lastgoodbye

Gotcha. Also important to remember, per your point, that the Levinson was 15X the price of an STA200! I think the Levinson was $7,900 in 1999 dollars. That same amp, new would be North of $10K in today's dollars! So, if folks can get a percentage of the performance of a better amp, it could be worthwhile to try the STA200 if they can't afford $5K in today's dollars on a Levinson. Not that you were saying that the STA200 wasn't worthwhile, just wanted to help clarify the financial difference of these for folks.

Picked up an STA-200 about a month ago. Wow! Rarely do products live up to some of the hype, but this is a phenomenal amplifier. Thanks to everyone that shared information here. This punches WAY above it's price point. I've been extremely impressed.

Hey there, was wondering how you ended up with your PM1's? How do they sound? Mind sharing a picture on how you have them positioned? I also own these speakers and love them. Curious how you have them positioned. Thanks!

Gang of Four musician Dave Allen also had an interesting piece The Internet Could Not Care Less About Your Mediocre Band My biggest takeaway from the article: "The convenience that Emily is searching for is, as she mentions, provided by Spotify – by doing so she shows us that a musician’s enemy is not the music downloader. The enemy is Spotify, MOG, Rdio et al who license entire music catalogs from labels at great cost. The labels (in my case Warner Bros) then pay a pittance in royalties to the artists. The winners in this vast charade are the labels and venture capitalists. Believe me I know. I recently received a royalty statement from Warner Bros in which I found that one of our most popular songs, ‘Natural’s Not In It’ had been streamed or downloaded through paid online services, almost 7000 times. That netted me $17.35. Now that was just one song out of our entire Gang of Four catalog. The statement amount in total, my share, came to $21.08. There was a big, red-inked stamped message on the last page that read, “Under $25 do not pay.” Lowery points out in his passive/aggressive “Letter to Emily” that people are buying less music these days. I wonder if it has ever occurred to him that maybe that’s because they are being served up an all-you-can-eat cheap buffet of music from the likes of Spotify?"

The David Lowery article has certainly been abuzz for the past few weeks and almost immediately after the writing of the article there have been a few excellent rebuttals to his remarks. To me, Lowery came off very out of touch and condescending. Lowery didn't make a ton of money not because people STOLE his music, but because his bands were mediocre and obscure. I'm certainly not advocating piracy, but my stance is that a musicians greatest challenge is obscurity and not piracy. "...a few weeks earlier, famed music producer Steve Albini did an AMA on Reddit, in which he was asked a similar question, to which he responded: I reject the term "piracy." It's people listening to music and sharing it with other people, and it's good for musicians because it widens the audience for music. The record industry doesn't like trading music because they see it as lost sales, but that's nonsense. Sales have declined because physical discs are no longer the distribution medium for mass-appeal pop music, and expecting people to treat files as physical objects to be inventoried and bought individually is absurd. The downtrend in sales has hurt the recording business, obviously, but not us specifically because we never relied on the mainstream record industry for our clientele. Bands are always going to want to record themselves, and there will always be a market among serious music fans for well-made record albums. I'll point to the success of the Chicago label Numero Group as an example. There won't ever be a mass-market record industry again, and that's fine with me because that industry didn't operate for the benefit of the musicians or the audience, the only classes of people I care about. Free distribution of music has created a huge growth in the audience for live music performance, where most bands spend most of their time and energy anyway. Ticket prices have risen to the point that even club-level touring bands can earn a middle-class income if they keep their shit together, and every band now has access to a world-wide audience at no cost of acquisition. That's fantastic. Additionally, places poorly-served by the old-school record business (small or isolate towns, third-world and non-english-speaking countries) now have access to everything instead of a small sampling of music controlled by a hidebound local industry. When my band toured Eastern Europe a couple of years ago we had full houses despite having sold literally no records in most of those countries. Thank you internets. "

Wow. That's outstanding. My cds that have a high DR in the 12-13 range sound absolutely phenomenal. I'm sure this is no different.

Concurred. I have some CDs in my collection that were recorded well, with great dynamic range and little compression that rival a lot of my hi-res stuff. Most of the time, cds are just fine if not an excellent solution!

I trialed and auditioned about half a dozen portable battery powered units and as much as I hate to admit it, the Bose Sound Dock II surpassed anything else that I auditioned both in clarity and bass. I know that folks throw a lot of vitriol at Bose but in terms of a portable solution that plays loud and beautifully clear, this was the best solution for me. My girlfriend and I regularly take this on trips to the cabin and weekend getaways and it works flawlessly. It sounds fantastic even being run on battery and I've found the batter to last about 6 hours. With a good playlist it's an instant party when you are away from home and have some friends around. I do not like Bose products typically but they really hit it out of the park with this. Highly recommended. I believe this is it: http://www.amazon.com/Bose-SoundDock-Digital-Music-System/dp/B001DLTDQC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330636787&sr=8-1

Very cool video. Thanks for posting.

I once owned a Klipsch 2.1 computer speaker setup that sounded simply outstanding for their size and price. Check out Monoprice. Their speakers have been regarded by some as sounding decent for being in the $50-$80 range.

Good analogy and well put. I agree with you. This move lacks benefit to most, especially the audiophile community. I was waiting for Apple's response to customer expectations of high quality recordings and this simply isn't a good response at all.

Good article here @ PC World: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400629,00.asp Looks like we won't be happy with the new iTunes mastering process. "it's still pretty clear that these aren't lossless files, judging by the lack of depth in the sound stage and the overly crisp hi-hats that don't ring out and decay naturally."

Good article. Thanks for posting. I'd be interested in seeing a description of how good the iTunes Mastering process is. I understand that it will be mixed down to 16/44.1 but somehow in a way that it retains the frequency range. This doesn't sound possible but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I agree. Front-ported has worked best for me. That said, I own a pair of Mirage OMD-5 speakers that I use as desktops and they are truly phenomenal. http://audiophilereview.com/affordable-speakers/is-the-mirage-omd-5-speaker-the-best-150-desktop-speaker-ever-made.html

Hey. Thanks for the replies. The problem with DVD Audio Extractor is that it does not ALWAYs give you the LPCM detailed information. Many times (as with U2 Rattle & Hum) it simply tells you that it is 2-Channel LPCM. It gives no information regarding resolution. I think Chris posted once in an earlier thread on the topic that most DVDs are 16-bit/48khz. I believe he mentioned 99%. That said, I have found a few discs where I was able to rip @ 24/96. The problem is that rarely does my copy of DVD Audio Extractor specifically tell me what I'm looking at. Thank.