Future Audio : Going Optical?

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Just pulling this issue back out of the closet and knocking the dust off.....so, any takers? What're the chances that future Pro Macs will have optional sound cards which support optical I/O?



These kinds of cards are available today, but there supposedly aren't a lot of good Mac drivers for them...especially for OS X.



Optical has become fairly standard options for hooking up components these days...so this isn't an unproven fringe technology....it's considered to be cleaner than analog.



Comments?



[ 05-18-2002: Message edited by: drewprops ]</p>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    [quote]Originally posted by drewprops:

    <strong>Just pulling this issue back out of the closet and knocking the dust off.....so, any takers? What're the chances that future Pro Macs will have optional sound cards which support optical I/O?



    These kinds of cards are available today, but there supposedly aren't a lot of good Mac drivers for them...especially for OS X.



    Optical has become fairly standard options for hooking up components these days...so this isn't an unproven fringe technology....it's considered to be cleaner than analog.



    Comments?



    [ 05-18-2002: Message edited by: drewprops ]</strong><hr></blockquote>





    apple should have moved to more advanced audio capabilities built-in years ago. once they had a lead. now they are way behind. great isn't it

    <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
  • Reply 2 of 9
    [quote] Originally Posted By Drewpops:

    Optical has become fairly standard options for hooking up components these days...so this isn't an unproven fringe technology....it's considered to be cleaner than analog.<hr></blockquote>



    Not to be a rude, but nothing is cleaner than analog. Analog is the sound, it can't get any cleaner. Purists take record players with its pops and hissing over a digital format hands down. Taking an analog source and converting it to 1's and 0's and then trying to convert it back to its original state faithfully is anything but clean. It is a good technology and I like optical, I do, but it's not anything great, it just simplifies something and has draw backs in the process.



    -CFPC (I have to say I agree with you 100% though, I'm itching to hook up a receiver and get some accurate speakers playing music and movies)



    [ 05-18-2002: Message edited by: ConvertedFromPC ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 9
    lowb-inglowb-ing Posts: 98member
    [quote]Originally posted by ConvertedFromPC:

    <strong>



    Not to be a rude, but nothing is cleaner than analog. Analog is the sound, it can't get any cleaner. Purists take record players with its pops and hissing over a digital format hands down. Taking an analog source and converting it to 1's and 0's and then trying to convert it back to its original state faithfully is anything but clean. It is a good technology and I like optical, I do, but it's not anything great, it just simplifies something and has draw backs in the process.



    -CFPC (I have to say I agree with you 100% though, I'm itching to hook up a receiver and get some accurate speakers playing music and movies)



    [ 05-18-2002: Message edited by: ConvertedFromPC ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I take it we're talking computers here, so it's just a question of where and how to convert the sound, and over what medium it is to be streamed, 'cause it HAS to be digital.

    unfortunately.

    I think what he meant was that optical signals are supposed to be cleaner than electric signals. Either way it's digital.

    ...unless you have built in AD-converters, wich lets you have an analogue input (and optical is not the standard for analogue). Apple SHOULD get the analogue sound inputs back!

    but not for the pros. They use outboard gear anyway, and high quality ADC's would be to expensive IMHO. They should put decent unexpensive ADC's in there for every one else, and for the sake of defending the mac's reputation as a sound capable platform. A lot of people get really disappointed when they learn they have to shell out extra to be able to record sound on a PM!
  • Reply 4 of 9
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Yeah. Macs used to be the absolute kings of audio, and still are, but simply because they were.



    Do you guys (ok people) think Steve Jobs realizes how many things are currently just missing? As in, really frikkin' missing?



    How the HELL are we supposed have a digital hub, Apple, without real sound IO? Duuuuuuuuh. They seem to be asleep at the wheel over in Cupertino. Yet, I am making my first purchase of AAPL before MWNY, because I have a "feeling"..



    Surround sound. Well, since PeeCees have had it forever... Duuuuh... And I never quite understood why Steve Jobs took out the audio in port (I was going to tape Moby's "18" CD off MTV2 last weekend, when, whoops, I noticed my iBook doesn't have audio in? Are you kidding me?)



    Then he calls it Digital Audio. Steve Jobs appears to be a dumbass. I really wonder why AAPL hasn't fallen through the floor. Not to say they're going out of business, I know better, but investors!? They should at least -tell- people about stuff. Like Jaguar for a good example. This secrecy stuff is really starting to annoy me. And since everyone is expecting a "G5" or whatever this MWNY, they better not put any stupid signs on the website this time!



    This is one small example leading me to the conclusion that Apple reeeeeally needs to get with the program. I still can't believe how crappy Macs are when it comes to audio, and yet how good they are.



    I guess Apple is trying to get sound out of our life? Hmm. First the computers go fanless, then audio-in port-less, and OS X loses the "Sound sets", MIDI is in disarray... I see a conspiracy against us weirdos who like sound from computers!



    Despite hearing this from xlr8

    [quote]

    "Mike,

    In PCs this device will passthrough Dolby Digital or DTS multichannel audio through the USB port. Edirol lists MacOS compatibility, however it is currently limited to Dolby Surround 2.0 and PCM (digital stereo) output. Apple could in principle add the support within their DVD player for multichannel audio to be delivered through this device.

    <a href="http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua1d.html"; target="_blank">http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua1d.html</a>;

    If Apple did this, the other requirement to allow Macs to be Home Theater machines would be custom timings and resolutions to support high definition TVs. Cubes would be extremely hot items for Home Theater enthusiasts...

    Cheers,

    Alric"



    <hr></blockquote>



    The last extraordinarily damning piece of evidence? This:



    <a href="http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/may02/051602.html#S13820"; target="_blank">http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/may02/051602.html#S13820</a>;



    Ow.



    And I signed it. Pondering why OS X supports high falutin' surround sound!
  • Reply 5 of 9
    digixdigix Posts: 109member
    Firewire speakers or at least Firewire amplifiers. Enough said.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    hot chahot cha Posts: 37member
    hi everybody,



    Optical is not necessarily a better method for transmitting *audio* data.



    Audio performance in the digital domain is highly dependent upon the amount of jitter in the datastream. Toslink (the most common optical format), because of its lousy bandwidth, performs very poorly in this regard. In fact, some professional D/A converters are unable to lock to some transports because the incoming squarewaves are so distorted by the Toslink hardware.



    ATT and Single Mode optical connections sound quite good, but this is largely due to the optical formats main benefit: severing the ground between the transport and processor. They are also extremely expensive to implement, and ultimately don't outperfrom well-designed electrical formats.

    Digital audio output, IMHO, would best perform with a high quality pulse transformer-coupled BNC or RCA output fed by a low jitter clock.



    cheers
  • Reply 7 of 9
    hot chahot cha Posts: 37member
    Firewire could also have some potential here.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Um, where are these FireWire speakers, for reasonable money? Surround? And would this eat processor time like USB (I know FireWire is better about this, because it can go from component to component without a computer, for example, but just wondering, especially in light of FireWire 2.0)



    Plus, how bout them ONE FIREWIRE PORT computers like the laptops?



    Seriously, they need to bring back audio-in at least. Idealism in trying to push us toward better standards just isn't good. They rushed the extinction of floppies, then OS 9, without first ensuring OS X was adequate, or CD-RW (they have finally caught up, Burner is great, makes PeeCees look stupid.) This looks like what they're doing with sound. They killed the audio-in. Great. So WHERE is the replacement?
  • Reply 9 of 9
    percolatepercolate Posts: 14member
    In reply to Aquatik:



    Personally, as someone who is developing digital audio software on OS X, I am extremely enthusiastic about it thanks in no small part to the many APIs Apple has provided. They don't simply supercede those available under OS 9 or before, they absolutely humiliate them for functionality and ease of use. The only problems audio on OS X suffers from are the newness of the APIs and the problems that come from the benefits of Unix, such as automatic memory paging.



    As for your concerns about MIDI, I am truly surprised to hear it is in disarray. CoreMIDI has made it simple for me to receive and send MIDI messages and Apple has designed things such that software developers can create virtual MIDI end points and other applications running at the same time can use those endpoints. Between that and Apple's AudioUnits APIs, Apple has introduced a relatively easy and standardized way for audio applications to intercommunicate. They're also providing an API to provide automated sequencing, although I've yet to explore it. The only problems I've heard concerning MIDI are some driver problems mainly having to do with not being able to handle buffers over a certain size for operations like Sysex messaging. Drivers by third party manufacturers aren't exactly Apple's responsiblity but they provide as much help to driver developers as they can.



    I've never really been into surround sound but from what I've seen DTS and DD are just stream based formats which use compression and variable bit rate encoding. QuickTime supports variable bit rate compressed streams but you seem to be correct that there is no explicit support for DTS or DD audio. I would bother the QuickTime developers about it. However, the main problem to getting surround sound is the hardware, as software could be made by a third party to play to surround sound audio streams under OS X (in fact, for all I know there may be a third party DTS QuickTime codec out there). I don't blame Apple much for the hardware, I blame third party manufacturers. If you want them to come to Apple, you have to tell them that you're waiting for them and they have to decide that you're worth the effort. Apple certainly would be wise help recruit more third party hardware manufacturers but ultimately it comes down to consumers and whether the manufacturers see a market. I've seen rumors of SB cards having beta drivers but as it's not of much concern to me I never bothered reading the posts.



    As for the audio input jack - whatever they do, Apple isn't going to satisfy the majority of its customers. I've seen a few people on these types of boards mention having or wanting one. Personally, the only time I've ever seen anyone use the mic jack on a computer was years ago in a class project that required it. For most people an 1/8" input jack is useless because it is of such inherently poor quality. If it only costs me $2 extra for Apple to add it to the iBook and it doesn't occupy much space, that's acceptable with me as a potential purchaser of an (other) iBook despite its appendix-like utility for me. However third party manufacturers are better suited to covering this and there are currently a number of choices out there. For inexpensive options, I've heard a number of people mention the iMic and am fairly certain it works under OS X. Most people would rather give up a couple of clock cycles (if any) for the ability to choose the best device to suit their needs. [I'll also mention that even if you hadn't heard "18" before, you obviously heard it on MTV2 now so if you like it and want to hear it again, pay the money for the CD. I hate the RIAA but I disdain people too cheap to pay for a product they use just because it happens to be digitized.]



    Finally, I don't know what "Sound sets" are but I know OS X supports "Sound Fonts" in case that's of any help to you.



    [ 05-18-2002: Message edited by: percolate ]</p>
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