HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rmp@crashnburn.Eng.Sun.COM (Richard Pottorff)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: Sony STR*70 problems not fixed in the STR*90 line
Followup-To: usa
Date: 22 Jan 1993 23:46:01 GMT
Organization: Sun
NNTP-Posting-Host: crashnburn

In article <19709@mindlink.bc.ca> Frank@mindlink.bc.ca (Frank I. Reiter) writes:
Shortly after buying a Sony STR-990 I read here about the problems people
were experiencing with the STR*70 line.  The story went something like this:

1) Person buys Sony surround sound receiver
2) Receiver works fine for several weeks or several months, then becomes
noisy when surround sound decoding engaged
3) Person exchanges unit for new unit ---> go back to step 2

-----
sob story deleted
-----

I am thinking of replacing it with either a Denon AVR-2000 or a Yamaha
RXV-850.  Canadian pricing on these units seems to be VERY much higher than
US pricing so I'd like to buy in the Bellingham WA area.  Can anybody
recommend a Bellingham dealer which offers good pricing on the either of the
above brands and which treats it's customers reasonably well?

Frank.

--
___________________________________________________________________
Frank I. Reiter                 Internet: Frank@mindlink.bc.ca
MIND LINK! Communications Corp. Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

I write:

Frank,

I heard thru the net that the Denon's MAY have the same problems with
the rear speakers that the Sonys do.  I recently got a Yamaha RXV-1050
from New West Electronics, 4120 Meridian, Bellingham, WA  98226; 
Phone: 1-800-488-8877 that I am really happy with.  I ordered it a week
ago today. They said to expect it by the 21st. I actually got it Tuesday.
I got a pretty good deal on it because it (and the RXV-850 are being
discontinued and being replaced by a later and greater version of the
same).  

So far, all the channels are quiet except when actual signals
are present.  (_Murphy_Brown_ sounds weird in Enhanced Dolby Pro-Logic,
but everything else is pretty good). The main diff between the 850 
and the 1050 is the 1050 has a little more power, S-VHS I/O's and a
lowpass filter line-out for the front channels. I thought it was worth
the extra $$$; I wanted to get something I wouldn't get tired of for
a long time.

Rick


Rick

-- 
Stolen signature:
GILLETTE'S PRINCIPLE:
  "If you want to make people angry, lie. If you want to make
   them absolutely livid with rage, tell the truth."
From: whiting@europa.eng.gtefsd.com (claude whiting)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: MD sound quality
Date: 21 Jan 1993 08:44:20 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: MD sound quality
Reply-To: whiting@europa.eng.gtefsd.com (claude whiting)
Followup-To: 
Distribution:usa 
Organization: GTE Federal Systems
Keywords: 

There has been a thread concerning data-compression and how that ruins the 
sound quality of formats such as MD. Well I was curious and took a listen 
yesterday at Audio Associates here locally. The sound was fantastic and to 
tell you the truth, I could not discern any difference in my half an hour or 
so of listening between MD and CD.

This month's (Feb) Audio magazine reviews an MD player/recorder from Sony. 
Len Feldman says that Sony claims the sound approaches cd quality but he 
feels Sony is being conservative here. 

Let's face it...MD's sound good data-compression not-withstanding. I will not 
purchase one because I have no need for digital recording and the quality is 
not better than CD. The data-compression ruins sound argument doesn't hold 
water in my book.

Claude
From: daniel@nstn.ns.ca (Daniel MacKay)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: MD sound quality
Date: 21 Jan 93 16:39:23 GMT
Organization: NSTN Network Operations Centre, Nova Scotia, Canada

In <199301211444.AA22172@europa.eng.gtefsd.com> whiting@europa.eng.gtefsd.com (claude whiting) writes:
[...]
>sound quality of formats such as MD. Well I was curious and took a listen 
>yesterday at Audio Associates here locally. The sound was fantastic and to 
>tell you the truth, I could not discern any difference in my half an hour or 
>so of listening between MD and CD.

I have one; I think it sounds fabulous.  There are some other really great
features Sony chucked in with this too- the ability to edit tracks is just
wonderful- rearrange the order of tracks (really rearranging the directory
of course) split tracks in two, delete 'em, (e.g.  if there's some extra
blank space at the end of a track you just split the track in two and
delete the extra quiet track) and splice tracks *absolutely* clean- e.g.
if you want more quiet between tracks, record a quiet track and splice it
to the end of the first track.  Just discovered last night that when you
put a track on repeat, there's no time between the end of the first play
and the beginning of the next- so you can make perfectly clean tape loops
from a fraction of a second to an hour.  It plays in shuffle mode too and
has a 21-item program memory.

When you want to record, you just hit <Record>.  It'll never record over an
existing track, and it uses whatever space is free on the disk, in
fragments if necessary.

I'll be using it to record jam sessions and stuff at my place -- I have
Moskowitz's tiny binarual microphone set on order, altho' I'll probably use
'em in spaced array- we'll see.

Anyway, I love flexible tools- something that you can use for whole bunch
of things.  Satisfied customer.
--
Daniel MacKay					daniel@nstn.ns.ca
Homo habilis					Nova Scotia, Canada
Newsgroups: rec.audio,misc.forsale
From: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Subject: Audio gear for sale
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 19:58:08 GMT

I have the following high-end equipment for sale:

Mirage M-1 speakers, originally purchased 1989, with
new midrange drivers updated by Mirage, with 1-meter
MIT 750-extended speaker cable.  Speakers are bi-wirable    $3,500
(your pickup from New York City)

Mark Levinson 26S preamplifier with phono section	$4,700 + shipping

Audio Reseach DAC-1/20
includes 1-meter MIT Shotgun cables			$3,000 + shipping

Lexicon CP-1 Surround processor				$850 + shipping


--

Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ.     "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings 
gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu       to be seriously considered as a means of 
N2GPZ in ham radio circles        communication. The device is inherently of
72355,1226 on CI$                 no value to us." -Western Union memo, 1877
From: kovalcik@brooklyn.az.stratus.com (Rick Kovalcik)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: taping recommenations with Nak CR3A
Date: 28 Jan 93 18:21:20 GMT
Reply-To: kovalcik@vos.stratus.com
Organization: Stratus Computer Inc, Marlboro MA
NNTP-Posting-Host: brooklyn.az.stratus.com

I have a Nakamichi (sp?) CR-3A cassette deck (vintage 1988?) and have just
recently started trying to record on it again.  I am trying to copy CDs from a
Pioneer CLD-D701 combi laser-cd player.  I am primarily interested in making  
tapes for playing in my car, my wife's pioneer system (vintage 1992), and  
sometimes a portable.  I am secondarily interested in playback on the tha Nak.

Tapes recorded and played back on the Nak sound great.  Almost indistiguishable
from the CD.  However tapes recorded on the Nak and played back on other
players sound bad (flat; lack of high end response).   Tapes recorded on
my wife's Pioneer and played back on my car sound better, etc.  

I've tried TDK SA & SAX and Maxell XLII and XLIIS.  The tape seems to have
no or little effect.  I've tried playing with the recording bias on the Nak a  
little.   Decreasing the bias seems to help a little but not enough (i.e. tapes  
made on the Pioneer still sound better when played back on my car).
I've also tried recording at both 70us and 120us (equalization?) on the Nak.
That doesn't really seem to help.

It seems ridiculous that tapes recorded on a $200 or $250 Pioneer cassette
deck sound better than tapes recorded on a much more expensive Nakamichi deck
even if the Pioneer is newer (the Pioneer is a two head deck but does have an  
auto BLE function).  Note that the Nak deck never got much use
and I have tried cleaning the heads.  Before I go out and buy a another Pioneer 
cassette deck, is there anything I should try with recording on the Nakamichi?
               _______________________________________________________________

Thanks in advance.

P.S.  I guess I could also consider buying a new Yamaha tape deck since much
of the rest of my system is Yamaha and I've been happy with it, but the other
advantage of the Pioneer tape deck is that I can use the CD-synchro functions
to record off the Pioneer cd/ld player.
From: kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky)
Subject: Re: Sony TA-E2000ESD DSP A/V Surround Preamp
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Distribution: rec
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 21:03:28 GMT

In article <brambo-220193122157@143.172.48.212> brambo@eco.twg.com (Mark Bramblett) writes:

>What I meant to say is that on the TAE1000ESD, equalization and dynamic
>range expansion/compression is disabled.  So if you have refined an
>equalization curve that works for your room set up, you cannot take
>advantage of it when you are in DOLBY SURROUND mode.  I was curious if
>this design limitation had been removed in the new model.

Yes, it has been removed.  Pro-Logic is now an attribute of any given
surround mode in addition to a mode all by itself.  You can choose any
surround mode you want (Hall1, Hall2, Jazz Club, etc.), alter the front,
center, and/or rear EQ curves, adjust any of the myriad of surround
parameters (seating position, room size, etc.), adjust the
expansion/compression, choose whether the Pro-Logic decoder is on or off,
and save all that in a memory. Three of the ten preset modes have
Pro-Logic turned on by default:  Pro-Logic (of course), Theater1, and
Theater2.  The latter two also have some ambience synthesis and non-flat
EQ curves by default, but these can of course be altered and stored in a
user memory. 

--
Steve Kanefsky
From: fpf@aries.gasco.com (Frank Ferguson x3584)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Digital vs Analogue, Yet Again!
Date: 26 Jan 93 16:08:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: gasco.1993Jan26.160804.23060
Distribution: na
Organization: NorthWest Natural Gas Company of Portland Oregon



As long as we're going 'round yet again on the digital vs analogue
question, I thought I'd raise a point that I've pondered, off an
on, for some time.  My initial reaction to criticisms of digital sound
was that people were simply unused to hearing recorded music reproduce
sound with a "flat" response from dc to 20khz (and with 95db dynamic
range!).  I still think this it true (at least for those of us who've
been into hifi long enough to have "grown up" on LPs.  

I couldn't figure, however, whu anyone would react negatively to
hearing the full range of music reproduced, until I reflected on
the way most music is recorded.  Seems to me most studio recording
is done with several mikes placed very close to the performer or
instrument (much live recording is done the same way).  Few of us, 
I expect, have spent much time listening to various instruments with
our ears positioned a half inch from the strings or bells, or within
an inch of a singer's mouth--yet that's the way recordings seems to be
made.  I expect that a medium like analogue which is a bit rolled off
in its preproduction capability would soften some of the sibilants and
stridency which would seem to naturally arise from such an unusual
listening position, and present a sound which more closely approximated
what one might hear from a normal listening venue--more suitably
removed from the performer or instrument.  Digital, however, could
well reproduce the fairly intense and unrealistic "up close" experience
with ruthless fidelity, giving in process the appearance of harshness
and stridency.  Does this seem reasonable?

Just another victim of the audiophile disease.

Francis Ferguson
fpf@gasco.com
Newsgroups: rec.audio
From: DPierce@world.std.com (Richard D Pierce)
Subject: Re: speaker phasing
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 01:07:14 GMT

In article <1993Jan23.001907.6524@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:
>>
>>As a general rule, yes. There are also explicit and de-facto standards
>>that say a positive voltage applied to the positive terminal of a driver
>>will cause the cone to move outwards.
>
>Hmmmmm...I was under the impression that it wasn't nearly so universal
>a standard.  Since it's fairly common for the tweeter of a two-way system
>to be wired with a polarity that's the reverse of the woofer, this gives
>the manufacturer the choice of which driver should move outwards when a
>positive voltage is applied to the red terminal; usually they pick the
>woofer (which seems sensible to me anyway) but not always--the Apogee
>Stage, for example, is wired the other way around with the woofer 
>"backwards."

It's only true of two way systems using 2nd order crossovers to reverse
the phase of the tweeter (where its necessary to prevent the cancellation
null due to the -90 deg phase shift of the woofer and the +90 degree shift
in the tweeter). WHile there may be some reasons to reverse them in other
configurations, it's less common.

In fact, it is a standard, and codified in several EIA, IEC and ISO
standards explicitly. So it's not really a matter of choice if you pay
attention to the standards. But who's looking? :-)

-- 
|                Dick Pierce                |
|    Loudspeaker and Software Consulting    |
| 17 Sartelle Street   Pepperell, MA  01463 |
|       (508) 433-9183 (Voice and FAX)      |
From: myers@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Bob Myers)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 20:12:31 GMT
Subject: Re: CD vs. LP again (was Re: Preamp and Amp)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.audio

> 	Granted. However, thanks to all of us who are not willing to
> settle for slop, digital has been getting better. In the next few years

Rajiv, given that the CD format has been stable for 10 years, how is it
that "digital" is getting better?  I could see making a claim that the
analog electronics built into a given line of CD players has improved, or
that we've seen other improvements in factors outside the format itself
(equalizations for CD rather than LP, for example) - this is in no way
"digital" getting better, since all the "digital" portions have remained
unchanged.



Bob Myers            | "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but  
myers@fc.hp.com      |  most of the time he will pick himself up and continue."
                     |                        - Winston Churchill
From: jeh@cmkrnl.com
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: Loud Music, Noise cancelation systems?
Date: 24 Jan 93 20:22:20 PST
Organization: Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego, CA

In article <C1DIz4.9C2@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, rmg53668@dcl-nxt53 
(Ryan Martin Grant) writes:
> > [... re sound cancellation systems ...]
> They seem endless, yes.  Imagine an end to noise pollution as we know it.
> It would be beautiful.
> 
> These dreams are very similar to my own, but I was wondering if any 
> rec.audio wizards could bring up any hard facts for/against this technology
> ever going mainstream.

Sound cancellation can be made to work if the "cancelling" source is very close
to the "noise" source.  "Close" means a small fraction of the shortest
wavelength of interest.  An example is the active noise cancelling headsets
made for small aircraft pilots by Bose and one other manufacturer (Telex, I
believe):  They pick up ambient sound just outside the ear canal, and feed a
cancelling wave plus the headphone audio into the ear canal.  Here we are
fudging on the definition of a "source", but since everything you hear has to
come through the ear canal (ignoring bone conduction), this works. 

If you want to cancel noise in "free space", say, in a city bus, things aren't
nearly so neat and tidy.  You can get an idea of how well it can work simply by
setting your stereo FM tuner to "mono" and reversing the connections to one of
your speakers.  Now you have two sound sources, identical except for phase, and
coplanar as well.  This should give optimal cancellation, yes?  Unfortunately
you'll find that the cancellation you can actually achieve isn't very
impressive, even if you put the speakers right next to each other.  (You will,
however, thoroughly confuse your sound location sense if you walk around in the
resulting sound field....) 

Why doesn't it work better?  Well, if the sources are separated by more than a
half a wavelength (just five inches at 1 kHz, half an inch at 10 kHz), there
will always be locations that are 'n' wavelengths from one source but 'n'+0.5
wavelengths from the other... and in those locations the "cancelling" signal
will *reinforce* the "noise" signal. 

Worse, these locations will be different for every component frequency of the
noise! 

It would be possible with real-time analysis and DSP to delay the various
components of the cancelling signal to compensate for this at one particular
listening position.  But you can't do it for all positions at once!  You might
be able to produce quiet for yourself, but in the process you'll be making the
noise twice as loud for someone else. 

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego CA
Internet:  jeh@cmkrnl.com, or hanrahan@eisner.decus.org  Uucp: uunet!cmkrnl!jeh
Newsgroups: rec.audio
From: cfortier@genghis.y (Chris Fortier)
Subject: Re: Thiele cs2.2 opinions wanted...
Organization: Borland International, Inc.
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 02:27:14 GMT



In article <1jtatuINNmds@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> co940@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Nicholas E. Damato) writes:

   Hello, my neigbor is buying new speakers, he has narrowed his choice
   down to three:
   1. paradigm studio monitor
   2. vandersteen 2ce
   3. thiele cs2.2

   he's got a great quote on the thiele's ($1950) and asked me
   to post hear for opinions (no pun intended...)
   he can't hear them until they arrive, and he has to order
   them first, meanwhile he's got the other two to think about
   so I'm gathering 'experience' for him.


I have listened to the Thiel CS2.2s and Vandersteen 2Ces.

I found the Thiels somewhat bright in the highs and a little out of control
on the lows. The mids seemed OK.

The Vandersteens, on the other hand are very accurate in the lows and mids.
The bass extension is therefore excellent.  The highs seemed a bit thin
(attributed as accurate by the salesman) but not too bad.  Imaging was decent.

The Vandersteens need banana plug connectors.  I don't remember which type the
Thiels needed.

The Thiels are $1950, the Vandersteens $1420(with necessary spiked stands).

It's hard to tell how speakers will sound until you get them home.  The
best advice is to listen to all three, and judge for yourself.

Chris
Newsgroups: rec.audio
From: gfl@herahera.cc.bellcore.com (lenahan,grant f)
Subject: Re: Digital critics - sampling argument is nonsense
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 18:31:34 GMT
Summary: No, No, NO!!!!!

(Cevin M Zellers ) writes:
> Grant,		
> 
> You claim it is 'all below' 22.05 KHz,

Tis not my claim, but a mere clarification of Shannon's work.

> but John Galloway has a good
> argument here: 
> 
> With a 22KHz cutoff frequency, the system would not differentiate 
> between a 20KHz sine wave and a 20KHz sawtooth

Exactly, because a 20 kHz saw-tooth has components above
20 kHz (eg: superaural) which are defined as "out of band".
Since they are above 20 kHz, most recording media don't
record them, and only a minute fraction of the (human)
population can hear them.  Most > 20kHz stuff is distortion,
BTW, and best truncated.

>, i.e. the sawtooth 
> would look like the sine-wave anfter the recording low-pass filter 
> input.

I think you may have inadvertantly made my point.
> 
> Can the ear differentiate between a 20KHz sine wave and a 20Khz sawtooth?

In a word, No.  Maybe a few canine-inspired out there, but that's it.

> If so, us Analog critics may have an achilles heel

I'm confused.  Are you a critic of analog?

I certainly hope they all have achilles tendons, anyway.  Tough to 
walk otherwise. :-) :-) 

> 
> A confused Cevin 

Look guys, read "Communications in the presence of noise",
IEEE 19??, Shannon.  It's neither new, nor high-tech, nor
controversial, nor magic.  And I'm a very open-eared high-
ender.  But I'm also an engineer, and I design audio circuits
to work.  Therefore I have to seperate the wheat from the
chaff.  This line of reasoning is chaff, and distracts
us from the wheat.


Doesn't it bother anyone that both a <insert favorite garbage
brand here> $89 CD player and a ML No. 30 ($13,995) both use
the same standard, yet acheive different results?  That performance
improves drastically every 18 months or so?  All based on this
"terrible" standard?

Now 16-bit linear encoding is kinda wasteful, admittedly.
More samples, or bigger ones, could have been scrunched into
the same data rate using perceptual coding methods like
those applied in MPEG.  But it isn't _bad_.  In fact I prefer
the Levinson No. 30 to a certain review mag gurus Versa 1.0.
Given convenience, durability, lack of set-up, and pending
improvements, that ain't bad, is it?

IMNSHO (In my not so humble opinion).

Grant
gfl@hera.cc.bellcore.com


sp: guy selling hafler - email me SVP

Newsgroups: rec.audio
From: zellers@22_clancy.manassas.ibm.com (Cevin M Zellers )
Subject: Re: Digital critics - sampling argument is nonsense
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 16:59:46 GMT
Organization: IBM T. J. Watson Research

Grant,		

You claim it is 'all below' 22.05 KHz, but John Galloway has a good
argument here: 

With a 22KHz cutoff frequency, the system would not differentiate 
between a 20KHz sine wave and a 20KHz sawtooth, i.e. the sawtooth 
would look like the sine-wave anfter the recording low-pass filter 
input.

Can the ear differentiate between a 20KHz sine wave and a 20Khz sawtooth?
If so, us Analog critics may have an achilles heel. Someone, please save
this argument :(

A confused Cevin
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: books needed about building speakers and amps.
From: %MikeW@canc.byu.edu (M.D. (Mike) Wieda)
Date: 21 Jan 93 08:57:59 -0700
Distribution: world
Organization: BYU

In article <14JAN199310565469@venus.tamu.edu> s0l3906@venus.tamu.edu (LIN, SHYH-HORNG) writes:
>Subject: books needed about building speakers and amps.
>From: s0l3906@venus.tamu.edu (LIN, SHYH-HORNG)
>Date: 14 Jan 1993 10:56 CST
>I am pretty interested in speakers and amplifiers. And
>I would like to know  more about the principles and details
>about how to build one by myself. It seems to me that few books
>talking about them. I would apprecriate anyone knowing any
>good books about it and give me a note.
>
I know of one good source/book on loudspeaker design: David Weems.  I don't 
know any of his specific titles but his books are very good.  They are 
written with the home builder in mind, not going into so much esoteric "Bose 
type" engineering.  He deals with speaker testing and correct cabinet design 
for your speaker, speaker cabinet materials and construction, power 
handling and other EE type stuff--really good author on the subject.

My dad and I built some BIG speakers a few years back: 7'*4'*3' (high, deep, 
wide) according to Mr. Weems' specs.  It turns out he's a relative of some 
sort so we got some great first-hand expierence on the project, but I 
think anyone can read his book and put together some mean hardware.

I don't know where to tell you to find his book.  Try some of the "higher-
end" bookstores.  If you don't have any luck, email me and I'll get his 
publisher's address for you.

Good luck.

Mike.
%MikeW@Canc.byu.edu