HiWire

Carrie Rodriguez + the Sacred Hearts – Lola

Matthew Sweet – Son of Altered Beast I've been wanting to listen to this one for years... finally found a new CD on Amazon.

No Doubt – The Beacon Street Collection

Blu-ray playback on the Mac is a pain in the ass... I looked into it a while ago and decided to do Blu-ray stuff only on my Windows computer. I've used Pioneer drives in my desktop computers since Plextor stopped making their own. This seems to be the latest one: https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Computer/Computer+Drives/BDR-211UBK Theoretically, it supports Ultra HD Blu-ray, but online reviews indicate a weird situation with HDCP 2.2 support and Intel SGX – you might need Intel's Kaby Lake for it to work. I think regular Blu-ray playback should be fine with something like PowerDVD. I wish VLC could add Blu-ray support... content protection is still a giant ball of fail for the consumer. The good news is that there is no region coding on Ultra HD Blu-rays.

Random YouTube delivers again... cheesy but entertaining:

It's that magical time of year again. Black Friday-Cyber Monday! I've been asked to purchase a PA system for speaking events, and I'm trying to narrow my choices down to 2 portable, compact systems. The Bose L1 1S is slightly more expensive, and it requires a power cable. The JBL Eon One has a battery for cordless use. I've read that the Bose sounds better and it has a wider dispersion pattern. Otherwise, the two are similar, with bass units at the bottom and compact built-in mixers. Does anybody have experience with this new generation of compact PA speakers? I think either speaker will be good, almost overkill, since we probably won't need them for music playback very often.

I'll have to make a point of visiting some cathedrals for their pipe organ music the next time I'm abroad. Also, I'll look into ways of synthesizing organs. There seem to be a lot of options out there (obviously, the most accessible way of doing it is simply playing an electric organ on a MIDI keyboard or in a program like Garageband): https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/1102873-what-best-pipe-church-organ-keyboard-organ.html http://www.pykett.org.uk/choosing-a-virtual-pipe-organ.htm

Thanks, I'll check those recordings out! The breadth and history of the repertoire is huge. I think the modern view of pipe organ music mistakenly implies something solemn and monolithic when it is actually life-affirming, varied, and complex.

I was just listening to J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (a delayed reaction to Hallowe'en) when I had a bit of an epiphany... why do people send their kids to take piano lessons when they could be learning the pipe organ (common sense answer: because pipe organs are crazy big and complex and expensive and rare)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata_and_Fugue_in_D_minor,_BWV_565 The Wikipedia article suggests that Bach may have composed the piece to test pipe organs... do people use pipe organ repertoire to test their music systems? Listening to this piece on my computer speakers, I can understand why pipe organs are used for liturgical purposes because of their power and frequency range, but my interests are purely secular. I blame author Alan Bradley for piquing my interest – his detective/chemist heroine, Flavia de Luce, discovers a dead pipe organist in the church's tomb in the novel Speaking from Among the Bones (also, I strongly recommend the Flavia de Luce mystery series). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_organ Also, I always thought I was too dumb to understand them, since all those keys and pedals are kind of intimidating. A synthesizer would cut down on the size and complexity, obviously, but even electric organs are a bit complicated compared to the piano. Who else is interested in pipe organ music and pipe organs? I always thought pipe organ music was kind of boring as a kid, but I'm pretty sure that is because I only associated it with church music.

Reverberation Radio – meticulously curated classic and rare tracks (free podcast station on iTunes – some of the recordings are a bit lo-fi and/or mono because of their age, but the music is brilliant): http://reverberationradio.com/

I'm glad to hear that... have you heard about this AirPod audio hack: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/16/16664958/airpods-bass-hack-diy-foam-covers-how-to I'd be hesitant to try it myself, but my bigger problem with Apple's earbuds has been that they always fall out of my ears. I bought a set of Sennheiser HD1 In-Ear wired headphones a few months ago to replace my old Klipsch S4i after they died (after 8 years of good service). They work surprisingly well for me with Comply tips and they're a huge audio upgrade over the Klipsch at a similar price.

I just realized it's going to be a pain in the ass to re-download all the apps because Apple removed the App Store functions from iTunes and my wi-fi is slow. First world problems... they should create a separate iOS section in App Store on macOS and Windows. That would reduce the downloading time, especially for people with multiple devices. The other thing I noticed yesterday was that I like the idea of wireless charging because you don't have to take out the Lightning headphone adapter. One foot stuck in the past, the other in the future... the reviews of Bluetooth headphones have not been impressive.

I'll give the wipe a try later on. There's nothing much installed on the iPad, though.

I used my iPad as a guinea pig for iOS 11... immediately noticed the battery drain and crashes in Safari and the App Store. I'm keeping my phone on iOS 10.3.3 until iOS 11 gets some major fixes. Battery life has been excellent with iOS 9 and iOS 10.

Moby – Everything Is Wrong (still great after all these years)

That's good info on the HD 380... I wasn't finding much about them online after they were introduced in 2009.

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult – 13 Above the Night

Woke up today with this forgotten single playing in my head:

I upgraded two test drives to macOS High Sierra (10.13) yesterday and loaded a bunch of apps on them. No problem so far – everything seems mostly the same as in Sierra. The caveat is that neither one upgraded to APFS... one is a traditional hard drive and the other is an OWC Aura SSD inside an Envoy USB enclosure. The only app that complained is DiskWarrior, which is not surprising, considering how closely it is tied to the operating system. I am considering testing High Sierra on an "unsupported system", but it might take a while to figure things out: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-high-sierra-10-13-unsupported-macs-thread.2048478/page-63

Looks like it would cost as much as a car... but if you want a job done right...

I wish these guys would work on my car's paint:

Agreed – better equipment, better engineers? http://www.goodwinshighend.com/manufacturers/pacific_microsonics/pacific_microsonics_model_two.htm Contemporary equipment has probably surpassed the capabilities of the old boxes, but a good recording is a good recording.

Studios have moved on from Pacific Microsonics equipment, so the stock of HDCD recordings is diminishing relative to the output of new material. I was sad about the feature getting pulled from the new Oppo players, but Charlie Hansen has been writing for a while that the features were hardly ever used (i.e., the HDCD light still comes on when neither Peak Extension or Low Level Range Extend are used). Still, I'd like to hear my Roxy Music HDCDs properly decoded someday. At this point, I've got a bunch of SACDs that I'd like to try, but I've only been able to listen to the Redbook layer until I find the right SACD player. The search continues... (yes, I know there are other players like the Marantz, Luxman, Esoteric, etc.). My other not-so-secret plan is to save up for a Chord DAC. I auditioned the Mojo (and loved it) a while ago and I'm saving up for some of their black magic. Hugo 2, TT 2, Mojo 2, or whatever else comes down the pipe and/or upgrade my headphone amp to an ECP Audio box.

And another one bites the dust – Sony discontinued the UHP-H1 and replaced it with the UBP-X1000ES. Stereophile's Kal Rubinson damned the quality of the analog output with faint praise ("The UHP-H1's analog audio outputs were serviceable. Bass power and extension seemed lacking; the midrange and treble were clean and detailed, but with a hint of glare."): https://www.stereophile.com/content/music-round-81-classé-sigma-mono-amplifier-sony-uhp-h1-universal-player-page-2 The new player plays 4K movies, but I suspect it has fundamentally the same mission as the UHP-H1 – beat Oppo at a lower price. The UHP-H1 stayed at about $349 for most of its life, although it was discounted in a few places. The new UBP-X1000ES retails for $599, but doesn't look like it's built any differently. I think it will probably sound exactly the same as the UHP-H1 through its analog outputs. Oddly, it was initially sold only to custom installers, but it seems to be widely available now. It's a basic life lesson – you can't get something for nothing (or a low price). I'll keep an eye out for new SACD transports (I gave up on HDCD – Naim seems to be the only one keeping that flame burning), but they seem to be disappearing quickly as digital files and streaming services become mainstream. I still love the sound from my Arcam FMJ CD36 player as well. I'm looking forward to upgrading my home system with PMC twenty5.24 speakers when I save enough cash.

Marvin Gaye – Let's Get It On (I tried to find Mobile Fidelity's version of What's Going On but it's out of print and going for relatively high prices. The Japanese SHM-SACD is also out of print and barely available but it is SACD-only rather than a hybrid disc like the Mo-Fi)