Rab Boyce's Site

Ok, the much awaiting announcement finally happened. The big surprise to me is the mixed reaction in the tech community. There seems to be a large contingent who are saying 'it's just a big iphone touch'. And tell me what is wrong with that exactly?

I love my iphone, and my iphone touch. They do their jobs very well ( well, apart from answer calls ). The availability of the app store, the amazing UI, the great browsing experience. If only it was bigger....

..and now it is. A bigger , faster, ipod touch..? what on earth is not to like? Surely it fits the niche of a sofa/coffee/table device much better than a netbook or an iphone/ipod ever could..

Sure..it doesn't have a whizzy new gesture based interface, it doesn't have a camera, and it doesn't make phone calls..but then why should it do any of those things?

for me..if its an excellent browsing experience, can display PDFs and ebooks well, and play the odd movie or two..i'm sold.

I also think the availability of the app store makes it a killer device. Im sure there will be some amazing apps in due course.

Downsides? no multi tasking ( to be confirmed )...and while I understand Apple's reasoning for that..no IM in the background would seem like a bit of a downer in 2010.

A 4:3 aspect ratio? This initially seemed bizarre, as surely most movies are 16:9? but an article on macworld makes a good case for a 4:3 ratio. It isn't primarily a movie playing device...its a web browsing/book reading device, and a 4:3 ratio makes more sense.

So, The big question is how many are you going to buy?

:)

in my incessant quest to see just how much hi fi/av equipment one man can own...I purchased a DacMagic to act as a bridge between my macbook pro and my Graham Slee Novo headphone amp.

Initial impressions are somewhat mixed.

With high bit rate stuff ( 256K, 320 or losssless ) it sounds excellent. wonderfully open sound stage, tight bass and good sense of timing. The Novo is a good with percussion and vocals, as are my Grado SR60s..so it all seems to work well.

However, with anything less than that ( I still have 192 and below hanging around from when I started digitising music for low capacity Mp3 players ) then it sounds terrible...worse than the native output of the mac. It really sounds like the music is underwater...I'm guessing the gaps in the sound are just too much and the upsampling really messes up.

More investigation required...

My current settings are 41Khz 24bit out from the macbook pro over Toslink. ( USB option only supports 16 bit audio )

I haven't tried it with my Marantz 6003 as a CD transport yet..I'll guess that will be a better test of the quality of the DAC itself.

Update on Monday, February 1, 2010 at 9:21PM by Rab Boyce

ok...the DAC magic does work very well with the Marantz 6003 :) and the 192Kb stuff doesn't sound too bad. I must confess that was a mistake..the 'underwater' sound only seems to affect the 96kb stuff.

So would I recommend it...yes. I would.

Although, I wonder if my system is a little too clinical now....hmmm.

Is it just me or is everyone losing their sense of proportion on this? Isn't the fundamental root of the problem that MPs just aren't paid enough in the UK?

This seems to be the product of the fact the default unit of currency in salary seems to 'the nurse'. How often have you heard journalists or commentators say 'that would pay for 10 nurses' or that's '3 times what a nurse earns!' if a nurse is expected to live on a nurses salary, shouldn't the prime minister?

Well, no. No he shouldn't. Our MPs should be well rewarded for the job they do. This is for a number of reasons.

1. Our best people should be attracted to the job
2. I don't want the representatives of our democracy worried about paying the mortgage
3. If they are well rewarded perhaps they wouldn't feel the need to fiddle their expenses/allowances
4. In all honesty ther really arent that many of them.

If we paid each mp 200,000 a year that would cost the tax payer 145 million, which is nothing in the scheme of things...

Actually hold on a minute....that's 5300 nurses!

I recently purchased a Graham Slee Novo Headphone Amp to compliment my Grado SR 60 headphones. 

I can only say 'wow'. After an initial running in period, the Grados now have a new lease of life. Stereo separation is amazing...with a very tightly controlled ( can I use the word 'taught' here ?) bass. Vocals are particularly impressive, as is percussion.

There is basically no distortion even at max volume, which is nice.

Standout tracks so far.

• Alanis Morissette 'Bonus' from Jagged Little Pill - Female Vocals are very nice indeed, spacious.
• Rush 'Far Cry' from Snakes and Arrows - Intro is just amazing.
• Rush 'Malignant Naricissism / De Slagwerker ' from Snakes and Arrows Live Blu-Ray Disc. - Well...the best instrumentalists in Rock...doing what they do best :)
• Pink Floyd 'One of these Days' from Echoes ( best of Pink Floyd ) - Awesome stero production
• Damien Rice - 'Cold Water' from O - Stunning Vocals and crescendo
• Mike Oldfield - The Bell(remix) from best of Mike oldfield - 'and once again, tubular bells' 
• Mozart - 'Requiem - Dies irae' - London Philarmonic - music to die to
• Nina Simone - 'Mr Bojangles' - forget the other versions...
• Jeff Buckley - 'Hallelujah' excellent vocal performance
• Radiohead - 'Exit Music ( for a film )' from OK Computer - last 30 seconds are probably the toughest test of any amp/sound system. feedback can sometimes overwhelm..but this sounds fab :)

Apparently the amp takes 300 hours to properly 'run in'..so here is hoping it gets better!

Since my initial posting about snow leopard running cooler than Leopard, the CPU temp and fan speeds have been skyrocketing. With over 80 degrees Celcius being reported and fans hitting 5900 RPM while browsing and doing email...not Good! One of the things I love about my macbook pro is how quiet it is...so high fan speeds are not welcome!

After a little investigation, I reset the SMC controller using the instructions at Apple KB HT1411. Now the machine is happy again...with average temps in the high 40s/early 50s. 

Much better.