Zakman, don't feel sorry. Let's get deeper:

http://www.siam.org/siamnews/mtc/mtc193.htm

What many might be unaware of, though, is the significance, in all this modern technology, of a five-page paper that appeared in 1960 in the Journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The paper, "Polynomial Codes over Certain Finite Fields," by Irving S. Reed and Gustave Solomon, then staff members at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, introduced ideas that form the core of current error-correcting techniques for everything from computer hard disk drives to CD players. Reed-Solomon codes (plus a lot of engineering wizardry, of course) made possible the stunning pictures of the outer planets sent back by Voyager II. They make it possible to scratch a compact disc and still enjoy the music. And in the not-too-distant future, they will enable the profit mongers of cable television to squeeze more than 500 channels into their systems, making a vast wasteland vaster yet.

In 1960, the theory of error-correcting codes was only about a decade old. The basic theory of reliable digital communication had been set forth by Claude Shannon in the late 1940s. At the same time, Richard Hamming introduced an elegant approach to single-error correction and double-error detetion. Through the 1950s, a number of researchers began experimenting with a variety of error-correcting codes. But with their SIAM journal paper, McEliece says, Reed and Solomon "hit the jackpot."

The payoff was a coding system based on groups of bits--such as bytes--rather than individual 0s and 1s. That feature makes Reed-Solomon codes particularly good at dealing with "bursts" of errors: Six consecutive bit errors, for example, can affect at most two bytes. Thus, even a double-error-correction version of a Reed-Solomon code can provide a comfortable safety factor. (Current implementations of Reed-Solomon codes in CD technology are able to cope with error bursts as long as 4000 consecutive bits.)

....digital information, virtually by definition, consists of strings of "bits"--0s and 1s--and a physical device, no matter how capably manufactured, may occasionally confuse the two. Voyager II, for example, was transmitting data at incredibly low power--barely a whisper--over tens of millions of miles. Disk drives pack data so densely that a read/write head can (almost) be excused if it can't tell where one bit stops and the next one (or zero) begins. Careful engineering can reduce the error rate to what may sound like a negligible level--the industry standard for hard disk drives is 1 in 10 billion--but given the volume of information processing done these days, that "negligible" level is an invitation to daily disaster. Error-correcting codes are a kind of safety net--mathematical insurance against the vagaries of an imperfect material world.

The key to error correction is redundancy. Indeed, the simplest error-correcting code is simply to repeat everything several times. If, for example, you anticipate no more than one error to occur in transmission, then repeating each bit three times and using "majority vote" at the receiving end will guarantee that the message is heard correctly (e.g., 111 000 011 111 will be correctly heard as 1011). In general, n errors can be compensated for by repeating things 2n + 1 times.

Despite their advantages, Reed-Solomon codes did not go into use immediately--they had to wait for the hardware technology to catch up. "In 1960, there was no such thing as fast digital electronics"--at least not by today's standards, says McEliece. The Reed-Solomon paper "suggested some nice ways to process data, but nobody knew if it was practical or not, and in 1960 it probably wasn't practical."

But technology did catch up, and numerous researchers began to work on implementing the codes. One of the key individuals was Elwyn Berlekamp, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, who invented an efficient algorithm for decoding the Reed-Solomon code. Berlekamp's algorithm was used by Voyager II and is the basis for decoding in CD players. Many other bells and whistles (some of fundamental theoretic significance) have also been added. Compact discs, for example, use a version called cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon code, or CIRC.

Well, NON_ZERO, that certainly clears it up for me.


eddyboy

I just stopped in to see how this thread was progressing. If you don't already know, there's a killer thread called 'how to make your 950 sound like a 1066' all about the same argument as this one. It's been a lot of fun. So, I get to the end of this one and find a dissertation on early correction code technology. Did I miss something? I kept trying to find the point or the link, but to no avail. Maybe it's just me.

Eddy, I brought 'audio jewelry' to this forum. Can't remember where I stole it, but I thought that it described obscenely priced interconnects pretty well.

If somebody can explain the relevence of the aforementioned thread, I'd appreciate it!
Until next time,
Mix

mixfixj,

The Reed-Solomon code post was in response to Mr. Zakman's (regarding '0' and '1's).

And yes, I am the original poster of the 'AUDIO JEWELRY' - from an interview with Floyd E. Toole (FORMERLY OF lexicon now with HARMAN INTERNATIONAL):

--------------------------------------------
http://www.sonicdesign.se//tooleinw.htm

An interview with Floyd E. Toole,
Harman International.


4. I believe that many audiophiles would get more from their equipment if they would transfer some of their interest and money for audio cables into acoustics and room adaption, but since audio cables seem to be of such big interest, maybe you could share what you think are the relevant qualities when it comes to loudspeaker cables?

Cables are very profitable products, and that is the main driving force behind them. At a time when advanced technology has reduced the number of tweaks that audio enthusiasts can play with, it is natural that these products should become topics of conversation. I call the most extreme of them "audio jewellery" , in that they do nothing for the audio system except make the owner feel better or more proud. Superbly performing audio cables can be purchased for very moderate prices. Even "bad" cables, are not bad enough to be audibly worse than the truly nasty things that some rooms or poorly designed loudspeakers can do.
--------------------------------------------

mixfixj,

You can find my post with the 'AUDIO JEWELRY' reference from this thread:
http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000314.html

Nonzero. I think you hit the nail on the head when suggesting that we should spend less time with interconnects and more with room acoustics. I would love to learn more about this and to study my listening area. Hall design seems to me to be key when developing a HT plan. Where can I learn more?

------------------

Some room acoustic treatment links:

http://www.epanorama.net/links/audioacoustics.html

http://www.decware.com/achowto.htm

http://www.decware.com/acintro.htm

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jul00/articles/faqacoustic.htm

http://www.soundcontrolroom.com/help.htm

I , too, have always been one of those who felt that money is wasted in high price cables. But these Outlaw PCA's arent that expensive. Can I possitively say they are improving my sound over the older Monsters I replaced? Probably not! At least not like the improvement I can hear with the 950 over my 5 year old Marantz AV-550. But, heck, those cables blew me away with the quality of constuction and the tight fit, thanks to the locking tabs and , they just look so good hanging out the back of my rack! They make my old Monster 200's look puny. Well done Outlaw. Think Ill go PSC next!!

sorry this comes a bit late...
It wasn't until the Impressionists mastered light painters really understood luminance.
It wasn't until this past couple decades we could biologically explain & measure what the Impressionists understood.
Can everything in life be proven?
Have we really figured out how to measure everything our body is capable of doing?
Is everybody's body the same?
Leave those spending $$ on cables be. They're happier.
NOW, i hope to see interesting posts about room acoustics. I'm all about bang for the buck!
Shall we start with the ideal room dimension & reflective properties?
bring it on!

I have been following this thread with some interest and amusement. I recently ordered some speaker cables from a company called Mapleshade that made some pretty big claims for their cable. They have a money back policy so I did it more as an experiment than anything else. When my order arrived I looked at these thin, tightly twisted cables and said to myself "Looks like a rip off. Bet I'll be sending these back!".

The results? So obvious it makes claims that cable makes no difference simply laughable to me now. The improved sound shocked and amazed me. My speakers are decent, but not top of the line, although their imaging and soundstage is outstanding. But even that improved. I hear detail in familiar recordings I never heard before. And the bass is much richer, tighter, and more realistic.

The most interesting thing is that my wife did not know I had changed anything. When she walked into the room she asked "What did you do, this sounds more real?". I asked her to describe what she heard and she used phrases like "more open" and "airy". She is not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination and she heard a difference!

It is not practical for me to do double blind comparisons, although I have done some very fair A/B comparisons between these cables and my Monster cable. I trust my ears. If it is purely power of suggestion than it is the most potent and consistent suggestion I have ever seen (or heard).

Trust your ears.