No worries Confederate, if anyone can ever convince me to try vinyl it will be you, but not yet. I have too much invested in CDs and their associated gear. Tape is just a new thing to me (well new after 20 years of not using it) and I'm enjoying it but I will invest more in that first. Well if I keep my job..

I don't have any family or friends to speak of so what would satisfy me is actually being buried with all my stuff but I don't think that's within my means realistically (graves are already at a premium) so I plan a massive bonfire when I'm still healthy enough to give the instructions, yet close to death.

What I like about you is at least you are being honest and do not pretend to be somebody you are not ( "Oh, I have so many friends bla bla".). I don't have a lot of social contacts, either, but at least I have my parents who I have a very good relationship to and my wife who I am very happily married to. She never asks me for money and doesn't have any problems with my hobbies. She is an excellent cook ( she is Indonesian ) and I save a lot of money on buying food outside. I have a brother but I stopped talking to him because he is a prick. I have a daughter, too, but she lives in Macau with the family of my late first wife. They are quite wealthy and important people there but I simply do not belong to their world and I never wanted to anyway because it disgusts me. I'd rather be myself. I think their world is a fake one full of pretentious and superficial people and it is boring. Sometimes my wife complains that my records, laserdiscs and equipment take up so much space at home and i can actually understand that but most of the time she leaves me alone. I remember that a Western guy married to a Japanese woman here on this forum had to sell most of his laserdiscs to a local second hand shop for like 20 Yen a piece !!! because his wife wanted him to get rid of his collection. Now that sucks. I'd rather get divorced.
The important thing is to love yourself and have interests in life. I cannot emphasise strongly enough how important that is to have interests in life.
I just need enough to support my hobbies a bit, feed my family and travel a bit, nothing more.

I'll drink to that.

Anyone that claims for have more than a few close friends is probably lying. Where would they be when things get serious? The truth is you don't know until you get there.

Agree on having interests. It is interesting to me how many people are absolutely losing their minds during this shut down.

You hit pay dirt man, a good woman who accepts you. You sound like someone who doesn't compromise who they really are either. I had a few friends (now ex-friends) who were married and hated their wives who totally controlled them, when they could hang out, what they spent their money on.. I was single most of the time and then they went and had kids and I lost em as friends.

They were totally overtaken by their new lives. One of them tried to get me committed to a mental hospital because I was unemployed, homeless and single at more than one point. He would gaslight me to make me think my situation was because of mental illness. That I didn't want the same life as him (big house, fat wife, little s**t kids, ikea furniture, generic SUV) I was mentally ill to him. I actually went to a shrink because of him, the shrink offered me amphetamines right in the office, first time I met him. The shrink said if I didn't take em I'd be jobless and single for life. I told him to get that s**t out of my face, I don't need drugs and walked out. Since then got re educated, got a job and been gainfully employed for 9 years straight. Had girlfriends but they always wanted to change the way I dress, the was I cut my hair, so I lost em.

When you pass 40 years old (more than a few years passed 40 myself now) all those older people who told you life is short finally make sense. It is so short. I look back at my years and I don't have a lot of things. I don't have a wife, kids, my own house, a car or much money in the bank but I never compromised on who I am. Never compromised like those ex friends who sold out and tried to make me sell out too.

f**k them, I think they're pathetic and they probably think the same about me. Alternatre realities, alternate perspectives on the same set of circumstances..

My parents are just cash to me. They sold me out when I was 18. "Bye! Good luck son", banned from setting foot in my dad's house, my mum is a narcisistic drunk who I stopped talking to. When they die I'll finally have a permanent home for my possessions

I agree, forper. I see a lot of superficial people, all having the same aspirations, a house, wife, kids, nice car, etc. These are not my aspirations. I think it is very boring. My late wife's family was like that. They were very
superficial and only cared about how much money I had in my bank account and warned me over the phone not to use my wife's money which was absolutely ridiculous. They were calling me loser all the time which
eventually made me leave my wife because I was tired of it. She then took her own life and then they blamed me for her demise because I had left her and used me as a scape goat. It was really crazy. All the money her father
was making didn't make it a happy family. He was never there because he was working all the time and he thought he could compensate his absence by providing his family with material things.
My second wife's family is very different. They are poor, even for Indonesian standards but they are a very happy family and in my view a more complete and healthier family than my former wife's one. They always have
a smile on their face and do not care about superficialities. Her parents were watching TV on a really old TV for a long time that had a partially broken tube. This would cause a permanent green spot in the upper left corner and the colours
were all weird but they didn't mind as long as they could see most of it and had sound. I am not kidding. I then bought them a new TV for 200 $ and they were happy which made me happy, too. We didn't throw away the old TV but gave it
to a very friend of hers who didn't have a TV at all. The people in her home town in Central Java are maybe the friendliest people I have met anywhere in my entire life and I have been to many many places on this planet. They have a really nice culture, great food, great traditional music and dances, etc., even though radical Islam has been been on the rise there in the last twenty years which is very worrying and sad. I hope it won't get worse because it is a lovely place with wonderful people and Indonesian is about the easiest language on the planet, you can learn to say a lot of things really really fast ( as opposed to other languages in the region such as Thai or Vietnamese which are very very difficult to learn for foreigners. I have been to Thailand many times in my life and I absolutely love it. I can barely say thank you and it is probably incorrectly pronounced ).
I just believe it is important to have interests in life and not be driven by superfacilities because after all as you already mentioned life is short and there is more to life than buying a new home, car, etc. I know people that
are in debt because they want to have the same things everybody else has and they haven't been abroad in many many years or done anything interesting. It is important to enjoy the simple things in life, those things that
we take for granted such as having a nice meal, going for a walk, enjoying each other's company, etc, especially in these times with the current COVID 19 pandemic.
Of course it is nice to have a nice salary and if somebody offers me more I will not say no but money is not what drives me. I have enough and if had more I know I would spend it on records and clothes. My pride is my very good
hifi and video setup at home. That is very important to me because I love music very much.

Now back to the topic and I promise I won't write more about it here. I am sorry I got off topic in my last two, three posts here, won't happen again, sorry.

These are the CDs that I have been spinning for the past couple of days on a regular basis. Learning about good dynamics and well mastered CDs also makes me appreciate music that I would have never listened to in the past.
I also have Tidal but the problem with it you don't know which master is used etc. I don't listen to anything with a single digit dynamic range. Even an average dynamic range of 10 is barely acceptable to me. It has to be
at least 11 or 12.

-> ABBA - The Visitor - First West German CD from 1982! ( excellent dynamics and fantastic recoding, some nice songs on it )

Diana Ross - Diana ( first West German pressing from 1989, excellent dynamics, it has an average dynamic range of 16 !, this is one of my favourite albums )

Herbie Hancock - Secrets ( 1997 Sony Japan release, excellent dynamics, great album, Doin' It is a fantastic song )

Herbie Hancock - Thrust ( 2016 Audio Fidelity SACD, CD layer, excellent dynamics and fantastic mastering, I love Audio Fidelity, it is sad they disappeared from the market and I actually bought a couple of
their releases because I wanted to support them )

Pet Benatar - Live from Earth ( first Japanese CD, excellent dynamics, I love Love is a Batterfield, the singer's actual name is Pet Andrzejewski and she is of Polish origin, too, same as me )

I also listen to a lot of vinyl, of course, some of which is Yello's album Stella ( excellent ) and a lot of Prince on vinyl ( the records are cheap but I don't really like a lot of the stuff he did past 1991-92 but his stuff from the 80s ).

A few things

Forper I think that is the reason a lot of my romantic relationships got ended and I quit even trying. If someone thinks it's necessary to change me or my hobbies then they get shown the door. I'm actually pretty happy with the idea of never getting into a serious relationship again, helps with finances too. I also have absolutely no desire to have children which is a whole big issue for many women.

Confederate that reminds me of one of the situation with one of my brothers and his late ex wife. Not exactly the same but he was financially abused and she ultimately died not too long after they divorced. He got shafted with 10k in medical bills because he foolishly trusted her to file. She made sure to stay married while on a lengthy hospital visit. Her family was miserable too, it was mostly her mother pulling strings with a lot of things, I think.

People trying to live above their means is something you can and do see at any level. Just because someone has a lot of money doesn't mean they have financial sense. The father of a female acquaintance of mine several years back despite having a mid 6 figure annual income was deep in debt because he had to compete with other wealthier people in the area. The way I see it is money is simply a tool to get things I actually want and insure survival.

I found the story about Indonesia interesting as I've never been to that part of the world. I don't think the off topic stuff is that big of an issue. Especially now during this crisis, we are all doing a lot of thinking and reminiscing. Maybe more than usual.

Confederate man, you've been through some s**t. Glad you're content in your current life.

I wish I was on a salary. I'm on a wage. In that sense I want more, I also want enough to fix my painful teeth, get a vasectomy (yeah I never have wanted kids either Gypsy) and fix a couple of other health issues. Then I want a home I can't get kicked out of if I can't pay rent for 4 weeks.

Yeah Gypsy, you gotta decide after a certain age what path you will take. For a while there I was like if I meet a good woman I'll marry her, then I did meet some like that and we'd go out for a year or two but once they got to know me they didn't want to marry me. Then I met others who tried to change me/drove me insane and I had to break up with. But at this point it's better to be decisive and plan to be alone forever. Then you can make plans around that. It's better that way, to choose a path.

I installed the HDCD decoder in foobar today and it allows you to scan for HDCD encoded audio files. I then found an Ice Cube album entitled Lethal Injection ( 2003 remaster ) that is HDCD encoded even though
there is no HDCD logo on the CD itself. I thought that the difference CD and HDCD would be minimal at best but I was plesasantly supprised that this album sounds clearly better with the HDCD decoder being activated.
The dynamics appear to be much better, too. The CD version is just loud but the HDCD version is so much more balanced and detailed. Excellent. Can really recommend it. It is sounds so nice
to listen to this excellent album with such clarity. This is without a doubt the best version I have heard so far.

I also have a French CD called "The Directors Cut Présente John Carpenter" released in 2003. Again no HDCD logo, either. However some but not all songs are HDCD encoded, too.
Those that are sound excellent. Since I am a huge John Carpenter fan, this is nice.

Interesting. I've got a total of 1 CD with the HDCD logo. So it needs a decoder? How would one decode from a standard CDP?

I'm interested in all these uparmored CD specs and standards. Recently from Japan there are a lot of CDs marked "BluSpecCD2" then there's stuff like "SHM" (Super High Material) for SACD and CD(?), "K24bit" etc. I don't really get any of em, whether they need decoders or are just apparantly impoved at the point of mastering.

Should we make a dedicated thread or something where we can collate information? Or does one already exist online?

Well, yes. But it is a bit complicated to explain. I have heard that all HDCD encoded discs used a very good sounding analogue-digital-converter by Pacific Microsonics. It is supposed to be one of the very best
analogue-digital-converters ever made. If you want to get the full potential of an HDCD encoded disc you should get a player that can decode the additional information or you can rip the CD and play the WAV/FLAC
file with the foobar internal HDCD decoder. I have a CD ( Herbie Hancock - Future Shock, late Japan edition ) that sounds completely different with considerably better dynamics ( 10 instead of 7 ) in HDCD mode.
All that other stuff K24bit, etc. it is just a marketing gag to make the product more appealing to any potential buyer. I know plenty of CDs that sound excellent and do not have any of that stuff assigned to them
( 24k gold CD, bla bla bla, etc. ). In fact I have a CD in my collection ( Vangelis - Themes, excellent collection of Vangelis stuff from the 80s such as Blade Runner etc., it is one of my favourite albums of all times )
that has the K2HD Mastering logo on it. That CD was released a few years ago. It is the exact same CD as the very first release of said album from 1988 or 1989. Both editions have the exact same dynamics on all tracks.

I nowadays listen to Amazon Music a lot. I bought a new Denon AVR a couple of weeks ago and I am very pleased with how Amazon Music sounds through it. It has a lot of high res content and it sounds excellent.
i just listened to the soundtrack of The Killing Fields in Hi Res ( 96 / 24 ) and it sounds excellent. Now I have seen a couple of youtube videos that say that you cannot hear the difference between 96 khz and 44.1 khz
but I think that is total BS. To me a lot of the Hi Res stuff sounds obviously clearer and more detailed when compared to their CD counterparts. To me a good or very good vinyl records sounds better than a CD in a lot
of cases but with Hi Res it is an entirely different story. To me it is sound wise more or less on the same level. Both can be excellent. One excellent CD is Madonna's Like a Virgin. It was one of the first albums that were recorded all digital but I just think that the entire album sounds incredibly good with fantastic dynamics and sound mixing. I do not know many CDs that sound that good.

I have just found a very interesting new digital releases that is available on Tidal, Spotfiy and Amazon Music. The beautiful soundtrack to the fantastic French film Deux hommes dans la ville.
Delon was just such a brilliant actor back in the 60s and 70s. Oddly the German name of this film is Endstation Schafott which translates to Last stop scaffold. What a stupid name. Kind of tells
you how the film ends more or less lol.

I made a topic on HDCDs a while back:

HDCD

Other than Windows Media Player, I haven't gotten another player that supports HDCD playback (not even the Oppo UDP-203 does.)

Though I only have 2 HDCDs.

Thank you. The explanation provided by the late disclord is the best I have read so far anywhere. A lot of HDCD discs do not use peak extension. That is true. But I have some
that do and they sound very good like my French John Carpenter compilation CD that does use peak extension ( not on all tracks but more than half ) but does not even have the HDCD logo on it.

I'll admit I stream all my music, but I've been listening to a lot of Beck recently, just the perfect amount of relaxing and catchy for me.

Didn't know it could do that!
Tried it right away and it found my King Crimson FLAC (from CD) right away.

https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_hdcd

Pretty good!

Julien

Currently Listening to the following Music.

CD Albums:

Good day everyone

I Hope you are all looking after you and your loved ones.

An Album that I sing to is from the following artist;

Dead Can Dance: Deep reflective and inspirational.

Recently snagged a nice bootleg release of Fashion Nugget on Vinyl, sounds delightful!

Cake is easily my favorite band, it's a shame they haven't put out anything aside from a single in the last decade.

Confederate & Gypsy,

I have just read the depth of your Posts about your lives and your touching experiences.

Know that your in depth comments have been Profoundly felt by this man.

That is why Music for me touches the soul in a wholesome way.
You are both not alone, for I too have experienced very much the same and can relate to you both 100%

I hope you are both well.

Kindest Regards

From Mark

Maybe not owning any music damages your appreciation for it. If Beck was all there was I certainly wouldn’t have wasted any money on music in my life. Maybe buying an record for the peel off banana sticker or zipper or whatever isn’t the worst thing in the world. At least it engages the listenership in some way.

Try not to be too offended here but this is the 21st century equivalent of saying that you haven’t found any music worth paying for since Lawrence Welk went off the air...

Do you have any friends who are into music? What do they like?

I've been listening to a lot of Japanese jazz lately. Takanaka, Kazumi Watanabe, Masaru Imada, Prism, Akira Wada, Hiroshi Fukumura, Kanzaki on the Road, Kiyoshi Sugimoto, Kenso, Crosswind, Jun Fukamachi. Mostly stuff from the 70s and 80s.

Probably going to be the first time I bought some cds in awhile.