Scott Dolan

And there it is... Last night I slept four hours, and then BLAMMO!!! Wide awake, with absolutely NO hope of getting back to sleep. You all know what I'm talking about, unfortunately. Dead on my feet all day. Worst part being that I work on my feet all day (which I otherwise thoroughly enjoy since it's a huge reason why I stay in shape). Feeling like a zombie as I type this. Had intended to take my son to the driving range today, but that's out the window... I hope everyone else had a better outcome today.

Oh no! Sorry to hear that, page... Fass, I'm quite happy to say my sleep patterns over the last week have been really outstanding! Of course, I shouldn't have posted that out loud... I had my worst night the previous Sunday when I cut and pasted about two hours of sleep together. But since then I have been getting a pretty steady 5-6 hours per night. Fingers are crossed that the trend continues...

You pretty much have to as the search function here is almost entirely useless at this point. BTW, read back through some of that thread and the quotes are so completely fucked that it's nearly impossible to read at certain points. The software here has taken a major turn for the worse in the last two releases.

Hope you have a great B-Day, Freef!!! Man, I miss the old late night chats we had.

VERY underrated song from an oft maligned album. Nicely done, Jim! BTW, Randy is just fucking kicking ASS on this one.

I use Safari, so I'm not 100% sure this works, but give it a try. https://www.maketecheasier.com/disable-video-autoplay-firefox-chrome/

Hmmm...you're right! I hadn't quite looked at it that way.

I keep reading the thread title as "first time with a vocal socialist"!

Not sure that I'd ever bother trying to make a top "welcome to Zappaland" list, but if I did it would definitely include Peaches, Watermelon, The Black Page (New Age Version), Hot Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel, and The Closer You Are. Ultimately, I'd just play somebody the first disc of YCDTOSA Vol. 2. If they don't make any kind of connection there, they probably never will.

No Watermelon In Easter Hay?! Even my wife likes that tune, and she can't stand Zappa.

The problem being his only improvisational skill is to say nothing, then repeat it several times. Perhaps he's more "Smooth" Jazz.

It doesn't have to be, Clifford. But a nice biopic of one of the most influential musicians in history would be nice. Maybe something in the same vein as Ray, for example.

But the differences in results are all but negligible considering how advanced modern codecs are.

Like a .zip file. 100% on the money. Which is why I always found it humorous that some claimed to "hear" a difference. And "lossy" has become a misnomer with modern codecs.

Ha! I rip in lossless as well, and I'm not entirely sure why either.

Eh, doesn't matter. Most, if not all folks wouldn't be able to hear the difference in a properly encoded AAC. I can't and relatively speaking I'm one of the youngest posters here with average to above average hearing, and an excellent playback system. Either way, yes I've been told by people that they can indeed hear a difference between FLAC/ALAC and .wav.

Ah, but make no mistake, FLAC/ALAC are compressed files as well. They aren't a complete .wav, and I've heard folks say, without any sense of how completely full of shit they sounded, that they could hear the difference. Also, as far as "MP3" technology is concerned, once AAC VBR became a standard in the industry I stopped hearing a difference. The older 160kbps MP3's, yes, there is a discernable difference between those and CD, and the 96kbps turds were likely the ones that made your head hurt. But when I put together my new system, I did an honest comparison between 256 VBR AAC and CD because I wanted to make sure I was getting the best playback possible, even if it meant going back to buying CDs. After about 45 minutes of trying to convince myself I could hear a difference, I gave up. I heard no difference, and was just wasting my time. And to those with thousands CDs to rip, I do the same as Lark spoke of above. Don't worry about, or even attempt, to rip your entire library, it will drive you insane. Just rip something when you want to hear it. I've been doing that for the last decade now. Come to find out, there are CDs in my library that over the course of that time I've simply never had the urge to listen to. Also, Jim: iTunes match can do everything you're looking for EXCEPT stream uncompressed files.

Actually, it's not hard to quantify at all. Surface noise, higher levels of harmonic distortion, deterioration of sonic quality the closer you get to the end of a side, and limited frequency response. No, that's actually incredibly easy to quantify. The LP sound is romanticized and mythologized, but it is still incredibly flawed compared with lean and clean digital. As I've said before, one can prefer LP over CD, but to claim it's sonically superior is laughably incorrect.

Analog is always in the chain. It's the final product that you hear no matter the original source.

No, I just recognize it for what it is. As does ArtSalt. Not to mention the knockdown dragouts over the years here where the vinyl defenders noisily claimed how superior vinyl is over CD/digital left me a bit cranky about the subject.

Yes, but doesn't the compession of the audio make it nearly unlistenable, crisp? Haha... I love that vinyl fetishists can't hear the distortion inherent in the medium, but at the same time claim to hear the dreaded compression of digital audio. Or the difference between 44,100 samples per second and unbroken analog. What selectively magic ears they have...

Isn't that kind of like saying the Model T is what got Americans into driving cars?

That should do it.

Calling them names? Are you serious? Even Art used the term describing himself in that phase in the post above mine.

I'm shocked the vinyl fetishists aren't in this thread screaming bloody murder.