This has got to be akin to choosing one’s favorite child.
Well…none the less…we still must choose. No?
Get your joke, but…no. It is possible to completely love different children for their unique qualities. Wouldn’t trade any of those things for the world, or wish they were some imagined “perfect” amalgam of any given two. Its what makes life, parenthood and music interesting : )
Paul, of course, can just keep making new “babies”, unlike many of us… ; )
Yes…a bit tongue in cheek. But Paul will have to let it be known which playback system he prefers… At least in my estimation.
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When asked what creation of his was his favorite, Duke Ellington responded: “The next one.”
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The one that follows the previous one is the best one. Or why bother building it ?
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PSA is building a new transport because they can’t get the parts to build the old one. So they have no choice to build a new one other than to not build one at all. The fact that the new transport will not play SACDs is disturbing. That means no DSD so what is the point?
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I wouldn’t disagree with you. Paul said they can build a much better Redbook player. I would have to hear it to believe it, but, !!
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Bit of an oversimplification. IMO, one of the things that has informed Paul’s approach on Octave is the experience of being dependent on outside suppliers for critical parts and/or code, such as the Bridge and the Oppo drive chosen for the DMP. Oppo went out of business, and PS was left holding that particular bag.
They bought as many drives as possible to meet their aim of supporting existing products for decades. As far as I know though, Oppo was never fully into sharing the code for making those drives do whatever it is they are capable of doing.
This is not to say that the fault lies with Oppo, so save any Apologist-accusation rejoinders forming in your head. My two cents/armchair quarterback/20-20 Hindsight guess is that it was a fundamental miscalculation or misunderstanding to think that a drive and accompanying proprietary code designed around video-based navigation (DVD or Blu-Ray video menu control) could be repurposed for touchscreen control, with no option (video output) for the standard means of control. That control method is baked into how those discs work, and the degree of customization and randomness with which it can be implemented on a disc-by-disc basis is significant. I say this having created DVDs and Blue-Rays for industrial clients and my own amusement.
At the time of the Beta, I agreed with the notion of not having a video output, as I’d heard the sonic impact of simply turning it off (which many of the Oppos could do) much less the benefits of leaving that seemingly unneeded and unrelated-to-sound circuitry out entirely.
It actually might be SACD capable.
Oversimplification? I don’t see how. They can’t get the parts needed to keep making and supporting the DMP. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t know how Octave plays into this as transports make little sense for a music server.
Edit: I guess it could be a massively expensive ripper…
I guess if your post had been just the first two sentences, as you refer to in your first paragraph here, that would’ve been clear. But then it got into the “disturbing” and “what’s the point” 3rd and 4th sentences, so the effect I was left with was an overall tone of criticism.
I have no idea how hard implementing SACD playback on the new player is, will be, or what it involves. I’m not particularly concerned, since, though I have a large SACD library, I have a DMP. The way streaming products are going, I can see not caring about discs at all soon enough though. Luddite…I know.
I have been a bit of a Hard-Copy diehard. In part it comes from having to retain copies of recorded material for clients - in some cases, for decades. I just moved the boxes and boxes of heavy, cumbersome recorded material accumulated over a lifetime of work and personal collection for the Second Time inside of a year. Not eager to do that again anytime soon. My back hurts just thinking about it.
One reason I’ve held on is that I really love me a Hard Copy of stuff on a stable format. Seen too many unstable formats come and go, both in video and audio over my life and career. Still remember when a major hard drive manufacturer revealed that leaving Masters of work on hard drives on a shelf without powering them up at least every year or so was risking those bits gradually demagnetizing. And that had become a defacto, affordable means of “archiving” stuff in many people’s minds. Caused some panic, though he might’ve been invested in an LTO tape drive company…
I also entertained the notion that it would be possible in the future to re-rip my CD collection via a WAY BETTER quality ripper than the crappy Mac Mini I used to do it the first time around in the Early 2000’s. Digital Caveman Days comparatively. But it seems like there are plenty of as-good-or-better digital versions available via streaming or DL services and so on. And a fair chunk of the music from my CD collection at that time, I could happily live without hearing again ; )
Then you read about stuff like the Universal Fire and go…“hmmm. Wonder if any of the Versions I have should not be trashed?” Paranoid? Possibly. But we’ve seen what can come of being cavalier about it.
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I hold on to all of my physical media as well. That is my last resort backup plan. Plus, legally I need to hold to all the media that I rip.
To me, the most important aspect of any digital release, whether it be CD, SCAD, or download, is the quality of the mastering. I don’t have many digital downloads because, most often, I find better masterings on CD or SACD.
As far as ripping goes, you don’t need an expensive high quality ripper. What you need is a decent drive and software that uses AccurateRip. You can’t get any better than that.
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All True. And come to think on it, do I have the patience to rip this stuff again, other than very selectively, without some sort of fully automated setup with robotic arm feeding and removing a hundred discs per batch? Prolly not.
That’s a great question. Not having had the pleasure to make the comparison yet I cannot definitively say. However their output stage and the use of our new Air Gap Interface is identical on both. In fact, they are in the same chassis and utilize the exact
same hardware. One would suspect the same
Paul McGowan | CEO
800-PSAUDIO
Boulder, Colorado
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I imagine, take that dust with a small grain of salt.
It can be made to work, if you have the technical chops. I have iPad as a control point for a few audio devices which all work perfectly. Obviously, if PS Audio are intent on iPad control for their devices, then the previous Russian effort for them at this should be left in Russia.
Not necessarily true. Some dealers are saying that PS Audio have told them that it will play SACD. And PS reps here have said they are looking for an SACD capable optical reader to put in it, which is the reason why it hasn’t been built yet.
…and to continue with the ripping theme, that was a rip-snorter of a post (american translation, rip-snorter = good).
Except that, you don’t need video navigation capability for the OPPO guts to navigate and play CD or SACD. Which is were things went whacky when marketing promises were made that (to paraphrase) the DMP could play any disc, and would be the last disc player you would ever need. But to play some discs video navigation is a requirement. And it had been decreed very early on that DMP would not have a video output. Hence the juxtaposition of some marketing claims versus reality.
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