12 Comments

Shel Talmy was amazing. Interview in next Tape Op Magazine (https://tapeop.com) in January. We use Tidal at Jackpot! Recording Studio and it sounds great over real monitors and pro gear. Spotify sounded awful. YouTube is just plain terrible sounding as well. -Larry Crane

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Also, I should have mentioned that Tidal Connect makes Tidal the best choice for anyone who has a dedicated streaming DAC and loves Spotify Connect. I'm hoping Qobuz can launch their version soon. We all know that Apple will never open up their ecosystem enough to do something sensible like that.

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Shel was incredibly kind to my friend Joe Baldridge when Joe was an up-and-coming producer. Joe told amazing stories about Shel when we worked together.

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Big Qobuz fan, also one of the ones I pay for. Thanks for your articles Jim, also good to read them.

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I wasn't even planning to write about this topic, but I was testing some new speakers and I was just appalled by Spotify when I was paying attention. Glad to have you as a reader.

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Well, thanks for this. But problem is much easier solved by just playing real vinyl.

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Also, "real vinyl" is perhaps the most loaded topic of all. Gotta find the exact right pressing and make sure you get a clean copy from early in the run (before the stampers started wearing out).

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You must be thinking of another vinyl planet. This was not anyone’s concern pre 1989 before the digital CD tyranny. Music made before then was made for vinyl.

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Nope. I had the misfortune to get interested during the oil crisis and my first albums were those garbage paper-thin pressings that lasted for maybe a dozen plays if you had a cheap record player with a heavy tonearm.

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I was going to write the required "listen to vinyl or CDs" paragraph but went with the Edison cylinder joke instead.

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forget it, most vinyl is shitty...

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Bandcamp, promote that platform. It won’t give you fancy auto generated playlists. It will put more money in the pockets of your favourite artists. It will give you the opportunity to own the music you want.

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