Friday, January 28, 2005
Repetitive Stress Injury
Has anyone else experienced the extreme discomfort of using an xbox controller for extended periods of time? And im not talking about a 5 minute bash, more like 5 hours++. Both my thumbs look like they have been tenderised by a meat mallet ad nausiem. I was totally engrossed in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 (awesome awesome game) and now Im walking around with two thumbs up in the air. Two thumbs up for excellent holiday fun, not.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Car Shitnat Part II
Having just read steveos post (*applause*) I thought Id throw my cowboy hat into the ring. As I currently own the crown of most money poured into a hunk of metal on wheels I thought Id share my in car experiences :)
I went down a different route to steveo and poured (literally) money into a big ass incar stereo. But not just any stereo. Having done some research I settled on a nice little piece of Alpine Kit - with native support for WMA and MP3 Discs. Cool! No more burning CDs to native format. Even supports the winamp wanky scrolling titles (ID3 tags - or inbuilt media info for WMA). Now this is pretty cool!.
But alas there is a problem. I also dumped about 3,000 buckaroos on Bosotn Accoustics Speakers (8 of them!), a couple of hipo Rockford Fosgate Amps (to drive both speakers and subs) and two big pumpin RockFord 12" Subs as well as expensive huge ass guage speaker wire through the entire car.
Problem is - MP3/WMA music - regardless of bitrate cannot match a standard CD for sound quality. To quantify this with some more empirical evidence - my surround sound DTS home theatre at home has the same problem (and thats with a digital/optical out straight to the Digital Reciever!)
Hmmm, so the quality of MP3/WMA sound is inversely proportional to the quality of the speakers/stereo you play it on! BINGO!! Solution? Audio CDs rule the roost. Its a sad fact that in this digital age that an MP3/WMA format cannot match a simple cda quality.
Oh well, if I have to burn shit to cda then I guess I have to :) Ill tell you what, nothing sounds as awesome as cranking a CD on a really good quality system!
Having said that there is rumours that Apple will release in car entertainment systems built on the Ipod. Systems (like mine) can already control ipod functions through the headunit thanks to the Alpine AINet bus which allows communication with other devices such as mobile phones as well (read: you can send/receive SMS on a nokia through AINet). Lets hope that something is done to improve the sound of MP3 based recordings.
End of Rant.
I went down a different route to steveo and poured (literally) money into a big ass incar stereo. But not just any stereo. Having done some research I settled on a nice little piece of Alpine Kit - with native support for WMA and MP3 Discs. Cool! No more burning CDs to native format. Even supports the winamp wanky scrolling titles (ID3 tags - or inbuilt media info for WMA). Now this is pretty cool!.
But alas there is a problem. I also dumped about 3,000 buckaroos on Bosotn Accoustics Speakers (8 of them!), a couple of hipo Rockford Fosgate Amps (to drive both speakers and subs) and two big pumpin RockFord 12" Subs as well as expensive huge ass guage speaker wire through the entire car.
Problem is - MP3/WMA music - regardless of bitrate cannot match a standard CD for sound quality. To quantify this with some more empirical evidence - my surround sound DTS home theatre at home has the same problem (and thats with a digital/optical out straight to the Digital Reciever!)
Hmmm, so the quality of MP3/WMA sound is inversely proportional to the quality of the speakers/stereo you play it on! BINGO!! Solution? Audio CDs rule the roost. Its a sad fact that in this digital age that an MP3/WMA format cannot match a simple cda quality.
Oh well, if I have to burn shit to cda then I guess I have to :) Ill tell you what, nothing sounds as awesome as cranking a CD on a really good quality system!
Having said that there is rumours that Apple will release in car entertainment systems built on the Ipod. Systems (like mine) can already control ipod functions through the headunit thanks to the Alpine AINet bus which allows communication with other devices such as mobile phones as well (read: you can send/receive SMS on a nokia through AINet). Lets hope that something is done to improve the sound of MP3 based recordings.
End of Rant.
Hand Carved Magazine | Articles: Smurfing Socialists
Smurfing Socialists Im sure has done the rounds quite a bit, but damn Im bored and any opportunity to read about smurfs sounded like fun. I am, after all a Smurf (What? You didnt know?)
Hand Carved Magazine | Articles: Smurfing Socialists
Hand Carved Magazine | Articles: Smurfing Socialists
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