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.