Slashdot Mirror
TCP/IP Speakers
Fallen Kell writes "From the anouncement, "Polk Audio LCi-IP Ultra High Performance In-Wall/ In-Ceiling Loudspeakers are the world's first active Internet Protocol-ready Loudspeakers. They were created for IP networked systems such as the ground-breaking NetStreams DigiLinx system but also provide vast convenience and performance benefits when used in analog systems. Integrated digital amplifiers eliminate remote amplifiers connected via hundreds of feet of lossy, performance-robbing speaker wires." I had the great pleasure of having a demo on September 16th, 2005 of these speakers. The ability of connect to a wired network for sending the audio stream is simply amazing and wonderful innovation in the audio world."
An interesting development and one that brings us closer to the time when even your speakers can check if you have a license for content....
Shame they didn't go one step further and make them wireless. It would be quite nice to move speakers between rooms on occasion without having to fight with the speaker cable (or coax in this case).
My brother owns a recording studio, and mastering suites vary greatly in quality. Nowadays, mastering isn't about source transparency but about sounding good across every playback system. Mastering suites are optimized to give an accurate rendition but with walkman and car stereo and home audio output considered.
I have had a few "audiophile" systems in my life, but the lack of quality source material mastered for neutrality made it a wasted venture.
Mono is also how 99.9% of retail/hospitality locations are wired, even the high end ones where they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the installations.
Also, forget about audiophiles and whether they would like these speakers. Audiophiles will never install in-ceiling speakers, and if they do it's purely for "background music" purposes around the house.
I believe that this product is for the rich geek that wants to be able to utilize his already-CAT5-wired home and be able to show off to their other rich geek friends.
If you want to mod this down, as the parent, feel free. I'll just post it again. But while I'm at it, spot the typo: "From the anouncement". So a slashvertisement, and an obvious spelling mistake. Just wait for the dupe and we'll have the archetypical Slashdot article.
In those situations I would rather put an analog line-level balanced signal directly over the cat5, using whatever baluns and amplifiers I needed to accomplish that. It'd likely be cheaper, I wouldn't have to worry about latency or jitter, and as long as your amp's balanced inputs had common-mode rejection (pretty much all of them do) the twists in the cat5 would prevent picking up interference over long runs.
Even 20ms delay makes me crazy (~1 frame).
To put it another way. 20ms is about the same as moving a speaker about 20 feet. That should be pretty clear to anybody how significant that is.
It's fairly important to acknowledge that there are actual audiophiles out there who do know what they're talking about.
The fact that there are charlatans, too, shouldn't come as a surprise. I've hated 'stereo store salesmen' since back in my youth when those smug f*cks always had an attitude to cop when I came in the store needing audio connectors.
To write off the whole 'audiophile' community is to buy into the shit that certain sales-types want us to believe. In fact there IS such a thing as High Fidelity, and it isn't just sales numbers and/or a table printed in the manual that comes with junk components from Japan.
resigned
Speaker wires?
But isn't the amp used with an electric guitar essentially part of the instument and fundamentally different from an amplifier used for playing back pre-recorded audio?
The guitarist is choosing the sound he wants to produce and so may prefer a certain kind of distortion.
The person listening to a recording will want to minimize the distortion introduced by his own equipment and hear the music with the best fidelity to the original he can acheive?
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
The Audiophile appreciates how music sounds on a high-watt system that's driven purely in the linear response region, has inperceptable distortion, crosstalk and noise, has a frequency reponse from 15Hz-22kHz that need not be flat, but must be pleasing to his ear.
The Audiophile understands that a great system starts with the speakers and works back to the source.
The Audiophile understands that spending time moving his speakers and furniture around the room will give you the best bang-for-buck improvement in sound.
The Audiophile understands that the difference between a CD player worth $200 and one worth $2000 is not as important as the difference between a set of speakers worth $200 and that worth $2000 - doubly so if you are keeping it digital until the tuner.
The Audiophile knows that the person who spend $1000 on each speaker cable is a wanker, while he calculates the per meter-resistance of his quality OFC cables and ensures that the paths to the drivers are as close as possible.
The Audiophile understands that a sub-woofer should not felt not heard. If its not SUBsonic, its just a woofer.
The Audiophile looks at the BOSE Lifestyle system with the contempt it deserves.
The Audiophile doesn't claim that the response of vinyl records is superior, but can appreciate the imperfections of the recording media as an important part of the whole listening experience.
The Audiophile doesn't store his CDs in the freezer, nor drawn on them with green texta.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
fiber optic digital audio paths. end of story
So, just what difference does fiber have over digital on coax or UTP or shielded twisted pair? Digital is digital with all else being equal, fiber doesn't gain much for short runs except some common mode noise reduction. An opto isolator can do the same without the handeling, cost and interface problems of fiber.
It is much cheaper to run the fiber signal over copper on short runs.
The truth shall set you free!