Scott Dolan

In other words it was super clean and lacking the "warm" distortion you're used to hearing. That's an excellent selling point, IMO.

Oh, they're bolted on? That's cool. The only rack mount equipment I've ever had were built in. In that case I'd lean Tascam because their products are always so high in quality.

BTW, personally I would go with the Onkyo. But only because unless I'm putting it in a professional rack, I really don't like rack mount components. But that's just a personal quirk of mine. I'd bet money both players sound incredibly similar to one another, and you be happier than a pig in shit with either one.

And we'll leave it at that.

Well, to be honest, I think it may be the mastering. Especially when it's an album that was originally released on CD, or ealier media. The reason I say that is because I have The Endless River from Pink Floyd in a box set. It's contains both a CD and a Blu-ray disc of the album. Now, the Blu-ray is excellent for the rear channels, but playing it in two channel stereo I hear no difference between it and CD. Both sound really extraordinary. Ditto all of that for Wish You Were Here. I've thought about getting other Blu-ray audio releases to test my theory further, but I'm not really sure what to go with. I Thought about getting Beck's Sea Change, but the mastering on the CD is so exquisite that I'm afraid I may run into the same situation. I need to find something that didn't have the greatest mastering on its previous release. What Blu-ray audio do you own?

I have two Blu-ray players, and I concur. Though, I've been working on switching my movie library over to Blu-ray for years now. We don't own a lot of movies (maybe 30?), so each time we want to watch one of our movies, we usually go ahead and get the Blu-ray of it.

THAT'S it! Thanks for the clarification, Kevin.

It's interesting because when HDTVs first hit the market, it was common wisdom that you needed an upsamplng DVD player. I never really compared a regular DVD player vs an upsampling DVD player.

But how does it work? Can they truly recreate something that isn't there? Honest question, BTW. I know people that claim Apple TV, for example, upsamples everything at 48kHz and that it sounds like ass. I personally think that horseshit, but don't truly understand how it works. All I know is that when I run my tunes through ATV they sound just fine. Others claim it's "unlistenable".

Not entirely sure, but Tascam makes incredibly high quality products. In the end, I'd trust their 16 bit DAC over most 24 bit DACs. If it's good enough to pass muster with their high quality control, I don't think you'll be disappointed with it. CDs are only 16 bit, also. So I'm not sure why a 24 bit DAC is even necessary. You can't extract a bit depth that doesn't exist. Unless it's used for 24 bit digital file playback from a CD-R. But, if you're only listening to commercial releases it shouldn't make a difference. Excellent question, though.

Hmmm... It shouldn't be preloading anything. At least, I've never heard of a shelf/rack mount CD player that uses that type of buffering. You mainly only found that in portable and automobile units for skip protection. My only thought is that it's accessing the index? I'm not sure if any consumer level CD player ever came with that capability, but Tascams are for professional use, so it's possible it came with that capability. ? Either way, it doesn't sound like anything to worry about, IMO. If it were going to fail, it wouldn't take it a year to do so.

Dammitt, Jim! I'm a professional, not a miracle worker!

I did it all year long last year on the Royals board, Tim. I'm a professional talker downer.

And I'm right there with CJ. I already owned 1,000+ CDs, and have ripped many of them to my digital library. But, I no longer buy physical copies since digital compression technology has finally caught up sonically. That said, I certainly don't think wanting physical copies is stupid. Not by any stretch.

There's nothing wrong with using a quality surge protector. I use a Monster HTS1600 Power Center. It's always an EXTREMELY good idea to have surge protection for your expensive electronics. Especially those that come with a healthy equipped connections warranty. Who made snarky and defensive comments? I tried to clarify why hospital grade outlets will do nothing for the performance of ones system, because they won't. Nor does my power center, nor will your surge protectors. What surge protectors will do is protect your equipment if a critical surge is detected (outside of direct lightning strike). And if they have a solid equipped connections warranty, they'll replace your electronics if they fail.

I'm sure he did. Hate to break the news to everyone, but "hospital grade" power outlets won't change the sound or performance of your system one iota. Hospital grade outlets are simply designed to be more durable and create a tighter and more secure connection so that a potentially life saving device doesn't come unplugged due to a loose connection. It's a building code spec. It does not change the power supply at all. It does not improve the power at all. Nor does it have any bearing on the performance of anything plugged into it. So, unless you have old or cracked outlets, or loose connections where your device plug either arcs, or falls out of the socket by itself, you are spending $20+ on outlets that are going to do nothing more for you than $2 outlets from your local hardware will.

Power outlets usually do.

Nice looking unit. What's the connected equipment warranty with it?

Really?! 8 games in? That's 4.94% of the MLB season. If it were the NFL, it would be the first few minutes of the fourth quarter of the first game of the season. So if the 49ers were down 21-17 at that point, would you be worried about the season? Of course not. This is a marathon, stop thinking like a sprinter.

Hahahaha… Classic! I'll make it even worse for my poor old stick swinging brethren: I play drums but can't read a lick of music.

Folks who have no concept of a 162 game season, yet still follow baseball crack me up.

Yeah, I'm not sure what he's thinking there. Two of the best teams in MLB come from that division, but they have almost no competition within the division. The Giants didn't win the World Series last year by getting lucky, that's without question. But, outside of the Dodgers they had no peer in their division. And truthfully, I don't even think the Dodgers were truly their peer. They just happened to end the season with a better record.

The NL West had the worst collective record in MLB last year out of all the divisions, had two of the three MLB teams that finished with less than 70 wins, and most importantly was one of only two divisions in MLB to have at least three of its five teams finish with a record under .500. The fourth and fifth team in the NL West finished 28 and 30 games out of first place. In the NL Central it was 14 and 17, and in the AL Central 17 and 20. Those are enormous disparities. If it weren't for the NL East making a strong case, the NL West would have been the worst division in baseball last year. And it wouldn't have even been close. The Dodgers and Giants are both outstanding teams, but the rest of the division is horrendous until they prove otherwise. It's the most lop-sided division in MLB, but not the most competitive by any stretch of the imagination. They still need some time to gel, IMO. You added a lot of new pieces this past off season, and the team had been pretty bad before that. Being a Royals fan, I've seen this movie before. Be patient, there's still 158 games to go.

I think it could be argued that the AL and NL Centrals are the best divisions in MLB.

SS1, we must be pretty close in age (44). I grew up watching that show on Friday night as well. Followed by Dallas. Love Boat and Fantasy Island on Saturday... I remember seeing some interviews of James Best back in the day. Seemed like a really good cat. R.I.P., Roscoe. Boss Hogg is finally getting his sheriff back...