Maaya news

Unfortunately, it looks like the second Macross Frontier OST came out without a Maaya version of Aimo. But the fans still have hope that an OST 3 will be released with said track. *fingers crossed* (I'm not sure if these are Macross fans or YK fans or Maaya fans, but the more the merrier.)

On the flip side, it looks like there IS a new Maaya album in the works. Unfortunately, it is without an album cover, title, or track listing so far. (But it does look like Yoko Kanno is at least partially involved this time. I know some other fans were not happy when Maaya's last album was done without YK's involvement, but I liked it fine, and got some stamps I will never use out of it.

Kazeyomi [w/ DVD, Limited Edition]

Maaya Sakamoto

Of course, there's the requisite affiliate link for me to get a cut back from my own purchases. Not surprisingly, no one has purchased anything from CDjapan using my affiliate links. What is surprising though, is the number of clicks:

2008-10 16 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-09 9 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-08 16 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-07 14 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-06 24 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-05 34 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-04 9 1 12480 yen 624 yen <== that's me!

I wonder if it's just random bots or people who came via google somehow clicking through. Don't worry folks, cdjapan doesn't show me what you bought: I can only speculate what you spent that x amount of yen on.

What a week.

Does it make me a bad person that I am more upset that Sammy is leaving than about the $700 billion bailout?

It was not a happy experience to read about that in my RSS feeds this morning... *sigh*

I have some stuff in the works to talk about some other sushi places I went to recently as well as the season openers of both the SD Symphony (Lang Lang played Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2) and the SD Chamber Orchestra (mmm, Mozart), but I'm not in the mood anymore.

the SACD side of the equation, and why Sony sucks

After investing in a decent audio setup, I then discovered the world of SACD, where thousands of classical albums were available with better audio and multi-channel output. That's great, I thought, how do I get started?

Well, besides the hardware requirements, one should be aware that SACD discs usually have multiple audio formats on them, a regular layer that plays fine on a normal cd player, and a new layer that contains HD content that can only be played back on an SACD player. Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there, the SACD layer is encoded in DSD, which outputs only through HDMI (or some obscure thing predating HDMI). (I'm not clear yet whether this is because of bandwidth limitations, DRM, or both). Regardless, this means that you can't use optical (either due to bandwidth limitations, or processing power to convert a DSD signal into DTS). However, most SACD players will output in analog, but this requires conversion into linear PCM format, which is not quite as nice as DSD.

Oh, and then you need the hardware to playback DSD. If you're just using analog, then any standard hardware will do, but as of now, it seems as though most A/V receivers that play DSD are rather expensive. Although, the Yamaha RX-V661 is pretty inexpensive at < $400, but it doesn't seem to have HDMI 1.3 spec, so it may not do SACD over digital (HDMI). (I'm still a little confused about this issue.)

So where does Sony fit in with this picture? Besides the fact that Sony dropped backwards compatibility on the newer PS3's (even after moving from hardware to software emulation), they dropped a bunch of other features as well: flash card readers, and SACD support. "Fine Hao, so buy an older PS3, or trade a newer one for an older one." First, the only real advantage to a newer PS3 is that it is produced on 65nm instead of 90nm, reducing power usage and probably fan noise. (Well, I guess you could also have an aversion to chrome trim.) Another issue is the fact that the PS3 has never supported DSD playback for SACD, but converted to PCM. There were hopes that Sony would release a firmware update to enable DSD for SACD over HDMI, but that seems unlikely now that the new PS3's no longer play SACD's at all.

That being said, I am optimistic about future prospects. Right now, if I had to buy an SACD player, I would go with the Oppo 980. Yes, the 981 and 983 do a slightly better job of upconverting video, but the 980 does a much better job of SACD. (There are issues with enabling DSD over HDMI in the 983.) Plus, it converts to analog for my current needs, but also supports DSD over HDMI for any future receiver purchase.

awesomeness

Maaya's new single Triangler has now been in the top 10 on the Japanese Billboard for weekly singles for two weeks now! Apparently, this is the first of Maaya's singles to break the top 10, although she has had albums in the top 10 (album ranking) before.

Go Maaya!

In other news, my lab mates wanted to know what wiki pages I had created. While my entry for the almighty kuwanger no longer exists, tracking the history of Maaya's wiki page reveals me as the creator. At least, I remembering writing it, and I doubt there were a large number of Maaya fans using wikipedia during August of 2003 in Gaithersburg, MD. Yay for being technologically aware! (and a fan of somewhat obscure things. Computational origami anyone?)

And I promise, the food posts are coming!

Events from last week

Saturday (M's b-day party):

The awesome: Watching him open gag gifts his friends bought for him. Also, the food.
The amusing: playing I-never with various people from the lab and their significant others.
The not-so-awesome: Having my dish come out not quite complete. (I need to get a larger steamer, dangit!)

Sunday & Monday(hanging out with my cousing, S):

The awesome: My cousin's a pretty cool guy.
The amusing: Having him try two variants of not-good-for-you fries: carne-asada fries, and In-n-Out's animal-style fries.
The not-so-awesome: One of my other cousins (Z) chose to do his co-op in Texas instead of SD?

Tuesday (Anne-Sophie Mutter in concert):

The awesome: Anne-Sophie Mutter in concert.
The amusing: Having Lambert Orkis sign the cd for an album he didn't accompany her on.
The not-so-awesome: Not bringing some of my other cd's because there wasn't any mention of a signing on LA Phil's website.

Friday (Jennifer Frautschi in concert):

The awesome: Jennifer Frautschi in concert (Beethoven violin concerto to boot!)
The amusing: Seeing Prof. and Mrs. Frautschi at the concert.
The not-so-awesome: Too much echo in the cathedral (not sure what to expect there), getting seated at the end even though I bought an aisle seat, guy in front of me blocking my view.