Hey, Feelies Fans...

[The Monkey]

...looks like we can expect a NEW album in the Spring!

[url=http://thenjunderground.com/blog/2010/10/29/feelies-set-to-release-first-album-in-over-20-years.html]Feelies set to release first album in over 20 years.

[Voltron]

Yay!

[skullguise]

Wow, how cool! I have been off and on recently a site called Remember The Eighties, they have some interesting info and updates on that decade. Oddly, I didn't remember seeing the Feelies album news, though I knew they reformed......

[Dusty Chalk]

"...in over 20 years..." -- Jesus, that might be a record (ahem) for longest hiatus.

[Dusty Chalk]

Hiatus between actual albums. I chose my word carefully, it implies being bookended by actual things.

[Dusty Chalk]

(drums fingers @ Jacob)

[Voltron]

Dinny! It's here!

[The Monkey]

Woohoo! Mine should arrive today!

[Voltron]

It sounds awesome, if a little less frenetic than the old days. Similar sound and feel otherwise. Very happy.

[Dusty Chalk]

Or you could just go straight to the high res version.

[The Monkey]

Holy fat screaming jesus! I can't believe they released in HD. Thanks Dusty, you made my day.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Thanks to Dusty I saved 20% on The Feelies with the first code at this link HD Tracks code

[morphsci]

^^^ THIS ^^^

[The Monkey]

Thanks to Dusty I saved 20% on The Feelies with the first code at this link HD Tracks code

Larry, I just noticed something odd when listening to the Feelies tracks. I am using my iMac/iTunes and the optical out to my PWD. Midi setting is 96/24. PWD sees 96. So I set the PWD sample rate to "Native" and I get a weird noise floor when I play the tracks. Sort of like white noise. It gets better (and maybe goes away completely) when I set the sample rate to 96. Can you replicate this issue?

[HeadphoneAddict]

Larry, I just noticed something odd when listening to the Feelies tracks. I am using my iMac/iTunes and the optical out to my PWD. Midi setting is 96/24. PWD sees 96. So I set the PWD sample rate to "Native" and I get a weird noise floor when I play the tracks. Sort of like white noise. It gets better (and maybe goes away completely) when I set the sample rate to 96. Can you replicate this issue?

Ok, I'll try this tomorrow after I convert the files to 24/96 ALAC with MAX and put them in iTunes. I left them as FLAC and put them on my NAS server to listen with the Bridge later. So far the few songs I tried sound fine with VLC into my DACmini via 24/96 USB, but I'll try optical from Macbook > PWD. Are you using Amara Mini or anything, or just plain iTunes? Is there a particular track that is the worst offender?

Also, I thought when you set the PWD to 96K you're really just turning on up-sampling, so the noise you're getting gets better with the ASRC active.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Larry, I just noticed something odd when listening to the Feelies tracks. I am using my iMac/iTunes and the optical out to my PWD. Midi setting is 96/24. PWD sees 96. So I set the PWD sample rate to "Native" and I get a weird noise floor when I play the tracks. Sort of like white noise. It gets better (and maybe goes away completely) when I set the sample rate to 96. Can you replicate this issue?

Sorry, but I can't replicate your problem. I just could not get a weird noise floor, like white noise, or any other artifacts. Once when we did a meet at my home and compared 6 DACs we could all hear a faint clicking noise in the background of Naamanf's Bufallo 32 DAC, although it was hard for me to hear it until I knew what to look for. However, at RMAF 2009 we heard exactly what you are describing when we fed an Apple TV 1G into a Digital Link III, and we assumed it was possibly jitter or something, since the ATV is reported to have very high levels as a transport. The ATV however sounds fine with the PWD via optical.

I'm using a late 2008 Macbook Pro with a recently installed 10.6.7 install and iTunes 10.2.2. I converted The Feelies from FLAC to 24/96 ALAC files for iTunes. Audio Midi Setup is at 24/96 optical.

Hardware used - I used an Emotiva TOSlink with good quality mini adapter to feed the PWD from the Macbook Pro. I had the PWD set for Native, showing 96Khz. I also found the 96K setting sounded the same. I auditioned it with my WES > O2 Mk1, plus Marantz 2240 and Nuforce HDP/Sigma 11 > Grado HF-2 and AKG K240M.