2nd Edition
Sampling: What Nyquist Didn't Say, and What to Do About It, Tim Wescott, Wescott Design Services
The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem is useful, but often misused when engineers establish sampling rates or design anti-aliasing filters. This article explains how sampling affects a signal, and how to use this information to design a sampling system with known performance.
Lovely Recordings Hosted by Mike Stulken
Hey East Coast Mike! This is West Coast Mike. Also born in 1961 and a fan of your column (not entirely your music taste though). Also have two kids and a wife. Took a stab at doing a "Lovely Recordings" list for your column.
Download of the Week: Maja S.K. Ratkje
I've had a soft spot for Norwegian composer Maja Ratkje's hard music for years. Beyond her solo work, the music of Fe-Mail is a particular favorite for its SPUNK (another of Ratkje's bands) and noise.
Playback Designs Sonoma Series: Syrah Server, Merlot DAC, and OpBox
Andreas Koch, Founder, CEO, and Engineer along with Bert Gerlach, Engineer have recently released the new Playback Designs Sonoma Series that includes the Syrah Server, Merlot DAC, and OpBox conversion kit for the Oppo103 Blu-ray Disc Player.
The Open Music Initiative: Making Sure People Get Paid For The Music They Make
The Berklee College of Music's Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE) has formed the Open Music Initiative (OMI) to create "a global, open sourced platform, providing technology for a shared ledger of music creators and rights owners". Why?
The Meze 99 Classics Headphones Sweepstakes
Register to win a pair of Meze 99 Classics Headphones ($309.00 Retail Value) we are giving away.
Download of the Week: John McLaughlin
From McLaughlin's brief intertestamental period, post-Miles/pre-Mahavishnu Orchestra, Devotion feels like a kiss goodbye to Jimi Hendrix, who passed away in London in September 1970 when this album was released. While McLaughlin distanced himself from Devotion because he felt Alan Douglas destroyed it in production, I've always had a purple hazy soft spot for its sheer badassness.
Baetis Audio Revolution III Media Server
Think fly fishing: Baetis is a genus of mayflies that happens to be on every trout's mind and menu. Baetis, the company, is located on the banks of the Yellowstone River in Montana so my guess is trout is on their mind and menu.
Computer Audio 101: Introduction
Computer Audio can be kinda kludgy, especially for people looking to play digital files on their hi-fi with the ease of playing music on their phone or slipping a disc into a player or slapping an LP onto a turntable.
Resources for Buyers, Beginners, and the Curious:
Are you looking for advice on which DAC to buy? Or a new new server or streamer? A great place to being that search is our Greatest Bits.
1st Edition
An Interesting Number From Bandcamp
Bandcamp's recent good news about their continued success planted a question in my mind; Since Bandcamp charges the same price for lossy and lossless downloads, I wonder how many people still buy the lossy version? So I asked Bandcamp and they answered.
Lovely Recordings Hosted by Joe Whip (Part 3)
I guess I should caption my third installment of Lovely Recordings The Lost Chestnuts, as it features three recordings that were thought to have been lost to the dustbin of history but were thankfully found and brought forth to be heard by fans of these great artists.
How Much MQA Is Enough?
How much MQA-encoded music needs to be available to get you interested in buying an MQA-enabled DAC? And are you more interested in buying MQA downloads or in MQA streaming? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
PS Audio's Paul McGowan Weighs In On MQA
Here's Paul McGowan from the PS Audio Forum: So far MQA decoding has only been worse and that has not changed. We suspect (as do they) that it's because the tricks they're using with filters to try and make the sound better (closer to the original source material in their parlance) screws with our own in the DAC.
Schiit Audio: Why We Won't Be Supporting MQA
In a press release dated 05/26/2016, Schiit Audio have spoken out about their position relating to the adoption of MQA (see review). From the press release: "May 26th, 2016, Valencia, CA. Today, Schiit Audio announced that they would not be supporting MQA, a proprietary audio format claiming "studio quality sound you can stream or download."
MQA Reviewed
I have never witnessed a hi-fi topic with a seemingly self-perpetuating cycle where the more answers given give rise to more questions than the Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) audio codec. At the risk of continuing this cycle, I'm going to begin this review with some MQA facts.
Is High-Resolution Music Dead?
In a manner of speaking, it should be. Now that The Industry is promoting the crap out of High-Res Music, with that godawful logo, you may as well throw a flower on it and call it a day.
Source Audio Stream
