Depends what you mean by quality. The amp in an iPod may or may not have good linearity, frequency response and so on, but I know for sure that it's barely capable of driving a pair of headphones. Even with earbuds, you get a major improvement by using a headphone amp.
I don't know which model iPods you have but mine (two Nano 3G "Fat Boy" and the current 160GB classic) have *no* problem driving my 32-ohm Grados. A headphone amp stuck in the analog side makes no discernible difference in the quality or max volume. None.
Of course it make a difference if you use the Wadia dock, an external DAC, and *then* a headphone amp. But that bypasses the iPod analog completely and in my case it's back to bitwise-identical to the original CD when it enters the DAC.
Years ago I worked at a very large music mail-order company and had a field day going through and testing all the stuff. Among the biggest lessons I learned was that CD is not the end-all be-all of music formats that I thought it was. My friend and I would run blind tests using an album we were both very familiar with (Yes 90125) and we could actually tell the difference and preferred reel-to-reel over CD.
That's not really comparing apples to apples, given that there is an important difference in the output circuits of the tape and the CD. Early CD players were pretty notorious for poorly-designed D/A, filter, and buffer amp design.
Moreover, you are picking the one you liked, not necessarily the one that is most accurate. Reel-to-reel maximum performance and CD maximum performance is pretty well understood and CD has a hypothetically *much* better accuracy, particularly at high frequencies.
Well, the "attach rockets to the space station" part has been around for a long time. I worked on a proposal for a boost module that, sufficiently extended, would have served the purpose here. That was even one of the parts of the study.
That a long-duration space station would make an ideal platform for a long-duration trip to mars, etc, is also hardly new - it goes back to at least the 50's. All the same problems have to be solved for low earth orbit (for a long time) and and years-long planetary missions.
One thing that is not the same is resupply, and that (not surprisingly) is the sticking point with all these sorts of schemes.
The solution is the same as hard drives in any secure system - use it, and when you are done, destroy it. Say you get 3 years out of an SSD, the cost of replacing it is trivial over the long haul. Nobody serious about security erases conventional platter HDs and hopes that's good enough.
That's exactly what I would do. Microsoft would pay me off to go away, I would have the money, and get out of my Nokia stock before it tanks. Well played!
Who the fuck wrote the linked spec? It reads like utter gibberish, bordering on incoherent. Get yourselves some competent tech writers and write the thing in proper English for God's sake. For example:
The "i" tag initiates italicized text. {insert example} It is deprecated as of version xxx.
I can copy a few pages out of the 1983 VAX FORTRAN language reference manual if you need a basis for understanding what proper technical writing should look like.
Defense spending will not be cut because it's *one of the few legitimate and constitutionally required functions of government*. And political suicide.
Social security will not be cut because it would be political suicide. Instead, they will keep collecting for it, using the money for something else, and go bankrupt sometime in the not-to-distant future.
Given that we are bailing out union pensions all the time (GM), I don't see why you say that. I also don't see why you think there won't be hundreds or thousands of additional man-hour by federal employees in the unlikely event that this ever gets started in earnest.
No. And it's not at all like freedom of the press. The government can't stop political speech being printed in newspapers. That doesn't mean that the government has to *buy everyone a newspaper*.
The desperate hangers-on to the entirely discredited "vaccine" = "autism" theory recall another bizarre and desperate group I saw on a TV show the other day.
They were having a panel of "crop circle experts" discuss all the mysterious alien influences and methodology underlying a nearby crop circle flap. After a few hours, some people stand up at the back, and state that *they* made the crop circles. They also showed a video-tape of themselves making the crop circles. The crop circle experts claimed - in all seriousness - that the aliens FAKED the tape, and then brainwashed the people into claiming they were responsible.
The fact that the leftists are celebrating him as a hero, when his goal was solely and entirely to damage the US. Hatred of the US, and believing that the US deserves to get knocked down a peg, are hallmark characteristics of the US liberal community
Precisely. Actually, slashdot is probably a far better example of a closed culture that is proudly biased - by the tyranny of the masses not unlike Wikipedia. Political thought is particularly restrictive, but look at what happens to Windows enthusiasts.
There's a corollary in Major LEague BAseball. Various people have noticed that the fraction of Black ballplayers has fallen dramatically since the 70s. They want to institute programs to change this. Why? Maybe black people have something better to do. It's not like there are not opportunities, or that there is anything that is structurally preventing it.
Agreed. Bill got this on right. Modern Western society has gotten so comfortable assuming that their every need will be taken care of by someone that they, in about a generation, have forgotten the horror of all the childhood diseases. The chance of dying from whooping cough, if you get it, is orders of magnitude higher than the incidence of autism (once you take out the current over-diagnosis - autism is the new trendy thing to think your kid has, just like ADD ten years ago).
I even hear of people refusing *polio* vaccines. Mine was the first generation of children that didn't have to spend all summer dreading signs of the flu and wondering if you were going to be *living the rest of your life in an iron lung*. Believe me, if you have ever seen that - you are going to get your kid all the vaccines they make,
Slashdot Mirror
Robo-Piranha RULES!
My god, who knew that they were going to announce new models at some point!
I don't know which model iPods you have but mine (two Nano 3G "Fat Boy" and the current 160GB classic) have *no* problem driving my 32-ohm Grados. A headphone amp stuck in the analog side makes no discernible difference in the quality or max volume. None.
Of course it make a difference if you use the Wadia dock, an external DAC, and *then* a headphone amp. But that bypasses the iPod analog completely and in my case it's back to bitwise-identical to the original CD when it enters the DAC.
Brett
That's not really comparing apples to apples, given that there is an important difference in the output circuits of the tape and the CD. Early CD players were pretty notorious for poorly-designed D/A, filter, and buffer amp design.
Moreover, you are picking the one you liked, not necessarily the one that is most accurate. Reel-to-reel maximum performance and CD maximum performance is pretty well understood and CD has a hypothetically *much* better accuracy, particularly at high frequencies.
It's not much of a problem, and it's certainly a well-understood problem.
Well, the "attach rockets to the space station" part has been around for a long time. I worked on a proposal for a boost module that, sufficiently extended, would have served the purpose here. That was even one of the parts of the study.
That a long-duration space station would make an ideal platform for a long-duration trip to mars, etc, is also hardly new - it goes back to at least the 50's. All the same problems have to be solved for low earth orbit (for a long time) and and years-long planetary missions.
One thing that is not the same is resupply, and that (not surprisingly) is the sticking point with all these sorts of schemes.
The solution is the same as hard drives in any secure system - use it, and when you are done, destroy it. Say you get 3 years out of an SSD, the cost of replacing it is trivial over the long haul. Nobody serious about security erases conventional platter HDs and hopes that's good enough.
They are certainly not insured. Commercial spacecraft are usually insured, but not government.
Apply it to Libby and Cheney all you want. Richard Armitage revealed the fact that Valeria Plame was an agent.
That's exactly what I would do. Microsoft would pay me off to go away, I would have the money, and get out of my Nokia stock before it tanks. Well played!
Who the fuck wrote the linked spec? It reads like utter gibberish, bordering on incoherent. Get yourselves some competent tech writers and write the thing in proper English for God's sake. For example:
The "i" tag initiates italicized text. {insert example} It is deprecated as of version xxx.
I can copy a few pages out of the 1983 VAX FORTRAN language reference manual if you need a basis for understanding what proper technical writing should look like.
Defense spending will not be cut because it's *one of the few legitimate and constitutionally required functions of government*. And political suicide.
Social security will not be cut because it would be political suicide. Instead, they will keep collecting for it, using the money for something else, and go bankrupt sometime in the not-to-distant future.
Given that we are bailing out union pensions all the time (GM), I don't see why you say that. I also don't see why you think there won't be hundreds or thousands of additional man-hour by federal employees in the unlikely event that this ever gets started in earnest.
Nefarious reason = Union Jobs and more federal employees to administer the program
No. And it's not at all like freedom of the press. The government can't stop political speech being printed in newspapers. That doesn't mean that the government has to *buy everyone a newspaper*.
What the heck are you reading? From TFA (and TFS accurately):
A JAXA satellite will deploy and release a kilometers-wide net made by Nitto Seimo of ultra-thin triple layered metal threads.
And that's about as far as it goes. TFA says nothing about tethers.
The desperate hangers-on to the entirely discredited "vaccine" = "autism" theory recall another bizarre and desperate group I saw on a TV show the other day.
They were having a panel of "crop circle experts" discuss all the mysterious alien influences and methodology underlying a nearby crop circle flap. After a few hours, some people stand up at the back, and state that *they* made the crop circles. They also showed a video-tape of themselves making the crop circles. The crop circle experts claimed - in all seriousness - that the aliens FAKED the tape, and then brainwashed the people into claiming they were responsible.
Well, just delete it, problem solved.
The fact that the leftists are celebrating him as a hero, when his goal was solely and entirely to damage the US. Hatred of the US, and believing that the US deserves to get knocked down a peg, are hallmark characteristics of the US liberal community
Precisely. Actually, slashdot is probably a far better example of a closed culture that is proudly biased - by the tyranny of the masses not unlike Wikipedia. Political thought is particularly restrictive, but look at what happens to Windows enthusiasts.
There's a corollary in Major LEague BAseball. Various people have noticed that the fraction of Black ballplayers has fallen dramatically since the 70s. They want to institute programs to change this. Why? Maybe black people have something better to do. It's not like there are not opportunities, or that there is anything that is structurally preventing it.
Being "open" also means being open to people who might not want to participate. What difference does it make?
Agreed. Bill got this on right. Modern Western society has gotten so comfortable assuming that their every need will be taken care of by someone that they, in about a generation, have forgotten the horror of all the childhood diseases. The chance of dying from whooping cough, if you get it, is orders of magnitude higher than the incidence of autism (once you take out the current over-diagnosis - autism is the new trendy thing to think your kid has, just like ADD ten years ago).
I even hear of people refusing *polio* vaccines. Mine was the first generation of children that didn't have to spend all summer dreading signs of the flu and wondering if you were going to be *living the rest of your life in an iron lung*. Believe me, if you have ever seen that - you are going to get your kid all the vaccines they make,
Same old promises from about 50,000 years BCE.
I know that, I have seen the damn thing (LM Ascent stage engine) in person.