Computer Audio Reviews

what happens when roon goes bust?

Not an inexpensive device, but it does show how the streaming hardware market is truly evolving. Your recording background would lend you to notice noises, hums, and other artifacts that don't belong in the music, but being 76 and growing up with a transistor radio listening to WLS out of Chicago in my youth and thinking how great that was, it is funny about what we are complaining about today. And, it is really not complaining just pointing out performances issues that are audible in our nearly transparent audio world of today.

I did take your recommendation and ordered American Epic on Blu-ray and it will be here tomorrow off Amazon. Looking forward to that.

Your review had me thinking back to my first real system of a Fisher 500TX receiver, Dynaco A-25's and my Dual 1209 with a Pickering XV-750 cart. I later added a Teac 350 cassette deck and thought I had reached the heights. I really knew I had not as I could not afford the Bozak Concert Grands I lusted after. Then it was FM or physical media. No longer for sure.

I guess the real battle will be if the streaming services can start turning a profit. The issue with MQA shows how fragile things can be.

I have really been enjoying my recent purchase of the KEF Q-350 speakers, my first speaker buy in over 25+ years. I should not have waited so long, and and many may feel the same way about streaming.

"Via its digital and analog line inputs, Mytek's Brooklyn Bridge II offers generally excellent measured performance."

Line maybe, but digital? I can't see anything even approaching "generally excellent".

Mani.

Is Mytek actively fulfilling orders? Last I heard they hit pause due to very long-standing supply-chain issues

I watched the entire 2-disc set in one sitting. My take is a mixed bag.

The early recording process and the gear is very interesting start to finish. It is amazing the ingenuity that began this recording of live events and to look at where we are today. Making those lacquers one at a time, each under 4 minutes in length; and I was surprised that in each remake they did not have a count-down timer on the wall for performers to know where they were close to the end of 3 1/2 minutes.

I would give RCA a lot of credit for taking their recording gear to the places that they did knowing how difficult travel was back in the late 1920's and later. Even the performers took the time to travel hundreds of miles with the chance to be "discovered".

The country music aspect of this was interesting and how far the quality of music has gone from the Carters until now, and how sophisticated it has become in comparison, but all music had to start somewhere.

I was also shocked and naive about how prevalent drug use was even back in that day, whether one might view this as recreational or not. What I did find interesting and sad was the connection that artist NAS made to the early blues and today's RAP is kind of a sad tale to me.

The movement into more complicated and sophisticated jazz later is really interesting and no doubt very academic in structure that really evolved over the decades. The fact, to me, is that RAP, 90+ years later, is just an extension of those early 1920's recordings from Memphis and New Orleans is troublesome to me only with even more negative lyrics. It was easy to understand where these early music compositions came from due to very sad circumstances of the performer's lives, often a very cruel existence.

There will be some who take exception to my thoughts on this and I do not minimize what those folks went through and how they best tried to make music even in their jug bands and wash-tub bass instruments due to a lack of money for real instruments.

All in all an interesting look at early American music and that it is now archived is really a miracle. Thanks for the heads-up on these discs. I have really enjoyed all of the "Now Hear This" series from PBS and presented by Scott Yoo. I own all of those as well.