astrotoy

Thanks for this amazing encyclopedic background of Wheels of Fire. Since I moved into collecting tapes (15ips 2 track), I have been expanding my exposure to rock music, particularly from the analogue era. Recently I bought a 1/2" tape dub of Wheels of Fire from a recording engineer who has a safety master of the album. I don't have any vinyl or digital version of the album. If Josh is interested, I can send him a digital rip I did at 192/24 using my Pacific Microsonics Model Two. I have sent Chris a few of those of other tapes I have. DM me if you are interested. Larry

BTW, a certain CC built the computer I still use for connecting to my Model Two with the Pyramix Software and Mykerinos Card. I've known CC for a pretty long time! Larry

My dealings with Merging date back to before Hapi and Horus. I was looking for a top quality system to capture my vinyl and tape rips at high resolution. My dealer found me a Pacific Microsonics Model Two (it came out of Warner Bros. Studios) and recommended that I consider Merging Technologies Pyramix Software along with their Mykerinos audio card. It happened that Claude Cellier, president of Merging and Dominique Brulhart, chief engineer were visiting the western US at the time of the Iceland volcano explosion in the spring of 2010. Their flights back were cancelled and they came up to the Bay Area at the invitation of my dealer. He brought them to my home and I discussed my project and they talked about their thoughts about moving into the consumer market in the future. Dom took some pictures of my system and at one point, one of them appeared on their website, showing a multchannel set up. I ended up getting the Pyramix Software and still use it today to do hirez rips of vinyl and tapes (to 192/24) with my PM Model Two. A few years later, I went to Geneva and visited Dom and his wife (who prepared a wonderful lunch from their extensive garden which we also toured). I then got a chance to listen to the new Merging NADAC and ended up buying one of the first multichannel versions, which I still use today for my mch files. Great company. I saw that recently (last summer) Sennheiser bought Merging - hope they continue Merging's tradition of quality. Larry

So sorry to hear. I discovered Ian and Sylvia when I was in college starting in 1963. They were recording for Vanguard and I bought all of their albums as they came out. Ian's voice often reminded me of Elvis and Sylvia had such a distinctive voice. Their big hit, "Four Strong Winds" came from their second album. I think I may have worn out their albums playing them so much. The last of their albums that I bought was "Full Circle" which was the second album that they released after switching labels to MGM. Some great memories. Many years later, I rebought several of their albums which were remastered and released I think by Cisco in audiophile versions. Larry

I bought the 3020 after the first reviews came out. It replaced my old and very big Pioneer SX-1080 receiver. This was around 1980. After upgrading to separates, I gave the amp to a friend who was just starting in hifi. He kept it for many years until he eventually upgraded and gave it back to me. I was taking it back in the trunk of my car and the car was broken into and the 3020 was stolen. Maybe it is still playing somewhere. Larry

Looks like her picture in wiki.

According to wiki, Crumb is 79. He married his second wife, also a cartoonist in 1979. Their daughter was born in 1981. So unless this is a very old picture of Crumb, it is unlikely that the woman in the picture is his wife,. Maybe it is his daughter or someone interviewing him. I am fortunate that my wife doesn't notice changes in the house very easily. (We've been married 52 years). One example was when I bought a pair (used) of Avantgarde Duo speakers to replace a pair of Quad ESL63USMonitors. After about four months, often listening to music together, she asked "Are these new speakers?" Larry

Thanks, Pierre. I didn't know whether the streaming services had become popular enough and financially profitable enough to increase the payments to the content creators. The switch to digital streaming has similarly negatively affected the content creators in the formerly print media, like newspapers. It has also created a new generation of content creators on youtube and other social media, where a successful content creator makes a much higher percentage of the total income from the medium (for example youtube monetization) than artists working for record labels or writers working for newspapers. A couple of years ago I discovered the singing group Pentatonix, who have become very popular and financially successful largely by moving to youtube after having their initial recording contract ended by their label. Their talent obviously was a necessity to their success, Larry

How has the change from purchased media, including LP, CD and digital download, etc., compare to streaming in terms of payments to artists, composers, i.e. content creators? Does the success in streaming mean that musicians are earning the same level of income (adjusted for inflation) that their counterparts did in pre streaming days? Larry

Typo from me. First paragraph third sentence. Correction: "For a classical music concert, the performance is normally NOT to attempt to reproduce the sound of an album."

At the big venues for live rock concerts, are the sonics for the audience much better than listening to the album at home on a good system? The cost is much higher. For a classical music concert, the performance is normally to an attempt to reproduce the sound of an album. Instead, the pieces played are very often ones that have never bee recorded by the artists, or often with different orchestras or conductors than the recordings that they have made. They are also usually unamplified. Until COVID we went to a very large number of concerts, typically 60-70 a year, almost all classical. The most recent pop concert was Joan Baez on her farewell concert tour at the Royal Albert Hall in London (a huge concert hall of over 5000 seats. The seats were expensive (near the top of the range) but the sonics, all amplified, were mediocre. Broadway or West End (London) musicals are all amplified and the sonics do not match the original cast recordings. Not as bad as a giant area, but nothing like a good seat in a good concert hall with unamplified classical music. Larry Larry

Our niece's husband is an architect and partner of Stufish Entertainment Architects. https://stufish.com/ They have been the major architect for a large number of pop/rock groups, since they started back with the flying pigs in the Pink Floyd "Animals" show. They continued to work with Pink Floyd as the shows became larger and more complex. Lots of top artists including Beyonce, Elton John, U2, Rolling Stones, Madonna, Black Sabbath, and many more. In addition they have designed some of the most spectacular entertainment complexes around the world, including several in China. They also did the Beijing Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Take a look at their projects under A-Z. Larry

Has anyone tried a Lampizator using PGGB, particularly the new Horizon? I had a friend (on the list) send me some sample files to try. I don't hear any significant difference through my Horizon, but it may be my settings through Roon and SQX or HQP and the Lampi. I have a very large number of files that I ripped from vinyl and tape (over 40TB) at 192/24 (using my Pacific Microsonics Model Two and Merging Technologies Pyramix software), so it would be a big project and big storage to upconvert using PGGB. I also have an older (old) formerly pretty state of the art computer from 2017-8 CPU $1,649.99 i7-6950X MB $218.86 GA-X99M-Gaming 5 (rev. 1.1) RAM $300.99 Savage Memory Black - 32GB Kit*(4x8GB) - DDR4 2400MHz Intel XMP CL12 DIMM Video $545.84 ROG STRIX-GTX1080-A8G-GAMING PSU $199.99 Seasonic SSR-850TD PRIME 850 W Titanium Disk $629.99 SSD 960 PRO NVMe M.2 MZ-V6P1T0BW Case $137.66 Fractal Design Define R5 Cooler $89.93 Noctua NH D15 Fans $16.99 Phanteks 140mm Cooling Fan (PH-F140SP_BK) OS $139.00 Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM (64-bit) Apps $129.00 Audiophile Optimizer 2.0 beta 15 (using "strip down Windows 10" service tool option) $120.00 Roon server $150.78 HQplayer (sends to NAA) Not sure what I would need to upgrade or do I start again with a separate unit just for PGGB conversion. Thanks, Larry

Another reason to update from Windows XP. 😁 Larry