Hi-Tech or Lo-Tech?

[blue]

I tried to play my one and only SACD on it yesterday and nothing happened, so I guess my amp (also Pioneer) couldn't interpret the source or something (it came through the TV's speakers OK).

i'm guessing your player's connected to the amp digitally, either optical or coaxial?  the SACD and DVD-A sound is only available through the analogue outputs, which is why you could hear it through your tv.  you need to connect either the 5.1 analogue outputs to the same on your amp, if it has them.  or the stereo outs, preferably the front pair from the 5.1 set.

i agree that an early win in the hi-def format war was a good thing, having two incompatible formats wasn't doing anyone any good, it's just that i think the wrong side won! basically, sony bribed their way to a win, they paid warners half a billion dollars to drop hd-dvd, and of course used the ps3 as a loss leader to get players to the public.  the underhandedness is one thing, the fact that it's an incomplete format which is still only promising features that hd-dvd had from day one is what really bothers me.

oh, i forgot to say what tv i have! i had a crt widescreen until last year, i turned it on one day and there was a fizzing noise and a little puff of smoke! in a kind of emergency i ended up with a Toshiba lcd. black levels aren't too bad, and picture quality is good, at least as long as nothing moves too fast!! motion blur can be quite noticeable.  if i was buying now i'd probably go plasma, although i still worry about screen burn, to which lcd is immune.  also, plasma is now much more expensive, and harder to find.

hmm, long post  :roll:

[Philly Q]

if i was buying now i'd probably go plasma, although i still worry about screen burn, to which lcd is immune.  also, plasma is now much more expensive, and harder to find.

hmm, long post  :roll:

Don't worry about long posts, they're the only type I do.  Keyboard diarrhoea.  :roll:  

I'm definitely going plasma, I don't think I could live with LCD motion blur although they're said to be improving it all the time.  I worry a bit about the screen burn aspect too, although I've never actually seen how much of a problem it is (or isn't).  The main issue must be those annoying little channel identity logos, I'd think.

Plasma isn't as expensive as I thought, it's come down a lot.  A friend of mine asked me to look into 42" HD TVs for her, with £700 to spend, and I said "you won't get a plasma for that money" - but in fact I found a very nice 42" Panasonic well under budget.

There seems to be a lot of support for plasma too, and a number of independent reports putting it well ahead of LCD for picture quality.  It's almost a bit like the HD-DVD/Blu-ray thing, with Sony only making LCD and Pioneer only making plasma!  Panasonic make both, but if you look at their "LCD or Plasma?" page it basically dismisses LCD!  :lol:

I think plasma will be around for a long time to come, especially since it's the format best suited for 50"+ displays, which seem to be popular with those who have the money (when they're not watching movies on their iPods).  

i'm guessing your player's connected to the amp digitally, either optical or coaxial? the SACD and DVD-A sound is only available through the analogue outputs, which is why you could hear it through your tv. you need to connect either the 5.1 analogue outputs to the same on your amp, if it has them. or the stereo outs, preferably the front pair from the 5.1 set.

Yeah, it's an optical cable I think, certainly digital as you surmised.  I'll have a look at it, but I'm not too bothered as I only have the one SACD and two DVD-As (which seemed to play OK, but it may be because I left the TV on so maybe that's what I was hearing - it did seem a bit thin  :oops:  :oops: ).

[blue]

Yeah, it's an optical cable I think, certainly digital as you surmised.  I'll have a look at it, but I'm not too bothered as I only have the one SACD and two DVD-As (which seemed to play OK, but it may be because I left the TV on so maybe that's what I was hearing - it did seem a bit thin  :oops:  :oops: ).

well, dvd-a WILL work through the digital out, but you're getting dolby digital, not the hi-res audio.  you actually have to go into the player's setup menu and set it to dvd-audio rather than dvd video.  it won't affect ordinary dvd's at all, it means the player will see the hi-res part of the disc instead of the dolby/dts part.

[PhilKing]

I don't have an MP3 player because I don't like MP3's! I have a miniDisc player (and several recorders), a DAT recorder and SACD and CD players.  My main stereo has Quicksilver valve monoblocks, a Linn/Ittok/Benz Glider, Carver Tube CD player, Sony SACD, Carver preamp and Joseph Audio speakers.  I was just listening to vinyl yesterday and it still has the best sound.  I do have an HD TV but it is CRT, that is with a Nakamichi surround sound system.  

I'm still stongly in the analog world (still have 8 track fostex reel to reel and a Revox B77 half track).

[dave_mc]

i think i've caught what philly caught from his keyboard... sorry...  :lol:

There was a massive argument I took part in about this recently.

Basically, its all for the better. Technology is in its teething period, but don't worry, as miniturisation gains speed, so will quality.

Allready today we have Blue-ray dvds on 42" LCD TVs, which while not as high quality as their CRT counterparts, are beginning to be replaced with new systems which make CRT screens totally obsolete in both depth and response.

And while for practicality smaller is better, the option for lossless media, and HD videos are still there, and will increase, especially for videos where HD formats will become the norm - Really, does anyone actually need 45gb for a movie? They have the space now, lets see them use it.

yeah, i'm well aware that by and large it's for the better, i just don't like feeling like we're being taken advantage of by unscrupulous companies trying to cash in on each newest fad... "HD-ready" tvs which aren't really hd-ready, etc. etc. not to mention the built-in obsolescence...

Yeah, I still have a CRT monitor and a CRT TV (albeit one that was pretty much state-of-the-art when I bought it).  My brother has a 46" Sony LCD and I'm absolutely certain CRT gives a better standard definition TV picture - the LCD looks great with HD material, of course.

However, I do really want to go HD, but I'm a great believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".  If something still works, it's a huge crisis of conscience for me to just dump it (I have a 25 year old watch, a 28 year old calculator, over 1,000 vinyl LPs which, as I said, I can't play...  :roll: ).  So I'm not sure what happens to my old TV etc if I get a plasma and Blu-ray.

Oh, and my mobile phone is an old Nokia which can't even display pictures, never mind video.

As for food, I totally agree with you - the cheap stuff (esp. fruit and veg) is inedible, so I only buy organic or the "premium" stuff like Sainsburys Taste the Difference and Tesco Finest.  I know I should go to farmers' markets and all that, but they're thin on the ground in Sarf London.

haha, you sound like me. i only buy a new phone when my old one breaks, and i do that reluctantly.

i'd probably put up with worse food if i lived in a cool (you probably disagree) city like london. What annoys me is living in a supposedly rural area where i still can't get nice food. one of the few advantages is supposedly fresh food, coupled with cheaper house prices. well, tesco and co have moved in, and pretty recently northern ireland had the highest price rises in europe...

gotta love living in a worst-of-both-worlds area...  

CDs? Yes. Because MP3 and AAC sound like cr@p. They are very handy if you're on a noisy/crowded train (try living in NYC) but once the noise floor drops, the cr@p factor increases exponentially. Most of today's production is pants, but CD still sounds the best if you can't get SACD.

agreed. i wouldn't mind using an ipod if i had to do a noisy commute, but these eejits who use an ipod (with cheapo speakers) as their main hi-fi, and then think they're awesome?

 :roll:

from the rest of your post it sounds like you're willing to use the best of the old stuff combined with the best of the new... which sounds pretty sensible to me. far as i'm concerned, something isn't necessarily awesome because it's old or new, something either good or it isn't.

oh yeah, regarding plasma, we'd have liked to get a plasma but they only seem to start at 32", and we wanted 26 o 28". kinda annoying.

[Philly Q]

i'd probably put up with worse food if i lived in a cool (you probably disagree) city like london.

You know me too well, Dave!  :lol:  I think I hate London (at least as a place to live) almost as much as Rob Kilby did.

oh yeah, regarding plasma, we'd have liked to get a plasma but they only seem to start at 32", and we wanted 26 o 28". kinda annoying.

Yeah, you'd be very lucky to find a plasma at 32" and there aren't even many 37" ones.  The overlap between LCD and plasma seems to be in the 37" to 46" range, below that it's LCD and above it's plasma (or projection systems).  I don't know the technical mumbo-jumbo, but plasma technology is apparently better suited to larger screens.  

I read a couple of weeks ago that Pioneer are dropping the 42" model from their Full HD Kuro range, which is a shame as I'd quite fancied getting that one, money permitting.

[_tom_]

I'll be honest, I cant always tell a huge difference between something like 192kb/s mp3 and a Lossless fomat. I probably could if I had high quality audio stuff but at the minute the only good quality sound I have are my SR80s. I'm still using a stock onboard soundcard and Creative labs speakers because I cant afford anything better yet (I WILL get an EMU 0404usb and some nice monitors eventually). The SR80s did offer a huge improvement in sound over Koss Sparkplugs I was using before and some of my stuff sounded kinda cr@p but thats because it was low quality mp3 (under 128kbps mp3). I use an iPod with mp3s as well and the quality is good enough for what I use it for.

[Woogie]

I usually watch films on a Pioneer 50" plasma HDTV which is epic picture quality.

Music is mainly mp3's as it's convenient for most things and I use my Sony K850i phone for music which is good enough.

I might have to bust out the Led Zep 1 vinyl sometime soon  8)

[Philly Q]

I usually watch films on a Pioneer 50" plasma HDTV which is epic picture quality.

Sounds great!  In HD, or standard def?

[Woogie]

Oh it is!! Brilliant TV except a few months after we got it the price came down by about £4000 which is rather annoying.

We're just looking at the new BBC box as the ETS guy recommended it but if not we'll probably get sky HD.

We used to have a CRT Panasonic 36" without surround sound which was the business at the time but when you step it up with the better tv and a big surround sound system, it's just a totally better experience. Good for gaming too. I was running Halo 2 on xbox live with a friend and having 25" each is great cos usually it's cramped up on a tiny screen.

[nfe]

I always find it hilarious that folks who love and nigh on worship vinyl, with all it's faults, get apoplectic with rage about mp3s  :lol:

For one, I'm prefectly happy with listening to music on as mp3s. A, it means I can have a terabyte of music that takes up less than a cubic foor, B, I can have all of it in one playlist on random when folks are round and we play Guess The Band  :lol:  and C, I really, REALLY don;t like music to be shiney. Dirt and grit every time.

[ilÿti]

Vinyl preforably, if not CDs. I guess that puts me in the lo-tech... right?

As for movies I care disturbingly little for picture and sound quality. Hell, I enjoy watching movies on youtube even it's pixilated and slightly out of synch (but not too much)

[MDV]

ipod - I hate them. With a passion. Fricken fashion accesories with cr@p reproduction. I do, however, listen to MP3s, ripped to 192 (ewwww-ish) on my phone (rubbish sound - marginally better than an i-pod) and occasionally (longer trips) my sony MP3 player (at 320Kbs on that, since theres space, and it sounds about the best of any MP3 player I've heard). Its a convenience, more than anything. Beats traffic, phones ringing and conversations about utter cr@p in the background of my office and what have you.

I listen to these on Sennheiser CX95s, which are good enough to bring out the best of the sound, but not so good that your just listening to artifacts.

Home -

CD - Very much big time. I listen to CDs on my Arcam Diva CD73 (24 bit, 192Khz wolfson DACs), through my Adam A7s and/or NAD C352 into B&W DM602 S2's.

MP3s at home - Yes. I use Foobar2000 and the DACs on my EMU1616M soundcard to upsample MP3s to 24 bit 96Khz and listen trough the Adams and NAD/B&Ws as well.

While the dacs on the EMU arent [/i]quite as pleasing to listen to as the Arcam, they deliver the goods, and the upsampling works pretty well (not perfect, as I doncluded with A/B/C tests against FLAC and WAV - but suprisingly close). As an aside: I also found that FLAC doesnt sound as good as WAV. I expected no difference, but it lost some punch and authority in the low end compared to WAV).

I also use the following headphones for both MP3s and CDs at home:
Sennheiser HD25-1, RS-140
Future sonics atrios
Shure E4

Blu ray - No. Couldnt give a monkeys. I use my PCs DVD player. I dont own a TV, let alone an HD one (I think my monitor is HD, though). Couldnt care less about it.  I'll get one when they are more standard.

Display in general - I use a TFT, and a geforce 8800GT - While I recognise its inferiority in image quality to CRT, I dont really care: It works for me as a display (given my apathy toward displays: they have to be pretty good, but not amazing) and the biggest bonus is 22" of screen doesnt go 20" back, too, which gives me more space in my little flat to jam things that are more worthwhile to me in. The 8800GT is for my (rare) gaming, and it rocks as a display source, even if the monitor isnt that great (its about as good as TFTs get, but like I said; not as good as CRT).

[dave_mc]

i'd probably put up with worse food if i lived in a cool (you probably disagree) city like london.

You know me too well, Dave!  :lol:  I think I hate London (at least as a place to live) almost as much as Rob Kilby did.

oh yeah, regarding plasma, we'd have liked to get a plasma but they only seem to start at 32", and we wanted 26 o 28". kinda annoying.

Yeah, you'd be very lucky to find a plasma at 32" and there aren't even many 37" ones.  The overlap between LCD and plasma seems to be in the 37" to 46" range, below that it's LCD and above it's plasma (or projection systems).  I don't know the technical mumbo-jumbo, but plasma technology is apparently better suited to larger screens.  

I read a couple of weeks ago that Pioneer are dropping the 42" model from their Full HD Kuro range, which is a shame as I'd quite fancied getting that one, money permitting.

haha, yeah, i figured it's probably different to live in it! :lol:

no idea why the plasmas start so big either, there's probably some reason for it (even if it's plain old profiteering) though... just extremely annoying.

[noodleplugerine]

ipod - I hate them. With a passion. Fricken fashion accesories with cr@p reproduction. I do, however, listen to MP3s, ripped to 192 (ewwww-ish) on my phone (rubbish sound - marginally better than an i-pod) and occasionally (longer trips) my sony MP3 player (at 320Kbs on that, since theres space, and it sounds about the best of any MP3 player I've heard). Its a convenience, more than anything. Beats traffic, phones ringing and conversations about utter cr@p in the background of my office and what have you.

I listen to these on Sennheiser CX95s, which are good enough to bring out the best of the sound, but not so good that your just listening to artifacts.

Home -

CD - Very much big time. I listen to CDs on my Arcam Diva CD73 (24 bit, 192Khz wolfson DACs), through my Adam A7s and/or NAD C352 into B&W DM602 S2's.

MP3s at home - Yes. I use Foobar2000 and the DACs on my EMU1616M soundcard to upsample MP3s to 24 bit 96Khz and listen trough the Adams and NAD/B&Ws as well.

While the dacs on the EMU arent [/i]quite as pleasing to listen to as the Arcam, they deliver the goods, and the upsampling works pretty well (not perfect, as I doncluded with A/B/C tests against FLAC and WAV - but suprisingly close). As an aside: I also found that FLAC doesnt sound as good as WAV. I expected no difference, but it lost some punch and authority in the low end compared to WAV).

I also use the following headphones for both MP3s and CDs at home:
Sennheiser HD25-1, RS-140
Future sonics atrios
Shure E4

Blu ray - No. Couldnt give a monkeys. I use my PCs DVD player. I dont own a TV, let alone an HD one (I think my monitor is HD, though). Couldnt care less about it.  I'll get one when they are more standard.

Display in general - I use a TFT, and a geforce 8800GT - While I recognise its inferiority in image quality to CRT, I dont really care: It works for me as a display (given my apathy toward displays: they have to be pretty good, but not amazing) and the biggest bonus is 22" of screen doesnt go 20" back, too, which gives me more space in my little flat to jam things that are more worthwhile to me in. The 8800GT is for my (rare) gaming, and it rocks as a display source, even if the monitor isnt that great (its about as good as TFTs get, but like I said; not as good as CRT).

Newest generation are far superior to the previous ones.

Only reason why I bought one.

And personally I feel its more than a fasion accesory, its the only MP3 player on the market which I've seen with an interface which doesn't make you want to tear your hair out. I've had Iriver, Archos and Sony.