Peartlee

I'd settle for a DAC that I can plug into the aux port of the radio and something that's portable that will feed the DAC (without costing an arm and a leg, and my left nut) I'd care about it more if I spent a lot of time in my car. It's nice to dream though :)

The only Apple product you need to dumb it down for is the iPod classic, and even that is better than CD quality. Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought converting the flacs to anything really, downgraded the quality. I know they can be converted to AIFF and therefore not "downgraded" but you can only listen on IPODs. By definition anything played on an IPOD is downgraded sound quality I think. You can't burn AIFF or flacs to cds so can't listen to the HD tracks really on anything other than the IPOD. Seems to me that kind of defeats the purpose of the HD track. But i have them. Yeah for me. ...I set iTunes up to playback at 96k/24-bit and convert my FLAC files to WAV so it'll play them back, and it works great. How do you do that? Which part? Converting FLAC to WAV is easy, just download FLAC frontend (if you're on Windows anyways), or if you're more adventurous you can use the FLAC command line tool (on either Mac or Windows) to do the same. Then in iTunes under "Preferences", "Playback" you'll find the playback settings down towards the bottom of the screen. I think the Mac version of iTunes does it a little differently.

The only Apple product you need to dumb it down for is the iPod classic, and even that is better than CD quality. Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought converting the flacs to anything really, downgraded the quality. I know they can be converted to AIFF and therefore not "downgraded" but you can only listen on IPODs. By definition anything played on an IPOD is downgraded sound quality I think. You can't burn AIFF or flacs to cds so can't listen to the HD tracks really on anything other than the IPOD. Seems to me that kind of defeats the purpose of the HD track. But i have them. Yeah for me. While all iDevices (except the iPod classic) can play uncompressed files (AIFF, WAV or AAC Uncompressed), where you're going to lose anything is in the conversion from 96k/24-bit to 44.1k/16-bit, as the iPod is not capable of anything higher than that. To really enjoy anything from HDTracks you'll need to rely on your home sound system (or computer if you have good hardware). While my hardware isn't top notch, I set iTunes up to playback at 96k/24-bit and convert my FLAC files to WAV so it'll play them back, and it works great. I still love my iPod Video's sound quality vs. any other iDevice I've owned, and it lives permanently in my car attached to my stereo. I think Apple started going with cheaper DACs at some point, as I noticed the sound from the iPod Touch and the iPhone (different versions too) was a bit flat. I'd give my left nut to be able to listen to albums from HDTracks in my car at full resolution without the need to dumb them down. I may never leave my car :)

I personally think most of Test for Echo was an error. But Dog Years definitely ranks high.

I'm so torn now. Buy the HD Tracks remaster, or wait until this comes out? Or be a real fan and buy both :)

I'm seriously considering buying everything HDTracks has to offer for RUSH. I'd give my left nut for higher quality versions, and uncompressed remasters at 24/96 is perfect! The samples sound great. Even the samples of CA sound better IMO. Everything but CA was remastered from the original masters done on analog equipment (just read the descriptions for more info). I just wish I had portable hardware capable of playing back 24/96 files. Sadly my iPod does not. I'd never leave my car if I could rock out to those files!

What's wrong with R30?? I think that's the best live album they've put out in the past 10 years. Certainly one of the better sounding live albums, IMHO anyways

QUOTE (Pound of Obscure @ Jun 21 2012, 09:51 AM) QUOTE (andrew28 @ Jun 21 2012, 09:29 AM) QUOTE (briremo @ Jun 20 2012, 08:59 PM) QUOTE (CantStopThinkingBig @ Jun 20 2012, 08:18 PM) Don't get me wrong, it's a good album... and it blows away S&A (which isn't hard to do). But I'm just feeling a bit underwhelmed. Maybe I expected too much... maybe it was all the anticipation. I also feel like the 3 singles we got to hear ahead of time are the main highlights of the album, so everything else is just "meh". I don't know... maybe I need to give it more time. Ive listened to it a few times now and have a couple of the tunes staying with me. I'm now burdened with the realization that they have cut and pasted the chorus arrangements for the past 10 years. So many people are leaning towards The Garden and personally I love it. And the reason is its melodic and original. as for the rest of the album I agree. meh. I agree. There are plenty of great "moments" throughout the album, but there are only a few songs that I LOVE from start to finish. There seems to be a lot of "cutting and pasting" and often the transitions from one paste to another are not so great. Sonically, it sounds like every other album today. One review I read compared it to a Nickelback album (production wise - not musically) and I can see his point. Part of what made Hemispheres, MP and PW is the production: Neil's crisp snare, Alex's bright and brilliant guitars, Geddy's signature bass lines - all working together and complementing each other without any sense of overpowering the other part. I can listen to Hemispheres on crappy headphones or computer speakers and still pick out ever little intricate detail. I can't say the same about CA. You're sonically stuck man. Get with the times. Music today is supposed to sound like fuzzy, buzzing crap. Time to grow and move on dude. And sadly the boys have jumped on the bandwagon. CA isn't as bad as VT, but it's close. Lots of noise - nothing really seems to stand out. S&A really to me sounded fine. It took a while for it to grow on me, but in the end I enjoy the album. I wish I knew if they had a whole lot of say in the final mastering of the album, or if they let whats-his-name just run with it and put out a bunch of noise that kinda sounds like RUSH. Of course they let VT fly with its brickwalled sound, so who knows. Maybe at their advancing age and 40 years of rockin' their hearing isn't what it use to be. So far, a lot of the foreign bands that I listen to (Nightwish, Epica, Within Temptation) haven't brickwalled their music nearly as bad as other US releases. Sadly I can't lump Lacuna Coil into that bunch since they decided to go mainstream - their last two albums were thrown up against the brickwall repeatedly. But regardless, I still heart Edit: I just cranked the highs up in my iTunes EQ, took some of the mud out.