neveronfriday

Yep. The owner of the shop is a real survivor. He keeps his customers happy (he has one of the best classical selections for about 300 miles around) and they keep him happy. It's really a last recluse for us freaks and geeks, with knowledgeable staff and coffee (or cognac) while sifting through endless rows of CDs and a pretty healthy supply of LPs. Because I only had to work for an hour today (the other 20% of what made this day great) I could go reasonably early today and - I also told him that - I was completely surprised about the number of customers in there (I would say about 40 people in a comparatively small shop). Because he's got such a good reputation, the people in there are also not your regular walk-in customers. These were mostly regulars who also looked like they had the cash for some serious shopping. The whole place is almost surreal when compared to the ground zero atmosphere in other cities I frequent. There is only one more shop like that that (albeit 10 times the size) I can think of (in Munich, Germany) and it would take me about 4 hours to get there.

It pays off to be one of the "good" guys once in a while. Today I went through a rather large order in the office of my favorite music shop with the owner. Whenever possible, I try to leave my money there instead of ordering online (if, which is usually the case, the owner can make a competitive offer without me pushing him over the brink). When we were done, he said he would throw the new Miles box in for Euro 60.- if I'm interested. He just asked me not to run over to eBay to get rid of it, which I won't, but to pass it on to someone else for the same amount if I decided not to keep it. So, Euro 60 I paid and I can pick it up on Monday with the rest of my (back)order. I wasn't sure if I should go for it because I have most of the Miles Davis I like already, but then again, I also know some very good people I could simply give those editions to (or the box), people who simply don't have the cash to buy what they would perhaps like to have. So, what goes around comes around, and all of that. Good day, today.

I totally agree Anyone else? I was about to jump on this set when two colleagues of mine whose judgment I absolutely trust in all sound matters warned me NOT to get it (both buy every Mosaic set when it becomes available). If you read one or two of the customer comments re this set on the Mosaic site you get a pretty good idea of what these colleagues told me. They also didn't say "some audio restoration issues" (as one Mosaic customer put it) but I think it would be fair to say that what I was told about the sound quality can easily be summed up with "serious restoration issues"! I decided to stay away from the set. I'm thinking of borrowing a box over Christmas and checking it out myself. If the issues are "bearable" on my system, I'll buy it anyway.

I just made a quick comparison: With the exception of roughly 10 tracks everything that's in the green 10cd box is also in the 25cd box. Thanks for checking. I thought a large part must be included in the new box as well. I paid Euro 9 for the old box, so no skin off my nose. I simply haven't had the time and, to be quite honest, I doubt I'll be able to actually check the new box out in more detail before the new year. There's just too much backlog at my end because for some reason or another, there have been far too many too many good offers these past months which I couldn't pass up. I've got a meter-high stack of mostly boxed sets and reissues to go through.

To my ears Let It Be - Naked sounds awful, as if a lot (and I mean a lot) of noise reduction was applied. It sounds dead as a dodo. No idea, I sold my copy long ago. According to AMG it was mastered by Steve Rooke. The Let It Be - Naked was perhaps one of the most disappointing releases I ever bought. It. Sucked. And that after all the anticipation. Life could be so much easier ...

Since I've been invited, I'll pee on the rug a bit. The biggest problem I've had with iPods was the sound. I borrowed one for a few weeks and I think an iPod can't be beat in terms of usability. Compared to lots of alternatives, it's a breeze to work. I'm sure you'll find it very easy to move around intuitively and keep everything running smoothly. As far as I recall, the European edition has reduced volume capabilities (I can't recall if there's a way around that). You definitely need to shell out extra cash for good earbuds/phones. The ones that are shipped with the Ipod suck (still, most people use them because they want to look cool). "Ooooh, look, they're white and gray. Cool!" I had the 160GB classic on my list for a very long time and almost bought one once or twice, but in the end, I decided against it because I wanted to go with a different format (flac). I have made the mistake of ripping and re-ripping lots of stuff in other formats too many times these past 10 years or more and decided to go with a format (once and for all) that seems to be one with a solid future. Before I switched over, I was a 320kbps MP3 guy all the way, but the flac format is just that much better, especially if you perhaps want to not only limit yourself to portable players. In short, I wanted to keep as many doors open as possible. Still, most of my friends and colleagues are totally happy campers with their out-of-the-box iPods and give me that strange look when I state any of the above.

Sorry.

I'm not quite sure, actually. Seriously though. I have a ton of LP rips that often sound so much better than even the best CD remasters (YMMV) of the same sessions. These exceed CD (redbook) standards and usually need to be burned to DVD and then played via a DVD player because of the higher "resolution". Because I a) have so many of these and b) don't have too much cash, I'm looking for an affordable way to play these via my stereo by hooking up a notebook/netbook to which I attach one or more hard drives (on which I keep these LP rips). This notebook will be connected to my amp via the above mentioned DAC (a converter) which needs to be able to feed the higher "resolution" to the amp without producing nothing but static or sounds of dying pigs (that's what it sounded like when dumb me tried to burn this stuff to a standard CD years ago). So, in the end, I'll have a small Netbook standing next to my PC with a media player on it (Foobar) via which I can access thousands of tracks neatly organized in many hundreds of folders on my external drive(s).

Great, Claude. Thanks! I'll keep diggin' to confirm.

Sure, why not. A file is a file is a file. Sure, but I get confused with all that digital conversion. An LP rip at 24/96 can't be burned to CD (Redbook standard) but has to be burned to DVD (and played via hardware that can read that). So, I never know what is actually output from, say, the netbook (via any "out") and what the V-Dac then does with it. I guess I have to read more.

*groan*

And one more: I still haven't figured out if I can actually run my LP rips 24/96 through a setup like that (I think so)? Claude, do you have an answer to that (for people like me who are dumb and blind)?

Yep, one of the (many) major incentives for me. BTW: The guy used the "Musical Fidelity V-DAC" which I checked out (see above).

Tried to edit and timed out several times: The Dac is around Euro 250 (and the heart of it all). It can also be used for other things on top of what this guy did with it. Ignore his home-network angle ... I'm going to do it without that aspect. My current plan: a) My netbook. b) Buy the DAC. c) Connect any drive (or two) ... d) Connect to my amp. e) Done. I checked out a setup like that about four weeks ago and it was about as audiophile as you can get. Superb sound (with FLAC)!

Flurin, I've been in the same boat for quite a while but I've got a link here that might interest you (German, longer read ... take your time). Until I read that, I was quite sure that it would take tons of money to do what I want to do (especially, to be independent of streaming etc. ... no time to explain right now why). In short: This guy bought himself a cheapo Netbook (one whose fan could be shut down 99% of the time without ruining anything), hooked it up to a (realtively) cheap but excellent (!) DAC (Digital Audio Converter) and then hooked his external drive(s) into the Netbook (which runs foobar). Bingo! Done. I never really thought about a route like that which basically prevents you from having to either buy into expensive hardware you can hook up to your amp and helps you stay away from the various streaming solutions (which I wanted to). Read it and get some good ideas! I have 18 external drives (some 1,5 TB) and this guy's solution can be had from around 500-700 Euro (or considerably cheaper, if you already have any of the parts at home, which I do). For some (!) people I think this comes as close to realizing what they've always wanted to do at a very affordable price! Here, in german, his basic premises: "- high-endiger Klang - maximale Formatflexibilität bezüglich der Audiofiles - leichte Bedienbarkeit bei minimalem Pflegeaufwand - schickes Design der Bediengeräte - Kosten- und Energiesparsamkeit - Internetzugang" http://www.fairaudio.de/leserberichte/2009...obar-usb-1.html

Cowon S9 (32 GB) After lots of trial and error, I eneded up with the S9. Flac (plus lots of other formats), video, great sound (with your own headphones, NOT with the ones that come along with the S9). 32GB is the maximum (and enough for me, even with FLAC), the GUI is a bit confusing in the details (can be exchanged with freely available alternatives) and it's a bit pricey, but all around, probably the best-sounding player at the moment (some Sony players come close, albeit with other difficulties; they aren't compatible with 64bit Vista, for example). The S9 has been a constant companion of mine and has never once let me down. The sound is, again, fabulous (and you know, I'm a rather picky guy).

Thanks so much for your recommendation, Jeff. I know I probably come across as a complete newb here, but I'd prefer recommendations from around 1980 (preferably even 1990) and up. I have some of the older recordings (Rubinstein, Lipatti, etc.) as rips (legit, by the way) but on my shelf I want more modern recordings. I know many of these might not measure up to the best from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, but I'm hoping there are some recommendations that come close.

Thanks Hans! Time to jump on the Lee/Christy and the Reece, I guess. Edit: Just did ...

Hi everyone, after I've gotten my Beethoven sonatas fix with the Brendel (1993-1996), Paul Lewis and Gulda recordings (yes, I like those three very much although some of you might heartily disagree and recommend other recordings), I want to try to assemble a somewhat complete Chopin solo piano collection. What I'm looking for are recommendations I can read more up on and spend some time checking out before I hit that "Buy me now" button. What I'm looking for are newer relevant recordings (in your opinion) in good to excellent sound quality. I'm not such a big fan of all of these Brilliant Classics and whatnot "complete" boxes that try to stuff it all in, so what I'm looking for, if at all possible, are "Complete Nocturnes", "Complete Waltzes", etc. sets that you might recommend and I can assemble into a "Complete" Chopin solo piano section on my shelf. What I don't want to do - although it might be the right thing to do - is piece together all the nocturnes across a myriad of different recordings by various artists. I'm looking for, again, "complete" boxes, if at all possible or worthwhile So, any recommendations you have while keeping these premises in mind? Thanks for looking and commenting. P.S.: I can only check in here irregularly at the moment, so please allow for a later/irregular response on my part. Thanks!

That box is way too expensive. In comparison to the OP box, they nearly added 20 Euro for one more CD. Pricing sucks on this one.

Play.com still has this up for a little over 10 Pounds. Is that an outfit that actually honors its prices (it's obviously too low compared to other sites where you have to pay way over Euro 40 for the box)? If yes, I'll give it a shot.

Same here. Been too slow for days, but only at certain times. Almost gave up posting the link to the Piano Jazz photos a few minutes ago because what I posted simply wouldn't show up. Page just got stuck ... again and again.

I really don't have more than a few seconds until some time next week. Here's the link. Should work for everyone. I tried to make the cover shots legible. If the Google web album starts as a slide show (I believe it always does), you can cancel that and then look at each photo individually. Try it. The box itself looks nice and is the usual Harmonia Mund job. Cardboad box (in this case too big for what it's holding (was there supposed to be more or did they just buy a default-sized one?), a thick booklet and 25 CDs in plain cardboard slipcases. I took some photos of the box wrapped and open, one or two of the front of some CDs and two booklet shots (disc 1 and 2 or sth like that). As usual, notes are in French (front of booklet) and English (back), and at the end there's a tabular A-Z artist index (artist, title, CD, page of bookle4t and rec. date). I simply don't have time to see how much overlap there's between the first (puke green) Piano Jazz box mentioned above somewhere and this one, but I assume there must be. I just checked if CD1 of that box and CD 1 of this one are identical ... they are not. Everything else has to wait a week. I'm simply too busy here ... sorry. Link: Piano Jazz Box (Photos) P.S.: If the photo is too small and when you are on the album page, there's a magnifying glass top right. Click on it and then "drag" the enlarged image by clicking into the photo, holding the mouse button down and, well, dragging. Try it.

I received the box today. That was fast. I'm going to take some really quick and dirty photos of the back cover of each cardboard sleeve and post a link to the photos when done. Should be up in an hour the latest. Watch this space.

I thought "Quiet Nights" was probably the worst of all of her albums (all of which I have ... yeah, I admit it). It's boring, totally devoid of any emotion ... cold. I don't want to be too harsh but can't help it here: I thought it sucked, royally ... all of it.