postjack

Picked up the Yoshida mastered 75th anniversary vinyl of Art Blakey's "Free For Fall". I thought it would be interesting to do a comparison between this mastering and my 45RPM Music Matters mastering of the same record. Paid $18 for the new vinyl from amazon, the music matters are significantly more expensive at $50 a pop new. My understanding is the 45RPM are all analog, while the new masterings are digitally sourced. The recording here is by no means "audiophile" to begin with, there is always some distortion in the brass, bit of a mess. In short, yes the 45RPM sounds better. Blakey's drums have more impact, overall there is a greater bass presence in the recording, piano notes are clearer, you can definitely hear and feel the room more with the 45RPM. Having said that, the new mastering is still very good. I love the couple of Alan Yoshida blue note XRCDs I have, his jazz masterings thus far in my experience have a very distinctive and pleasing quality. Can't quite put my finger on what I like about it, everything sounds clean and even and sweet across the spectrum. So while the 45RPM has better bass, better "feel of the room", and yes, more "breath of life-ness", I'm still a fan of the Yoshida mastering and will be keeping it, and probably buying some other new vinyl, especially if they keep selling for $18.

Best hip hop release in years. Dude is a phenomenal talent.

Blu Ray Pure Audio 24/96 PCM

Sweet. Yeah Erickson doesn't really help his readers a lot, his stuff can be obtuse. Once you get into the world (which takes the first book) it gets really awesome. The second and third books are pure joy. Deeper into the series I got really confused. Due to the complexity of the story and the long time I spent between reading them, I forgot what the hell was going on. Someday I'll pick them all up and read them back to back.

picked this up after seeing it in this thread. i love this genre, magical realism i think its called. stuff like jonathan strange and mr. norrel. I enjoyed the Golem and the Jinni. Started out super strong and engaging, the middle wasn't read until you pass out good but it kept me interested. A promising debut to be sure. Looking forward to whatever Wecker comes up with next. I find it so hard these days to find a good book. I feel like I've read all the good fantasy, so much of it is garbage, and I can be particular about my sci fi. I probably need a good cop/detective book to cleanse my pallette.

never tried the iroshizuku inks but they look fantastic. i'm generally a big fan of Pilot stuff, a Custom 823 has been on my wishlist for a long time. Just wish they offered one with silver furniture, i'm not a fan of gold.

a tube amp should make the EMI noises more warm, mellow, and bassy. also try flats.

www.Crutchfield.com Sweet 8 track player with Bluetooth.

Wu tang is here forever!

I think its a really cool idea. I like the lengths they are going to keep the record from being copied and distributed (unless the buyer of the one copy chooses to do so). If it was convenient I would totally pay museum admission to go listen to this album, being there is no other place to hear it. It would be a unique experience, one that would force listeners to really focus on the music. Of course I'm a huge Wu-Tang fan.

I've had my Pixel for about a year, and I really love it. Best web browsing experience ever. The screen is so awesome, everything is lightening fast. I definitely recognize the absurdity of the machine, and the fact that beyond web browsing there isn't much else you can do with it. But it is really, really awesome for web browsing.

I spent years using all the saturated inks (noodlers and private reserve), but these days I prefer an ink that easily washes out of the pen, even if it means it doesn't look quite as bold on the page. Don't get me wrong, noodlers and PR make great ink, and they look awesome on paper, it just takes a little while longer to clean them out of your pens. And since I procrastinate heavily on cleaning when swapping pens out of my rotation, I prefer an ink that is less bold. Sheaffer Skrip Blue is my new absolute favorite. Its what Mottishaw & Co. use at their shop (nibs.com). It has fantastic flow, looks really nice on paper, washes out of pens easily, and as a bonus it washes off your hands easily as well. Another alternative is Diamine. They have struck a great balance between richness of saturation and flow/cleanability. I also use Aurora blue, keep a bottle at work for when my pen runs out in them middle of the day. Sheaffer Skrip + my Onoto Magna (f nib) is about as good a writing experience as I've had. I also love my Omas Bronze Arco Milord (traded my Nakaya Portable for that), but the Onoto nib is a better writer.

congrats on making innerfidelity's amp wall of fame.

Hey oooooo! Happy birthday Al! It's my nieces birthday too. She's pretty cool and so are you.

I ran the 1200 + DL103 for a while, killer combination. Only issue is getting a phono with enough gain. I believe the bugle can be run with sufficient gain for the dl103? In fact I think I ran my dl103 with a bugle but I can't remember. I can't remember all my gear. I should make a list.

What Nottingham do you have again? Love those tables.

Is the AT440mla still around? King of the budget carts that I tried. Either that or a budget ortofon would be where I'd start looking. Stick with MM carts if you want to use the phono in your receiver. And sometimes those receiver phonos can sound pretty darn good, so live with it a while before you get an outboard phono.

I just discovered the Apple TV "iTunes Festival" feature. I've been using chromecast or hooking my laptop up to the TV to watch festival streams, but for SXSW you can watch shows right from the Apple TV. Looks absolutely crystal clear, very impressive. Watched part of Zedd's set last night, was a lot of fun. Will probably be seeing him at 'Roo this summer unless there is a conflict (which is likely, I like Zedd but he's not super high up on my must see list).

shamelessly catchy pop music. i love these ladies.

9 times out of 10 when I want a new album, amazon will sell me the physical CD for cheaper than I can buy the FLAC. One could argue the convenience of having the album "now" as opposed to waiting two days for amazon, but with my google play subscription, or any other streaming service, I do have everything immediately, just not in lossless quality. So yes, I concur that for a large FLAC based store to get my business, the price would have to be right. And I actually still enjoy spinning CDs themselves, moreso than listening to FLAC. But I just purchased JRiver, which makes the whole managing your library thing pretty awesome, so I might actually drift more towards computer based audio as time goes on.

FLAC quality streaming isn't too far away either. Isn't there already a lossless streaming service in Europe?

It might just be general love for the McConnaisance, but his role in DBC was really unforgettable. The role of a lifetime.

it was either a hallucination or a true vision of the evil in Cascosa. up to you to decide.

i'm kind of hoping true detective becomes a platform for actors that you didn't think were amazing before, but really have the chops to make it happen. I also would like to see at least one female lead in the next season.