Posts Tagged Audio

Feeling the crunch

4GB can last only so long. I’ve got 42MB left on my 4GB iPod Nano.

Well, earlier, the condition was much worse. I had fewer songs, and comparatively less space required. That’s because, well, I donwloaded my albums through uTorrent. And guys who put up albums on BitTorrent, generally seed them at full quality. So, that means really huge files. And if you don’t convert them to something like 128/192/256 kbps or have a hard-disk based player, you’ll have very little space left.

I prefer 192 kbps, because I think that’s the right balance between quality and size. 128 sounds a bit dull to me, and 256 is a bit too big. Or, you could try 160 kbps as well. Since I use iTunes, I use the inbuilt conversion module. For adjusting the quality, press Ctrl+, to open the Preferences window. Here, select the Advanced tab, and select the Importing sub-tab. Here, you can set your preferences for ripping CDs. But, the same options apply if you try convert a song to MP3, irrespective if it’s already a MP3 file. This is useful if you want to convert the bitrate to a lower one. Select MP3 Encoder in the second drop-down menu, and select the quality you want in the third drop-down menu.

Then, import the songs you want to convert into iTunes. Select the songs together, by keeping Ctrl pressed, and selecting each file, or if they’re together, in a list, pressing Shift and selecting the topmost and bottomost tracks. Right-click any of the selected songs, and click Convert Selection to MP3. Once the conversion process is complete, you can delete the originals.

Still, that doesn’t solve my problem, cause I’ve already done this. So, since I’m not willing to give up the lightness and thinness of the Nano 2nd Generation, I’m going to selectively put songs in the iPod. Connect the iPod, open iTunes, select the iPod under Devices in the list on the left. Here, among the check-boxes at the bottom, select Sync only checked songs, and begin unchecking the songs you’re not likely to be listening to.

Still, there’s this sense of satisfaction at having filled up my iPod. Burp. ;-)

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EAX

Without further ado, I realise that I must get back to posting on my blog… you know, get rid of the cobwebs and so on. Let me start off with something that many of use, but never actually notice. It’s sorta like under the hood stuff.

EAX stands for Environmental Audio Extensions (but some people like to call it Environmental Audio Effects). Now smart alecs will have figured out at least a general idea of what this is. If you haven’t, work on you IQ. EAX is used to deliver more lifelike sound, mainly in games and movies. Lifelike in the sense that the sound accurately represent what’s going on in your game/video. Lifelike means it should make the game immersive. Put you in it, got it?

EAX consists of 2 main components – the 3D positioning part and the reverbation component. 3D position works really well if you have surround speakers that surround you – like a 5.1 or a 6.1 speaker setup. For more on speaker setups, refer to my earlier post. EAX will do the normal ‘routing sound to the right speaker thingy‘ and also try to give sound from other speakers with accurate representation of reflection fo sound. As in the sound from other speakers will be softer, echoish and all.

The reverbation component is used to model the environment of the movie scene/game. For example, if you’re in a cave in a game, EAX will cause the sound to reverbate to sound like you’re in a cave. There are over 30 such environments included in EAX 2.0.

However, EAX is modelled using your sound card and not your processor. So you’ll need to have a compatible sound card to take full advantage of EAX support in your application. But that’s not exactly a big problem anymore. I got an Asus A8N-E motherboard, with an integrated Realtek sound chipset, which supported EAX. However, using the latest driver from nVidia (which provides the chipset for the A8N-E) caused EAX not to work. Heck, certain games like Halo couldn’t even usemy 4.1 system. Only front speaker! I switched to the original drivers from Realtek, and everything worked fine.

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Typhoon Maxima Series 4.1

Umm…anyone who’s been following my blog will know how I used to rant about my Typhoon 2.1 system. The equation’s kinda changed know. I went for Access 2007 and won a 4.1 speaker set for coming first in Audio ‘Editing‘/Scrambling (ref. Access 07 :-P ) When I saw that it was Typhoon, I was a bit skeptical about the quality. You see, the earlier set of 2.1 speakers I had from Typhoon required 2 equalisers to make them worth listening to, but even after all that, didn’t quite work out. So I was dreading a similar thing with these speakers.

Turns out…I was actually impressed.

These speakers literally made me eat my words about Typhoon. Almost.

Let me get to details. Step-by-step, from unpacking to performance.

Unpacking

Only some Styrofoam, to protect from some occasional banging towards transit. No big. But when while taking out the speakers, I noticed that one of the rear speakers was rattling when I shook it. By rattling, I mean rattling big time. I instantly knew that the magnet inside had come off. So, before my woofer, and 2 front speakers were out, I had already ripped apart one of the rear surround speakers (told ya I’m a tech nut!)

Apparently, this was the condition…

  • Viel not held in place properly to frame
  • Stand very loose and comes off easily
  • Speaker magnet not secured onto frame
  • 2 screws of magnet frame rattling around in frame
  • 2 screws attached to magnet frame, but with a broken part of speaker plastic attached
  • Wires soldered onto magnet broken

Basically, it was one very sorry satellite speaker.

I hooked up the 2 front speakers and the woofer anyway, to test the sound. The woofer came with a Bass control, which was a relief, because Typhoon woofers have been known to be notoriously underpowered. So I cranked the bass all the way up, and played a high bass track like Smack My Bi**h Up. Sounded amazing. Also the satellite speakers sounded decent. They weren’t flat like the old set I had.

Contentment finalement.

For a day or two, I had a 4.2 setup, using the old 2.1 speakers as rear speakers, connected to my sound card, and the new 2.1s as front speakers. I switched off the equaliser. The disadvantage of this was that my old woofer gave near to nil bass.

Stupid woofer.

So then is set down to repair my speakers.

The Culprit

 

I used one tube of FeviKwik and some insulation tape.

Step 1: Connecting the wires to the magnet. Used some insulation tape to keep it in place.

Step 2: Fevikwiking it in place

My Saviour

 

Waiting…

 

IT WORKS!!!

 

With that, 90% of my work was done, I tested it, It worked. Unfortunately, after putting it in the speaker’s plastic body, the wire came loose, and the satellite didn’t work. As a workaround, I had to use insulation tape to keep the wire from moving. Worked, and now I’m happy!

The Tech Nut now has a 6.2 system. Or rather…6.11/2  :-P

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2.0/2.1/4.1/5.1/6.1/7.1/8.1/whateva…

If you can’t understand the title, you’ve come to the right place! They are basically ways to represent what kind of speakers you have. Let me explain them in detail:

  • 2.0 setup – Only 2 speakers. Most people seem to have 2.0 speaker setups. No subwoofer, so you can’t expect great bass from this setup.
  • 2.1 setup – I had this earlier. It consists of 2 small (satellite) speakers and 1(big?) subwoofer. The subwoofer handles all bass. Bass means low frequencies like deep drums and so on. Actually it’s like punctuation. For checking what bass can be, listen to ‘Walking Away (Tocadisco’s Acid Walk Remix)’ by ‘The Egg’ or ‘Smack My B**ch Up’ by ‘The Prodigy (indeed…)’
  • 4.1 setup – 2 2.0 speakers with 1 subwoofer, with 1 set in front, and 1 behind.
  • 5.1 setup – 2 speakers in front, 2 speakers behind, 1 subwoofer and 1 centre speaker between the 2 front speakers. This is true surround sound (as well as all the following setups)
  • 6.1 setup – 2 front, 2 behind, 2 side speakers and 1 subwoofer.
  • 7.1 setup – 2 front, 1 centre, 2 side, 2 behind, 1 subwoofer

And you can keep adding speakers and make more and more configurations.

Now, surround sound isn’t just about the speakers, it’s also about what the speakers make you hear. What I mean is that if all the speakers just give the same sound (consider a movie), there isn’t exactly much of an advantage. Thing is that most DVDs come with 5.1 sound. Meaning that there are 6 channels of sound, for each of the speakers. So a person speaking from behind the camera, will actually come from the rear speakers. You get it… Also in games, this feature is extensively used. I mean that as you move your character/car/whateva… around, the speakers should also reflect that change. Sound bouncing off walls, and all that.

The thing is that all this available in 5.1 setups and above. The problem with 4.1 speakers is that most of them aren’t ‘true’ 4.1 setups. The take only one input, and send the same thing to the rear speakers, with a bit of delay, or maybe even without that! Only ‘true’ 4.1 speakers take 2 inputs for front and rear speakers.

Also, your sound card is of utmost importance. If you bought a home PC from a manufacturer (like Dell, HP etc.), they probably won’t have great sound cards, and will give only one output, for 2.0, 2.1 or ‘fake’ 4.1 systems. On the other hand, if you buy an assemble PC, chances are that your integrated audio will support 5.1 or 6.1 audio, in the least. Nevertheless, it is nice to get a dedicated audio card, but it can get expensive.

Anyway, rock ON!!!

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Music Unlimited

I’m serious. It’s called online radio. And it’s simply amazing. The number of stations you can find is truly scary! To listen to radio, you can either open your internet browser and navigate to the many music stations, or if you have Windows Media Player, Winamp or iTunes, you have radio inbuilt. You can find lots of stations divided into different categories, depending on genre.

OK, so if you’re on dial-up, you’re going to have some trouble trying to listen to some music. But, even such people are considered. You will find a few <56kbps connections, which will suffice. For everyone else, you’ll find 128-256kbps stations, which will sound exactly like your MP3s. You get to discover lots of new music this way. Artists you haven’t heard of, and so on.

There is a downside. If you’re on a slightly limited connection, you will have trouble browsing at the same time as listening, but if you’re just lounging around, or doing some off line stuff, you can enjoy yourself.

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