Quick Note ... a Correction

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We just got back after a trip to Buffalo to demo a set of speakers for our blog - and I have to correct myself from an earlier post.  (And in Winston Smith 1984 style, it has been corrected in the blog as if I was right all along ... we are at war with East Asia, we have always been at war with East Asia ... Eurasia is the enemy.  Eurasia has always been the enemy ... ).

When you do any sort of demo ... bring your CD's - that is all you will need.


In fact, I'd say if you bring your digital files - even if you arrange things ahead of time - you will spent 30-40 minutes fussing around with various USB ports, and consulting manuals rather than getting down to business.  And likely as not, if it isn't seamless in the first 10 minutes, you will end up deploying your secondary 'chute and using the CD's anyway.

Thankfully we brought our CD's - since that's what we do as a "backup."

They had a SACD* player, too, that we pressed into service - and spun Louis and Ella and Peter Gabriel.  They were 100% capable of supporting physical media - and had a large collection of MP3's on a home server, too.  Full report later, and no spoilers!  (And for the record the guys at the place we did the demo were fantastic - we are far from grumpy about this, just realized our advice was limited to the computer savviness of the local folks)

But we're serious about the CD's !
* SACD was a high resolution format developed by Sony c.1999 that was supposed to replace the CD with higher quality sound, and surround sound thrown in.  It is also really hard to copy or rip.  It was a technical success, but a mass market failure.  Many audiophile reissue companies still release SACD discs along side traditional LP's.  They really do sound better than CD's - or more correctly - it is easier to get them to sound good than CD's.  I love the format, and because they usually have 2 layers - SACD and a standard CD layer - it is a no brainer when you can get them.


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