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Power and Ports - The Ever Diminishing Resources in My Office!
f0dder:
3D sound: adding "texturing" and doppler (and other) effects, 3D aural positioning, etc. -f0dder (December 28, 2007, 06:21 AM)
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This is a pet peeve of mine. There is nothing "3D" about this. There's isn't even anything 3D about 5.1 surround sound on your entertainment center. The whole 3D sound thing is a marketing gimmick.
Think about it: what does 3D mean? It's short for "3 dimensional", i.e., having three dimensions. These dimensions are commonly referred to as width, depth, and height.
Now, what dimensions does your 3D sound card, or your entertainment center offer? It has stereo sound, that is, left-right, which corresponds to the width dimension. It has surround, i.e., front-back, corresponding to depth. But nowhere, not out of your fancy DVD player and amplifier, nor out of your EAX processor, will you find any indication of height. This is just fine with me, but I resent that marketing is so clearly false in what's being promised.
Returning from my brief thread hijacking ;) -- I do appreciate the need for power transformer boxes in order to reduce desktop clutter and keep the device itself cooler. However, I really hate those "wall wart" boxes that have the plugs built-in, occupying three outlets by overlapping one one each side. It would work out better if, like most laptop computers, there were cords coming out both sides of the transformer.
Not all USB hubs need to be powered. It depends on what you plan to plug into them. Something like a flash drive takes little enough power that it can run off what was supplied by the host. However, some devices take so much power that some cheap USB ports can't supply them adequately (e.g., my Dell Axim PDA draws as much as 1.2A when the USB spec only requires that it be given 0.5A, which is a real crime).
-CWuestefeld (December 28, 2007, 01:18 PM)
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Actually, in my humble opinion, there is 3D taking place... since your position in 3D space and the sound source position in 3D space is taken into account when generating the output sound. With a pair of good stereo headphones, you can hear the difference.
Other 3D properties include sound occlusion, reflections (again, taking sound "textures" or "wall materials" if you want) into account, etc. I only have a basic Audigy card with EAX2 support though, so I haven't heard all the fancyness.
But imho it's more than just a marketing gimmick.
mikiem:
FWIW, agreeing with f0dder, I believe there's 3 sorts of 3D audio: there's the DX type stuff used in games to, I guess I'd say enhance the illusion. There's the multi-track audio used for the same purpose for movies. And there's a compromise (or maybe just plain fake) waveform processing to make 2D sound seem like it's really 3 dimensional -- again with the same purpose of enhancing the illusion that you're really there, instead of listening to what all too often is the world's crappiest speakers that they bundle and sell for PCs.
RE: USB... I'd fault whomever put the box together, as looking at recent boards there isn't *any* shortage of available ports, like 10 or more. Of course there isn't room at the rear panel header, so someone has to hook them up to the front of the case or an adapter back where the cards go.
If you have a device that won't work thru a hub, it's very often the hub at fault. If not, USB extension cords are very cheap lifesavers. When it comes to using more than one hub, congregating the hardware that doesn't need external power from the port on one hub, then powering another hub with a wall wart for everything else helps. Then again 7 (or more) port hubs can cut clutter & eliminate a wall wart too.
One thing to note in a biz environment, is hubs are dirt cheap on-line -- before the brands add their 4x + markup & packaging -- but many don't show any regulatory approval (i.e. UL) & I imagine that could be a problem. For wall warts, someone with more tech savvy would know better than I, but I believe it's not a good thing to plug wall warts into surge protector devices. A squid type arrangement (without the surge protection) or a simple power strip I think is ideal, especially if you can turn the wall warts off when not in use for long periods -- energy usage from a dozen (or more) of those devils adds up, plus turning them off eliminates a potential unattended fire hazard.
CWuestefeld:
FWIW, agreeing with f0dder, I believe there's 3 sorts of 3D audio: there's the DX type stuff used in games to, I guess I'd say enhance the illusion. There's the multi-track audio used for the same purpose for movies. And there's a compromise (or maybe just plain fake) waveform processing to make 2D sound seem like it's really 3 dimensional -- again with the same purpose of enhancing the illusion that you're really there, instead of listening to what all too often is the world's crappiest speakers that they bundle and sell for PCs.-mikiem (February 05, 2008, 06:17 PM)
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Nope. I can hear width and depth, but not height -- even from my expensive entertainment center with 5.1 DTS. I don't know anyone who claims to hear height, even you didn't make that explicit claim. You just say that it's "really 3 dimensional ... really there". And my argument is that marketing is programming people to misunderstand the term "3 dimensional".
You say that they are "mak[ing] 2D sound seem like it's really 3 dimensional". This is incorrect. They're taking 1D sound (the left-right width dimension) and processing it to create the illusion of 2D (left-right and front-back)
So let me ask you explicitly: do you think that the sound you're hearing lets you discern how high above the ground the supposed "source" object is?
mikiem:
"...do you think that the sound you're hearing lets you discern how high above the ground the supposed "source" object is?"
Me personally? Nahhh... I'm da**ed near deaf! :P
That said, most people have 2 OEM mics, a right and a left. Everything heard goes thru them, and we pick up spatial clues well enough to kind of tell if a plane is passing overhead, or coming up fast on our 6. :'(
So, with a set of decent headphones you can control what sound is presented to those two OEM mics, and, mimic the plane flying overhead for example. I'm not saying the small app that came with a $10 sound card I have lying in the drawer somewhere will be *that* accurate, but the basic principle is sound (no pun intended). In fact, for modeling studies they use fancy manikin heads outfitted with mics at the ear holes. Speakers are much more difficult, and a separate discipline when it comes to placement and room acoustic characteristics [at the least it involves measuring sound from each speaker from the place of the listener], but it's more than possible to provide realistic 3D effects. The average Blockbuster DVD OTOH features the theater soundtrack most often, designed for their typical speaker set-up, so mileage at home does vary. Also, different amounts of work go into preparing the multi-track audio that eventually appears on a DVD -- for simpler 360 degree audio all you need is the raw tracks and Vegas. Some PC games have long used the direct sound stuff from Microsoft which does I *think* include 360 degree spherical placement -- it's been quite a while since I looked at it (I am not a coder).
One example that shows in a dramatic fashion how sound waves bounce around, is concert events... Since the venue is usually less than perfect, opposing sound waves are sent out, and by varying the volumes at different frequencies, they can effectively mix what the audience hears. Same thing happens in our living rooms, only the reflections aren't usually under our control.
f0dder:
CWuestefeld: good question whether you can "hear height", but I do think it's possible, at least with a decent pair of headphones. At least sounds did help me very quickly locate my enemies when I have spare time to play computer games. But obviously sound textures help greatly with this ("he's in the vents!").
As mikiem says, I can't see why 3D positional audio shouldn't be possible with a pair of headphones, since all we have are two ears (or "OEM mics" :-*) anyway. 360° spatial sound is definitely possible.
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