Comments: 354 +- Entertainment: 13-Year-Old Trades iPod For a Walkman For a Week on Monday June 29, @02:51PM
Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday June 29, @02:51PM
from the don't-tell-him-about-records dept.
from the don't-tell-him-about-records dept.
BBC Magazine convinced 13-year-old Scott Campbell to trade in his iPod for a Walkman for a week and see what he thought. Scott thinks the iPod wins when it comes to sound quality, color, weight, and the shuffle feature. The Walkman, however, offers two headphone sockets, making it much easier to listen to music with a friend. My favorite part of the review is, "It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equalizer, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette."
The wise shepherd never trusts his flock to a smiling wolf.
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Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
About giving him an 8 track cartridge tape ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_8 [wikipedia.org]
At least, there is only one side to those. I still remember listening to Pink Floyd "The dark side of the moon" and "Echoes" while cruising in my car. Even today, when I listen to it on more modern media, I still remember where the sound track would cut for a few seconds in the middle of a song in order to allow the player to change tracks. They did a fade-out in the middle of a song in order to make it sound more appropriated... ;-)
8-tracks came before 4 track mini-cassette :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_Cassette [wikipedia.org]
For those who don't know 8 tracks, the tape is arranged in a endless loop so it was impossible to rewind the tape ;-))) I still have an 8 track recorder in the basement somewhere, I used to record my own tapes ;-)
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Funny)
Always fun convincing people they needed to rewind an 8 track.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nevermind rewinding tapes, how about DVDs [kf6nvr.net]?
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, the guy who mutilated the gremlins in the movie got chicks too.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't have an 8-track player - but I do leave several 8-track tapes strewn around my car interior.
Best. Anti-Theft System. Ever. (YMMV)
Parent
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Funny)
When I was a teenager, 8 years ago (2001-2002), instead of putting a CD deck in my car, I wanted to put my dad's old 8 track deck into my car. That way it would have been ironic, hip, and would have limited me to playing only his old 60s-80s 8 track tapes. Also, I had no money for a CD deck. Almost got it done, but lazy kicked in, and the 8 track deck needed to be repaired a bit, so I abandoned it.
I went around trying to find somewhere which might have one for real cheap, like a pawn shop or similar. This was a pretty interesting thing to go around asking.
I went into this kind of music pawn shop, which had heaps of old things, including old record players, however it was more focused on that sort of indie niche. I walked in and asked the person running the store if they have an 8 track player, especially for a car. There was this old druggie raver looking guy standing behind him looking at records. When I asked about the 8 track player, he turned around and said "Hey man, that was funny, I thought I heard you asking for an 8 track player", at which point I looked at him and said "I am", he looked back with a freaked out yet blank face and said "Whoah". He then proceeded to stare at me after that last thought. All I can think was that I caused him to have some sort of an acid flash back, which he experienced for the next 30 seconds.
Either way, I still got a pile of 8 track tapes and no 8 track player. Probably for the best, I now have a good car, with a good deck, and I like things which aren't shit, now. Though the old bomb (1981 Ford Falcon XD) was awesome for jumping over train tracks, going 200kph, drifting around dirt corners, shredding my tyres and similar.
Parent
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Funny)
I hated the cut in the middle of songs, although I don't remember any "good" songs being cut, usually it was mid-album lamers that got cut.
The upside to 8 track was the infinite play capability; critical for those 1970s pot smoking sessions when everyone got too mellow to get up and change the music. Of course this was also the downside, waking up at 4 AM to switch off the Nth playthrough of "Led Zeppelin IV".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not only were you listening to "Money" on Track 2 but you could probably also faintly here "Speak to Me" on track 1 at the same time through the bleed through.
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Funny)
you could probably also faintly here "Speak to Me" on track 1 at the same time
That was just 'the lunatic in your head' that you were hearing.
Parent
Re:Hehe he ain't seen nothing yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Be careful, we are the Asgards. We have been around for much longer than you can humanly imagine and we have already experienced all of what you are experiencing now ;-))
On the plus side... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:On the plus side... (Score:4, Informative)
You don't need iTunes to put music on an iPod, either.
Parent
Re:On the plus side... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not quite sure what your point is. You [kde.org] don't [exaile.org] need [mlipod.com] iTunes [foobar2000.org] to [mgtek.com] put [banshee-project.org] music [gtkpod.org] on [gnome.org] your [ephpod.com] iPod [wikipedia.org], either.
Parent
Re:On the plus side... (Score:5, Funny)
Could you suggest a program I could use instead of iTunes?
Parent
Gotta love them cassettes.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gotta love them cassettes.. (Score:5, Funny)
And there's just something about it that no CD/DVD/MP3s can match.
Like the ability to get wrapped around the heads in a crappy/broken player? ;-)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not to advocate cassettes, but at least they didn't get scratched in stupid CD trays that eject and retract at all the wrong times, like when you're halfway through changing the CD and rebooting. Then you try to rescue the CD from being scratched as it's jammed halfway into the closing tray, only to have the tray try to eat your fingers too.
Surely you are trolling. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Surely you are trolling. (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse, the mere act of not using a cassette degrades it. Not even vinyl can say that. It just degrades in an analog way that will leave the tape technically playable for a long time. But it also starts with signficantly worse quality than either CDs or vinyl and goes downhill from there.
I can understand the nostalgic property of vinyl to a certain degree, but longing for cassettes is just pathetic.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here we branch out into technically superior and characteristically superior.
If you like the audio characteristics of cassettes, a digital audio file can reproduce every single flaw and bit of distortion. You could even apply filters to make brand new CDs sound just like an old cassette.
Re:Surely you are trolling. (Score:4, Interesting)
Just curious, you didn't write up your experiment, did you? My old prof [wikipedia.org] would probably be interested in reading.
Also, are you sure that the CDs were "worse" at reproduction on absolute terms, or that the analogue recordings simply induced distortions that you found pleasant, like tube-induced second harmonic distortion? It's almost impossible to do double-blind audio analysis with analogue v digital, because analogue always gives itself away with noise, and I've read that subjective listeners often cannot tell the difference between analogue and digital for most program material if the digital is noised up, or if needle pops are added, or if programs like string-heavy orchestral programs are given even-harmonic distortion.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree, I think you're failing at Nyquist, because the HF response of analogue cassette was nowhere near what a CD can do, and by the sampling theorem, a waveform under half the sampling freq is reproduced perfectly -- I hope you don't labor under the impression that the signal comes out of the speakers steppy, because it doesn't. I think the best high-end you could get out of a player was a 2 inch machine running at 30 ips, and even then you're only going to be able to squeeze 30-40 kHz bandwidth out of
Re:Gotta love them cassettes.. (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm. In a pinch, audio cassettes can do double-duty as impromptu teething devices for your toddler, and still play music afterwards. Is that it?
Parent
Re:Gotta love them cassettes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Best part, you can use them to trade music with your friends, just like the Metallica guys did before they got famous.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
there isn't?
http://www.avguide.com/forums/turntable-isolation-platform [avguide.com]
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Man this is just wrong. Yes, tape has a higher fidelity than your standard 128 kbps mp3. But not for long. You'll lose most of the highs from ambient electromagnetic interference over the years, unless you store it in a lead box or something.
Depending on where that MP3 is written, after some number of years the cassette may sound bad and the MP3 might be unplayable.
I wouldn't exactly call them durable either. You've never had a tape eaten by a bad deck? Or a little brother that decorated his room with the tape?
It's also very easy to damage a CD. It's easily scratched, CD-Rs don't like sunlight (and UV rays) and degrade faster than a tape. Tape, eaten by a bad deck can usually be saved. A broken CD cannot be fixed, however it's likely that the cassette you sat on contains a tape that can be moved to another shell.
I've got 80 year old 78's
I have one record that's 94 years old :)
Anyway, cassettes are usually more dur
And I though that switch.. (Score:5, Funny)
..was there to make my C64 games load faster...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ActionReplay with the fastload. Man was that good. Especially with the 1541 (3mins to 10 secs).
Low-slung... (Score:5, Funny)
It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.
Pull your pants up and wear a belt! You damn kids
Re:Low-slung... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Low-slung... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it's because I'm quite bright, but apart from the metal switch, I never had any of those questions when I first picked up a tape deck.
Maybe because tape decks were in common use when you were a kid, and you saw them being operated?
I'm not sure it's fair to call kids "spoiled rotten" because they see the superiority of current technology over what was in use years/decades before they were born. Kids may have a hard time imagining life without iPods and the Internet, but many young adults have a hard time imagining life before TVs and telephones were in every house. Many of us have a hard time imagining life without electricity, automobiles, or indoor plumbing. Insofar as this kid is spoiled, we're all spoiled.
Parent
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Perhaps it's because I'm quite bright, but apart from the metal switch, I never had any of those questions when I first picked up a tape deck.
Yes, you're very smart. Pat yourself on the back.
That was pretty metal (Score:5, Funny)
As I listen to Dëthklok, I marvel at a radio that would have a Metal/normal equalizer preset.
That would be pretty metal.
Boombox (Score:5, Funny)
Was that really written by a 13 year old? (Score:5, Insightful)
How could you tell? (Score:4, Funny)
I'd like to introduce to my friend, h|tler:
<h|tler> HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU TELL THAT I'M 13 BY LOOKING AT WHAT I'M WRITEING????????????????
(From http://bash.org/?14207 [bash.org])
The slashdot filter had me remove a bunch of question marks. Yes, there are even more in the original.
Parent
Re:Was that really written by a 13 year old? (Score:5, Insightful)
My favorite part is:
Furthermore, there were a number of buttons protruding from the top and sides of this device to provide functions such as "rewinding" and "fast-forwarding" (remember those?), which added even more bulk.
Emphasis mine.
That part sounded more like a nostalgic review rather than from someone who see the functionality for the first time.
Parent
Re:Was that really written by a 13 year old? (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention the missing apostrophe! What an illiterate little fuck.
Parent
But could he... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But could he... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see why not. There's only one official way to use a rotary dial phone. Dialing by fiddling with the receiver "off hook" switch was a pain, and only for those cases where you had to make a call when somebody put one of those locks on the rotary dial.
It's not at all physically obvious why casette tapes should have "sides". The answer is in the physical property of the media. The speed with which the magnetized tape passes the head determines the strength of a signal. One of the trade offs of the technology is that higher speed and overall tape length. Having two sides to the tape allowed the overall tape length to remain manageable while doubling the capacity of the cartridge.
Likewise with the "metal" button. His guess was actually quite clever, and not too far off the mark. "Metal" here is a ridiculous piece of jargon; all tapes use metals or mixtures of different metal compounds bound to a plastic substrate. "Metal" tapes have a mixture with different recording and playback characteristics than the older iron oxide tapes. How the hell is anybody supposed to infer that from a label on a button?
Judging from the picture, they game him a beat up old tape player. It's no wonder it didn't sound so good. He was quite observant to note that some of the sound problems he heard were a result of weak batteries driving the motors, which might be worse on an old device. The quality of the tapes he used could also be an issue. Old, worn out tapes would sound bad, and new tapes that weren't recorded properly in the first place could have problems too.
Back in the day, a really good "walkman" type tape device with a decent set of portable earphones and a good quality tape could actually sound acceptably good. Maybe not audiophile quality, but then again you'd be taking your life in your hands to walk around with anything "audiophile quality" on conspicuous display. Even today people listen to their MP3 players using earbuds. I would say that a portable tape player with everything in tip-top shape and a pair of decent over the ear earphones would give an iPod with stock earbuds a run for its money in terms of sound.
Parent
Re:But could he... (Score:4, Interesting)
A friend of mine had to teach their kid how to use the "phone without buttons", recently. Let's just say that it's non-obvious, and much more so than I expected.
Your points are good, but leave off one interesting bit about cassette players -- not all of them were especially good at matching the same tape speed. I had a sony that would play just the tiniest bit faster than it should, mucking up the pace and tone of the recording. Oddly enough, the sanyo it replaced had a speed control so that you could adjust for that.
Finally, he never got to listen to two of my favorite cassette bands -- "de-magnetizer" and "head cleaner" -- what's a cassette experience without 'em?
Parent
Funniest Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Aw, that's cute. We'll see what he says when he's forty and he gives his kid an iPod to play with.
Wait, what? (Score:4, Funny)
That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equalizer, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette."
Wait wait wait. They had actual METAL cassettes? Like, made out of metal?
The scary part is that I'm being completely serious. I'm only 21 but I had a Walkman for a few years before I got my first CD player, I always wondered about that switch but since I never saw a cassette made out of metal I assumed the same thing he did, that it was being genre-specific.
Now one of the great mysteries of my life is solved.
Doesn't this say more about today's kids? (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it disturbing that, according to the article at least, this particular kid had problems working out for himself that a cassette tape is two-sided and what half of the controls on the Walkman do.
As a kid, I can remember taking some bits of machinery apart to clean or service them, and just to see how they worked. (For example, my parents were in the clothes-making/tailoring trade and I frequently messed about with old sewing machines to fix them or clean them.) I also got into electronics at a fairly young age and knew some basics about car mechanics.
It seems a shame that kids these days don't get the chance to (or are just not interested in) take things apart just to see how they work - from my perspective, I developed an "engineering brain" from a really early age that has served me well throughout my career.
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