Revisiting The X Factor

Yea, Virus is sort of a response to all the negative journalism and press and such. Not just for Blaze but for The X Factor and Metal in general. But the video version will give you a seizure damn near. I really really would love to get my hands on a 4xLP vinyl Best of the Beast boxset someday.
 
That video was shot inside Steve's empty pool. Once you see you can't unsee. I think Holier Than Thou by Metallica had a similar meaning about bad press and shit
 
Jeffmetal said:
Virus is quite different from 'Virtual XI' material, but, would fit perfectly on 'The X Factor', even having been written afterwards; this is on my top 6 Maiden albums and I rearranged the tracklist to fit the 3 b-sides to keep the flowing perfect and it gets beautiful (it should've been Maiden's first double album):
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Maiden’s first double album was Fear of the Dark. Vinyl double.
 
Josh said:
Right off the bat I think Virus should have been on the album.

Anyway, what was your position on it when it was released? I remember being excited but apprehensive because no Bruce. I grabbed the CD the day it came out, gave it a listen and was captivated by Sign Of The Cross. This isn't Bruce but this is Maiden better than Fear Of The Dark and that crap known as NPFTD (I don't respect it enough to spell it out). Then Lord Of The Flies, then Man On The Edge, then Fortunes Of War. By this point I'm thinking it's really depressing but good. I love Bruce but I can see Maiden going with this Blaze guy. It was a weird time to be a Maiden fan. I really liked The Unbeliever and Judgement Of Heaven. Even 2am is good. This is a great record.

So where do you place it in your personal rankings? It's in the top ten for me. This was Harris making an album when he was miserable and comes off great. They didn't need to make an album but they did. It's so unique. I love it.
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Virus is the worst song Maiden have ever done.

NPFTD is a very good and fun album to listen to. I like it a lot.

Fear of the Dark has a lot of bad songs and some good ones.
X Factor is significantly worse than Fear of the Dark.
I've taken X Factor and Virtual XI off my ipod. Hadn't listened to them for years.
In anticipation of the upcoming album, I gave these two albums a listen.
Still don't like them, but I am now thinking that Virtual XI is better than X Factor. At least it isn't so depressing and the songs flow. But very repetitive and the guitar solos are dull in both X Factor and Virtual XI.

The main problems with X Factor is the contrast of soft and loud parts, the lack of flow, the awful drum sounds and the dark and depressing tone throughout. I can't stand 2 am, it is a really sucky song, but not as bad as Virus. The b-sides of Judgement Day and Justice of the Peace are really no better or worse than the other songs on the album. It's a whole album full of b-side quality songs.
 
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Song I still go back to

Sign of the Cross
Lord of the Flies
Man on the Edge
Judgement of Heaven
Blood on the World's Hands

I could never get used to Blaze and probably never will. To me, this album is still a whole lot better than Virtual XI
 
karljant said:
Actually it was Live After Death. Fear Of The Dark was the first double STUDIO album.
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Ah yes, I didn't even consider it for that reason. LAD was one my first records, maybe the second after Piece of Mind.

Jeffmetal said:
I know very well 'cos I bought it in 1994, but, it wasn't considered as such. First double is The Book Of Souls.
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I bought it when it came out and I thought they did it because of Metallica.
Same when they added orchestra in BNW (after S&M).

I grew up with vinyl, had a big record collection for my age so I consider FotD a double album, since everyone I knew including me was buying vinyl until 1995 -1996.
Around 1997 I started buying CDs, with first one being Tindersticks' Curtains album. Thus I never considered VXI or BNW or anything until TBOS as a double album.

EDIT: I know it's contradicting to consider AMOLAD single and FotD double, but perceptions change as eras change. That time and place vinyl was the thing, in 2000s CD became the thing.

In 2020s of streaming era double may not be even relevant any more, thus Senjutsu could be again a single album in teenagers' minds.

EDIT2: And frankly even for me "double" or "triple" are just empty words for Senjutsu or TBOS as I bought the digital editions.
They are just albums, full stop, I push play and no need to change side or disk or anything until the end.
 
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______no5 said:
Ah yes, I didn't even consider it for that reason. LAD was one my first records, maybe the second after Piece of Mind.



I bought it when it came out and I thought they did it because of Metallica.
Same when they added orchestra in BNW (after S&M).

I grew up with vinyl, had a big record collection for my age so I consider FotD a double album, since everyone I knew including me was buying vinyl until 1995 -1996.
Around 1997 I started buying CDs, with first one being Tindersticks' Curtains album. Thus I never considered VXI or BNW or anything until TBOS as a double album.

EDIT: I know it's contradicting to consider AMOLAD single and FotD double, but perceptions change as eras change. That time and place vinyl was the thing, in 2000s CD became the thing.

In 2020s of streaming era double may not be even relevant any more, thus Senjutsu could be again a single album in teenagers' minds.

EDIT2: And frankly even for me "double" or "triple" are just empty words for Senjutsu or TBOS as I bought the digital editions.
They are just albums, full stop, I push play and no need to change side or disk or anything until the end.
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Yeah! I have all records on vinyl up to FOTD (except for TNOTB, which I never managed to buy, as of yet), then, switched to cd's and I only buy cd's for the bands I really love. I convert it to 'flac' and mp3 and only listen on this format.
 
Jeffmetal said:
Yeah! I have all records on vinyl up to FOTD (except for TNOTB, which I never managed to buy, as of yet), then, switched to cd's and I only buy cd's for the bands I really love. I convert it to 'flac' and mp3 and only listen on this format.
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Ah that's great. I sometimes buy on iTunes and mainly I steam on Apple Music.
Apple Music has started to offer lossless lately with no extra cost. However it seems one cannot enjoy the lossless sound with Apple wireless headphones. How stupid is that!
 
______no5 said:
Ah that's great. I sometimes buy on iTunes and mainly I steam on Apple Music.
Apple Music has started to offer lossless lately with no extra cost. However it seems one cannot enjoy the lossless sound with Apple wireless headphones. How stupid is that!
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That's completely nonsense. :facepalm: :D
 
Well bluetooth just doesn't cut it when it comes to transfer speed , so it isn't nonsense

(old school wireless headphones used analog transfer between base station and earpiece, infrared or radio based)
 
How not nonsense? Their top of the line headphones are north of 500$. Nowhere to plug, 100% wireless.
Now get that: You pay that amount of money and you are not able to enjoy lossless that Apple offers for free.
 
______no5 said:
How not nonsense? Their top of the line headphones are north of 500$. Nowhere to plug, 100% wireless.
Now get that: You pay that amount of money and you are not able to enjoy lossless that Apple offers for free.
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AirPods Max do offer a wired version though, it's an extra cable that plugs into the Lightning port.

No Bluetooth headset can transfer Lossless audio, this is not unique to Apple.
 
______no5 said:
How not nonsense? Their top of the line headphones are north of 500$. Nowhere to plug, 100% wireless.
Now get that: You pay that amount of money and you are not able to enjoy lossless that Apple offers for free.
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Apple became notorious for least bang for the buck in last 10 years.

Nonsense depends on your POV. If you buy older media center that has 100 mbit/s port you won't be able to stream modern video from it.
Bluetooth hasn't been developing for I/O speed but for convenience.
(It is fault of Apple to market something as high end but uses Bluetooth)

It also, always, had a dubious presence on the audio market. Transcoding, big latency, low range, security issues...

I've yet to run into a piece of professional hardware that's reliant on Bluetooth.
Apple markets itself as high end but it really isn't.

I'd be also pissed if I bought $500 of audio and then it can't chew normal music.
 
None of this would be an issue if it had an analog out port. You could buy a transceiver kit from a range of products (you know, what professionals use on stage when they don't want to mess with cables) and then hook it up between your source and your headphones.

But Apple is special so no, $500 headphones, no normal connection, no lossless lmao (although in Lightning connection case it's just a soft block why it won't allow it, plenty of bandwidth). Perhaps the DAC inside headphones itself can't actually perform full range too ;)

Apple comes with x2 to x10 multiplier in cost depending what you pick. Hardware is at least x2 while accessories can go to x10 of their normal value. Chargers, cables, headphones, remote controllers, whatever you. Apple will not sell anything below a certain price because they keep a sort of 'elite' image. So if you have a $0.5 cable in production it can't go for $5 retail because that's too low of a value for Apple logo. They don't want people to associate $5 gear with Apple logo thus you get a $50 cable.
 
______no5 said:
My bad, you're right. But still no lossless. :D Even with 3.5mm to lightning adaptor apparently.
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Yeah apple sucks for multiple reasons. I use an android device with type c (poco f3), hiby music (the only free player that supports passthrough, maiden audio also does but its paid), leeco cdla headphones which are type c ($7 from aliexpress) and audio dac booster (needs root).
 
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