I can't believe I just listened to an audiophile interview for 1 hour and 14 minutes... All I can say is BRILLIANT...

I honestly hope a transcript of the interview will be available on the Stereophile website as I consider it a must read for audiophiles...

It addressed so many contentious issues in audio:

live vs. reproduced music,
2-channel vs. multichannel music,
vinyl vs. CDs,
tubes vs. solid-state electronics,
exotic audio cables,
high resolution music (music servers,SACD)
Why the iPod is the best thing to happen to music!

Whew.

Science Fair take its toll.

This year, only one of my kids had to do a project, even though my younger one had a KILLER project he did - we'll use it next year.

My 12 year old's 7th grade project looked at "cell phone handedness" and asymmetric hearing loss.

Goodness!

We screened people who used a cell phone an hour or more per day and found that their "phone dominant ear" demonstrated reduced high frequency hearing loss compared to their non-dominant ear.

It was quite striking, and Blutooth ear piece users suffered disproportionately.

If a player offers "sacd/dsd" playback, but in the process of doing so, downsamples the data (as with the Oppo 970)...

how is that DSD Playback??? Anyway, it sorta pisses me off. I wonder what good something like that is? Isnt it false advertising?

because it isnt really SACD playback at all really..

I dealt with May Audio a lot(and do still).

He was a kind, humble man with a great passion for helping others.

I will miss that man.

I'm turning 50 in June and my wife is letting me build a Home Theater set up. The electronics - Receiver - has to be capable of handling a variety of HDMI inputs and 1 or 2 HDMI outputs. HOWEVER, I do not want to run a 5.1 setup. The reason I need so many HDMI inputs is I own a Wii, Oppo 980H, HD DVR from cable company. Please recommend a stereo receiver or AVR that has wonderful sound quality for music.
Budget would be $2500 to $3K.

I'm turning 50 in June and my wife is letting me build a Home Theater set up. The electronics - Receiver - has to be capable of handling a variety of HDMI inputs and 1 or 2 HDMI outputs. HOWEVER, I do not want to run a 5.1 setup.

I would just prefer a pair of tower speakers that are not rear ported and have better than usual off-axis response so the rest of my family can enjoy the music/movies when we settle in for the night. Please help me - I never get chances like this - and my 50th Birthday is a big deal to me. Budget for towers is a measly $4K to $5K

Anybody have it/try it yet?

s.

I am installing new cable (14g) and speakers for my home audio system. Before I close things up, I want to add a phone jack for headphones back there, too. Is there a unit that has the connections and resistors that I can use to splice into the new cable runs and install female jacks to plug headphones into? I have installed volume controls for both sets of speakers after where the splices will be. One cable run is 24 ft and the other is 32 ft. My receiver is a Denon DRA 25 (30w x 2), so I also wonder if this is enough power (I can upgrade).

Have others noticed the current trend in classical ensemble recording is to capture a drier, more close-up sound?

We are hearing more resin, more pad sounds, more individual instruments, less overall blend, less sheen.

We are hearing much less of the hall acoustic as well.

Is this good? Bad? Merely different?

Theories as to why this is the case?

Are these changes in fashion occurring in other genres as well?

Should finally please everybody.