Carla, I am basing some of what I said on the fact that I was always taught that reproduction of musical tones requires a more sophisticated system than is required for the speaking voice. It may well be that that is not so much the case any longer. I just sometimes feel as though we push too hard to make devices do too many things, therefore sacrificing the quality of all, a little like the jack of all trades who can do none of them really well. If it is reasonably possible, that is fine, though what I really wanted for myself here was a really good book reader that was small enough not to be a big deal to carry.
Dianne -----Original Message----- From: Carla Campbell [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2010 2:28 PM To: 'Dianne B. Phelps'; 'EVAN REESE'; 'GW-micro' Subject: RE: [GW-Booksense] Re: book sense requesting opinions Seems to me that audio is audio . If a book reader can play all kinds of audio books, including commercial books recorded in MP3, why can't it be used to play other types of MP3 files; music, for example. Sure, I want the best book reader I can get, but I'd also like a music player which is fully-accessible and there is no technical reason the same device can't serve both purposes. If we'd be sacrificing book-reading quality in order to get music-player functionality, I'd agree with you. But there is no reason the same device can't do both things equally well. I think it is all too easy to fall into the trap of accepting that devices designed for blind users are inherently primitive, out-dated, single-purpose or rudimentary in their functionality when there are no technical reasons this should be so. As a community, we've long been willing to pay ten times as much for a quarter or less of the functionality acceptable to sighted consumers. I'll accept that the market is small and hence the prices are going to be higher for such devices, but why on earth should we be content with devices which do the bare minimum? Note, I'm not saying that this is the case with the BookSense. So far, I've had good luck using it for a number of different audio functions. I'm just saying that there is no reason to set our expectations low just because we're blind and have always had limited choices. --Carla Campbell [email protected] http://www.quadrussage.com If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list andyour message is related to GW Micro or the BookSense, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. To manage your subscription to gw-booksense, visit: http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv
