A sealed, unlabeled box sat undisturbed for decades on a shelf in the Grateful Dead’s San Rafael tape vault on Front Street, its contents an enduring mystery, even to those few with access to the vault. All David Lemieux knew about that box when he became the Dead’s archivist was that it contained tapes belonging to Bear—Owsley Stanley, the Dead’s first soundman and architect of the Wall of Sound. Even in the Dead Heads’ Holy of Holies, the taped-up box was tantalizing. But this was Bear’s personal property, and so he didn’t touch the box out of an abiding respect for the elder luminary of sound. Bear’s archive of Sonic Journal recordings had been kept safe for him for years within the Grateful Dead’s vault—over 1,300 reels of tape stored in heavy-duty cartons like old banana boxes. At any time, David could have popped the tops and explored them to his archivist heart's content. But they were off-limits without the nod from Bear. - Starfinder Stanley, Hawk, and Pete Bell, Owsley Stanley Foundation
With a wink and a nod from Bear, we've peeled back those banana boxes to find some of the oldest and rarest of all recordings of the Dead including the double dose of shows that make up DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 43. The two virtually complete performances from San Francisco 11/2/69, Live At Family Dog At The Great Highway, and from Dallas 12/26/69, McFarlin Auditorium, are complementary in their clarity and consistency thanks to Bear himself, and in their ability to foreshadow where the Dead were headed in the years to come. If the two killer 20-minute+ "Dark Stars" don't get ya, how about the Pigpen-centric sets featuring "Midnight Hour," "Next Time You See Me," "Big Boss Man," "Good Lovin'," and the once-lost-now-found complete rendition of "Dancing In The Streets," or the first full acoustic set ever performed? And we're certain you'll be fascinated to uncover the "Mystery Of Bear's Banana Boxes" as told by Starfinder Stanley, Hawk, and Pete Bell in the liners.
Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 43 was recorded by Owlsey "Bear" Stanley and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.
*2 per order. Very limited quantity available.
Dave's 43
This is a great release! Really enjoying this one so far. Great music, great era, recording from Bear. Amazing .
My copy arrived last Friday, a couple days before the shipping notice. First time that's happened in a while.
I've just listened to the first 2 discs so far. I enjoyed it all. Dark Star is a definite highlight. I really enjoy this Good Lovin and the other Pigpen songs. I'll also go ahead and say that I like that the 11-2 show doesn't have a Lovelight. Landing in Death Don't Have no Mercy is a nice change up.
This pick could have been the lead pick for the subscription.
Anyhow. Enjoying this one. Hope you all have your copies and have some space to listen. Cheers.
I like Seinfeld
Watched 2 episodes last night.
A few months ago I bought the series on DVD, factory sealed 2013 version, discounted from the 2013 price.
Am working my way through in order, watching a couple episodes per week (am on season 3).
No commercials is great.
In the 90’s I preferred the Simpsons over Seinfeld, but recorded both on VCR to watch later.
When Seinfeld started I didn’t think it was very funny (and now that I have the DVD’s, it gets funnier in season 3), but later started watching it.
Larry David wrote a lot of it and there is bonus material on the DVD’s where Larry explains it starting with the pilot, and then freaking out about having to come up with 12 episodes for season 1, then 21 episodes for season 2.
I didn’t have HBO and only saw 1 or 2 episodes of Curb, which seemed pretty funny.
Have Hulu now and watch Only Murders In The Building which is pretty funny.
TV Shows
I grew up on All in the Family and The Jefferson's. I idolized George Jefferson in grade school and I tried to mimic his walk. I also was huge Speed Racer fan although those episodes were in syndication by the mid 70s. As an adult I came to appreciate MASH, but I didn't watch it at the time.
Speaking of adult years, Married with Children stands out, along Firefly, Futurama, Family Guy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Office. I am a serious an Office fanatic.
Also I have found the Netflix shows Stranger Things and Cobra Kai to be enjoyable and plus The Orville which is on Hulu. The Orville in particular has turned out to be surprisingly good show- even if it is Star Trek rip off.
Thankfully many of these shows are available through streaming platforms or I have purchased the DVD sets. They are classics to me and I can't get enough of them. That's what she said.
Married With Children....
....I forgot about that one. Edgy for the times. I always thought Al had a pretty nice house for being a shoe salesman. And yes, I had a major crush on Kelly Bundy.
Quick Seinfeld note
I saw Jerry Seinfeld at a small venue called Giggles in Seattle in 89 or 90. I remember him referring to a new show he was involved in called "The Seinfeld Chronicles".
The show became kind of a big deal...
"The best, Jerry! The best!"
I'm a simple man, with simple needs....
....with that being said, "Where's my Dark Stars!!"
Ok. I'm good now.
Bought a ticket for Weir & Wolf Bros today. We're not getting any younger.
Keithfan, thanks for the info on the tighten up/soulful strut
I knew some people here would have the scoop on it. I'm going to read through that shortly. Loved the first few paragraphs where they say the Dead jammed with Terry Kath of Chicago once too. He was a great guitarist.
As long as people are commenting on TV shows, I'm going to list some of my favorite streamed ones, on Amazon Prime or Netflix. I like it when people introduce me to good new ones, so here's a partial list of some of mine, both streamed and TV shows.
Dexter
Sopranos
The Americans
Person of Interest
Bloodline
Boardwalk Empire
Animal Kingdom
24
The Man in the High Castle
Goliath
Lupin
Lillyhammer
Sneaky Pete
Homeland
Rockford Files
Burn Notice
The Mentalist
Breaking Bad
Tighten Up!....
Happy Days
Laverne & Shirley
Mork & Mindy
Kudos to frosted re; Rockford Files. Wow.
Breaking Bad is on my list.
But I like me some anime as well. Only so many hours in the day.
Remember CHiPS? Or Emergency!? Fantasy Island? Or the Six Million Dollar Man?
I could go on and on. Memories are tight!
43
Holy Cow
What a stunner. I can see why this one pulled Frosted out from retirement.
I started with 12/26 and worked backwards to 11/2. I wanted to ease into it with the acoustic first set show. Setting Bears Choice aside, this release has the best sounding 1970(69) acoustic set that's been released. 5/15 is good this sounds better.
Then we get to the electric stuff. Both Dark Stars are stupendous. Really monumental achievements. All three discs are top notch Grateful Dead. The Death Don't Have No Mercy to close off the November show just drives the whole release home to me.
It's a classic. Stunningly good.
Maybe Bears Choice simply referred to the reels he set aside in Banana Boxes. We should be calling this Bear's Choice Volume 2.
Wowwow stuff
Now what do we have to do to get some goddamn 1968? Bear's Choice Vol. 3??
Awoke with a Tune in My Head
And it went like this (ahem):
"I'd rather be in some dark hollow,
Where the sun don't ever shine..."
No idea why. Hardly ever listen to it, but always enjoy it. Something told me to go with the Three From The Vault version. I guess it was too low tempo to keep in the set. Good stuff though. It's nice to have the rare ones once in awhile. Ladies in Gentlemen is the only other electric option in the officially released column. So I left 3FTV on, and rediscovered this particular version of Smokestack Lightning. After the Felt Forum version came out a few years ago, I left this one by the curb - and Jerry's slide guitar chops with it. I'm not sure if he pulls out the 'ol bottleneck on the Felt version. It's the big instrumental jam with Keith's piano work that always comes ti mind with the Felt rendering.
Jimmy - I had a chuckle at your retirement joke with Frosted. This Forum with all the "Board Heads" is a nice way to start the day (all the safer for the working from home gig I've enjoyed since Covid).
Frosted - thanks for the show recommendations. Some I've seen but others I'll try, since it's always tough to decide based on the descriptions from Netflix. The Man in the High Castle was really cool. I just recently watched a German production with English overdubs called Dark. I passed over this for a few years because it sounded like old sci-fi horror trope, but it ended up being completely different.
Vguy - when I saw Emergency! on your list, I thought SWAT would be close behind :D
Hats off to Dave Lemieux once again. Imagine the parallel universe where there's an uninitiated Warner exec picking shows at random for this series. A world without Seaside Chats and untamed wildlife swooping in-picture. DL knows his Dead. I wonder how high we'll get? I'm hoping for at least 100.
Vguy
You forgot Adam 12.
I had a Planet of the Apes lunchbox in 1st grade, it was pretty cool.
By 2nd grade I thought that brown paper lunch bags were cooler and went with those.
Was in 2nd or 3rd grade when I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and had my mind blown.
I remember when my next door neighbors went to the drive-in to see the new movie called Jaws.
And to think that while I was a little kid back then some people on this board were already going to shows. Guess that makes you guys old now. :(
And one more thing
Anyone else feel like the Lovelight on 12/26 is exceptional? I like my Lovelights in the 15 minute range, with one of those soft doot-doot-doo sections before the big ending. I have trouble getting through the big 30 minute performances, though they were no doubt crowd pleasers in person.
Icecrmcnkd - Close Encounters, 5 years old, in the theater. Nightmares about the alien visit in the beginning with the toys all coming to life and the spooky colored lights coming in under doors and through keyholes.
Lovelight - size isn't everything
Yes, the optimum length of Lovelight is around the 15 minute mark for me too. I wondered, when this Pick was announced ,with a fair portion of Pigpen on the menu, if that meant a couple of 30 minute Lovelights were part of the deal. Thinking of Road Trips Vol 4 no. 1, Big Rock Pow Wow shows from 69, where the first disc ends with a 30min.59sec Lovelight, and the second disc opens with 27min-25 sec version. That's fighting talk.
Proudfoot and Burnsey
Just saw that Little Feat is playing Seattle tomorrow 8/6, will be playing Waiting For Columbus in its entirety.
Yes, not the same band, but if tix are cheap and you need something to do on a Saturday night….
Dirty Heads Let's Get It Kraken 2022....
....there is a reggae fest tomorrow night at downtown Vegas. The Dirty Heads, SOJA, Tribal Seeds and The Elovaters. Forty bucks. Going with some friends but unfamiliar with any of these bands. Any of you peeps wanna chime in?
Current listening. Little Feats comeback Let It Roll album.
Feats dont fail me now
Yep seeing feets in 2 months from now in hometown. Havent seen them since 1991 (?) when they opened for the Allman Brothers. Was a great show.
Man miss Jer during these days between.
Also miss greatly Lowell George.
Jim, Keith, Vguy and more...
Not so much retirement for me here as a hiatus I suppose. I had real trouble getting past the CAPTCHA awhile back, and I know I was doing it right, so I just vacated for some time until 43 caught my attention. Lately (well, for decades really) I've been mostly focused on jazz and classical listening, but a good old Grateful Dead jam and their live improv magic gets me every time.
Vguy, when I was in college a group of us used to come back from the dorm cafeteria and catch MASH and the Rockford files back to back most weeknights while we recovered from the three day old poison they served up. Lots of good guest actors on Rockford - Tom Selleck got his start there as a bumbling detective who regularly outfoxed Rockford, and Isaac Hayes had a role where he used to call him Rockfish all the time. James Garner was a pretty captivating character, and his dad Rocky. Funny stuff.
Interesting to see a new Little Feat back in action. I've probably mentioned it here in the past, but seeing them around 1977/78 or so with Lowell George at the height of the Waiting for Columbus era is still one of my top 3 or 4 rock shows.
Lowell George was da man!
Caught Little Feat in Denver in fall '77 and man, did Lowell George blow the roof off the old shed (McNichols Arena), coming on the heels of an Oct '77 GD show in the same joint, which was good, but not one of their best. That was a month after Englishtown when we fried pretty deeply.
And as one of the vocal proponents of the GREASE, I too prefer the tighter Lovelights. Pig's extended raps work much like drum solos, in that if you were there, it's kinda fun, rousing stuff, but on tape long after the fact, Pig's rap can detract from the energy. I can't pinpoint which Lovelight it is, but somewhere along the line, when Pigpen yelled "WAIT A MINUTE!" to his bandmates, which formerly got them into a stop-time or background simmer for his extended rap, the rest of the band just ignored him and jammed out the song. Just that little detail reveals much about the band and their relationships. The band very much got into backing Pig, as it allowed them a different space to work in, vamping and such, but if Pig got carried away, they'd just blow him off and take it where they wanted to. What a band!
Scared at the Movies
Close encounters, age 11, no fear, but I did think that it looked really cool to make a scale model of Devils Tower out of mashed potatoes or a basement full of dirt. Alien, age 13, in a cold sweat watching that movie in the theater. Everything about that movie freaked me out, from the alien clamping on to the dude's face, to the alien busting out of his gut, to the partial views of the alien as it grew, to the dim lighting and the rest. Can't think of another movie that engendered that much fear in some deep, atavistic portion of my mind.
ALIEN....
....right there with you charlie3. i saw Alien at a sleepover at a friends house when HBO first started. I was maybe 12? Scared the fuck out of us. Today, it is a top 5 movie for me. Pretty much the perfect movie imo. I watch it at least once a year. Check out the directors cut if you haven't already. Fun fact. The casts reaction during the chestburster scene was genuine. Ridley Scott didn't tell them what was going to happen. Genius.
Movie holds up extremely well. As does the 1983 The Thing. Another pretty much perfect horror movie.
The Thing
Just watched the Thing, the Kurt Russel version from the '80s, recently for the first time and that is a great movie. I've been watching some classic movies from the '70's and '80s over the last year or so, and the Thing was a highlight, way exceeded my expectations. Watched Jaws for the first time this week, and it was ok, but really don't see how it justified all the hype.
I was into horror movies big time....
....when I was a teenager. Mom and Dad got a little concerned lol.
Have you checked out the Evil Dead movies? All three are legit.
You just checked out Jaws for the first time?? Wow.
Scared me to the nth degree:
Blair Witch Project
The Wickerman (from early 70s, not the Nicholas Cage tripe)
Some hate on BWP, but it got to me reeeeeal good.
As did Wickerman
GFar, LF
I saw LF open for ABB 11-29-91 at The Palace, Friday after Thanksgiving.
I think that Spacebro was there too.
I need to see if there are SBD’s of that show torrenting around. Believe that I’ve checked before, but will check again.
Hey, turns out that there is a featbase-dot-net with setlists.
If a tree falls in the woods
Does it have to reCRAPTCHA to make a sound?
Ice Cream Kid
Thank you for the notification
Jerry played the Moore in 76
I wasn't there though
The bus was still 6 years from my destined boarding
A beautiful day in Seattle today (as always...smug smug)
X and Psychedelic Furs at the zoo meadow Sunday
X is an old, dear friend
Psychefurs a pleasant dessert
X opens for them when it should be the other way 'round ahem ahem
Regardless, it'll be fun
Dead, Dead and More Dead
Listen to a lot of Grateful Dead, watched Dawn of the Dead (70s version), watched Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake), watched a few seasons of Walking Dead, watched the early seasons of Fear the Walking Dead, but I've never seen any of the Evil Dead movies.
Movie lines
My all time favorite remains:
“The issue here is not that we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests. We did.”
I wish I could discuss Dave's 43 with y'all....
....but it's been out for delivery since Monday. Time to visit the post office tomorrow it seems. My UPS email linq keeps pushing the delivery date to the next day every evening.
Tomorrow Never Knows.
So many good lines in M.A.S.H. Could you imagine a show with a black character nicknamed Spearchucker today?
Took a bit of a dip when Ferret Face left imo, but still top notch writing throughout the run. Good job 1stshow. It was right there in in the front of my cerebral cortex.
Spinning the '67 offering from TTATS aka Boxilla.
It's Newman, I tell you Vguy
He works for USPS and he is miffed about your attitude re Seinfeld.
Seriously, tho, I hope you get 43 tomorrow.
:)))
M*A*S*H
had some awesome lines.
The Army-Navy game episode with an unexploded bomb in the middle of the compound. Hawkeye and Trapper are sent out to defuse it. Henry is reading the instructions over a bullhorn from a bunker.
“Carefully clip the wires . . . leading to the clockwork fuse at the head.”
Hawkeye snips the wires.
“But first, remove the fuse.”
Dammit!....
....still. I could see Hawkeye saying that.
Animal House is also great.
"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"
One of my favorite M.A.S.H scenes is when Trapper and Hawkeye dig a huge hole outside the Swamp when Burns is still sleeping then fill it with water and sound an air raid siren.
I hope I don't need to tell you what happens next.
Edit. I just got a notification from Netflix that The Sandman is up and running. A great DC/Vertigo comic series born by Neil Gaiman that I never thought would be translated to the screen. I have 14 comic book long boxes from my comic book collecting daze. To quote Flounder, "This is gonna be great!" I hope you're right Flounder.
Ferret face
Frank burns was such a great, and annoying character. Hot lips told burns she would tell Donald about burns including his butt along with hers, and ferret face mocks loudly "I'll tell Donald, I'll tell Donald."
Feat!
Just finished listening to the last disc of the "Waiting for Columbus" 8 CD box. The original album is well burned into the brain of every Feat fan, but the 3 live shows (Manchester UK, The Rainbow, London and Lisner Auditorium, Washington) that are added to this release are all really good and varied enough to warrant release. I can highly recommend this to any fence-sitters. There is so much energy in the performances and the band are really tight. They played 4 nights at The Rainbow and I was fortunate enough to have been present at one of them. I don't remember which one, but it wasn't the show where Mick Taylor put in an appearance and it wasn't the below par show where Lowell George and Paul Barrère were suffering hangovers so there is a 50% chance that it was the show in this box that I witnessed. That show will always be right up there amongst the best shows I ever saw. I was surprised at how rotund Lowell George was at that time, but he could still tear it up.
Its not just him
I was surprised at how rotund most Americans were when I went. I believe they watch a lot of telly. Or whatever's taken the place of telly.
Rotund Americans
We eat a loooooot of high fat, refined food.
Yesterdays dinner: takeout fried chicken tenders with mac and cheese on the side.
I have lost about 17 pounds over the past year, but still eat a lot of chunk fare.
Look at pix of people in the 1930s and 40s, 50s, even 60s. Slender.
Then came the 70s and the weight was piling on.
Oh yes, lots of sedentary time in front of screens, too.
It beats starvation, I will say that.
I think I'll go for a walk
Analog vs Digital/Vinyl vs CD
I’m no longer a vinyl buyer for various reasons, but I know a number of posters here are. An interesting article in the Washington Post entitled “How a Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire/ MoFi Records claimed its expensive reissues were purely analog reproductions. It had been deceiving its customer base for years.” some may find interesting, how basically a label that prides itself as issuing direct from Masters (at a premium price) have actually been using Digital mastering. Deceptive. I personally have thought the new wave of vinyl is an overpriced racket, and this plays into that.
As I’m by no means an expert I’ll let the jazz engineer giant Rudy Van Gelder speak to it: “From 1999, he remastered the analog Blue Note recordings he made several decades earlier into 24-bit digital recordings in its RVG Edition series.[15] He was positive about the switch from analog to digital technology. He told Audio magazine in 1995:
The biggest distorter is the LP itself. I've made thousands of LP masters. I used to make 17 a day, with two lathes going simultaneously, and I'm glad to see the LP go. As far as I'm concerned, good riddance. It was a constant battle to try to make that music sound the way it should. It was never any good. And if people don't like what they hear in digital, they should blame the engineer who did it. Blame the mastering house. Blame the mixing engineer. That's why some digital recordings sound terrible, and I'm not denying that they do, but don't blame the medium.”
RVG
Interesting post on the analog v digital sound debate. I have a few of the Rudy Van Gelder Edition jazz releases and the sound is consistently excellent. Since he is responsible for both the initial recording and the digital remastering, the sound quality of the recording is pretty much entirely attributable to his skill at both stages of the process, so pretty interesting to see his take on the debate. When I am browsing for new jazz to pick up, it always makes me take notice if I see that something is an RVG Edition.
Analog and Digital
Just so happens that last night I listened for the first time to Little Feat 9-19-74 Electrif Lycanthrope vinyl, with the signal running out the turntable’s USB cable, into a Mac, and then digitally recorded by Audacity. The signal then went out a USB port and into a Cambridge Audio DAC Magic 100 (digital to analog converter) and then to a Cambridge Audio AXR100 receiver.
So, went vinyl>analog>digital>analog and it sounded great.
I digitize all my vinyl as I listen to it and wil eventually (when I learn how to use the software) process the files and export as 24/96 FLAC for use on music players. My vinyl will thus be ‘portable’.
I only started buying vinyl when 2-27-69 was released (now have 2/28 and 3/1 too). These all say Plangent Process on them whereas the FW69 Box does not (I don’t have the physical CD’s but was told that the Box does not say Plangent) which would imply that the reels were re-digitized using Plangent (assuming that a tape player device like shown on the Plangent website was used, rather than just taking the digital files from 2005 and processing them in some way).
Some vinyl, like 5-8-77, just sound like the CD was copied to vinyl.
But 11-10-67 sounds better on vinyl than CD to me.
I didn’t buy the Lyceum vinyl box but often try to get the RSD releases. Vinyl takes up a lot of space and I’m rethinking whether I should keep buying vinyl. But, I’m already contemplating getting Waiting For Columbus on vinyl, since I’m going to get the CD Box.
I’ve been upgrading my stereo system to Cambridge Audio as my Onkyo stuff stops working. Two years ago my Onkyo receiver died and I replaced it with an AXR100. The sound quality improvement was instantly noticeable.
Over the last several months my Onkyo 6-disc CD changer has been having dropouts, but when I rewind and play the same part there wouldn’t be a dropout, so the CD wasn’t defective. Bought a laser cleaner but that didn’t fix the problem, so I started looking at a new player.
Decided to get the DAC Magic 100 first since I put all my CD’s in ALAC format and onto microSDXC cards for use on portable music players. One of my players that I use with the stereo, iBasso DX120, has a port and cable for connection to a DAC where the DX120 acts as a transport (reads the digital file and transports the 1’s and 0’s to the DAC). The sound quality improvement with the DAC was instantly noticeable, so totally worth the investment.
My Onkyo 6-disc changer has 2 digital out ports, so I was able to simultaneously connect it directly to the AXR100 receiver, and connect it to the DAC which then connects to the AXR100 with analog stereo cables. By switching the source buttons on the AXR100 I could hear the CD that was playing through 2 different pathways and the DAC Magic source definitely sounded better.
The AXR100 has gone up $200 since I bought mine 2 years ago, so started thinking that if I wait until my Onkyo 6-disc changer dies, I might pay more for a replacement CD player than if I buy one now. So I bought a Cambridge Audio AXC35 CD player and, again, there was a noticeable improvement in sound quality (worth it to give up the convenience of a 6-disc changer). I run the CD player directly to the receiver with analog stereo cables but it is also possible to run a digital connection to the DAC. Both ways sound excellent.
So, equipment does matter. I’m very pleased with Cambridge Audio and the slightly higher price over brands like Onkyo, Sony, etc is worth it.
I’ve heard and read that early CD’s often sounded worse than cassettes because the record companies would half-ass the digital mastering. So digital got a bad reputation. Also, DAC’s matter and cheap CD players probably have a cheap DAC. Phones have cheap DAC’s too.
The Normanized CD’s that we are getting now sound spectacular, and yet they sound even better with my new stereo set up.
MoFi/RVG
I also have some of the RVG jazz releases in my collection, and I have always found the sound first rate, and you raise a good point Charlie - Van Gelder both engineered the original recording, as well as the RVG remastering.
I have only limited MoFi (Mobile Fidelity) in my CD collection, as I don’t collect vinyl, such as a Burrito album or two, and some non-music releases from The Firesign Theatre, so I can’t say definitively they sound “better”, and if the vinyl is vastly superior, but based on this disclosure of digital copying by the company, I’d have to say they have somewhat “exaggerated” the fidelity quality. I noticed yesterday they were re-releasing some Eagles albums under the MoFi label on CD, at an extremely premium price, ie - two and half times the regular price of the “regular” CD. Will it sound two and half times “better”? Hmmm.
Buyer beware. And with vinyl, I would be extremely wary.
So, equipment does matter
Yes, yes it does lol.
Format wars: people are once again conned into a us versus them scenario.
I mean there is nothing that folks haven’t turned into a binary situation, yeeesshhk.
So as a long time audiophile and geek, my 2 cents is they both can sound amazing (analog/Digital) if they’ve been done properly and using the right equipment. How it’s done is more important then which way!
I’ve heard systems of both formats worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Conclusion, the ones that were done properly sounded amazing, regardless of format. The systems that weren’t amazing, even with big price tags = bad equipment synergy and not doing things properly. I’ve heard modest systems done extremely well that blow away super expensive systems that weren’t done right!
The biggest problem with digital, both now and ever, is conversion! Yes those other variables are very important, but the biggest factor in digital, and why it received most of its negative prejudice, involves conversion.
Much of this negativity started with most/many? of the initial CD releases at the dawn of the format.
Ignorance about how important conversion is (hey it’s just ones and zeros right, NOT!, combined with a race to get product out and beat the competition etc fostered an unfortunate environment, that resonates negative discontent to this day.
By not using the actual masters, and outdated and often improper conversion, the result is a ridiculous amount of CDs that sound horrible!
Add to this that most people use equipment with DAC sets that cost mere pennies to do the most import process in the playback chain, and it’s no wonder so many people don’t like digital.
Fortunately, there have been amazing advances in DACs (both A to D and D to A conversion), digital mastering, digital recording etc, and more importantly, in research and knowledge.
In some cases these advancements are as big as the jump from Standard def to High def video etc.
But outside of our geek circles the vast majority of the public knows (or seems to care) nothing about this. For many the damage has been done psychologically due to the original shortsightedness and idiosyncrasies discussed above.
So it’s refreshing to see someone like Conekid trying to take proper steps to improve his musical experience.
Imho, a DAC can be the biggest little thing you can do. Even an inexpensive Audio Quest Dragonfly with a phone or iPod can often make a good improvement of even the most modest equipment. Of course the Achilles heel of audio electronics is synergy between components and of course ones listening room can be the biggest factor of all. Since you won’t ever know for sure what will play nice with what etc, it can be hard to get the most out of your whole system. So you might have to try different things, but audio nirvana is achievable, and you don’t have to spend a fortune if you do your research and with trial and error you’ll learn what works for you, because that’s the biggest factor of all! All the rest can be important and make a difference, but regardless of hype, price, trends, bottom line, does it sound good to you! You may have cheap garbage, but if you really like how it sounds, that’s what matters!
If your not fully satisfied, try to really analyze what you don’t like, be as specific as possible. Then first research possible issues you can diy: improper use, and acoustic idiosyncrasies you might be able to address. Don’t just run out and buy something!!
Don’t just get swayed by upgrade fever. I have a C40 pre amp that’s probably 40 years old. I can get a new one at cost. I’ve gone round and round, but generally like many features on mine, that a new one won’t have.
So after I realized via my ole buddy BOO469 that all I had was upgrade fever, I’ve stayed with my ole trusty pre.
If you know exactly what you don’t like, and if there’s nothing you can rectify acoustically, or perhaps electricity, then pin point what part of your chain could benefit the most from upgrading.
Then take the time to research, and if possible try out stuff before you just throw money at it.
Like anything else, an educated consumer has a better chance of being satisfied!
Same is true with analog, but different set of equations. Since I put my big chips into a digital system, I’m familiar with overall analog practices, but would not make any specific suggestions due to very limited hands on experience of tge medium. I’d say look closely at your phono preamp type etc,.
Anyway, sorry to ramble, told ya I was a geek!
What ever your rocking, hopefully your able to maximize your ability to PLAY DEAD!