patrick.net

US Women's Soccer is officially porn:

Ceffer says

US Women's Soccer is officially porn:

So this is what "equitable" means.

What greeted Biden after his town hall last night. 😎

'Nother Freudian Slip. When the liars have to keep lying when they know the truth, they will suffer 'lie exhaustion' and subconsciously state the truth instead without intending it. Biden remembers his Globalist initiation rites.

Now we can understand why he is so senile, dude is over 180 years old. I guess adrenochrome works.:

HunterTits says

My Buddy says we lived in the most productive music and art era since the Renaissance. People will look back at our time in 100's of years, they way we look at the Classical era.
People will get their Masters in Heavy Metal, New Wave, Classic Rock. They will look back at modern Pop Music and Hip Hop as trash that destroyed Western Civilization's Art.

I bet in 100 years, none of the top 100 artists in the last 20 years, will even be a name anyone has ever heard of. But they will know most bands and members from a 1980's Rock Album collection.

Now I know Boomers were responsible for 80% of the music I'm referencing. But remember, by time the Gen-Xers inherited our older Cousin and Brother's record collection. They moved to on, to working and toiling with other things. The Gen-X were more productive music fans, than the Boomers were. As consumers I mean.

Tenpoundbass says

I bet in 100 years, none of the top 100 artists in the last 20 years, will even be a name anyone has ever heard of. But they will know most bands and members from a 1980's Rock Album collection.

My younger relatives tend to know music from the 1980's, even though they themselves were not born until the 1990's. I'm always surprised by this.

So you may be right about that music.

Patrick says

Tenpoundbass says

I bet in 100 years, none of the top 100 artists in the last 20 years, will even be a name anyone has ever heard of. But they will know most bands and members from a 1980's Rock Album collection.

My younger relatives tend to know music from the 1980's, even though they themselves were not born until the 1990's. I'm always surprised by this.

I have a couple thousand vinyl records and a super stereo system. When my nephew and his old chum girl friend came over some years ago, I was shocked because they saw all those records, piled them on the floor, and spent an hour and a half looking through them with feeding frenzy, and picked the ones they wanted me to play. All the pre-80's stuff and some early 80's. I went up on the coolosity scale quite a bit in their estimation. I bought a lot of records when they were obsolete and uncool. Now, even dorm kids have vinyl record players again.

Ceffer says

I bought a lot of records when they were obsolete and uncool. Now, even dorm kids have vinyl record players again.

If you like, I can explain in detail why all vinyl records have audio distortion built into them to keep the needle in the groove, and what a convolution integral is to duplicate the harmonics on tubes with cheap ass silicon.

There is HONESTLY no advantage of analogue over digital. The reason so much was done with digital was to make permanent recordings that will be accessible for hundreds of generations. In 4000 AD, provided civilization doesn't collapse, people then will be able to view our current society in high definition, hear our language, experience our music, see our propaganda, know our true history. It would be like looking at what the Roman Empire was like.

Fine if you like record players, hell, I have a 1933 Mickey Mouse watch and a 1960's Mickey Mouse telephone, but I wouldn't argue they are superior with anything produced today.

Audiophiles have these arguments all the time, between the 'objectivists' and the 'subjectivists'. However one would worship or curse the technology, the ears make the final determination, and you will not likely find too many high end audio systems without equally high end turntables even nowadays. With all of its flaws, playing a record is like a musical instrument playing music as opposed to just electronics playing music. Fuller, smoother, rounder, more tone and emotion, and better gut over brain.

A nice record on a turntable is still a special experience, although digital is also quite good these days. The fact that young people have resurrected this 'technology' on the basis of sound quality, in spite of measurements, is as much a surprise to me as to anybody else. The bad news is that it has made vinyl records expensive again, especially the much valued classic ones, and I used to get very nice samples for as little as 50 cents.

Reel to Reel tape has also been resurrected as a high end medium. A few years ago, you could get studio machines for nothing that were no longer used. Now, elite audiophiles have refurbished and upgraded these machines and will pay hundreds of dollars for tapes of their favorite albums.

Ceffer says

However one would worship or curse the technology, the ears make the final determination

Yes, this would be true, if "audiophiles" subjected themselves to double blind experiments and they won't. They can't distinguish between records and CDs, unless the record has pops in it.

When I worked at RCA there was considerable research done for audio and visual duplication. Believe me, a machine is FAR more advanced at detecting sound distortion than a human being is. "Audiophiles" really didn't exist much then other than music enthusiasts, but they came out of the word work over time. Gold plated Ethernet cables, AC isolation for a turntable, all sorts of crazy crap. Ethernet cables are digital, and the transmission is done with a CRC32, the chance of an erroneous packet making it through is less than 1 in 4 billion, and beyond that 1 in 1000 to pass the CRC - doesn't really matter what the metal is in the cable. AC isolation is pointless, because the power is rectified and then turned into DC, we can (and do) have very noisy power without effect. This has been true for at least 40 years.

Sure, records may very well sound different (and they do), but this is intentional distortion that an audio engineer introduced so the needle doesn't skip out of the groove. We can duplicate this distortion digitally, if there was a market want, but there isn't.

We have the same problem (sort of) with digital video reproduction. People SWEAR that a 4K television is FAR better than 1080p. It is better, strictly from a technical perspective, but you can't see it unless you have perfect vision, and even then you won't notice it in a film - you'll see it with text. Now there's 8K and even 16K video - this is entirely pointless - this is more pixels than you have retinal sensors.

Ceffer says

A nice record on a turntable is still a special experience, although digital is also quite good these days.

Like me using a Babbage machine to do a calculation. It's an experience, but it's just the experience itself. I get the same result as a calculator, just much slower.

Ceffer says

The fact that young people have resurrected this 'technology' on the basis of sound quality, in spite of measurements, is as much a surprise to me as to anybody else.

It's an indication of gullibility. There's people that swear that tape cassettes are superior to CDs or MP3s. Well, there are some pretty bad prints of CDs today, so perhaps they are correct, but it's not a fault of the technology, it's the fault of the technicians printing the master.

The Pink Floyd CDs from the 1990's are superior to what is produced today for example. They maximize and normalize the loudness today, and it's not uncommon to see clipping on modern CDs. They intentionally make crap.

We have perfected sound and video duplication, long ago. Today, it's just storing the same information in less bits, that's the struggle. H264 is regularly used for video compression, but H265 kicks its butt. The problem is that it's not supported very well, but you can easily get a very high quality video that is 2 hours long, that is less than 1GB. We're at the point where improvement is met with "who cares? I can't ever fill up this 128 GB storage card anyhow". You can store 60 films on a $20 SD Card now. That's 120 hours. If you spent 8 hours a day watching films, it would take you over 15 days to watch them all and that's HD 1080p quality. You'd never realize you're not watching a Blu Ray.

For A/V - we're at the end. All we can do is make it smaller, we're at the point where digital recording FAR surpasses chemical film. The typical video quality of broadcast television outstrips the quality of a movie theater did in 1990. We can make it technically better, that a machine could detect, but not a human being can detect.

OK, you win, now I'll go back and listen to a nice record along with the gullible yutes.

Ceffer says

OK, you win, now I'll go back and listen to a nice record along with the gullible yutes.

It's not about winning.

There's certainly different sound reproduction on a vinyl record than a CD - even if they are both mastered with excellent sound technicians. I'm pointing out that in the case, that there isn't clipping or messing with the master's sound levels, CD is closer to the original master than a vinyl record is.

Now, you may not prefer that. I'm not saying that's wrong.

If you ever heard Pink Floyd in concert expecting to hear the same thing you did on their most excellent CD's and vinyl records, you would be disappointed, because, their music is heavily over-sampled and modified to produce what you hear on their releases. What you hear on a Pink Floyd CD isn't anything a human being can actually play. When you listen to a CD from them, you're listening to one song, that has been played dozens of times, spliced together, added reverb, and overlap of music. They never sounded that way in the studio.

I'm sure you'll enjoy the rest of your life figuring it all out, but now it's time for a second excellent record on an obsolete turntable.

Yes, I have heard Pink Floyd in concert live and I have also heard a 15IPS low generation master tape of 'The Wall' on a very expensive stereo system. At least from what I heard, they sound better in concert than most of what they recorded. The tape sounds so amazing, that any other format is a strictly degenerative experience by comparison.

The problem is, if you have never heard these things or made these comparisons, you will just never know. Most people don't care about quality sound. The closest most people have heard are in the large horn systems in movie theaters.

Also, you can't generalize about mastering because it is all over the map. Studio engineers are often artists, too, and there do exist recordings that are very carefully mastered and minimally compressed or uncompressed.

Booger says

That photo looks like the customers are their own Hibachi Grill Masters.
I think I would much rather prefer that than 80% of the Hibachi grillers I've had at those places. On a plus side, nobody will force you to open your mouth so the Hibachi Chef can squirt Saki in your mouth through a clear ketchup squeeze bottle.

HunterTits says

That actually would not cause a problem.

Why not? Because the incoming train would simply sever the hose? Still be a problem for the hose operators, no?

Ceffer says

My younger relatives tend to know music from the 1980's, even though they themselves were not born until the 1990's. I'm always surprised by this.

I have a couple thousand vinyl records and a super stereo system. When my nephew and his old chum girl friend came over some years ago, I was shocked because they saw all those records, piled them on the floor, and spent an hour and a half looking through them with feeding frenzy, and picked the ones they wanted me to play. All the pre-80's stuff and some early 80's.

When I said an Album collection from the early 80's, I meant the Records collected over the last 20 years prior to the 80's. The 80's is when music started going to hell. Every band in your record collection, had far better albums from the70's or 60's than the commercial grade crap they put out in the 80's. Van Halen's 1984 Album for example, the worst album they ever put out.

Ceffer says

The problem is, if you have never heard these things or made these comparisons, you will just never know. Most people don't care about quality sound. The closest most people have heard are in the large horn systems in movie theaters.

Also, you can't generalize about mastering because it is all over the map. Studio engineers are often artists, too, and there do exist recordings that are very carefully mastered and minimally compressed or uncompressed.

It goes way beyond the sound quality and more about the fidelity of the music.
For example the human male voice, that is not a low baritone but normal sounding. Seems to have no registries in the lower frequencies that would require a cross over and subwoofer system to hear them. But the difference in someone speaking or singing in a PA that has a Subwoofer system, vs one that doesn't. Is more stark contrast than night and day. They may not be present in the vocal chords, but they are part of the sibilants and rumbles produced by your throat, mouth and tongue movements. There are so many semitones, produced with every note on every instrument, including the vocals, that CD's do not pick up. I don't care how polished and clean the engineer made the digital track sound. And it can get dam good at 192K 24bit recording samples, but then it gets converted to 16bit 44.1 KHz. I absolutely loath and detest the joyless fucks, that claim they can't tell the difference, so there for, there should never analog recording or devices to play them on.

They are same sorry fuckers, that think everyone should wear a mask, because they feel safer wearing one, even when they are driving a car alone.

80's to about '95, digital just about killed audio it was so bad. There was some good music, but it was so bad sounding it would make you brack. Digital made mastering guys lazy, and radio stations abandoned turntables for digital over the airwaves. FM radio is a pretty good sounding medium, but the digital over FM wasn't so hot.

Analog started being 'rediscovered' again in the mid 90's. Digital has gotten progressively better due to acknowledgment that it sucked, and about 2010 actually became decent and continues to get better. So, it only took 30 or 40 years of 'progress' in 'perfect sound forever' to become listenable. Now, inexpensive Chinese DAC's sound pretty good.
However, to really experience music in a way that seems natural, tuneful and toneful, many audiophiles still like analog.

The old music is good, but it was also generally mastered well in analog. Some of the stereo recordings from the early 60's and late 50's are some of the most revered still because they used tube electronics and printed to vinyl. There are even some studios that have re-adopted tube mastering, tape, vinyl etc., although the subjectivists would say that this is archaic and foolish given the 'perfection' of modern digital.

i used to browse Downbeat magazine. They had a section in the back describing how musicians developed and chose their instruments. One article was by a musician who spent two years trying to develop a particular formulation for a single cymbal that he wanted to sound a certain way. If you don't think 'subjective' sound matters, talk to some of these guys.

If you really want the lunatic fringe of hi end audio, watch this video and see if you can find any turntables. Munich High End Audio Show 2019. Sorry for Bad Tube, Pat. The costs can also be staggering, and there are audio nuts that pay them:
https://youtu.be/mNParABvqWA

HunterTits says

RC2006 says

That actually would not cause a problem.

Unlikely it could, but should a train pass through, IF it worked, it would derail the train (and I doubt that), and if it didn't work, the train would just slice through it.

RC2006 says

This is quite humane. They used to use passed out homeless guys.

Ceffer says

Digital has gotten progressively better due to acknowledgment that it sucked, and about 2010 actually became decent and continues to get better.

It's not that it got better, they quit recording analog equipment, so there would be no inferior recording of it.
The DAW produced Midi and WAV files give them a pallet to paint with and boundaries that wont stray outside the line.
What we've ended up with is a homogenized sterile digital soundscape that more background noise, than music that actually connects with people on a sonic level.
You can watch the most talented guy play a whole ensemble on a Oaysis the most advanced keyboard today. The audience would not be as into it, as if there was an acual horn ensemble playing the piece.
We used to have a local Jazz band, they were averagely decent. There was a keyboard guy that could play anything in any genre. He would go on and do a piece with a horn section played on his keyboard. The band with the horn section came out, the people went nuts, even the cheesiest horn solo got roaring ovation. Nobody gave a crap when the keyboard guy went into his 20 minute flute solo.

richwicks says

There is HONESTLY no advantage of analogue over digital.

Do not forget VHS HiFi. VHS HiFi is analog, but the equivalent of playing a tape deck at 18 feet per second (regular reel-to-reel is about 7.5 inches per second). Although the best analog by far, VHS HiFi was like Quadrasonic in that it was superior but did not catch on.

HeadSet says

richwicks says

There is HONESTLY no advantage of analogue over digital.

Do not forget VHS HiFi. VHS HiFi is analog, but the equivalent of playing a tape deck at 18 feet per second (regular reel-to-reel is about 7.5 inches per second). Although the best analog by far, VHS HiFi was like Quadrasonic in that it was superior but did not catch on.

Never heard of it, but there were some attempts to make digital VCR tapes I know. Would have been the equivalent of DVD but recording on it required some serious hardware at the time (analog to MP2 conversion required a computer the size of a refrigerator to get real time compression), and the cost of producing a DVD is actually LOWER than the cost of making a VCR tape. CDs are also cheaper to make than tape cassettes, although they cost more back in the day.