Miscellaneous

I was pondering the idea of sound design when it comes to amplifier design. I am wondering if amp designers know what a circuit is going to sound like before they make it? So is it the case that they think about the sonic attributes they want to create and design an amp to suit or do they just build an amp with little concern for the sonic side of things and aim to keep the variables (such as THD) in an optimum range with an expectation that the amplifier will sound good at the end? In addition to this are there things a designer can do to deliberately change an aspect of the sound, such as increase the warmth, widen the soundstage or increase the detail? Sorry for …

Like Chrome Cast for video, but with without the video, for (audio?) devices without HDMI inputs ... http://www.google.com/cast/audio/ http://chrome.blogspot.ch/2015/01/introducing-google-cast-for-audio.html EDIT: Interesting that they have the root "cast" directory. http://www.google.com/cast/ Hmm, whats next. Text cast (or should that be cast for text)?

This is an odd topic but I'm looking for quick answers. I am having some Ikea solid beech wood butcher block counter tops installed in the Mayberry kitchen. They suggest sanding, sealing and oiling but they do not really give a lot of specifics. They sell some linseed oil but not a sealer and I am not sure if a sealer is necessary or recommended for use on butcher block counter tops or what to use and still be safe for food handling on them. Anybody have ideas for specific products or general procedures to employ or avoid?

This thick cable has got all the strange looks, and is really very stiff, almost tipping my gear over. A bit of the (normal) lamp cable deep inside can be seen through the blue semi-transparent connector (Patrick does not apparently believe so much in effects of the actual conductor). It works, as the image shows.

Who has heard or owns them? Pretty premium price...I'm fairly eager to know how they sound...

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…

Not my listing although I'd love to own her. At $7500, it's a bit pricey for my wallet but man, I do love the way she looks! http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1168892897

I ordered the Boltz CD-600 a couple of weeks ago. A part was back ordered, so it didn't ship until this week, but when it finally did ship, it was only in transit for two days. Assembly was a breeze, just lots of repetition, but I always feel great after I put something like this together. I also have a box with an adjustable incline writing desk sitting in another room ready to be assembled. I'm puttin' shit together, cos I'm on vacation this week, y'all. Respect. Sorry, no step by step building shots. Just know that there is a lot of screwing hex nuts and acorn nuts on long skinny poles. Assembled: Alphabetizing albums: All done: I got the a…

I'm in the market for a two person (rated for ~400-450lbs.) outdoor hammock with stand... I've tried various hardware & sporting goods stores to no avail...there are many places that offer hammocks online but do not keep a supply in-store...I'm not against ordering it online, but would prefer to have a strong firsthand recommendation before going that route... price isn't much of an issue & I should have enough space for most models... any help would be appreciated...& no, I haven't tried the Hammock District...

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…

Did anyone order any music from Grooves Inc: http://grooves-inc.com? I ordered a CD that no one else seems to have but they had in stock, and now I am being quoted "The order will be ready for dispatch in about 20-22 working days." This makes me worried, if they had it in stock why does it take them 20 day to dispatch it.

Read it and weep

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…

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'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?

Hey all- So I need some advice. My pre (99) only has one set of preouts which is currently running to my power (909), and I need to get my sub back in the system somehow. At first I was running the power with the Quadlink and the sub with the regular preout, but the Quadlink really does sound as bad as everyone says it does, so thats not an option. The sub can be run with either interconnects or speaker wire, and it has outs for both. So this leaves me with three options: 1. Use a Y-splitter from the pre. For some reason this feels like a bad idea, feels like it would degrade the signal. Anyone ever done this? 2. Run interconnects to the sub and then from t…

I am not sure if I can post this, but here is the link to this article, which I found very interesting to read Stereophile: Tim de Paravicini: King of Tubes Now I am wonder what kind of balanced output configuration my Unico have, because of this: "Lots of people have made so-called valve CD players with a couple of token tubes. Most of them don't actually address the problem correctly, because a lot of them, if they're going to offer balanced outputs, actually go back into op-amps to do the balanced output configuration. So they've got this token tube doing not very much". Here is some article about Unico and how it works with output thing http://www.audioenz.co…

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

http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-S2-Audio-Dockit-Affordable-Luxury-iPod-Docking-80422.shtml

bye now

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?

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 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.

Just to alert others of this as I have an alert set up for any data breach of all my accounts. I had a message that there was a possible data breach for my head case password so have changed it