The Mike Moffat (#2 at Schiit) Blog

Damn, that's even harder than the real thing, which allows you eight. I hope you're not going to drop the other shoe and ask which one record we'd save if the tide came in unexpectedly. Five isn't nearly enough. No space for NiN, Ministry, Suzanne Vega, any classical etc... But here's the arbitrary five:

• Pink Floyd - The Wall
• Orbital - Brown Album
• Paul Simon - Rhythm Of The Saints
• Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong (live)
• Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton - Knives Don't Have Your Back

 

Well BBC can revive the programme for an upcoming polar cap special.



USB is simply too prevalent to not support, especially as more use laptops. Maybe it can be done like the Jot and have an optional slide in USB input card, which is probably the least inventory expensive option to do while still allowing for consumers to pick if they need USB or not.

 

Revive? It's still going, and is on weekly. The archive is terrifying, as it has been going since the 1940s. Be afraid:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/find-a-castaway

It'll probably outlive all of us.

 

Geh, I saw they had archives up to 2011 and thought someone punched a producer or something.

 

Regarding usb i'd rather have the option not to pay for it. My pc has a Lynx card which feeds aes to my Yggdrasil directly. Can't you guys cook up something like you did with jot, you get the addon card you want and save money on stuff that is useless to you? Maybe support 2 card expansion slots if you change your mind in the future or want more options.

 

• Pixies - Surfer Rosa
• Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
• Depeche Mode - Violator
• Public Image Ltd. - Album
• Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring or Laughing Stock

 

If I had to choose today, my five would be:

• Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya - Sotho Blue
• The Coryells - The Coryells
• Brian Bromberg - Woods
• Conchita Buika - Nina de Fuego
• Tinariwen - The Radio Tisdas Sessions

 

• Interplay by Bill Evans - gotta have Bill Evans, and I love Freddie Hubbard too.
  
• Shostakovich Under Stalin's Shadow - Sym Nos. 5; 8 & 9 (Disc 1) - I go back and forth on what version of Shostakovich 5 I like the most, but I've been on a Boston kick lately. That being said, I considered trying to sneak the Solti Wagner Ring box set in as one entry.
  
• We Like It Here by Snarky Puppy - went to college with half the band, I'm biased
  
• Sinatra At The Sands by Frank Sinatra - I wanted to fit some Count Basie, and thought it would be nice to get Sinatra too.
  
• Thriller by Michael Jackson

 

David Bowie - Station to Station
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians (the recent Ensemble Signal recording is my preference)
Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (the Arthur Fielder/Boston Pops RCA Living Stereo recording is my go to)

 

Haven't tried this recording (will do), but my go-to conductor for things Gershwin is Wayne Marshall:
Gershwin* - Wayne Marshall (2), Aalborg Symphony* ‎– Rhapsody In Blue / An American In Paris / Piano Concerto / Porgy And Bess (Virgin Classics)

 

I'll have to check that one out. I only have the Ensemble Modern recording.

 

Steely Dan - Gaucho
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
Coil - Time Machines
Henry Purcell - Full Anthems/Music on the Death of Queen Mary (Choir Of St John's College, Cambridge)
Olivier Messiaen - Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus (Stephen Osborne)
Kraftwerk - Computer World

Luxury: T.S Eliot reads: The Wasteland, Four Quartets and other poems

 

Would strongly suggest not listening to track #3 while tripping on actual NN-DMT. Trust me.

 

Thanks, I'll give that one a look!

 

Here are some difficult ones that are non-very-acoustic-intrumenty (but I consider significant and desert island worthy):
- Radiohead - Kid A (Or King of Limbs)
- DJ Shadow - Entroducing
- Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
- James Blake - Overgrown
- Portishead - Dummy

And one that I think will just be tough:
- Sigur Ros - Takk

 

1. Tricycle - Flim & The BB's
2. Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone - Yo-Yo Ma
3. Nightbird - Eva Cassidy
4. A Song for You - Kenny Rankin
5. Love Has Many Faces - Joni Mitchell

As for inputs, I personally would be fine with only SPDIF but understand that USB would allow reaching a larger market.

 

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
Portishead - Live in NYC
Tool - Ænima
Pink Floyd - Animals

And I agree, if there was an option for no USB i'd be into that.

 

Alison Kraus - Live
Patty Larkin - Regroovin the Dream
Bjork- Vespertine
Dead Can Dance - Into the Labyrinth
Goldfrapp-Felt Mountain

EDIT: On your second topic after the desert music, If you are talking about a processor that sits prior to the dac and after a music player, not sure you can ignore USB. I wish there were more reasonably priced options for getting music out of a pc but aside from the crappy optical on macs or an expensive pcie spdif board, it is what it is.

We may see the day when a good clean computer processor player box is priced close to a used pc and offers native spdif out, but it is very cost effective when I can buy a used pc and montor for under $200 and add it to a network. Still waiting for someone in Denver to bring over one of those fancy renderers, so I can hear for myself if it betters a well sorted pc setup.

 

If MP is suppose to be as big as a transducer level sound quality improvement, then digital interface differences are too marginal to worry about, even its as sucky as the Schiit Gen2 USB.