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A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

social.treehouse.systems

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Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#241

Post by Nitrolo »

kkielhofner wrote: post #188
kergonath wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unsurprisingly the real reason is “Apple was granted a patent on this over a decade ago and no one is risking an Apple patent infringement lawsuit over laptop speakers”. It is not exclusive. I cannot believe that there is only one way of doing something like this. They just need to care enough to put some R&D money into this.

Sure, but as I've noted elsewhere if it goes to court it ends up in the hands of a jury. Let's just say that 12 random jurors off the street aren't exactly the HN crowd. In fact, I doubt a single HN user would ever make it on a jury for anything technical unless they lied or deliberately mislead counsel during juror questioning. "Juror number 7, what is your occupation?" "I'm a software developer..." "We move to dism…

Are parents disputes decided by a jury in the US? I know we have a different system in Germany and don't have juries to begin with, but patent disputes are generally handled by specific courts here and, given how specific and technical these cases can be, I wouldn't trust twelve random people to decide them.

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#242

Post by counttheforks »

kkielhofner wrote: post #188
kergonath wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unsurprisingly the real reason is “Apple was granted a patent on this over a decade ago and no one is risking an Apple patent infringement lawsuit over laptop speakers”. It is not exclusive. I cannot believe that there is only one way of doing something like this. They just need to care enough to put some R&D money into this.

Sure, but as I've noted elsewhere if it goes to court it ends up in the hands of a jury. Let's just say that 12 random jurors off the street aren't exactly the HN crowd. In fact, I doubt a single HN user would ever make it on a jury for anything technical unless they lied or deliberately mislead counsel during juror questioning. "Juror number 7, what is your occupation?" "I'm a software developer..." "We move to dism…

You're really spelling out how toxic and evil the american patent system is.

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#243

Post by shagie »

Nextgrid wrote: post #233
kkielhofner wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but as I've noted elsewhere if it goes to court it ends up in the hands of a jury. Let's just say that 12 random jurors off the street aren't exactly the HN crowd. In fact, I doubt a single HN user would ever make it on a jury for anything technical unless they lied or deliberately mislead counsel during juror questioning. "Juror number 7, what is your occupation?" "I'm a software developer..." "We move to dism…

Out of curiosity, why would they not want to select someone who's a subject-matter expert? Is it regulatory capture or is there a more innocent reason?

People with expert knowledge on the jury bring additional information into the jury room that isn't presented in the court proceedings.

...

Years ago, when I was on the jury for a OWI case one of the questions to the jury was "do you speak Spanish." I don't, I answered "no." I don't speak and haven't studied any languages derived from Spanish.

Part of the case was about a defendant from Puerto Rico who wasn't responding to an officer who was a native Spanish speaker claiming that he couldn't understand that dialect. Note that this wasn't relevant to the case - it was trying to explain why the defendant wasn't responding to the officer.

The question of Spanish didn't come up in jury deliberations.

After the case, I noted that while I didn't speak Spanish, I did understand French and could read ancient latin and greek... and took linguistics... and my mother was fluent in Spanish and understood several dialects (and used that fluency in a professional capacity) including Puerto Rican (where she had lived for several years). The differences between the PR Spanish and Mexican Spanish are things like the word for the fruit "orange" is a "china" ( http://speakinglatino.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Cartil... )... but we're getting to things like is it a water fountain? or drinking fountain? No - it's a bubbler ( https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/9010e8/what_do_you... ).

This got a scowl from the public defender because I had beyond common knowledge that that line of questions of the officer about if he spoke PR Spanish was trying to catch him in something that he could come back to later (which he didn't).

If the case had been decided on that he didn't understand the instructions of a different dialect (rather than he couldn't stand up, slurred his speech and had a strong oder of malt on his breath (note this was another bit that the public defender tried to bring into question as the officer said he smelled of alcohol which doesn't have a smell itself) my understanding of linguistics and language may have been grounds for disqualification and a mistrial.

---

Subject matter expert evidence should be presented - not something that someone has more than a layman's understanding of being brought into the jury room (as that could also be wrong).

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#244

Post by duckfruit »

mrtksn wrote: post #73
jacksgt wrote: post #61

Off topic: it's such a breath of fresh air to read this content without 1) having to close half a dozen popups and 2) all in a single post and not painfully spread out across multiple messages.

Doesn't do targeted ads, so doesn't have to have an EU cookie popup. Doesn't have an app, so doesn't have to try to make you install the app. Doesn't do registered users growth hacking, doesn't have to have sign-up dialog. The problem is, if and when they decide to monetise this thing they will have to have all of these because the money people and the analytics will tell them they have to. Everything is much more fu…

On that vein, I recently joined home-barista, an old school web forum for coffee geeks.

That site is seemingly frozen in time from the early 2000s. There are no trackers - there's no need, since it is already filled with a self selected group. The ads are just simple banners. And best of all it filled with a group of passionate, kind and helpful folks. A simpler site from a simpler time. One of my favorite haunts on the web.

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#245

Post by brudgers »

foobiekr wrote: post #240
kkielhofner wrote: post #82

Interesting the author says “other manufacturers don’t bother”. Unsurprisingly the real reason is “Apple was granted a patent on this over a decade ago and no one is risking an Apple patent infringement lawsuit over laptop speakers”. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130329898 EDIT: I say granted because that’s how most people understand patents and when they take effect. What really matters on the timeline here…

So is the thesis here that there is no other way to have non-crap sound on a laptop than this Apple patent? No alternative? No patent-non-infringing approach? Because if not, the real reason is as the author suggests: other manufacturers don't bother. I have been working a long time - decades - in a part of the industry that is not just patent happy but patent berserk and it has never been my experience that other ap…

I’m not saying there might not be another way.

But iTunes and the other big music distribution power players have requirements and use encoding technologies based on loudness rather than power. [1]

This is why your playlists don’t require adjusting the volume between songs from different artists/albums/eras/genres.

So it is likely that Apple’s method works hand in hand with the technical constraints of iTunes requirements and other streaming encodings.

And why the threat of Apple’s patent may be providing a moat. Like Dolby, except that licensing patents isn’t a core revenue stream for Apple.

[1] TFA doesn’t cut a bright line between power and loudness within its argument. But that’s a critical part of contemporary audio engineering in today’s commercial music production.

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#246

Post by recursive »

mrtksn wrote: post #228
recursive wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time, it wasn't other people. People were paying for their own hosting for their own purposes, much like how I order lunch.

No, you miss the point. Because of those who were paying their own hosting the rest was able to have free and awesome stuff. The paying out of pocket to show your own stuff to other people was the act of funding a venture. Some ended up turning these into profitable businesses.

I just think it's weird calling hobbies "venture capital". But if that's your thing, at least now I understand it.

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#247

Post by bob1029 »

tcrenshaw wrote: post #227
bob1029 wrote: post #76

I have always noted this when listening to music on my M1 MBP. "There is NO way my tweeters aren't about to explode!" I recall how quickly the speakers in my Microsoft surface laptop self-destructed... In my experience, the #1 prerequisite to driving a speaker this aggressively without destroying it is having a clean source of power. Hard distortion and clipping are what break voice coils in direct, physical terms. T…

Most, if not all, of the class D amps at the large scale pro audio level have that DSP built into the amplifier itself. More and more speaker manufacturers are also selling their own amplifiers (not necessarily made in house) with limiting that takes specific drivers into consideration, along with FIR correction for the whole box. I've also used a few that you can tell exactly what kind of power you're hooked up to (…

> More and more speaker manufacturers are also selling their own amplifiers (not necessarily made in house)

Indeed. I've had horrible luck with reliability of these products (i.e. loudspeakers with integrated class-D amplifiers).

I would strongly recommend going for external amplification wherever possible, especially if you are running cabinetry that weighs more than 100lbs.

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#248

Post by Spooky23 »

lostlogin wrote: post #220
Spooky23 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lwkl summed it up well. A great example is an HP z laptop - good build quality, sort of the equivalent to an old T series thinkpad. With two Phillips screwdrivers, you can disassemble and replace most parts within 15m. When I did this work, the other key thing was OEMs would guarantee image/driver compatibility for 4 years. I don’t think they do that anymore, but the hardware is very stable - consumer PC hardware wil…

> A great example is an HP z laptop - good build quality, sort of the equivalent to an old T series thinkpad. Last year I abandoned a low spec z laptop day one of getting given it at work. The trackpad alone was so poor that the laptop wasn’t usable without a mouse. I am a longtime Mac user but I don’t think I was being snobby or difficult. I use a MacBook and have windows in a VM when needed.

That’s a great point. I’m always baffled by touchpads… does apple have some secret formula? Their touchpads are consistently excellent.

Other vendors vary dramatically, even between models.

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#249

Post by makapuf »

mrtksn wrote: post #94
eloisant wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, all the bloggers I was reading on the old web were paying for their hosting a few bucks a month and no VC were involved. Some of them included ads but they were mostly in a sidebar.

They were paying for the costs? Then they were the VC. Some of them actually grew to be huge and wealthy.

You equate VC with tracking and then equate VC with anyone that provides money whatever the intention. By that logic, you imply that anyone providing money (including a mom for his 14yo son) will track everyone and gather a lot of stats and push an app ? Remember WhatsApp did cost a few bucks a year and was self sufficient, it was bought by fb not because of cost of operation but to ensure market share.

Re: A reason why Mac speakers sound better and louder than most

#250

Post by hoschicz »

eastbound wrote: post #65
esperent wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before anyone jumps in to say the issue is grounding and that it's your fault for having bad wiring: ground wires are not installed by default in all countries. If you live in one of these countries, in rented accomodation, there's not much you can do about this. And yet, most electronics are fine. It seems like MacBooks are some of the worst though, giving you shocks and crackling audio.

No grounding on Mac adapters by default, they’re only 2-pin. The 3-pin is available separately.

Oh so this is why I feel a slight tingling every time I touch my Mac while it's charging! I was looking for this info for quite some time, thanks
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