Feelings on Napster?

Treyhoss, first of all, If you were playing Sherlock Holmes you would have traced the past 54 posts back to the first one and discovered (brilliantly) who is the moderator of this thread. And because I posted the original statement, I can lead the discussion in any direction I please. Secondly, if you were a handy Sherlock Holmes you would have taken time to read all the subsequent posts, and noticed a couple of things...JK means Just Kidding, which would indicate a friendly jest on my part to get the juices flowing. It worked sure enough, however, everyone here is so busy being offended to the core they couldn't possibly pick up the elements of humor in my posts, say nothing about present a calm reponse. Thirdly, having read all the subsequent post you would have been able traced the line of thought to the present topic so you don't appear like a mental troll. But you might consider retiring your badge altogther Sherlock, because every single one of your assumptions was wrong. DEAD WRONG. PARTICULARLY THE ONE ABOUT NO ONE READING MY WRITING BECAUSE YOU DID. Let me give you a clue, when you have no concrete evidence to go on don't make accusations. I won't spend any more time boring you with the details of how wrong you are because your present post makes clear your inability to reflect on anything outside your own realm of experience. While I'm schooling you, I'll tell you another thing. This is a discussion forum. Discussion usually involves several points of view. If you can handle different perspective and stand upright (the callouses on your knuckles will soon disappera) and discuss things rationally. If you can't handle points of view different than your own, than join the church of Eber in another thread. I had previously thought this to be a discussion forum full of intelligent gentlemen willing to sanely discuss differing points of view. But all this whining and blithering and "go away, dummy" has changed my opinion altogether. You all are behaving like a pack of skittish poodles.

While you may have posted this topic, you do not own it or control it. I last looked at this post when it was about the topic you were presenting for discussion. I read everyone's comments and found them to be interesting. I even threw in my 2c at the time! I checked back a few days later and started reading things like this: "Basically, this combination has resulted in a nation of extreme wealth, little collective conciousness or conscience (america consumes far far more than its porportional share of resources), (in my opinion)a largely miserable society (as evidence in our incredibly high crime rates, suicide rates, incidence of psychological disturbance..etc." Maybe I haven't been caught up in the day-to-day progress of this thread (I am trying to be happy in my work). As I don't know you, my responses intent was to present irony - not a personal attack (did you not find irony in the writing?). If your intent was to get "the juices flowing" by espousing points of view that could be VASTLY different from someone elses - why wouldn't you expect someone to take your bait? Perhaps I did get carried away at the end and I will apologize for that - as soon as I can get upright and pomice the calouses off my knuckles. Thank you for "schooling me" and I apologize for missing all of your jokes in your earlier statements. They must have been riding on an 80kHz wave and went right over my head.

Issabre, or whoever you are, as soon as you want to discuss something in an intelligent manner WITHIN YOUR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, rather than vomiting forth false-anectdotal blather that wastes the electricity of Audiogon's server (i.e., try to keep away from bs like "the majority of Americans are unhappy"), and perhaps even stick to audio subjects, I'M MORE THAN HAPPY TO CARRY ON SUCH A DISCUSSION WITH YOU................And yes, I take partial responsibility for the political side-trip of this thread, and of course I realize neither of us is budging on that; only a fool would think we would, so let's not waste time with that anymore...........................Napster: I'm going to try it, gonna download several terabytes (or so) of free music, and burn CD-R's. Have you done this? Have you found the 128 mbit transfer rate items to be "close" to CD quality, or have you compared directly? It'd be nice if they were, because the idea that much of, if not all music, (especially digitally stored music) should be free, is appealing to those of us who need to save money. I've spent way too much on all the vinyl reissues to be enthusiastic about paying for music in ANY format anymore, much less CD format.

No, I've found that it's not very good quality at all, with alot of the longer pieces cut off unnaturally. And unless your using a T1 or DSL service, it's laboriously slow. However, it will allow you to get into some music that previously you might not have been inclined listen to or to purchase. Then of course you can purchase the music that you really do like on CD or vinyl. Some of the stuff that I was not familiar with previously was stuff from Ali Farka Toure, Fela and Femi Kuti, and a bunch of Brazilian from Joao Gilberto and Stan Getz and Cuban stuff and believe it or not David Brubeck. Also, I'd not been really heavily into classical, but used the thread in Best of Audio "most achingly beautiful music" downloaded some of it and really enjoyed it particularly the the adagios. However, unless technology signficiantly progresses, the MP3 will not be a mainstay for audiophiles for quite some time. I've thought about getting into vinyl, but it strikes me as extremely expensive and lots more parts to tweak to bring the system. Is it really worth all the extra effort and expense?

My feeling about vinyl, is that it's something that needs to appeal to you on a gadget level. You have to find joy in the process, or else you won't want to get into it. If you've not played vinyl on a highend table before, i suggest you find a friend who has one, and watch him. Then ask if you can try it. I find it quite fun, and with all the reissues, it's certainly worthwhile from a sonic performance point of view. When I got into this hobby 5 years ago, I was curious about classical and jazz, but didn't know much about them. I just started buying all sorts of titles, and especially the ones from the golden era of stereo. I've not really come across anything I don't like, other than the recording quality sometimes (it might be in mono, but not labled as such...etc.) I will still try a bunch of downloads thru Napster, mostly modern rock stuff that is probably better had, free....heh heh...........If you are in the southeast, you are welcome to come visit my system sometime, Issabre. I've found the only path to audio happiness, is to have both vinyl, and CD.