The dream is back

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward "Tin Ear" Dolan wrote:

...
All the name brands are to be found at Best Buy and the Radio Shack
brands are just fine too. But it must be nice to have more money than
brains and be an idiot like you who will resort to those fancy sound
salons where the clerks bow and scrape and tell you that you deserve only
the best and only they can supply it. Many thanks for the good laugh
Mark! You are what I consider a useless idiot - because you have the
knack of never telling me anything I want to know....

Mr. Dolan's past statements about listening to music stored on his
computer is revealing. Computers are a horrible environment for audio due
to all the nasty electromagnetic noise generated, and digital audio files
generally sound terrible unless a high data rate (and consequently very
large file sizes) is used.

No wonder he finds mass-market audio product satisfactory.

When I was a kid I spent all the money I earned from my paper route on
classical 78 rpm records. They were expensive as hell and I was only able to
accumulate a few masterworks, one by one very slowly. But I listened to them
hundreds of times, to the point where I thought I had composed them myself.

Later of course I switched to the long playing record and I have many
thousands of them. They were a great improvement over the old 78's, but the
early LP's had plenty of their own problems. The late 78 rpm records had
surprisingly good sound on them if you could listen through all the surface
noise.

More recently I have gotten into CD's of course, but I am not trying to
duplicate my entire collection of LP classical music on them. The old LP's
sound quite good enough for me. The fact is I am always behind the times by
about 5 or 10 years at least.

I played all of the above on my stereo sound system through excellent and
very large speakers. I do not understand how you can get good sound out of
the very small speakers they are making these days. For me, a speaker has
got to be very large. That way the music seems large to me too.

The music that I have on my computer is just pop and folk music that I have
stolen from the Internet via Kazaa. Most of it is at 128 kbs and I think
that is good enough for this kind of music. I have over 50 GB worth of this
type of music. I play all my computer music through my very excellent stereo
sound system of course. I hate those small computer speakers. I have
virtually no classical music on my computer nor would it ever occur to me to
play any classical music via the computer.

I am now downloading some music from SoundClick for free legally and I note
that it is mostly at 192 kbs. I think this is suppose to be CD quality, but
like I said, for pop and folk music I don't think it really matters that
much. Only classical music requires absolute perfection of sound which I
think you can only get via pre-recorded CD's. I get most of my classical
CD's from the BMG club which will run me about $7.00 a CD including shipping
and handling. I don't get very many because I consider that to be an
outrageous amount of money for a CD. CD's ought to cost around $2.00 or
$3.00. Then I would really start to buy them.

Have you ever seen that cartoon where the guy has hired an entire symphony
orchestra to play for him in his living room because it is cheaper than
going the high fidelity recorded route. I have got phono cartridges that
cost me almost $50. It is all a form of insanity of course, but we guys have
got to have our fun and games. Otherwise, life isn't worth living.

--
Regards,

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:

...
I notice that you can get very fine transistor amplifiers now with
enormous power for not much money compared to 50 years ago. I simply can
not imagine anyone who would get a tube amplifier when they are nothing
but trouble and expense.

There are some decent, reasonably priced transistor amplifiers on the
market. However, most of the mass-market receivers are not "fine"
sonically unless one relies solely on measurements and disregards actual
sound.

Spoken like a true audiophile! Golden ears I never had.

I used to go to symphony concerts to find out what a real live orchestra
sounded like. However, that did not work out very well as I couldn't stand
the audience that you have to put up with. I would rather be at home with my
beloved stereo sound system even if it does not sound quite the same as
"live" with all the shuffling feet, coughing, rustling of program notes and
many other annoying habits of my fellow human beings.

I once went to a ballet performance and when they turned out the house
lights it was so dark you could not see your hand in front of your face. I
immediately panicked and felt trapped like a rat in a trap. My concert going
experiences have all been like that. And then they charge you an arm and a
leg while they are at it. No thanks! I prefer to stay at home with my stereo
high fidelity sound system where I can be comfortable and not be in a state
of panic all the time when they turn those damn house lights off.

--
Regards,

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:

...In fact, he has been so consistently wrong that it is
inconceivable that he could win the election, especially in a time of
war....

When did the Congress of the United States declare war?

Congress having to declare war is passé and no longer relevant. Try to get
with the times why don't you? A resolution to give the president authority
to do whatever he wants with respect to a given situation now stands in for
a declaration of war, something Kerry voted for but is now against. Another
one of his infamous flip-flops.

--
Regards,

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Robert L. Bass wrote:

Edward Dolan wrote:

...But I think the Dems are planning
to steal the election in Florida...


If Bush performs as well in the rest of the debates as he did tonight,
Kerry
will have no trouble. I've never seen a president look so ill-prepared
for
a debate. He was worse than in his debates with Gore. The difference is
Kerry did not allow himself to fall into the traps Gore did. In fact,
the
one who looked "unpresidential" was the President himself.

I actually found it painful to listen to Bush as he hesitated and stumbled
while trying to find words to say.

By all rights Kerry should win the election over Bush, since he is taller
and sounds and looks more presidential. After all, are these not the most
important criteria for choosing an elected representative?

Bush is not a good debater, but so what. He is right on the issues and that
is all that should matter to the electorate. If I were Bush I would never
debate anyone ever. He is very good at giving set speeches before a large
audience and so that is all he should ever do. If I were Bush, I would let
Kerry debate himself since he is on every side of every issue depending on
which way the winds are blowing. He is worse than Clinton in that regard.

But it does truly amaze me that there can be anyone in the country who has
not made up their mind about these two candidates by now. I think a
so-called independent is just another word for an idiot who does not know
anything about politics and does not care anything about politics. Such
people should not even vote in my humble opinion.

--
Regards,

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

"James S. Prine" wrote in message
...

Edward Dolan wrote:

The only question I have is what are any women doing in Mensa if a high
IQ
is required for entrance. As is well known, women do not have high IQ's.

I was married to a lady who was, quite literally, a near-genius.
Unfortunately, she was also bi-polar and incredibly destructive during
some of
her swings. But she definitely possesses a high IQ, and I could note many
ladies who do.

Just my humble opinion, of course, your mileage may vary.

Well, of course there are intelligent women in this world. But I think their
intelligence is different than a man's intelligence. It must spring from the
way the brain was organized in the two sexes in the course of our natural
evolution. I find that I can never argue with a woman on the same wave
length as I can with a man. It is often extremely difficult to even imagine
what it is they are thinking. I submit that women are very strange creatures
indeed. I sometimes wonder if men and women even belong to the same
species, but I suppose if we can procreate together, then we must be all one
species.

--
Regards,

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

"James S. Prine" wrote in message
...

Edward Dolan wrote:

Frankly, I am totally unable to understand
how some blokes can stay married to the same woman for all eternity.

Me too. My first marriage lasted 2 months, and my second lasted an
incredible
7 months.

The stories are longer than the marriages g.

You probably needed to have a kid right off the bat and that would provided
some glue for a few years at least. I do know couples who are married
without any children, but I can clearly see that they have to work at their
marriages much harder than those who have the common interest of children at
stake. However, I have never been in favor of hard work, whether in marriage
or any other aspect of life.

--
Regards,

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

"Mark Leuck" wrote in message
newshp7d.153022$MQ5.97195@attbi_s52...

"Edward Dolan" wrote in message
...

If plumbers and electricians were mass produced they might become
cheaper,
as it is they aren't

There needs to be more competition in the service industries. My home
town
here is filling up with immigrants from Latin America and Asia. I can't
wait
until they began to take up the service trades and put the local crooks
out
of business with lower prices.

Then they'd raise prices due to no more competition

What happens in many small towns is that a few service trades create
monopolies for themselves and before you know it they are charging you an
arm and a leg for the simplest of services. I am totally fed up with it and
I regret that I did not become a plumber or an electrician myself. These new
Latinos will compete with one another and scramble for business. That will
benefit the entire community. The local crooks can go hang themselves for
all I care.

The best thing that ever happened to this small town that I am living in is
the advent of Wal-Mart. The prices have dropped all over town with respect
to everything that Wal-Mart sells and many stores are going out of business
because they can't compete. Good riddance to them. Capitalism with out
competition is an abomination. Therefore I very much favor the government
seeing to it that there be a fair playing field for all via as much
regulation as it takes.

--
Regards,

Ed Dolan - Minnesota

On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 09:06:25 +0000 (UTC), Ian Smith
wrote in message
:

Heisenberg was driving when he was stopped by a policeman

The old ones are best, eh?

A neutrino walks into a bar and asks the Bartenders for a pint. He
asks: "How much?" The Bartender replies, "no charge"...

And that bloody Copernicus - so arrogant! Some day he'll have to
learn that the world doesn't revolve around him.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 21:01:33 -0500, Tom Sherman
wrote in message
:

By all rights Kerry should win the election over Bush, since he is
taller and sounds and looks more presidential. After all, are these not
the most important criteria for choosing an elected representative?

Historically, it would appear so. But ownership of the voting
machines and the supreme court might help Shrub )

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

"Edward Dolan" wrote in message
...

The music that I have on my computer is just pop and folk music that I
have
stolen from the Internet via Kazaa. Most of it is at 128 kbs and I think
that is good enough for this kind of music.

So on top of being annoying you are also a thief