Miscellaneous

Do any of you have a shower filter? I have very sensitive skin and was thinking of trying one.

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…

http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/technical%20downloads.html Download the sound files, crank the volume to "11", and enjoy. I need to go find a speaker dealer with some big-ass bass horns so I can crank the fireworks recording to real life levels & get the full dynamics without clipping or compression.

Now that I have a house with a bunch of room, I would like to get a wine/beer fridge. Thinking about getting the Wine Enthusiast 11 or 165 version fridge. Any suggestions? I would like something that is relatively quiet and lasts a while, even if it costs more. http://www.wineenthusiast.com/wine-enthusiast-classic-wine-cellar-(111-bottle).asp

I'm trying to decide between a Panasonic 50PZ80U (50" plasma) and Sharp LC52D64U (52" LCD). Both 1080p. It will be mostly used for DVD, Blu-Ray and Xbox 360. Not much cable viewing. The room it's going to be in has two large-ish windows on either side of the TV, but the shutters can be closed. Viewing angle will be pretty much straight on, or at a 15 degree angle from either side at most. The Sharp is about $250 more than the Panasonic, but that isn't a big deal. It's hard to see them properly setup in a store since there aren't HT specialty stores in my area. Any suggestions or other recommendations? ~ $1500 (+/-) shipped is my budget. Cheers guys

Yep, that is right, toilets. We need a new one. I know some people have done some remodels lately and Steve seems to be the bathroom remodel king queen. So I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or models/brands to avoid.

Anyone know anything about Fossil Watches? Good/bad/indifferent? Relic? I was initially looking for an LCD/analog watch of the likes of this, but ended up falling in love with the looks of this one, due to (a) its almost all-blackness, and ( the cool use of the wood, and the way the numbers drift outside of the face. Who knows, maybe I'll get more than one. I'm thinking of getting this one, too (again, due to its almost all-blackness), but I'm worried that the red "throb" might be visually distracting. Thoughts? Anyone know of any other companies that make that analog watch on an LCD face with the "throb"? I'm a high-tech guy, so I should have a high-tech watch. I'm…

Ah fucking shit. I don't need this right now. It has been dropping calls like crazy, now it won't connect to the internet for more than a minute at a time, text messages don't work, I spent an hour on the phone with advanced tech support with Sprint, and even tried a hard reset, setting it back to factory defaults. No dice. Pretty much the antenna connection is physically fucked. Upside of this is that it's an excuse to upgrade. The tech set me up with an Exchange service ticket, so I'll have to go to a Sprint store service center and see if I can just plop down $55 towards another phone. Since the 6700 is discontinued, I think I'll get either the HTC Touch or the Mogu…

Hello I was lucky enough to get skyline's D20 for only 500$ (thanks! great deal). The deal is that so far i've only owned film SLR cameras and, as I understand it, my current lense won't work for this camera. Since I'm pretty much flat broke, I really can't stretch beyond like 300$...so here is the question. What do you camera-junkies consider a decent all-around lense for such a camera? Thanks

I've decided that I need something that offers a little more functionality than my ~10 year old Motorola Razer. I'm going to head down to Cable & Wireless (the local phone company) store and buy something today. Hopefully, it will have a lot of buttons on it, a fancy screen, and the ability to BBM. Until today, I didn't know what the hell BBM was, or even that there was such a thing. But someone texted me and asked me if I can BBM her, so I Googled it, and have now come to the conclusion that I need to get with the program. She told me that I couldn't do this with an iPhone, so now I'm sold. Don't know on what, or why, precisely. But I'm sold. Will repor…

Yep, It's now official Available direct from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-Phone-32GB-AT/dp/B00EOE0WKQ etc http://online.wsj.com/articles/amazon-unveils-smartphone-1403114271 http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/18/amazon-phone http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/18/5819516/meet-the-fire-phone http://gizmodo.com/amazons-fire-phone-is-here-at-last-developing-1592702508 http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/amazon-announces-its-first-smartphone-the-fire-phone/ http://time.com/2895275/amazon-fire-phone/ http://m.t3.com/news/amazon-announces-the-amazon-fire-phone Firefly:"It's basically the easiest way to spend your money you'll ever find."

Does anyone here have any experience with 7n7 tubes? I'm mostly interested in finding out who manufactured these tubes and which brands to look for.

Having bought many numerous sources, amps, headphones, speakers .... you name it. I wondered what are the purchases you got for especially good prices .... or that you are just bowled over by the price performance ratio. This can be new or used gear. I am 50 and have been buying audio gear for 35 years now so my list might be a little longer than most. To start the conversation off .... I am still shocked how good the little modded grado sr-80's Reks gave me sound. Thanks again Reks! The senn 595/120 ohm headphones that most people ignored continue to rival my favorite senn 600's .... and these cost me $110 shipped/ used. This is my favorite heaphone with the amps…

My Pop has asked me to recommend a home theater for him. $10k budget including HDTV. Any ideas, suggestions. Anyone with similarly priced setups out there?

I just started using my Droid X today and, so far, I'm very impressed. I know there are a couple of members with Android devices and there are a flood of them hitting the market right now. Right now, no news of netflix yet, hulu+ is probably working hard on making android their next big release, and Android 3.0 should start preparing for release at the end of the year. Not sure thats going to make as big of waves as 2.2 Froyo already has. So far, I love this damn thing and think its only getting better. Any particular apps I should look into? I'm waiting to root it for when the expected Froyo update arrives hopefully within two weeks.

News Release VIA and ArcSoft Bring Full HD Audio to Home Theatre PCs - VIA Technologies, Inc.

Ok, so earlier this week I upgraded the filament power supply on my amp so that I can use 6BL7 tubes in addition to the 6SN7, 12SN7, and 1633 tubes that I'm already using. My local surplus store had some GE 6BL7GTA's in stock so I picked up a couple pairs, both of them have black plates with a top getter. One set has an O-shaped getter and the other has a D-shaped one, using the former in my amp and haven't tried the latter yet. Impressions so far, somewhat similar to the GE Canada 12SN7GTA, but a bit warmer & smoother. Doesn't have the soundstage depth & height of the RCA 1633 and the images don't feel as "real", but it has better frequency extension on both e…

My ideal power strip thing would be a Power Squid with individual switches for every socket leg. Does such a a thing exist? Also, any power strips/surge protectors of any type that you think are worthy of recommendation?

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?

I know a couple of us make music as well as listen to it, so I thought I'd start a thread on it. For example, despite being a classically trained musician, I had never heard of Negative Harmony before, but now I'm all over it. Also, I found this instructive:

So being an old softy, I've been feeding strays for several years now. They all (about 10) take up residence inside my fence, and sleep in various places. Well last night we had a bad storm coming and I worried they'd get drenched, so I opened my garage door about 10", so they could wander in and stay dry. This morning I peeked in and got a bit of a surprise. I new that the Momma (Black cat) had a litter, but I hadn't seen them and certainly didn't expect her to move them in. The gorgeous Siamese (Fluffy) is from a previous litter by the Black cats Mother. She's got this fantastic coat of very soft fur, a tail like a squirrel and she's just a s…

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.

My Denon Integrated is getting very unreliable due to bad connections in the source selecting mechanisms (noisy and one channel cutting out intermittently). I was looking at an Onkyo A-9555 digital amp. Dont want to spend more than about $350 for a really good sounding integrated for use in the den (secondary system) playing cds through bookshelf speakers. Any thoughts or sugestions? Also need a CD player for this rig, as the Denon CD player just died.

I have to pick between two car receivers. Most of the functionality is pretty similar, however the iPod/iPhone navigation is better on one and the other has a HD Radio tuner built in. I'm unlikely to buy the optional HD tuner for the former. As I understand it, HD (Hybrid Digital) allows multiplexing, thus additional content channels and is mandated by the FCC to have at least one channel equal in sound quality to the analog broadcast. What I can't find is any commentary on how many stations multiplex (none of those I listen to appear to), nor even rough real sound quality comparisons. I can't even tell if HD Radio is catching on. Track metadata would be cool though. …

MIT gets a present. http://ow.ly/1sLw73