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with my ae ego's
Here's a question we last asked about a year ago: With the proliferation of high-resolution sound cards and other computer audio peripherals over the last couple of years, have you begun using your computer to play music?
Dorm rooms revolve around computers, and it isn't easy to keep up a CD collection when your 200 favorite CDs are a mouse click away. Perhaps I'm the scapegoat the record companies are looking for in this whole encryption affair.
I already have two full blown systems (two channel and home theater). Music sounds pretty pathetic on my computer (either my lap-top or desktop system at home). Not really interested in spending a lot of money on upgraded audio stuff for the computer when the final result is still going to be mediocre.
I do most of my studio/demo editing using some form of software and pro soundcard connected to my "real" hi-fi system. I think there is a great potential for integrating computers and hi end audio! Just look at the soundcards that Stereophile has reviewed! The integration of technology boggles the imagination! I, for one, support Stereophile's views on using computers in audio, after all, what are the Sonic Solutions workstations (and SADIE) other than task determined computers! You don't hear any audiophiles bitching about those discs that Stereophile has done with those systems because they aren't "real" audio tools!
Only for distant FM streaming audio, or once in a while I'll pop in a CD for background music. BTW, I find MP3 to sound better than Windows Media or RealAudio. I haven't been able to get QuickTime to work for me. (wcpe.org webcasts classical music 24 hours/day in all four formats.)
Music is a somewhat intangible, difficult to define entity. However, most of us are aware of the visceral, and sometimes therapeutic, effects of music. That having been said, it is uncomprehensible for me to understand what computers, along with their associated "audiophile" sound cards, have to do with music. Interjecting ANYTHING in a musical reproduction chain will certainly produce an audible degredation in the final sound quality that comes out of a MUSIC reproduction system, i.e., amp, preamp, front end, and two speakers. Let us please stay loyal to the name of the magazine that we read: Stereophile. Leave the computers and their associated peripherals to lesser magazines which are read by those who don't understand the MUSICAL reproduction chain and experience.
Yes, I download songs from illegal websites and listen to the tracks over a pair of Grados at work. I usually do this to decide which CDs are worth buying. If a I like a song I've illegally downloaded, I almost always BUY the CD. Are there any record companies listening? This is what most music fans do! Leave the trading sites alone.