hununu

tjobbe, In germany don't you have customs taxes? I don't order from US due to customs that are extremely high...

Hey Reinier, Can you recommend some good european stores? Portugal hasn't got many stores selling rare or quality cd pressings. One of the biggest fnac stores in lisbon had like 30 different albuns in sacd.. and a tierney sutton sacd set me back 26 euros last time... So, I am looking for good european shops (online, pay via cc preferably) to get some quality cds (special editions, remasters)/sacds jazz and classical mainly. Please, if someone has nice bookmarks.html that can share with good shops, please do share :-) ps: the worst thing is that I have emailed national distributors for telarc, etc and they don't reply me telling where I can buy their stuff. All the best, BA

I didn't receive your email. Please re-send or send private message with your address. I've just sent you a PM best, BA

pm sent !

Great Jazz guitars players you should not miss out: Pat Metheny Joe Pass (if you can, get Joe and Ella) Wes There are many many more! Meola, Paco, Django, John Mclaughlin, etc. I wondered how no one mentioned metheny but I guess people here don't like him much :-) I don't know what makes guitar players so unique but I guess when you get to a point when someone hears a player play 10 sec and you know who is playing, that normally indicates that you are listening to a player with an unique vocabulary. That happens with all the great players. I can listen to a bootleg from Joe, Metheny, Wes, etc and I will immediatly know who is playing. Also, another great thing great players have is that they normally play with lots of different musicians and in quite different styles. It's quite normal not to like several artists when playing differently, either solo or in an ensemble. For example, take Metheny. He has worked on so many different projects with an enormous ammount of musicians that almost no one will like all of his work. Not many like Song X or Zero Tolerance for Silence for example. wesbed, try to hear Joe in an ensemble and see how he stands out, or simply delight yourself with Joe and Ella... can't get much better than that. ps: for a classical virtuoso, check out Andreas Segovia. All the best, BA

Email sent, I hope it is still possible :>

Hello Kevin, Yes, of course at the moment you can't use external dacs unless you start seriously modding a pioneer 565/563 or something similar. I wasn't actually thinking in SACD when I made that comment as I thought it was obvious there are very few ways to get SACD data digitally out from dvd players. I was honestly thinking in the hundreds of rb cds people who love music normally own and still want to hear in the best possible way. Although I am looking out for some sacd releases, honestly, unless you like mainly mainstream or are a label (Telarc, etc) follower, you will not be able to get sacd for what you like to hear. Someday everything will be released in hybrid sacd, but when that happens, 75$us players will play and output digitally sacd and we will have excellent two channel external DACs. I guess an external dac only for playing red book is still a must for me, but as always, each person has to find out what is best for him/her. :-) ps: I agree with you when you say you don't understand why dacs on receivers should sound better.. my entry-level pioneer 812 dac's aren't really that great for red book audio. Best, BA

Why not get a decent universal player and a DAC1? It even handles jitter. :-) Another very good dac is Scott's TubeDac since you don't pay the brand price. And yes, it all comes down to your ears, use them. Personally, I'd rather have external tube dacs or even others... The simple reason is that most 2k-3k players aren't really that good for what they cost and you can get a better sound using a 100$us player plus a DAC1. Of course, this only works for red book. For SACD, you really need high-end players to have good converters *unless* you mod it.. :-) While you are investing lots of $, check out pro audio gear prices and see that it's really cheaper than many "audiophiles" solutions. Try to hear that stuff (mainly dacs) and you will soon realize that pro-audio gear is superior at the same price since you don't get the audiophile price hype. Of course, that will not make the "wow" effect from your friends ;-)