The Long Downward Slide of an Audio Blog

[ejcpa]

To provide a little background ,I have been interested in hi fidelity and stereo equipment since I was a freshman in college in 1972. My first somewhat real system consisted of a Fisher receiver, a Garrard turntable (that I wish I would have kept) with a Pickering cartridge and speakers the brand of which I can't remember. Since that time, I like others involved in this hobby, have constantly traded and purchased new equipment. I was an early adapter of digital with a Pioneer CD player. That was when you could go to the record store and look through every single CD that was in the store. I have had every type of portable music player from Walkman to Discman and had one of the first Ipod mini's. After taking a break to get into surround sound(yes I still have a laserdisc), I got back into stereo when I purchased my first tube amplifier. It just so happened that the individual that I purchased it from had a Mac Mini and a USB dac. That was when I purchased my first USB Dac and IMAC.

 

Since that time I have read this site on an almost daily basis (4 years and 2 months). I remember the good old days when most of the discussions here were interesting and informative. But now, in my opinion, the informative discussions seem few and far between and some are borderline ridiculous. The latest rant on Itunes Masters drove me over the edge and lead me to create this topic.

 

This constant comparing of operating systems is old. Constant contests regarding Apple and their peceived mind control over the masses is ridiculous. All the "prove it to me by the measurements" conversation is ridiculous as I have never ever purchased equipment based on what is written on a piece of paper. I think is totally hilarious to bash Itunes, which I remind everybody is FREE along with free updates. For a person to say that an old walkman sounded better than an Ipod when the person does not even own an Ipod is beyond comprehension.

 

In my opinion, all of this craziness does not promote computer based audio. The average Joe can't even understand the conversations about tweeking, ripping software, etc. etc. I don't blame a person for just wanting to pop in a disc and hit play

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

I have a 'restored' Sony CD walkman. It plays CDs at 16/44.1, so is much higher resolution than an iPod playing its usual low-res 256Kbps music. You say the comment is 'beyond comprehension' because the poster does not even own an iPod. (He may have heard one, of course, but you don't know as he did not say.)

 

You presumably own both an iPod and a Sony CD Walkman and have thus compared the two?

 

Other that that I generally agree with you. The 'cable controversies' are the worst. Many, many, people say things on forum that they would not say anywhere else, including me (but at leat I admit it), and maybe including you.

 

Do you own, or have you heard, a Sony CD walkman? Or is your comment merely based on a Sony CD Walkman being 'old'?

 

If you have not heard a CD Walkman I find your comment beyond comprehension.

 

 

[sandyk]

Mark

Was it the Sony CD walkman that also had an anti vibration memory buffer ?

Alex

 

[Mark Powell]

It was still not very good it you were moving pretty rapidly and continuously. But at home, plugged into the hi fi it is as good as a 'run of the mill' regular CD player. I still use it now and again. I found a new laser and have fitted new NiMh batteries.

 

It amuses me when someone criticises another for 'not knowing' and then do the same themselves. 'Engage brain' etc

 

I have a small collection of these things. I just bought them new and kept them, they are not 'collected' as such. My pride and joy is a still working Zenith Trans Oceanic radio which I bought new.

 

[dave_kiwi]

was a Sony D50 Discman -- which was a portable, circa 1985, set me back just under $1K NZD. Gave many years of stirling service.

 

 

[One and a half]

The comparison was a "Walkman and an ipod", not necessarily a CD type, could have been a cassette as they were both named Walkman.

 

[Mark Powell]

And an iPod would win hands down.

 

But the only one who mentioned a Walkman was me, and I specifically stated a CD walkman, so his comment was aimed, if unknowingly, at me. I am ridiculed for not owning an iPod, yet I bet he does not own a CD Walkman.

 

It's called 'hypocrisy'

 

 

 

[simmobb2]

Seems to me some people take offence very easily, "I am ridiculed" where? You assume that when ejcpa said walkman he meant your CD Walkman.

 

The point of the article is crystal; stop bickering about Apple and get on with listening to and discussing digital music making in a way that makes it accessible to the masses.

 

Whether the guy has or has heard a CD Walkman like yours is perhaps not what the op wants to discuss?

 

[Mark Powell]

He said 'one poster compared...etc.' As no one else mentioned them at all who else can it be? As I stated perfectly clearly the first time.

 

He did not even bother to read what I actually said. If he does not want to discuss particular things he should refrain from attacking those who say those things. Least of all attacking me for not owning one of the items in question when he most likely does not own the other one.

 

But as I ALSO said, I agree with his post in general. And with what you say.

 

Not that is matters, as neither the Apple sales handout ('White Paper'), nor its iPods, iPhones, and iPads, have any connection with high quality computer audio, except maybe as a convenient remote control.

 

[wdw]

Sounds to me like you're missing the point of the OP's comments and taking this quite personally and I must disagree with your statement that an iPod is playing low Rez music and therefore inferior to a cheesy CD Walkman. Surely you know that an iPod/iPad plays up to 24/48 from a solid state drive so is intrinsically superior to any portable spinning disc.

WDW

 

[thesurfingalien]

ejcpa,

 

...to criticize other posters :-)

 

But seriously... You have been a member for over 4 years, and I can only see 3 (including this post) messages from you. Face it, on the side of contributing to CA you score pretty low (one comment, one question and this... well... rant).

 

Anyway, I am sorry if CA is turning into an entity you don't like. But do you really think this post will do anything positive?

 

Regards,

Peter

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

Heard lots of them, have you? Please tell me. The Sony critics have not said they have heard one yet. Wonder why?

 

They play CD quality, just the same resolution (which of course is not the only thing that matters) as a 10,000 dollar CD player, which no doubt you also think is not as good as an iPod at 24/48. And that was the accepted standard at the time. And Sony did not make 'cheesy' stuff, it was all good. though their standards seemed to have dropped somewhat since.

 

Yes, at 24/48 into a stereo system through a 'digital' dock, bypassing the iPods utterly cheesy DAC and equally cheesy analog stage, they sound fine. But by then there is not all that much Apple stuff doing any work, is there?

 

But you don't get that if you have downloaded from the cheesy iTunes store, do you?

 

The iPod, for what it is, is quite good, though far from the best of its type. Shame they charge double what anyone else charges. If I had the faintest interest in walking down the street with glazed eyes, twitching faintly to 'Tsiz-Chaa' music I might buy one.

 

[bottlerocket]

CA has become boring to me too, but I learned a lot from the site and I think I've got mostly what I wanted from the site. It is not really CA that has become boring, it is audio in general (to me, myself and I). Music continues to keep me interested however.

 

The point is it is pointless to criticize other's interests/passions. Most of the regular posters here are enthusiastically interested in this topic and are interesting in general.

 

Also, I think audio is like a lot of good hobbies; it invites obsessive highly focused interest and is therefore subject to burnout. Take a break, come back later. Winter is almost over. Time to get outside.

 

 

 

[CG]

I've been a reader here for some time. Early on, I used to post on a regular basis but rarely do these days. I mention this not to claim any sort of credentials, but to save some time for the people who are going to use this information when they slag these comments.

 

I agree pretty much with the original poster. Not necessarily about Sony portable CD players, because I don't know about Sony portable players, but with the spirit of his (?) comments.

 

If you take a look at pretty much all the recent threads here, they fall roughly into two categories.

 

One is where somebody asks a simple question, and there might be a reply or two before the thread falls off the page.

 

The other category is where endless argument goes on and on. And on. Much like an interminable Monty Python sketch.

 

Example: How about USB cables? There are uncounted posters - so nobody should feel singled out - who declare in absolute terms that cables should not matter and therefore do not. They drag out all sorts of references to digital transmission theory to support their point, unfortunately ignoring some of the technical details of the actual hardware. Other posters have tried various cables, found that they could detect no difference, so this must also be true for every system everywhere and for everybody. Yet others haven't come across any theory on why cables should matter, so for them all cables must sound the same. The list goes on. That's just on the side of the "non-believers". The other extreme has its own faults, too.

 

The distressing point of the discussion is not the different points of view - hey; I don't like operas written by anybody not named Townshend or Davies, yet some misguided souls seem to - but the monumental urinating contests that seem to always develop.

 

If I was a newby looking for some information, or even a guy who wanted to learn more about a hobby I'm interested in, I'd run screaming from this place. In fact, I only occasionally glance hereabouts every now and then. But, that's just my solution to avoid the madness. That may not solve the overall problem, but I suspect there isn't much I can do about it in any case. This post included.

 

I'm not even sure that a 24/7 bar room like debate isn't what the majority of posters here want from CA. That's fine, but that may not be for everybody. I don't know, but that is my interpretation of the Original Post.

 

 

Somewhat off topic... There have been a number of iPod models along the way that used the very same DAC chips as much more expensive CD players and external DAC boxes use, even now. There is a minimum of analog circuitry beyond the integrated DAC in these iPod models. You can look this up. Perhaps the support circuitry and/or the implementation of the chip aren't as good as in other products, but it's wrong to assume that the basic iPod conceptual design is inferior. I haven't listened to music on an iPod for a few years, so I can't comment on how the new ones, or even the old ones sound.

 

 

[Mark Powell]

But once you have got it all working to your satisfaction, which is not particularly difficult, there really is nor much else to say. You can't fiddle with this stuff forever.. Who really cares that some other guy can't make up his mind what DAC to buy? When he does, it will probably not be as a result of what we say, if only because we all say different.

 

Listening to recorded music is the real interest, and is that really a 'hobby'? Hardly.

 

That said, despite what some might think,I really do go out of my my way to help 'newbies' (horrible term). Because I was there not long ago. And I am happy to do so. But some threads are controversy for controversies sake, and I admit I join in.

 

That said, there are a lot of subscribers. Presumably there is a steady flow in and out.

 

And basically, a Hi Fi is just a 'record player'. That's all.

 

 

 

I forget the lot once Spring comes.

 

[bikemig]

I'm one of those people who is having a hard time figuring out which dac to buy, . Maybe not that hard since I've narrowed it down to a few choices but it is always good to hear from people who have actually used the equipment. And I like my ipod esp. for traveling but I've been using it lately with a cue radio I picked. A ridiculously expensive radio but man does it sound good particularly via the ipod dock. It is a heck of a small form system to have playing when you drift off to sleep. But yeah I could lose the interminable discussions on usb cables and whether apple lossless is inferior to flac or to whatever.

 

[Paul R]

You make some really good points, as does the minor pissing contest this post evolved into.

 

I wonder if Cris would consider making a "bar" topic, where people can have friendly bar discussions that are off topic and all over the place? It would be a popular place I suspect. Probably need a few topics

 

Bar.main

Bar.audio

...

Bar.flames

...

Bar.UFOs

 

Etc.

 

Paul

 

 

[thesurfingalien]

Hi Paul,

 

May I also suggest Bar.Restroom? At least then we can keep the pissing contests in the place they belong :-)

 

BTW, count me in for Bar.UFO's :-)

 

Peter

 

[AudioDoctor]

I don't go to Bars at all.

 

 

 

[esldude]

About those pissing contests........

 

I at one time decided to stay out of them. Decided if I could offer my experience of equipment someone was considering or if I could offer some advice someone was seeking I would post. Otherwise I wouldn't.

 

Then a fellow posted about a system problem and asking about which USB cable he needed to buy to fix it. From all the posts on USB cables he had gotten the idea that was how to re-balance his system. Well turns out his problem was elsewhere and simply fixed with an adjustment. No money spent, yet the guy was ready to drop a few hundred on a USB cable. Leaving off whether USB cables matter, I would hope no one thinks it makes tremendous frequency balance changes comparable to a equalizer or old style tone control. Yet somehow this person had gotten that impression reading about the cables.

 

So if you never disagree, some outrageous things get posted, and someone coming here looking for advice will get very poor results from that. I guess plenty will simply not agree with what I am saying. But I don't know what else you do. Plenty of well intentioned people will get some very odd, and very incorrect ideas.

 

When I first read this forum I was looking for info on CA of course. Was a bit lost as to how to do it in a quality way. Knew some low quality ways, and didn't know at what quality level it was possible at that time (which was only about 18 months ago). I had some wrong ideas, learned a bit at a time, and learned some things I had no idea about. This site seemed to have more useful info to get one up to speed than the others I ran across.

 

There are a few forums that are way too far into voodoo solutions to waste your time looking for the occasional worthwhile piece of info. Others are too far into DIY for most people (nothing wrong with DIY just not the obvious place to get info on basic use of store bought equipment sometimes). One famous one only wants info that passes blind testing to be posted (which is going too far IMO). Don't know precisely where in the continuum of things Chris wants this one. Also don't know you can always get what you want without heavy handed moderating which generally closes a forum off from really different worthwhile ideas.

 

[drystream]

I'm getting tired of the pissing matches too, whether on purely technical topics or just general discussion, and I think that many regulars will drop away from the site if it continues, which would be too bad because there is a lot of collective knowledge around here.

 

Not surprisingly, there are sociological studies of internet forums that identify and classify the types of behavior exhibited here, so this forum is certainly not unique.

 

 

I would ask Chris for two things:

 

1) Once someone posts often enough to cross a certain threshold, assign him/her an avatar if that person hasn't done so. It would be easier to skip past certain poster's comments if they were more easily identified.

 

2) Be a little quicker on the trigger for 'time outs' when someone assumes an aggressive, trollish, or bullying posture. The passive-agressives would be a little harder to weed out, but it would be possible. I don't imagine that Chris wants to be an enforcer though.

 

 

On the other hand, a lot of forums go through cycles of amity and discord, and one can assume that things will work themselves out here in due time. Trolls seem to surface and dominate for a while, and then crawl back under their bridges at some point when they lose interest. And maybe.....

 

 

 

 

[Julf]

"So if you never disagree, some outrageous things get posted, and someone coming here looking for advice will get very poor results from that. I guess plenty will simply not agree with what I am saying. But I don't know what else you do. Plenty of well intentioned people will get some very odd, and very incorrect ideas."

 

Indeed. I originally joined because of the discussions about HDtracks and their upsampled downloads, but was rather shocked to see so many comments that were either pure opinions stated as facts, or just wrong. I have tried as much as possible to address the statements rather than attacking the people making the statements. We should definitely avoid acrimony, ad hominem attacks and childish name calling, but unless actual factual errors are addressed, the forum will eventually descend into voodoo land.

 

 

[ted_b]

(F.T's Bozos quote has been my signature on forums for years).

 

I agree that as an internet forum becomes more popular you get a larger sampling of all the different internet issues (spam, negativism, flat-earth perspectives, redundant subjects, etc) cuz that's just how it is. The early days of CA were the best in many ways, but we didn't accomplish as much as we do today.....the problem is today's accomplishments come with an awful lot more hurdles than before. Also keep in mind that CA is not the easiest forum to search-before-posting for many newbies, so there is a lot of redundant info being disseminated...which on any one day, can piss off a lot of people (it's a pet peeve of mine, but it unfortunately comes off as being mean or arrogant to new CA members).

 

Overall I wouldn't give up on CA at all. It is going through the next stage of internet growth, and with some patience (I need more of that) and good education we can still make a huge difference and hopefully realize the wonderful combination of plug-n-play and ultimate musicality.

 

[CG]

"I have tried as much as possible to address the statements rather than attacking the people making the statements."

 

As have I. Almost entirely unsuccessfully, I might add. This despite trying to point to various technical and scientific information and books. I have even tried to use references that were broader in nature than just the audio world, with the hope that more general engineering concepts might be seen as applying to what is normally discussed on this forum.. No success at all.

 

Now, this is just my experience and I will not comment on it further. Other people probably have different experiences, not to mention different goals and desires with this and other web based forums.

 

I suspect that like most other arenas in the modern world, online debate skills matter as much or more than anything else when it comes to presenting a point of view here. Oh well...

 

 

OT, some: Thanks to the folks who commented about this off line. It was great to hear from some of you who haven't been posting here on CA for quite some time! Same sentiment for the people who are regular contributors.

 

[VandyMan]

Every popular forum has these problems. The forum software used here works well, but is missing many modern features like blocking users from your view and a reputation system.

 

Chris, Maybe it is time to consider new forum software to help deal with some of the issues people are raising?