Scott Dolan

I was edgy as well, Larry. Oddly enough, my wife wasn't. And she was the one threatened! Better half, and all that... Wish I was there, brother. I'd welcome this POS to take a swing at me. What a coward.

This is all very troubling. There are some very psychotic motherfuckers out there, folks. Larry, I hope that the advice and sympathy you've received here helps. What a bullshit position to be in... Sorry, brother...

Goddamn, Larry! Hope this is nothing more than some psycho trying to rattle your cage. Either way, I second the suggestion Jim offered above about contacting the FBI. As kh astutely notes above, this person has committed a federal crime. Until then, be cautious but calm. Easy for me to say, but you could drive yourself insane otherwise. My wife had an ex employee threaten her life many years ago. After the initial fear and shock wore off we were able to relax a little.

Just means it came from 24 bit masters instead of the 16 bit CD masters that the rest of their catalog comes from. It still comes in the same format, 256kbps VBR AAC.

I would think so. As long as you have consistent quality throughout your playback chain, mastering inequalities will be the only reason you'd hear that definitive a difference.

Whatever you hear is fine with me. My only issue was with you claiming LP's were better and that it "wasn't close". I look at it as a difference between a luxury car and a sports car. Both are capable and basically do the same thing. But, one is suited to be a luxurious experience, whereas the other is just a stripped down and raw experience. Tip of the cap for a living room on wheels, I've driven them before and enjoyed them immensely. But, at the end of the day I want it to just be me and the machine. And I no longer have a turntable, and got rid of my albums about a decade ago. My system is 100% digital. Mostly Emotiva (preamp, amp, DAC), mated to a Velodyne sub and Dynaudio X12 mains.

Listening. I couldn't care less what numbers are drummed up in a lab. They're only useful when pointing out that either side that claims superiority is full of shit. The tech specs lean digital, but so what? It's not like it's a runaway. I prefer the cold, hard accuracy of digital vs. the fuzzed-up "warmth" of LP's. If something isn't accurate, that only leaves one option...

Yeah, that particular point was somewhat dubious, but whatever. I personally can't hear that particular difference, but you know as well as I do some claim they can. And I've seen Foobar2000 results that make a compelling argument that some can hear a difference. Then, I've seen results that say the opposite.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/10/146697658/why-vinyl-sounds-better-than-cd-or-not Very interesting interview with Sean Olive of Harman International who knows a hell of a lot more about audio than 99.9% of the people on this planet, and far more than anyone on this board.

First of all, please show me where I EVER said LP's sound worse than CD's. Please re-read this post from earlier in the thread. What I'm telling you now is that what "sounds better" to you is the even/second order harmonics inherent in analogue recordings/playback. That, my friend, is distortion. I love how you ignore almost the entirety of that article to point out one small comparison briefly mentioned three quarters of the way through. Did you happen to catch anything other than that? You know, like the 18 other paragraphs out of the 21 total? Look, you prefer the sound of LP's. Fine. But, let's stop playing make believe that they are superior to CD's in resolution and accuracy. They are not. " Vinyl is physically limited by the fact that records have to be capable of being played without skipping or causing distortion. That both limits the dynamic range — the difference between the loudest and softest note — and the range of pitches (or "frequencies") you can hear. If notes get too low in pitch, that means less audio can fit in a given amount of vinyl. If notes are too high, the stylus has difficulty tracking them, causing distortion. So engineers mastering for vinyl often cut back on extreme high or low ends, using a variety of methods, all of which alter the music."

Interesting article. http://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5626058/vinyls-great-but-its-not-better-than-cds "Perhaps the best audio-based case for vinyl is actually precisely the fact that it does mess up the original recording. A lot of vinyl fans talk about the "warmth" of records, particularly of the low-end. But, as Pitchfork's Mark Richardson puts it, "the 'warmth' that many people associate with LPs can generally be described as a bass sound that is less accurate." The difficulty of accurately translating bass lines to vinyl without making grooves too big means that engineers have to do a lot of processing to get it to work, which changes the tone of the bass in a way that, apparently, many people find aesthetically pleasing. "Warmth" also comes from flaws in record players. As the University of Waterloo's Stanley Lipshitz once explained to Popular Science, speaker sound and the needle's height fluctuations can cause the record to vibrate, which the needle in turn picks up and translates into a "warmer" seeming sound."

CD's will never sound like LP's. You'd have to have a DAC that mixes in second order harmonics. This will never happen because nobody is clamouring to add distortion to digital music. And that is what you enjoy. Distortion. That is a very important thing to keep in mind. That "level of quality" steals away from the overall resolution/accuracy of the sound you're hearing. And no digital format should ever aspire to that.

Of course. GM's who rebuild have to find that perfectly confluence in time between when their team is "ready" for that biggest step to be taken. Many thought Dayton Moore was crazy for pulling the Shields/Myers trade because the Royals were nowhere near ready to contend. Instead, they finished ten games over .500 and were eliminated from the playoffs with less than a week left in the season last year, and are currently one of the hottest teams in MLB and leading the AL Central. But, had he made that trade a year earlier, with having only two years of Shields, the trade would have likely blown up in his face. I realize you're referring more to free agancy than trades, but for small market teams like the Royals it's all the same thing.

No, I wasn't referring to Granderson at all. Just commenting on what Gould said about free agency timing.

Sorry, but buying a high priced free agent and then building a team around him is lunacy. It simply doesn't work. You build the team first, THEN you add the final piece/s to the puzzle.

Agreed, Larry. I wouldn't be making back breaking salary moves like that until they're,actually ready to contend. Dayton Moore made that mistake with huge contracts for Gil Meche and Jose Guillen when the rest of the team was full of holes.

There is a difference between an aggregation of opinions, and facts. I assumed that was clear to anyone with an educated mind. Opinions are considered, facts are either verified or dismissed. You can choose to believe anything you wish, but without verifying it, you're leaving yourself in a compromised state.

Rebuilding the farm is why the Royals are actually in a pennant race for the first time in 28 years right now. It's also why Tampa has been so successful over the last several years. It's definitely the way to go, but it is also a slow and frustrating process.

Yeah, I would encourage you not to waste your money.

Hahaha... Yeah, it either made 256 AAC sound as good as CD, or CD sound as bad as AAC.

I'd say that's a fair assessment, but not always the case. For example, when I upgraded my equipment last winter. I listened to a large variety of digital formats knowing, and I mean knowing I was going to hear a difference between CD and higher bitrate AAC. I just wanted to see how dramatic the difference was. And I've done it multiple times using different tunes, through my main loudspeakers, as well as through my headphones. Wasn't done blind, and I knew I would hear a difference. And heard none. At all. Expectation bias up in flames, I suppose. Then again, I've worked very hard at identifying when I'm actively trying to bullshit myself.

But that was a technical and tangible flaw. That's like having an eight cylinder motor only running on six. That's going to be very noticeable no matter what you were expecting. When comparing formats, though different, neither are crippled. As Teasing said earlier, both LP's and CD's have their strengths and weaknesses. There is no clear winner, strictly personal preference.

Cool. Though, I'm not sure what that has to do with LP's sounding better than CD's.

And that's a textbook example of expectation bias, which is fine. We all have it some way or another. It bears keeping that in mind.

It's very odd to see a large market team go that route. They usually just buy whoever they like.