At a conference in Denver, I'm jonesing pretty hard to listen to my stereo, or at least something besides MP3's on my phone. Flipping through the tv channels yesterday I saw a scene from Say Anything where they were playing Take Five in the background, sweet. I still haven't had time to listen to the other albums from the For All Time box set, but Time Further Out is good, especially Bluette. Not quite as good as Time Out, but still really good, maybe it will grow on me some more.
It's still nice to be able to listen to stuff off of my phone though, especially while running. I'm still thoroughly addicted to Time Out, which is just an amazing album. I don't know why, but I feel like I've missed out on something if I don't listen to the album at least once a day. 3 To Get Ready is still my favorite song on the album, the first from the same recording session that includes the 3 songs before Pick Up Sticks (the last song). I think the 3 songs from that session are the best on the album, that must have been an awesome session to sit in on. They seem to have the best groove on those 3 songs.
Got the new Brubeck-approved box set called "For All Time", which consists of 5 albums from the time signature experimental series. The second CD, Time Further Out, has an amazing ethereal blues tune called Bluette which reminds me of Bela Bartok because of it's dark, yet melodic quality. I am ripping the other 3 CDs now (the first is Time Out which I already have). Brubeck is amazing, he's like a scientist musician, which suits me just fine.
Here are the albums in the box set:
Time Out
Time Further Out
Countdown: Time in Outer Space
Time Changes
Time In
Amplification:
McCormack DNA-125 (cardas posts!)
NAD 925THX
Pre-amp:
Acurus Act-III
Speakers:
Monitor Audio Silver 7 (main)
Monitor Audio Silver 3 (rear)
Monitor Audio Silver 10 (center)
Monitor Audio ASW-210 (powered sub)
Digital:
Acurus ACD-11 CD Transport
MSB Link III w/Full Nelson DAC
MSB Digital Director
MSB ADD-1 (A/D converter)
Panasonic A120 DVD
AC:
MSB PowerBase 1000 (LinkIII)
Acurus RPC-120 (DNA-125, 925THX, PM-8)
Furman PM-8 (everything else, including PowerBase and SS6B)
Furman SS6B Plugs (Digital Director, TV)
Cables:
speakers:
MIT AVT-1 biwire (DNA-125 to silver 7)
MIT Terminator 2 (NAD 925THX bi-amping silver 10 center channel)
Audioquest flatwire (?) (NAD 925THX to silver 5 rears)
interconnects:
MIT AVT-1 (ActIII to DNA-125 and Link III to ActIII)
MIT Terminator 3 (Act III to ASW-210 stereo)
Audioquest Turquoise (ActIII to NAD925THX, rears)
digital:
Audioquest VDM-3 coax (Digital Director to ActIII)
Audioquest VDM-5 coax (ACD-11 to Link III)
MIT Terminator 3 coax (ADD-1 to Digital Director)
Audioquest VDM-2 coax (Digital Director (2nd output) to ActIII and DVD to Digital Director, 6m run from computer to Digital Director, 6m in reverse too)
MIT Optical (Digital Director (3rd output) to ActIII)
power:
MIT Z-Cord I (ACD-11)
MIT Z-Cord II (ActIII)
Audioquest NRG-2 (DNA-125 and MSB PowerBase)
video:
Audioquest SA S-Video (ActIII to TV)
Monster S-Video crapola (VCR to ActIII and DVD to ActIII)
Tape:
NAD 613
VCR:
Panasonic SVHS PV-S6470
TV:
27" RCA stereo monitor
PC:
P4 2.8Ghz, 1Gb RAM
WinXP
250Gb dedicated media drive
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
Well, it's funny that just now, after hearing this album so many times for years and not liking it much, I can hear why it is so good. Sooo good, it just gives me a warm fuzzy good feeling. I want to see Brubeck in concert now, but looking at his globe-trotting schedule at 84, I don't think I am worthy until I educate myself some more.
Well, the whole system is really starting to grow some hair. Mid range is so smooth and rich that I just want to listen to Dave Brubeck Quartet's Time Out on repeat over and over. The system has never been so "listenable", and now I wonder why the previous bright, crystal clean, digital sound was so appealing. I'm really appreciating the added midrange warmth that seemed to bring back a quality of reality that was missing before, as opposed to just pure digital accuracy. The new audioquest digital cable (in combination with the Cardas posts) is producing the biggest stage I've heard from my system, and considering that was one of its strengths, that means something.
I installed the new Cardas posts using silver bearing solder and they are working great. Not a huge difference, if at all, but it's good having some nice posts in there after breaking the others. After I installed them I thought I had screwed up badly because there was an audible hum right after I hooked everything back up. After a day or two of experimenting, I narrowed it down to the cable tv wire, ugh. Looks like I have a ground loop so I got a DC filter from radio shack which seems to have fixed it (or it was a transient problem). The hum is gone now, in any case, and things are sounding amazing again.
I think the addition of the awesome MSB Link III DAC w/PowerBase was really the main factor in improving the sound, adding the really airy and pure midrange that was really missing before (people breathing, horns, and voices sound real enough to be startling sometimes), and the audioquest digital cable widened the stage. It's really pretty amazing how much a good DAC can make a difference, I'm not sure why they're not always sold separately. DACs in most CD players are crap, and to buy a CD player with the same DAC (24/96 Burr Brown) as the MSB would be more than double the cost of the Link III. Of course, there are even better ladder DACs that I have yet to hear, but that one is around $5k just for the DAC.
It seems I was on a quest for pure digital accuracy and clarity but, unbeknownst to me, it was at the cost of this incredible musical listenability. Of course, by that I mean that now I never want to turn it off or do anything else but listen, and before I would get fatigued relatively quickly.
Oversampling the MSB DAC to 133KHz also makes a notable improvement over regular 44.1KHz (no overheating yet), good thing I replaced the switch that controls the upsampling (which I had broken almost as soon as I got it). After talking to one of the MSB guys, who told me the switch was generic and I could get one at any electronics store and have it put in, I put in a heavy duty switch so it doesn't bend all out of whack again when I lean it back.
I'm having fun doing minor hardware modifications, and everything is better than ever!