There is a difference but it isn't always the medium. I have recording of a piano concerto on LP and CD. The LP is clearly superior - but as to why? When they went back to the master tapes to produce the CD, the person doing the mastering has likely a different person doing the mastering with a different intention.

I have some recordings where I have master quality recording - but yeah - can one really hear the difference. I can when listening through high end headphones. On the other hand, I listen to a lot of music in our kitchen using an Amazon Echo 8. It's wonderful as I can ask Alexa to play anything - and she does. Sounds great - no fuss.

Jolly - depends on what you want to do. Up here, with just a little patience - one can find decent receivers for $20-$50 that sold for $300-$500 new a while back. Same thing with speakers.

I think I told the story of a very devout woman who asked me to put together a system for her. I asked her budget. She said "$100." A day or so later, she said she'd changed her mind. In any event I found a receiver for $15 at a garage sale - nice one. I got a CD player for free - and speakers were found next to the garbage at a high rise. So for $15 which I didn't charge her for, she had a "system." She's used it for the past 25 years.

Now, if you want to connect your phone to the receiver, there's some added expense - or if you want to convert your albums to digital, you'd need either a turntable with an A/D converter or a separate one. Frankly, I've not converted my phonograph albums to digital and don't plan to . Separate worlds for me.

You can get your $160 water bottle here. They have some $90 titanium coffee (covfefe?) cups for sale at REI if you're interested.

Reminds me of a Candid Camera (or similar) show that had men asked to hold a ladder while a very attractive woman in a short skirt climbed the ladder. They wanted to see how many men looked up. One guy who had his hat on backwards, moved the flap to the front as it made it easier for him not to take a peek. Of course, if he was wearing his hat properly, there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

Noonan's take on the Trump Presidency. She does a nice job of explaining some of his appeal in 2016 at the start of the column - but I think she underestimates the strength of his support for 2024.

From my industry guy, the difference is timing. When DJT got the Saudis to increase the oil supply it knocked down the price of oil and murdered off a lot of oil drilling and exploration in the US. It made a lot of investment in oil exploration in the US nearly untenable. Now, the Saudis get to reap the rewards of that. Mind you, he hates Biden - just noting that DJT was focused on getting oil prices down (laudable) but too low a price - and some people are forced to leave the market.

Every once in a while I'll skip a couple of days to have that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad look that was all the rage a while back. My one brother said, "yeah, that looks great if you're 35, but at a certain age, you just look look like a vagrant." I don't think I could ever do the real deal.

From an industry guy I follow - the biggest issue is we are exporting about 25% of our gasoline (i.e. refined stuff) out of the country - AND best of all, it isn't to Europe to help with shortages there, it is to Mexico and Latin America based on his review of oil industry contracts.

Men have leakage issues that could use attention.