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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/24/2022 in all areas
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Now this X9000 thingy... I am waiting in anxiety for Birgir's impression on it, as it might sound good with the types of music he is listening to. I have borrowed one (with a DAC, amp, cables, the whole shebang) from a lovely owner due to his lack of time to listen for a whole week now, and I have changed my mind like 5 times. I think it is probably the fastest headphone I've heard with the best, ultra-precise spatial detail, very foot-tapping, this is the type of music where it is very impressive. but also the one of the most unrealistic (in the second one, it just goes to the next slow-paced track and it starts to sound weird). Yes, it reproduces even more of what's in symphonic music, if there is more textural information that makes the sound become more natural, they are kind of "overwritten" by its new technical level that it is playing at. Maybe I am clueless, but I think they have taken it too far regarding diaphragm thickness. They have managed to take the speed over 9000 (That's impossible!) I think it can be tuned to be better (waiting for the 'S' version...) I don't know what's the slowest, lushest amp possible to make it somewhat more enjoyable for me. (Or use several amps and change the sound depending on the music) But I don't see the point of buying the fastest out there to make it slow. Yes, it has mesh transducers like the SR-Omega with impeccable build, and you can actually buy one (with warranty), there are similarities, like big but lightweight, big stage, etc. but they sound nothing alike. I can see 009 owners seeing this as a big upgrade, that was the previous one I tested (not like this, unfortunately, only with the amp...) and I think it sounded "very intense" (restraining myself here), but the speed wasn't taken to this extreme level. I have also tested the L300 Limited and my impression of it is very much a love or hate thing. Basically, an interesting new transducer technology, struggling to get out. Compared to older Lambdas it is badly built, uncomfortable, unsealed pads means bye bye deep bass, trades airiness for precision, uneven frequency response. Maybe deliberate product segmentation? They have resources to do a Lambda that is miles better than these ones. Good thing they still have the 007 Mk2 at least...and they realised the screw-up with the supposedly 009-style diaphragm - they just won't tell us the units affected... For example, based on all the positive-negative thoughts about the Audeze CRBN, it seems that they have aimed to make it sound less ethereal (damped, weighty, not as ultra-fast) which I think is a good thing, but they have also lost some of the wow-factor. This is completely the other direction, and if it really has any resemblance to the HE90 I am all-in for it. In my very distant memory, that headphone still has the best reproduction of timbre and musical notes. They appear and disappear 'normally' with weight behind them. I couldn't care about blurry imaging, murky bass, upper register anomalies etc. However, looking at the whole picture, the Omega is starting to be more and more competitive now, an emerging superpower, like China. Kind of interesting to read the contemporary comparisons by darth nut, I think these newer, more advanced sources and amps can change the sound perception compared to way back then. Also, just a side note: some people not hearing certain things about KGSSHV etc. aftermarket amps not being that much better to a standard Stax amps may need to change sources(I wish some things would not take a step backwards in this earlier iteration, but overall more impressive and transforms some headphones and does not cost that much more than my modded 727), the two work together effectively as a combination. When I heard an expensive DAC last time, the amp and circumstances weren't that good. You can't just save on one and ignore the other because this review says it is the greatest value jada, jada... And you don't even need the SR007 etc. to be in need of this change. But some headphones definitely do a damn good job in a cheap system, it is just hard to back when they can sound similar, yet 100% better. Giving these back won't be comfortable one bit. I mean the amp & DAC (maybe cables), not the headphones. So, basically, he has one side covered and I have the other side covered... :) And of course, another new problem I have now, is that I have accumulated so many of these, and when the system is good, they just all become better at what they do best, a lot of them being too cheap to just ignore compared to the price of certain elements in the chain. I expected to play the elimination game a whole lot easier, it doesn't really work, but I need to change things at some point... But then again, there will be a time where we might be back to the normal universe from this alternative one, and there will only be precious little time left to actually sit down & listen to music (in a completely dark and silent environment, some headphones really need this, even the X9K becomes more impressive/less annoying with this mismatched system). Happy listening!11 points
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So, finally time to replace the cable of my 007. Birgir and others have probably demonstrated this before, but I thought I'd show some pics for those who, like me, haven't done it before (and, sooner or later it will be necessary). Off with pads and front plate, and the nylon piece covering solder terminals. Solderer's best friend: electrical tape. Some sacrifices necessary too - had to buy and eat a bar of chocolate for the cardboard to protect driver from hot solder. New cable in place. Also adjusted the headband elastic and put on the pads correctly, wasn't done before. Now the 007 sits tight on my head, sounds better and is more comfortable. Promised myself to fix the 007 when I finished my Carbon, so here goes. Build without major problems. MLA brought his variac for startup, and there were high voltages on the outputs. My mistake, had missed to solder one leg of a PZTA56, hanging in air. Fixed that and it works fine. Wanted to keep it simple and clean. Might add a LED when I can afford it.7 points
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That reminds me of a joke. One that goes back to the dimly recalled telegraph office. German shepherd walks into the telegraph office, puts its paws on the counter and says "woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof". The teller says "That is only nine woofs. You realize you can have a tenth woof for the same price" The dog replies "But then it wouldn't make sense"3 points
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My dad actually has a pretty different coffee habit from mine, and since we live in the SF Bay Area, the most recent bag he bought was French Roast from San Francisco Bay Coffee. I think someone from the conservatory I went to also recommended it. AFAIK, they're one of the second-wave craft roasters. Not going to find a lot of particularly forward thinking coffee there, but, often quite good all the same.3 points
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I had another Doctor's appointment Friday. Mostly to go over my blood pressure readings and to evaluate my machine against the Dr's. machine. After checking my home machine against theirs, it seems it's functioning just fine. My blood pressure log has been averaging about 155/90. Way better than before I went on medication, but still not where we want it to be. My Dr. has decided to add a beta blocker to my current meds, but only to be taken if my BP is above 130/80. One thing the nurses did was to check how I'm taking my BP, and it seems I wasn't doing it just right. It was determined that I should be resting my arm at a level even with my heart. And maybe even more importantly, I was taking my morning BP first thing after waking. They told me to wait an hour after taking my meds before taking my BP reading. Well, after making these two changes, my last 3 BP readings are as follows... 124/71, 127/74 & 129/61. All within my 130/80 goal. Now it's early on in this new routine, but it sure is making me feel good about achieving this BP goal. My Dad had Hypertension, to the point where he was often bright Red in the face. He had Congestive Heart disease, diabetes and probably some other issues. Also he was a lifetime smoker. So my own health has always been a question for me. With my A1C below 7, my blood sugar testing well, the diabetes is under control. My cholesterol is normal. I have an appointment for an EKG in two weeks. If the EKG shows no worrisome issues, then I'll be feeling really good about all of this. I'm also down 30 lbs. from when I first discovered my health issues a few years ago. Assuming that this coming 61st. birthday is not spent puking in the toilet all day, due to Vertigo, my 60's are not looking as gloomy as I worried they might be. It's a crap shoot, as my Father's family all died pretty young (mostly in their 50's and 60's). But my Mother's side have lifespans like golopagos tortoises.3 points
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Got tired of doing manual pour over at least twice a day, every single day. So...2 points
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star ground just makes sure the grounds don't for a loop for my builds my grounds go GRHV --ground -----------amp Left ground | | | +-------------amp right ground +----------------GRLV ground you can of course swap the grhv and grlv in the above and it will still work the same. The makes one psu the master for ground reference and everything else is in a tree from that with zero loops. A longer tree will also work e.g. GRHV --ground ----------- GRLV ground ---------------- amp Left ground | +-------------amp right ground so everything has a ground wire from one psu board and no loops. What may cause hum is ground loops. For example if both the grlv and hv are ground connected together and you also run grounds from both the grlv and grhv to both amp boards. You now have multiple return paths. e.g. +15V can go directly to grlv or can go grhv -> grlv and visa versa for the high voltages. In addition +15V on left channel could go grhv -> right channel -> grlv or even worse left channel +15V could go grhv -> right channel -> left channel -> grlv etc etc... i.e. multiple ground loops: GRHV --ground -----------amp Left ground---------+-----+ | | | | + -----------amp right ground ------- + | | | | +----------------GRLV ground --------------+-----+2 points
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Thanks for the impressions. Since you mentioned the new Lambdas - I would very much agree and reiterate that the new Lambdas have issues with design, build quality, and frequency response. They needs mods to achieve a good seal and they need EQ. Without it they're a mess, but a technically interesting mess that does a number of things quite well. The midrange resolution with these new drivers is really impressive. With mods and EQ you can fix at least some of the issues and make them a much more compelling.1 point
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Nice coffee maker, Rob! It looks like it should do a very credible job of producing a pour-over like cup. Is the carafe compatible with paper filters, in case you wanted to use it for manual? That’s garbage, Greg. “We got it to work when we repaired it, and it doesn’t work as designed” isn’t… ideal. I bet it gets sold as new. My only coffee news today is that the best part of Ember mug is probably the stickers (I like stickers).1 point
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This is going to exceed the attention span of ...nearly everyone. I watched it tonight. I found to be utterly fascinating. It starts with the '08 housing crash, the birth of crypto and the "rise" of NFTs. It confirms many of my prejudices and biases, but also covers a lot of areas where I frankly I had no fricken clue. YouTube really is the best worst thing ever.1 point
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I am more of a Nikon guy vs a Pentax nerd. But even I know that renaming a thread does not make it go away...1 point
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I don't think I would tie to the chassis at this point. Chassis should be grounded via the PE of the IEC inlet connector. Any connection from the PCB ground to chassis should be done thru a ground loop breaker.1 point
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since the grlv and grhv have separate transformer windings they are floating with respect to each other. with only one amp being grounded through the grhv that amp board is tied to that psu but would have no idea what the LV voltage is since the LV floating with respect to the hv psu and not referenced to it. The other amp board being grounded through the LV only would have no idea what the hv voltage is in relation to the lv voltage.... you would see this by measuring the voltages on one amp board with the multimeter neg on that amps ground and then measure the voltages on the that amp board with the multimeter neg on that amp boards ground. Another way to think of it is electricity flows in a circle, for the amp connected to the hv board the electricity comes out of the hv board goes into the amp board and returns to the hv board through the ground wire, The Lv electricity enters the amp board BUT has no return path direct or indirect to the LV board... and visa versa for the amp board connected to the lv ground only.... This is why I check the psu voltages of a fully built amp at the amp board using the amp boards ground and not at the psu using the psu ground....1 point
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Hypertension runs in my family. Wonderful that we can control it with meds when diet and exerculise are not enough. If you haven’t checked out the Dash diet please do. Developed by the NIH specifically to lower blood pressure. BTW the 60s are not bad. The decade was pretty cool too1 point
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I'd call it sharing, Jacob. I'm down to one coffee left in the Onyx advent calendar. Bitter sweet ending... At the risk of bringing up K-cups, I have a bunch of Nespresso pods in a shopping cart as I work through the old inventory. BUT...I did find a compostable K-cup from San Francisco Bay Coffee. A friend at work generously gifted me a couple and they were pretty tasty as far as this stuff goes. HS1 point
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I’m aware that I’m showing off, but this is what I have in my life.1 point
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Sorry to hear that; like Jacob said, espresso is already a pain, so this type of issue is salt in the wound. I've heard the others talking about this issue (albeit for the Oro single dose. Perhaps the same design flaw since they're both from the Oro Mignon lineup? the comments seem split between "well mine is working perfectly fine" and "yeah I'm getting the same issue") -- of course, no excuses for Clive there regardless. If this is an issue with the new Oro Mignon lineup, Clive probably knows about it but wants to discourage you from returning it. Which is worrisome to say the least.1 point
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I couldn't afford expensive gear when I was young and my ears were good.1 point
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I bought a London Plane board to make my son a chopping board. The one-man woodshop ( https://mactimbers.com/ ) I visited had 4" thick boards about 15" wide. Heavy sucker. This was too wide to go through my planer, so I asked it he could take the waney edge off. He fired up the biggest saw I have clapped eyes on. It was sited outside under a tarp. "I've only got a 30" blade in it, although it takes up to 48", which is a bit excessive". He fired it up, and with several distinct acceleration stages it became a screaming blur. He sets the fence distance and hoiks this monster plank onto the bed. It went through that chunky plank like a hot knife through butter. He'll use a push stick, I thought. Nope. The last part of the cut he just put one hand on either side of the blade and pushed it through. I almost couldn't watch. SawStop? Not a chance. One slip with that sucker and a limb comes off.0 points
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So Clive received the second Mignon XL and the rep informed me that yes the grinder did not grind coffee when she first booted it up but then messed with it a bit, changed the settings to a coarser grind and got it to grind again all the while emphasizing that I should not use the full range of grind settings since the finer ones will make the grinder stop working. This is Eureka's flag ship grinder and it is normal for it to not work on first use and for the operator to not be able to use the full range of settings? Kind of like buying a Lamborghini Aventador and being told by the factory after you received it that you should not exceed 100 Kph or the car will stop working. So Clive accepted my return and will refund me my purchase...less a $100 restocking fee. I sent this debacle to PayPal to sort out. Clive Coffee sucks at ethics and customer service. *Forgot to mention, when the second unit arrived I noticed that it had been double taped, the original Eureka package tape and a second different packing tape. I didn't think anything of it at the time but when I brought this up to the "non-service rep" complaining that if they had taken the time to open the package why didn't they check to make sure it functioned she changed the subject awkwardly. I am now suspicious that maybe this was a return/restock which they shipped to me as new.0 points
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Canon is shutting down its Zhuhai factory in south China, citing low compact camera demand and chip shortages. Unsurprising, but still ...ulp.0 points
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The SawStop decided to die on me today. I think it might have had too many false starts with circuit breakers but now it will just make a weird rumbling noise and give the warning lights for no blade rotation. Blade rotates as normal by hand. No reason for it to be thermal protection as I have not cut anything in over a week and the garage is, at most 40 degrees right now. Maybe belts are too cold?0 points