HiWire

'80s Nite! I'm looking forward to getting the Police's Synchronicity, but I have to pace myself... SACDs are getting rarer and more expensive as time goes by.

The Police – Regatta de Blanc (SACD)

That's a great album. It's sitting on my desk right now!

The Collector's Edition (2009) CD is definitely an improvement on the original recording, both in sound quality and breadth of content. I always felt the original was too short... the Collector's Edition is hard to find now. It took a few months to find this one, and I had to play it as soon as I got it!

Vintage Computer-Generated Imagery:

Thomas Dolby – The Flat Earth (Collector's Edition)

The black and white seasons are now in the public domain: It was cancelled in the Rural Purge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge But I think the success of the Dukes of Hazzard changed their minds... The early 60s had a strange idea of family entertainment. Here's Dennis Hopper as a beatnik:

Saint Etienne's cover of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart popped into my head this morning and Wikipedia did the rest. I'm putting Saint Etienne and OMD's albums on order – I'm glad that they've been reissued and that they're still available.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – Dazzle Ships Saint Etienne – Foxbase Alpha

Hilary Gardner & Ehud Asherie – The Late Set

Happy Birthday!

Thanks, guys! I can't wait for the work day to end.

Thanks!

I use Sophos Home and Malwarebytes. Both are free and relatively effective.

Chromeo – Head Over Heels Depeche Mode – Music for the Masses

I've been using the Sennheiser HD1 In-Ear wired headphones on public transit... under $100. The stock ear tips are silicone and isolate moderately, but I immediately upgraded to Comply tips. I just tried them with moderate music volume and I can't hear anything with ambient air conditioning blowing. A coworker also strongly recommended the 1More Triple Driver headphones to me. They don't go in that deep, but people seem to like them and they come with a variety of tips.

My dad's friend dumped a bunch of old CDs on him, which he in turn dumped on me... the Pogues' album was the big win as well as Neil Young's Harvest. Also included were The Who's The Kids Are Alright, Simon and Garfunkel, The Best of James Taylor, the soundtrack from Pump Up the Volume, and Bryan Adams' mediocre Into the Fire. All in all, a decent assortment of old rock – you win some, you lose some. I don't turn down free CDs unless I have them already. I was also listening to old cassettes on the weekend. Lenny Kravitz's Are You Gonna Go My Way held up surprisingly well and Guns N' Roses' "The Spaghetti Incident?" is still a decent covers album. Lenny Kravitz – Are You Gonna Go My Way Jimi Hendrix – The Ultimate Experience

The Pogues – If I Should Fall from Grace with God

Aldebaran by Léo – gorgeously illustrated and brilliantly written

Everything by Smooth McGroove:

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It's Blitz! I haven't listened to this one for a while... this is one of the rare occasions where the music critics and I agree (it made almost all the Best Albums of the Year lists when it was released). A gorgeous, exciting listen with impressive polish throughout. Just epic.

Dexter Gordon's Go! is a fun instrumental session... Gordon's fluid, expressive saxophone pairs deftly against Billy Higgins' propulsive drums. There is a real sense of being in the same room as the performers, and the ebb and flow of free-form jazz with a few humorous pop phrases thrown in keeps your mind relaxed and stimulated at the same time. The performances are flawless and it is a delight to hear such joyful, varied playing from such brilliant musicians. Olivia Ong's self-titled 2010 (mostly) covers album is an oddball in my collection. The songs are varied, going from the 1960s to the early 1990s, but sung in a delicate, heartfelt way by the bossanova girl. Ong's approach is a little restrained, but you can't fault the variety, the cleverness of the pop arrangements, or Ong's commitment to the songs. Suzanne Vega's Luka is probably the high point of the album, allowing Ong to dig deeper in her emotional range. The recording makes Ong's voice float over the instrumentals, which is fairly appropriate, considering her lightweight singing style. The instruments are well played, but the recording seems almost over-produced, which is common in the asiapop market.

Happy retirement and thanks for all your hard work!

How ironic that the first comments that show up below the article discuss Depeche Mode's Violator SACD... makes you wonder what people are going to play and record on these things.

Not a big deal for me... there might be a cracked firmware out there anyway. I haven't tried its DAC function yet either. I've got enough SACDs to keep me busy for a while and the Arcam does an excellent job with CDs, which comprise the bulk of my music collection. I think the limiting factors are my ears and my floors... the bass is probably going right through there. I haven't had any complaints so far and I want to keep it that way. My ears get tired if I do too much critical listening (it's tricky to get the right volume level for some albums), so I won't do more than two hours in an evening and I'll take a day off in between sessions. I used to prefer long albums but now those 30-minute discs are more welcome than ever. The "problem" with new audio toys is that you spend a lot of time listening analytically after you buy the equipment. I haven't listened this much on my speaker system for months. I had previously retired it from music in favor of listening to my then-neglected headphones. The speakers were mainly used for movie and TV watching. First world problems: too many toys. I listened to Rebecca Pidgeon's The Raven tonight, which I haven't heard for years. This is a Chesky recording, and Pidgeon's voice is sweet and as clear as a bell. The instruments are all acoustic and there is a minimum of production interference. There is a purity and simplicity to the folk-tinged songs on The Raven that works in Pidgeon's favor... you don't get the exaggerated cynicism in Joni Mitchell's type of songwriting here, for example. There is a lot of atmospheric presence in the presentation of every instrument, and you get the full range of expression and control in Pidgeon's performance. Since there weren't a lot of pounding drums in this recording, I cranked the volume up. Everything stayed smooth and delicate, with a lively, neutral presentation. The lesson here is that source matters. I strongly recommend this album if you haven't heard it.