On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:27:08 GMT,
wrote:
Hi folks,

I have to replace an answering machine. tHe all digital ones I hear
seem to sound like utter garbage over the phone. SUre wish they made
the old type with the endless loop cassette and the regular cassette
to store the incoming messages.

NO folks, not going to put a windows PC and sound card on voicemail
duty, looking for a stand alone box.

WHo's having good luck with what out there for tape based units still
on the market? REmote access would be a plus but not necessary.
Audio quality does matter to this old grouch however.

THanks,

After our last answering machine went bad, we went with Call Answering
service. That way it's the phone companies problem and not ours. Nice
Feature is that no one EVER gets a busy signal.

Not sure if that's viable for commercial use.

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:27:08 GMT,
wrote:
Hi folks,

I have to replace an answering machine. tHe all digital ones I hear
seem to sound like utter garbage over the phone. SUre wish they made
the old type with the endless loop cassette and the regular cassette
to store the incoming messages.

NO folks, not going to put a windows PC and sound card on voicemail
duty, looking for a stand alone box.

WHo's having good luck with what out there for tape based units still
on the market? REmote access would be a plus but not necessary.
Audio quality does matter to this old grouch however.

THanks,

After our last answering machine went bad, we went with Call Answering
service. That way it's the phone companies problem and not ours. Nice
Feature is that no one EVER gets a busy signal.

Not sure if that's viable for commercial use.

I didn't know there were any tape-based units still being made. I've been using
a PhoneMate for almost 20 years, and I like it fine.

I didn't know there were any tape-based units still being made. I've been using
a PhoneMate for almost 20 years, and I like it fine.

OT answering machines again

Group: rec.audio.pro Date: Mon, Jul 12, 2004, 5:27pm (EDT+4) From:
=A0)
Hi folks,

I have to replace an answering machine. tHe all digital ones I hear seem
to sound like utter garbage over the phone.

How much "Hi-Fi" can you expect on a phone that has a frequency response
of 300hz to 3.5khz? It's an answering machne, people accept the quality
as long as it's intelligible.

Eric

OT answering machines again

Group: rec.audio.pro Date: Mon, Jul 12, 2004, 5:27pm (EDT+4) From:
=A0)
Hi folks,

I have to replace an answering machine. tHe all digital ones I hear seem
to sound like utter garbage over the phone.

How much "Hi-Fi" can you expect on a phone that has a frequency response
of 300hz to 3.5khz? It's an answering machne, people accept the quality
as long as it's intelligible.

Eric

Eric Toline wrote:

How much "Hi-Fi" can you expect on a phone that has a frequency response
of 300hz to 3.5khz? It's an answering machne, people accept the quality
as long as it's intelligible.


The prolem with many "digital" machine (including mine) is that the
greeting, and the incoming messages sound like Darth Vader's voice.

"Luke, I am your father. Do we need milk?"

This is compounded by the use of cell phones.



Don

Eric Toline wrote:

How much "Hi-Fi" can you expect on a phone that has a frequency response
of 300hz to 3.5khz? It's an answering machne, people accept the quality
as long as it's intelligible.


The prolem with many "digital" machine (including mine) is that the
greeting, and the incoming messages sound like Darth Vader's voice.

"Luke, I am your father. Do we need milk?"

This is compounded by the use of cell phones.



Don

Don Cooper wrote:

Eric Toline wrote:


How much "Hi-Fi" can you expect on a phone that has a frequency response
of 300hz to 3.5khz? It's an answering machne, people accept the quality
as long as it's intelligible.



The prolem with many "digital" machine (including mine) is that the
greeting, and the incoming messages sound like Darth Vader's voice.

"Luke, I am your father. Do we need milk?"

This is compounded by the use of cell phones.



I've heard a couple of cases where the digitized message contained a
codec artifact that my cell phone codec could not deal with. The
message played to that point, then was garbage from there on out.
Locally, or from an analog land-line, there was no problem.

Once you get compression down to 7200 Hz 2-bits adaptive-whatever-law,
if the audio makes a change the math can't deal with, sync is lost forever.

Don Cooper wrote:

Eric Toline wrote:


How much "Hi-Fi" can you expect on a phone that has a frequency response
of 300hz to 3.5khz? It's an answering machne, people accept the quality
as long as it's intelligible.



The prolem with many "digital" machine (including mine) is that the
greeting, and the incoming messages sound like Darth Vader's voice.

"Luke, I am your father. Do we need milk?"

This is compounded by the use of cell phones.



I've heard a couple of cases where the digitized message contained a
codec artifact that my cell phone codec could not deal with. The
message played to that point, then was garbage from there on out.
Locally, or from an analog land-line, there was no problem.

Once you get compression down to 7200 Hz 2-bits adaptive-whatever-law,
if the audio makes a change the math can't deal with, sync is lost forever.

wrote in message
. ..
Hi folks,

I have to replace an answering machine. tHe all digital ones I hear
seem to sound like utter garbage over the phone. SUre wish they made
the old type with the endless loop cassette and the regular cassette
to store the incoming messages.

NO folks, not going to put a windows PC and sound card on voicemail
duty, looking for a stand alone box.

WHo's having good luck with what out there for tape based units still
on the market? REmote access would be a plus but not necessary.
Audio quality does matter to this old grouch however.



I went to a voice mail service through the phone company a couple years ago.
Best $5/month I've ever spent. Once it's set up I don't have to fool with it
& nobody gets a busy signal. It sounds like the phone sounds AFAIC.
YMMV

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 13:07:13 -0700, so what wrote:

Don Cooper wrote:

Eric Toline wrote:


How much "Hi-Fi" can you expect on a phone that has a frequency response
of 300hz to 3.5khz? It's an answering machne, people accept the quality
as long as it's intelligible.



The prolem with many "digital" machine (including mine) is that the
greeting, and the incoming messages sound like Darth Vader's voice.

"Luke, I am your father. Do we need milk?"

This is compounded by the use of cell phones.



I've heard a couple of cases where the digitized message contained a
codec artifact that my cell phone codec could not deal with. The
message played to that point, then was garbage from there on out.
Locally, or from an analog land-line, there was no problem.

Once you get compression down to 7200 Hz 2-bits adaptive-whatever-law,
if the audio makes a change the math can't deal with, sync is lost forever.

I think this utter crap goes under the fancy name of Linear
Predictive Coding, which does SERIOUS compression of a phone audio
signal. To call the sound robotic is an insult to talking robots
worldwide. Whenever I hear it I start lusting for a +/-6dB 300-3.5k
response analog line.

If you want a standard Phillips cassette-based answering machine,
you have to cruise the thrift stores and yard sales, or if your time
is better invested elsewhere, hit ebay.
Failing that, what's wrong with using an old PC for an answering
machine? Other than it being a collection of largish devices (metal
box, 13" monitor, and keyboard and mouse dangling someplace), the
power supply fan making noise, and it taking maybe 50 to 100 watts
(with monitor off) just waiting for a call, vs. 5 watts for a dead
quiet answering machine.

Ben Bradley wrote:

I think this utter crap goes under the fancy name of
Linear Predictive Coding

Which ecompasses RELP, CELP, VSELP and other variants.



does SERIOUS compression of a phone audio signal.
To call the sound robotic is an insult to talking robots
worldwide. Whenever I hear it I start lusting for a +/-6dB
300-3.5k response analog line.

Absolutely true for the 2.4 kbps Inmarsat stuff we were using around 1990. Pretty true for the vast majority of 10kbps stuff we've been living with over the past decade. Marginally true for the 12kbps stuff we've seen over the past 5 years or so. Not true at all for the newest high bandwidth stuff which will probably become the next generation's "toll quality" benchmark.

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 23:28:05 -0700, Kurt Albershardt
wrote:

Not true at all for the newest high bandwidth stuff which will probably become the next generation's "toll quality" benchmark.

What's your take on the fabled "bandwidth glut" of story and song?
Did it never happen, or did it all get used up, or ....?

I remember seeing crews digging parallel to I-40 planting maybe
five or ten square inches of fiber. Isn't that a lot?

Inquiring minds...Thanks,

Chris Hornbeck

Chris Hornbeck wrote:

What's your take on the fabled "bandwidth glut" of story and song?
Did it never happen, or did it all get used up, or ....?

It happened--there's so much unlit fiber underground that I think you could remake a few decent sized beaches with it.



I remember seeing crews digging parallel to I-40 planting maybe
five or ten square inches of fiber. Isn't that a lot?

Typical underground builds involve 4-15 ducts which can hold from one to six bundles of up to 288 fibers each. These can be laid with automated rail plows and a minimal crew. How many of us remember that the SPR in Sprint comes from Southern Pacific Railroad?

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 23:57:27 -0700, Kurt Albershardt
wrote:

I remember seeing crews digging parallel to I-40 planting maybe
five or ten square inches of fiber. Isn't that a lot?

Typical underground builds involve 4-15 ducts which can hold from one to six bundles of up to 288 fibers each. These can be laid with automated rail plows and a minimal crew. How many of us remember that the SPR in Sprint comes from Southern Pacific Railroad?

Guess, as an American, I shouldn't be surprised. (But it's still a
very cool factoid). Now that I think about it, scary too. Oh, well,
what's new?

Could you give an ordinary idiot like me some idea of the bandwidth
involved? Just expressed as a bits per second kinda thing.

Thanks again,

Chris Hornbeck

In article writes:

What's your take on the fabled "bandwidth glut" of story and song?
Did it never happen, or did it all get used up, or ....?

It happened--there's so much unlit fiber underground that I think you could
remake a few decent sized beaches with it.

There's plenty of fiber in my neighborhood now, though it's all
overhead. If there's a glut, how come they haven't dropped the price
of DSL here, and in fact Verizon recently added a $3 "service charge"
over their almost-attractive $30/month charge?

How come my Internet access, all things considered, is still cheaper
with a second POTS line dedicated to that purpose? Used to be that
they were screaming that they didn't have enough phone lines to fill
all the orders. Have cellular phones relived that crunch? (and they're
already arguing over spectrum allocation)

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 23:57:27 -0700, Kurt Albershardt
wrote:


I remember seeing crews digging parallel to I-40 planting maybe
five or ten square inches of fiber. Isn't that a lot?

Typical underground builds involve 4-15 ducts which can hold from one to six bundles of up to 288 fibers each. These can be laid with automated rail plows and a minimal crew. How many of us remember that the SPR in Sprint comes from Southern Pacific Railroad?


Guess, as an American, I shouldn't be surprised. (But it's still a
very cool factoid). Now that I think about it, scary too. Oh, well,
what's new?

Could you give me some idea of the bandwidth
involved? Just expressed as a bits per second kinda thing.

Currently shipping SONET hardwarewill support up to 160 wavelengths on a single fiber pair, each of which can carry about 10 gbits/sec at OC-192. That's pretty cutting edge stuff but there is a LOT of deployed 40-lambda hardware out there.

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article writes:


What's your take on the fabled "bandwidth glut" of story and song?
Did it never happen, or did it all get used up, or ....?

It happened--there's so much unlit fiber underground that I think you could
remake a few decent sized beaches with it.


There's plenty of fiber in my neighborhood now, though it's
all overhead.

The cost of entering a building from that overhead fiber is still rather high, and the vast majority of people still don't have fiber at the curb yet.



If there's a glut, how come they haven't dropped the price
of DSL here, and in fact Verizon recently added a $3 "service charge"
over their almost-attractive $30/month charge?

The last mile monopoly is still holding strong, especially after the last round of Telecom Act lawsuits where the incumbents (after sufficient lubrication to the wheels of government) succeeded in pushing back much of the competetion encouragements of the Act.



How come my Internet access, all things considered, is still cheaper
with a second POTS line dedicated to that purpose? Used to be that
they were screaming that they didn't have enough phone lines to fill
all the orders.

They've starved out most of the competitors with a combination of lawsuits and slow-roll beaurocracy.





Have cellular phones relived that crunch? (and they're
already arguing over spectrum allocation)

On the voice side? Definitely. Data is getting there but may get swamped by other disruptive technologies before it becomes a significant player.

"Kurt Albershardt" wrote in message
...

Have cellular phones relived that crunch? (and they're
already arguing over spectrum allocation)

On the voice side? Definitely. Data is getting there but may get
swamped by other disruptive technologies before it becomes a significant
player.

They're arguing about it now because once it's a done deal, it's very
difficult to unravel or get reassigned. It'll be interesting to see what
happens when all the analog TV signals are reallocated to data & other
areas (who knows what); in theory, this should happen in 2006 when TV
stations will be required under current laws to turn their analog
frequencies over to the government to be auctioned off, but in reality,
there won't be enough consumers with digital TV's yet for this to occur
"on time". The FCC recently proposed an 80% coverage threshold - meaning
that instead of 2006, the changeover will occur when 80% of the households
in the country have digital TV, and instantly it was met with opposition
from congresspersons who represent poorer districts, large rural areas,
etc.
--


Neil Henderson
Saqqara Records
http://www.saqqararecords.com

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Hi folks,

I have to replace an answering machine. tHe all digital ones I hear
seem to sound like utter garbage over the phone. SUre wish they made
the old type with the endless loop cassette and the regular cassette
to store the incoming messages.

NO folks, not going to put a windows PC and sound card on voicemail
duty, looking for a stand alone box.

WHo's having good luck with what out there for tape based units still
on the market? REmote access would be a plus but not necessary.
Audio quality does matter to this old grouch however.

THanks,




Richard Webb,
Electric SPider Productions, New Orleans, La.
REplace anything before the @ symbol with elspider for real email

--



THat's OK, I wasn't using all of my civil liberties anyway.