Selling England By the Pound

It still comes back to province. One has to compare like with like and this is not possible for SEBTP. I've got the 1996 "definitive edition remaster" on CD and it sounds bloody awful. If it was possible to render this in 24bit it wouldn't sound any better, possibly worse. I have two 24bit versions of Rush albums where I own 16bit equivalents of the same mix. They are both compressed and distorted. And the 24bit versions only serve to portray the compression and distortion more painfully.

I've also got 24bit versions of 16bit mixes for other, better recorded albums and that's an altogether different situation. For these there is usually a benefit to be heard at higher resolution. But nothing is ever black and white. There is no universal truth.

For The Yes Album, the MFSL Gold CD still sounds as good to me as any HiRes effort so far released. But we're back to not comparing like with like here.

It's tricky.

As you say, nothing is ever black and white.

TV was black and white when I was a kid and there were three channels to choose from.

There are too many choices today and too many palates to try to appease.

Most music buyers today wouldn't know a truffle from a turd in terms of sound quality.

I'm not sure if in the main, music buyers of today are any worse than music buyers of any other era. I've crossed paths with many people down the years who listened to comparatively rubbish reproduction and it didn't bother them at all. This probably says more about music's ability to move and communicate. My loud, brick walled, dynamically limited CDs sound just fine in Helen's car with it's not very good sound system. This says something about how and where people listen to music. The irony is that most rock/pop music produced today is not capable of being enjoyably played back on a good system whereas something with good dynamic range can be enjoyably played back on anything. Have people forgotten how to use the volume control? 

I don't personally think you can have too much choice in anything. That the majority of recorded music is targeted at choices I'm not interested in might make me feel marginalised if I didn't have such a fine collection already. But again, this can work to advantage because you can pick up plenty of superb old recordings for pennies. I've got the original Charisma SEBTB in a box somewhere and I never got around to ripping it. That's a treat in store when I can find the time.

Speaking of SEBTP, has anyone else got Steve Hackett's recently released Genesis Revisited Live at Hammersmith CD?  The concert is on DVD too and a box set of both is available. I'd give it 11/10.

I'm afraid I don't agree Wat. I would always choose the 555 over the Userve/V1 for red book CD playback. It is clearly superior, in my opinion. The advantages of Userve/V1 are instant access, user interface (Nserve), ability to create random playlists, mutiroom access, ability to play higher definition formats etc., not to mention a much lower price. But that's where it ends, in my opnion. Now, perhaps the NDS....?

No SACD playback here. If I could rip them easily it could be big fun, but it's too much arsing about for me. I'm certainly missing out but we all have to draw the line somewhere. 

I used to be an intense real time analyser. I have come to realise that my ears don't calibrate well.  What I think they hear can be affected by a myriad of unpredictable factors. And however strong an impression a listening session may make (good or bad), my musical memory is unreliable. So I tend to sit back and enjoy. If I'm not enjoying the performance it's usually me that needs adjusting.

What is a Naim DAC 555?

Is this the nDAC with a 555PS (non DR) driving it?

I can vouch for a properly run and configured NDS performing well beyond the DAC-V1. UServe to NDS via SN2 was a real winner and I had run the NDS from the V1 (as a pre) NAP100 combo just to compare.

And is Ethernet over mains a complete no-no for you? I have had no problem with it, but I'm obviously not using it to stream the music.