Circuit City Kaput
 

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"hk" wrote in message
...


I sometimes play my ipod through my stereo...sounds just a hair below a
well-done CD. Nothing beats an ipod for portable entertainment.

I agree with the guy that wrote the article. Most sound like they were
recorded in a coffee can.
I occasionally use a mp3 for various purposes including burning cds or
downloading to Mrs.E's iPod.
But before I do, I use a program called "Audacity" to modify and enhance
the file to get rid of that coffee can sound.

I just cannot handle that overly compressed, airy and tinny sound.
Different strokes.

Eisboch


Audacity is a great program... and free. I use it a lot. My 1st experience
with it was to "digitize" all of my vinyl... pops, and all. g

--Mike

Circuit City Kaput
 

Why is a $200 Ipod any better than a $30 Sansa if they are playing the
same compressed music?

It's not.

It's called marketing. Where Apple fell short in the hardware business, they
made up for in the marketing department. This goes all the way back to the
original Macintosh in 1984. They're geniuses in that category. More recently
they moved from the PowerPC (Motorola/IBM) processors to Intel, to be able
to compete better with Windows based PCs. Now you can boot to Windows!
Wow... why not save a thousand bucks and just buy a windows based PC? lol

--Mike

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:37:17 -0500, hk wrote:

Eisboch wrote:

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"hk" wrote in message
m...

Circuit City to liquidate, shutter stores
Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:08pm EST

By Karen Jacobs and Emily Chasan

ATLANTA/RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Bankrupt electronics retailer
Circuit City Stores said on Friday it will liquidate its assets and
shutter hundreds of U.S. stores after failing to reach a deal to sell
the company.


Good riddance. Circuit City was one of the worst retail stores for
consumer electronics (or anything for that matter) that I can think
of. Sales "associates" walking around with cell phones stuck in their
ear, talking to friends or congregating in groups yuking it up while
customers wait at the register to pay for purchases or need
assistance. We had two in this area, one was in business for several
years, the other relatively new. Both stores had the same cavalier
culture when it came to the customers.



BTW, here's another recent bankruptcy that is really too bad, but it was
inevitable.
"Sound Advice" was a decent mid to low high end quality audio retailer
based in Florida until they were purchased by Tweeter in 2001. Since
then, both companies have been on a downward slide and recently threw in
the towel and went belly up. Good write up on Sound Advice in the
first link.
The second link is why high end, good quality audio equipment is
becoming a thing of the past.
People are more interested in having "thousands" of files of compressed
crap on their iPods instead of high quality recordings worthy of decent
equipment. Sad.

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/sound-advice

http://www.audioholics.com/news/edit...-down-of-audio


Eisboch


I sometimes play my ipod through my stereo...sounds just a hair below a
well-done CD. Nothing beats an ipod for portable entertainment.

Why is a $200 Ipod any better than a $30 Sansa if they are playing the
same compressed music?

I think you really have to blame Al Gore for places like Circuit City
going under. If he hadn't invented the internet people would have to
go to a store to buy things. Now they can order from the comfort of
their Lazy Boy and UPS will drop it at their front door ,.. cheaper.

Circuit City Kaput
 

"Mike" wrote in message
...

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"hk" wrote in message
...


I sometimes play my ipod through my stereo...sounds just a hair below a
well-done CD. Nothing beats an ipod for portable entertainment.

I agree with the guy that wrote the article. Most sound like they were
recorded in a coffee can.
I occasionally use a mp3 for various purposes including burning cds or
downloading to Mrs.E's iPod.
But before I do, I use a program called "Audacity" to modify and enhance
the file to get rid of that coffee can sound.

I just cannot handle that overly compressed, airy and tinny sound.
Different strokes.

Eisboch


Audacity is a great program... and free. I use it a lot. My 1st experience
with it was to "digitize" all of my vinyl... pops, and all. g

--Mike


They just released a new beta version 1.3.6. Well worth the download. It
has a neat feature for automatic, sound actuated recording based on an
adjustable signal input level among several other improvements.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Eisboch

Circuit City Kaput
 

They just released a new beta version 1.3.6. Well worth the download. It
has a neat feature for automatic, sound actuated recording based on an
adjustable signal input level among several other improvements.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Eisboch

Thanks, I'll get it right now.

--Mike

Circuit City Kaput
 

"Mike" wrote in message
...


Audacity is a great program... and free. I use it a lot. My 1st
experience with it was to "digitize" all of my vinyl... pops, and all.
g

--Mike


I spend hours doing the same. I found that if you zoomed in enough on the
spectrum you could easily take the major pops out and when it was played you
couldn't tell any editing was done. It works better than the Effects
filter.

But then I got tired of it and decided the digitized versions sounded better
with the original "pops".

What I like is that you can take an older, poorly recorded LP (or even a
CD) and enhance it so it sounds very good. You can easily over-do it
though.

I also use it to record "me" playing a keyboard and then overdubbing a
guitar on top of it, sometimes several times so I have tracks of both rhythm
guitar and lead. Same with the keyboard.
Works well and then you can go back and adjust levels, split into stereo,
cross fade, etc.
Kills a lot of rainy or snowy afternoons.

Eisboch

Circuit City Kaput
 

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in message
...


iPods are having an effect, but the bigger issue, I think, is lack of
imagination and just plain balls in retailing. That's why this retailer
keeps growing every year:

http://www.rowephoto.com/index.html

Mid to high quality audio, full service, well-trained staff with
outrageous product knowledge. Began as a photo store 110 years ago. Added
audio & video in the mid-1980s. The stores are always busy. In a sense,
the owner built the business by responding to the big discounters with
"So what?" Wegmans (grocery chain) does the same thing.


Hopefully they will stay around because they are diversified. There used
to be a couple of decent high-end audio shops around my area but they have
all folded. The demand (or lack of) for quality equipment just doesn't
pay the rent anymore. Even manufacturers of decent speakers are
introducing lower performance, lower priced models of their equipment to
be carried by places like Best Buy. It's too bad because people still
spend a considerable amount of money for Best Buy's versions of Klipsch or
Martin Logan thinking they are getting high end speakers. For a small
amount more they could get the real thing.

Eisboch



Agree on Circuit City being crap. As to high end stores, some are probably
better than others. We have one in Livermore. When I was going to put in a
decent home theater system, went to them for a bid. They listened to what I
wanted, and then just ignored it. The first bid was $10,000. About $8k
above what I said my budget was. This did not include a TV, just the
speakers and amp/ receiver. Do not know if they are around anymore either.
Just a more expensive Circuit City. No one listening.

Circuit City Kaput
 

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:46:26 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:


"hk" wrote in message
...


I sometimes play my ipod through my stereo...sounds just a hair below a
well-done CD. Nothing beats an ipod for portable entertainment.

I agree with the guy that wrote the article. Most sound like they were
recorded in a coffee can.
I occasionally use a mp3 for various purposes including burning cds or
downloading to Mrs.E's iPod.
But before I do, I use a program called "Audacity" to modify and enhance the
file to get rid of that coffee can sound.

I just cannot handle that overly compressed, airy and tinny sound.
Different strokes.

Eisboch


Mostly fixed with phase correction.

.... and making your MP3's with a much higher sample rate than the
default. try 192k

Circuit City Kaput
 

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:49:41 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:


"Mike" wrote in message
.. .

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"hk" wrote in message
...


I sometimes play my ipod through my stereo...sounds just a hair below a
well-done CD. Nothing beats an ipod for portable entertainment.

I agree with the guy that wrote the article. Most sound like they were
recorded in a coffee can.
I occasionally use a mp3 for various purposes including burning cds or
downloading to Mrs.E's iPod.
But before I do, I use a program called "Audacity" to modify and enhance
the file to get rid of that coffee can sound.

I just cannot handle that overly compressed, airy and tinny sound.
Different strokes.

Eisboch


Audacity is a great program... and free. I use it a lot. My 1st experience
with it was to "digitize" all of my vinyl... pops, and all. g

--Mike


They just released a new beta version 1.3.6. Well worth the download. It
has a neat feature for automatic, sound actuated recording based on an
adjustable signal input level among several other improvements.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Eisboch

I run Adobe Audition 3 in my home studio, and it's wonderful, but I
agree that Audacity is great to keep around. I sometimes use it for
"Quick & Dirty" edits.

Sort of like Irfanview being a companion piece to Photoshop for
graphics.

Circuit City Kaput
 

"hk" wrote in message
m...
Eisboch wrote:
"hk" wrote in message
...

I sometimes play my ipod through my stereo...sounds just a hair below a
well-done CD. Nothing beats an ipod for portable entertainment.

I agree with the guy that wrote the article. Most sound like they were
recorded in a coffee can.
I occasionally use a mp3 for various purposes including burning cds or
downloading to Mrs.E's iPod.
But before I do, I use a program called "Audacity" to modify and enhance
the file to get rid of that coffee can sound.

I just cannot handle that overly compressed, airy and tinny sound.
Different strokes.

Eisboch


MP3's?

ipods can do better than that.


If the original recording was purposely broken to begin with, nothing will
help unless the issuer remasters the album.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/sto..._high_fidelity

Circuit City Kaput
 

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:46:26 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:


"hk" wrote in message
...


I sometimes play my ipod through my stereo...sounds just a hair below a
well-done CD. Nothing beats an ipod for portable entertainment.

I agree with the guy that wrote the article. Most sound like they were
recorded in a coffee can.
I occasionally use a mp3 for various purposes including burning cds or
downloading to Mrs.E's iPod.
But before I do, I use a program called "Audacity" to modify and enhance
the
file to get rid of that coffee can sound.

I just cannot handle that overly compressed, airy and tinny sound.
Different strokes.

Eisboch


Mostly fixed with phase correction.

... and making your MP3's with a much higher sample rate than the
default. try 192k


High sample rates (320kbps) certainly makes them better but the files get
bigger. Wav files sound best because there's no compression, but the files
are huge. People aren't into quality, they are into quantity, so they pack
their iPods and mp3 players with low quality, low sample rate files. I just
can't get into that. Despite what some claim, I can (and so can my wife)
distinguish the difference of a high quality CD PCM track and a high sample
rate conversion of it to mp3.

You can't replace what isn't there. But, with Audacity you can add some
depth to get rid of the coffee can sound.
As discussed many times before, it all depends on what you are listening to
them on. An iPod plugged into a docking station or a non-revealing audio
system sounds ok for background music.

Eisboch