Miscellaneous

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…

Here's my my 2nd love....3rd if you include wife and family: So far I've done 168 mph, 2-up (Yes, I know I'm crazy, but anyone that knows me, already knows that).

My phones setup is in its early stages. I have a Cambridge Audio DACMagic (c.1993) going into 404LE and SRM-T1. There is a Meridian 518 jitter-buster before the DAC, and the digital source is usually my Macbook, and sometimes a Sony CDP-750 from 1988, which I love for it's incredibly fast track access and associated number pad. The problem is, I feel ill after not very long listening to it. A headache which is kind of metallic-toothachey... I don't think I am running it too loud. I suspect the problem is that the source combination is just way too crappy for the Staxes, which of course I know. Even the 518 can't save the DAC. It is probably a minefield of jitter, di…

So my daughter is sitting in her bedroom in a rented house while away at college listening to music on a Apple Hi-Fi boombox. Suddenly there is a loud pop and sparks are flying from the power cable to the boombox while the room goes dark. She pours her water on the carpet which ignited from the sparks and called me. The boombox was plugged into a cheap multiple outlet surge protector along with a curling iron and hair straightener neither of which were turned on at the time. The incident caused the house panel circuit breaker for the outlet to trip. Any ideas what could have caused this? She wasn't touching or moving the boombox in any way when the incident happened a…

Nate, this is for you for the upcoming La Nina winter. $2600 Meyer Home Plow

ok, so a couple questions that might seem strange, but.. once digital signal shows up on a digital input, what happens? What I mean is, I'm assuming the driver goes into a fetch loop and it just writes that info to disk. Is there room here for errors or quality degradation? What sort of software is there out there do this "recording", any recommendations? Finally, is there some sort of standalone unit that can do this and say dump the data to a CF card or something? I'm mildly curious also how this is done with DSD as well.

World's most amazing subwoofer has no woofer | The Audiophiliac - CNET News 13k for the hardware and 25k for config and installation

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.

Hey folks, I find myself in need of a couple of webcams now that my relationship will be long distance for the next 9 months (one for me, one for the gf). I simply don't know very much about webcams and am not looking for anything out of the ordinary but I was still hoping someone could share an experience or two just to give me an idea. The cams won't be used for anything beyond basic web chatting (gchat and skype probably). Need sound for both as well, but I assume that comes standard with most. Budget is probably no more than $50 per webcam. Here's one that intrigued me earlier today. Thanks much for any/all help.

I'm currently setting up my desktop system in South Africa and will need to run my Ayre DAC off a step-down transformer, since it couldn't be converted to 240V. On the back it says 120V, 50/60Hz, 20 W max. I have a modest 60 W compact/travel step down to hand. To those of you who actually understand this stuff, am I likely to be OK powering the DAC off that? Many thanks.

Not for the newborn to take pictures:D, but for us to take pictures and video. My wife was thinking that we might want to get a dedicated video camera and I am on the fence. I have a Sony HX5V that does decent 1080p with okay image stabilization. The plus is that it's pocket-able and takes pictures. The minus is that it doesn't do video as well as a dedicated video cam. Oh what to do? I also want to get a new DSLR, hopefully the D400 it it ever comes out. How do you with DSLRs that do video feel about the video quality?

Maybe these are old news, but I'm often slow at finding this stuff. I have trouble both at work and at home with power strips that can basically charge my two phones, computer, maybe my slim, ipad, etc at the same time. I just bought one of these and will see how it works. quirky | Pivot Power Flexible Power Strip Any one else try it or have a better solution?

Anniversary is coming up. In addition to the new car I bought her yesterday, I plan on also getting her a nikon d3000. Just wanted to know which online vendors you guys like to go with.

I spent the last two hours disassembling my old bedroom system, cleaning out the area where it was, and installing the new gear. There was, ahem, a lot of dust behind stereo shelf (and I wonder why I have such allergy problems ). The old system was my father's: Yamaha receiver, CDP and Pinnacle speakers, all purchased in 1997. The CDP is still in the new system, but it is serving primarily as a surface to hold up the RR2150. I never really took any pictures of the old system, as it wasn't very interesting. This is the only shot I have: As an aside, the new Flickr interface is a nightmare to use. Click through for notes on what's in the photo. I lugged a re…

I've run into the need for some sort of shipping account a few times in the past, and recently ran into this again. Is this something that's hard to setup, or perhaps not worthwhile for occasional use? If I were to find someone that had an account I could use, is there any sort of authorization, or do you just give the shipping party the number and an address and the package shows up and the account is charged? Seems like that could be abused pretty readily. Anyways, if anyone might be able to help with an account number, PM me Otherwise, I'm trying to talk the vendor out of this requirement or seeing what it takes to set one up on my own. Thanks!

So I am looking at my comcast bill and realize they are kind of killing me and I am totally overpaying for cable and internet. I succeeded in downgrading cable to something that I will actually use. My current internet through comcast is the xfinity Internet at 12 Mbps and they offer that "power boost" stuff. My wife and I are really just internet surfers and email users. Obviously 90% of my time is spent here. No music or video or crazy downloading, we really don't watch tv or movies online or streaming. In fact I barely even hit up the YouTube but do occasionally. I can down grade to 3 Mbps for much cheaper but want to know how that would be.

So, looks like I won't get to a nice 80/20 based rack, as my wife as vetoed the aesthetic. She wants something totally closed (of course) and there's no way I can let that happen to do heat considerations. What we've compromised on, is something like this, in fact exactly like this would be great, but it needs to be able to house a 17" depth component... Any recommendations of things with a similar look? Otherwise, making something like this is just about as hard as lighting up a LED in a switch, right? (hint, hint, nudge, nudge)

I'll bet this is yet another thing a lot of us obsess about. The iPad thread has me considering several different murses. But now I also think I need a new briefcase. I have an old school leather Coach briefcase, which is nice, but heavy and somewhat impractical for my gadget-y self. I'm thinking about this: Zephyr: TOM BIHN Thoughts? Criticisms? Useless drivel?

I've been wanting to dive into the realm of digital SLR for a while now and with our trusty point-and-shoot getting bit long in the tooth/temperamental (along with wanting to have a decent camera before the baby arrives), I figured this is as good a time as any to do it. For the budget, I'd like to keep it at/around $1K. I'd appreciate any recommendations/suggestions. Thanks.

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. …

My listening room has new carpet in it, and frequently when I touch my headphone equipment I give it a good shock of static electricity. Do other folks have this problem, and if so, what do you do about it? Buy a metal bar and touch it before touching the equipment? Rubber mat? Chop off legs and replace with peg legs?

I currently have a 37 inch viewsonic LCD tv that to my eye kinda sucks it was bought about 2.5 years ago and from memory was about $800. My sole use for the tv is as a monitor for my mac mini. My mini video use primarily is as a dvd player and netflix video streamer. I am thinking about upgrading to a better set as the picture from the viewsonic is mediocre but I want to keep it under $1000, preferably in the $600 range. Im thinking about a 42 or 46 inch model. Since it wont be used for sports or high res cable/blueray is 720p enough. Viewing distance is about 9-10 feet away. The viewing room is low light so plasma would be an option, any recomendations from t…

Thinking of possibly rolling my MC 30. FWIR thus far the 6P1 is not replaceable with an EL84, only similar. Has anyone noticed any audilbe differences between the 6P1 and the 6P1P Svetlana? Thanks.

I'm wondering if I would be in a better position by buying a USB memory (64GB around 200$) or a new iPod exclusively for the car at 275$. I have no experience using USB stick for listening to music files and I'm a bit concern for the sound quality. Presuming the USB device will be more cold resistent if left (forgot) for a longer period of time in the car, I dont want to sacrifice too much for the sake of durability. Have you any idea on wich one will be ahead in this comparaison when using large files (lossless exclusively). Thanks in advance, Amicalement from the North....

I need to move some of my speaker gear around to accommodate my future TT which means I need to move my sub woofer about fifteen feet away from its current location. Allowing for curves banisters and height, I estimate I need a 25 foot L/R cable terminated with RCAs and 1/4 TS. Do I need a shielded cable for a sub woofer? Some forum posts say yes others say it doesn't matter. I do not seem to have any RFI issues in my listening room with my current pro audio sub woofer cable but I have no idea if these are shielded or not. After searching around until I have a headache I have narrowed my choices down to either- The Belden 1808A Belden 1808A, twin Miniature C…