Parrot

A poster over at AudioAsylum says at the Home Entertainment show in San Fran that he just saw a new Music Hall SACD player. He thinks retail will be $1499. He says: "It's strictly a two-channel unit. CDs are upsampled to 96/24."

prodj, http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlplay&1060270577 This one could probably not be beat. The 777es was a stereo only unit, not to be confused with the XA version which was multichannel. This one also has been expensively modded. If you don't want this, I would recommend buying the brand new Sony, once it comes out in the Fall, and even though it is multi channel just using it in stereo if that is your preference. Retail $3000, but you'd be able to get it for less than that. http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hirez/messages/140419.html

This may be too obvious to mention, but I'll mention it anyway. The only thing about loud that bothers me is when something that is naturally fairly quiet, let's say a solo cello, is played back extremely loud. Same for a female jazz singer. It's not going to sound right if you have her played back a lot louder than she was recorded and mastered at. By the same token, a loud rock concert recording is not going to have been mixed and mastered by someone listening to it real quietly on monitors. So it's probably going to have to be played back loud in order for the balance to be correct. I like to play back stuff at the volume that seems natural for the content.

Sheltie Dave, When you say your wife didn't want you to bother to teach her how to turn the Scott 299C off, that says it all to me right there. No audio adjectives necessary.

Telarc has some good info on multi channel speaker placement as recommended for SACD, for instance. http://www.telarc.com/surround/sacd.asp?mscssid=6M63SUA0KQSR2PA90G05AFURQNF112J1#diagram1 One of the main reasons I have my Khorns in false corners is so that I could bring them forward a little to make an arc with my Belle center. Can you use one of your Belles as a center or is it doing duty elsewhere? I prefer a real center speaker over a phantom one.

White, What are the other dimensions of your room? Just about always, except maybe with extremely old cases, the crossover will be clearly labeled in back, Type A, AA, AK2, or whatever. So you don't have to figure anything out except read the designation! Khorns would not overpower Heresies used as surrounds. But you will have to adjust the volumes to compensate. You wouldn't want the same amount of power going into all of them because the Khorns are much more efficient and in that case they would overpower the Heresies.

m00n, the threads are in Those of You with Scotts and the Scott 222B from Peru.

Jaz, I believe it was Ryan who used the Jap term derogatorily. Craig is not prejudiced against any particular parts because of the nationality of the manufacturer. He goes by the merits of the parts themselves, they could be made in France even, and if they are good, they are good.

Craig, There's nothing wrong with changing, but the preamp you have right now is excellent. Considering you have just got it, I would keep it at least for some considerable amount of time. It is tempting to switch around because everybody and his brother has an idea about what piece of equipment sounds best. But you can get just about as many opinions as there are people. I don't care what piece of equipment in the world you care to name, I guarantee you that you can find somebody on the internet that says it's a piece of overrated junk and their XYZ can dance all over it. It's really a matter of what makes you happy. Do you like switching equipment around all the time and trying new things, or do you want to get settled on something that's good, like what you already have, and concentrate on listening to your favorite music? Either way is fine.

Clipped, I think leaving tube equipment on all the time is not the way to go. Unless you want to buy new output tubes all the time. I don't mean to turn amps on and off all day long, but the other extreme is bad too. So you're doing the right thing turning them off at night.

Ryan, It's laughable to say someone is dishonest because he bought an amp for the seller's asking price, don't you think? Not that I want you to change your name for the 50th time, but I gotta say, having Expert in your name is pretty much telegraphing that you are insecure. It'd be kind of like a store manager walking around saying, "I'm in charge here" or "I'm the boss, pay attention to me."

toddc, I listen to SACD, LP, and CD. Craig is right about selection. I think there are something like 2 million CD titles available, whereas SACD has about 1000. And depending on what music you like, you may be able to pick up LPs for 50 cents instead of $13-$20 for SACD. That said, SACD is a wonderful product and the number of available titles is going up all the time. If there are titles you like, it doesn't have to be an all or nothing deal. Every SACD player also plays CDs, so you don't have to take one or the other. Same with vinyl--you don't have to listen to it exclusively. As long as you have a turntable and a phono input, it only takes a second to switch over. Remember, a lot of what we react to is because of how it was recorded and mastered. You can have a great or an atrocious final product in any format. But with the same mastering and so on as much as possible, SACD will always beat CD. All multi channel SACD titles have a separate stereo layer as well. There are no exclusive multi channel releases, and probably never will be. There is a vast market of stereo-only listeners and having a stereo layer is a requirement. garymd, You'd have to have 5 channels of amplification (plus optional sub) to hear multi channel. You could buy 3 Scotts and that would take care of it.

Excellent job, Craig. I can see you've been intent on your work because your calendar is still on January!

Mark, I fully agree with you about warped records. In the mid-70s they were really bad. I remember sometimes going through the entire stock of a particular title at a store and every one would be warped! The store manager just re-shrinkwrapped them all and sold them to people who didn't mind. Funny thing is, as I have bought a couple hundred used LPs in the last couple years, I don't think I've had a single warped one. But a lot of them are older, and maybe (?) classical records were given better quality control than pop records.

Flynn, Those lines are Neil Young's, "Revolution Blues" from "On the Beach."

Craig, We don't have any used record stores here. I get all my used vinyl at Goodwill, Volunteers of America, Salvation Army, garage sales, and church sales. My city probably is more dominated by older folks; youngsters tend to move on to faster-paced cities so they can spend an hour a day in traffic jams.

For me, one of the most fun things about vinyl is that you can buy it used for practically nothing. The only catch is that you all are going to have to switch to classical music; I don't see much rock out there. Used classical is maybe 50 or even 100 times more common. To be blunt about it, I think what I am finding is a lot of records that were thrown out by the kids when dad died. I keep finding excellent quality vinyl for 25 to 89 cents, sometimes imports from the UK or Germany. I think I'm behind listening to more than a hundred of them. If I keep spending money at this rate I'll be broke in a couple thousand years. My city has only 50,000 people but there is a lot of used vinyl at thrift shops and garage sales and church sales, and sometimes it is really obscure and interesting stuff. The problem I see with eBay is the majority of sellers will have a minimum bid of $3-5, to make it worth their bother, and charge way too much for postage, usually a few bucks more than it actually costs. So unless buying new retail, local is the way to go. Have you guys all checked out sundazed.com ? They have some excellent titles that they have reissued.

Imagine the scene in Craig's kitchen as he's got tubes in the oven. "Mom, you better get in here. Dad has been spending so much freakin' time on his amps that now he's EATING tubes!"

http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions. The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including a full engineering the sequence. In addition, it's two minutes long so every time Honda airs the film on British television, they're shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime. However, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history. Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free" viewings (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!). When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation -- including the costs. There are six and only six hand-made Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film. Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) are parts from those two cars. The voiceover is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten. They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real. Oh. And about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit weird in the commercial. Plug this link into your browser and enjoy. Make sure the sound is turned on

Wow, Lynn, wanting them for 30 years and finally getting them! Must have been sweet.

Congratulations!!! You'll never regret having won these and you'll never let them go.

First you sharpen your axe . . . My Klipschorns allow the top part to come off just by taking off two wingnuts.

I never was able to figure out all the ins and outs of the whole scheme because PayPal wouldn't discuss it!!! But piecing things together, I think the verification process did indeed go through as outlined above. I think it had to do with the two people involved passing off one another as the baddie, but I don't know. Money orders that you get at a 7-11 or gas station can indeed be counterfeit. I think the only really safe thing is a postal money order. The government nails anybody who steals them, and they can quickly call up info on who cashed them, when and where.

The case that involved me, the guy used his mother's charge number. The long and short of it is he got $5000 worth of stuff from a couple dozen people on eBay and got away scot-free because PayPal always sides with the bank. eBay suspended him. Big deal, he will register under another name. I'm not blaming PayPal for the hacking. But then again, if the woman had not had a PayPal account, she wouldn't have had her bank account emptied out either. PayPal looks at it like this: They get their commission no matter what. Once that is taken care of, they want as little hassle as possible. If that means siding with bunko artists who lie to their banks, so be it. PayPal is much more geared to buyers than to sellers. Get this, they will not discuss your own case with you whatsoever without a court order or FBI request. Your own case!!!

The scheme Ed mentions is also done with eBay a lot. You get an email that looks for all the world like it is from eBay, same page layout and everything, and they ask you to verify your information, blah, blah, blah. If you gave these fake guys the info, they'd have enough to steal your identity, empty your bank account, anything. Also, speaking of PayPal, a woman I know got her computer hacked into and the hacker got all her passwords and account numbers. Through her PayPal account they emptied her bank account. PayPal is great for convenience, and that's what the 3% commission is for. And most of the time you'll be fine. But the 1% or whatever of people who get ripped off will wish they had stuck with Postal Money Orders.