Dusty Chalk

Stereophile ranked the Oppo BDP-83 A+ as a transport.

Nice.

It's probably still encrypted -- Sony was real picky about that when Pioneer and Denon came out with their proprietary formats before HDMI came along to settle things, and I don't see them being any less picky on themselves about that, for exactly that reason (ripping). That doesn't make it impossible, just hard. Re: Oppo BDP-83SE -- man, if they just put a digital input on that thing (coax/HDMI/USB), that would be perfect.

I think he was being sarcastic. Note how he said I'm not.

She was just a beard anyway.

Well, thanks for letting me know about that. Something newer than the 5400? The 5400 does claim to be able to do so (as does the Oppo), but not sure why that is relevant.

The PerfectWave does SACD? Somehow I missed that...

We don't? The DIY guys in particular are particularly admonishing. Kevin Gilmore talks to everyone like that. I'm not saying they shouldn't -- they have their reasons (safety, quality of construction, etc.). Agreed. You really have a way of cutting through to the heart of the matter sometimes. Anyway, I remain optimistic. The smarter ones tend to be the bigger assholes. But they're also smart.

DBT! DBT! DBT! Fucker.

I love SACD's, have become totally addicted to the format, and listen primarily on headphones. It is worth it to me. I am sure that not everyone can hear the difference, and would be surprised if one could tell the difference in a DBT (especially against the sort of DACs that Dinny has heard/is used to), but that's because the single greatest advantage I find to listening to SACD is that I find it less fatiguing, which doesn't DBT well. The only way you can find out if it's for you is to try it. But I'll echo Aardvark Samich's comments -- make sure there's enough out there for it to be worthwhile to you. Some of the back catalog is rather hard to get ahold of. Are you into classical? Then you should have no problems, depending on whether or not you're into the mainstream stuff or the esoterica. (And even if you're into esoteric stuff, just check, it's rather easy -- e.g. search for 'arvo', search for 'dashow'.) Jazz is better represented than pop/rock, but there's some pop/rock out there...as long as you're into Depeche Mode, Genesis, Deep Purple and the Allman Brothers, and less into Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull. And one doesn't rip SACD to one's hard drive entirely in the digital realm, that I know of. Grawk's is the only solution of which I am aware.

But that describes more than 50% of us. It's just that he's not "one of us" yet.

Hope you feel better, Dinny!

Ah, hadn't heard that one before, should've been able to figure it out through context.

Oh, Mr. Monkey already got one privately.

I can't take credit for them, they're all coming from the same place, and I basically fell in love with all of them.

The good news is, you'll have a posse. The bad news is, you'll have trouble telling them apart.

Well that's a relief.

Make it stop! Make him stop!

Not entirely -- I mean, yeah, they are completely replacing the kernel, but it's still just files on a hard drive. It should be extremely tricky to try to continue to run in the transition state, but once you're in the new operating system, if it's working, then it should be working. Try exercising various external devices (I.E. as many different drivers) as you can -- if everything is still honky dory, then everything is probably honky dory.

'lunch' is fancy high-end turntable speak?

This makes sense.

I'm weird, because I came in on Dreamtime and Aural Sculpture, so those two are my favorites (with Dreamtime taking the slight lead). "Too Precious" is easily my favorite track by them. I love that ensemble break. Oh, and yay on ELO and Talk Talk.

Not me, man, I don't see what all the hoopla is about, myself, and have said so before. Albeit, specifically about Parasound, not in general.

Just on general principle, I wouldn't fix what ain't broke. I'd send them a stop work email/phonecall/whatever ASAP. Especially since you're doubtful that you're getting the originals back.

It was inevitable -- if they didn't do it, someone else would've. Besides, Auto-Tune The News freakin' rocks.