Should Sound Quality of Computer Audio be improved

PettyOfficer, you make a fair point above:

Why does everyone here complain more (numerically) than I do, if you already have what you want? Why aren't you happy? Why waste your time here?

Why, indeed?

My enjoyment of music certainly has little to do with yours, PettyOfficer, though as a friend I would love to see you have more of what you like.

The only reason I'm weighing in here is for the benefit of posterity, and for the hearts and minds of other posters. This is what I do, and it's not meant as a slight to you, or an incitement to you to change your ways. I just don't want future generations to look back at us arguing about formats and misunderstand any perspective.

So, to that end, I have two more points I'd like to bring up. You continually mention cassettes and solar flares, and I think a fuller understanding of the issue would bring clarity to the discussion.

1) Magnets have a measurable strength, as anyone who's ever tried to push two together with their polarity opposed will tell you. Some are more powerful than others. The strength of a magnet's "Magnetizing Field" is measured in Oersted (or Oe) units.

Any storage medium for magnetic information, including cassette tapes, reel-to-reel, and platter Hard Disc Drives (NOT Solid State Drives) also use magnets, and due to the unique principles of magnetism it will resist having its field altered or realigned, to a certain point. This property is called "coercivity", and it's what protects your data. In a very simple sense, a weaker magnet cannot influence a stronger one. One cassette tape cannot erase another, nor can a weaker magnet erase a hard drive.

The Earth itself has a magnetic field of 3-5 Oe. The magnetic field generated by a cassette tape is between 25-50 Oe. Modern hard drives, which write data in a perpendicular fashion, have an Oersted rating of 4000-5000 Oe.

By contrast, the magnetic read head of an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine in a hospital has a rating of about 60,000 Oe. Not to worry, though: a magnetic field degrades exponentially over distance. As long as your hard drive is more than 1 meter away from the MRI read head (i.e. not in the MRI machine itself) the field will not be strong enough to effect your drive.

I hope that puts to rest the question of whether "giant" magnets will erase your drive, and the comparisons between cassettes and Hard drives. Hard drives are literally upwards of 100 times more powerful than cassettes, and the strongest magnet most of us are likely to encounter in our lives won't erase them unless we're trying. Nothing to worry about.

2) Solar Flares. I'm not sure where this concern comes from, but it's not warranted. Solar Flares wreak all kinds of damage on our lives, degrading satellite orbits, ionizing our outer atmosphere, corrupting radio communications, and numerous other detrimental effects. One thing they don't do is effect the Earth's magnetic field. If they did, you would routinely have bits of metal around your house flying into the air.

The single most magnetically disastrous entity in the known Universe is a magnetar. This is a superdense neuron star, so dense that a thimblefull of magnetar would weigh upwards of 100 million tons. It's the strongest magnet in the universe by a country mile, and it will literally rip the water out of your body at 1000 km. It's magnetic field is hundreds of billions of times more powerful than the sun.

However, it couldn't even erase credit card strips until it's about half the distance from the moon away from Earth. By that point, the gamma radiation it emits will have destroyed our entire civilization.

None of the problems from solar flares are magnetic. They will never erase nor corrupt your hard drive.

Plenty of things can erase or corrupt the data on a hard drive, but magnetism and solar flares are not among them. You're far more likely to lose data to a power failure, read error, or any other of 100 things than you are to magnets, and you can easily protect against those things.

So be concerned about choice and about quality, but don't worry about magnets or solar flares. This data will outlive us all.

Mapman- I am not frustrated with the complexities of Computer Audio. Certainly confused with the Salesman line of "CONVENIENCE" based on that complexity. WOW! What a wake-up call THAT was! I say this because I still do use Computer Audio, and still want to continue using it- as I have stated before. Just don't want to be isolated in the marketplace of using it as my last, and only resort. This is what a single Audio Format would imply.
Chadeffect- I have no problem finding CD Music Selection Online. Always find it, although it may take many hours to look for a particular selection. The problem is that I always find the magic words next to it "No Longer Available", or "No Longer In Print". Not alot anyone can do about that. It is a case of an availability problem, and a case of knowing where to look- this includes Downloadable Music Files. These problems will continue to get worse as "Music Selection" remains splintered across a dozen sources. There is no longer a single place to look for your particular Music. It has become like playing the Lottery, chances are you will miss it. To really make this problem worse, many times over, would be to pull the Music Selection left available on Disk while same selection does not yet exist on Download (Soon To Be?). THAT IS WHAT'S SO WRECKLESS TO MUSIC SELECTION (Disk and Music File). Downloads not keeping up, and certainly unable to fill the vacuum of CD selection should it be completely yanked- as some have demanded. We are ten thousand CDs "Out Of Print" already on the way there. Because of that I have missing Music (CD and Download). Yank what is left of CD, Downloads will not be able to pick up the slack for quite sometime. I am pretty old, this is not my first Rodeo, I have certainly switched Audio Formats before. This is the first time it has ever been switched where selection for the New Format will remain "Soon To Be" for many years to come. Rediculous to suggest that all of the Music on my shelf should be the "ONLY" Music that I am likely to ever listen to. So much for exploring other Music that I have yet to listen to. No Longer In Print, and not available as Download (Perhaps for many years to come). Asking that somebody go a little easier on the "Reaping" of Music Selection from "Soon all New Music will only be available as Music Downloads". I want New Music, Old Music, ALL MUSIC, available for everyone. Never going to get there the way we are going. That tells me that there is really something wrong with the way we are doing it. It has never been this way before- struggling, and not finding our Music. Selection either existed in Old Format, or in New Format; but, NOT absent from either Format to such a degree simultaneously. What is so different this time? I don't think that it is being done correctly, and it is being done incorrectly too fast! Show some mercy! Have a little empathy for others losing their Music due to "The best layed plans of Mice and Men". Does anyone even care about Music being available for everyone, or is it just "Scr_w you, I got mine"? Pretending to being blind to the problem doesn't help. In fact it might even be permanently damaging to Computer Audio for quite sometime. We will certainly be permanently losing a large portion of our Music this way. THERE IS ANOTHER WAY!!! Computer Audio (Music) should be servicing us- this is how it is done.
Computer Audio Downloading is NOT providing New Music, Old Music, ALL MUSIC to everyone- and it won't in the near future (Certainly by itself). There is no use for any Audio Format that defeats its own purpose. People will tire of what is not available as Download, and BEEN GONE with CD. End Download Format, CD long gone, and we end up with NO FORMAT! Everyone happy? I guess that I will be the only one NOT! These concerns have "NOT" been addressed. Claiming so, doesn't make it so. More like "Sweeping it under a rug". Sorry to offend in yanking the rug back. Just a consequence of redoing the floor (Changing Formats). What were you expecting? This switch-over is a cluster-____, and a mess- compared to all other switch-overs. Need to clean-up the mess of missing Music Selection before using Download Format as only/ last resort. Accelerating forward now is not my idea of bravery, more like wreckless suicide. Clean-up the mess.
"It is the only way to make sure". CDs will certainly have to be around a long while before THIS mess is cleaned up.
As Mature Adults, we clean-up after ourselves- don't we? Are we just getting lazy, impatient, or both? Not exactly mature. Computer Audio Downloads as last/ only resort for Music. Sounds scary, doesn't it. Perhaps for good reason.
Mother Nature gave you those warning signs for a purpose, not to ignore danger! That is, unless you want to be a Deer
in headlights/ roadkill. Stop turning our Music Selection into roadkill. Computer Audio will eventually get there, but not until its Music Selection is robust/ worthy. That is the standard we have always held ALL New Formats. No New Format should ever get a free pass of someone going without their Music. Going hard on the Audio Format, so it goes easier on the Music Lover. Reversing that should be a crime! Experimenting as such is certainly a crime against Humanity, and Nature. This certainly puts consumers a few rungs down on the food chain. Why this self-destructive behavior with our Music, I will never know! Me, I'm going down those few rungs a clawing- and a fighting. Millions of years of Evolution put me on the Food Chain where I am at. I will be damned that someone is going to sell me out by a few rungs (For Convenience?)- fought too long, and hard to be where I am at. I'm clawing up- NOT DOWN!

"Mapman- I am not frustrated with the complexities of Computer Audio. Certainly confused with the Salesman line of "CONVENIENCE" based on that complexity. WOW! What a wake-up call THAT was! I say this because I still do use Computer Audio, and still want to continue using it- as I have stated before. Just don't want to be isolated in the marketplace of using it as my last, and only resort. This is what a single Audio Format would imply."

But your thread title was about the sound quality. Mine with computer audio is the best I have ever had. IT will only get better, but I am quite pleased with it these days.

We'll have to agree to disagree about the computer audio monopoly concerns. I do not see it at all. Biggest problem is that its harder than ever for companies to make money selling CDs. That's OK with me too for all the reasons already explained.

THat's about it for me.

Cheers! Go Ravens!

Tbeebout,

an excellent post. Full of clarity.

Strongly disagree- Theebout. Your description not so clear. You leave out several important facts. Coronal Mass ejections are created by the Suns Magnetic Field and super heated plasma. When it is ejected it carries its own magnetic field from the Sun. This envelopes the earths own magnetic field (Halfways between the Earth and Moon- are you kidding?). It has its own polarity and interacts with the Earths magnetic polarity. Same polarity as Earth (+ and +) it is relatively repelled. Opposite Polarity attract
(+ and -) with Earths magnetic field means a real bad day for us! You ignore Polarity, the Suns magnetic strength that goes into a Coronal Mass Ejection, and the proximity of this event to the Earth itself. These Ejections are created by the uneven rotation of the Sun. Part of the Sun rotates faster than other, which causes Suns magnetic lines of flux to twist. Super heated plasma follows these lines of flux. When these lines of flux twist so tightly that the ends of the loops actually cross, the loop is ejected from the Sun with tremendous speed and force. Sun goes through a 7 year period where magnetic lines are twisted ever so tightly before either snapping back into place, or ejected. What you are referring to is called a super dense Neutron Star (Not Neuron). Again, you don't need to "Erase" a Hard Drive to corrupt it. All that you would need to do is to fragment the files. They naturally fragment over time because magnetic flux bleeds, just like a magnet gets weaker over time with numerous usage. Just like the magnetic flux bleeds from one layer of a cassette to another layer on top, or below. Audible ghost Music can be heard from one track overlayed on top of another. The issue is that CDs have absolutely none of these problems, or are certainly NOT within question. Temporary is what temporary does as Music File on a Hard Drive- they weren't made to last. If they were meant to last they wouldn't be
T-E-M-P-O-R-A-R-Y, fragile, fragmenting, malware/spyware susceptible, magnetically redundant, disposable trash! Do you know how many Hard Drives are disposed of every year?
Flying shards of metal, what are you smoking? Now please explain just how small these magnetic particles really are on that Hard Drive. We are not talking metal shards, we are talking magnetic flux. Bang a magnet, and you can reverse its polarity. Polarity is kind of important, don't you think? It kind of determines an attractive, or repelling force. How can you talk about magnetic force, and completely leave out the all important thing- the direction or polarity of that force? Maybe a 180 degrees out of phase from "Full of Clarity"? That's more than just a little off! More like half truths, and inconvenient truth severely edited. No more half baked arguements please, it's getting really boring. Talk about Magnetism, and leave out Polarity? Go back to grade school where you can play with magnets again. Can you figure out why some magnets attract while others repell? I am sure that you can figure it out! I will bring a thirty pound magnet and set it next to your Hard Drive and a pile of CDs. We will leave it there for three days. My money will be on the CDs still working- sure bet! Now why would I instead risk that same money on a Virus ridden Hard Drive, and trash the CDs? Nope, I'm greedy- and not a gambler. I insist on having both Aces up my sleeve. That is about as clear as it gets. Let your fancy talk convince me to settle for just one Ace being better than two? I can add you know.
You just prey on the poor S.O.B's who can't- for shame!