Search results

  1. John Kotches

    Best/favorite guitar solo?

    No one has yet mentioned one of my personal favorites... Larry Carlton on Steely Dan's Kid Charlemagne. Absolutely killer work. Cheers,
  2. John Kotches

    Seal's Kisss from a Rose lyrics

    Graham, Well you've skipped a few words here and there but that's ok... Generally speaking, grey is considered drab and dreary, yes? Consider "The Kiss From a Rose" to be love, and it's effect on a formerly drab and dreary (grey) life and I think that you're probably getting pretty...
  3. John Kotches

    Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms - DVD-A or DualDisc?

    Kyle: Could you explain why the SPARS code for Brothers in Arms was DDD then? It cannot have a SPARS code of DDD if it's mixed on an Analog console, it would have to be DAD, or AAD. According to Steve Hoffman, BIA was the first disc to be released as DDD. There were analog tracks...
  4. John Kotches

    It's Official: HD DVD and Blu-ray Can Limit High Resolution To HDMI Only

    Eric, If you review and post in the forums you learn to have thick skin[/i] pretty quickly ;) Best,
  5. John Kotches

    It's Official: HD DVD and Blu-ray Can Limit High Resolution To HDMI Only

    Glenn, I don't have a problem with your post. In this cut and paste world it's easy to have your words move from forum to forum to forum pretty easily, and without your knowledge. Cheers,
  6. John Kotches

    It's Official: HD DVD and Blu-ray Can Limit High Resolution To HDMI Only

    I don't review displays for WSR. I do handle audio reviews for some universal players. Those aren't around for that long, typically about 4-6 weeks.
  7. John Kotches

    Any Ideas? Need to replace a GYBR SACD

    Are there any obvious physical flaws on the disc? If not, and depending on the age you may have a hard time getting Universal or the pressing plant to replace the media. Good luck though. Cheers,
  8. John Kotches

    Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms" coming to SACD in May!!

    I guess I'm going to voice the "Minority Report" on this forum too... This disc doesn't suck by any stretch of the imagination, but it just misses the mark of being reference class for me. Here's where I think it falls short: 1) Inconsistent mix of lead vocal between phantom center, hard...
  9. John Kotches

    Best SACD So far

    Andrew: Some of us like the fact that they have intelligent (often wry) lyrics as opposed to the vast majority of what passes for popular music these days. Ahh well, everybody has different tastes. I just got word that Brothers in Arms shipped, but it's not slated to arrive until next...
  10. John Kotches

    Best SACD So far

    Rachael, Well, I believe that Steely Dan has delivered more groove on one track, Pretzel Logic, than Spyro Gyra has in > 25 years of recording. If you want even more groove at uptempo for a variation, add in Kid Charlemagne. Most unimpressive. But that's just my opinion. Cheers,
  11. John Kotches

    Best SACD So far

    Rachael: No they don't. For one thing, they have no soul, nor do they have any concept of a true groove, and their material sounds about the same as when they first hit the scene 25 years or so ago. Then there's the fact that Beckenstein has an almost non-existent tone quality to his horn...
  12. John Kotches

    Best SACD So far

    Spyro Gyra. They aren't even bubble gum jazz, and yes I have the disc. Soulless elevator music. Yes, it's well recorded, but there's simply nothing particularly appealing to me about any of their performances.
  13. John Kotches

    Best SACD So far

    Rachael, Sound quality is meaningless if the performance is emotionless or drivel. There is at least one recording in your list that qualifies in this category. Cheers,
  14. John Kotches

    Best SACD So far

    There's no doubt (if you have the patience and time) that Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding is great demonstration material on SA-CD and DVD-Audio. On my system the DVD-A sounds a tad better, but it's skewed that way anyway. There are a few other great demo tracks on this disc as...
  15. John Kotches

    Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms" coming to SACD in May!!

    Danny, I ordered through CD Wow, but I haven't received shipping confirmation yet. Should be fun when it gets here though. Cheers,
  16. John Kotches

    How can I tell if I blew a tweeter

    Alternatively, one could use a disc with something like a treble decade and use that to test to see if the tweeter has failed. Connect directly to the tweeter at low volume and see what the output is. If nothing, you've lost the tweeter. Cheers,
  17. John Kotches

    More exclusive Dualdisc on the way

    Dan: Sony's near lack of support for any high resolution releases (I don't want to exclude the potential for a token SA-CD release) is a mystery to nearly everyone that likes High-res. Cheers,
  18. John Kotches

    So is Dual Disc making a splash or sinking?

    I thought I heard that Guero was released in Europe. I could be wrong.
  19. John Kotches

    So is Dual Disc making a splash or sinking?

    Kris, I pointed it out a lot more politely than some format zealots would have :) Chers,
  20. John Kotches

    So is Dual Disc making a splash or sinking?

    Kris, A point of correction... The Knopfler and Beck releases are on SA-CD in Europe. There is more to the marketplace than the US :D Best,
  21. John Kotches

    More exclusive Dualdisc on the way

    Rich, Just to be clear, here's the players involved: Meridian 598DPPanasonic RP-56Simaudio Moon OrbiterMeridian G91Denon DV-5900Pioneer DV-59AViNakamichi CD-300 (car single slot)Mercury Mountaineer Factory (car 6 disc slot)Oritron Portable CDDell Inspiron 9100 DVD/CD-R/RW Combi/IBM Thinkpad...
  22. John Kotches

    More exclusive Dualdisc on the way

    Rich, My evidence isn't anecdotal. I test every player that comes through here for review with DualDisc. If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing a good job. Or do you consider only reports of failure to be factual vs. anecdotal?
  23. John Kotches

    More exclusive Dualdisc on the way

    Rich Malloy says: Yes. I have noticed no failures across 12 DualDiscs in 10 players. These have ranged in price from a $40 walkman type portable to $7K high-end universal players. Cheers,
  24. John Kotches

    More exclusive Dualdisc on the way

    Lee: As an FYI, Stuart Robinson wasn't hired to do DVD-Audio reporting for High Fidelity Review. He owns the website. The SMR Group is his company. Best,
  25. John Kotches

    Pink Floyd The Wall in HD

    Lee: Euro import, since it's not on Warner. The US WB Release will be on either DualDisc or Double Disc, I'm not sure which. Since Brothers in Arms is a native PCM recording, it will sound its best delivered as PCM. I expect that'll be out in the US in another month or so, but I haven't...
  26. John Kotches

    I don't see why anybody is suppourting Dual-y Disc!

    I'm not 100% sure if I'm looking forward to lossless compression on Blu-ray and HD-DVD. We'll start hearing more of their tricks on soundtracks ;) Then again, HDTV and DVD has forced Television and Motion Picture studios to improve their video techniques, perhaps this will force them to do...
  27. John Kotches

    Does SACD really have a future?

    Paul: The datastreams for DD+ and DTS-HD are claimed to be decodable by legacy decoders so there shouldn't be a compatibility issue. That said, I haven't personally tried anything encoded with either of these, so I can only go by what I'm told from the company's technical representatives...
  28. John Kotches

    Does SACD really have a future?

    Michael asks: I don't know how this is all going to play out. I suspect that it will save on licensing costs but I don't have any information on this from anyone. I will pose a query to someone that might now, but won't promise an answer. Cheers,
  29. John Kotches

    Does SACD really have a future?

    PaulDA asks: DD+ is lossy (verging on lossless) and the nomenclature change of MLP to Dolby Lossless means there's a Dolby badged solution that runs the gamut from low bit rate to lossless encoding. Cheers,
  30. John Kotches

    Does SACD really have a future?

    Earlier in this thread someone asked about hi-res support in Blu-ray and HD-DVD. About a week ago (give or take) it was announced that Blu-ray is going to support Dolby Digital Lossless, which is MLP with a new name. Now both sides support the same codecs on both side: Video: MPEG-2...
Top