Skiing The Beach 28May17

A fresh few inches of snow, cool alpine temps and a great sunny late spring day on the divide beckoned Daryle Debalski and I to ABasin for some fine runs and partying on "The Beach." There's nothing ever tiring about skiing beneath the headwall or cracking Melvin Hubert MPAs for lunch. The vibe was "all in;" we arrived early for front row tix and and had a blast.

Opening Day B4 Closing Day 25May17

First off, Kala and I caught Beau Thomas and friends at Outer Range on Original Music Thursdays - Summit Co acts were excellent; pizza slices from Whole Foods was very good and company and beer were outstanding. Couple of new IPAs to try - liked Blocks of Light best of new. Today was a "work day" so cleared dead trees, prepped deck chairs for new stain, landed a roofer to repair a couple of shingles which blew off the ridge, brought the Summit Co bikes up to speed - installing Kala's mirror and bell gifts from Christmas, "negotiated" Mon Ami pre-launch work order (should be sailing next week) to adjust headsail position a smidge. Then, it was off to the Tiki Bar for opening day - I still need to get the late spring ski runs but my "closing day" efforts were thwarted by The Legend extending to June 12th when I'll be in France. I guess I gotta convince GL & DD to ride during the Vail Mtn Game some AM.

The Fork - Big 'Bow Saves The Day 25May17

I hiked into Williams Fork River today despite the "guarantee" of storms at 1:30pm. I got there late and started fishing at ~11:30am. Fishing was slow with just one smallish brown - though I did catch a moose crossing the Colorado at the mouth of the Fork. I fortunately landed a nice 18" golden colored rainbow - I think I've caught him before. He took the Cheeseman Emerger. I left about 2:30pm after an hour in the rain & hail but when lightning was headed my way and the wind was up too much. Funny how a big fish brightens the outlook on an otherwise weak outing.

The Blue 24May17

GOREgeous (heh heh) mid-60s day in Summit. I started in town on the Blue and caught a couple of smaller 'bows on midges, but it was just too darn crowded for my liking so I packed up and headed north. I dropped into Jurassic Pk late AM and did fine but strangely only caught browns - is that a sign of the fishery? I did see some rainbows still on the spawn up here. Caught just 15"ers and 17"ers; no bigger. Cheeeseman Emerger and Merc RS2 did the main work. I caught sight of some ram on the way out near the tunnel above the rez. Weird, they were kickin' rocks down on me as I stopped for the pic.

Blondie Still Here - New Pollinator Release 23May17

I'm still in COS and studying; Blondie is still here with a brand new release, Pollinator. The latest release from Debbie Harry and the rest is straight from CBGBs in NYC in the 70s. This alt rock release from May 2017 is much better than their prior recent stuff and beckons us back. Harry is not the front-woman attraction she once was but Doom with Joan Jett and Long Time penned personally were good, as was Fragments for sure. They were on Fallon and released Long Time and Fun on vids already. Harry & Stein wrote only one song, Love Level, together this time, meh. The full album is worthy if you like the genre... it's basically a mega-collaboration with good songwriters supplying most of the material. Though, I'm a fan and like the release. I tried to understand if Harry was autotuned on some of the tracks - could be, but I could not find confirmation... if not, her pipes are still pretty clean. Worthy at least for the 4 tracks mentioned IMO.

Is Streaming Music Healthy, @ My House Or Anywhere? 19May17

Spring snow (>10" in Peregrine!) & head cold have allowed more critical listening, some music industry study, audio perfection pursuit and more desk-based stuff. I wrote of TIDAL & MQA before and have now investigated an additional fidelity increment in the streaming music model.

My full MQA decoder DAC arrived today, a ~$200 Meridian Explorer 2. I studied and considered the $2K Mytek Brooklyn DAC/headphone amp but chose to dabble first. The new DAC replaces my Fireflies DAC (32bit/192KHz capable but not MQA compatible) when I play MQA encoded titles. TIDAL software itself can "unfold" MQA bitstreams to 24bit/96KHz (we are used to a "baseline" and very good 320Kbps lossy MP3s/AACs or 16bit/44.1KHz FLAC at <1Mbps), which are very good, but hardware DACs are required to "unfold" MQA to 24bit/192KHz... so I acquired one to see if it made a difference to my ear.

Actually, it did... the dynamics of the tracks I reviewed like the Eagle's Hotel California & Desperado, JB's Late For The Sky, Neko Case's stuff, even Green Day's American Idiot and others were subjectively more dynamic and open through the new DAC (when original material delivered to 192KHz in mastering process). The issue is that we are talking about streamed music above CD quality, and highly dependent on initial mastering processes. This is too small of a distinction for many and thus a very small market - me included though. I could not find Dire Straits "big files" and their 16bit/44.1 KHz stuff like On Every Street is already spectacular; I could not find the track's of many band's I listen to in high def MQA either. Net net on MQA: if you wanna enjoy it sufficiently, use onboard software decode only, in TIDAL, and use a decent processor (gen 1 Surface Pro is fine)... don't bother with a hardware MQA DAC as long you already have at least a 24bit/192KHz external USB DAC.

If the 1st light is blue (shown) it's master authenticated (MQA encoded), if the 2nd LED is lit it's 96 or 88 KHz material, if the 3rd LED is lit it's 192 or 176 KHz material - so I was looking for distinctions delivered by the 3rd LED and initial blue LED, requiring a hardware only unfold (cause again, I can get to 24/96 in just software).

I have attempted several methods to capture the MQA bitstream, from TIDAL, to a file, and play it back. I can play back the normal CD fidelity but can never get these files to "light the LEDs" on the E2 as an MQA stream should. I've dived on the rare few others trying this and they have not succeeded either - I don't know why a bit perfect file of the stream won't fire up the MQA DAC lest the whole identification scheme is in some header - that'd be bogus. Yet the replayed files do not sound as good as the original MQA streams which must alert the DAC and then follow a different decoding through it.

Probably as interesting is that 24bit/192KHz material can be streamed for <20% bandwidth penalty (and no CPU penalty) vs lossy MQA encodings via royalty free FLAC streaming schemes!

Weird that nobody is doing that. Further, as mentioned in prior posts, MQA is proprietary and the licenses paid on remastering tracks with it or selling hardware with it incorporated are going to Meridian - they are signing up some folks but unless they open up a little and allow folks to create their own MQA-encoded music I think it may hit a wall. See this paper for arguments... https://www.xivero.com/downloads/MQA-Technical_Analysis-Hypotheses-Paper.pdf I really like the idea of an open HD Audio stream but need a decent interface to the database and material. Right now a 24bit/192KHz album download is ~$17 to own, just one month of current services where my access is typically much greater.

More concerning than fidelity beyond CDs for me though is the health of the streaming music industry itself... all, including Spotify, are not profitable and lose tons. At this rate TIDAL and Spotify, pure plays, won't last without significant price increases. The industry needs consolidation and Apple and Google (both seemingly also losing $ on this stuff) can cover losses (and will acquire subscriber bases and companies like SoundCloud and others) and use music streaming, even HD varieties if they desire, to get users to buy other stuff too. Bummer that artist's take is declining and the most significant innovation in music delivery in 15 years yields no profit to intermediaries. See here... https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-01-09/music-streaming-is-a-hit-but-it-can-t-afford-to-skip-a-beat and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-04/in-apple-spotify-world-soundcloud-can-t-find-room and https://theringer.com/music-streaming-tidal-spotify-apple-music-8df42d20beb7.

Oh yeah, one service, mostly mid-fi, is doing fine... check out bandcamp.com who enables smaller labels and bands to get trials and distribution.

Finally, I did acquire Fidelizer Pro for $60 for my Surface Pro that runs my JRiver Media Center and TIDAL. Fidelizer, deletes non-essential apps and reprioritized processes, even in the core, to assure delivering audio is done as well as possible on the PC. I could investigate all the tweaks and attempt to make them all the time but this is much easier and more assured.

As for streaming, net-net for me... undecided and still trialing services, schemes and hardware.

Citradamus & Fazerdaze 19May17

In addition to punk pop I really like power pop (and many alt sounds and alt country/country rock, but that's different) and I just debuted a cool new sound from Fazerdaze and then dove on her body of work. Her stage name doesn't suck at all. Her label debut album is Morningside and it launched last week I think. She's a New Zealand gal and really a one-girl band; she records all the stuff herself but when she plays live she brings a band she built for that. The stuff seems effortless - from jangly guitar work to nice pop vocals and her understated demeanor but it's round and very good (and probably far from effortless) - she'll be one of the next big things I suspect. Check her out on YouTube, TIDAL or wherever - I may be accused of promoting adult contemporary but this is a new talent and the lyrics are a bit sad at the core. To compliment the listening I enjoyed a new RIIPA (rotating imperial IPA) from the stellar WY guys, Melvin, called Citradamus. Dank-ass Citra nose all the way, no additives... another winner. Kala and I enjoyed trying Lau's Tacos again today; very good. We also hit the CSFA center for the outgoing exhibits on Free Friday and met Larry Hulst, a photographer whose exhibit was of more great concerts than I'd believed possible - catch it; Dan Coen's large format stuff was also spectacular. I know it's time consuming to check out all this art stuff - finding what you like and what is great, music included, but retirement is so cool and enables such - I should've done even more of it all along the path.