Posts by Gavagai 6 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Sep 2014
Encryption = mathematics + a tiny bit of programming.
Unless she magically figures out a way to ban mathematics she just embarrasses herself every time she says something so ridiculously stupid.
Now maybe it's possible that the terror attacks we are suffering are made by people too stupid to do the basic programming required, but it's pretty unlikely that someone, somewhere in the organisation is not smart enough.
All she can do is make us all less safe than we already are.
I have (for now) the Dragonfly Black, which "just works" inline coming out the USB-C port into a headphone jack.
Of course it makes a very substantial difference.
...but then as is the way with Audio you start listening and chasing small improvements. So a decent set of in-ears, then the Sennheiser Momentum 2 over-ears, then using Tidal hifi quality instead of Spotify Extreme.
Each piece adds extra quality, but each piece adds cost. Fortunately I tend to stop at the high end of consumer and get nervous when it's labelled audiophile. I know when I reach "good enough".
When I got my Huawei P9 after having had the very decent Sony audio I was shocked. It sounded like the audio reproduction was coming from inside a tin box at the bottom of a swimming pool by comparison. I thought I hadn't plugged in the headphones properly.
Foolishly I hadn't even really given the on-board DAC a second thought when I got my new phone, dazzled as I was by the fun to be had with the new camera on the P9, which is actually quite good.
Well that opened up an expensive can of worms! Now I have a Dragonfly DAC which works great and better in-ear headphones, though subsequently I've found that Bluetooth and a set of Sennheiser Momentum 2 cans actually gives fairly decent quality, certainly acceptable for everyday use on the train for example. The awful DAC on the P9 really made me pay attention and spend upwards of £600 on "fixing" the audio on a £600 phone. Oh well.
Anyway, 32-bit DAC from LG and B&O. Something to think about for my next phone for sure. If only their cameras weren't so meh.
Source media is useful to avoid vendor lock-in.
Time was I was a big Apple fan, but I've never been a fan of iTunes. These days I mostly hate Apple and their products. I've had many music playing devices over the digital years, and including a number of hifi systems with real amplifiers and speakers!
Amazon did something really cool a while back: when you buy a CD from them, you get immediate and on-going access to that CD in mp3 format. You can download immediately and a couple of days later the CD turns up in the post.
Best of both worlds.
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