Author: DOuG pRATt

Needs More Dubly

At this link is one of the countless examples where user forums are often useless for technical support. Here is the question:

In the Sound control panel, when you select a speaker and click Configure, it opens a new Speaker Setup window and asks you two questions. The first one is stereo vs. surround (I have stereo), the second gives you the option to select them as full-range speakers. I’ve attached a screenshot.

My question is simple – all other things held equal – what does it actually DO if you select them as full-range? What EFFECT does it have if you select them as full-range versus not selecting them so? I mean just within Windows, in terms of processing or output I assume. Not even thinking about the speakers.

My question is simple so I’d prefer simple answers please, I’m just trying to zero in on what this option actually does.

Thank you,

Chuck

The answer, and the follow-ups, are apparently from a Microsoft representative, and not only are they are not simple, they are nonsensical techno-babble. But I also think that Chuck made his question less clear by saying, “Not even thinking about the speakers,” as the effect on how speakers sound is all that matters.

I determined the function of the setting for myself a long time ago, by using my excellent Sony SRS-BTX500 Bluetooth speaker. Not using full-range mode on an audio device in Windows 10 is an equalization setting that severely cuts off low frequencies.

What I don’t get is why Microsoft leaves full-range mode off by default. Without it, my Sony sounds thin, and using the speaker’s own bass boost button to compensate makes the sound boomy and awful. Being forced to choose between thin and fat sound wasn’t right, and that set me looking for the answer. This is the fix, assuming you need a stereo setup:

  • Right-click the speaker icon on the task bar
  • Click “Playback devices”
  • Select the playback device you want to use and click “Configure”
  • Click “Next”
  • Check the “Front left and right” box and click “Next”
  • Click “Finish”

Doing this made my SRS-BTX500 sound just right with the unit’s bass boost kept off. Full and balanced, and not at all boomy.

Easterner in West for Easter

The plastic surgeon in Boston who closed the hellish wound on my head from melanoma removal gave me the okay to travel. So I’ve been in Phoenix for the past week, once again tackling the aftermath of my father’s death.

Sun City West, Arizona

The other certainty in life besides death is, of course, taxes, and that’s one of the things I’ve been doing here. I met with a CPA, who will take care of my father’s final personal income tax return, and then he will get started on the Trust taxes. I have to drop off some more papers at his office tomorrow morning, after meeting with my lawyer, and then I’ll be at a couple of banks to see about closing out accounts to be consolidated in an account Dad had back home that is now my responsibility.

Besides money-related matters, two of my sisters and I have been going through Dad’s house, deciding what can be tossed and what should be kept for an estate sale. We came up with 63 lbs. of paper to be shredded, and I hauled that over to a Staples store, which offers Iron Mountain’s shredding service at a cost of $0.99/lb.

Through all of this I keep going back and forth in my mind, thinking I might want to take over my parents’ retirement house — despite the fact that, thanks to skin cancer, the Sun is now my burning enemy. The pro|con list for buying the place from my siblings, who each own an equal share of the property, is about evenly split.

And so it goes… !

Sculptress of Sound

Once again I turn my attention to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. BBC Radio 4xtra is repeating a 2010 feature on workshop creator Delia Derbyshire. One point about Delia’s incomparable interpretation of Ron Grainer’s Doctor Who theme that seems obvious, but isn’t mentioned, is that one of the sounds is evocative of a Ben Franklin glass harmonica. The programme is also available on this YouTube video.

A few years after this documentary was produced, Paul McCartney revealed that he had a great interest in the Radiophonic Workshop, and had even made a point of meeting Delia, with the intention of trying an electronic backing to “Yesterday.” Nevertheless, the most experimental Beatles production to be released isn’t by Paul, but is John Lennon’s “Revolution 9.” One of Delia’s recordings in the documentary, with voices and a heartbeat, sounds as though it could have been an inspiration for Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”