McFly

I went to this years Big Chill, and was bored stiff. It was very middle class, safe and dull in every respect. Three days and two worthwhile acts. I was most disappointed, and certainly won't bother with it again.

I wonder if it was your old Aberdeen landlord trout? You know, the ginger one with the Irish name. He was always rather fond of that word.

I once used a (heavily) modified De Lorean car to travel back in time to 1955 and persuaded my Mam to bag aff wi me Dad. This is a remarkably similar scenario to the plot of a famous eighties flick, so I pinched the name of the lead character. No, really

^^The code book is an excellent read BigMouth. Simon Singh's stuff is generally pretty good. Have you read "Fermat's last theorem"?

Oh right. I have a definite fondness for a lot of IDM then. And now I know what to call it I haven't a clue what any of those bands you mentioned for EBM are like though. Thanks for that motorleague.

What are EBM and IDM?

Starting with this one, my fishy friend......

And I completely agreed with the sentiment. But.......family sight.........blah blah blah..........forum t's and c's..........waffle waffle

I'm not so sure Njugsie. Spot the deliberate mistake.......

I left Lloyds TSB because of a tale of woe much like the one you told above Fjool. I opened an account with Smile about two years ago and I have to say that they've been very good to me so far. Definitely sounds like they're no better than the rest from you've said though.......

Laundry?! You must have me confused with a prole dear boy. I am so fabulously wealthy that I discard all my clothing after wearing once.

Just come to Andy?

I thought I'd add a little disclaimer to the wild claims above I'm not saying that CD format digital sampling is perfect in the real world. There are definite problems, such as aliasing during sampling and timing/jitter problems during playback. But these are not directly caused by any mathematical flaw in sampling theory. And anyway, as I alluded to with the stuff about microphones, there are much bigger limitations to storing and reproducing audio. Microphones can't capture it accurately, processing equipment can't process it cleanly and speakers can't respond quickly enough to play it all back accurately. And these factors affect things wether you're listening to a CD or vinyl.

Oh man........that was a good one DeMascus.

'Fraid not, me boy. I don't know where it is Excellent. Sounds like an offer I can't refuse.

It's most likely a connector or cable problem Ally. S-Video (or YC as it's otherwise known) has the luminance and sync information on one pair of conductors and all the colour on the other pair. So if you've got a break in the C pair you'll get all the info you need for a properly synced monochrome image.

You don't need to line up the sample points with any feature of the sampled waveform in order to reproduce them absolutely accurately. This is a common misconception, that digital sampling produces approximations of the original waveform. It doesn't. It produces identical copies containing all the information of the original waveform, up to half the Nyquist frequency. I'll not go into the maths here, but for anyone interested there's a very good paper on the subject by Dan Lavry here. So, given the fact that CD can reproduce with 100% accuracy the content of any waveform, up to 22.05 kHz, all that's really at issue is wether we can perceive frequency content above that range. I have to say I don't know, and, to be honest, psychoacoustics seems like a bit of black art to me However, if you look at the operating limits of even the best microphones, you'll find that they "hear" about the same range of frequencies as our ears. Have a look at the frequency response of a classic large diaphragm condenser like a Neumann U87 and you'll see that it responds to very little above about 20kHz. So my point is, if during recording you can't record any information above our range of hearing, what difference does it make that a vinyl record is capable of reproducing it?

16 bit is the word depth Fjool, that determines the dynamic range of the program material, not the frequencies reproduced. 44.1 kHz is the sample rate, and according to good ole mr Nyquist, that means CD can reproduce any frequency up to 22.05 kHz, which is about the upper extent of human hearing. So you're right in saying that CD leaves information out, it does........the useless stuff After having said that, I'm not claiming that CD is the perfect solution for storing and reproducing audio, it certainly isn't. But it sounds like you're saying that vinyl is, and I can't agree with that. Vinyl has its own form of "data compression". It's just not possible to accurately fit the grooves for certain frequencies on to the surface of a record, and because of this, content has to be heavily EQ'd at the mastering stage and then re-EQ'd by your home system on its way to the power amp. So you're losing a lot of information when you press the record and then making it up again when you replay it. Also, your average record player is a clanky, rumbly beast that will add a huge amount of noise compared to digital players. And the very fact that vinyl replay is a mechanical process, with lumps of metal and wood all being part of the replay system means that record players have resonant frequencies that they will emphasize over others. So, what I'm really waffling on about is that vinyl and digital media have they're very own reproduction quirks and it really is just a matter of which of the quirks sound better to you or make the medium more appropriate.

I thought I'd take this out of the Digi Cameras thread.

That's true Fjool, but you're not comparing like with like. Mp3 files are intended to be small, not to be particularly "hi-fi". As far as cameras are concerned, I've seen stunning digital images and stunning film ones. And in all cases it's the skill, insight and creativity of the photographer that has made the image stunning, not the technical quality of the image itself. In audio and visual applications, I think people get way too concerned with the relative merits of different technologies. They're all just tools, and if you have the talent to exploit them fully you'll get good results, whatever the technology behind them.

The man who played what is probably the most boring gig I've ever seen, at the Big Chill this year Sorry guys, I just don't see the attraction with Scruff.

I'll try to contain myself BigMouth

I visited the Apple store on Regent Street in the big smoke a couple of months ago and was very impressed with the way the place was layed out. It feels more like a library or gallery, and the emphasis is very much on trying things out for yourself. They have various scales of system set up, running every piece of Apple software imaginable and all the relevant periferal hardware to hand. I'm sure the Glasgow one won't be as huge, but I still can't wait to get in and spend some quality drooling time over a Mac Pro running Final Cut Pro 5.........

Well said squintpinkies. I couldn't agree more.

^^^^ Oh man, I'm glad this one has been resurrected.