I generally agree with and like and enjoy your writing JA (apologies in advance for addressing you directly). But besides being a bit self congratulatory and rambling and unfocused, your commment that "90% of music is crap" doesn't sit well with me at all. Let me tell you a couple of short stories. A few weeks back a buddy of mine and I drove from my hometown of Columbus OH to Newport KY to see Alejandro Escovedo.

Has anyone noticed an alarming lack of hostility at the open bar ?

Was it Mother's Day ?
Or, as I suspect, has StereoPhile finally found a way to medicate our water supply ?

I was playing a Phile CD in reverse (hard to do when streaming) and heard the message "renew, renew, renew"

Most alarming is that Lamont hasn't called anyone a dumbass in far too long.

Having an older Denon 2930CI and an inexpensive Pana Blue Ray player, I am looking to consolidate to one universal player that provides audio quality better than my 4 year old Denon and provides me an excellent Blu image on my Sony Bravia HDTV.

Read fairly good reviews regarding the Oppo 83SE and have also spoke to a salesman regarding the upcoming Denon 2011.

The basic question I have is whether the universal player is a good audio/video solution or a compromise over discrete components when used with my existing Rotel 1560 AVR and Paradigm Studio 60/CC590 v5 speakers.

In my "Recording of the Month" review of the new Jeff Beck album, I wrote that the aria "Nessun Dorma" was from Puccini's opera Tosca. It is, of course, from another Puccini opera, Turandot. Which I knew, both operas being favorites and both of which I have seen live several times.

Rats! No-one sleeps? We were _all_ sleeping!

But Beck plays the heck out of it!

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Hello All,

Sorry about the title. I couldn't think of a better way to put it, or any other place to take the question.

The question I'm posing came up while a friend and I were talking analogies, and I said you could look at a nuclear bomb as a way of very, very quickly creating a lot of information about atoms.

Which got us to thinking: strictly from an information theory point of view, does a bomb create or destroy information?

Wonderful program on Swedish television the other day about Alison Balsom. Definitely one for Elk et al.

Enjoy!