Scott Dolan

BTW, for some reason I forgot to address this earlier, but count me in as another fan of the brilliant Broken China. "Quite lovely" may even be an understatement. Wright may not have been a top shelf musician, but he knew what to play, how to play it, and when. This has got to be the quintessential "forgotten" or "overlooked" album. You keep posting the same thing. Yawn. Sorry, but I have to agree with this. C'mon, Head Man. You're better than this. If you don't wish to add anything to the conversation, then why keep clicking on the thread? I can appreciate your apathy, but is there really a need to restate it?

Strikes me as a possible neo Wish You Were Here. Now how friggin cool would THAT be?!

Who made one of the most successful Hard Rock albums in history, Back In Black? It couldn't have been AC/DC.

Do you apply that same logic to television shows as well? When McLean Stevenson left M*A*S*H*, was the show no longer M*A*S*H*?

Crap. I was really hoping for one last tour.

My mistake...

Yeah, that pretty much describes every band ever created. I guess in some folks minds The Who ceased to exist after Keith Moon died. Or KISS no longer existed when Ace Frehley left. You could make a list a mile long... Just because one whole member leaves, for whatever reason, that doesn't mean the band no longer exists. That just silly.

I think that entire practice is just as silly as those who say their was no real Pink Floyd after Syd left the group.

I have to agree with all of that. I really enjoyed both post-Waters albums, even though some loved either one or the other, or hated both and referred to them as David Gilmour solo albums. I thought they both sounded quite Floydian in their own ways. And as you said, if Gilmour is playing guitar on it, I'm getting it. I wonder if they'll tour again? I love their live shows. Always a visual and aural feast.

Where did your ears go to school?

Did you end up going with the Retina display?

Will do! Good! I've been kicking around getting a MacBook, so your impressions of it are of interest to me.

Pardon? If you somehow believe 1440x900 pixels is somehow comparable to 2560x1600 pixels, you are delusional. Sorry. Retina makes a huge difference, period. Click the link I provided above. It shows you magnified differences. Not saying the lesser display doesn't look just fine, but Retina provides superior quality in every way possible. David, it's a good choice. Please let us know your thoughts once you have settled in with your Macbook.

It's $10 a month here. I can't imagine many teenagers not being able to afford that. Sounds like the music industry is up to its old discriminatory tricks. Downloads used to be 99 cents a track in the States and 99p here, i.e. about 50% more expensive. Downloads here are still $.99 to $1.29. Not sure how that works out with the current exchange rate. Probably comparable?

Useless? Everything looks much cleaner on the Retina display. Every web page you go to with imbedded video, photographs, or HD graphics are much improved with the Retina display. Apps look sharper, your personal photographs, etc... If all you're going to use your Macbook/iPad for is typing and reading text, then the Retina display would be useless. If it were useless, people wouldn't have been clamouring for Apple to release an iPad Mini with Retina display. It also would have never become the standard on all the other iDevices. http://www.imore.com/ipad-ipad-2-retina-display-tests

David, if that's all you're looking to do with it, why not consider a tablet? An iPad can do all of that, and would cost you far less than a Macbook. Well yes I could - and add a keyboard you mean? That way I can get retina display which the Air doesn't have. But the Air seems to be very robust, just this question of the lower-quality display which is no longer the best... Yeah, you could add a bluetooth keyboard, but I don't see why it would be necessary. In landscape mode the onscreen keys on the keyboard for the iPad are just as large as what you find on a regular keyboard. I don't own one, but have toyed with them in an Apple store before. The displays are just fine, but nowhere near the same quality as the Retina display.

It's $10 a month here. I can't imagine many teenagers not being able to afford that.

David, if that's all you're looking to do with it, why not consider a tablet? An iPad can do all of that, and would cost you far less than a Macbook.

The streaming companies are making deals with the record labels that distribute the material, not directly with the artists themselves, except for a few high profile artists that have control of their entire catalog. AC/DC is a good example, they aren't available on streaming sites because they don't want to be, but they also have the clout of 200 million albums sold worldwide to back that up and they control their own masters. Ah, ok. Makes sense now. Hopefully we're seeing the beginning of the end of record label strangleholds. Maybe this will finally brings things to a head. Great observation about AC/DC as well. Hell, they just recently allowed their albums to be sold on iTunes. Not a great idea to hold out so long, IMO. But, I'll never complain about a band exercising their rights over their catalog.

OK, so here's my thing. I understand what the record companies could hold over the musicians heads (top shelf recording facilities, marketing, distribution...), but what do streaming companies have for leverage? Why don't the artists just tell them to go fuck themselves if they refuse to pay what the artist wants? It's not like the artist can digitally distribute their own material. Hell, they could even stream once per IP addy from their site.

I had a real asshole puckering moments a few months ago where my iMac simply refused to eject a disc I had ripped. I had to restart it twice before it finally spit out the goods. That sucked. If it's a tray, it's a little easier to deal with. Pop the cover, and manually push the tray out. Slot load? That's a whole new problem. And not a pleasant one.

You wanna talk really scary, sometimes my iMac refuses to eject a disc. Get a disc stuck in that fucker and it's end of days time.

And it's a new model?! That is downright bizarre. I wonder what the the thinking was there.

Wow! I've had my current Western Digital My Book for a decade now with no problems. And it runs a backup every 15 minutes. Though, I do plan on getting a Time Capsule in the near future.

Thank you for the clarification. I got a different message from your previous post. Though my question does still stand. But you didn't answer his question, Allen. Did the media itself make a difference? I would have to think it didn't. The mastering, no matter the format, should sound the same.