The Stephen Desper Thread

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Get well soon and take it easy, Steve.

[Rocker]

All the best, Steve !!

[c-man]

I do hope you get well soon, Steve.

C-Man

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

Stephen, when you feel better and start posting again, I was wondering if you give more information on the following:

Virtual Sound Processor-11(VSP-11) 1.02

Will it work with Windows XP Service Pack 2?

How does it compare to something like this:

iQfx 3.0

[Stephen W. Desper]

Stephen, when you feel better and start posting again, I was wondering if you give more information on the following:

Virtual Sound Processor-11(VSP-11) 1.02

Will it work with Windows XP Service Pack 2?

How does it compare to something like this:

iQfx 3.0

Thank you everyone for all your concerns.  It touches my heart to know I've got some real friends on the other end of this thread.   ~Steve

COMMENT TO CHARLES LePAGE --

This is a sour point with me.  My original invention was quite unique in the way it operated. It was never understood by the electronic engineers who thought it could be converted to digital without much processing power.  What you can download from Spatializer, QSound, or SRS are all basically the same function (only using different trade names) -- none of which do to the signal what my original patented invention did. When the programmers went in the wrong direction (as far as I was concerned)  it prompted me to sell my shares and options in SPAZ to move to Florida and regroup.  Now all those companies are going under or close to it, because their products have gone generic, that is, the public does not make a distinction between them. All the generic programs are phychoacoustic in operation. My approach takes the neurological route which is not often understood by sound engineers -- rather by medical doctors.

As to using the generics, that is something you could experiment with.  They will give you some kick, but not the true effect.  Don't waste your money buying from Spatializer or QSound.  Just use WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER as the program to play a CD from your computer and turn on the SRS "WOW effect" for spatial enhancement and TreBass to give a false bottom end, if you like that sort of thing.  In my computer I can compare the 360Surround matrix device against WOW while playing Sunflower.

What I hear is a lot of distortion on the vocals when using WOW and none using the matrix.  But you will get some spread. You will also notice that you can hear the digital processing as it is applied to the sound with WOW. Matrix is analog only. You need to see how much distortion you can tolorate against the effect you want.  I would turn TruBass completly off.  WOW at less then halfway up.  I think it goes to mono at the extreme left. Adjust to your liking. Don't believe the other brands will do any better or worse.

If you wish to listen over a larger sound system, take the headphone output from your computer speakers, or the line output from your sound card and input it into your stereo AUX inputs. 

If you don't have Media Player, you can download it for free from http://www.microsoft.com.  ~swd  (still on the mend)  

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

Thanks Steve.  I am always looking for something to improve the overall sound output of my PC.  The Qsound plugin for RealPlayer that I bought years ago works only for Realplayer.  I will try what you have suggested in Windows Media Player, though of course, that will only work for it.   I'm looking for something that will improve the sound I get while using Rhapsody.

You should be getting your rest, but since you answered, here's one more question:  are you considering developing PC software that would do what you wanted your original invention to do?

(still on the mend)  -- well, ignore my questions and get better.   

[dennyfan]

Stephen,

I just logged on and saw the post about your heath.  Just want to send my regards - I hope you're feeling better and will be back to full health soon

[Stephen W. Desper]

Thanks Steve.  I am always looking for something to improve the overall sound output of my PC.  The Qsound plugin for RealPlayer that I bought years ago works only for Realplayer.  I will try what you have suggested in Windows Media Player, though of course, that will only work for it.   I'm looking for something that will improve the sound I get while using Rhapsody.

You should be getting your rest, but since you answered, here's one more question:  are you considering developing PC software that would do what you wanted your original invention to do?

(still on the mend)  -- well, ignore my questions and get better.   

I'm an analog guy.  Analog still has the highest resolution which is what it takes to give realistic spatial impression. The 360 matrix could easily be connected to a computer to do it all.  If you have one, try it.

On the professional scene I did develope software for use in CD mastering.  I made ten units.  They sold for $10,000 each.  Most are now in use in Japanese mastering houses.  One is in Canada. I suppose the price would drop some if revisited today.

Look into options on your soundcard software.  You may find something there that will "improve" your PC sound.   ~swd

[king of anglia]

Stephen.
Hope you fell better soon.
Can you explain what precisely/in lay terms what the Spatializer actually does to the muisc? As in, filters, phase shifting, band-pass filters tec...

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

Look into options on your soundcard software.  You may find something there that will "improve" your PC sound. [/b]  ~swd

Perhaps a new soundcard is in order:

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card

Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Review

My guess is, how the sound card "improves" the output is similiar or the same as the software you described.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Can you explain what precisely/in lay terms what the Spatializer actually does to the muisc? As in, filters, phase shifting, band-pass filters tec...

I'm guessing that's proprietary information.

[Stephen W. Desper]

Stephen.
Hope you fell better soon.
Can you explain what precisely/in lay terms what the Spatializer actually does to the muisc? As in, filters, phase shifting, band-pass filters tec...

SEE, That's what I mean.  You're giving me the same problems that the electronic engineers did at my own company. You want filters, phase shifting, band-pass, etc. while I'm working with, labeled line codes, discharge patterns, adaptive receptor slopes, frequency and population codes, hemisphere transitions, temporal autocorrelation, etc. -- terms not used in the audio world. To my thinking you are dealing with signal pathways to understand music -- and that's not where music is cognized. Copper wire, paper cones, and silicon impurities only represent the positional changes of moving air molecules -- there's no Brian Wilson ballad in resistor. Signal does not even begin to be sonic event until the forth level of neurological activity and auditory configurations of primitive music begin to emerge above level ten.  Music and sound is all in the mind.  Reproduction of music production is a total illusion.  It's not natural to hear two undulating speaker cones. There is no inbuilt, inherited, or conditioned model in our physiological history to which the mind can relate.  Where in nature is 2.0 or 5.1?  It's all an illusion.  An illusion that finds substance in the mind, not on a circuit board.  Yes, the topology of a circuit can be changed to mimic a physical effect, but if you want to really make stereo work, you've got to do it on the brain's level, i.e, use the brain as it works, and it does not work like an electronic circuit. 
My pain medication is making me ramble, sorry. ~swd         

[Stephen W. Desper]

Look into options on your soundcard software.  You may find something there that will "improve" your PC sound. [/b]  ~swd

Perhaps a new soundcard is in order:

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card

Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Review

My guess is, how the sound card "improves" the output is similiar or the same as the software you described.

COMMENT TO CHARLES --

If you really want to improve the sound of your PC (at least in streaming audio) you've got to start with the source.  Check out http://www.bluebeat.com or "digital done right at BLUE BEAT."  Your Rhapsody service downloads at 128k -- and then you want to band-aid some program to make it better?   Try Blue Beat downloads, at a huge 320k, to your secure MP3 -- that's real CD quality without the compression artifacts. 

Lots of music on BlueBeat and the best streaming sound around.  The installation of the player is a drag 'cause it complex and takes two or three re-boots, but the sound is super.  If you are an audiophile, BlueBeat's the stream!  ~swd

[Stephen W. Desper]

Vocalization gone mobile

MUST HEAR !!!   

>>>  http://esp.realcities.com/a/hBD1UdcAPnpi4APtV1IAQIJw8.APnpi4TW/gmsv1042

~swd

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Where in nature is 2.0 or 5.1?

Is nature Infinity.Infinity?

[Susan]

I love this thread.  Even when i don't understand it, i love it.

[Stephen W. Desper]

Where in nature is 2.0 or 5.1?

Is nature Infinity.Infinity?

No. Natural sounds are almost exclusively real point sources (more like single-speaker mono). They are certainly not virtual points in space. From an attacking pride of lions to an entertaining pipe organ, all sources of sound are sigular sonic events.  Did you view the video I just posted?  That choir is a collection of many indivdual vibrating membranes, not two undulating layers of tissue at the extremes of the choir.  The human brain evolved to serve us in the perception of the acoustic reality in which we survive and find life experience. For 40 million years mankind has been perceiving spatial dimension assuming that almost every sound event is the source of the location of that sound event. For the last 40 years we have been playing around with stereophonic reproduction and virtual imaging. Which way do you think the brain has developed to experience?  Believe me, the methodology the human auditory system uses for creatring and presenting acoustic reality to our indivdual internal conception of the real world is not complimentary to two- three- or five-channels of surround sound. Since we are dealing with a total illusion here, we can use the brain's own techniques to append the illusion so it conforms to a more natural model -- a model the brain can make more sense of.  ~swd        

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

If you really want to improve the sound of your PC (at least in streaming audio) you've got to start with the source.  Check out http://www.bluebeat.com or "digital done right at BLUE BEAT."  Your Rhapsody service downloads at 128k -- and then you want to band-aid some program to make it better?   Try Blue Beat downloads, at a huge 320k, to your secure MP3 -- that's real CD quality without the compression artifacts.

Am I an audiophile?  I suspect I may be not.  I've created an account on Bluebeat and I imagine, at 320k, the music will sound better.  Compared to 128k, it has to, though I don't know, once I'm actually able to hear music on Bluebeat, I'll notice the difference, given my 40 year old set of ears.  In the end, Rhapsody appears to offer more choices of bands and albums, plus I won't ever see this message while using it:

Cslepage's Music...is in progress.
A crate must contain at least three hours of music to be playable and shared with others.

Rhapsody lets me listen to one song without choosing three hours of music.

To use an example, I drive a Honda CRV.  I would have loved to buy a new one with a rocking stereo, but budget concerns led me to buy a used one without a CD player.  Instead of paying hundreds of dollars to get a quality CD player installed, I spent about $30 and have a Walkman with a car-listening kit.  A band aid, yes, but inexpensive and convenient.  There will always be a market for something like Rhapsody that, at ten bucks a month, allows you to listen to wide variety of artists and songs, as much as you want.  Yes, the bit rate is not quite CD quality, but when I've played songs from Rhapsody, or made CDs from Rhapsody, I've yet to find someone who has said it isn't CD quality.  But there again, most people are not audiophiles.

I also have a MP3 collection that for the most part is less than 320k.  Nothing but a band aid is going to make them sound better.

When you use Bluebeat, do you use the Windows Media Player SRS effects?

[Stephen W. Desper]

I've yet to find someone who has said it isn't CD quality.  But there again, most people are not audiophiles.

I also have a MP3 collection that for the most part is less than 320k.  Nothing but a band aid is going to make them sound better.

When you use Bluebeat, do you use the Windows Media Player SRS effects?

No, I use 360Surround Matrix. 

Your feedback is exactly why I've drifted away from the music business.  People are going backwards.  They don't care about fidelity, just cheap playlists.  It's quantity, not quality. I have found that I like the audiophile end of the business. It's the only place where music aficionados actually sit in darkened rooms and do one thing -- Good Listening, ~swd 

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

I imagine there have always been those that have had less interest in fidelity than others. 

I care about fidelity.  However, I have limited access to the hardware and music that is of the finest fidelity.  I have to make do with what I can get my hands on.  Thus, the band aids.

I remember the days when I spent time in that darkened room you speak of.  Too many other things going on, and a growing inability to tolerate headphones as I get older, keep me out of that room for the most part.

[Mark Kidd]

MP3s are convenient and still the only digital format other than CDA that my discman plays, but that's only because it's gained ubiquity in the market. Even for lossly compression, MP3 is pretty weak sauce. The codec itself has been band-aided so it's more flexible than it used to be, but with the bandwith and storage space we have now something losess like FLAC is easy and maintains true fidelity to the bits on the CD.

FLAC is just one lossless codec, but it's a forerunner among the current options: http://flac.sourceforge.net/

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

I have FLACS as well.

[Stephen W. Desper]

I imagine there have always been those that have had less interest in fidelity than others. 

I care about fidelity.  However, I have limited access to the hardware and music that is of the finest fidelity.  I have to make do with what I can get my hands on.  Thus, the band aids.

I remember the days when I spent time in that darkened room you speak of.  Too many other things going on, and a growing inability to tolerate headphones as I get older, keep me out of that room for the most part.

COMMENT TO CHARLES --
I am fortunate to have some good equipment around me.  What I'm saying is that you would think that in 40 years we would have improved sound reproduction many fold.  The CD player brought what a $1,000 LP turntable could produce to the average guy for $100. But most people still want 1000 tunes on their cellphone for playback while on the run.  Well, OK, there's lots of music in the archives to load up on.  Digital cable was to bring us better looking TV pictures, but instead it delivers more channels of crappy shows with the same limited resolution.  I know it's all going to change someday, but the FCC keeps delaying the date. Here's the bottom line:

I can assemble a good two-channel stereo sound system from Circuit City for around two grand.  That's a CD player, Amplifier/Receiver and two - fresh from Japan - speakers on stands. Use Monster cable hookup wire and interconnects. Buy 10 CD's for $150; and listen. 

I can go on ebay and buy a vintage (1960) Fisher C-500 tube receiver, a used Thornes or AR turntable and Shure cartridge, and a couple of old JBL, Bozak, EV, AR, Tannoy, Warfdale or whatever American/British speakers and elevate them on some milk crates. Use lamp cord and cheap interconnects.  Buy 300 LP's for $150 from a used clothing store; and listen.

Guess which music system will give me the most musical experience and be the cheapest investment. 

On the over hand, there are people who spend hundred's of thousand's of dollars and are never satisfied.

Take the time to travel into Audiophile Land by clicking here >>>  http://www.exoticaudio.org/index.html . Take the time and visit at least five pages. It's an amazing market.  Very diverse. 

I'm just saying that for all the time that has past, all the research that's been done, and all the effort which has gone into the capturing of sound, you would think we would have come further along with the fidelity part.   ~swd     

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

Digital cable was to bring us better looking TV pictures, but instead it delivers more channels of crappy shows with the same limited resolution.  I know it's all going to change someday, but the FCC keeps delaying the date.     

Digital cable is sold as something wonderful, but all it is designed to do, as I understand it, is allow cable companies to deliver more channels to their customers.   It isn't meant to improve the quality of resolution one bit.  I could very well be wrong. 

Read this:  Cable operators use digital technology to compress video signals, allowing more than one program service to be carried in the bandwidth space normally required for one analog program service.  http://www.ncta.com/Docs/PageContent.cfm?pageID=91

They go on to say Digital television also allows cable operators and program networks to offer high-definition television.  We get some HD channels where I live, and they are wonder to view.  Just not much to choose from.

I think I've babbled enough about musical fidelity. 

[Stephen W. Desper]

Digital cable was to bring us better looking TV pictures, but instead it delivers more channels of crappy shows with the same limited resolution.  I know it's all going to change someday, but the FCC keeps delaying the date.     

Digital cable is sold as something wonderful, but all it is designed to do, as I understand it, is allow cable companies to deliver more channels to their customers.   It isn't meant to improve the quality of resolution one bit.  I could very well be wrong. 

Read this:  Cable operators use digital technology to compress video signals, allowing more than one program service to be carried in the bandwidth space normally required for one analog program service.  http://www.ncta.com/Docs/PageContent.cfm?pageID=91

They go on to say Digital television also allows cable operators and program networks to offer high-definition television.  We get some HD channels where I live, and they are wonder to view.  Just not much to choose from.

I think I've babbled enough about musical fidelity. 

Analog television in this country is to be phased out in 2007 -- been extended to 2011.  After that, all analog (regular) TV's will not receive a signal. Every transmitter will be digital ony. A converter to keep your old TV's going will cost about $100 per set.

I think this medication I'm on makes me depressed about the future -- or at least somewhat sour. 

Guess I need a dose of uplifting Beach Boy surf music !!    ~swd