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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?

#331

Post by gyrgtyn »

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…

All my apple stuff makes an annoying pop sound any time the music stops for more than some amount of time I don't know. Bluetooth and analog do it.

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

#332

Post by shaklee3 »

pdimitar wrote: post #76
gear54rus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ar…

Hah. This is the opposite of every single experience I've seen at my work, where both PCs and Macs are supported. Usually the Mac person plugs into a projector and it doesn't work, or they don't have their adapter. The HP works every time.

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

#333

Post by shaklee3 »

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.

My wife and I both use Android phones and a Google home. No problems here.

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

#334

Post by shaklee3 »

ummonk wrote: post #206
flocial wrote: post #121

I'm a bit flabbergasted by all the "wow this person just wasted all his free time fixing a nonexistent problem instead of just getting an iPhone" on Hacker News of all places. Yes there's an ideological bent to the whole exercise but that's precisely the kind of passion you need to deep dive into creating your own audio device over a minor annoyance. Yes it's clunky and expensive to maintain but you have to admire th…

If he had just said "I want a phone I can tinker with, so the iPhone doesn't fit the bill", no one would object. The problem is his claim that Apple is a symbol of pretentiousness and ignorance, simply because it provides convenience and out-of-the-box usability without needing to know how it works. Most people don't tinker for a living / hobby, and thus don't have the luxury of spending large amounts of their valuab…

That's a stretch. You picked a single feature and use that to say Apple provides better out of the box useability. Google/Android are better than Apple at most things that matter, including photos and maps.

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

#335

Post by mindslight »

jacquesm wrote: post #319
mindslight wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a common thing? I don't really have experience with battery powered audio processing circuits. In my experience you usually create a virtual ground when you've got no other choice, like say signal conditioning with a single ended supply.

Yes, in battery powered stuff it is pretty common. When working from a single supply it is a quick and easy way to use operational amplifiers. That the author used two batteries in series did not change much in that respect (and internally those 9V batteries are a stack of 6 cells anyway). The alternative would be to use the common rail between the two batteries as a ground and then two regulators (or simply a Zener…

> But in this case I suspect the voltage required to drive those headphones properly was the major deciding factor in using two stacked 9V cells

Maybe it was the deciding factor for whomever designed the original circuit. But in this incarnation with the 11x attenuation, the input signal would have to be above 80V for this to matter! It's obviously modified from some folk audio design, I'm just trying to figure out how much of its oddity actually has some purpose.

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

#336

Post by mquander »

013a wrote: post #156

I have a pair of powered studio monitors (Mackie MR5), and I completely relate to this problem. Many PCs and phones will emit an audible hissing noise while plugged in. I've tested on a dozen different devices, with integrated and external DACs, five hundred dollar sound cards, massively shielded cables, practically every modern OS you can name, tweaking every audio setting exposed to me. The only devices that work p…

None of this is the computing world regressing; it's just businesses regressing, or the law regressing, or convention in your social bubble regressing (regressing from what you like, mind, not what other people want.) The time with maximum availability of lossless audio and high-quality movies is right now. You can go join a private tracker and have the largest catalog of them in existence available to you for free, and you have the most bandwidth, most storage, and best tools in existence to organize and consume them. With books, you have to exert even less effort, because there is a huge global search engine where you can instantly download them without any registration barrier. If you don't choose to do that stuff, it's not software stopping you.

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

#337

Post by z3t4 »

notacoward wrote: post #29

Interesting point buried in here: since Android is open source, you could go in and fix the bug, but then because you're not running an official Android version you'd lose access to the Play Store and other services. Something's not really free if there's a penalty for doing it. Since freedom to run a modified version of software yourself is one of the four freedoms of free software, this highlights the difference be…

Mobile technology moves so fast Android can't keep up with the support of all hardware out there, so you can't simply buy any smartphone and expect everything to work with the latest Android release.

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

#338

Post by dcbadacd »

013a wrote: post #156

I have a pair of powered studio monitors (Mackie MR5), and I completely relate to this problem. Many PCs and phones will emit an audible hissing noise while plugged in. I've tested on a dozen different devices, with integrated and external DACs, five hundred dollar sound cards, massively shielded cables, practically every modern OS you can name, tweaking every audio setting exposed to me. The only devices that work p…

> If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it,

What audio could you get lossless before that you now can't that you're claiming there has been a regression?

> Watching movies sucks; you now pay full price to effectively indefinitely rent movies

You can buy most movies on physical disks. The old physical copy ownership option still exists. There has been no regression, just new options you personally don't like.

> Applications suck; we're puking web and electron everywhere

Clearly the market has decided that the heavier versions are just as fine. Also, in pretty much every case there's also lightweight non-electron alternative. There has been no regression, just new options you don't like.

> Modern operating systems suck; restricting filesystem access, exposing proprietary application APIs which fundamentally make applications unportable and thus contributing to the rise of Electron/RN.

That is absolutely your own fault if your OS restricts FS access. Applications are just as unportable as they have been. There has been no regression, just new options you don't like.

You're just looking at the past like it was some gold standard and a wonderland of software, development and user freedom (of choice or of software), it's ridiculous.

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

#339

Post by ryanwaggoner »

jstarfish wrote: post #329
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you’re leaving out all the positives and only focusing on the negatives. Sure, Google can revoke my access to a movie at any time but I can watch on any of my devices and I dont have to worry about finding it in stock at the local store. I can carry literally thousands of books with me in a device smaller than a paperback. I can’t stream lossless music from Spotify but I can stream high enough quality that mos…

Those aren't positives. It does nobody any good to have 1000 books on a single device if the whole thing is subject to revocation, especially when you paid full retail price for the privilege of being allowed to read it. This is regression. Previously you paid your $10 and received a paper book. You could read it, re-read it, lend it, sell it, or burn it for warmth. You owned it for as long as you kept it dehydrated.…

It does nobody any good to have 1000 books on a single device if the whole thing is subject to revocation, especially when you paid full retail price for the privilege of being allowed to read it. This is regression.

What? You can still buy the paperback book, tons of my kindle books are $10 or less, and it very clearly benefits me, which is why I buy tons of Kindle books.

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

#340

Post by FridgeSeal »

013a wrote: post #156

I have a pair of powered studio monitors (Mackie MR5), and I completely relate to this problem. Many PCs and phones will emit an audible hissing noise while plugged in. I've tested on a dozen different devices, with integrated and external DACs, five hundred dollar sound cards, massively shielded cables, practically every modern OS you can name, tweaking every audio setting exposed to me. The only devices that work p…

> If you want lossless audio, you literally can't find it

If you like electronic music, Bandcamp and Beatport (thankfully) sell stuff in lossless. Bandcamp is arguably the best: largest cut for the artist; large range of format wth no extra cost for lossless.

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