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General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

Ok, so I will try this without being snotty

It doesn't matter all that much what happens in the distribution end, IF the original recording preserves the event.

The SACD of Dave Brubeck's TIME OUT, started life as a remarkable analog tape, in the days of thermionic electronics. Even with the truncated dynamic range of analog (60 db or less) ... even with all of the compromises forced by the technology of a previous century, the recording lives, far better than most of what is being produced with PCM. Now it has been converted to DSD, I sleep well, knowing that it has been preserved in the best recording medium we have currently, and that the aging magnetic tape will not spell its death, as it has for so many vintage recordings.

Is it possible to do better on the recording end than analog? Absolutely. This is where DSD excells. And this is my point. I am concerned that if we lose SACD as a distribution medium, we may also lose DSD as a recording and archiving medium.

I am indifferent to people's choices in distribution media. If you want to listen to a distributed form in some sort of F'd up, heavily downsampled whatever ... be my guest. Who cares? As you proudly pronounce, you are the consumer. It is your choice.

But if the original recording is forever trapped in a technically inferior medium, that is all she wrote boys ... you can't polish a turd, as has been oftened repeated. How many of you wish we could hear vintage music with more of the original event preserved for us?

And on a personal note, why is it that the few voices crying for the best we have at the recording end are on our "high horses?"

But you are right. You are the consumer, and if you want crap, you should get crap and celebrate it in the process. I feel the same.

If I want Velveeta, I should have it ... but, it would be nihilistic to deny another, with perhaps a more refined palate, the Stilton he is nibbling with the just perfectly ripe pear and walnuts.

This is SUPPOSED to be about audio as art ... we should want the best, not celebrate a woeful compromise.

The Good Doctor


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