Recommended Posts

It's funny how Apple is frequently criticized for "dumbing things down", yet when Microsoft does it people are thankful.

Its not really that funny, some people like simple, some people dont. some people criticize Apple for dumbing things down while some people prefer it.

im really tired so dont really know if im making any sense. but in short people like different things and people will bitch about different things so why generalize people.

(please dont read it as if im having a dig at you, im not... im just bored :/ \)

and what do you listen to? and what speakers/soundcard do you have? also tell us about your listening environment and all that as well... all that makes a HUGE difference on weather you need an EQ or not... some songs sound flat and lifeless or have too much midrange or too much treble and you need to turn those down... or a song has too much bass so you gotta turn that down... or if the song doesn't have enough...

also not everyone's gonna buy top of the line speakers or DACs and condition their rooms.... not everyone can afford to.

and it's the listener's preference so what does it matter to you? let them decide how they want to listen to their music and any media software developer should try to cater their application to a wide audience as possible.... that's one thing Notch needs to learn when it comes to windows 8 users.... EQs have been standard in media players for more then 15 years... even basic portable CD players back in the day had EQ presets... so it's not like it's some newfangled hard thing to program in....

Just because you don't like it and you don't use it doesn't mean it should be taken away from others who would use it...

+1 for EQ. I use a bit perfect sound card and play FLAC, however my nice headphones broke and I'm forced to use my cheap speakers and my iPod headphones. I can honestly say, playing FLAC in Foobar is great with presets! It makes my music sound fuller, and from what I hear, it doesn't warp the music at all. LOL! I think I might ask Santa for some new speakers/headphones this year. ;)

It's funny how Apple is frequently criticized for "dumbing things down", yet when Microsoft does it people are thankful.

You so missed the point. I don't mind options, and I didn't say anything bad about iTunes or Apple, nor did I praise Microsoft. I was merely saying that "thankfully it doesn't have an equalizer". It just isn't a good feature. Music is mastered for a reason. I don't care at all if it's in iTunes (or any of the other million media players), I doubt it matters whichever way you look at it.

and what do you listen to? and what speakers/soundcard do you have? also tell us about your listening environment and all that as well... all that makes a HUGE difference on weather you need an EQ or not... some songs sound flat and lifeless or have too much midrange or too much treble and you need to turn those down... or a song has too much bass so you gotta turn that down... or if the song doesn't have enough...

Nope. You can't EQ songs to be good, and you can't EQ your speakers to make them reproduce sound better.

Yes, you can make them more appealing to your music tastes, but the system has nothing to do with that.

You so missed the point. I don't mind options, and I didn't say anything bad about iTunes or Apple, nor did I praise Microsoft. I was merely saying that "thankfully it doesn't have an equalizer". It just isn't a good feature. Music is mastered for a reason. I don't care at all if it's in iTunes (or any of the other million media players), I doubt it matters whichever way you look at it.

You neglect to take into account the fact some, especially cheaper, speakers don't have a physical way to reduce basses. A friend of mine owns such a set where basses are overly dominant. In those cases the iTunes equalizer comes very much in handy. In that light what you're saying just doesn't make much sense.

You neglect to take into account the fact some, especially cheaper, speakers don't have a physical way to reduce basses. A friend of mine owns such a set where basses are overly dominant. In those cases the iTunes equalizer comes very much in handy. In that light what you're saying just doesn't make much sense.

I suppose you have a fair point in what you're saying. It's still unfortunate that they have to resort to screwing with the mastering to get it right though.

Again, I never said it hurts to be there, only that I don't mind at all if it's not.

Again, I never said it hurts to be there, only that I don't mind at all if it's not.

I don't want to get into semantics too much, but what you said was: "Thankfully it doesn't". In my opinion that's a fairly strong statement where you express explicit gratitude for the lack of an equalizer as part of Zune software. Let me put it this way: Your choice of words raised an eyebrow.

You neglect to take into account the fact some, especially cheaper, speakers don't have a physical way to reduce basses. A friend of mine owns such a set where basses are overly dominant. In those cases the iTunes equalizer comes very much in handy. In that light what you're saying just doesn't make much sense.

Assuming it's a separate subwoofer, you can add a low-pass crossover.

Equalizers are fine if used correctly, I don't use one myself, because I have sound equipment that sounds how I want it to anyway.

Using an Equalizer properly simply means lowering unwanted frequencies instead of raising wanted ones. Nothing on your EQ, be it software or an ?11,000 Parametric EQ should ever be above "0". You'll often find using it this way reduces the volume, thats what the volume control is for son (Y)

Or he could just reduce basses in the iTunes equalizer. :p

Except they don't do the same thing. You want a subwoofer to hit hard on a specific range of sound, and you want that range to not overlap with the main speakers. Most cheap speaker sets will just let the subwoofer and speakers play whatever signal they get, and they then sound like crap. A low pass filter keeps anything above a certain range from ever hitting the subwoofer, meaning you can keep it loud and not hear muddy bass from upper ranges that it shouldn't be playing.

OR, you can use the EQ in iTunes and just kill all the dynamics of the bass lines in the songs. On the high range, I'd say sure, go for it, most people can't hear the differences in higher ranges anyway, but for bass? That's just killing the music.

Except they don't do the same thing. You want a subwoofer to hit hard on a specific range of sound, and you want that range to not overlap with the main speakers. Most cheap speaker sets will just let the subwoofer and speakers play whatever signal they get, and they then sound like crap. A low pass filter keeps anything above a certain range from ever hitting the subwoofer, meaning you can keep it loud and not hear muddy bass from upper ranges that it shouldn't be playing.

In his case the basses are just overly dominant regardless of the song, something that's easily corrected in the iTunes EQ and apparently fine for his needs.

The Windows version is soo bad.

What's wrong with it?

I mean really, people continue to make statements like this & I use iTunes on Windows every single day with a library of over 10,000 songs and I experience zero problems.

Infact even without an iPod I would still use iTunes over other music software.

  • Like 2

What's wrong with it?

I mean really, people continue to make statements like this & I use iTunes on Windows every single day with a library of over 10,000 songs and I experience zero problems.

Infact even without an iPod I would still use iTunes over other music software.

I can only speak for myself, but I agree with you both. It works well, but the GUI is totally out of place. Perhaps that's what he's referring too?

What's wrong with it?

I mean really, people continue to make statements like this & I use iTunes on Windows every single day with a library of over 10,000 songs and I experience zero problems.

Infact even without an iPod I would still use iTunes over other music software.

It lags whenever a new podcast is finishing downloading, it lags when I first open it up and it has to check about 12 podcasts for new episodes, it lags when its looking for my phone or ipad, it lags when syncing with either of those, it lags when app updates are finishing downloading.

Also, by lag, I mean freezes for about 5-8 seconds.

I would probably use it if it didnt have those issues, but it does, and I cant wait to see if the new version is good or not.

  • Like 2

I'm really hoping we'll see something happening in the desktop department, not to mention iLife and iWork updates are long overdue. In fact the new iLife is so long overdue the installer certificate of my iLife '11 DVD actually expired.

iTunes on windows sucks donkey balls. Every operation, every screen switch, every task makes it lock up or stutter. Simple tasks should be instant, it's like it's phoning home to apple to ask mummy if it can do what I ask then mummy thinks about it for a while then gives permission.

It constantly drops connection with my iPad over WiFi, mainly just as you need to add something new or sync.

I don't care about the UI, just make it work smoothly and quickly, not like it's swimming in treacle.

Roll on 11

  • Like 2
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • Windows 11 gets useful new File Explorer features in the latest build by Taras Buria Friday Windows 11 preview builds are finally here. After skipping one week, Microsoft is back to releasing preview builds for Windows Insiders to try. This time, Insiders in the Experimental Channel can download build 26300.8687. Its changelog does not contain anything major, but there is still useful new stuff, such as some new conveniences for File Explorer, Windows Update improvements, better Windows Search, a new search provider for the built-in GIF library, and more. Here is the changelog: [Windows Update] As announced in the Windows Update announcement blog, we are now bringing a new unified update experience to reduce the number of reboots you see per month. We are starting by coordinating driver, .NET, and firmware updates to align with the monthly quality update, reducing the update experience to a single monthly restart. See the blog for more information. [File Explorer] Middle-click to open a folder in a new tab is now supported in the Address Bar and the Home page for a more consistent and efficient tabbed navigation experience across File Explorer. Improved screen reader announcements for conflict resolution dialog ("Which files do you want to keep?") when moving/copying files. Made some more improvements to how File Explorer responds to increased text scaling. [Search] Finding apps is more forgiving. Search is better at handling typos, dropped letters, extra letters, and partial words for apps. Queries like “utlook” can still find Outlook. Settings results are improving. We’ve made ranking improvements to help more relevant settings appear higher in results. [Taskbar] Improved reliability of loading the system tray area of the taskbar. Fixed an issue where tooltips might unexpectedly appear on top of the Start menu icon in the taskbar when using the taskbar in an alternate position. Also fixed a few other visual polish issues when using the taskbar with small icons. [Windows setup] The digital safety of users and supporting families is central to how we think about the Windows experience. We're improving information on parental controls and their availability during Windows setup, so families can more easily understand available protections and make informed choices from the very beginning. [Input] Update: The emoji panel (Windows key + period (.)) now uses GIPHY as the GIF provider, delivering a smoother GIF browsing and sharing experience following the deprecation of Tenor. Fixed an issue that was causing the mouse cursor to potentially move in the wrong direction in recent Insider builds on secondary monitors when set to portrait mode. [Remote Recovery Management] Adding a recovery remote management plug-in for extending WinRE management capabilities for MDM providers [Audio] Fixed an issue resulting in audio not working for some Insiders after the latest flights. [Settings] Fixed an issue impacting the reliability of Settings > Apps > Installed Apps after the latest flights. [General Reliability] If you were experiencing freezes in the previous flight when interacting with search, Notepad, or certain other scenarios, that should be resolved now. [Other] When using dark mode, if you open "Run new task" from Task Manager, it will now show in dark mode too. As usual, changes above are rolling out gradually. You can find the release notes here in the official documentation.
    • Im in Ohio, and my VPN endpoint is in Boston. If that helps, it does happen both on and off the VPN. and again only in Edge.
    • It is such a shame. I used to really respect Neowin's articles.
    • So.... slower fixes and slower security updates are preferred? I mean, there is no goldilocks zone here until it can literally update without ever needing a restart, and even then I'm sure someone would complain.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      Clizby earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      Timaximus earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Timaximus earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Rookie
      FBSPL went up a rank
      Rookie
    • First Post
      davidbazooked earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      490
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      168
    3. 3
      +Edouard
      163
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      85
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      76
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!