As this blog address music lovers ready to invest (some) money in their (portable) hifi system, here is a suggestion to help you increase dramatically the way you enjoy music on you pc or ipod : a headphone amplifier + digital-to-audio decoder.

I did some research and bought one recently : a small "made in Germany" headphone amp that works on battery or USB, designed by Jan Meier under the brand name CODA.

The result is blasting : though my main pc has a pro 24bit soundcard, my laptop has an average one and listening to music with has never been satisfactory (despite my Grado Headphone). Plugged in the USB port this headphone amp bypasses the native pc card thanks to the Digital Analogic Converter (DAC) of the CODA (a Texas Instument) and delivers superb sound. 

Moreover the CODA has a proprietary cross filtering sound enhancer that gives a smoother sound and reduces the excessive stereo effect that headphone mechanically create. So when used with the ipod (plugged directly to the ipod dock to avoid the poor filtered sound from the jack) it is a powerfull way to increase sound quality. And it is fully portable.

for those who were lacking ideas for christmas give a look at the cute CODA MOVE3 at Meier Audio 

Meier-audio

Sounds of the 70s present a new compilation of 

rare and out-of-print 70s music

Back to basics

a string of musical bits to please your brain

Today's crisis is partly due to the lack of control of the tools that have been developped since the 70s : complex computerised algorithms in market finance and insurance are one of them.

Many Frankensteins have been released in the past 3 decades and it is time to take time and think about what mankind really can handle especially in science and technics. Time to reconsider what moral limits to impose here.

So what about rethinking our system and "values" (or what's left..) and go back to basics? 

Back to basics

a string of musical bits to please your brain

1	Eumir Deodato	Rodando por ai (Rudy's)
2	Mantrap	Fantasy Of Love
3	Carl Sherlock Holmes	It Ain't Right
4	Coke	Te Amo Mas
5	Charles Kynard	Summer breeze
6	Mongo Santamaria	Last tango in Paris
7	Roy Ayers Ubiquity	The Old One Two
8	Dan Hartman	Love is a natural feeling
9	Cedric Im Brooks	Blackness Of Darkness
10	Ramon Morris	People Make The World Go Round
11	Candeias	Sambaiana
12	Dave Hamilton	Blue Vibes
13	The Lebron Brothers	Together
14	Carl Carlton	Signed Sealed Delivered
15	bonus track 1	Stubborn Kind Of Fellow [Live]
16	bonus track 2	Outro [Live]

Members only:

Private link on demand at soundsofthe70s@gmail.com

comments on tracks:

I love more and more instrumental tracks in whatever style: Rodando por ai from the perfect album Os Catedraticos 73 (released as Skyscrapers in the USA) by Deodato as a brazilian beat jerk exemple, Last Tango in Paris from the amazing Fuego by Mongo Santamaria in a funky latin-jazz way. Charles Kynard's Summer breeze from Your mama don't dance is a superb jazz-funk track, with a strange almost sinister intro for a summer track. Blackness of darkness by Cedric Im brooks is a cool reggaejazzfunk track that can warm any atmosphere!

But some good old funk/disco/boogaloo is necessary to balance that : Carl Carlton cover of the Stevie Wonder Signed Sealed Delivered (here to celebrate the election of Barack Obama), or the Lebron Brothers in the funky latin soul gemm Together.

To close the compilation are 2 tracks from one of the very last Live session from an artist you all know. The outro is touching, the artist evokes the end of his life and career (over a totally killer jam groove that needs attention)... he died soon after shot dead by his father.