Deanage

$5.89? What currency? I can get them for AU$4.75ea (JB HiFi) or a 5pack for AU$22.50 Why so expensive?

The good point is that formats usually take AGES to die for good. I can still go down to the supermarket/electronics store & pick up cassettes. It was only last year that analogue studio recording tape died (Quantagy, I believe it was, was the final manufacturer of tape. Many people still mourn. I grew up with digital but I understand thier grief. The bassy warmth of analogue shall be forever missed). Apparently Sony is shipping more Hi-MD's to Australia on the 27th of this month. It was meant to be the 9th though. I'm hoping the delay was caused by the PSP release. Bloody Sony. An IGN journo had a good point though. He wrote that Sony should have used Hi-MD for the PSP instead of UMD. Data transfer rates and copy protection would have been an issue for Sony though. This is the end result of letting Samsung, the 2nd biggest consumer electronics maufacturer and a HUGE player in the flash market (and iPod nano flash memory suppliers), take over market share. If I asked someone who Samsung was before the turn of the century they would have looked at me dumbfounded. Also, it doesn't help when they try to charge over AU$700 for an MZ-NH1. Still though, ever noticed the warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you pull out your MD walkman in front of all the iPod-owning clones?

AMEN! A good singer will always sound better with a $1,000 setup than an idol contestant with a $1,000,000 setup. Try telling metalheads that computers are useful though...

Hey 1Kyle, I would assume from your question that you don't have a decent det of headphones. Go buy a decent pair of headphones then you'll never ask if PCM is worth using again. Compression is best left to iPod owners who are basically too braindead to appreciate high-fidelity audio.

Hey Quagmire, have you ever heard of SACD/DVD-A? These can be sampled up to 192Khz for a 96Khz reproduction, usually at 24-bit. You're probably thinking that it's pointless going beyond current 16/48Kz CD because the theoretical limits of human hearing is 20Khz. However, music played above 20Khz interacts with the music played within the range of human hearing (i.e. a 35Khz signal will influence the audible frequencies), so if you have a 25Khz signal and a 20Khz signal you *should* hear a difference between the CD 5Khz signal and the 5Khz SACD/DVD-A signal. You'll need a keen ear and HIGH-grade audio components to hear the difference but when you notice it it will stick out like a sore thumb (like when you notice a background instrument for the first time in a song you can't stop listening to). Hope that helps.