Scott Dolan

I’ve never been in a lightweight, short wheelbase car that wasn’t a blast to drive! Unless it was wildly underpowered. The Juke doesn’t lack power. Or extreme corner carving ability. No tuning needed. But, if you insist. Why toy with a sluggish C5 Vette when you can take on the fastest production car in the world?

True enough. But my Juke is a 2011, and neither of those cars will get you to 60 as fast (once went toe to toe with a BMW Z4, neither of us won). The Si may dance as nimbly, though. Depending on the model year. I had a 2000 Celica GT. 2495lbs. 140HP. Fun car, but 60 came at a rather snooze-inducing 8.5 seconds. Weight doesn't always tell the story. Even in the twisties. Nah, not with the suspensions they are putting under them these days.

Oooooo... I can't wait! He's always handled ballads really well. Thanks for the heads up, sonny hill!

The piece I read about this mentioned that they are going to make a Focus crossover. So I'd say your assessment is spot on. Ford really can't afford (pun desperately meant, though it doesn't even work) to drop every car line but the Mustang and expect to stay in business simply selling SUV's and Trucks. I actually LOVE my Nissan Juke, which is classified as a "sport crossover". Mostly because it's a turbocharged roller-skate that comes with 7" of ground clearance (.3" higher than the mid-size Nissan Pathfinder SUV!) which makes it very good in snow, AND this old man doesn't have to step down as far to enter and exit. It's essentially a faster Miata that handles moderate snow accumulations, and is FAR more comfortable to get in and out of. So, yeah. More of that, please! You'd probably love a Juke. The SV 6spd manual version that I have is a svelte 2900lbs with 188HP, hits 60 in 6.7 seconds and is fairly bare bones, outside of the ICON system it comes with. Though, the nice part about that is you can choose Normal, Sport, or Eco mode. Naturally I always use Sport, as it increases acceleration and tightens the steering so you don't get that feather lite over-boosted steering that has become the norm over the past couple of decades. As you can imagine, Eco mode makes baby Jesus cry...

Amazing! Glad to see the justice system worked. Lots of great comedy down the drain, though.

My guess is the Fusion doesn't do well alongside market competitors like the Accord, Altima, and Camry. Though I've not looked at the numbers. The Fusion is a really nice car, though.

Wow! Talk about an end of an era! Surprising since the Fusion seems to be everywhere these days. At least the Mustang will live on.

Two quick points: 1. Digital has no "sound". 2. Neither does jitter, which has been proven over and over and over again to be inaudible.

So you’re saying that material on a perfectly mastered SACD cannot be played back identically from CD? If so, I’d love to hear the reason why. How does DSD supercede the audible range of humans? Because 16/44.1 already accomplished this.

But the thing is, that well-mastered SACD could be pressed to CD and sound absolutely no different. It has no more or less information, it's just a different master.

SACD was exposed in the same way, especially after the AES double blind testing done a few years after the format hit the shelves. The only reason SACD made it and HDCD did not is because of the exclusive contracts they were able to procure with certain Classical labels.

Check out the primer on UHQCD from the site Brad linked to if you want a steady diet of empty rhetoric.

Unless the vinyl is using a different master than the CD, the transients will be exactly the same. Unfortunately, very few LPs have separate masters, and it's been that way for almost three decades.

Well, the idea of "hi-res" is. But if it's a remaster that isn't released on any other format, it may be worth checking out if it's a favorite album of yours. I know there are several Classical releases that only come out on SACD. So while the format itself is silly, it'll still be the only way to obtain said releases. All I encourage anyone to do is learn what the numbers mean when it comes to digital audio. For example, 16/44.1: 16 is the bit depth which gives you a dynamic range of 96dB, which is around 10-15 more than vinyl. And as I noted above, I'm not aware of any recording with a range much greater than 40dB. 44.1 is the sampling rate, which gives you a maximum frequency of 22.05kHz. By the time we reach adulthood, most of us cannot hear anything above 18kHz, and as mentioned above, no musical instruments get much above 16kHz. No, there is no more "information" just because it was mixed at a higher bit/sampling rate. The mastering is everything. But anything that is purportedly "hi-res" can be released on any ol' CD and sound EXACTLY the same. Which this company kind of inadvertently admitted in the quote Kevin posted.

Probably a good thing since no human can hear frequencies of 176kHz, no musical instrument produces frequencies much higher than 16kHz, and there are no recordings I'm aware of that have a dynamic range much higher than 40dB, thereby making the 144dB dynamic range of 24bit useless by about 100dB.

No, he's just someone else that understands how audio works and knows that "hi-res" is nothing more than a marketing ploy. That quote he posted is pretty funny, though. Shows they know absolutely nothing about what they're doing. Ultra High Quality Compact Disc!

Walls are more horizontal than vertical. As they should be.

“Compressed”. Interesting description, but I agree now that I think about it. The “center channel” is limited in scope, and music with more than one source of sound is not naturally mono. Though, I guess if you line all the musicians up in a straight line...

I hear all of that. Well, minus the Miss Kitty left turn. And you are absolutely right about things being in the mono mix that didn’t “show up” in the stereo mix. Sgt. Pepper’s is an excellent example of that. There were things that magically appeared in the new re-mix that weren’t in the original stereo mix. Yes, subtle. Either way, they certainly caught me by surprise. Though I suppose you’d have to know the original mix inside and out for them to strike you. It’s actually quite amazing, for example, how the horn section in Good Morning, Good Morning sounds in the new re-mix. Not sure if there was one alto missing from the original mix, but it certainly sounds like it now!

I’m just not a mono guy. But, I hear you, and I believe you. You’re certainly not the first to evangelize about the wonders of mono. The greater the care given to any mix, the better. I just didn’t put together a stereo system to listen to music in mono. It’s my own hangup, mind you.

And the "white album" was the last one they released in mono. As huge of a Beatles fan as I am, I've actually never heard it in mono.

No, and The Beatles themselves were barely present for the stereo mix phase. Stereo was an afterthought back then, especially since stereo hadn't really caught on in England at the time. But, yeah. Just A->B the title track. You'll be shocked at how different they sound. I think I actually broke it down here once before. Let me see if I can find the post. *edit* Here you go.

If you want to hear the extremes of what is possible in re-mixing, listen to the original stereo mix of Sgt. Pepper's vs the re-mix that came out last year. To say the difference is night and day is an understatement. Pretty much everything was moved and panned in a completely different way so that it ended up having a truer stereo mix. Another incredibly subtle re-mix can be heard on the Legacy Edition of Kind of Blue where the piano was moved slightly to center from the hard left pan of the original mix. Chamber's bass was also moved slightly back and it sound like a more natural mix.

Re-mixed, or remastered?