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Getting close. Countdown timer down to 63 minutes. Ribs on left, brisket in far right rear, and tri tip in front right. Salmon will go on in 10 minutes. New arrivals. Now the gang is complete.

I just ate, and yet I want a double double and animal fries. Dammit!

Can't compete with the lunch lords, but I'm enjoying my BS & BLAT: Breakfast Stout & Bacon Lettuce Avocado Tomato. Bacon is a breakfast food, amiright?!

Mike prepping the ribs.

Raffy rubbing Mike's brisket for this afternoon's feast.

Boeuf bourguignon complete. No noodles this time, but will feed me for a while.

Dim sum earlier.

Dunno. I always compare you to Jesus Christ and his ears took a dive during that year.

When you say "we went", I'm assuming it's the person you hire to help you walk after eating all of this food?

Brunch Then we went to a tea market, and tried somewhere in the range of 20 teas. And later, dinner.

Totally agree with you on A Red Rose Chain. That series is amazing. The new Mira Grant Parasitology book comes out next month. I'm partway through Moon Called, by Patricia Briggs. Initial impressions are positive. I also recently read The Shadow Cabinet, by Maureen Johnson. It's the third one in her Shades of London series, which I really like. Supernatural detectives and boarding schools, etc. She's also a laugh a minute on Twitter.

One for Dan, the Beetle Fanatic. This thing was a BEAST. Built 509 with a Procharger. Rattled all the windows. Awesome Skyline Another for my list of ugliest M cars?

Indeed, I think most of the album is at least just as good! Repeat, Unrest and Lungful are probably my other favorites. I've been having the same experience with Erased Tapes – Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm were other artists I discovered on Spotify, really liked and later found out to be from the same label.

If it has none of the treble peak the HD800 has which can only be reduced via modding, sign my ass for 2 of these. But the price I think will be within the vicinity of $2-2.5k.

They claim it took 3 years just to design the cable when it appears to be just a ribbon wound up in a circular shape. I guess Shure don't excel at project management...

The rest of the album is more of the same. Here's the link from the Erased Tapes web store: http://www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/eratp057

Oh fuck. http://www.head-fi.org/t/785577/sennheiser-hd800s-unveiled#post_12018462

No I baked it, just for the photo shoot.

The ending is amazing:

Extra points for the pictures and for actually being in China. But I'm taking you to HKK next time you are in London. Truly fucking epic.

The price is retarded and having Jude try and shill them is just sad. Well not for Jude as we all know he's a cunt but rather for Shure as they might have something good here. The amp has to be better than the POS KingSound are calling a portable amplifier... I do feel the sudden urge to make a super tiny KGSSHV and throw some batteries and a couple of DC to DC converters on it.

Very insightful, as usual. I was going to argue for the HD800 and SR009, but after thinking about it I agree with you.

Given that basically all the changes in the last decade that have been associated with huge price hikes have been in flavor rather than objective improvements, I'd be shocked if all of a sudden there were a giant improvement. Stax O2s, Sennheiser HD650, ATH-L3000, Grado PS-1, Grado HP1000, Grado RS1 I've not been convinced any full sized headphones released since then are significantly better for the given characteristics.

If you don't need the extra space, I'd just swap out the hard drive for an ssd. It will run cooler, use less power, and be more reliable. Plus, it will be faster.

sure. It's really a shame there aren't free, easily obtainable utilities that can take dsd files or 192khz files, convert them to 24/48 in a way that humans are incapable of identifying as different.

yah, the amount of 192khz material that's identifiably better than what's available at 44 or 48 in a blind test is pretty huge...

Lapping the heatsinks and brackets beforehand and a tiny bit of paste and you will barely be able to pull them apart.

This post is going to be something of an information dump as I try and summarize my notes from a full day of testing. I'll do another post with some concluding thoughts in a day or two when I've had some more time to think everything over. Apologies in advance for the length. -- Larry (jazzfan) had come up with the idea of doing a mini-meet when Andrew (particleman14) and I bumped in to him at the California Audio show a few months ago. Larry and I had each purchased Yggdrasil DACs and we were interested in both putting them through their paces and testing to see whether the Uptone USB Regen device made a difference. We later found out that that Adam (drfindley) had purchased the Gungnir Multi-bit and we were interested in pitting the two Schiit top-dogs against each other in a blind test. Fast forward to Saturday. We ended up getting four people (including me) together for some testing at Larry’s house. The primary setup we used for our testing was Larry’s B&W 804S speakers powered by a Parasound Zamp. We used a Placette Audio Passive Line Stage as a volume control and input switcher. We tested by playing minute-long snippets of our favorite testing tracks on each set of gear to be tested. We used a Radio Shack SPL meter to ensure that differing volumes would not be a factor. I’ll describe the most interesting tests we performed, what the group conclusions were, and my thoughts, if any. -- Test #1 - Does a warmed-up Yggdrasil sound better than one that had been sitting cold for a few weeks. Background: Larry’s Yggy had been plugged in and powered on continuously for weeks. My Yggy has been unplugged and powered off for a few weeks since I currently don’t have a rig to run it with. Would Larry’s “Warm” Yggy sound better than my “Cold” one? The Yggy manual mentions that you should always leave it on. Is there any truth to this? Conclusion: Yes! All four of us preferred the sound of the “warm” Yggy to my “cold” Yggy. My thoughts: The Schiit advice about leaving the Yggy on is real. There was a noticeable difference between the two. The “cold” Yggy sounded congested and slightly veiled compared to the “warm” Yggy. The “warm” Yggy had more definition and a crisper sound to my ears. We didn’t blind test this, but I’m sure we would have all be able to tell which Yggy was which. -- Test #2 - Did the “cold” Yggy warm up after a few hours and sound the same as the “warm” one? Conclusion: No. All four of us still preferred the sound of the “warm” Yggy to the “cold” Yggy even after the “cold” Yggy had been powered on for a few hours. -- Test #3 - Did the Schiit Wyrd USB device make much of a difference with the Yggdrasil or the Gungnir Multi-bit? Background: I was extremely skeptical that either the Wyrd device would make any difference. If they had better USB technology why wouldn’t Schiit offer it as an option to include it internally on all their DACs? Conclusion: Not really. I think only Adam (the owner of the Wyrd) was even certain he heard much of a difference between using the two big $ Schiit DACs with or without the Wyrd. If there was a difference, it was very small. My thoughts: I highly doubt that any of us would have been able to determine whether or not a Wyrd was being used in a blind test. I will not be purchasing a Wyrd primarily for this reason. -- Test #4 -Did the Uptone Audio USB REGEN device make a difference with the Yggdrasil and Gungnir Multi-bit? Background: The Wyrd didn’t make much of a difference, so I had low expectations for the Regen. Conclusion: Yes! The Regen makes a noticeable difference in the sound with both the Yggdrasil and Gungnir Multi-Bit. All of us heard the same differences on every track. The interesting thing was that on some tracks we preferred the sound of the stock DACs while on other tracks we preferred the sound of the DACs being fed by the Regen. My thoughts: I heard the sound of the DACs with the Regen as being slightly warmer and punchier than the sound of the DACs running stock. Without the Regen I heard slightly more top end energy and definition. The difference between using the Regen and not wasn’t huge, but it was there and it was noticeable. What was more curious is that some tracks sounded better with the Regen and some tracks sounded better without it. For that reason, I can’t really say it defiantly improved the sound as much as it changed its “flavor.” -- Test #5 - Which sounded better, the Gungnir Multi-bit or the Yggdrasil? Background: Larry conducted this test in a way that allowed the other three of us to test blind. We sat on the couch while Larry switched DACs behind us. He used a coin flip to randomize the play order. We conducted this test with speakers and with headphones. Conclusion: First and foremost, they both sound great. Second, what we initially all were sure we knew which DAC was which, but we ended up being wrong. We all thought that what was actually the Gungnir was the Yggy. We also generally preferred the sound of the Gungnir! We performed three sets of trials and the Gungnir won two of them and the Yggy won the other. The two DACs sound close, but there are definite differences between them. My thoughts: Wow… if $ is no object then you really have to hear both of these DACs before making a purchasing decision. If $ is a factor, get the Gungnir! The primary difference I heard between Yggy and Gungnir was that I thought Gungnir tended to feel a bit more laid back with a bit wider soundstage. In contrast, Yggy sounded more defined and perhaps more detailed with a strong center image. This was a very interesting test. I’m not tempted to sell my Yggy, but if I didn’t already have one I would probably buy a Gungnir and pocket the difference. The Gungnir is one heck of a DAC that some may even prefer to Yggy. -- Test #6 - How did the Oppo BDP-105 compare to Yggy? Background: Prior to owning the Yggy I had used the Oppo as my primary DAC for many years. I like the sound of the Oppo, but a lot of people online have claimed that it is essentially crap compared to the Yggy. Conclusion: All of us liked the Yggy more. The Yggy sounded more "organic" and slightly more three-dimensional than the "flatter" sounding Oppo. My thoughts: I still think the Oppo is a pretty good DAC, but between the two of them, I prefer the Yggy. I may just be partial to the Oppo's sound after using it for so long, as Adam claimed he didn't just prefer the Yggy but actually disliked the sound of the Oppo. I thought he was being a bit harsh, but again, my ears may be biased to hearing the Oppo for so long.

Next stop was here. What's the worst that could happen?

Burger

Jetlag

Pork steak al Diavolo with fries, home grown tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Yum.