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Analog, Again

Last night ...   Album: Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Opus 11 Artist: Arthur (Artur) Rubinstein & New Symphony Orchestra of London   This was my first listen to an album recovered from floodwaters. Following record-breaking torrential, sustained rainfall in our community, we happened to look in at a neighbor, a 92-year-old widow whose steep hillside house took on six feet of water and a good deal of mud. When we arrived,

curmudgeon

curmudgeon

Warning on Chesky Records Issue

I purchased some discs from Chesky Records in September and received no product.They did however remember to debit my credit card.I have been unable to contact them as all their email addresses bounce back.I have found a few others that have had a similar experience.Are there any users on Computer Audiophile that have had the same problem?

Vvd

Vvd

(Analog) Album of the Evening

Last night, I heard something that I otherwise would have posted to Chris' Album of the Evening thread (http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Album-Evening) -- but it was not digital. I had my first listen of a LP, dated 1963, that I picked up last weekend from a garage sale for the princely sum of fifty cents.   Album: Beethoven Piano Sonatas No. 11, 19, 20 Artist: Sviatoslav Richter   The condition was remarkably good, including cover and inner sleeve, and the performance was very in

curmudgeon

curmudgeon

Death By Misadventure

So we learn from the British press this morning that Amy Winehouse's death was by alcohol poisoning. Characterized by the Brit coroner as "death by misadventure." (Can't help but also think of Janis Joplin ...)   I listened to my own CD-ripped 16-bit version on the Sansa while walking to work but here are a couple of video clips to give you a taste of her stunning Back to Black, higher-def versions of which you will want to hear with your best rig. A quick Googling shows me that there are 24

curmudgeon

curmudgeon

A musician's guide to the enjoyment of digital audio

Hello! I am a professional musician and educator and have been enjoying recorded music virtually all my life. The opportunity recently presented itself to improve my hi-fi system; after attending a high-end audio show for the first time (AXPONA in Atlanta, GA, in April 2011), I decided to include a computer as the basis of my system improvements. This blog (first time I've blogged on anything... this might as well be fun...) is a) the story of my decisions on equipment, b) what I've learned abou

douglas882

douglas882

Shell script for tweaking OS X

I made this for 10.6.X, but most of it still works on 10.7.X. However, there is lots more to do for 10.7.X, and I haven't had time to put into making a newer version. Meanwhile, feel free...   Here is the shell script. Please read through it first (a good idea):   http://sage.ucsc.edu/downloads/shellscripts/audiophool.zsh   Download it to (say) the desktop, and if the name offends, sorry, just rename it.   Then run it by opening the terminal into the directory where you downloaded it

wgscott

wgscott

Confessions of a DigiPhile IV

OK, so I jumped straight into the deep end!   I got a pair of Genelec 8260s last Wednesday. I have a 2 weeks full refund on them, so the speakers in my living room are actually loaners. They'll order min as soon as I say go.   My listening room is small, relatively bare and untreated -so far. The whole building will have all outer walls replaced next year, so I'm not about to add a lot of treatment until after that.   They sounded quite good off the bat, but bass heavy and a little mudd

DigiPete

DigiPete

Hysterical

Enough dealing with tweaking, testing, fiddling, dithering, pushing, moving, aligning, reacting to WAF-thwarts (see Jim Smith Tip #64), reading Jim Smith, and other busy-ness for a bit. After all, I have been rushing home from work every night this week to work on this NAD/PSB project. Further fine-tuning the new system can wait a while; I have a backlog of music to be heard (not to mention several books from the library to read). So I'm just relaxing and getting to the new (probably a month o

curmudgeon

curmudgeon

Portable DAC

Can anyone reccomend a portable DAC to use with my macbook pro and B & W MM1 speakers. I travel alot to my ship where ever she may be and I use my macbook pro for listening to music and watching movies. I'm looking for a DAC that will work well with my speakers and headphones. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.                 On the go system: macbook pro 15" 500GB SSI drive, i7 dual core processor, B & W MM1 speakers, Grado PS500 headphones, Audivarna plus.

seasalt55

seasalt55

Confessions of a DigiPhile III

The quest for Digital solutions begins   I needed something decent to tie me over till I found my final solution and the needed funding.   An Arcam rDAC made the cut. It’s a USD 500 unit and it has given me full value for the money. Cheap enough to be disposable and good enough to not make me do something rash. Today I would probably have chosen a Rega DAC or M2Tech Young.   I hit the local audiophile pushers, but most of them think that I speak Russian. They have lots of nice analogue r

DigiPete

DigiPete

Audirvana ... Ouch!

Just hooked up my iMac, running Snow Leopard, for use with the new spouse-friendly NAD/HRT Streamer II/PSB system I have previously mentioned. Did it via 100 megabit ethernet, figuring it would be a little more stable than using wi-fi (and more consistent with Jim Smith recommends).   Played a few tracks with Audirvana (it had worked well previously with my MacBook via wi-fi, and I am very much an open source supporter) but in the softer passages I heard clicks or ticks similar to, but a bit

curmudgeon

curmudgeon

She Who Must Be Obeyed

(With apologies to the creators of Rumpole of the Bailey, the old BBC TV series about the feisty but aging barrister who feared nothing – except his wife, Hilda, often referred to by Horace Rumpole as "she who must be obeyed…")     Jim Smith (whose Get Better Sound is making more sense to me all the time) speaks of the need to take WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) into account.   UPDATE: I just discovered Chris' great post and must-read comment thread at http://www.computeraudiophile.com/conten

curmudgeon

curmudgeon

COMPARISON OF FORMATS AND OBSERVATIONS

Objective: The objective is to obtain preliminary answers to three questions through comparative listening, namely: 1. Whether participants of the listening session come to the same observation as some audiophiles say that the CD format sounds as good as high resolution format? Or put in another way, whether participants come to the same listening observations as some audiophiles suggest that CD tracks played on a good transport sound as good as or even better than high resolution tracks playe

francisleung

francisleung

RMAF and the Noob

Greetings all... Am new to the site/forum and have already learned a great deal as I investigate hi-res digital audio. My thanks to those who've sweated over an intelligent article, review, or a quick post that shares some unique insight... job well done and again, my thanks.   When its discovered you live in Colorado people will first ask about skiing (no thx, that kind of coin'll get you a DAC a season), then its climbing 14ers (yup, our own 'Dark Side of the Moon'), and when desiring to be

DarkHelmet

DarkHelmet

Confessions of a DigiPhile II

WHY digital?   So I am GOING ALL IN as a DigiPhile. I am setting out with a set of rules:   My dogma:? NO half measures? NO gradual upgrades? NO tweaking of hardware? NO regrets   But why, oh why would I go digital? What has changed so significantly?   Well, my dream has always been to get my rig to sound as good as the best live venues. Little can compete with a live session at the Danish Radio’s old studios near by. Particularly when they do not use any amplification.   Ideall

DigiPete

DigiPete

Booting Up

Before we go any further, you probably want to know whether you should spend any more time with this blog. I need to introduce and explain myself.   First, the executive summary version:   I am not, by my reckoning, an audiophile. I'm not really expert at much of anything. I do love music, always have, always will. Bring it on.   I am increasingly interested in good-sounding music because my hearing is fading (after all, I am over 70 years old and have some tinnitus at that) and not so

curmudgeon

curmudgeon

Hear music the way it was intended to be reproduced - part 4

This is Part 4 of a series on a quest to hear music the way it was intended to be reproduced. In the last 3 posts, we have “voiced” and calibrated our speakers to an equilateral triangle, took some frequency response measurements, analyzed the results, and introduced digital room correction (DRC). Let’s look at the frequency response measurement results and DRC in more detail. Is DRC ready for prime time? I think this post will show conclusively, yes, DRC is ready for audiophiles to take ful

mitchco

mitchco

Best way to get computer files to DAC via ethernet?

I've been an audiophile for over 30 years. My computer system (with many outboard drives and several terabytes of music) is in my office. My hifi is in my living room: Electrocompaniet modded 24/192 DAC, Audio Research preamp, Pass Labs X250.5 power amp, Aerial 9 speakers, Parasound belt-drive cd transport, PAD cables, Shunyata AC conditioning.   I run digital files via ethernet cable (under my house) from my office computer (27" iMac) to my hifi. Right now, I'm using a modded Squeezebox 3 wit

mountainmusic

mountainmusic

Confessions of a DigiPhile I

I love music - both immersing myself and loosing track of time and also as a sound-scape to my everyday life.   I think of myself as a hard core puritan analogue audiophile. Well, that is until recent! DigiPhile would be a better description now.   My youth was spent creating music and other art as well as enjoying concerts and my ever evolving stereo system. Cassette -> 2 track -> consumer record player -> audiophile-ish record player (Thorens TD 321, Mørch UP-4 arm, Ortofon MC

DigiPete

DigiPete




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