BBC News: Global Study

This report is essentially an audit of nature’s economy, and the audit shows we’ve driven most of the accounts into the red.

Music Industry

Wow, this is crazy!

I received the SACD of Romero’s album. And I didn’t hear anything!!!

I learned the that the industry has not been able to agree on a way to connect the SACD player to the Surround Sound System. Normally, one connects a DVD player via a coaxial digital audio cable or an optical digital audio cable to a processor, which in turn is hooked up to a surround sound amp – basically 6 amps for 5.1 surround sound (the .1 is the subwoofer) or 8 amps for 7.1 surround sound. Often the DVD player contains all of the processing and can send seperate outputs to a receiver.

Well, I found out that the industry hasn’t been able to agree on how to send SACD to a processor. Instead of using the coaxial digital audio cable or optical digital audio cable which already exists for Dolby or DTS, some use a FireWire cable – also known as IEEE 1394. Well, since my Lexicon processor is from 1997, it does not have a seperate FireWire input for SACD and my Pioneer DVD/SACD player does not have a FireWire output… To listen to SACD I would have to buy a new receiver – if I want to use the analog outputs of my existing DVD/SACD player, since my Parasound THX amp does not have any volume controls as that is controlled by the Lexicon processor… or I have to buy a new SACD player AND a new receiver, which both have the said FireWire interface.

Who cares? What were they thinking? They basically crippled the technology right from the start. How many people will spend thousands of dollars to listen to a pitifully small number of SACDs? Hilarious, actually. The music industry is shooting itself in the foot – again.

One

Looks like we are floating on water… there, look at those pillows. They might have been infested with moths already at that point. The little devils. I still see one fly about the recording room every once in a while, even though there is zero wool anywhere… I like to think it is a sole survivor looking for a non-existing mate. The Robinson Crusoe of moths. One lonely moth… how long can those insects live on air? What’s their life-span?

Summer Tour

I added more confirmed dates to the Summer tour. We have unconfirmed dates for Tuscon and Phoenix, AZ – but I am not supposed to let you know about those yet. I also sent out a note to our mailing list – please go to our homepage and click on mailing list if you want to receive email updates.