TMoney

Heh, no doubt. Hence the part about "at least two camps"

Does anyone have a link to the method to plug the PS3 into the computer to read SACDs? I'd love to jack the PS3 into my computer and start posting pictures of some of these SHM-SACDs to see how they compare. Going by ear, some of these waveforms must look fantastic.

^ I agree with you. There are at least two camps on this. Some of us are more sensitive to treble harshness (real or perceived, I have no idea) and prefer the 007MK1. Others are not and prefer the 009. I find the same dichotomy in dynamics with the HD800 vs. LCD2 debate. Those who are sensitive to treble tend to gravitate twoards the LCDs, while those who aren't often prefer the HD8s. Different strokes for different folk, I guess.

I believe the volume is handled by the Sabre DAC. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My goodness, these Japanese and their direct DSD transfers from the master tapes onto SACD are making a believer out of me. They may cost upwards of $50 a pop but gawddamn do they ever sound great. I'm listening to the SHM-SACD of Exile on Main Street right now and I've got to say its the first time I've ever heard a Stones recording with dynamic range. On every CD version I've heard up till now Charlie's drums always seem to get buried by the compression. Now, they really pop, like just about every other instrument. Mick's vocals seem a bit farther back in the mix compared to the regular CD releases, but lets be honest, on Exile thats the way it should be. Really the only downside to the BDP-105 for me so far has been the lack of a Windows 8 driver for the USB DAC. Hopefully that comes soon.

I have new appreciation for why Kevin and some of the other heavy-hitters on this site listen to primarily SACDs. My goodness some of these old recordings sound nice. I think my wallet is really gonna hurt over the next few months. Neil Young Archives on Blu-ray 24/192 ain't to bad either. And I haven't even tried using it as a DAC yet.

Getting my SACD -> 105 -> 009 working... very nice. Why don't normal redbook CDs get dynamic range like this? Holy smokes!

Just got the shipping confirmation from Oppo. Looks like it'll get delivered to my office tomorrow and come home with me tomorrow night.

Heh, indeed Voltron and Dusty. I checked out SA-CD.net before I made these purchases to make sure I avoided clunkers. Until this week with the BDP-105 and sacds the ol' wallet was starting to feel kind of heavy. Now, not so much.

Luckily I have Horio close-by with about 200ish Classical SACDs to borrow from. Particularly looking forward to hearing MTT's Mahler cycle on SACD. I've heard the RB layer, but the SACD should be something special.

I'm a big rock/blues guy, so without further ado (In no particular order): Basement Tapes - Dylan What's Going On - Marvin Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Rumors - Fleetwood Mac Pet Sounds - Beach Boys Paranoid - Black Sabbath JT - James Taylor Surfer Rosa - Pixies Live at Regal - BB King Ella and Louis Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd Exile on Main - Stones Beggars Banquet - Stones Days of Future Passed - Moody Blues Cosmo's Factory - Creedence Folk Singer - Muddy Waters It Serve You Right to Suffer - John Lee Hooker Let it Bleed - Stones Tubular Bells - Mike Oldfield Shaft - Isaac Hayes Donovan: Storyteller Blood on the Tracks - Dylan Layla - Derek and the Dominoes Here's Little Richard Ommadawn - Mike Oldfield Sitcky Fingers - Stones Quadrophoneria - Who Sunday at Village Vanguard - Bill Evans Blow by Blow - Jeff Beck

All over. Most were used, some newer Mofi ones from amazon, a few from japan, etc.

I just ordered about 30 SACDs to try out on the Oppo. I can't wait.

Happy Birthday! Get your buddies together and go do table service at one of those SoHo clubs!

Funny you should ask. Just got the email in my inbox that orders are up. I went ahead and bought one. $1,300 including CA sales tax. This thing better be good.

After deciding not to wait for the new iMacs, my office just plunked down for four loaded Mac-Minis and four new Thunderbolt displays to run them with. Should be a nice upgrade over the 2007 24" iMacs we are replacing. The new iMacs do look nice, but aesthetically I like the look of the Mini + Thunderbolt display a lot better. I've just never been a fan of the 3-4" metal under-hang below the iMac display. EDIT: Kind of disappointed with the Apple volume/business discounts. We only ended up getting 5% off. Apparently bigger discounts don't start kicking in until the $30k mark.

The speakers are actually a dual driver setup. There is a large 10" or so woofer in the base of those towers firing downwards towards the ground that you can't see from the front. Pass had a Firstwatt SIT-2 running the upper drivers and a Firstwatt F6 running the lower woofers obviously fed from the Oppo. I wish I had asked him about the rig. He also had a scope setup to show that the amps were operating at less than one watt. In any case, like I said before, if its good enough for Nelson its good enough for me.

I noticed that Nelson Pass was using the Oppo as a source/pre to run his room full of First Watt gear at burning amp today in sf. If Pass signs off on it thats good enough for me.

I'll be getting one once they are available. Any of you 103 buyers score a better deal than the MSRP? If so, I'd be curious.

^ This While the rMBP style computers are the future, the future aint ready for primetime just yet. The 15" rMBP drops frames like a demon even scrolling on everyday webpages in safari and that thing has pretty darn powerful dGPU. Using only the integrated intel 4000 GPU doesn't seem like a great idea. The next revision or two of these retina laptops should have GPUs perform considerably better than the current gen with Intel's Haswell and improvements from nvidia and amd coming down the pipe. I think I'll wait for rev. 2.

It's fairly obvious why they refreshed the retina iPad and I don't think it has a whole lot to do with the new connector. Think of what else launches on Friday, the same day that 4gen and mini iPad preorders begin. I doubt Apple's choice of a date was a coincidence. I also am skeptical that there is much pent-up demand for a faster retina-Pad. More likely, they don't want the retina-pad getting trounced in the upcoming comparisons in the surface reviews. Probably the most dissapointing Apple launch day I can remember, and this coming form an retina-pad and iPhone 5 owner so it's not like I don't drink the kool-aid.

Thanks, Ric. Nice find. See you Saturday at Andrew's?

I've got a set (2x amp and 2x PSU) that I'm probably not going to get around to building anytime soon. If you can't get a hold of Lil'Knight in the next week or two let me know.

Nothing like the slow-mo cuts, bombastic music and a little John Facenda narration. For me, it was the great clips of the 1970's John Madden Raiders set to that amazing pirate theme.

I don't think I'd ever have become a football fan if it wasn't for the beautiful work Steve and his father Ed did over at NFL Films. RIP, Steve. http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/0ap2000000063280/Remembering-Steve-Sabol