TMoney

I've been using 8 since the prereleases and I really don't see what all the fuss is about. If you don't like the tile interface, it just takes one click on the "desktop" button to make it go away. As for not having a start menu, the functionality is easily replaced by just hitting the windows key and typing the first few letters of what you are looking for. Is it intuitive? Not really, but if you put in a few hours to learn it its very hard to understand what the ZOMG-WIN8-IZ-TURRIBLE fuss is all about.

"T Money" (with a space) is my profile name, maybe try it again? If it says last online as of three years ago it must be someone other than me. I was playing the Walking Dead yesterday.

That one extra click to launch the desktop is just too much, eh?

Can I get an invite? (Steam ID: T Money)

True, but I've found the Apple Store employees to be much more willing to give free repairs even in the case of accidents when I've had a bunch of years left on my AppleCare. Of course, YMMV. Also whats with needing to get extended warranties for computers using SSDs? Unless you are running a server or some other I/O heavy application I don't think there is much of a chance of burning out a drive in the likely 3-5 years of use the computer will get under typical "home computer" use.

I'd say it depends on how often you expect your wife to take the Air out of the house. The more it lives at a desk, the less chance of it being damaged by a drop or something like that. Conversely, the more you take it with you, the more likely it gets dropped, bumped, or bruised.

Point taken, but I just don't prefer the sound of compression even with modern rock. Its funny going to live concerts and hearing what the songs sound like with fuller dynamics. Its especially noticeable with drums. They are so easily tamed by excessive dynamic compression. Live drums sounds great, even over the PA.

Great post! It's kind of a bummer to see that even the mid-1990s Pumpkin original CDs are pretty compressed. DRs of 9 and 10 aren't bad to listen to, but imagine how it would sound if it was in the 13-14 range.

The DR plugin is great and I highly recommend it as well. I've found that since I moved to Foobar and the DR-plugin I'm increasingly moving my music with less that DR8 or DR9 to my backup drive to free up space for better sounding albums. Even though they may be albums that I really liked, anything with less than DR8 just dosen't sound that great with my primary rig. With limited listening time why not listen to albums that sound great?

Yeah wow, avoid that 2009 remaster. I've heard some of the earlier Stones ABKCO SACDs and I'd say they are "just ok" as well. Probably about DR10 so listenable for sure, but not stunners by any means. I'd guess they might look a smidge better than that top waveform you posted but not much.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analyzed: Dire Straits / Brothers In Arms - 20th Anniversary Edition -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR Peak RMS Duration Track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR10 -3.70 dB -15.54 dB 5:11 01-So Far Away DR8 -4.20 dB -15.65 dB 8:26 02-Money For Nothing DR6 -5.27 dB -14.21 dB 4:13 03-Walk Of Life DR9 -4.68 dB -15.86 dB 6:34 04-Your Latest Trick DR11 -6.11 dB -19.48 dB 8:31 05-Why Worry? DR10 -5.42 dB -18.71 dB 6:57 06-Ride Across The River DR9 -4.48 dB -17.25 dB 4:41 07-The Man's Too Strong DR10 -4.40 dB -15.91 dB 3:40 08-One World DR8 -5.43 dB -17.08 dB 6:58 09-Brothers In Arms -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of tracks: 9 Official DR value: DR9 ================================================================================ In the early days of SACD the masters really weren't all that great. A DR9 kind of stinks for a band like Dire Straits, though its not too bad to listen to. The later Japanese SHM-SACDs of the Dire Straits catalog measure a lot better and average around DR12 to DR13 which is much more listenable. I don't think they've done an SHM-SACD for BiA yet though... I've got the self-titled Dire Straits SHM-SACD and it sounds wonderful.

This is what the waveform of the redbook layer of the my copy of the 2005 SACD of BiA looks like using Foobar's Waveform plugin. Pretty similar to those already posted above Anecdotally, I'd say its a little on the bright side for my liking.

Last year we got my mother (who is probably about your wife's age) a 13" MacBook Air for X-Mas and she loves it. The 13" Air is an easy recommendation.

One of my favorite Ravi moments (Quote from Wikipedia): "The concert [for Bangladesh] begins with [George] Harrison taking to the stage alone and addressing the audience, his comment "We've got a good show lined up − well, I hope so anyway ..." alluding to the speed with which the event was organised. He then introduces the first group of musicians, led by Shankar, who, like Harrison, attempts to convey the intricacies of Indian classical music to the audience, as well as outlining the reason for this "special benefit concert". Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan proceed to tune their instruments and then stop after about 90 seconds. The audience, apparently believing they have heard an entire piece, respond with enthusiastic applause, to which Shankar replies: "Thank you, if you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more." RIP, and thanks for the music, Ravi.

If you are still looking for a DLIII I just put mine up for sale over at the other site.

Watched the fight. What a shot there at the end to put Manny down. I'm still shocked.

Heh, fair enough. I was listening to them on AMB's Dynahi, so I guess thats more or less an ideal case as far as amplification.

^ Agreed. Its amazing how well they stand up tonally to some of the current flagships. Senn really nailed it with the 600s. They are clearly beaten by todays big boys, but they still sound awfully nice.

http://www.oppo-bluray.co.uk/UserFiles/Docs/PDF/HFN_Oppo%20BDP-105EU.pdf The reviewer is a nitwit, but I noticed this in the sidebar: "However, SACD is now downsampled to 88.2kHz LPCM regardless of whether the Audio Format > SACD Output mode is set to DSD or LPCM (also unaffected by HDMI Audio or Coaxial/Optical output setting)." Not that you would ever hear a difference, but its interesting none the less. EDIT: Wow, those guys are quick over there (avs). Their comments: "That statement represents a profound misunderstanding of what's going on with SACD DSD audio. There is no down-sampling for DSD-Direct-to-Analog Conversion nor for DSD output via HDMI. The concept doesn't exist for DSD. There is, however, the required 50Khz filter in the DAC. For conversion to LPCM, use of 88.2KHz is also not "down-sampling". It is "correct sampling" as it also imposes the equivalent of that 50KHz filter. DSD encoding is subject to quantization noise in the audible frequencies. SACD counters this by "noise shaping" which pushes the noise up above 20Khz at the expense of making it substantially worse up there. This noise is not due to the quality of the recording or the quality of the playback. It is, rather, simply an artifact of using DSD with noise shaping which has to be dealt with. You keep it from getting to the output via the 50KHz filter as part of converting SACD DSD to Analog. However, when you convert to LPCM, whatever is downstream of the player no longer knows the signal contains that DSD quantization noise -- it has no way of knowing the signal came off an SACD disc. So no filtering gets applied. By using an LPCM sampling rate below 100KHz the math accomplishes the same thing -- those high frequency noise components get discarded. Simply put, it is not always the case that a higher sampling rate is better, and converting SACD DSD to LPCM is just such a case." This answer makes a lot of sense given the points raised in that XIPH article regarding distortion issues.

I'm afraid to ask if the bag is yellow.

Happy late birthday, Dave. No, I still don't have any prog rock for you to listen to while demoing my gear. Sorry.

Happy Birthday to the proprietor of the unofficial Grado Headphone Museum.

Oh noes. Sad to see one of the all time Bay Area greats go.

Amazing.

^ I have the same laptop and use and older version of this bag to carry it around. It might exceed your budget, but maybe you can find it cheaper elsewhere?