Claude

I agree about the recommendation for Blu-ray, but not all Blu-ray players have great DVD playback, compared to DVD players of the same price (i.e. the $200-400 range).

Here's the link to the CD-R: http://www.amazon.com/Odyssey-Iska-Wayne-S.../dp/B000008C8J/ I don't think Blue Note will do "proper" reissues of titles they are licensing for CD-R release.

It's very difficult to find out from a person's name whether he/she is flemish or french-speaking. Take for example the former (until a few weeks ago) prime minister - Yves Leterme - who is flemish. French first names have always been very popular in Flanders (and in the Netherlands), and french and flemish family names exist in both parts of the country.

Which begs the question if a doubled risk is really an increase worth mentionning, compared to other cancer risks and other health risks related to marijuana.

There are used copies on Amazon going for as little as $7.18 at the moment. That's the Connoisseur version from 1995, which had major skipping problems in the first run. I think Holy Ghost's referring to the RVG that was supposed to be released, but got held back because of our involvement in Iraq. Yeah, if he's talking about a CD that never got released (in the U.S.), I guess it would be pretty rare! I have the Spanish BN edition (which I think is a TOCJ clone, though I'd have to look), and it sounds great. Yup, I'm talking about the RVG that was yanked because it was politically incorrect to have 'Basra' as an album title because of the war. If I recall, it was actually Mr. Sims himself, who requested to have it pulled from the RVG batch. The RVG is readily available in the UK, whose troops were in charge of the city of Basra http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basra-Remastered-P.../dp/B00076NYB4/

Not that rare. Moto Grosso Feio is available used for $10: http://www.amazon.com/Moto-Grosso-Feio-Way.../dp/B001E4VXJ8/ Odyssey Of Iska has been reissued in the Amazon CD-R series: http://www.amazon.com/Odyssey-Iska-Wayne-S.../dp/B000008C8J/

I assume that he already has a good turntable and phono preamp. So it would not make much sense to rebuy a lower quality turntable with built-in preamp and soundcard. A soundcard will be enough to complete the setup.

If your laptop does not have audio inputs (very often only a microphone input is available), or if the sound quality of the built-in sound chip is poor, you need an external soundcard, which is an A/D and D/A converter combined. I don't know much about Apple, so can't give recommendations about hardware or software. The sound card will need to come with Apple drivers.

What is your budget? Stand alone A/D converters are rare. I would recommend getting a good external sound card. Why do you need XLR inputs? This will limit the choice to professional equipement.

Most impressive picture taken at the tournament: http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/news/m...3205244640.html

But he is violating US copyright law, by offering the item on a marketplace which largely aims at US buyers. The fact that his adress is in Europe (where the copyright has expired) does not give him the right to ignore the laws of the country where he is offering his product. For the same reason, a US seller could not offer Nazi memorablia on Ebay Germany, although this is does not violate the law of his country of residence.

That's unlikely, because the ZYX discs have almost completely disappeared from the market (fortunately). The distributor got rid of the whole stock at bargain price when the licensing agreement ran out a couple of years ago. I also think that these are probably european releases, sold at import price. The US OJC of the John Jenkins album is available for $9 on the concord site: http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/artists/J...-Bobby-Timmons/

The RVG sounds compressed and almost mono. It's one of the more extreme RVG "mastering reinterpretations". The MFSL sounds much better. But it's OOP and expensive. I would indeed wait for the new Analogue Productions hybrid SACD, although this can take a while. I have the first 4 SACDs from the series (Whistle Stop, Leeway, Capuchin Swing, Blue Train), and they sound extremely fine.

The audiophile store Acoustic Sounds (which also runs it's own label, Analogue Productions), which does not hesitate to squeeze the maximum amount of $$$ out of their crazy customers, usually sells test pressings for twice the price of the regular pressing. So there seems to be a demand for those pressings, despite the reduced packaging (plain white cover). Maybe people think they sound better, or they just want them because they are rare. Test pressing: http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_det...?Title_ID=42580 Regular pressing: http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_det...?Title_ID=41719

Amazon recently increased the prices of most of those CD-Rs. All the titles which were $14.98 are now $16.98.

Err, why is user "JazzLoft" linking to the Jazz Loft store? Shouldn't this thread be in the "Offering or looking for" forum?

Also available on LP (first ECM vinyl releases since the early 1990's): http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=49172

I have written a few hundred DVD+Rs (mostly cheap Memorex discs) since 2004, at a time when DVD storage was still cheaper than hard drive space. None of them has failed so far. Not a single one. The reliability of burned DVDs depends not only on the discs, but also on the burner.

There have also been studies done that show the opposite. The German magazine Stereo has just published an article to that effect in its 12/2008 issue. This is a moot point. Is this the German magazine that has always proclaimed CDs to be inferior to their LP counterpart. Bias in journalism? Nah, can't happen. You can't argue with that (with optimum playback equipment, LP is indeed superior to CD), but I agree with you that audio magzines have weird opinions on the effect of digital data transport/storage on sound quality. For them, everything affects the sound, be it the CD-R brand or the type of USB or ethernet cable. The reason behind this that they want to support their advertisers selling "audiophile" data cables and CD-Rs.

In fact, more and more people stop copying CDs or burning CD-Rs from lossless files, and play the files directly on the PC or a media server (Squeezebox, etc). Burning CD-Rs has become a waste of time and money. Better burn the FLAC files onto DVD-Rs (10-15 CDs on one DVD-R) or keep them on a hard drive (and make backups). It's much easier to organize and access. The great thing about this is that one can use a regular PC as a source component together with a high quality DAC (digital/analogue converter), and it will sound as good as a high quality CD player. I actually prefer the PC over a Squeezebox for it's higher flexibility. I use Foobar2000, a remote control for the PC and the TV screen as a display. That's why CD-R on demand services are really an anacronism. It's neither a collectible product, not is it as convenient as a download.

Hoffman is a great mastering engineer, but some of his comments on his forum are very ... surprising. I wonder if he didn't mix up the SACD with another CD reissue. I can't believe he thinks the SACD sounds faithful to the master tapes, when his own reissue (the 45rpm LPs) sounds so different from the SACD. Like some other Fantasy SACDs, the "Kelly Blue" reissue sounds very muffled, as if the tapes were defective.

Those Chet CDs sound really terrible. The US versions (3 CDs comprising all the tracks from the 5 albums) are so much better, but they are not perfect, as some tracks are in mono although stereo tapes seem to be available (according to a poster on this forum). Even the crappy 128kbit MP3s I downloaded from emusic years ago (taken from the US CDs) sounded better than the ZYX CDs.

You'd be surprised at how much better this album gets with optimal sound quality

Of course download stores must continue to offer MP3 files, because it's the standard format and most portable players don't play FLAC files. But they could offer FLAC files as well, and post instructions on how to easily convert them to MP3s. Another possibility would be for the PC software that does the synchronisation/transfer with the portable player, to convert the FLAC files to MP3s transferred to the player, while maintaining FLAC files on the PC. There are now more and more stores which offer 320kbit MP3 files, which shows that file size is no longer an issue for them, but at the same time they are stuck with the MP3 format because of compatibility reasons. In my view 320kbit MP3 files don't make sense. Either you accept a small reduction in sound quality for the benefit of a smaller file size - in that case 256kbit is the optimum solution - or you want the best sound, and opt for lossless compression.

I disagree with that. I had the SACD and thought it sounded poor because the tapes were in bad shape. But then I got the a japanese CD reissue (VICJ-60299), which sounds much better. Mike's and my reviews are available on SA-CD.net: http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/1610 Since then I also bought the 45rpm LP reissue, which again sounds better than the japanese CD, and provides state of the art Riverside sound. It shows that the SACD is a greatly missed opportunity to offer this album in the best possible digital reissue form.