Category: Tech

The little TEAC that could

I’ve been struggling with a project at home for some time, ripping a bunch of CD-R’s to MP3. Some of the discs simply could not be read by any of the combi-DVD/CD drives I have. The only player that worked at all is a dedicated CD reader that came with the Compaq computer I bought on October 25, 2001 — the day that Windows XP was released. But some songs wouldn’t finish ripping, and even if they did finish it could take hours, and even with error correction enabled on the drive the results were awful, as heard on the audio player’s first track. The song, by Bonnie Guitar, was #27 on the Billboard music charts the week of June 24, 1957. The second track on the player has a clean rip of the song from the CD-R.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2013/12/1st+rip.mp3,https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2013/12/2nd+rip.mp3|titles=Bonnie Guitar: Dark Moon – bad rip,Bonnie Guitar: Dark Moon – good rip]

You would think the first recording was taken from a badly scratched record, and the second from a CD, but they both came from the same CD-R. What made the difference? An amazingly nimble 10-year-old TEAC CD210-PU USB CD-ROM reader I got hold of that sails through the same discs that gave five other units a fit.

That same week in 1957, another recording of the song, done by Gale Storm, was #7 on the Billboard chart, and it makes for an interesting comparison to Bonnie’s version. I hear a definite Elvis influence here.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2013/12/GStorm.mp3|titles=Gale Storm: Dark Moon]

TV as you like it… for now

The Web site name TVonline.cc was registered this past February 2, by somebody in Iran — if the domain administrator information is to be believed — and the site supposedly originates in California, west of Reno, Nevada. Wait! Now it’s in Germany. I don’t know where the video I’m watching now is coming from. What’s the video? Last week’s installment of Breaking Bad.

TVonline

This isn’t a Torrent site, and it’s offering free embedded videos of popular TV shows that play through Flash, like most everything else does in a Web browser. I don’t know how they’re getting their material, but the quality is excellent, even in full-screen. I can’t imagine that any of the programs have been licensed, and I have to wonder how long TVonline will last before it’s forced to shut down.

Screaming about streaming

Next February with be the 20th anniversary of when I first connected to the Internet from home by dialup modem, and yet being online still seems like a new thing to me, maybe because streaming media is still in flux. Netflix started its streaming video service in 2007, and the turmoil in TV land continues with Aereo, the DVR in the Cloud. It’s taking way too long for broadcasters and cable TV providers to adjust to online services that challenge their out-of-date business models.

Ray Dolby, 1933-2013

Another audio technology pioneer has passed away. Ray Dolby started at Ampex, working on magnetic tape recorders that were based on German machines captured at the end of WWII by Jack Mullin. Later, Dolby made major contributions to Ampex’s development of the first video tape recorder. In the 1960’s, when recording studios went from four to eight tracks — leaving less surface area on the tape for each track — hiss was the result, and the Dolby A noise reduction system was developed to alleviate the problem. Dolby B was the consumer version of the circuit. Today, every HDTV has Dolby Digital decoding built in. I know somebody who worked at Dolby Labs. I’ll see if I can pry out a comment about the man.

Addendum: Somebody who worked at Dolby Labs says…

He was a very very nice man, quiet, extremely intelligent, good-natured. The company under his leadership was a marvelous place to work, where engineers had the ability to follow ideas, where the technology was cutting edge. He was also an extremely good businessman, and understood the power of licensing. His engineering contributions to early recording were ground-breaking.

… and the comments at this link are recommended.

The Bose Wall of Sound

Amar Bose has died. I drive past the Bose headquarters almost every day, and I felt obliged to buy a Bose Wave Music System after having the porch remodeled. There really is no other product that does what the Wave does for its size.

Bose 901 Series II loudpspeaker

In high school, when I was bitten by the stereo bug, the Bose 901 speakers were a big deal. It became a joke that if you walked into a stereo store you were guaranteed to hear Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein” played full blast on a pair of Bose 901’s.

Personally, I never cared for the sound of the heavily-equalized Bose 901, preferring instead the designs of Roy Allison, but I have to admire Amar Bose for his marketing savvy and his profit margins. He had the vision to lead the home audio trend away from ever-bigger box speakers by introducing tiny stereo satellites that were coupled with a dedicated bass unit that could be hidden under an end table. The innovative and imitated Bose noise-cancelling headphones are very successful.

Greater Boston has a great and grand tradition in audio, but now it’s mostly in the past. Acoustic Research, KLH, Advent, H.H. Scott, EPI, Genesis, Allison, Snell, ADS, Cizek, Avid and Apt are long gone. Boston Acoustics was sold years ago and NAD is in Canada. Only the Bose Corporation endures with its name and heritage intact, and that is a testament to the leadership of Amar Bose.

Addendum: In 1971 Bose sued Consumer Reports for libel, because its review of the 901 Series I loudspeaker stated that the stereo image “wandered around the room.” Not yet knowing of the CU lawsuit, but having read the review at the library, I had the exact same impression of the Series I when I heard it in early 1972. A year later the 901 Series II was introduced and the “ten feet tall violin” effect had been tamed. I assumed Bose had taken the criticism to heart and fixed the problem, which can also be affected by speaker placement, so I was surprised when I learned of the lawsuit in one of the hi-fi magazines I devoured in those days. Bose should have dropped the case, but it dragged on for over ten years and went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Bose lost.

Addendum 2: Atlantic Technology is still in business, in Norwood, MA.