Never mind what I said - I was under the impression that the Fiio was an amplifier, not a high-res playback device. My apologies!

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Maybe this will help:   http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr?artist=beatles

The first time I tried mine on, I had a similar feeling: they felt loose on my head. But with time, I came to enjoy the feeling, and now I put these as the most comfortable headphones I have ever owned, and will probably ever own (and I've had a lot of headphones!).   What are you all using to...

Yes, they are a little "bass hungry," but I like my music sounding as realistic as possible, so I don't like an over-processed bass sound. These cans I think duplicate a realistic bass, presuming one chooses something that was mixed and mastered properly. You also said that some recordings are...

Yeah I leave a FLAC copy on my home server, and then when I upload to my phone, I transcode the file to a MP3. In my car or on the go, my speakers aren't good enough to reveal differences between lossy or lossless so I use lossy on my phone. But at home it's all lossless and having all those CDs...

I cannot discourage the downloading of torrents enough. Many ISPs are now tracking customers who download them, and occasionally report misuse to the legal firms representing the interests of the one who holds the rights to the content within the torrent. These legal firms can and actively do...

I hear you. In some countries, it is so difficult to buy music legally without being tempted by sites like these. In the end, I think your comment about going with the CD is best, despite being more expensive (sometimes it is less expensive, though).   On my own part, I am fortunate enough to...

I feel the same way. This spring I'm also going to make an Ubuntu phone with my aging Motorola RAZR HD. Should be fun. :-)

I was also under the impression that FLAC's "compression" was not from it's file format, but rather it's unallocation of unused throughput, hence VBR. I'm pretty sure that when I'm playing a FLAC file, I can watch the kbps bounce around (depending upon my meter's refresh rate, set to 0.5/second...

...except wasted hard-drive space. ;-)

I'm pretty sure FLAC is VBR. I've got 24/96 rips of Bluray audio discs from Dvorak's 9th symphony that are much less than the CD throughput bitrate when the quiet parts are playing (just have to keep an eye on the kbps meter), and JRiver shows the average kbps for the whole track as under 1,411...

  I don't think the throughput of a mp3 can handle CD quality. If you see someone claiming a mp3 is CD quality, I think the person is confused. If I recall, in a Windows or Linux environment, mp3s top out at 320kbps, but a CD is a CBR at 1,411 kbps, a factor of a little over 4x. FLAC acts like...

Typically I just try to minimize rapid head movement. I know it's not the fix people are looking for, but it's the only thing I could think of without dismantling and reassembling with different piece parts. And psychologically, whenever I hear the noise caused from movement, I tell myself...

Ah, thanks. Well I haven't touched iTunes since 2004 so that explains it. I've weaned myself on other distributors since then, but this is good to know. It's a shame digital lossless is so rare or difficult to find. I like hdtracks but I do a lot of research before I buy because I got burned...

I was under the impression that iTunes offers a lossless option called ALAC (Apple lossless audio codec) with certain titles. I don't use iTunes because of DRM, so I wouldn't know. Is it true they offer ALAC?

Also, though I'm unable to post it from my phone, I really like the clothbound books that Steve Wilson's deluxe sets come in. It definitely adds to the listening experience.

I tried this and everything was fine until I played a Nickelback CD and then suddenly I burst into flames and all the dogs in the neighborhood started barking and people started wandering the streets like zombies and then instantaneous spontaneous combustion of all forms of life and the...

Ja!

Yeah amazon should step it up and be the first to say "lossy sucks; we know what you really want" but then again, most users probably wouldn't notice a difference. Regardless, I like their auto-rip thing when I order a CD. (Yes I still buy CDs.... I'm an old fart I guess)

Somewhere in Time is my second favorite. it came out in the wake of Bladerunner, Terminator, and Robocop, and I remember being deeply impressed with what Derek Riggs managed to do with Eddie to modernize him like that. I even had a wall poster of Eddie smashing through with a wry smile on his...

  Yeah, she's a very good actress. To your point, it's because she's made Skyler so believable. Betsy Brandt, on the other hand, doesn't really do it for me, and probably the weakest actor of the bunch. True, her role is to play a flippant, aloof kleptomaniac, but I got more of a "good actor"...

Skyler is as unlikeable as they come. My friend theorizes that she is to blame for holding Walt back: telling him to sell his shares of Gray Matter, forcing him to take a second job at the car wash, ad infinitum. To top it off, Skyler is a textbook example of passive-aggressiveness. I shared my...

^ THIS.

Deferred Acquisition Charges are typically amortized over the life of the policy as a percentage of Estimated Gross Profits, as outlined in FASB 97. Logically this only applies to the GAAP treatment of such a policy, as the STAT treatment does not permit the capitalization and amortization of...