Inferior technology that did well

[Drago]

It's possible I was doing something silly though.

Indeed you were - listening to MP3s!

Except from in the car when the engine and road noise intrudes, I can usually tell the difference between MP3 and CD, all other things (amp, speakers etc) being equal. They've 4 and a half times the bit rate of the highest issue-standard MP3s so there's a lot more information being reproduced for my ear to enjoy.

 

[srw]

[QUOTE 5019359, member: 259"]I'm usually quite an enthusiastic new gadet user, but FM does sound much better. DAB is broadcast at a very low bit rate, so it's fine for talk radio, but not brilliant for music.[/QUOTE]
That does depend on the station.
https://www.astra2sat.com/radio/uk-digital-radio-bitrates/

Certainly one music radio station does sound pretty similar whether you listen on DAB or FM - and since DAB is less susceptible to interference I do tend to use the DAB setting rather than the FM when both are available.

 

[Dan B]

Pans boil over on my stove and it's water off a duck's back

I'm calling the RSPB right now. What kind of monster are you?

 

[jefmcg]

Yes you are quite right. But in the earlier days, CD quality was so superior to MP3. Idk what it was, but it's only until recent years that I have moved to MP3 files and been satisfied with their quality. The iPods with headphones were fine, but going thru a hi-fi amp, I just couldn't get the correct sound coming out. It's possible I was doing something silly though.

MP3 is a lossy compression. That is, while compressing, they throw away some of data to make the file smaller with the hope it will make little difference to the playback.

So what could have changed on the intervening years?

1. Storage is cheaper,and communication is faster, so you're using less compression.
2. Better compression algorithms
3. You're older and are losing your high and low frequency hearing

 

[Dan B]

In computing circles there's a famous essay[*] "Worse is better" which says that in the market an 80% solution delivered quickly will beat a 100% solution delivered later - it's solving some of the problem for some of the people, and therefore has a change to spread and develop while the 100% solution is still being polished. Anyone who remembers the days of Windows 3 will recognise this pattern.

[*] actually a section of a longer essay, but the most famous section

 

[Dan B]

MP3 is a lossy compression. That is, while compressing, they throw away some of data to make the file smaller with the hope it will make little difference to the playback.

So what could have changed on the intervening years?

1. Storage is cheaper,and communication is faster, so you're using less compression.
2. Better compression algorithms
3. You're older and are losing your high and low frequency hearing

4. better DACs/analogue stages/amplifiers in today's ipods/mp3 players than the older ones (I don't know if this is the case, I'm speculating)

 

[Dan B]

View attachment 380489

My view is that the threadless stem is only inferior until you try sprinting up a hill

 

[srw]

[QUOTE 5019415, member: 259"]Gosh, 128 kb/s is even worse than I thought, and even Radio 3 only manages 160-192, which I wouldn't bother encoding a CD at.

We have DAB+ here for some stations, which is admittedly much better.[/QUOTE]
I suspect that gradually more and more people who care a lot about quality are listening over various versions of broadband. Unless you're really listening (which most people, most of the time, don't), good enough is good enough. If you're using the typical radio:

anything more hifi than the most rudimentary encoding is a waste of bits.

[edit: and if you're listening to Absolute radio, then any encoding is a waste of bits....]

 

[jefmcg]

Betamax gave better picture quality that VHS

I'm not sure that means betamax was superior. I'm pretty sure when my parents got our first VCR, the longest betamax tape was 120 minutes. So the light sabres may look a bit sharper, but with ads you'd never know what happened to the death star.

By the time beta tapes got long enough to reliably record most movies with ads unattended, it was over for them.

 

[Drago]

3 hours 20 mins (L-830). More if you had one of the later ones that had half speed functions, although very early machines from 1975/76 could only manage 60 minutes.

 

[jefmcg]

3 hours 20 mins (L-830). More if you had one of the later ones that had half speed functions, although very early machines from 1975/76 could only manage 60 minutes.

I'm as sure as I can be that 3 hours tapes were not in local shops when we got our first VCR. And then it was game over. By the time they got their next player or I bought my own, we had a library of TV recordings and pre-recorded tapes, so VHS was the only option.

 

[MichaelW2]

I'm not a hifi buff but I wouldn't have FM back, just from a usability point of view. I have a couple of radios that do both FM and DAB, but never use the FM option. Why would I? .

I find that DAB has mostly poorer sound quality (even if theoretically it could be better at high bit rate), goes really bad on occasion but worst of all, worst of all is the variable time lag. If I have two radios on in my house, they are out of synch. If my neighbour and I both have radio 4 on, they are out of sync. This is really annoying, esp when the DAB authorities tell me it isn't a problem. It isn't an issue for digital TV because no one roams around but with radio, you can do housework or wander from room to room and pick up the sound from different radios.

 

[mustang1]

my old mobile vs my more recent 'smart' phone... OK, i can't use my old mobile as a remote control for various media players on my PC, but at least when i look through the contacts list on my old mobile it displays the name and number... on my 'smart' phone, it only displays the name and i have to touch each one to see the number... not great when i'm trying to find out who called my landline.

The smart phone can do loads of things, but none of them super well. For example if I want to take a photo in landscape, I have scroll down from the top to get a menu, then hit landscape. Then hit it again duentonto dumb bug. Take the photo then put it back into portrait mode other wise the phone opens keeps wanting to go into landscape mode whenever I open another apps. I have that.

And various other nuances of using such a device.

 

[mustang1]

No mention of iTunes yet ?

Or the Ribbon interface.

 

[jefmcg]

. I have that.

Also auto correct can make nonsense out of a sentence

I'm assuming you meant "hate"