Miscellaneous

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?

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 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.

Same photo, five different interpretations. Some changes are obvious, others are more subtle. Which one do you like best, and which one do you think is the most accurate representation of the actual real life scene? Something to think about and keep in mind when we're out listening to gear, doing comparisons and so forth.

I'm getting some weird grounding issues with my system. Any static discharge on my headphones/DAC/amp/computer (which is connected to the DAC via a USB converter) often causes my music to skip momentarily. Even ESD through my desk does it sometimes (and my desk is not electrically connected to my audio setup). One time, a particularly strong discharge caused my USB converter device to be unusable until a reboot. Anyone have suggestions on what to do? My apartment's flooring is all wood.

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…

Hey, I'm from Aus. As such, most of our gear operates at 220-240v, which limits my 2nd hand amp purchasing options. So the questions is, is it worthwhile using a step down transformer? What are some of the cons, that I could run into?

Hi All, I'm thinking of buying two measurement mikes and turning my new mannequin head Bob into a binaural head with ear canals etc. Once I do that I will also send it off to be calibrated and then the fun will really begin To do this though I need a dremel or something that will let my router out a couple access ports etc into the back of Bob. Anyone have something suitable I can borrow?

...with iTunes! Just realized it was just over a year ago that I, the Luddite IT Guy, finally caved and began the arduous task of importing my CDs into That Infernal Computer Thing. It started with the iPhone... when the 3G came out in Canuckistan in July '08, I knew I had to have one... I needed the e-mail functionality for work and it was just so much cooler than a Crackberry... oh and coverflow looked pretty darn neat as well. I did throw a few albums in to iTunes as soon as I got the iPhone just to have some material on there, but didn't get serious until the end of September. Rather than sleeping for two nights in a row, I schlopped in about 200 CDs. I was…

I'm thinking about getting into recording. Portable recorder, maybe make a dummy head. Regular visits to the Younger Hall, field recordings, whatever. Anyone here into recording? Is there a forum for this sort of thing? Where does one learn which bits of kit are best to buy?

How important is the correct polarity? Right now my source has XLR-outs with pin 2 hot, and my amp has XLR-ins with pin 3 hot. So I'm wondering whether I should order a pair of polarity switching XLR interconnects from BJC, or just use the ones I already have as I probably can't hear a difference. My system is used 100% for music listening, no recording purposes. Any expert opinions on the subject?

Having problems with the search function so apologies if this has already been dealt with. I'm quite enarmored with PC as source due to its convenience but wondering about possible ways to get data from a PC to a DAC. For instance I have a Havana DAC that I've compared using direct USB input vs RCA from an EMU1212m soundcard and preferred the USB by quite a bit even though it's regarded as a lesser method. It just didn't sound as detailed or tonally correct via the RCA socket. So, for an older style DAC with BNC input (like an Assemblage 2.0 for instance) I was wondering whether anyone has any thoughts beyond just connecting up the EMU1212m via a BNC cable and RC…

Audio theory question. If you have two components with separate volume controls in your signal chain (in my particular case a passive pre-amp and a headphone amp), what would be the preferred method of setting the playback level: Max out pre, use amp pot; max out amp, use pre pot; half and half (or whatever other proportion you fancy)? In practice, using an SPL meter to crudely level match, I can't discern any particular difference in sound quality. But I'd be interested to know if there's a rule of thumb.

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?

So my old Sony 60" SXBR takes up to much space in my living room so it's time to upgrade. I plan on upgrading everything so any suggestions would help. I think I am going to pull the trigger on the Samsung PN58B860 plasma unless someone has a better suggestion. I plan on wall mounting it and getting wall mount speakers to keep everything from taking up a lot of room. Thoughts?

So I am thinking about replacing my roomate, but the main reason that I haven't is because the volume of my snoring is turned up to 11. I've been told not only can it be heard through the wall but through the floor as well to downstairs and that's a hard thing to see if a potential roomate can handle without doing a trial run which is really f'ing awkward to arrange. My snoring aside.. you can hear everything through the wall including talking normal volume on the phone. So I want to sound proof it up. What's the best way to do it? I'd prefer to only do it on my side if possible since I'm not sure I want to invest money into making it cosmetically appealing especia…