Miscellaneous

Love that I'm just noticing this today lol. Seriously need to consider cutting the cord, what are some of the more popular options out there? The kids for sure can survive purely on Netflix, and the wife and I just need enough TV for a few shows and major sports.

Since I had the camera out, I thought I'd take a few pics of the new guitar. Did I do good??

Sorry if this has already been posted... My oldest son is starting college next fall and we need to get him a laptop, preferably a Mac. I don't need a $2K PowerBook Pro or whatever, just something decent. I'm not opposed to used also, although it would need to be something reliable. Thanks for any suggestions, Chris

I got my wife the Canon digital Rebel XTi and a Quantaray 70/300 lens for her birthday about a month ago. She needs a case and nothing at Wolfs is cutting it. Any leads to where I can find a nice one?

While looking around for potential candidates for new source, happened upon Perotta Consulting for Northstar M192. Just wondering if anyone's bought anything from them? It seems they have a demo Northstar unit, and would like to buy it if it's a good price, but didn't know if they were well known folks or not.

Hello, Wife's birthday Friday, and I've been wanting to get her a quality point and shoot for a while. I got her a nice Nikon DSLR a while back but notice she sometimes doesn't bring it as its somewhat bulky. I'd love to get her something I know she will use more portably, take quality pics and she can do all her downloading and Facebook uploading with ease thanks for any recommendations!

This is a little outside the "normal" world of audiphilia, but I have a pretty vexing problem. The right side transport of my Pioneer CMX-3000 is acting up. It can't read most CDs, regular or CDR. I am afraid the drive is failing and I'll have to ship it back to Pioneer. Before I go that route, I'd like to try cleaning it. I haven't owned a CD cleaner in more than a decade. From what I recall, they're not all created equal. Any suggestions on what brand name cleaning discs I should look for? I'm additionally worried in that the last disk I used (ca. 1994) was an audio CD with a brush on it. It included frighteningly cheerful music and a 1950s-style voiceover telling m…

Alright, so I have created what I think is a fantastic Senn cable. Perhaps the best I have made. I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on the cable. If you would like to give it a try shoot me a PM and I will gladly send it your way.

I realized that I have a ton of portable equipment that has a lithium battery in it and that has been sitting unused for years (long before Tim passed away): Pico, Pico Slim, cell phones, cameras. How dangerous is it to charge up a battery that has been sitting around discharged for a long time (evidently you are not supposed to do this ever)? I know that lithium batteries are not as likely to leak as alkaline batteries but can be really bad if they go. What should I do with this stuff? The cell phones I can recycle but I am not sure what to do with the Pico and Pico Slim. I was going to sell them or give them away since I never use them but now I am worried a…

I plan on doing a nice little headphone shootout (HD580, HD650, L3000 because they all share a similar signature) and it would be perfect if I could level match them all rather than relying on my ears. How accurate are those things?

My family finally decided to get a new tv, and we got an awesome looking Sharp Aquos 37 incher. Unfortunately we don't have hd cable or even digital cable yet so everything looks like crap, but watching dvds and playing games via my Xbox 360 at 480p looks really nice. Maybe I should get an outboard upscaler for dvds and channels that aren't availble in HD? I have no problem with the bars on the side, but the rest of my family seems to hate them...

So it was mentioned that LAME sucks balls, what else is out there, that I should try? I'm not agreeing that LAME sucks balls, until I hear something audibly superior myself. That I can use.

I like looking at audio catalogs, like real tangible catalogs. So far I have received the Music Direct catalog (awesome), the Audio Advisor catalog (pretty good as well), and the Elusive Disc catalog (soooo crappy, just a black and white print out stapled together). Any other cool audio type catalogs you can recommend?

Hello, sorry to disturb the high roller's party but i need some help from the experienced.... basically, i'm trying to find impressions on the 6sL7 tubes out there, and have come up with only one review: http://www.tubedepot.com/6sl7.html Does anyone have tube rolling experience with this. Thankyou for your time.

I'm in the market for a gps nav device, I'd like it to be voice activated and be simple to update w/ new maps as necessary. The only two brands I'm really familiar with are garmin and tom-tom, what else should I be looking at?

etc...

Link to Audiokarma thread

My niece wants a video camera for her birthday. What should I get her? She already takes a lot of videos with her phone (has been for a couple of years) but wants something a little more professional. She originally asked for a camera but is mostly interested in videos. She's turning 15 but is pretty careful with her stuff. I assume a dedicated video camera will be much better than a DSLR? What about this? https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1109405-REG/panasonic_hc_v770_full_hd_camcorder.html

I currently have an Odyssey Stratos Plus power amp which I have used for I guess going on 20 years and have been pretty satisfied with. I was thinking about upgrading it as these have gone from the Plus model to Extreme models. Klauss of Odyssey is now offering a Kismet amp. I can get my Stratos upgraded to the Kismet pcbs with a larger power supply for a fairly reasonable price. However, I ran across an opportunity to get a Mark Levinson No. 23 for around the same price as upgrading the Stratos. Reliability is a large factor in my decision. I've read a number of threads on diyaudio related to repairing Mark Levinson gear, and most of them seem to be a massive PITA t…

I'm a moderate photography fan. I've had a couple of good reflex cameras for 35mm film, but since digital took over film, my only digital camera is a Canon Ixus 50 which makes OK pics. I've been considering to get a decent or maybe more than that digital camera, but there are so many options... All I know is that I'd like to avoid huge cameras (my favorite one was my Pentax A1) and now with digital LCDs maybe a reflex isn't that necessary. I started to look at some options and then the Leica M8.2 came out as a compact, versatile and probably great quality one, which would allow me to swap objectives. The problem is the price. At about USD6000 just the body and USD1300…

Looking to get a 32" LCD hdtv for the bedroom, I haven't really paid much attention to the lcd market at all lately so I'd like to get some recommendations. So far these two look pretty promising: samsung LN32A450 toshiba 32rv530u any comments on either of those or other suggestions?

I dont know if this has been done already but I think its always interesting to see what music people use to audition gear. So mine are: The Beach Boys - Sloop John B (a capella version and the regular stereo version) Wilco - Jesus Etc Ryan Adams - Winding Wheel (MFSL) Justice - Let There Be Light Daft Punk - Around The World Jedi Mind Tricks - Genghis Kahn Vince Guaraldi Trio - Linus and Lucy Mozart - Requiem Mendelsohn - Violin Concerto in E minor Chopin - Piano Concertos 1 and 2 Probably some I'm missing but what do you guys like to use?

Normally the Sota TT/SDS/L3000 rig sounding like totally beyond awesome yall (IMO ), but something went a bit awry last night. It still sounded quite "good" but the magic was dimnished; I wasn't feeling the emotion and energy I would have expected from some newly acquired LPs (Judas Priest, Madonna, Opeth, Bryan Adams). The dynamics and separation weren't in full force and the balance/resolution was also a tad "off". Then today at lunch I noticed the shelf, and consequently my TT, were tilted by a significant amount to one side. Damn - I'd moved all my audio gear around the previous day and forgot to level the TT. Of course I'm somewhat miffed that apparently my floor …

So evidently the remote just crapped out on the TV/DVD player. Any ideas for under 60 bucks or so for a decent one?

Would an EMU 0404 fit the bill on this? Then again it would be nice to spend a little more and get a unit that could also act as a nice external dac and/or headphone amp in a pinch. It doesn't appear that the Apogee MiniDac has inputs though.