allthumbs

In those 10 rules he kinda dismissed the whole idea of High Fidelity or True Fidelity and invented Whatever Fidelity or Partial Fidelity or Universal Fidelity and Individual Fidelity.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I kinda like that industrial look, it provides a wonderful dichotomy to the lovely sound they produce.

In no particular order: Apocalypse Now (Willards voice over narrative was written by Michael Herr of "Despatches" fame, one of the best books of men at war. Jarhead Downfall Paths of Glory

I quite enjoyed Dracula. Steve Moffatt's involvement wasn't an attraction for me as I haven't been a Doctor Who fan after the age of 7 and the days of William Hartnell and to be honest I was more a Dalek fan than a Dr.Who fan. Nevertheless, Dracula on Netflix has some humour and the performances of Dracula and Van Helsing characters are extremely good with wit, sexual tension and a modern spin on the whole thing. But it's visual style plays small homages to previous styles from Hammer Films and Coppola's film and even Herzog's Nosferatu. Not riveting, nor surprising and loses the energy fairly early on after the surprise twist midway through the season. But for the main two characters and their dialogues and some of the more modern psychology that drive both, the story is relatively pedestrian. Worth a watch though even just for the opening episode which is really great story telling and for scene setting, character introductions etc.

Yes, fully agree, I always think of him as more weary and cynical definitely more in his cups than out, he must have been a brave knight at sometime and Edgerton gives it the character a more rounded and nuanced personification than the normal buffoonery that is often performed and the underlying warrior he must have been. It was Worthington that played Macbeth in an Australian film production a few years ago now based around a Criminal Gang which didn't work for me at all. Sean Harris was stand out in The King. Never enough Shakespeare, never enough.

Woops, Joel Edgerton not Sam Worthington. My apologies. I find something grating about the both though! Ben Mendelsohn was excellent and seems to be a fixed cast member of everything Netflix, and the guy who played the King of France was excellent.

"It's not without flaws, however a great take on the Shakespeare plays (Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2.) and a great film in it's own right. A definite "Michod" stamp on it and a great effort by the other key Aussies involved. " My thoughts as well, although it was a new take on Falstaff (not such a bad thing, contrary to most I am not a huge fan of the bard's Falstaff). Updates to Shakespeare are well worth the effort as it may be a way of introducing new discoverers to Shakespeare. Something about Worthington grates with me and I'm not sure what it is. He seems to be a fan of Shakespeare and his earlier Macbeth was a valiant attempt, so I give him a thumbs up. Apropos Shakespeare, although not streaming I watched a DVD from the library of All is True, about the last 3 years of Shakespeare's life after retiring from the theatre. Directed and starring Kenneth Branagh, with Judy Dench and Ian Mackellen, written by Ben Elton. Shot in 30 days on a shoestring budget. I liked it very much. Exeunt.

Although not in Sydney Paul Spencer of Red Spade Audio is your man, especially if a horn is involved.

Well the scene is set for the return of wide baffled speakers I'd say, need to churn, high efficiency the new key word, Retro styling, maybe Klipsch have been stealing some significant market share of late, "we was wrong" mea culpa.

I have a db measurement app on my phone, and from my seated position to the speakers is anywhere between 3m or 4m. When it's relatively quiet I can listen at 40-45db with peaks at around 55db or 50db with peaks of 60db plus or minus 1 or 2 db. So i don't get the visceral impact these days, but I still have a sense of scale, great detail and soundstage, even excitement, speaker disappearance, It's something that I have got used to, I am intending to keep my hearing for as long as possible and am still managing 16-17Kz. I saw the Zohra orchestra the other night at Robert Blackwood Hall and could still hear the light single notes of a triangle amidst the fuller moments of the orchestral sweep.

I have a pair of Ascension speakers built by Adelaide speakers, they are standmount 2 way sealed speakers. They were OK, but something was not right with them and it was the crossover and over stufffed. The drivers themselves are very good and I could hear a greater latent potential than they were showing, the speaker cabinets are plain but very well built, but how much can you do with a box, right? I approached Paul Spencer of Red Spade audio for his thoughts and I ended up with Paul building an extraordinary 4th order crossover one for the woofer and one for the tweeter in each cabinet. They measure exceptionally well and sound magnificent. Paul lives and breathes everything audio, his experience is wide ranging, his knowledge base seems to fathomless and he has a great pair of ears, golden ears as they say. I keep catching myself shaking my head in disbelief as to what these speakers once were and what they are now. He was inspired and felt confident he could with the crossover and the existing drivers and cabinet provide a sound superior to a very, very much more expensive speaker, and to his credit and judgement he achieved what he set out to do and to my ears has provided me with many years of great enjoyment.

Me too. I just meant the characters they sing about are past their prime and somehow have a grander vision of themselves as they were once, unfulfilled promise but Fagen's voice always sounds as if the character is a vacuous narcissist or on the brink of a moment of self-awareness, amidst the humour is a kind of bitterness, not so much in growing old but in something that kind of died in them along the way. A "whole conference" on the American Middle Class white male could be based around SD's songs. Kind of like Philip Roth with music!

OK. I can't hear it myself, SD has always been slick, oil on water slick, and painstaking, but I have heard these stories before about the Beatles and CSN&Y recording Deja Vu (arguing over one or two notes in a harmony and almost coming to blows) etc. As I get older I've grown a little weary of the Dan sound but Everything Must Go I consider a high water mark in performance and song quality and right up there in the top 3 or 4 albums IMHO that had been released I think in the year I saw them at Rod Laver and I was hoping to hear that performed live, but unfortunately (to some degree) they ended up doing the hits. I developed a real appreciation for Becker's guitar playing, probably underrated even now.

Are you referring to the recorded sound or the music itself? Steely Dan whether as a group or as separate solo efforts by Fagen and Becker, in my opinion are not an "emotional" group full of feeling outside of the groove. The songwriting is too humorous, too cool and ironic. Fagen could never remove the slight sneer from his voice. In a cabaret setting with some different arrangements the song lyrics are hilarious and someone should be planning a revue using the songs as a basis for a comedy show. The continual nostalgia, the longing for the glory days or what was and what might have been has informed so much of Dan's output and it became more absurd as they got older an for me encapsulates the baby boomer generation that failed to grow up, had it all and continues to whinge and complain. When I saw them live last time they were in Melbourne I didn't get the feel that there was one improvised note in the whole performance, the energy is in their exactitude like classical musicians. Gaucho is a great album track by track it is absolutely solid and funny, extremely funny!

I have become so enjoyably lazy that I now pretty much just stream music from ABC Classic either via my Computer or via the TV on Channel 27. I am just looking for some clarification, I run the TV via the optical output to my Topping DAC and into my Cambridge 651a amp. My question is, is the TV acting effectively as a pre-amp? It sounds great. I was always impressed with ABC JAzz on Channel 201, but the Classic sounds phenomenal. Is the TV transmitting FM or the Digital equivalent, because the playlists are not always the same when compared.