Kevin Bresnahan

I don't know many people who can compare different playback set-ups with such clarity when they were unable to A/B the two digital playback set-ups using the same amp/speaker combo. I know that I would have trouble playing a CD on my upstairs system, taking it downstairs to my second system, playing the same tracks and declaring with certainty that there were major differences between the two. My musical memory is good, but not that good. It works when comparing different CD masterings, but not the same CD.

If one has an Oppo UDP-205, it has a perfectly good internal DSD conversion path though. I don't see any reason to spend good money to experiment with an external DAC when my current solution meets my needs, even if it may or may not convert it to PCM first.

I don't know why any company needs a license to pass a DSD bitstream anymore. A license is usually required to use a patented design/technology. The patents for the DSD technology expired quite a while ago. I would think anyone could make their own DSD encoder/decoder now. Although I guess they'd have to call it something other than DSD or Direct Stream Digital as those terms are trademarked by Sony/Philips. Maybe call it PDM (pulse density modulation) instead?

I get what you're saying here... there are not a lot of SACD players these days for under $2K. Denon makes a couple of players at that price point, but the options for SACD playback are very limited. As I said earlier, the worst thing that happened was Oppo Digital exiting this business.

@Milestones Did you ever get an external optical drive that worked for you?

I'm actually anticipating it will have even less jazz content as has been the case for most "jazz" festivals these days.

I'm up for the Henderson date on CD. My days of buying new vinyl when there's a CD option are slowly going away. I already have too many LPs that I don't have room for.

I saw this band on tour at the time. It was a fun show. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I seem to remember Hutcherson stealing the show. I'm pretty sure I also Tyner & Hutcherson play a set as a duet in support of the CD, "Manhattan Moods", but it's been a while so my memory is a bit fuzzy on that.

My wife and I used to really like the show "Elsbeth" on CBS. But it has gotten ridiculously repetitive. Even worse, the mysteries are always "insta-solved". The latest one we watched, she gleamed the murderer in less than 30 seconds. I know we're supposed to believe that Elsbeth is very good at detecting, but this one was absolutely insane - the husband had already confessed to the murder.

But a turntable is already analog. I wouldn't think there would be any benefit to converting it to digital for playback purposes. I could see using that digital output from my turntable to make a digital file for future playback but not when straight-up playing LPs.

We had a good thread going on these a while back:

I watched Nobody 2 on Netflix today. Nowhere near as good as the first film.

Lon - what do you mean by "I used to use it with my phono preamp which outputs DSD via HDMI into the DAC"? When you say phono preamp, are you talking about your turntable preamp? That would be an A>D to a D>A conversion. I could see a phono preamp having a DSD output so that you can needle-drop LPs to a DSD file. I use a standalone CD recorder for my needle drops. I would probably use the DSD format if I had this available to me.

This is a nice recording. Joe Henderson shines. I wish that band had stayed together and toured. I would have loved to see them live.