Scott Dolan

That was the Super Bowl, IMO.

The day I received the Village Vanguard box and heard him and Dolphy blowing India, I was hooked for life. It's what eventually led to me having nearly 100 discs worth of Coltrane material as a leader, and why my son's middle name is Coltrane. Dig in, xybert!

OH! And one thing I'd like to add is that device triggers are the greatest invention ever! Just hit the power button for the pre-amp, and it will automatically power up both the amp and the DAC via mini to mini connectors. Very, very cool. Especially since the amp doesn't have a remote control. Naturally, Emotiva didn't invent this, but it's the first time I've ever experienced it.

A little bit of reverb is fine, but not when it's added to something I'm already familiar with. That's what I should have said.

That's all really interesting. I had no idea there were such disparities between the two releases. The added reverb is a major turnoff, but the rest sounds really intriguing. Not sure I could justify having,two boxes of essentially the same material, but this does strike me as a rather extrordinary case. Especially considering how extrodinary the music itself is. Now you've got me prepared to head into the music room and break out my set...

Let us know what, if any, differences you find between the two sets.

If sound waves reach your ear at a frequency you're able to hear, you can't simply wish them away. BTW, having now experienced two different version of Audyssey and the proprietary EmoQ I am reasonably convinced that automatic room correction is more smoke and mirrors than anything. Just reinforces why I have never been a fan of EQ's to begin with. Well, except when I first started out and had a really shitty system that needed all the help it could get. But, I've heard cymbals in person many, MANY times. I know what they're supposed to sound like. So don't put me through several minutes of test tones only to give me playback that makes cymbals sound like someone hitting a cheap piece of aluminum with metal spoons. "Neutral" response, my ass. Boosting levels from 2K and up anywhere from .25 to 3dB, with a Q slope as high as 8+ is NOT creating a neutral setting. Emotiva has built some rock solid equipment, but pardon me if I bypass all tone controls just as I did with my old Harman Kardon. For all the faults my Polks have, reproducing a deep and heavy cymbal has never been one of them. Hell, it may be their one true strength.

It's quite the cautionary tale, isn't it? Human hearing may be limited, but the ability to bullshit ourselves is completely limitless.

Hmmm, I must have never listened for more than ten hours because I had no clue they even had that limit in place.

Maybe I'll spend hundreds on a great set of bi-wire speaker cables!!!!! Not sure if I ever posted this here, but I thinks it's hilarious. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Audio_woo And here's a great example of almost everything in that article. Got that one from a thread on Audioholics, which is a fantastic site full of common sense audiophiles who also don't buy into bullshit and faith.

Here, let's revisit it now. More expensive speakers cables. No. More expensive connectors? No. More expensive power cables? No. Done.

Well, with the Emotiva amp and pre-amp officially installed, up, and running all I have to say is how disappointing my Polk Audio Speakers really are. This new system really exposes all of their weaknesses. I've set them to "small" and put their crossover at 70HZ. Letting my Velodyne CHT-15 cover everything under that. That's actually made a huge difference. The Velodyne is incredibly fast and tight for its size. New speakers are on the horizon. Still haven't settled as of yet.

Having grown up watching Coach Shula, I have to admit that Belichick is the greatest situational head coach I've seen in my lifetime. Bum's "his'n/your'n" quote applies perfectly. Think about what Wild Billy thought he had during the off season. And then look at how he has adjusted. Sorry, the cat's a fucking genius. As for Carroll, having grown up a Dolphins fan I still recall the "choke" sign he gave on that Monday night game when Stoyanovich missed that FG. But, I respect what he's accomplished since initially falling on his face as a NFL head coach. Harbaugh? Man, he sucked in Chicago. Then, if not for a blown call when Kordell Stewart ran out of the back of the endzone before catching the game winning TD pass in the AFC Championship game all those years ago, he and the Colts would have finally stopped the terrorist-like reign of the NFC in the Super Bowl. He's intense. I've got no problem with that. John Fox, aside from being the accidental Godfather of the infuriating RBBC that has swept the league, I really have no opinion of one way or the other. He's been there and done that with far lesser talent than he has now. There's that, I guess. Would I care to have a beer with any of them? Maybe Carroll and Harbaugh. They're douchebags, but strike me as at least fun-loving douchebags...

Splicers!!!!!

Well, I don't like to brag...

Another rock solid budget company along the lines of Logitech and Altec Lansing. A buddy of mine swears by Creative. The only thing of theirs I have anyexperience with is the iPod dock my son has, which sounds absolutely amazing. Nice sturdy build, too. We take it with us when we go on vacation. It has serious room filling sound.

Excellent! I'm glad you're enjoying it, and are experiencing all the things I also noticed. Put the rest of my system together yesterday with the Emotiva UMC-200 pre-amp, and UPA-500 amp. Cranked up Take Five. Man, Morello's drums were right there in the room with me, and I could feel every drum strike in my gut. Even the wife admitted, "that was impressive".

Sure. Yes, you're right. There is a huge difference in sound quality between the CD release I own, and the HD Tracks!!!

Um, yeah. Of course. That has nothing to do with the difference in formats, which is what we're discussing.

Not to mention the fact that everything mastered these days is so squash and loaded with digital distortion that even the highest quality aduio equipment is of no help. Actually, it only gets worse the better the equipment. Let's also not forget about the Sony Minidisc, as well as DAT players/recorders. Though the latter was somewhat popular amongst professionals in the music business. But not enough to consider it a success.

Yeah, and doing an a/b test between the high res version and the cd version yields no difference. But, I wanted to make sure that was the case which is why I downloaded an album I already had and was familiar with. And were I to rip that cd to ALAC, there would also be no difference except for a absurdly smaller file size.

Considering the human ear isn't capable of discerning between 44.1kHZ and 192kHZ, I'm somewhat befuddled as to why you're storing such absurdly large files. Why not resample them to 24/44.1 and save yourself a TON of space while losing absolutely no discernable resolution?

*sigh*

Thanks for the advice, might do just that. Still a set of PC speakers would not hurt, I guess. Absolutely not! The Apple TV unit is $100, which is pretty steep relative to a nice set of computer speakers. Just wanted to offer up that alternative. It's funny. Even being the audio snob I am, my buddy at work brought in a pair of Dell speakers that his wife was going to throw away. Hooked them up to our shared machine, and I told him I was quite impressed and wholly satisfied with how they sounded. Sometimes even us audio snobs get put in our place.

Glad to hear that, Dave. That speaker system is just too damned good. I'm happy to hear that Klipsch hasn't ignored the problem. For the money, and with even a decent soundcard, they'd have you believing you were listening to a $1,000 system.