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Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:53 pm
by Toon Town Dave
Surreal wrote:I keep hoping somebody will design an mp3 player that can act as an external sound card.
This may be possible with an iPod running iPodLinux if someone were to write the software to do it. Basically software to run on the PC to control the iPod.

What would the use case be? Basically what would the benefit be over just using the iPod or equivalent device on it's own if that's where the music is stored, or what would be the benefit over say a Turtle Beach USB sound device if the music is stored on the PC?

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:54 pm
by Surreal
Haydn wrote:If an iPod produces better sound than a laptop then presumably anyone who DJ's with a laptop using the built-in sound should use an iPod instead?
That is not what I said at all. I simply stated that ipods (and mp3 players in general) will pump out a better signal than your laptop's on board sound card, which is generally a cheap generic chip unless you have a gaming machine. Laptops also tend to produce a "dirty" signal, made worse by a low power output. Plugged into speakers, you'll have to turn the amp up higher, which in turn ups your noise.
Toon Town Dave wrote:
Surreal wrote:I keep hoping somebody will design an mp3 player that can act as an external sound card.
This may be possible with an iPod running iPodLinux if someone were to write the software to do it. Basically software to run on the PC to control the iPod.

What would the use case be? Basically what would the benefit be over just using the iPod or equivalent device on it's own if that's where the music is stored, or what would be the benefit over say a Turtle Beach USB sound device if the music is stored on the PC?
If you have a separate usb sound card, then there's no benefit at all. I would simply like my sound card and mp3 player to be the same device, that's all. One less thing to carry around. This is just one of those things where it looks like all the hardware should be capable of supporting it, and I'm just wondering why nobody's done it yet.

Maybe someone would be willing to shell out $80 for the latest nano, but not $40 for the turtle beach micro. Now since the nano only holds 8gb (or is it 16 now? 32?), wouldn't it be nice if you could dj from your computer but pass it through your ipod for better sound?

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:26 pm
by Mr Awesomer
Surreal wrote:That is not what I said at all. I simply stated that ipods (and mp3 players in general) will pump out a better signal than your laptop's on board sound card, which is generally a cheap generic chip unless you have a gaming machine. Laptops also tend to produce a "dirty" signal, made worse by a low power output. Plugged into speakers, you'll have to turn the amp up higher, which in turn ups your noise.
Ummm... no.

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:59 pm
by Surreal
What, on everything? Then please enlighten/educate me.

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:29 pm
by Surreal
And for reference sake, I've compared the sound from my laptop's onboard chip, a turtle beach micro, echo indigo dj, and m-audio firewire solo.

My current laptop is a toshiba satellite (as was my old one). Both machines have terrible electrical noise (the new one is much worse than the old one). Plug them into external speakers, turn it up, the noise is awful. Even forgetting the noise, some voices and instruments sound muddy.

Plugged in the turtle beach, noise is still there but slightly less (speakers at same setting, but I'm not playing music, static is slightly less). When the music is on though, my audio signal is way stronger. I don't have to turn the speakers up nearly as much to get the same volume, and so I get the same sound, but less noise.

Repeat with the echo, about the same noise as the micro, nicer sound than the micro (and yeah that's subjective, I don't have anything fancy to measure that).

Repeat with the m-audio, almost no noise (but this one uses an external power supply), sounds about the same as the echo.

I've tried a few different laptops. I find macs have the least noise, and Toshibas are the worst that I've tried. Unplugging the laptop makes a difference, but doesn't eliminate the buzz.

Trying various mp3 players, they all lack that electrical noise that the laptops have and generally put out a stronger signal than a laptop. Ipods and Cowon seem to have the strongest output (though with the Cowon I only tried with the "big" model, none of the small ones). The Sansa Clip has a very weak signal, even less than my laptop.

Blah blah, none of this testing was extensive or anything. Just speaking from my experiences.

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 11:09 pm
by Toon Town Dave
Surreal wrote:And for reference sake, I've compared the sound from my laptop's onboard chip, a turtle beach micro, echo indigo dj, and m-audio firewire solo.
To pick on your logic, how can you conclude from that testing that an iPod sounds better than your laptop? To put it in math terms, your're missing a step in your logical proof.

I don't experience a "dirty" signal from my laptop. To me it just sounds like the low pass filter on the digital to analog circuit or the analog amplifier are not as good as say a Sound Blaster or Turtle Beach. Perhaps the noise is something specific to your laptop, venue and/or PA. Try a laptop off wall power vs battery power, a different model/brand laptop, etc. Try and narrow down the possible root cause.

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2008 11:53 pm
by Surreal
Ok... in my limited non-extensive non-conclusive non-audiophile subjective "testing"upon which I am now forming opinion...

I've tried a toshiba satellite, sony vaio, mac, dell something, acer aspire, compaq something. Except for the mac, all had some noise (albeit some only barely). Unplugging the computers generally reduced the noise significantly or entirely. The mac had virtually no noise plugged in or not. My Toshiba was the worst; even unplugged, there was a some noise. Yes, I did muck around trying to remove ground loops. I also have a ground loop isolator, which does a reasonable job of cutting out the noise, though not completely.

Testing for noise on the various laptops is simply plugging the computer in without playing music, crank up the speakers and listen for any buzzing or hum. Of course, I'll also just turn up the dial without having the computer plugged in, to see if there's any hum inherent to the speakers.

On my own computer, I've played out through my desktop speakers, my living room speakers, a whole host of portable speakers, through a pro setup with enough power for a rock show in a gymnasium, and on live radio. The more powerful the speakers I was using, the more noticeable the noise was (plugged in or otherwise).

In terms of listening to various things side by side, I did run my computer's onboard, whatever usb/firewire output I decided to try, ipod shuffle, and sansa clip through a mixer and out a single set of speakers. Played the same song on each (except the shuffle) and compared the various channels to each other. Equalizers flat on all the devices and mixer, device volumes set to ~90%. Yes I know that not all devices reproduce the frequency range equally. Whatever.

In terms of my rating of what sounds "better", I'm defining that by how much "noise" a device is generating (measurable), and how "clear" the sound is (subjective). Playing some songs off an ipod or my clip, I can hear some background instruments that I couldn't notice when playing through my onboard (or weren't as well defined). Vocal separation from the instruments sounded better. Tones sounded more "crisp" for lack of a better word.

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:21 am
by Toon Town Dave
Thank-you for the clarification. I think it's helpful for us to understand the foundation of your statement that an iPod is better than a laptop came from.

I guess you are talking about two different observations:
1) A quiescent noise or hum comparison of various laptops and your laptop was the worst of those studied.
2) Comparison of an iPod Shuffle and sansa clip to your laptop.

It is fair to conclude that an iPod and all other devices you tested are better than your laptop.

It is not fair to conclude from the evidence that an iPod is generally better than a laptop as you stated. That's why Reuben and I questioned your statement. It's a minor detail and you probably knew what you meant but your audience only get what you said, not what you meant.

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 3:44 pm
by Surreal
You know, I've done enough mucking around with various systems and setups that I still stand by my original statement. I know other people who have experienced the same thing (from casual users to djs to sound techs), and I've done a reasonable amount of reading on the subject (from similar complaints about computer hum, to reviews for various mp3 players, to problems regarding noise, ground loops, etc).

An isolated device with hardware geared specifically towards reproducing music "should", "in general", produce better sound than a laptop's on board sound chip (an "upgraded" laptop or external peripherals notwithstanding). A ton of external factors may apply, your mileage may vary, depends on the model, far from conclusive, yada yada.

As an aside, somewhere in this forum I've heard one method to remove ground loops (or at least reduce the severity) was to snip off the third prong (through an extension cord/plug preferably). I've done this before and it does work. I was just thinking about my assessment of how macs don't seem to suffer from ground loops, and then I realized that macbook plugs don't have the third prong do they?

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:34 pm
by Toon Town Dave
I believe that is correct, Mac's have a 2 prong (NEMA 1-15) plug on their brick. My Dell is 2 prong and I haven't experienced a ground loop.

There are other sources of noise or interference. If you have a choice to use balanced or at least shielded cables, you should. There doesn't have to be a physical connection for noise. Think of the blips that cell phones sometimes trigger in speakers. Unless you operate in a Faraday cage where absolutely everything is shielded, there is a good chance something will give some noise.

Also, the will always be noise from the electronic components themselves. If the manufacturer chose poor quality amplifiers, those or the bias components could be sources of noise or distortion. Connectors are bad for introducing noise, like a jiggly speaker connection. The audio jack in my laptop is definitely getting worn out from plugging and unplugging my headphones daily. If I plug in a cable with an older, worn out, crappy plug, it will have intermittent noise. The quality of the parts is what really distinguishes a good sound device from a less good one.

A more fair comparison would be a setup comparing an iPod to various laptops on battery power with all other things being equal. Then you can evaluate each "system". What you can do is have a number of people score the quality on a scale from 1-5, each in isolation. You then average the scores to get the MOS, Mean Opinion Score. That's the "cheap" way communication systems are tested.

The telephony world also has an objective way of testing sound quality for voice. It's called PESQ, Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality. Basically reference signals are created, sent through a communication system and the results are recorded on the other end. The device analyzes the difference between the received and reference signal and computes a score which represents how close the received communication was to that which was sent. PESQ is better than MOS but the equipment or software to do it is expensive.

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:16 pm
by lipi
Toon Town Dave wrote:I believe that is correct, Macs have a 2 prong (NEMA 1-15) plug on their brick.
<geekery>
perhaps in the commonwealth, but not in the u.s. they're all three-pronged here. in addition, the adapters are universal and support up to 240 V, so it's NEMA 6-15P.
</geekery>

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:50 pm
by Surreal
lipi wrote:
Toon Town Dave wrote:I believe that is correct, Macs have a 2 prong (NEMA 1-15) plug on their brick.
<geekery>
perhaps in the commonwealth, but not in the u.s. they're all three-pronged here. in addition, the adapters are universal and support up to 240 V, so it's NEMA 6-15P.
</geekery>
Really? I wonder why that is since power is pretty much the same across North America (isn't it?)

Do American Dell laptops have 3 prongs?

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:11 pm
by Toon Town Dave
The wall sockets may be 3 prong but not all the power bricks are 3 prong. Here is the power supply used for several Dell models in Canada and the U.S.: Dell 90 Watt 2 Prong AC Adapter

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:33 pm
by lipi
Surreal wrote:
lipi wrote:
Toon Town Dave wrote:I believe that is correct, Macs have a 2 prong (NEMA 1-15) plug on their brick.
<geekery>
perhaps in the commonwealth, but not in the u.s. they're all three-pronged here. in addition, the adapters are universal and support up to 240 V, so it's NEMA 6-15P.
</geekery>
Really? I wonder why that is since power is pretty much the same across North America (isn't it?)
i've been to niagara falls, but didn't plug anything in on the canadian side of the border. :o)
Do American Dell laptops have 3 prongs?
dunno about dells. i think the lenovo/ibm ones have 2 prongs.

i dug up all the mac hardware i have lying around. there's a 2-prong plug (no cord) you can use instead of the standard 3-prong power cord. i can't tell whether it came with my old ipod or with my powerbook or with my macbook, though. all the bricks have the same slot to take a cord or plug. :o/ maybe you're right after all.

Laptop Processors (PCs)

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:14 am
by kitkat
Okay, jumping into the long thread here...but I promise I did a post-search on the word "processor" and didn't find an answer to my question!

It has been a long time since I've looked into computer requirements, and although the internet is full of component reviews, they're not exactly geared at swing DJing.


After somewhat following laptop DJing conversations, and knowing my own preferences (e.g. I love MediaMonkey, hideously bloated as it is), I believe I want a laptop that:
  • Has at least 2 USB ports, and probably more (external hard drive + external sound card)
  • Can easily handle me doing a lot of constantly changing, rapid-fire working in MediaMonkey (database software that is pretty resource-intensive) with a ginormous database (probably about 3x the size of the actual number of files actually plugged into the computer at any time--because hey, records of songs not currently plugged in is a great feature I don't plan to stop using).
  • Preferred but not required: can easily handle me doing the above while I'm running DJ software.
    (But hopefully I'd kill my extra time on gigs dancing, not labeling my collection.)
  • Can easily handle me running DJ software / can deliver music to the floor well while I'm querying my oversized MediaMonkey database, trying to find more songs to play.
  • Has a CD player and can easily handle delivering music to the floor well from it while I'm querying my oversized MediaMonkey database.
  • Is a PC, not a Mac, and is running Windows, not another operating system.
My guess is that physical build & processor type are going to be my biggest hurdles. Am I correct? If not, what else would be hurdles for me (especially that's hard to change out for dirt cheap)?

I know how to check on the existence of a CD player and the existence of USB ports. But every processor in the laptops for sale in my area has come out after the processor my current computer (2001) has in it! So I'd like to ask about processors, and anything else people here point out I missed.
  • Would people here be so kind as to let me know either:
  • What processors to avoid/seek for my needs (listed above), or
  • How to recognize a processor that will/won't meet my needs?
(Same questions for any other hard-to-cheaply-change-out parts people point out I forgot about.)

Thanks!