From: jj@alice.att.com (jj, curmudgeon and all-around nasty skeptic)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: Comments on analog music
Date: 25 Jan 93 19:17:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: alice.24697
Reply-To: jj@alice.UUCP (jj, curmudgeon and all-around nasty skeptic)
Distribution: world
Organization: NJ State Home for Bewildered Terminals

In article <1k10heINNju6@transfer.stratus.com> rsud@sw.stratus.com (Rajiv Sud) writes:
>	In a prior post you also pontificate on how my liking
>analogue was a preference. Right on again. IT IS a preference and
>one based on not a single idy bity fact! (two for two! high fives
>for jj all around)
Well, you're wrong again.  It is clearly a fact unless you're lying to us
that you prefer a given kind of sound reproduction. Ergo, you're
wrong on your first point.  Can't you even get what YOU think
right?

>	But you know what, I also can't give you a single fact or
>equation as to why I prefer to eat at a gourmet resturant instead
>of pulling into a mcdonalds.
Of course, you also can't show that most people prefer your
chosen forms of distortion over other forms.  This shows that
your attempted analogy is hopelessly incorrect.  Of course,
I could also find a certain 2.8 year old who likes McDonalds (tm)
better, but what does that show?  Only that one canNOT argue preference.

>	Can't offer any facts or equations as to why I would prefer
>a good european larger over a six pack of bud.
Sure I can. I can offer both equations and facts. So could
any home-brewer. Again, some of those facts would be related
to you, i.e. what did you grow up with, what sort of style do
you like, and so on. Once one knows that, one can easily
duplicate your beer preference.  Sorry, fella, but you stepped
into a hole with that one.

>	Can't offer any of your coveted facts for why one might
>prefer to read an acknowledged literary work over a harlequin(sp?)
>romance.
Or why the teenager who sits for my kids prefers harlequins
to 'War and Peace', either.  Preferece. Now, since I used kids
as an example, I suppose you'll think "maturity means you
like LP's".  Too bad, I'm one counterexample, and I can find
a few more here and there...

>And if you suggest that everything that
>needs to be measured has been, well, thats crock from an "engineer".
Of course, I've not suggested that at all, and you well know it,
so your suggesting that is simply dishonest.  I think you show here
that you are incapable of answering the criticisms of your 
"factual" statements, and have thus resorted to ad-hominem
attacks and misleanding rhetoric.  

>Ascending to better turntable
>designs (ones with measured reduced distortions) resulting in better
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^    Oh?
>sound would seem to put a bit of a hole in your "analogue is liked
>because its distorted" theory.
Perhaps you indeed ought to test this assertion before you
make it.  Perhaps you also ought to test the interactions of
pressing and cutting machinery, too, in order to find out
what limits your precious LP.


>	In digital much of the distortion is in the signal itself.
What is that supposed to mean? Perhaps you're saying that most
of the audio signal is distortion?  That would, of course, mean,
that the concert sounds worse than anything else.  This fails
on the face of it.  What can you mean here?  By definition,
distortion is lossy, and cannot be separated from the signal.
Digital and analog distortions alike have this property.

>	The nature of turntable and digitial distortions and their
>sonic effects makes them literally apples and oranges. Share with
>us what FACTS you have used to equate the two and pronounce digital
>distortions as less.
Your point is entirely correct.  I pronounce digital distortions
less strictly on the basis of measured numbers.  Now, I also
have said many times that measurements are often pointless,
except in the way that they allow us to repeat or efforts,
and understand what's going on.

>	Bottom line may be that you, indeed, have reached the limits
>of your hearing.
And we get to the bottom of it.  Sud, like Strain has been prone
to say at some times, now announces that "anyone who doesn't
prefer the same thing isn't as good as me".  That's right
up there with "anyone who doesn't look the same as me",
"talk the same as me", and all those other *ist paradigms
that soceity is finally rejecting.

>My experience reveals that this is more often due
>to a closed mind and "good enough for me" mentality then by genetics.
That's nothing but another unjustified personal attack on those
who disagree with your preference.  You got half of this
right when you pointed out that all was preference.  Now, get the
other half right, Sud, I HAVE A DIFFERENT SET OF PREFERENCES,
due to my particular (extensive, long-term) training.  When listening,
I prefer something other than what you prefer.  That's simple preference,
and you can no my deny mine than I deny yours.

What one CAN deny is the nonsense of "lp has more information"
or "digital throws away the music" and so on.  Either is easily
determined by a simple operational check and some trivial mathmatics.
That is when you draw the wrath of others, when you make unsupported
and unsupportable technical claims.

>This would actually work out to be a
>good gauge of your hearing limitations.
You have now asserted that my hearing must be limited because of my
different preferences.  Please retract your claim of fact here, and
forthwith.  Your claim is no different than the claim of a
religious person that someone who subscribes to a different religion
is somehow "limited" by that.  It's called bigotry.

Please leave us if you cannot limit your bigotry and claims
to godhood. (You claim to be omniscient when you claim that your
preference shows the limits of those who don't agree with you.
Such stuff (omniscience) is most often limited to deific
sorts.  Sorry, you claimed it, not me.)
-- 
Copyright alice!jj 1993, all rights reserved, except transmission by USENET and like facilities granted. Said permission is granted only for complete copies that include this notice. Use on pay-for-read services specifically disallowed.
---------
Member HASA - Athiest Scum Division
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" - AuH2O for President
From: kirk@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Kirk Lindstrom)
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:20:39 GMT
Subject: Re: Strange problem with Sony Receiver/JBL speakers
Organization: Shredding the water of SF Bay, HP-OCD