VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Frank F

A new move from our friends at Apple has me scratching my head and wondering why? See: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/06/05/apple-to-abandon-headphone-jack-suddenly-beats-deal-makes-sense/?partner=yahootix

If the company chooses to remove the old analog headphones and go toward Lightning connections in all of it's products... I won't be changing or upgrading soon.

This is my personal opinion, but I like the sound of analog better than I like the sound of 1's and 0's.

Counter opinions are not welcome, but will be tolerated.

F2
_________________
Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

Mandy Nelson · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 9:34 pm Post subject:

Oh NOES. Thanks for the share. My head hurts and anticipated the wallet pain.
_________________
006 member of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Mic. Bonded by sound.

Manfillappsoc: The Mandy and Philip mutual appreciation Society. Who's in your network?

Have you seen my mic closet? ~ me to my future husband

chrisvoco · Club 300 Joined: 14 Mar 2014 Posts: 380 Location: Local

I suppose you can argue dropping the jack from future models makes the case sleeker. I've never understood the demand for that (I like my electronics ugly, like me) but I suppose that's what makes Apple Apple.

What is funny is the "lossless" business: using a decent set of headphones, plugged into a decent headphone amp, pumping out a signal from a decent source with material recorded and mastered as decently as possible, I'd say your analog headphone listening is as "lossless" as possible.

If the output signal from this thing is digital, that means you must have both a DAC and an amp that's external. So, converter and amp are in the headphones or the cable somewhere? Sounds pretty damned clunky and means extra points of failure.

Maybe I'm missing the point? Is the iPhone soooo noisy rf-wise that you gotta have the DAC and amp physically away from it for best result?

Then again, on the gripping hand, maybe getting rid of jack, amp and converter means more internal room for... well, whatever the hell else you can jam into a telephone.
_________________
Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

Travis · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 2:45 am Post subject:

This is one of the first things Apple has done that I agree with. Primarily, due to my years of experience with the mini-plug. Whenever I have some sort of audio problem, if the system has a 3.5mm interface somewhere, that's where the problem has been.

The hole necessary to accept the mini-plug is also a place where water and dirt can enter, and, if the width of phones gets reduced any further, there won't be room for the plug.

We also have the option of connecting via Bluetooth or WIFI. In my opinion, a great leap forward.
_________________
Travis
www.VOTalent.com

Bish · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 6:06 am Post subject:

This is journalistic trolling at its worst.

Apple cannot do anything without the cool-kid journalists and bloggers analyzing it seventeen ways to Sunday. Even Forbes commented that they had to add the question mark to their contributor's headline as it was "informed speculation".

Are these the same journalistic values that made certain sections of the Apple-watching tech press get their panties in a wad because the photos of Tim Cook and Dr. Dre contained a number of "long-sleeves"? ... obviously because they were wearing the new "iWatch" that was going to be released at WWDC on Monday!

Journalism has turned into simple link-baiting now. Eyeballs on the web mean revenue... it's the modern version of "if it bleeds, it leads."

Grump Angry

_________________
Bish a.k.a. Bish
Smoke me a kipper... I'll be back for breakfast.
I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls.

chrisvoco · Club 300 Joined: 14 Mar 2014 Posts: 380 Location: Local

So, there's no real technical thingy to discuss here? Bummer!
_________________
Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

Bruce · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:05 am Post subject:

I was all grumpy when I bought my latest Mac Mini because it didn't have a CD/DVD player/recorder. How stupid. How dare they!

Turns out in the 18 months I've had it that I've needed it only a couple of times and I had a stand alone player I was able to plug in, and Sam burned a couple of CDs for me.

Soon we won't even need a monitor. They'll just bluetooth it into our brains.

B
_________________
VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

chrisvoco · Club 300 Joined: 14 Mar 2014 Posts: 380 Location: Local

Great. Then you'd need a DAC in your head.
_________________
Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

todd ellis · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:22 am Post subject:

chrisvoco · Club 300 Joined: 14 Mar 2014 Posts: 380 Location: Local

Eh, real men would build a phone with XLR connectors sticking out and a big trunk cable directly to the plant.

I still like my old-fashioned computing hardware. I like a real keyboard. I like spinning platters. I like the console, I like the compiler, I like the debugger, I like virtualization, I like having a ridiculous number of cores.

But I also liked Amiga OS, and smile when you crazy kids get excited over a Mac. Smile

I'm not old - I'm just... derelict.

Lee Gordon · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 9:34 am Post subject:

What Todd said (minus the Hackintosh bit; I'm not interested in that). The only iThing I own is an iPod Nano and I neither love nor hate it, although I don't particularly like iTunes. Apparently, there are a lot of Apple fans who don't like it any better than I do.
_________________
Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

chrisvoco · Club 300 Joined: 14 Mar 2014 Posts: 380 Location: Local

What don't you like about iTunes? I've never actually used it - so it's an innocent question - beyond helping my wife with it once every now and then when something goes awry with her machine, so I have no opinion.

And no, Mr. Gordon, I'm not following you around replying to all your posts - you just happen to be posting while I'm reading. Smile

_________________
Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

georgethetech · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 10:03 am Post subject:

Apple knows it's about building an ever more powerful ecosystem, taller and taller garden walls with gates carefully dispersed here and there. However, they did add 4000 some odd API's to iOS, so that's a LOT of new gates in the wall.

There are already audiophiles plugging external DAC's into iPhones. Surprises me there isn't a lightning connected headphone with internal DAC/Amp already, but it ain't easy getting Apple to approve the use of their lightning port, so this speculation is plausible (at least the part about Beats cans with the lightning port, not the loss of the 1/8" jack).

In my world it's Android phone, Mac OS, Google mail, calendar, docs, Spotify for Music and Dropbox/Box for sync/share. If Apple does this right, it could be the first time I go for an iPhone, but my Galaxy S3 has been working great lately so no real motivation to buy anything new.
_________________
If it sounds good, it is good.
George Whittam
GeorgeThe.Tech
424-226-8528
VOBS.TV Co-host
TheProAudioSuite.com Co-host
TriBooth.com Co-founder

chrisvoco · Club 300 Joined: 14 Mar 2014 Posts: 380 Location: Local

Dumb question from me, Mr. Whittam: does the iPhone already provide an actual digital signal - spdif or similar - out its existing data connector, or do you mean folks simply use it as a storage device and read the media in the traditional way?
_________________
Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.