Miscellaneous

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!

I have an older B&D 14.4V Fire Storm cordless drill. This drill has 2 speed ranges and a wide range of torque settings. i really like it except for one minor problem. after many years of light use, i tried to use it only to find that both batteries are toast and that the charger puts out nothing. A quick search of the web shows that this is not an uncommon problem with these batteries and charger. I searched the web again and it looks like 2 replacement batteries and a charger would be at least $80. It occurs to me that I might be able to get an entire drill kit for not much more than that. So can anybody recommend a drill kit with similar features in the $80…

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'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…

Doing a little research for a friend who'd like a CD player and speakers (and amp if he doesn't go with active monitors). He can't go above $1000.00 and preferably would like to spend less. He is not yet using a computer as source, so I think the CD player is a must. I was thinking of something like this as a starting point: NAD / PSB Package-Audio Advisor Any thoughts?

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 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…

Does anyone have experience with this device. For some unknown ridiculous reason, my company only supports Windows Mobile devices. The device they supply is the Samsung Jack (on horrible ATT). This is the free and easy option. I could get another (Windows Mobile) device and have them jam it into the network, but I'm not sure how much of the tab they'll pick up. So for the moment, I'm trying to determine whether the Samsung Jack at least approaches the business feature set of a Blackberry or whether this is just a waste of time.

I suppose it's well known, but I like that someone is pointing out the films lost with every expensive new video delivery format. Hopefully, online distribution will shift in the opposite direction. The Ballad of Blu-ray - A Cinephile Takes Stock - NYTimes.com

By engadget: Klipsch headquarters walkthrough: behind the scenes and between the ears -- Engadget pretty neat

Hola I

Well it was bound to happen but I am hoping there is an easy fix. We have a Windows XP laptop that just recently refuses to startup. The error message is " A disk read error occurred, press control+alt+delete to restart". well I did that multiple times. I even let the battery run down completely then recharged the battery, no luck. I have opened and closed the DVD drawer and checked all the other ports and there is nothing in or connected. Any suggestions?

Hi Head-casers, I've been thinking a lot of time about speed (or perceived speed?) of the phones... How come that I could feel that one phone sounds faster than the other while both of them can produce or reach about the same frequency spectrum (eg. ES compared to dynamic)? Without comparing, it is difficult to hear that perceived speed, but switching from HD650 to STAX and vise versa that "speed" difference become very audible. What I mean by speed in this case is the "free flowing" or un-congested sense of the music through the phones.... Is this the right term to understand it as the "speed"? How come that a driver that can vibrate good at 10Khz or so (dyn…

My partner and I are thinking that we may want to buy ourselves a new tv for Christmas (probably 50"). Right now we have a Samsung 40" 720p LCD. We have been pretty happy with it but I think it is time for a step up. We have a lot of windows in the living room but do most of our watching at night. Any suggestions? How is Sony vs Samsung?

I think a few people heard this at CanJam last year? Anyway, it's now shipping. Obviously the focus is home theater, but I wonder if it can be applied to "simulate" out-of-head stereo listening? EDIT: I just RTFA more closely, and it can indeed do stereo.

Thought some of you might be interested... Stereophile: Naxos Blu-ray Breakthrough

Folks, anyone use the above software for ripping cd to flac ? I've been using it for all these time. Is EAC a better alternative?

My nice new office is horribly located, meaning the door right is near a hallway speaker, which pumps out gawd awful "soft" jazz 24/7. I can see only two survival options: A) Kill everyone Drown out the music I cannot use my computer for music, nor can I have computer speakers. Headphones are only an option for limited times during the day, so I'm thinking to get one of those smallish all-in-one ipod speaker dealios, but I have zero idea what's out there that may sound good. I've checked out two Apple stores (used to have setups and now don't seem to) a Best Buy (couldn't really hear anything with all the damn tvs going). I had one of those Bose ones years ag…

My sister & brother-in-law are looking for an LCD TV in the 42" range and want to spend about $1200 max. 1080p and decent connectivity are a must, built-in speakers are not. Will be wall-mounted. Given that the last thread on this topic is a year old, I thought I would see what people suggest so I can help them make a good purchase. Let me know if you have any brands, models, or stores/online shops to recommend or to avoid. Thanks!

Ok, in true Head Case fashion I have decided I need a higher end audio card for my office system. Currently I am running windows XP foobar and iTunes out via usb to my PS Audio balanced dac. The PS Audio dac will sample out to 192 but as you know usb will only go to 96K and I can't seem to get ASIO4all to load onto my computer so the better solution would seem to be to spend some moolah and just take a great leap forward. I am currently acquiring more and more 192K music files so I would like to experience the full extent of what my office system can offer while I am still alive. It seems that Lynx sound cards are highly regarded and can output 192K. There is the Lyn…

I need a bunch of different storage boxes for audio crap, computer stuff, you know random shit that I don't want to throw out. I use those plastic rubbermaid totes, but I'm wondering if there are any good websites other than the container store with storage options.