"Best of all" world

[c_hegge]

I'm pretty sure the 1200 actually had a properly shielded cable and still had the same problem, but in your case (bad pun very much intended), that could very well be the problem. I'm pretty sure that it can be caused (or at least made worse) by insufficient EMI shielding. You could probably improvise a shield out of some Aluminum foil and tape or heat shrink tubing (as long as you remember to ground it). Otherwise, it would be just as easy to work around by using the headphone jack on your speakers.

[LongRunner]

I don't actually have a proper speaker set myself (yet)…but after unplugging that horrible antenna-of-a-cable, jumpering the audio header as required, and plugging these headphones into the rear-mounted jack, the effect actually is pretty quiet. So I can presume that on-board audio is fine for general use, but only as long as the cable (if used) to the front-panel ports is up to the job; fail that part and the result will be a sonic disaster. Of course, I'm not quite solved, as the cord on these headphones isn't quite long enough for comfort in this arrangement. Ultimately, I'll probably look around for a suitably shielded cable and switch the contacts on the case's end as necessary to produce the correct circuit. Better to do it professionally than ghetto, given the choice.

Get ready to knock a full point off each case reviewed that has unshielded audio cables…

…okay, make that two points. Ultimately, I wouldn't honestly give any case that fails this regard a pass, no matter how good the rest of it is. Using an unshielded audio cable is just too little cost reduction, for too much detriment, to be worth doing.

But at least the PC sound system gives you a built-in equaliser, so you can get whatever result you want out of it.

[LongRunner]

I'm pretty sure the 1200 actually had a properly shielded cable…

Well, this is what probably happened there: The cable in question was most likely sheathed but not actually shielded. Which won't work any better, electrically, than the bunch of twisted wires.

The good news for me is that I have found an adaptable cable for my purpose. Its shield is only terminated at the ports' end and it uses a discrete drain wire, but I can manage that.

[LongRunner]

Ultimately, the adaption procedure was actually a relief — they couldn't have used a more logical pinout: It's 1:1 with the board end, including the key. I just had to swap the connector shells (as the cable I was adapting used different keys), but that was trivial.

Of the two pins that haven't been used (numbers 3 and 8 with the numbering system used on the cable connectors, or 4 and 7 with the one used by motherboard makers — when will they use the same system and have done with it?), 3/4 will be the more logical choice for the shield as it's directly adjacent to 1/2 (return). But for now, my priority is to enable the shield over connecting the (less critical) return wire at both ends. I'll eventually take the connector board itself and solder a piece of tinned copper wire to join the pins, then switch the return wire and shield at the cable to the ultimately "correct" arrangement.

With the abundance of storage and retrieval media, there is no longer the need for decisions to be as complicated as they used to be. Unfortunately, switching to a new language will ultimately be the only way to enable these easier decisions. Any non-constructive rambling and I'll be out of here, just so you're aware of my worst-case-scenario response.

[c_hegge]

Cool. Did the cable fix the problem?

FWIW, it's a bit of a shame to see AOpen cheaping out like that on the audio cable. Their cases were usually quite solid and well-made in other respects.

[LongRunner]

Cool. Did the cable fix the problem?

Not yet, as I'm pretty sure what's happening now is a PC edition of the "earth loop" problem infamous in the professional audio world for mains-induced hum. Only, in this case the signals flowing through the loop (in this case within the PC involved) are caused by the current draw of the PC's own internal components, which produce a combination of whining (from HDD spindle motors as mentioned) and harsh buzzes (from the solid-state energy users). I will have to actually tie the return wire and shield together to get results from here, so for the interim I'll just have to use an extension cable.

Anyway, it's ultimately much more efficient to not have to consciously pick between "choices" that have the same actual meaning, like English (for starters) demands. The traditional languages in general are basically too fragile to make it in the information age: I'm tired of the arms-race and of having to apologise (over and over and over) for the mishearing and confusion, along with getting interrupted off-guard by their dependence on arbitrary wait delays; with the conclusion being that I'm seriously considering embracing Esperanto (even if it's not the absolute design winner in its own category).

Honestly: Screw "eloquence" (I've practically quit it already). I will only continue actively using the English language as a "stop-gap" measure, and one that will be terminated in due course (after a 10-year transition span?); I have already stopped thinking in it, despite the time taken (usually exceeding the patience of English-thinkers during vocal conversation, no less) to accurately "translate" it back and forth in my mind. My ability to make good decisions under low stress will ultimately take precedence over short-term communication, and even completely bailing out of vocal conversation in English may prove worth the sacrifice. This works on basically the same underlying philosophical principle that applies to CISC (the stop-gap measure, which is still used by PC CPUs ages past its time, undoubtedly wasting a substantial amount of electricity) vs. RISC (the eventual leader), only with the added "extra" of the traditional method outright having lost the smaller details — which hasn't exactly worked out, has it?

If all else fails to get software to operate as I want it to, I will resort to searching for hacks to correct it; the means of achieving the end aren't the ultimate issue, provided the results in the end are correct, logical and fair. The superstition towards the term "hack" is about as logical as the "reasoning" behind RoHS — which itself was basically the same "treatment" that was applied earlier on to swear words, by the way. For the comic relief we all practically need to make up for all the boringly and frustratingly illogical realities of society's current state, let's look back and admire that double-layer joke from episode 4 of Red Dwarf I:

Rimmer (saying the punctuation out loud): After intensive investigation, of the markings of the alien pod, it has become clear, to me, that we are dealing, with a species of awesome intellect:
Holly: Good. Perhaps they might be able to give you a hand with your punctuation…
Rimmer: Shut up!

Amusement to both camps.

Oh, and on a critical note: The ultimate philosophy of the PC as a platform, the one that makes it so empowering, is its status as a device that you can use however you want, without it ever deliberately disabling itself for reasons beyond your control. So if the "Trusted" Computing Group indeed gets their much-speculated way of strictly controlling how it's used, we will lose one of the few available means to true freedom — which would ultimately be a complete disaster, never worth risking under any circumstances. If that did become the case, I would literally never buy another new PC.

And you're aware of the distinction between "consumer"- and "professional"-grade versions of devices, right? Swap "consumer" for "casual" and you'll have the more realistic version, as to imply that this type of hardware is "consumable" is ultimately ridiculous as much as anything else.

I've seen tin-plated connectors that should be gold-plated (this basically covers most types of sensitive signal transmission), gold-plated connectors where the standard is tin anyway so you get no actual benefit (e.g. PSU power connections)…so I'm quite familiar with a vast array of things that aren't done right.

[LongRunner]

And…

• All fixed mains outlets and the plugs that go with them must be intrinsically safe. This means shuttered sockets, and insulating sheaths on all plug pins excluding the protective earth; just as the Brits have done, decades ahead of the game.
  The BS 1363 plugs are built like tanks, too — having some cords with them that ended up in my collection as a result of someone else importing equipment and being left with no use for them, I've seen for myself, and I wouldn't be surprised if their huge pins could handle the whole 32A rating of a typical ring circuit there with ease. Clearly, the 13A specified limit is very conservative, and the system would work nicely with my preferred theme of "as rugged as practical".
  For what it's worth, I absolutely despise those add-on outlet cover things — and not just for their far-worse-than-useless effect with BS 1363. Practical experience shows that if an adult can remove them from the outlet in the first place, so will the children, so they're only effective at all with recessed sockets as used through most of the rest of Europe. And the thin, flat pins of the NA and AU/NZ plugs ensure that covers for them will regularly snap their often-brittle dummy pins and leave the socket unusable (though they can be disassembled and the snapped-off pin piece removed, and work again).
• An update on the cable part, 2014/11/13: With AlphaWire's recent breakthrough in developing a flexible version of polyphenylene ether, which is lighter, tougher, and thinner for the same voltage as the traditional PVC insulation, the flexible cords (not just for mains power, of course) would be insulated with that. And given its toughness and high dielectric strength, it would probably be straightforward to meet double-insulation requirements in less space than the inner insulators alone have demanded to date, with the bonus of such emerging cables being nearly indestructible.

And the plugs and sockets in North America are nothing short of a disgrace; their pins are still bare, often with very little spacing from the perimeter, and then there's extension cord sockets: With an Australian extension cord (for example) it's impossible to misinsert a plug into the socket in a way that poses a shock hazard, but it's easy with many NEMA sockets (see picture 2 here). Japan has screwed it up even worse, often requiring the earth wire to be separately attached (I also have both a North American and a Japanese cord), so the lower voltages there are only a consolation.

[LongRunner]

Looking back, my April 24th post was rather outlandish, but back to the future…

In the past few days, I finally applied the correct equaliser settings in the PC audio manager, and it's absolutely amazing how good it is (and not just for the music) to be hearing natural sound. It's so good that I will state with a confidence of 99.9% (which may even be a conservative number) that poor sound is flat-out unhealthy to listen to for extended periods of time. To put it in layman's terms, listening to sound with unrealistic frequency response forces your brain to attempt to re-equalise it to pick up the details, which is extraordinarily fatiguing. With the same confidence, I will state that everyone should have good speakers or headphones; the initial cost of hundreds (for headphones) to thousands (for high-end speakers) of $$$, as high as it may look, is still immaterial compared to the experience, and it was a huge mistake to have thought that low-end types would be "good enough". Good enough to sell, maybe, but not good enough for comfort during serious listening sessions.

This should be a real wake-up call for research into the effects of sound quality on health. Come to think of it, perhaps this is the real reason for the apparent health problems with television and video games, and not so much their inherent nature?

[LongRunner]

The next steps:

• No more DRM. Despite what the companies using it claim, no DRM implementation that I'm aware of has held up against efforts to break it — one of the most feeble attempts being Content Scrambling System on DVD-Video which, as we know, quickly proved to be approximately 100 times weaker than a swordless Link (believe it or not, that's now one of my personal favourite comparisons in relation to hopelessly feeble attempts, or ultra-difficult challenges ) — but that didn't kill the industry in its infancy, despite what they always fear. Of course, I consider all applications of DRM to video games (which Nintendo isn't an exception to, but at least they aren't as much of a bastard as M$ or $ON¥) ironic, considering that the point of them is about doing things that you could never do (either physically or legally) in the real world (or that would simply be too dangerous to try in reality). See: Defective by Design
• And DEFINITELY no Treacherous Computing. (Long story short, the PC platform built itself on providing the freedom to do whatever you want with it — within legal and technical constraints of course. But Treacherous Computing is a cleverly disguised attempt to take it away, to reinforce the stranglehold M$ and the other majors have on the industry. I think you can guess what that would end in… I would have put a devilish smilie there if this forum had one.)
• Standardisation bodies and studies would be fully government-funded, so that we can look at them for anything, anytime, at no direct cost. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened; it's a very long story, but it seems to be because government has no easy way to get more money (theoretically they would raise the taxes, but then people complain…) and what money they do get is wasted on white elephants and doing things in the least efficient way possible (why would you archive information to CDs or even DVDs in this day and age? Clearly, we have HDDs from over a decade ago that still retain their data, and even those had far more capacity in less physical space than dual-layer DVD, let alone CDs — not to mention the huge speed advantage over optical media). Consumerism didn't just make matters worse — it was the very thing that initiated the whole mess.

Not that anything can be made to last forever, but I certainly think 40 years or so isn't too much to ask of audio equipment (the analog parts at least) — especially if built with modern high-endurance electrolytic capacitors (e.g. Chemi-con LXZ/Nichicon PW — which have quite high endurance in the larger sizes and have a proven track record — although the mention of low ESR capacitors is not to imply use of a switching PSU). (Although no-one seems to make higher-grade bipolars because there's not enough of a market to justify the set-up costs — which is a pity. Of course, this does assume use of leaded solder — 12 years and $billions later, there's no good lead-free replacement in sight, so I think it's fair to admit defeat by now.)

[LongRunner]

And more:

• No superfluous market segments.
• Security screws may only be used for things that can only be repaired in specialised facilities (such as HDDs) or otherwise require special protection. (By Apple's logic, shouldn't switches and sockets be mounted with pentalobe screws? )
• A proper (and legally enforced!) standard for larger external PSUs, as well as the chargers for mobile devices. (The current situation with the output connectors is a total mess, unfortunately, so I guess we'll have to come up with new ones.)
• Product warranties must be of a reasonable length. No 1-year warranties that shrink to 3 months for "commercial" use on fixed LED lights, at any rate. (40,000 hours is already the equivalent of 4.56 years and leaving lights on 24/7 is pretty much pointless, so you'd think they could offer at least 5 years — preferably 10 or 15.)

So I'll suggest some examples of reasonable warranty lengths:

• 15 years for audio equipment (I was thinking longer, until I read that tidbit about electrolytic capacitors not being recommended for >15 years of service).
• At least 10 years for major appliances, and at least 5 years for small appliances.
• At least 10 years (but preferably 15) for PSUs.
• I suppose 3 years would be a reasonable compromise for high-tech stuff.
• And I'll add 30 years for electrical stuff, in hopes of persuading HPM to get their act together.

Also, I'd make it so that if a company has to recall too many products, their right to sell them is suspended for a period of time (e.g. 1 year).