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Whoops.

Just finished listening to OMD's Crush 40th anniversary edition Just starting Joe Pass and Ella Fitzgerald, Take Love Easy and Fitzgerald and Pass...Again ...then, I don't know what, probably Tatekieto by Pulciperla (French band Pulcinella with Colombian female trio, La Perla)

because reasons... Voodoo by D'Angelo (2000) https://open.qobuz.com/album/0060255736891 Example: I didn't really follow his work, but he really was creating some new music. So much jazz influence on example track. RIP D'Angelo (@51)

At the biggest yard sale in the world. Another shot just taken with a camera as I bounce around.

Patrick Leonard - It All Comes Down to Mood

Easy to go down the rabbit hole with these....found and liked this one, too

What else on a night like tonight. https://www.kqed.org/news/12014852

Sausage mushroom and black garlic pizza

@EdipisReks1 - it will be curious to hear your thoughts on ink consumption and cost to print. Looks like ~$100 to replace all 8 cartridges which honestly is not horrible. 13" maximum dimension (in one direction) coupled with 39" length could be fun to tinker with.

^ Never understood going after Mann. Have two of her books. Spent Sunday at a lowrider event at Montalvo, likely my last one of 2025. Decided to take two cameras and have a little test between them - a dusty, slow Hassy 500cm with II 50c 50MP digital back & old Zeiss Distagon 50 f/4 T* and a shiny, snap-like Sigma 24MP BF (Beautifully Foolish) with a matching new 35 f/2 Contemporary. For fun shot at 1:1, which most definitely isn’t natural for me. Hassy Sigma

Benchmark has made changes/improvements to their DAC line over time. The DAC1 USB you have uses an Analog Devices AD1853 dac chip like its predecessors, but upgrades the stereo-outs to LM4562/LME49860 opamps, which should sound better(read: smoother) when connected to another amp than the original DAC1 that many people heard back in the day. The DAC1 PRE updated all the op-amps to LM4562/LME49860 opamps, so the headphone-out should sound better too. The DAC2 line changed the converter chip to the ES9018, which adds DSD64 decoding capability, if that is relevant to the content you play. The DAC3 line changed the converter chip to the ES9028PRO. I have no idea if that sounds any better, or what it would take to detect a difference. IME, the hardware component factors that affect the sound of a DAC is the converter implementation, along with the output stage. For me, the DAC2 line was/is the sweet spot when it comes to price::features::performance for Benchmark.

Does Quad still make a DAC or some Quad-like equivalent? They love to make CDPs and preamps with digital inputs. To this day the most "musical" DAC I've ever owned is my Quad 99 CDP-2 (which is now so old it'd be a senior in high school.) Looking at their website, they have an "Artera Play+" model which appears to be a CDP with six digital inputs and USB. That sounds like the Quad I know and love, batshit insane but with a real beauty mixed in with their quirkiness.

The DAC1 sounded like glass breaking to me. I am liking an ESS Sabre based Dac recently. I missed the AKM chip fad, so maybe someone else can comment on the those. I’d be curious to try the Topping D70 Pro Sabre, due to the form factor and marginal upgrade over my all-in-one mass drop Ess/thx 789. The real appeal is in a few years relegating it to living room duty, and using the Bluetooth function for easy uses. Makes me feel a little bit of the Swiss army feeling I got looking at the NAD M51. Impossible to tell with just measurement data. But the mid-fi DAC game is like playing whack-mole with compromises. I’d be happy if something sounded marginally better than my iPhone dac, and has balanced outputs. Rebook only is still a thing. I recently saw a PMD100 surround sound Dac for cheap that looked cool. I’m not sure how the components hold up, and can’t justify used gear unless I see internals these days.

Not today but yesterday I visited the urologist. He checked both MRI and CT visuals. Good news is I have no soft tissue damage, inflammations or polyps. Bad news is I have some more stones in my bladder. Not as big as I projected but he said they might clump together by time. And not only stones in my bladder, I have a hole in my wallet too. And it seems if I want them gone as painless and as soon as possible, the hole in my wallet will devour it completely. Hello healthscares! Goodbye the dream of upgrading espresso machine and grinder...