05.28.07
Do My Ears Decieve Me
Being a musician I tend to spend a lot of time with my computer writing & recording music. Now, most of the time I am doing this I listen through a relatively high-end signal chain. My MacBook Pro connected via FireWire to a Metric-Halo audio interface that is, in turn, feeding my studio monitors (Event 20/20bas bi-amplified nearfields). Over the past few days I have been pulling the house apart to clean & rearrange. This weekend I was in the kitchen area and since I don’t have a music playback system there in the kitchen I used the laptop and iTunes.
All I can say is, kudos to Apple for finally developing a laptop with a decent playback system. For the record, it’s a 17″ MacBook Pro, so it may be that the extra size gave them the ability to put in decent sized speakers. I know my old 15″ PowerBook couldn’t compete with this one.
No, I won’t be dumping my studio playback system or stereo system, but it’s refreshing to actually hear a bass line on laptop speakers. I’m listening to jazz & classic rock, so the bass is not mixed way up front or enhanced with a sub-bass plugin or the like – though it is well mixed stuff that is mostly from first release CDs from the early/mid ’80s that weren’t over compressed or limited during “re-mastering”. Plus I tend to rip CDs in as AIFF files (full PCM files), because I can hear a difference with MP3s…though a friend insists that AAC with VBR is practically indistinguishable from the original CD – but that’s something I’ll put to the test another time.
I’ll just leave it with…I am impressed.
