First I would like to Thank+You ALL!
For sharing and providing us a place to communicate. Also personally to Nancy for offering Wisdom of Shakti to the Mix.
Jai Ma !
Now what I see is several points of reference, but I will comment on what I am processing right now after reading and thinking about it.
I will cal it… The “Techie” Factor vs The “Faith” factor.

Right now I am listennig to Shakti Rhythms by Shiva Rae. I downloaded it mp3 at a very resonable price from legalsounds.com. About one dollar for the whole CD at 192 bit rate. Converted it to CD with WinAmp. I got it now playing through an old Magnavox stereo. It is this monster octagon coffee table with a slate top. Only one channel now works. Do I wish both channels work? Of course I do! Do I wish I had the CD? Of course I do!
Does it sound better than through my old BA735 computer speakers? I think so. Better with both hooked up but for now… The sound of one channel clapping is sufficient.

Now on on the other hand… I am reminded of a parable from the New Testiment.
I hope that is ok to post it here.

From the Gospel Of Mathew.. Chapter 8 … NIV
The Faith of the Centurion

5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.
6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”
7Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”
8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. ……
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.”

Now I realize that a sound file type is a whole lot different than Yeshua speaking with authority to heal. But I think you can catch my drift.
“Just say the word…”

Namaste

I know you. If you’ve read into the middle of this magazine, you love blues music and want to know more about it beyond what you hear. You can also enjoy and know more about your music when better recordings and listening equipment reveal more of its magic and beauty than you’re currently hearing. In my last column, “Delivering Good Sounding Blues,” I spoke of new ways to hear Blues, satellite radio and iPods. While satellite radio delivers decent quality sound reproduction, iPods when loaded with mp3’s or other forms of compressed, low quality but small sound files, sound like something’s missing.

That’s because some of the music really is missing. This “compression” reduces the size of the song file so you can get more songs on your iPod, and download them faster. It does so by literally removing “bits” of the music that are less likely to be missed, but when compared to CD quality sound, it’s obvious that the compressed songs sound thin and lifeless. Millions of music lovers, who enjoy more music because of the iPod’s convenience, are not hearing some of the sonic details that reveal the soul in their songs. Do they notice? Do you notice?

Just after I wrote my last column, a much longer, more detailed story was published in Rolling Stone which expressed alarm that most of us are getting used to lower quality compressed sound. That reminds me of thirty years ago when we recorded our sweet and warm-sounding vinyl records onto cassettes to play in our cars and the Sony Walkman portable player, the iPod of the ‘80s.

On-the-go casual listening is very pleasing for millions of people. Unlike the musicians and audiophiles and recording professionals I know, many — probably most — people want their music playing in the background while they work, travel, or relax. They’re not hanging on every note and nuance of tone, feeling cheated if their listening equipment doesn’t reveal sound in as much detail as possible. If that describes you, enjoy it. Today’s portable players are tiny yet deliver the capacity to store thousands of compressed songs, order or shuffle them as you please, and even offer a variety of equalizer settings to color your music to your taste or suit where your listening (in a car or plane, boosting the bass a little lets it be heard over engine roar).

I don’t mean to imply that there’s anything wrong with listening to music in the background while you live your life. I wish I could do it more than I do, but I usually must listen and give my full concentration as a professional, evaluating both the music itself as well as how good it sounds through the recording and the playback equipment. Besides writing for Blues Revue and BluesWax, my “day job” is as a guitarist, band leader, recording artist, and producer for my own music and that of others, and partner in a record company and label group. To professionally evaluate the music that I love and craft, I want it at the highest possible sound quality. And when I listen non-professionally, I still want it. So do hundreds of thousands of music lovers all over the world, pro or not, who buy the best listening equipment they can afford and get a big thrill from what they hear through it.

Sure, advancing technology has created amplifiers, speakers, and source components that cost as much as cars or houses. Usually, the “high end” of music playback is so revealing that the music you hear through it is much more affecting. It would seem that the quality of music reproduction would progressively improve with new technology, but it hasn’t worked quite that way.

To understand, let’s look at a parallel development. The earliest musical instrument amplifiers used vacuum tubes. These are little glass bottles with filaments inside that plug into an electronic circuit. They make the small electrical signals that come out of electric guitars and microphones loud enough to drive a speaker. By the 1960’s, tube technology began to be replaced by transistors which were smaller, more stable, and more durable than tubes. But it didn’t take musicians long to realize that instrument amps using transistors just didn’t sound as good as ones using tubes. Their instruments sounded much less expressive and sweet. Almost 50 years later, most electric blues guitarists and harp players still use tube amplifiers. Reissues of old amplifiers have a large piece of the new amplifier market, genuine old amplifiers are valuable and collectable, and there’s a whole industry of “boutique” tube instrument amp makers who pursue the magic of beautiful tone.

Here’s a worshipful “tourist” photo I took in the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Arkansas. I strongly recommend that you visit if you’re taking in some blues history in the Delta. It’s a rear view of a guitar amplifier that belonged to Robert Nighthawk (1909-1967), who’s thick, creamy vocal-like slide guitar tone is emotional and poignant, like a great singer’s voice. This amplifier was probably built in the early 1940’s, and though modern recording and guitar amplification technology tries to “model” the classic, magic qualities of primitive tube amplifiers like this, the real thing still can’t be beat.

In the last twenty years, audiophiles (music lovers who pursue good sound) have also been exploring new versions of tube amplifiers. They don’t measure as well on test equipment as the best transistor amplifiers, but sensitive listeners prefer the warm, realistic sound that comes through tubes. The frontal lobe of the brain knows accurate reproduction is “better,” but the warmer sound that tubes impart is more sensually pleasurable to our reptile brains.

For serious listeners, there has also been a growing back-to-vinyl trend. Though CD’s have been the primary media for recordings for 25 years now, many audiophiles can’t ignore that the emotional content of music seems to come through better from turntables playing vinyl records. Some blues fans have always known this and never got rid of their turntables and LP’s, even though there’s a lot more care and maintenance compared to CD’s or iPods. The album covers are also bigger and don’t look…compressed. Blind Pig Records recently announced that they will release some albums on vinyl. They must feel that there is enough market for that in the blues world. It’s amazing that this is happening now, when physical CD’s are no longer profitable for some record companies.

As it turns out, the man who sells more vinyl to audiophiles than anyone is not only a blues fan, but a blues concert promoter, recording studio owner, and blues record company president. Chad Kassem in Salina, Kansas has grown his Acoustic Sounds company to sell new and old vinyl albums, special audiophile editions, and some of the best equipment to play it. He also has a carefully-chosen selection of CD’s, some engineered for better sound. His business thrives with a world-wide clientele of serious (and mostly wealthy) music lovers. His annual Blues at the Crossroads Concerts at his Blue Heaven Studio and his Analogue Sounds record label, which releases gorgeous-sounding recordings of deep blues musicians, are ultimate treats for blues lovers. If you’re intrigued by the possibility of hearing the blues music you love sounding as beautiful and clear as possible, Chad’s the authority. He stands with one foot in the audiophile world and the other in the blues. And not all of the equipment and recordings are prohibitively expensive.