From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V12 #108 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Friday, December 14 2007 Volume 12 : Number 108 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [pt] Has anyone seen this book and DVD? [handal@r2d2.reverse.net (Richard] Re: [pt] the latest from toriamos.com: bootleg sale and two freebies [gaseous] ["Karen Hester" Subject: Re: [pt] the latest from toriamos.com: bootleg sale and two freebies [gaseous] Anyone have opinions on the quality of the mp3s vs the FLAC? Anyone have favorites shows they recommend? The first Boston has had lots of raves, but it's difficult picking :) K. > From: "Tori Amos" > Subject: Tori Amos Bootlegs - FREE DOWNLOADS + HOLIDAY SALE > Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:01:00 -0800 > > www.toribootlegs.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:50:24 -0500 From: gaseous clay Subject: Re: [pt] the latest from toriamos.com: bootleg sale and two freebies [gaseous] one time at band camp, Karen Hester said: > Anyone have opinions on the quality of the mp3s vs the FLAC? i've been buying flac since, well, i'm like that. however, i've mostly listened to the mp3s and they're pretty good. i think for most people, they will be sufficient. > Anyone have favorites shows they recommend? wallingford! ;) alas, it's not one of the ones that got released. *sigh* i'm pretty fond of montreal as a second choice for an isabel gig...though you might want to opt for ft. myers if you want to hear "mountain". for clyde, houston is quite nice, as is boise. either would be a find choice in my mind. houston has "peeping tommi" and "not david bowie", if one finds rarities appealling. it may have the edge as a performance too, though boise is quite nice too. boise has "black swan", but that struck me as a pretty standard performance of it. > The first Boston has had lots of raves, but it's difficult picking :) that's a good choice for pip, though the vic theatre (chicago 11/6) is an excellent choice for the unique and never-to-be-repeated "me and a gun" performance. woj ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:44:08 -0600 (CST) From: handal@r2d2.reverse.net (Richard Handal) Subject: Re: [pt] the latest from toriamos.com: bootleg sale and two Karen asked: > Anyone have opinions on the quality of the mp3s vs the FLAC? As someone considered by Epic/Sony to be in the Flintstone era of computing (what--my money is dead to them?), I've not been able to buy any of these recordings. I *was* able to download the two samples they put up the other day. They were MP3s at 256kbps, and I thought they sounded more than fine. As a general thought on the topic: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/11/few_listeners_can_distinguish.php Few listeners can distinguish between "average" and "best" MP3 samples As someone who's felt for many years that the armchair audiophiles, as I call them, know more how to read specs than they do listen to music, this falls into line with what I've suspected for decades. I remember a test Stereo Review did in the late '70s or thereabouts, in which orchestra conductors used good headphones, and indicated when they heard an engineer reach a point in turning up some added THD (Total Harmonic Distortion). All the audio companies would advertise that their product had like 0.003%THD as opposed to a competitor's 0.005%, but none of the conductors heard *ANY* THD until they got into 1%+, many high into the 1+ to 2% area. This is what I call the Armchair Audiophile Effect, when people complain about things they can't hear just from reading numbers. The above link reinforces in my mind what I've long felt: buy a real stereo and pay attention when listening. As for something that *does* make a difference to me, a decompressed FLAC can be played back by me with no time in between the ones before and after it, so if anyone is in this situation and prefers to play entire concerts as I do rather than songs extracted from them, that kind of thing is something to keep in mind. I want the sound to be seamless between songs; the flow of a concert recording is important to me, and I don't want extraneous breaks between songs. Is this really how people are forced to listen to MP3s, with sonic breaks or added overlap between tracks? I'm against it. There may be a way around that, but I have yet to find it. Thanks to anyone with a technical remedy that works here in Mac OS 10.2.8. woj mentioned the Not David Bowie recording being from Houston. If one wanted the song merely for its rarity factor it can be had free, so I don't understand buying it on that basis. Does anyone know where the other sample track, Amber Waves, is from? If the label somehow told us and I missed it, I apologize. Maybe it was mentioned in one of their dubious forays into the latest version of Flash that I can't install here in Bedrock. Be seeing you, Richard Handal, H.G. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:29:28 -0600 (CST) From: handal@r2d2.reverse.net (Richard Handal) Subject: Re: [pt] Has anyone seen this book and DVD? Hello, Well, now I'm just *blatantly* talking to myself. Tonight I looked at this book [Best of World Cafe: Behind the Scenes at Public Radio's Most Popular Music Show (Paperback) by David Dye] in the store. It is in fact made up of transcribed interviews from the radio show. The Tori bit at least begins with the one from 1992, but it's possible they edited parts of the three she did together; I didn't read it enough to be able to tell, but I doubt they combined them. Jason has all three transcribed here on his Toriphoria site, and frankly, I trust his transcription accuracy more than I do the publisher of this book. The DVD that comes with the book is affixed to the inside of the back cover in a sealed plastic padded envelope, so as cheeky as I am, I didn't want to ask them to break the seal on one and slap it into a computer so I could find out exactly what artist clips are on it. I doubt any unknown Tori video exists on this thing, but it's possible. Much gratitude to anyone who can check this DVD for Tori content! It seems like an item many would want to own. :-) Look at the list of artists in the TOC on this link with a peek inside. http://www.xpn.org/member_support/worldcafe_book_peek.html Maybe I've been spoiled by people putting up so much stuff in Online Toriville, but I'm imagining fan websites for a lot of other artists in this book would have their transcribed radio interviews up. Perhaps not. Anyone? DVD? Tori? Be seeing you, Richard Handal, H.G. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:14:13 -0800 From: "David Mobley" Subject: Re: [pt] the latest from toriamos.com: bootleg sale and two a much more interesting story: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/do_higher_mp3_bit_rates_pay_off wherein people actually chose their selections that they KNEW they'd be able to distinguish. Unfortunately, they mostly failed or were guessing at best. This for the most part really only says though that once you're in mp3 land, there's not a lot of distinguishing characteristics to most people from mid-to-high quality, but everyone can mostly pick out the crap. We're getting good quality mp3's from the Tori store, which is surprising and welcome. (in contrast Radiohead sold their new album in 160kbit, which personally is kinda crappy and I personally CAN hear a significant difference in the quality of the stuff they posted and the actual quality of the real discs). I'm an audio snob, I prefer FLAC's. However, for the vast majority of people with an average listening system at best or just an ipod at worst, mp3's are fine. Keep in mind that plenty of people listen with built-in speakers on their computer, headphones of a pretty dodgy quality and basically non-ideal listening systems. You can't really go above the level of quality of your listening devices... so even high quality mp3's are excessive to some people. If you've got $200 headphones or speakers however, there's a pretty decent difference. The highs aren't as warbly, the bass isn't as "fuzzy" and all sorts of stuff in between. For $5 more, I'd personally rather get the good stuff. Maybe you don't have an awesome sound system now, but in a few years your mp3's will still sound the same, and you'll potentially be able to hear the differences with the full quality stuff. As for the gapless playback, are you using itunes? I was under the impression that itunes was seamless playback. Whatever program you're using though has to compensate for built-in "gap" at the end of an mp3 file to pad out to the full second. Any fractions get represented as "zero pad" so you get the occasional pause between tracks unless your player understand this and knows what to do. I thought itunes did it, but I could be wrong. On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:44:08 -0600 (CST), "Richard Handal" said: > As someone who's felt for many years that the armchair audiophiles, as I > call them, know more how to read specs than they do listen to music, > this falls into line with what I've suspected for decades. > > As for something that *does* make a difference to me, a decompressed > FLAC can be played back by me with no time in between the ones before > and after it, so if anyone is in this situation and prefers to play > entire concerts as I do rather than songs extracted from them, that kind > of thing is something to keep in mind. I want the sound to be seamless > between songs; the flow of a concert recording is important to me, and I > don't want extraneous breaks between songs. Is this really how people > are forced to listen to MP3s, with sonic breaks or added overlap between > tracks? I'm against it. There may be a way around that, but I have yet > to find it. Thanks to anyone with a technical remedy that works here in > Mac OS 10.2.8. - -- David Mobley dmobley@fastmail.fm ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V12 #108 **************************************