What CDs are in your player recently? - Page 2

Well, I still prefer the warmth of analog over the cold mechanicalness of digital. Tubes are even better, but they're out of my reach. I guess I just like that feeling of getting better grade "old-fashioned" audio components and "rediscovering" my music collection all over again, especially in regards to detail.

GASP! - Is that a nod to ultimate convenience? Because true audio files, still flip their vynl after 20 minutes....and sing warm songs of praise to align the molecular matrix of their shibatas.







As if perfect reproduction were a pre-requisite for enjoying music. Go turn your nose up somewhere else.

I'm sure that your way is a good way of keeping numerous albums compressed to a single location without all the clutter of cds but isn't there still some loss in sound quality when you do that. Also, you would never be able to compress SACDs this way. Even though SACD and DVD-Audio formats may be on the way out the sound quality is phenominal. I will take sound quality over volume any day. That's just my opinion.

I fully agree. You have no idea how much I miss my turntable, tubes and horns-- and being married with child(ren) now, it'll be a long time before they're replaced. "I used to have that on vinyl," is commonly heard in my house.

So's your old man. Hey, Ipods are cool and everything, and so are music servers. Anything that gets anyone to listen to music is great. But if I just want to sit back, turn the lights down and really enjoy music, I like the sound of the older style stuff. I don't think a true "snob" would own a Mini-Disc portable like I do. (And I've owned a CD jukebox in the past, too.) That stuff's fine for mobility purposes, but I'm just referring more to at home.

Also, it's well worth it to me to have to get up every twenty minutes or so to flip an album. It's a small price to pay. Just makes you appreciate the music more.

While I was initially excited by the promise, lack of real support for SACD and DVD-A kept me from buying a player or material. Loss in sound quality? Imperceptible from cd-- bits are bits.

Foo Fighters - In your Honor - awesome double CD, one is electric. Led by David Grohl of Nirvana fame

My daughter is listening to "Avenge SevenFold", a somewhat interesting band with a vocalist that sounds like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. They have a hyper active guitarist, and are played on KROK, the influential rock station in LA

Well, at least SACD's can usually be played in stereo, and I can play DVD-Audio's on my Panasonic recorder in stereo. They still sound pretty good. But I never really invested in any either, because I've been around long enough to know that they'd never really catch on. Especially with that old bugaboo - competing formats. That's also why I'm not gonna be dumb enough to shell out for HD-DVD when it's first available.

I never said that. Nor do I shop at Walmart. And I used to own swamp land in Florida.

But I guarantee that wav files played from my server will kill that $50 Walmart player or any ipod/similar.

I agree. There is definitely a point of diminishing returns in audio gear, where it's easy to get sucked into a "my deck cost THIS much" thing, But the example you use is a completely valid one.

Currently I am listening to the following CDs:

Nile - Annihilation of the Wicked
Kataklysm - Serenity In Fire
Cradle Of Filth - Midian
Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine
Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor
Bach for Relaxation

In that same vein, I was working in my unfinished media room a couple of weeks ago and hooked up my new speakers to an old receiver and my son's $19 radio shack dvd player. I popped in Miles Davis' Bags Groove and immediately thought that my new speakers were toast-- it was just the crappy dvd player. I brought an ethernet cable in and connected an old crappy thinkpad laptop with a cheap cable and played the same album from the server-- big, big difference.

Well, to be fair it WAS a Radio Shack. It might have sounded a little more acceptable if it were a Sony.

When I was buying the gear I have now, I was auditioning some Martin Logan's in the store, but I didn't have any of my own music on me. The salesman turned on music from a Yamaha server, and it was so bad I couldn't believe it. When I asked him why it sounded so bad (other than the fact that the M.L.'s are particularly revealing), all he could say was it was the compression. Mind you, it was so bad that something might have been wrong, but he seemed to understand that I was looking for much better and veered me appropiately. I thank God for that, because it was completely unacceptable to me for that price point.

Point? I'm not arguing.

The bits are the bits-- the difference is in the D/A conversion, where the bits become something else. And with the limitation of the cd format, much has been lost already. Putting it on my server isn't going to appreciably lose anything more.

I admit the Sirius music channels I get with Dish don't sound that bad, and they do have a decent amount of detail. but they do just have a sort of "artificial" sound.

Animal Collective - Feels
Sigur Ros - Taak
Do Make Say Think - Winter Hymm Country Hymm Secret Hymm (absolutely phenomenal record)
Mogwai - Happy Songs For Happy People
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Hold Steady - Separation Sunday

I have a new option called pandora. You can find it at www.pandora.com also called the Music Genome Project. You can create stations based on artists you like and pandora shuffles through songs that are considewred similar, you get to tweak the selections by givinga thumbs up or down on songs if you choose to. It's a great little tool to use at work - a personal DJ doing a CD song shuffle in the background. Of course you can purchase the individual song from itunes or the CD from Amazon from the site.

Except there are more bits on hi-rez audio. And the more bits, the closer the sample to the original analog sine curve, thus better, more accurate sound. I only paid $120 for my universal player and dearly love my SA-CD and DVD-A collection, sparse as it is. (But I love my vinyl & Rega turntable even more. )

Yep-- XM with D*, here. Sounds ok, but nothing to write home about. For casual background listening, With the antenna on my roof and WXRT broadcasting, I still prefer oldschool FM.

Urp-- didn't mean to confuse SACD/DVD-A with CD-- I meant uncompressed rips of CDs to CDs.

I'm in Chicagoland, too. Are you old enough to remember Triad? It was the best radio program/station this area's ever had (and anyone else out there who remembers it will vouch for this, I'm certain). Nothing's ever even come close, even 'XRT back in it's earlier days.

Uncle Lar and Little Tommy on WLS. I even had the first Animal Stories album. I don't remember Triad. I listened mostly to am back in the 70s, so it was Larry Lujack and John Landecker until I started listening to The Loop in the late 70s. Musically, the 70s for me were a steady diet of Styx, Foreigner and Cheap Trick-- ahh-- junior high school. Then my parents split and my mother moved us to far northern Wisconsin-- culture shock and a dearth of anything resembling radio.

Fortunately, after college and getting transferred around the country, I finally had the opportunity five years ago to move back.

Ironically my HT audio system is better playing music than any 2 channel rig I've ever owned. I'm using all Cary Audio gear (Cinema 6, Cinema 5 and DVD-6). Even though it's solid state it sounds quite tube-like to me. Just incredible sounding, and HT sounds magic as well.

I actually wake up early now just to have time listening to music before the day starts (everyone wants to watch movies at night). Here's what I'm listening to at the moment:

"Miles Davis - The Cellar Door Sessions" - This is a full 6 disc box set of the complete 5 nights that spawned LIVE-EVIL (my all time favorite MD disc). It's really some of his trippiest most futuristic stuff with Keith Jarrett, John Mclaughlin, Mike Henderson, Miles, et all. Sure much of it sounds similar, but its so good I'd take another 10 discs worth.

Bach Unaccompanied Cello - Whipplesway. The unaccompanied Cello pieces always seemed like a bore compared to the violin, even though I've had good recordings of Cassals, Yo-Yo Ma etc. Whipplesway is just an incredible artist and actually brings these to live in a really thrilling way. One of the new classical artists I'm most excited about, and my favorite Cellist by a long shot.

Silvertide - "Ain't Coming Home". Blistering good ole fashioned rock n roll. Reminds me of a harder rocking Jet. Really good stuff.

Skinny Puppy - "The Greater Wrong of the Right". Finally a return to form of the great Canadian industrial band. I haven't even gotten around to the DVD yet, but it's some of their best stuff since 91's "Last Rights". Slicker and dancier than classics like "Vivisect IV" but still a return to form.

Yikes - my dad was always trying to get me to move up to northwest Wisconsin before he passed away a few short years ago. Chetek - Barron County, to be exact. Great place if all you wanted to do was fish and drink. And freeze. And dig yourself out from under snow. It was a great place to vacation to, but......you know the rest.

I noted how others have their systems hooked up, but in my case, I have a digital audio output on my system and it runs into my receiver that way. The computer is located in a closet on the other side of the wall my system is on and the cable runs through down through one floor and back up through the other to the receiver. I have an S-Video output on my ATI All-in-Wonder video card so I can view the screen output on my TV. The card included an RF remote control so I can control the system from the comfort of my chair.