What in the world is going on.....

I can't say anything other than this particular record is not his best - So Beautiful So What is, IMHO, a far better album. 

I agree with the observations about its sonics - there's a marked difference between the two 

If having a system worth upwards of $75k could make an album sound better I'd be squirreling away money to buy one - but I'll probably be dead before that happens. 

I play golf, badly, and not often as I'd like to. I could literally spend a couple thousand bucks on better clubs but...I'd still be a pretty below average shagger. 

Stringreen, I most certainly am not casting aspersions on your system or making light of its cost. Nor am I doubting its value to you. If I had the funds I'd have one, too. 

Poor recordings/pressings et al have been around for as long as I can remember. I can recall playing records in the '70's that I thought were awful sonically. I've been listening to Simon's latest recently and have found it to be pretty dismissable content-wise, compared to his previous releases at least IMHO, and the sonics are definitely more in-your-face. I have it on LP and an HDtracks flac download.  The LP sounds better overall. I listen to my digital through a Sony HAPZ1es. 

I just find the content of this release missing somewhat, the strength of the tunes?  "So Beautiful..." has a great collection of material. 

I HAVE noticed that transferring files to the HAP is better executed using LAN than wifi. It's faster for one, and secondly it's less prone to bandwidth issues than when I wifi them. (Can "wifi" be a verb, too?) I've noticed that there are burps in many of the tracks that went via wifi. It could be my imagination but I'll swear to it. 

I use Tidal, iTunes, HDtracks and Amazon to hear stuff now because there are but a handful of stores remaining to do so in person. A couple of hours doing that and you'll hear the differences on all the recordings.  It's just there. 

Happy listening, peeps!

That performance at the DNC was....good gosh. Well intentioned though it was, I was cringing. 

Phoned in?  That would have been a wise decision!  But one performance, one rendition doesn't negate a career that has been pretty damn amazing.  

Recent additions to my system have me flipping vinyl more often than listening digitally.  Even my vintage vinyl sounds great.  

I listen to music in my car either through a traditional original iPod 160gb or an Astell & Kern AK100. The differences between the sonics is night and day with the A&K obviously winning. There are many files shared between the two but I pretty much reserve the A&K for my jazz collection almost specifically for discovering Bill Frissel's work rather late in life. I have bought everything I could find of his stuff. 

Amazingly good stuff in every respect. 

The ipod cost $250, the A&K $900 - in this case a very worthy investment IMHO.  Thanks for some of the artists listed here whom I knew little about before - great learning new stuff!