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Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

naughtycomputer.uk

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Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#71

Post by jf- »

baxtr wrote: post #2

> Right now I'm absolutely astonished at how difficult it appears to be to just listen to music with a good pair of headphones. Is it not 2018? The media is full of talk about preposterously ambitious ideas such as AI and self-driving cars and yet I can't even listen to a fuck-damn music track? O_o I enjoyed reading this. The whole time I thought however: that’s not an issue on my Apple devices. Then I read: > If any…

> APPLE IS A SYMBOL OF PRETENTIOUSNESS AND IGNORANCE - YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW HOW YOUR PHONE WORKS

Is this guy for real? I don’t know the nitty gritty of how most of the things I use work, I’m only concerned that they work. Sounds like sour grapes.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#72

Post by Sidnicious »

squarefoot wrote: post #49
Sidnicious wrote: post #13

I'm super curious… a. What in these files triggers the explosion of noise (and whether other people have run into this or the author would mind sharing a representative problem file). b. Whether an output attenuator (or "resistor") would work to quiet the noise (edit: the hiss, not the explosion) without a powered circuit.

a: I had a similar issue on my Sandisk player and it was due to corrupt data on the SD. Formatting it then copying back the files from a backup solved the problem. the author's problem is different though; it seems his player doesn't like some files although they appear to be undamaged. I agree it's probably a bug in the decoder. b: a voltage divider would attenuate everything so the listener would end up raising the…

a: Interesting!

b: Good point, but I just meant quieting the hiss that the author ended up solving with the op-amp circuit, not the 'explosions'.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#74

Post by pdimitar »

thanatropism wrote: post #50
ignoreInstinct wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but what really gets under my skin is that every other company out there is okay with producing garbage. Meanwhile, Apple produces things that work comparatively well, doing what you expect and then, claims that reasonable functionality is premium . And then catches shit for being pretentious. So, let's step through that once more: - garbage is normal - functional and interoperable is premium - premium is prete…

The Apple premium has gone so damn high though. I got my first Mac when the Mac mini came up. It was a little more expensive than same-generation PCs but besides being OSX it was a PowerPC that never made any fan noise, and was small . I've subsequently had three Macbooks and two iPhones - but I can't afford this somewhat-better-somewhat-more-expensive racket anymore. Prices have risen too much; to boot, the quality…

Disclaimer: not trying to convince you, just sharing an anecdote like you did.

- I agree Apple pricing has gone out of control. I should not have to shell out 1500 EUR for a 256GB phone with a bigger display no matter what (XS Max). I mean okay, it's probably the best phone out there but come on. It's a mobile computing device, not a life's insurance bill.

- I fully agree MacBooks and desktop Macs haven't had good years in a while. IMO the MacBook Pro 2015 15" was Apple's laptop peak. They haven't produced anything worthwhile in the laptop departments ever since.

- Desktop Macs are a horrid mess where greed trumps everything else so much that even I who spent 6 figures on tech during my life cannot justify paying 5000 EUR for an iMac 27" 5K with maxed out specs (i7 CPU, 64GB RAM and 1 or 2TB SSD). Right now your only viable choice for a future-proof machine however is either the iMac 27" or the iMac Pro, and both are expensive as hell.

- macOS version, not sure, I started actively using it only a year or so ago so it feels quite good to me and is tons more predictable than Windows 10. You have to fight with Windows 10 to make it your own and not be barraged with popups. macOS in comparison stays out of the way.

---

To summarize, Apple has peaked, including in the smartphone and tablet departments. Upgrades are very smallish and iterative while the price tags remain huge.

The way I see it, Apple has been coasting for a while. They need to get back on track because inevitably somebody will try and displace them.

(As a random example, Xiaomi phones are probably the best physical designs and software experience I ever had. But I still don't trust Google's binary blobs and the general baseband processor stuff so I stay away from Android.)

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#75

Post by bostik »

ikeboy wrote: post #54
temp0876456 wrote: post #14

Boy does this person need to look at the ‘good headphone’ market. I paid (a very reasonable) $2k for a set of reference headphones and a suitable amp/DAC to drive them. I could have spent a lot more. It is hard to drive a set of headphones with enough SQ to make them worthwhile. You cannot plug a set of headphones into an Android phone and expect anything good to happen. And lots of DAPs suffer from software problems…

Is it just me, or are $10 branded earbuds just fine for music?

Probably.

I've tried a few different pairs and the pricepoint where sound quality becomes "good enough" seems to be somewhere around ~£35. If you want a microphone too, bump that up to ~£50.

My _purely anecdotal_ experience is that cheaper headphones tend to work well for pop music, likely because their reproduction range is bass heavy. Sadly the moment you want to add podcasts into the mix, the balance is off. Spoken word just sounds stuffy.

When I'm not on the move, you can pry my AKG K270 off my cold, dead hands.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#76

Post by pdimitar »

gear54rus wrote: post #34
ignoreInstinct wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but what really gets under my skin is that every other company out there is okay with producing garbage. Meanwhile, Apple produces things that work comparatively well, doing what you expect and then, claims that reasonable functionality is premium . And then catches shit for being pretentious. So, let's step through that once more: - garbage is normal - functional and interoperable is premium - premium is prete…

Did you really just call apples products interoperable? maybe among their other crap, but sure as hell not among other devices. Which are all interoperable among themselves btw.

And yet every time I go to a presentation or a lecture people ask to borrow my MacBook for it because their Windows or Linux laptops can never even connect to their projectors or Bluetooth speakers on the first try. Often they cannot at all connect.

Yet the MacBook connects to everything on the first go with zero fuss.

So yeah, I am calling part of Apple's functions and devices interoperable. Why aren't you? These are observable facts in the wild and it happens every day somewhere around you as well.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#77

Post by bhj »

gcp123 wrote: post #64

I’ll happily pay the “apple tax” so I can live my life and not have to deal with all the bullshit you did just to listen to some music. Good lord. I’d rather experience the world then mess around with the tech that’s supposed to be helping me live better.

It’s amusing to still hear “Apple tax” in 2018, as if there is no additional value in better hardware, software and support for many people’s use cases.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#78

Post by shaan7 »

baxtr wrote: post #2

> Right now I'm absolutely astonished at how difficult it appears to be to just listen to music with a good pair of headphones. Is it not 2018? The media is full of talk about preposterously ambitious ideas such as AI and self-driving cars and yet I can't even listen to a fuck-damn music track? O_o I enjoyed reading this. The whole time I thought however: that’s not an issue on my Apple devices. Then I read: > If any…

Its not an issue on Android devices as well, I've no idea whats broken on OP's setup.

Re: Do I really need to get out the soldering-iron again?

#80

Post by pdimitar »

slx26 wrote: post #32
ThJ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy is both smart and stupid at the same time.

or smart and annoyed

Smart and biased.

Drinking the Apple hate juice in particular.

I envy the people who have the free time to tinker but what they keep forgetting, time and time again, is that they are the minority. Many people have happy family lives and prefer to spend most of their leisure time with people -- or non-tech hobbies. I do enough programming already, thank you.

(EDIT to add: and not everybody is in perfect health shape as well, so they use their free time to recharge -- not to work some more. Stress and overworking come with an army of health issues. Climbing a hill with a 50kg backpack, to give an analogy, is not as easy as it looks like from the side.)

I respect smart hardware technicians but he lost me as an audience with his Apple hate.

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