hogger_129

Are these any better than the old Barry Diament-mastered CD's?

I liked it. I still prefer my needledrop of the 1970 Columbia vinyl I have in excellent condition.

See I would go after the DCC, MFSL, Audio Fidelity discs FIRST if the former were affordable. I only have the Audio Fidelity version of Billion Dollar Babies which was great, plan to buy more. But anything by MFSL, DCC, etc, seems to command prices of $50 or more, which is ridiculous for one album. The Audio Fidelity stuff is typically <$50 because they're still in production mostly. I also don't see why these folks can't offer these discs digitally - like as a lossless download. I often think their releases/remastering work is much better than HDTracks.

I didn't like the sound of "The Doors" at all. Something just sounded off about it. What's even worse is that when I tried burning it to a CD at 16/44.1 WAV, it sounded like there was a ton of artifacts in it, like a loud hissing/buzzing. Are HDTracks files watermarked or something that it ruins it when you burn a CD?

Depends on which one sounds good. I'd go for CD just because it's a lot more convenient to rip. If there's no good CD versions, or the good CD version is a real pain or really expensive to get, then I'll go get the record. I know when I play some of my parents' vinyl on my Sony PS-X5, the sound is more relaxed and smooth, almost all the time. That's what prompted me to do a needledrop of my dad's '72 Exile On Main St before I could find the Virgin CD at a reasonable price. FWIW, I still think my needledrop has more life.

I do this as well. Just point your iTunes library location to the drive that your SD card shows up under, then drag/drop whatever songs you want. Make sure you have iTunes set up to automatically add them.

I signed up to have a test unit shipped to me over on head-fi. I liked the X5 a lot. I currently have the X3. One thing the X5 does that the X3 doesn't is DSD playback. It can also accept two microSD cards. So if you get two of those 128gb ones that SanDisk just came out with = 256gb of storage onboard. Sound quality-wise, I didn't really get to push it to its limits. It sounded great with my ALAC CD rips. The amp is definitely more powerful than the one in the X3. I like the design more than the X3, though I don't think I'd spend >$300 for one given that I already have the X3. I'd go straight for the X5 instead of a Pono. Just my 2 cents though.

I can't stand it when celebrities, etc, get political. If this is really how he feels, then I won't buy his music anymore. Eddie Vedder did something similar and alienated a lot of his fans imo.

Most likely true. For the DSOTM box, the DVD was in 5.1, 2.0 and 4.0 both at 640k and 448k AC3. Only the BD had LPCM 5.1, 4.0 and 2.0.

How many remasters of this album are there now? Look for the original MCA CD. I have an old MCA "Greatest Hits" CD with "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" on it and I've been told that these old MCA discs are the best mastering.