. Please remember that CA has members from all over the world; things that people write here may be perfectly acceptable where they are from, but for others from different parts of the world are quite unacceptable. Participating in a forum like CA, where differences of opinion are often voiced clearly, requires one to stay rather open minded and, perhaps more important, not to assume purposeful insult at first glance. Regards, Peter

Hi All, The part which makes this whole story come across as a hoax (or conspiracy theory?), at least to me, is the OS-level key-logger that supposedly sends all you type to MS servers. Maybe I am wrong, but I believe the problem is that nowadays everyone can put anything out there on the Internet, regardless if it is (verifiable) true or not. Try YouTube for example... The amount of utter BS that can be found there is simply mind-boggling. I confess that I sometimes look for those videos, just to have a good laugh Peter

I dunno Allan... I am sure MS drops the ball at times, but we are talking rather extreme stuff here. Just the idea alone of an operating-system by default equipped with a key-logger that stores its information somewhere on the internet without permission of the user would be the death of MS. I am by no means a security expert, so I could very well be wrong here, but I would like to see something more than just the findings of "some Czech guy" before I buy this one...

Hi Alex & All, I was alerted to this this topic by a friend and fellow CA-member, so I thought I should give my R$ 0,02 here... To me it sounds like a hoax, although the purpose (besides making Microsoft look bad) escapes me. If this turns out to be true, it is only a matter of time before other companies that (will) make use of Windows 10 will sue the shit out of Microsoft, and their reputation would be destroyed forever. Think of all the company secrets that would end up somewhere out there on the Internet with the possibility of being hacked into... Nahhh... I do not think so... Peter PS... I am definitely NOT a Microsoft-fan (I use Linux exclusively), but I do not believe they would be that stupid...

Hi Alex, I have been away for a bit, and have not visited CA for awhile. Anyway, I wish you all the best for 2015; a swift recovery obviously being #1. There is one line in the movie "The long kiss goodnight" that I really like: "May the best from your past be the worst in your future". That is something I would like to extend to all CA-members as well. Regards, Peter

George, For the most part I enjoy listening to rock - heavy-metal music, although I certainly enjoy other genres, including classical music. But when I attend any live performance, I go there for the total experience. Despite the sound reinforcement systems, some being very good (Pink Floyd for example) and others being staggeringly bad (unfortunately too many to mention), I still enjoy the show. When I see, for example, Joe Satriani on stage, giving it all he has got to please the crowd and enjoying himself doing so, I am having a great time despite the sound often not being top-notch. The most objectionable element of rock-concerts to me are the insane levels of volume. I used to use my own solution to prevent hearing-damage that also made the sound more enjoyable: buy some cotton and Vaseline at the drugstore if you do not have it at home, take a little pluck of the cotton and "rub in" a bit of the Vaseline so you end up with little (more or less) U-shaped pieces. These you slightly put in your ear-canal (basically like in-ear headphones). Be careful not to put them in too deep!!! It works really well, and is very comfortable. Experiment with the amount of cotton to fit your ears... Peter

Hi Jabs1542, I honestly have no idea... Maybe it is the result of dithering or something; to me it looks completely random. I have tested this behavior with both Linux and Windows versions, with the same results. Unfortunately I have never found an arbitrary document that describes how an "official" digital silence should be defined. If anyone knows about such information, please let me know! Kind regards, Peter

Hi alfe, I am not sure if this is what you mean with the zero-bit data, so I am guessing here. If you are referring to a 100% digital silence, AFAIK this is not possible. Since there is an even number of values (2^16 = 65536, for example), there simply is no middle-value. If you generate a "digital silence" in Audacity, you will see signed integer values between +2 and - 3 (if I recall correctly); Dennis (esldude) and I have been discussing this some time ago. If signed integer value 0 indeed *is* the null-line (complete digital silence), then it seems logical that the signed integer range -1 to -32768 would only be used until value -32767 to have an equal number of "positions" above and below to decode the wave-form in. I have tested this, and found it to be incorrect because in several recordings I found where all values (0 to +32767 and -1 to -32768) are used. However, this may not be what you are talking about at all, and it only represents my experiences. Kind regards, Peter

Hi alfe, Exceptions taken, no one here is bashing Alex; I am sure everyone actually likes him and has great respect for his accomplishments in the field of audio. However, sometimes Alex gets over-sensitive with regards to his claims, the biggest problem being the way of collecting and interpreting results as proof by Alex, and several CA-members not agreeing with his methods and reports of these. While I respect your willingness to investigate the files using analyzing-tools, I doubt that, if there indeed is some kind of "disturbing factor" buried in the files, it will show up in the analysis (as graphical representation). Unless, of course, this "disturbing factor" somehow influences the behavior of software or hardware. But in all honesty I, just like other CA-members, am not sure what you are getting at. I really think it is better if you explain to us in your own words what you try to accomplish so we have the opportunity to help. So far I am not getting the relevance between differences between bit-identical files and, for example, differences (and their cause) between a left- and right channel. Kind regards, Peter

alfe, Can you explain what you mean with zero-bit data? Peter

Wait until they go to the bathroom to do #2

Alex, Please get medical attention ASAP and be well! Kind regards, Peter

Hi Jud, Sorry, I should have written "NO". But the bits are not the same; with the hex-representation I was trying (but failed) to be funny

alfe, Two thing, for what it is worth: - You are not very good at manipulating people (which could be taken as a compliment as well); I was trying to be nice - I do not, for a single second, believe Alex is actively trying to manipulate people into hearing these differences, but I do believe his rock-solid believe in the validity of his findings and consequent claims sometimes clouds his judgement in various ways. This is pretty much what I have to say about the subject; in five (+) years we have not come one step closer to figure out what might or might not is going on, and I fear it is going to remain that way for another five (+) years. Peter