4k TV arrives at MacDocs

[Macdoc]

Actually there is not a large margin in vinyl as the presses are old and even the medium hard to come by. Most of the presses were scrapped a good while back.

[Hermit]

[quote="Macdoc";p="2667388"]Actually there is not a large margin in vinyl as the presses are old and even the medium hard to come by. Most of the presses were scrapped a good while back.[/quote]
You got that arse about face. The owners of the remaining vinyl presses are struggling to meet demand. That means they can name their price, at least until new presses such as Furnace Record Pressing, Third Man Pressing and Sony (yes, after a 28 year absence, Sony has resumed pressing vinyl discs) are operating at full capacity. This is not surprising. Although vinyl records are still a niche market, sales are up 1100% from 2008, and everyone with the requisite equipment is making plenty of hay while the sun shines.

[Macdoc]

Demand does not equal profits.
another fad that will fade......it is amusing to watch having spent 20 years in the audio business.

[The_Piper]

I've moved to mp3 and I aint going back. Although I do keep some of my old records and players for the nostalgia factor. Not to listen to.

[Hermit]

[quote="Macdoc";p="2667400"]Demand does not equal profits.[/quote]
This is true, but conventional economic thinking goes like this: When demand exceeds supply we are faced with a shortage. Shortages tend to drive up the price, because consumers compete to purchase the product. This enables manufacturers to raise the price. Unless per unit production costs rise as a result, which is not a likely scenario in the vinyl pressing business, profit margins go up.

[quote="Macdoc";p="2667400"]another fad that will fade......[/quote]
Tell someone who asserts it won't. Until it does fade, however, vinyl records, along with valve equipment and so on are profitable niche markets.

[Macdoc]

niche is the operative word....there are a number of bottle necks in the supply chain and it's not a frictionless market plus it's subject to the whimsy of the market as to what will sell.

You might do slightly better than a casino but not a lot.....and Sony is desperate

Sony Shares Sink After Company Reports Worse Q4 Loss Than ...
https://www.thewrap.com/sony-pictures-q ... ock-sinks/
Apr 27, 2018 - Sony Corp. reported early Friday morning that it had a per-share loss of 12 cents in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2017, using current foreign exchange rates.

were it not for gaming they might be buy out fodder.

[Hermit]

[quote="Macdoc";p="2667409"]niche is the operative word....[/quote]
So is profit. There wouldn't have been several vinyl pressing operations opening up in the past year without the confidence that it isn't.

[quote="Macdoc";p="2667409"].....and Sony is desperate

Sony Shares Sink After Company Reports Worse Q4 Loss Than ...
https://www.thewrap.com/sony-pictures-q ... ock-sinks/
Apr 27, 2018 - Sony Corp. reported early Friday morning that it had a per-share loss of 12 cents in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2017, using current foreign exchange rates.

were it not for gaming they might be buy out fodder.[/quote]
Desperate? LOL. You found a report of one quarterly loss. Who are you trying to fool with that? Sony has posted annual profits for the past three consecutive years. Five years ago its shares traded in the 15 to 18 dollar range on the NYSE. Today it closed at $52.62. That is not a sign of desperation. Not of the company and not of its shareholders.

Sony profits soar nearly seven-fold to $4.5 bn
April 27, 2018
Sony on Friday reported profits worth $4.5 billion, extending a roaring recovery supported by better sales almost across the board, including with box office blockbusters like its Jumanji reboot.

The results confirm the electronics and entertainment giant's return to health after huge losses in recent years, but analysts said there are questions about whether the pace could be maintained.

Sony reported net yearly profits hit 490.8 billion yen ($4.5 billion) for the year to March, a record high, up from 73.3 billion yen a year earlier.

Annual operating profit more than doubled to 734.86 billion yen, while sales surged 12.4 percent to 8.54 trillion yen, the company said...

And of course none of that has any bearing on the profitability of niche markets.

[LucidFlight]

I haven’t bought a Sony audio product since the MiniDisc player, more than a decade ago. Anyway, coming through duty-free the other month, I picked up a fairly inexpensive pair of Sony wireless, noise-cancelling headphones (WH-CH700N), just for a bit of fun, you know. They’ve turned out to be surprisingly good value.

[laklak]

I've listened to the same album (Dark Side of the Moon) through the same high quality system, one on CD and one vinyl. There is a noticeable difference, the vinyl sounds richer and more, I don't know, full. The CD was about 5 years old, the vinyl at least 30. Tried messing with the equalizer, but no matter now it was set the vinyl sounded better. We tried an experiment. Had both playing at the same time, with the same equalization, and would switch back and forth between the two inputs without telling the listeners which was which. Without exception all picked the vinyl as superior.

[Macdoc]

Not surprised as much was engineered for the sound characteristics and limitations of vinyl...dynamic range is one area ...if you have Brothers in Arms the CD should prove a superior accuracy ....engineering for full dynamic range on that would have the stylus bounce out of the track.

Most people are not after accurate and/or high dynamic range music ...they want it plushy and the engineers will deliver. Nothing wrong with that. Tube amps do the same thing - just a variation of sound profile....more pleasing may be less accurate but that's not necessarily a negative.

What makes it from the master recordings is always well massaged and limited. Even if you did side by side on studio cans you might prefer the vinyl as it was likely engineered on those headphones originally for vinyl.

That's the headache with music ...you are always hearing what the engineer wants you to or what the limits of the reproductive chain restrict you to.

The actual energy and square waves of a brass instrument or a kick drum simply cannot be duplicated tho studio headphones perhaps are close.

Sennheisers binaural recordings perhaps were able to catch dynamics almost important hall ambience and it takes far less power to drive room isolated headphones to get accurate reproduction ....but it's all up to the engineer and the limits of his gear for capture and reproduce.

This is sort of fun
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electro ... ature.html

And then there is the issue the limitations of human hearing and the far from linear response to sounds ...shaped by millions of years of evolution.

BIOPHYSICS RESEARCH UPDATE
Human hearing is highly nonlinear
31 Jan 2013

People can simultaneously identify the pitch and timing of a sound signal much more precisely than allowed by conventional linear analysis. That is the conclusion of a study of human subjects done by physicists in the US. The findings are not just of theoretical interest but could potentially lead to better software for speech recognition and sonar.

Human hearing is remarkably good at isolating sounds, allowing us to pick out individual voices in a crowded room, for example. However, the neural algorithms that our brains use to analyse sound are still not properly understood. Most researchers had assumed that the brain decomposes the signals and treats them as the sum of their parts – a process that can be likened to Fourier analysis, which decomposes an arbitrary waveform into pure sine waves.

However, the information available from Fourier analysis is bound by an uncertainty relation called the Gabor limit. This says that you cannot know the timing of a sound and its frequency – or pitch – beyond a certain degree of accuracy. The more accurate the measurement of the timing of a sound, the less accurate the measurement of its pitch and vice versa.

more

https://physicsworld.com/a/human-hearin ... nonlinear/

[Scot Dutchy]

My dick is bigger than your dick. FFS

[Macdoc]

Desperate? LOL. You found a report of one quarterly loss. Who are you trying to fool with that? Sony has posted annual profits for the past three consecutive years. Five years ago its shares traded in the 15 to 18 dollar range on the NYSE. Today it closed at $52.62. That is not a sign of desperation. Not of the company and not of its shareholders.

Maybe you need to burrow down a bit further and see how much of that has a very narrow base for profitability.
Play Station mostly is responsible and that can change in a heartbeat.

Even the company is not very confident for 2019 and they published this piece

Sony fiscal 2018 results soar, but shares slide on guidance for lower revenue, earnings in fiscal 2019
Share
11:16 27 Apr 2018
Media and electronics giant turns in big increases in operating income and net income

https://ca.proactiveinvestors.com/compa ... 95988.html

PS5 is an unknown ....too many eggs in one gamer basket.

[Hermit]

[quote="Macdoc";p="2667465"]

Desperate? LOL. You found a report of one quarterly loss. Who are you trying to fool with that? Sony has posted annual profits for the past three consecutive years. Five years ago its shares traded in the 15 to 18 dollar range on the NYSE. Today it closed at $52.62. That is not a sign of desperation. Not of the company and not of its shareholders.

Maybe you need to burrow down a bit further and see how much of that has a very narrow base for profitability.
Play Station mostly is responsible and that can change in a heartbeat.

Even the company is not very confident for 2019 and they published this piece

Sony fiscal 2018 results soar, but shares slide on guidance for lower revenue, earnings in fiscal 2019
Share
11:16 27 Apr 2018
Media and electronics giant turns in big increases in operating income and net income

https://ca.proactiveinvestors.com/compa ... 95988.html

PS5 is an unknown ....too many eggs in one gamer basket.[/quote]
You're drilling granite, Mac. Sony has been profitable for the past three financial years and in October, halfway through the current one, it has upgraded its profit projection based on the first half. All its branches bar mobile telephones are solidly in the black. The April share slide is barely a blip, dwarfed by the long term trend.

Sony_Share_prices.png

And you still have not explained what any of this has to do with the profitability of niche markets in general and vinyl records or vacuum tubed audio gear in particular.

[laklak]

You can overdrive a car but you can't overdrive a solid state guitar amp. Ask Jimi.

[Macdoc]

It has nothing to do with niche market profitability ...it has to do with fickle gamers and Sony having too many eggs in one Play Station basket...we will see this time next year how "bullish" people will be on Sony.
Right now vinyl is a tiny blip on the music market tho Sony's music catalogue is an advantage....vinyl is still in the main nostalgic boomers reliving their youth with a smattering of retros that think its "cool".

Maybe Apple sees a somewhat decaying carcass to pick over

Could Apple Buy Sony? What Does This Mean For Marvel’s Spider-Man?
APPLEMARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSEMOVIES
By Divij Sonak On Dec 15, 2018

http://www.appocalypse.co/entertainment ... rvel-2019/

[Macdoc]

Finally got a chance to play with a HomePod in my own environment.
Awkward set up compared to Alexa but that was mostly due to my ancient iPhone and Apple being anal about security but even then a bit annoying tho I do like the tap to connect.....it's the routine after that....

Once set up it's easy enough and the sound ???



A whole world better than the Echo with a sub in terms of sound quality

Now one aspect of that is the higher quality feed from Apple Music than Amazon Music. I'm still sorting how to get Amazon Music to the HomePod which is a recent development ...I'll wait for guru staff to arrive.

SIri is no where near as useful at this point as Alexa ...( I'm echoing the many reviews that cover the 3 eco-systems ALexa/Echo, Google and Apple/SIri/HomePod. )

Sound is much better than my admittedly tired Harmon Kardon Soundsticks tho I love the look of the HKs and the current ones are likely better sound than mine BUT not Smart.

and about the same price.

Now I'm caught ...I get the benefit of now dual HomePods from staff office ( 10' away ) OR
My own HomePod in my office/kitchen

To get Amazon Alexa devices close in sound quality one would have to go to a Sonos solution which gets $$$
There are other smart speakers as well that can tap into the Alexa ecosystem but Apple's HomePod is small, elegant and astonishing sound ....even with a single.

[Macdoc]

There was a high end cooking show series when 4k first started streaming that blew me away. Chef's Table ....now Season 2 and France as well these are in HDR.
Just now Pine Gap is 4k UHD tho not HDR afaik. Quality is very good. It would be interesting to watch on an OLED with the deeper blacks.



State of 4k and HDR universe.... expanding like crazy and still getting cheaper.

So Santa decided to upgrade your living room with a 4K TV. Now, you are wondering what you can watch.

You are likely not alone. By the rapidly approaching end of the year, more than three out of 10 U.S. homes (31 percent) are expected to have a 4K TV or 4K Ultra High Definition TV, according to the Consumer Technology Association, an industry trade group. That's up from 16 percent last year. Next year, 4K UHD TVs will be in an estimated 41 percent of U.S. homes, CTA estimates.

4K TVs are a hit beyond the U.S., too. Worldwide sales of 4K TVs in 2018 are expected to hit 100 million, increasing to 230 million the number of 4K TVs in homes, according to research firm Digital Tech Consulting.

Consumers have taken to 4K UHD TVs, first introduced in the U.S. in 2012, in part because prices have fallen. The average 4K TV now costs less than $900, down from more than $4,000 five years ago, DTC says.

Lower prices are just one selling point. Bigger screens with sharper images and richer colors are benefits, too. 4K UHD TVs have four times as many pixels as HDTVs. Those additional pixels make bigger displays look better without degradation of the imagery.

Most 4K TVs can also handle High Dynamic Range (HDR) content, produced so that newer TVs can display more intense brights and darks, as well as more detail in shadows. An additional image upgrade that usually accompanies HDR is a wider color palette producing more precise and rich colors.

more info.

snip

You will pay a bit more for a 4K TV with HDR, but if you expect to spend a lot of time with your TV, that slightly higher expense will be worth it. (You can still get a 55-inch 4K TV with HDR for less than $500.)

Again my advice if you need or want a new TV is go cheap ...TCL LED or OLED for the win overall spending a fair bit more.

If your TV works and you are happy ....just wait ...it will only get cheaper and better.

[Macdoc]

Smart speakers just a fad? Think again. The year ahead for Alexa, Google, Siri

Adoption is on the rise despite privacy concerns, with more voice-enabled products on the way

Matthew Braga · CBC News · Posted: Jan 06, 2019 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 2 hours ago


Amazon revealed that it has sold more than 100 million Alexa-capable devices to date in an interview with the Verge. (Elaine Thompson/Associated Press)

more

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/smar ... -1.4966992

hmmmph...a staff swiped my HomePod

[felltoearth]

Never say never, but at this point there’s no way I would buy one.

[Macdoc]

Voice is being integrated into so many devices - the race for the dominant eco system is interesting. This will play in autonomous vehicles as well. I enjoy the big music libraries and just the convenience