First the pride, then the fall
I really like the newest version of the Absolute Sound. Not necessarily because of its insightful reviews or salient comments, but because, this latest copy makes great blog topics for yours truly. If you read between the lines like I do, you can get a really good glimpse on why high end audio is in the state that it is in today - a state of high inventory and declining sales.
The interview with Lyric is especially revealing. Of the elucidating and braggadocio, the article tell us how the Levinson ML-2 achieved the price of $1600 and later $6000. Apparently, Mark came up with a pricing of $700 and, while not throwing folks out of the store (from which I got from the article, is legendary for Lyric) , Lyric convinced Mark that $1600 is the price to go for. Mark took the bait, and high end snobbery was borne.
This is how high end pricing gets done; sell a little to the elite few at astronomical prices, and completely disenfranchise the middle.
Somewhere in the article, HP asked if "High End" was dead. While some say that the patient is on life support, I say that we are in a correction a la the personal computer style.
You better be careful who you throw out of the store though, and be especially careful about it when your market is in a price correction.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
They are not coming back.....
As you all know, we have a 30 day money back guarantee. And, as you can imagine, there are some products that have higher return rates than others. Its inevitable. We may get returns on certain products(for a variety of reasons) , while others, never come back.
One that does not seem to want to make its way back here is the $99 Musiland LILO DSP Soundcard.
$99.00, which includes the LILO and software down load from our site, gives your lap top the closes thing it is going to see to a sound card. For your desk top, install the card via the USB port on the front panel - you do not have to rip into the guts of your PC.
On certain audiophile boards, they throw the LILO into the same boat as a USB DAC, of which it is and of which it is not. The hand shaking between windows (XP and Vista are supported, sorry , no Mac, *Highly Discriminatory *) is accomplished through the installation of DSP software. This DSP software gives one recording engineer control over the music. In addition to all this, there is an optical out on the LILO for conversion from USB to SPDIF. Don't have a USB DAC? Take the LILO, adjust the sound, and pipe it into your favorite DAC via the optical out. As a special bonus, the LILO will do 24/96 conversion, sweet. The Brigatta uses the LILO capabilities, but short changes the process, for higher rez, by using I2S, very sweet.
The master control on the LILO software is plum. Basic control includes "foobar" functionality and the DSP control is (star) treky. Control includes:
How does it sound? I listened through mu AKG headphones. The amount of detail was actually stunning and comes close to my favorite Bada PH12. This is not just average listening from you lap top on the train ride home, this is, high end on the trade ride home (although, I recommend using some high end buds, as you will look quite dorky with AKG 701s on public transportation)
CDs ripped with EAC are enlightening, internet music or streaming audio, for some reason, breath taking.
All this for $99.00
As you all know, we have a 30 day money back guarantee. And, as you can imagine, there are some products that have higher return rates than others. Its inevitable. We may get returns on certain products(for a variety of reasons) , while others, never come back.
One that does not seem to want to make its way back here is the $99 Musiland LILO DSP Soundcard.
$99.00, which includes the LILO and software down load from our site, gives your lap top the closes thing it is going to see to a sound card. For your desk top, install the card via the USB port on the front panel - you do not have to rip into the guts of your PC.
On certain audiophile boards, they throw the LILO into the same boat as a USB DAC, of which it is and of which it is not. The hand shaking between windows (XP and Vista are supported, sorry , no Mac, *Highly Discriminatory *) is accomplished through the installation of DSP software. This DSP software gives one recording engineer control over the music. In addition to all this, there is an optical out on the LILO for conversion from USB to SPDIF. Don't have a USB DAC? Take the LILO, adjust the sound, and pipe it into your favorite DAC via the optical out. As a special bonus, the LILO will do 24/96 conversion, sweet. The Brigatta uses the LILO capabilities, but short changes the process, for higher rez, by using I2S, very sweet.
The master control on the LILO software is plum. Basic control includes "foobar" functionality and the DSP control is (star) treky. Control includes:
- Bass, treble, loudness
- Dynamic Bass
- Sharp, medium and soft filters
- Corner/ center frequencies
- Amplitude adjust
- an equalizer
How does it sound? I listened through mu AKG headphones. The amount of detail was actually stunning and comes close to my favorite Bada PH12. This is not just average listening from you lap top on the train ride home, this is, high end on the trade ride home (although, I recommend using some high end buds, as you will look quite dorky with AKG 701s on public transportation)
CDs ripped with EAC are enlightening, internet music or streaming audio, for some reason, breath taking.
All this for $99.00
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The Dirty Little Secret
Somewhere out there, in the blogo-sphere, folks are muttering something about the CD is dead or about to die, because the computer is taking over. The disrupter (computer) claims ease of storage, ease of use, quick retrieval, etc Sounds inviting....Selling CD players, DACs and USB DACs, yours truly feels qualified to opine.
The dirty little secret is that sonically, the computer paradigm is not flushed out yet. While there is no doubt to their convenience, loading a CD or downloading music while it seems simple, can sonically be a nightmare.
There are so many aspects of this that can make a difference. USB or sound card? FLAC, loss less or none? EAC or copy? Replace ASIO driver or not? Or the uninformed, "Let me upsample these puppies to 3 Mega hertz".... "This uses a newer chip" ......I could go on....
What we have here, in cool hand Luke terms, is a failure to communicate. If you thought that cartridge alignment, tone arm, turn table, cartridge cable, phono preamp et. al. was a lot to swallow and understand, sister/brother, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Ripping music to a computer; simple. Watching someone spend all that time just to get frustrated during play back; priceless.
Stay tuned to my blog as start a foray into computer playback..... right now, its the dirty little secret of high end audio.
Somewhere out there, in the blogo-sphere, folks are muttering something about the CD is dead or about to die, because the computer is taking over. The disrupter (computer) claims ease of storage, ease of use, quick retrieval, etc Sounds inviting....Selling CD players, DACs and USB DACs, yours truly feels qualified to opine.
The dirty little secret is that sonically, the computer paradigm is not flushed out yet. While there is no doubt to their convenience, loading a CD or downloading music while it seems simple, can sonically be a nightmare.
There are so many aspects of this that can make a difference. USB or sound card? FLAC, loss less or none? EAC or copy? Replace ASIO driver or not? Or the uninformed, "Let me upsample these puppies to 3 Mega hertz".... "This uses a newer chip" ......I could go on....
What we have here, in cool hand Luke terms, is a failure to communicate. If you thought that cartridge alignment, tone arm, turn table, cartridge cable, phono preamp et. al. was a lot to swallow and understand, sister/brother, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Ripping music to a computer; simple. Watching someone spend all that time just to get frustrated during play back; priceless.
Stay tuned to my blog as start a foray into computer playback..... right now, its the dirty little secret of high end audio.
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