True, but you do need to properly calculate the gauge of the wire into the equation.
Cat 5 as an example, is 8 strands of 24 gauge wire.
Resistance per strand at 10ft: 0.25670 Ohms. 0.25670 / 24 (3 pieces of cat-5) =
Computer cable, OTOH, is junk. It takes an absolutely insane number of the strands to equal a simple wire. They do make flat wire for the purpose of going under carpets and it works far better.
Nice. I got a real laugh out of that one. As I stated, it's a combination of cheap parts being so readily available *and* cost cutting idiots who don't understand why sometimes you really do need to spend the extra 20 cents on a component.
If I was hiring an engineer, I'd be more interested that they know how to solder than what their GPA was.
Heh. There are proper isolators, but they aren't cheap, either. Most people, even audio "experts" have no clue where to buy them as they are basically big ugly bricks that are designed for hospital use and similar industrial applications. Usually you have to go to a major electronics or electrical supplier to even find them. Of course, you should wire any system up correctly. But *sometimes* you have issues with your condo or apartment that you can't get around since you don't have the ability to fix the wiring/don't technically own the structure. Thankfully, everything in audio reproduction and electrical power has a solution. It just requires differing amounts of money. Of course, I won't get into how many McHomes (tract developments) are designed with wrong wiring and grounding...
(my dad was an electrician, so the stories I'd hear... )
Oh, and don't be a dimwit and fail to put a surge protector on the system. You spent likely 3K+ on the amp, TV, and other bits and pieces. Unfortunately (for the few people still reading this - heh), the junk at Radio Shack isn't really adequate. I'd consider Tripplite to be about a minimum acceptable standard. Most people can afford $60-$120 for one of these and they do work as a proper surge protector. (just like how if you need a switch or hub, especially to use as a repeater on a long run, buy a Unicom and don't screw around with consumer grade junk)
A subwoofer should be heavier built than a typical speaker, naturally,(most use dual coils working together) as it's job is to only produce sound from about 30hz to about 60hz. Assuming you have a decent setup - you your surrounds only go down to 120hz, well, you're in trouble as that's plainly directional in any moderate sized room. IME, most (but not all) small subs lack the punch necessary for home theater. I recommended Sunfire as they make fairly affordable small subs and are a good compromise for the first time audio system DIYer. B&W also makes a nice subs, though they are considerably more expensive.
The doubling of taxes includes projected future interest and the massive amounts of tax-dodging by corporations through outright lying, money laundering, creative financing, or loopholes. Doubling taxes would generate about 3.5 trillion actually collected.(payroll tax won't go up much if we double corporate and income taxes, and may actually go down a bit due to lost jobs)
I included government pensions as that's also of the same type of spending problem, is listed on that site, and also is pretty much set in stone.
That's the real issue, though. That we have four untouchable programs in the U.S. that alone are enough to cripple us. Also, we do agree that the military should be closer to 50 billion a year. That's plenty for research and to defend ourselves. Nobody is going to actually invade us, after all.
That we are spending at least 600 billion a year on our two wars and other idiocy, and that also isn't helping. The combination of it all just its too much. Something has to change, but absolutely nobody in Congress wants to change it. So the only choices are either for the states to take back their own destiny or a total collapse.
Cost cutting yes, op amps not necessarily. With a correctly chosen op amp in a correctly designed circuit, sound as good as or better than discrete designs is possible. Unfortunately, too many designers assume that a TL071 or an NE5534 in a garden variety topology is sufficient. It isn't.
*****
Oh, man, don't get me started. I know a guitar technician/luthier who is constantly replacing these cheap pieces of junk in people's rather expensive guitars. Usually because the doofus put the battery in backwards and the designers didn't see fit to include a diode/protection circuit to keep the current from frying the thing. Or they left it on for a few days or ran it to hard and it simply overheated.
We could double taxes at this point and still be in the red.
And, yes, I left out the military to make a point as these four are retirement and support services-related, and of course interest on the debt, which isn't going away. We have four single items out of thousands that are enough to cripple us. If we count the military, we'd have to raise taxes by almost 30% to just cover those five items. And none of that includes welfare or unemployment programs and the like. If we dropped the entire defense budget to $0, it still would not be enough If we paid $0 for any government aid or farm subsidies or welfare programs, it still wouldn't make a dent in the problem.
We're broke and nobody wants to address the three big items that are causing us to bleed out. It's like complaining about a paper cut when you have a 3 inch hole in your leg that's caused by a flesh-eating virus. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and still everyone just comes up with idiocy that amounts to little band-aids and minor changes. Everything you listed sounds nice, but it's simply impossible to make any of it work at this point. We have to amputate at this point to save the patient's life.
Or when we go bankrupt and it all comes crashing down, it will be gotten rid of anyways. Just, the chances that our republic survives intact are mighty slim if it actually gets to that point. I personally would rather live without medicare, social security, or pensions rather than have to go through what Argentina did.
It really doesn't matter. I used to discuss this over a decade ago on Usenet and nothing has changed aside from the smoke an mirrors getting a bit more pretty looking. But I am glad to impart some basic information if it will help someone decide upon a good home audio system.
In case anyone else is reading this, basic guidelines for an amplifier today are:
1 - at least 20lbs weight.
2 - Able to drive 6 ohm speakers. The speakers optimally will be front-ported or sealed. (bouncing the bass off of the corner behind the speaker and back at you is very inefficient). The speakers should have no smaller than 6 inch woofers( 5 if it's a very good or special design). 8 for the mains is nice as it makes a sub somewhat optional. This is exactly like car audio in that 4 inchers generally sound like crap.
3 - your speakers for your surround system should cost the same as the rest of the system, at a minimum. This does not include the subwoofer. Typical pricing for good speakers is about $100-$300 per speaker. Cheaper than that and quality suffers greatly. You don't need to spend more than that, though, to get good sound. Stay away from Best Buy and big box type retailers unless you know what you are doing. B&W, Tannoy, and Paradigm are good examples of moderately priced speakers that perform very well. Even their lowest-cost lines will more than suffice for most people's needs and completely crush any "home theater" set for sale at a major retailer/outlet.
4 - the sub should be a proper dual-coil design and be at least 10 inches in diameter. It should, of course, have its own amplifier so as to not overwork the main unit. Be sure to plug it into the same circuit as the amp or use an isolator to keep ground-loop hum out of the equation. I personally like Sunfire, though YMMV.
And that's exactly the problem. The bass drivers are relegated to one bass driver stuffed into a cheap box, but the frequencies that it operates at are still directional in most rooms. A real subwoofer is a totally different animal and acts as solely bottom-end reinforcement for things like deep bass, organ music, so on.
A proper sound system should have a 6-8 inch woofer in it, and some surround systems do.
This is perhaps the biggest load of B.S. foisted on consumers in the last 50 years. That cables make a difference.
Fact: All copper comes from the same foundries and is smelted and refined to 99.99% pure ingots that are shipped out to all industries. Copper is copper. Some 99.999% copper is made, but it's really designed for specialized electrical work, and plating and so on.
Fact: While you can measure differences on a computer, the effects at audio frequencies are non-existent. So while fancy cables might make a difference for a microphone or a video feed, for audio, it's no different than feeding cheap apples or expensive ones to a horse when it comes to audio. It simply doesn't care, so save your money.
Fact: While some exotic cables can make a difference at extremely long lengths and stupidly high loads, humans cannot hear the difference as it's typically less than 0.2db different.(microscopic difference in signal loss, but not quality) This is easily solved, though, by going up to a larger gauge wire. Any plain vanilla 14 gauge electrical wire will beat the fanciest 16 gauge wire hands-down. Poofy insulation or plastic means nothing. All that matters is the mass and that the connectors at the ends are properly made.
How to make perfect boutique cabling for pennies a foot:
1: Get a 100ft roll of 12 gauge stranded electrical wire ($13, same as they use to wire houses). Paint one a different color at the end and use two lengths of the same wire together.. Note - $40-$50 for a 500ft roll is common at Home Depot and similar.
2: Get a 100ft roll of heat-shrink tubing.($10) Preferably close to or similar to the wires in color.
3: Slide the tubing over the wires.
4:Place the wires in a vise and the other end in a drill motor. Slowly wind the wires together until they have about one turn every 4-6 inches. This helps with EM noise if you run it near lights or electrical wires. It helps to get a friend to hold everything for you as you'll be way out of your garage and on the driveway, most likely.
5: Heat up the tubing to lock the wires in place. Do the ends first, of course. Hold the wires under tension to keep the windings in place.
6: Put on ends with a proper crimping tool. 50 cents each each X4. Optional in some cases, depending upon the terminal configuration.
$25 total for 50 ft of professional grade speaker wire.
note: A 500ft roll of heat shrink tubing is ~$40. Total cost for 500ft of speaker wire is ~100-120 depending upon the number of terminals and speakers you need to wire up.. At ~20 cents a foot, that's cheaper than Radio Shack.
You can also get 100ft rolls of 12 gauge wire from most any auto sound shop for about $20. The cheap clear insulation isn't as robust as the electrical wire and heat shrink tubing combo, though. This homemade wire is good for under-house, use in conduits, and exterior use as well. You also can't hide the clear stuff as easily as you can with a color-matched to your decor setup if you DIY. (the tubing and wires come in about a dozen colors)
Impedance is highly variable for most speakers and while the average impedance is listed at 4phms, it will often dip down to 2 or 3 ohms near the lower end.
There is no substitute for mass. (this is a favorite saying of mine)
Q: Why does your Dad's stereo sound better?
A: Op-Aps and cost-cutting.
You can't tow a boat with a Prius, and you can't expect a bunch of ICs and cheap 50 cent components to properly amplify anything for any reasonable amount of time or at a decent volume. If your amplifier doesn't weigh on the order of your dad's old one, you're not going to get the same sound out of it. Everything about amplification and electronic theory was known and done as of about thirty years ago. There is no magic. Only trickery and marketing.
The biggest lie of them all is wattage. 95%+ of the time, they state wattage as maximum through one speaker. So that 200W 7 channel amplifier is actually only putting out about 29W to each speaker, maximum. But distortion and heat will limit you to about half of that continuously, or about 15W per channel. Given that typical speakers are about 87-89db efficient, that means that you net a pathetic 90db or so that's actually usable. While this is still quite loud, it's far below what you really need for good home theater. Most people try to compensate for this by turning up the volume, but all that really does is bombard them with more and more high frequency sound since the bass long ago disappeared. This, naturally, leads to listening fatigue and hearing damage. The older amplifiers were rated as typically 100W per channel or more, and could deliver about 80% of their maximum rated volume without any problems. They did not get weak under heavy loads or strong bass, either.
This also applies to the most critical aspect of the system, the speakers. You simply cannot convey a full sound through miserable little 5 or 6 inch speakers. And a single subwoofer is a poor way to fill in for a weak mid-range and missing low-end. You don't play your guitar or bass through a 6 inch cabinet, but somehow people forgot to use common sense. So often you have a decent amplifier hooked up to junk speakers. You "father's system", I bet, has 8 or even 12 inch woofers in the main speakers, as this was common back in the 70s and 80s. In order to produce a convincing sound, you need to move air and create enough sound pressure. Or else it sounds like your neighbor's stereo does from down the street - tinny and distant.
But all of this is truly ancient news. People were discussing this twenty years ago or more online.
Wow. You are so off-base with reality.
Social Security has long ago been reduced to a line on paper. Our Government currently cooks the books and manipulates the fund to make it appear as if it's not broke. Also, Social Security was never envisioned by our Founding Fathers, and knowing their disdain for Rome and its history of corruption, I doubt if they would have ever have voted for it. (the fall of Rome can be attributed to the same pattern of social and military over-spending and lack of leadership)
The largest single deduction on my paycheck is for Social Security. What really happens is "You can buy into another retirement plan with that's left after The Government takes its pound of flesh" (and then wastes it, naturally)
The issue isn't any of that stuff that you posted. It's that Goverment Pensions, Social Security, Medicare, and Interest on the Debt account for almost 100% of our current budget. That leaves only 25 billion (less than 1.5%!) for our entire defense department, military, and, well, literally thousands and thousands of programs and agencies. Until we get rid of these four items, we're broke. We could cut the military to $0. Kill off every single social spending program. Get rid of student aid. Stop patrolling our borders. Stop foreign aid. Close down NASA. None of it would make any more difference than spitting on a bonfire. Those four items alone are literally killing our nation, and until we get rid of them entirely, we are doomed.
Now do the "slashdot geek" thing and head over to www.debtclock.org and add up the numbers yourself. Everyone should have that site bookmarked, since it's not only useful by itself, but it also helps with arguments and getting your statistics correct when you post here.
And so it comes full circle.
People originally wanted to escape the corruption, massive taxes, distant and uncaring government, and miles of paperwork and red tape that existed in Europe. We have become that which we fought so hard against.
Except that there is no place to escape to any more. I'm not trying to be fatalistic, so much as if there was a solution that easy, half of the people in the World would be trying to take advantage of it as well. So we have to start cleaning it up. And grabbing back power from the Federal Governemt and giving it back to the states is the only rational course.
Either that, or we have states simply leave and create their own nations in a few decades. Texas keeps talking about how they made a mistake in joining the U.S. And, while it used to be mostly crackpots talking about it, it's suddenly maybe not such a bad idea at this point. You actually hear normal people talking about it now. It's kind of scary that it's gotten that bad.
Well, the good part about this is that they don't have any kids any more. Let's hope they went to responsible people instead.
It's more of a FPS like GTA. I have a whole other theory on why this is happening which has to do with the fact that all games are now being dumbed-down for consoles that are using rapidly aging hardware and processors. To be honest, Borderlands if it had been developed only of the PC would look and feel better and have a dozen times more depth. I noticed this with Infamous as well. Good story, but honestly, it had almost zero replay value. I know the company tried, but it's somehow just more FPS fodder. Very nice graphics, though. Well, for a console.
Contrary to what Hollywood will have you believe, almost everyone who wakes up from a long-term coma (on the rare instances when they do) has significant brain damage as a result. It's not really that different than altering a mechanical brain would be. Or a really huge blow to the head could do that same thing, of course.
"12" might not be "12". To assume that the human brain is any more or less robust than an artificial one is kind of silly. If anything, the mechanical one would likely be easier to protect from external forces.
I program, therefore I am.
