OT, but Apple's greatest feat has not been any of its products, but its ability to create a feeling of exclusivity in owning its product. Owning an apple product has somehow become folded into the notion of success, achievement, or arrival. Truly amazing. I fear that it is coming to an end. There was a time when yo did not question, much less mock an Apple product, but that has begun and i fear is a sign of the end......assuming it doesn't come up with something new. I just hope its next product is a dividend
All this did for me was to provide one more sociocultural indicator.
Like Starbucks and Lululemon.
Lol, true.
Isn't that partially true as well of people buying $500 Beats simply due to status, advertising or peer pressure?
It's horrible that "audio is personal-subjective" is the common parlance, since it gives people the right to say any x product sounds the best, to them.
I think the pure data analysis of headphones and IEM's is quite weak though, unfortunately.
Try KSC75 if you like the Porta Pro, it's very cheap and uses a Titanium membrane.
Try Fostex TH600 or TH900 if you get the chance, they are successors of sorts to the D2000 / 5000 / 7000 series.
Thanks for the tip.
I think I might try that in my next clothing purchase, but I'll be paying for the Egyptian cotton itself
, not paying for the fancy brand.I have a few silk shirts and had them made in Thailand (by Thais) for a fifth or tenth of the price they would cost in a mall.
Must... Resist... Hating... On Macbooks.
.. Can't.
Okay, briefly: a £2200 Macbook Pro has very similar specs to this £700 laptop. Both are made of brushed aluminium, and this has a DVD drive. I don't see how the Apple badge is worth £1500.
Finally got around to replacing my old Sony headphones with some newer ones by Sony: MDR-V55, less than £40 delivered. I'll take them to a local music shop and do a quick write-up of how they compare with Beats.
Chris
.. Can't.
Okay, briefly: a £2200 Macbook Pro has very similar specs to this £700 laptop. Both are made of brushed aluminium, and this has a DVD drive. I don't see how the Apple badge is worth £1500.
Finally got around to replacing my old Sony headphones with some newer ones by Sony: MDR-V55, less than £40 delivered. I'll take them to a local music shop and do a quick write-up of how they compare with Beats.
Chris
You might have a hard time trying to compare the Beats.. It's a closed demo-set, making it impossible to hook-up a different music-source or different headphones.
I am however interested in your findings.
Battery life and battery longevity, longevity of the Macbook itself, new OS versions install without slowing the thing down....
My 2008 Macbook is still on its original battery and it runs 10.9 Mavericks without problems. Just have a look at a 2008 Windows laptop with eh... Vista....
Incredibly fast harddrive on the Macbook Air. Superior sound quality in the speakers. The touch pad is a billion times better than the ones in Windows computers. The battery lasts for about 9 hours when watching movies or about 6-7 hours of surfing on the internet. Also it doesn't feel slow at all even though I've been using it daily for almost a year now and the battery lasts pretty much as long as it did when new even though I've had to charge it every day.
HMV has the option of a jack input for their demo stuff, so I'll be going there.
No idea if it goes through any processing, though. I suspect there's a digital volume control after the source selection.
The new Sony headphones should be here in a couple of days. My old Sonys (below) had a slightly lean sound - a touch of boost at each end helped a lot. Unfortunately the pads have begun to come apart (after 8 years), and with no replacements available (the headphones themselves were £13 new), some new headphones are in order.
I could try my old Sonys at HMV too for another data point.
RE Macbooks, I'm comparing to an Asus N56. The sound quality (by B&O, if that helps) is rather good, with options to tweak settings such as the MaxxBass type thing (bass harmonic generator). Battery life is 5 hours at a push, though for a machine with a 2.4-3.4GHz quad core processor, 16gb of RAM and a fairly heavy duty graphics processor, that's quite impressive. The touchpad is powered by Asus Smart Gesture, which probably takes some of its functions from Apple - three-fingered swipe up gives you all open applications, down gives desktop, two fingered pinch zoom etc.
I use my laptop for a lot of gaming, so the graphics processing is key. For me, that's where Macbooks fall down - you pay so much for that processing power, and I'm unlikely to game much on battery anyway. I can see that they do a lot of things right, but I still struggle to see where exactly all of the £1500 extra goes. Its a lot of money.
Chris
Really?
I looked at the MacBooks and decided they were totally overpriced.
My sons MacBook hard disk has crashed twice.
I went to HMV, listened to Beats and Marley (via my god daughters ipood and my Nokia N7).
Beats / Marley have a sound that can be best described as 'Like being outside then nightclub'
Then went to Argos and bought a pair of Sennheiser HD205ii's and a pair of 201's as they were on offer @ £11 for Brygen
Yes, really.
Of course that was in '07 but I still use the same computer with the same HD.
Previously I had a blue&white G3 which I used for 12 years without problems until it got stolen. The MacPro was the replacement from the insurance so it cost me nothing.
There's no delete button and no print screen button either.
The mouse doesn't have a physical right-click.
It's associated with hipsters that need to make sure everyone knows they own an Apple, wear Nudie jeans, use Louis Vuitton and wear Beats by Dr. Dre.
I don't want to be associated with them.
I have an Apple laptop from work but I installed Windows on it. The part I liked most on the Apple laptop is the screen and the metallic feeling chassis.
I'm sure there's a Dell / Acer / Asus / Sony / Toshiba / NEC / HP / Lenovo / Samsung / MSI with a fantastic battery life, fantastic screen and fantastic metal uni-body chassis.
The difference with Apple is the operating system and marketing style.
I reckon you've yet to wear Sea Island Cotton.
Longest staple cotton in the world. The best used to come from Montserrat, but sine the Soufriere erupted I don't think they produce it any more.
Since I went OT I will pay penance and talk about headphones. I listened to Beats once in a store, captive input, could not listen to my material, volume was way too high. One positive: the beats play loud without much distortion. Way bass-heavy though, not subtle.
What do I recommend? Inexpensive in-ear or on-ear from JVC. Sony. Audio-Technica. Denon. Sennheiser. AKG. Beyer Dynamic. Maybe Grado. For in-ears Ultimate Ears have been very good (I enjoy my cheap pair), I don't know if they still are.
But whatever, demand your right to hear them with your source, and to compare!
What do I recommend? Inexpensive in-ear or on-ear from JVC. Sony. Audio-Technica. Denon. Sennheiser. AKG. Beyer Dynamic. Maybe Grado. For in-ears Ultimate Ears have been very good (I enjoy my cheap pair), I don't know if they still are.
But whatever, demand your right to hear them with your source, and to compare!
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.