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No need to be sorry. One of our favorite members here also has Asperger syndrome. I think it took a while for him to feel comfortable around us, but now he is a beloved friend to all that know him. I should actually say him/her, as I believe he/she to be transitioning. Just slow down a bit and don't try too hard. I'll do my part by trying to be more understanding.

What I learned today is that I'm positively going to discriminate against you.

First: I mocked you, and you came back with a humorous and self deprecating response. Point for you, which I pointed out by stating you may fit in well here. Then the very next post you made a gay joke. I'm perfectly OK with gay jokes when I recognize that no malice is involved. Hell I tell the best gay jokes! Problem is I don't know you, and I have no way to judge if that remark was a gay smear or a lighthearted quip, so I questioned whether or not I judged you correctly. You then decide to take it up several notches and respond in a manner that made me feel like a beauty pageant queen trapped in a room with Donald Trump. Again, perfectly acceptable and even humorous if I knew you and knew your personality, but very fucking weird when I do not. So I play it off with more humor. I have no idea when you think I lost my cool, but I can assure you that there'd be no mistaking it if I did. So here's the rub as I see it... You come into our space as an unknown, and you proceed to banter with us as though you've known us for years. That doesn't work. You obviously do not understand this group at all. But for the record, I was not the least bit offended by you until this post of yours that I've just quoted. Maybe there's something lost in translation or maybe you've just read me wrong. Either way I don't understand your indignation. You do seem to have a sense of humor, so I'll just mark this down as a misunderstanding. Your future here is completely in your own hands.

We are done when I say we are done. We are done.

Test Tone @ Home live right now: http://mixlr.com/illuminator/chat

Uhm, OK I think we're done here.

Double Shackburger and cheese fries at Shake Shack.

My newish system is an HD580, Torpedo amp and Pico DAC (most provided by Shelly), and I really love this system. It still shocks me at how good it sounds for what is a relatively low cost system. I have no plans to creep upward.

Attending the DDG1000 Comissioning.

Yeah, not trying too hard is part of the game. Just be yourself at a slow and peaceful pace.

The problem is always that you have to be expensive to be taken seriously. That applies to everything we humans do as we always associate a higher price with better performance when we have no actual point of reference. I also think that we've reached the point where manufacturers don't really have to make the call whether they want to sell a few expensive units or a lot more cheaper ones. They can just charge what ever they want and the sheep follow blindly.

You made a good point. Actually the points you made are all good. I went too far, yea. And yes i made jokes that cannot been made to people who i don't know. That's just weird. Some people (who i know irl) think I'm weird. They're right actually. Sometimes i don't know where to stop, or shut up. Or i can't see in person's eyes that they're bored. And i'm childish, i don't understand what I've done till somebody scold me. Those things just show i'm weird. Me being weird in street language has another name in psychology: "asperger syndrome" So i communicate people easier on internet. Or at least I thought that way. Anyway, sorry.

Sigh. Let me get out a towel and mop up the puddle of sarcasm at the bottom of my last post. Somebody might slip and fall. I'm not whining about not being able to afford new shinies. I'm whining about the value proposition of the hobby dropping out as a whole. I suppose it had to happen - headphones were in a bubble of sorts for a while. Manufacturers will jack up the prices as far as the market will bear. It just sucks to see it start to go, that's all.

Wait a minute, what the hell...

Well, dealt with this tiny piece of copper for the last few days.... you can imagine what might have occurred.

I care on 2 levels: 1) Stupidly priced shit like this sets a trend that might be having a "trickle up" effect. Maybe the Utopia would be 2K or 3K rather than 4K if it wasn't for the crazed pricing of gear like this (or the LCD-4, or Abyss, or HE1000 ... etc). It sets a pattern that can impact pricing on gear that we DO care about. 2) Shit gear that isn't in any way competitive with similar, or even lesser, priced gear annoys me on principle. It is sheer opportunistic laziness on the part of the manufacturer. How hard is it to get a KGSSHV/BHSE/SR-009/SR-007 rig and do some A/B comparisons? If the 50K rig doesn't best those setups significantly then you are pushing over priced horseshit and should be called out for it. Not that having a moan on HeadCase is going to save the world or cure cancer.

Dude! I was creeped out, so I damn well know that you were creeped out.

I did something very similar yesterday. Ohio has a more elegant ballot, though. I am wearing my dad's Patagonia fleece. It was too small for me until recently, and always had been. Put it on tonight, on a whim, as it's chilly outside, and I'm smoking a cigar. Fits me pretty well, maybe slightly snug. I imagine it was too big for him, if it now fits me, as I'm 3 inches taller and much broader through the shoulders and chest than he ever was. Feels good being able to wear it.

Secret is now a relative term, when 50,000,000,000 Russians know how you voted before you exit the voting booth. So you snapped some Turkish Legos together and hung some headphones on them? Gold star Timmy! Did you finish your homework before posting on Head Case?

I voted.

Chocolate malt for me please!

Valid counter arguments. Another one is that there will be a niche for affordable performance always. If the HD650 goes something will pop up to replace it, because there will always be those looking for maximum value. Of course designing a value product properly and making sure it performs is always going to be hard, and escalating prices will continually redefine the concept of value. Still, getting into DIY has never been more appropriate.

Not being Nostradamus, this could very well be the writing on the wall Hifiman, it’s quite wide exposure, hopefully it will all backfire.

This thread is inspiring me to sell everything and buy a pair of HD600s to stick it to the man. In theory, anyway. In practice, I'm too lazy to package and ship all that stuff out.

Yes, you're right, Birgir. There's a huge amount of people willing to spend money and it doesn't matter how good you are as a company, you just need to appeal to a few of them to make your living. Again, most of the customers are just lacking any knowledge, experience, sensitivity, sensibility and most likely intelligence. If any market were ruled by pure common sense and sheer quality, most products would have never ever seen the light of the sun.

IMHO most people are stupid so the wealthy ones among them pay absurd prices for things not that valuable. Some products, like watches, audio ancillaries, fancy clothes, select spirits and wines, and TOTL cars and whatever have that "exclusivity" consideration so even the not so wealthy come to believe those things are "that" valuable. Only time and common sense put things in perspective and at their proper place. Headphones are far from meeting that common sense spot. Only the experienced, not so stupid and sensible people, have the ability to tell what's the "real value" of something. A whole different thing is being curious and wealthy so you decide to spend an absurd amount of your money to try something. I'm still curious about how some things would sound, but I'm not as wealthy as to afford trying those at their current prices. This hobby was a lot more fun ten years ago

I believe that EAR worked on this concept and conceded to just a magnetic drive. Very cool video though.

I understand what you're saying Justin, but as an old dude I remember when improved technology escalated in price by regular increments. Jumping from a $600 HD650 to a $1,400 HD800 is quite a leap. I don't think that leap had as much to do with the cost of research as it did with what Sennheiser thought the market would bare. The market did bare that price, so now every new headphone introduced is at a profit margin way above what was once the norm.

Just to be clear, I don't find them attractive, but I know how to work them in. Use a slow night in a gay bar as an analogy.

^ That's the way my heart tells me to vote!

I can't get enough Jenny Lewis these days, and this album has snuck up on me as being really good.

I kind of hate that I like this so much....

I think the idea is that it really, really doesn't matter in life whether your audio playback system sounds better or worse than your previous one, or sounds better or worse than someone else's gear. Once you realize that (like I think a lot of HCers have), you can be totally happy with whatever you already have and not give a fuck about any of the new FOTM sheep hypnotizing stuff. I, for one, certainly don't care if I never hear a Focal or Hifiman (or Abyss or Audeze, etc) in my life.

**BRENT** Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Way. Way way way.

Congrat Robert Allen Zimmerman!

BTW I am gay!!! Did I judge your character too soon?

Your response says a lot about you. You seem to have the sense of humor needed to do well here. Well played Sir!

I made this today along with many things:

I knew yesterday about the MAG-LEV kickstarter of a turntable using magnetic suspension to spin the platter. It looks cool, but I wonder how would such magnetic field affect the pick up and the tonearm settings.

Side view - two power JFETs per side

So, the white portions here are the four heatsinks with the rectifier diodes on them, in the above picture.

Muchas gracias, mi amigo. Domo Arigato. Will play it at my next opportunity, right now listening to Hush Forever meets Deep Dive Corp. EP. Bliss:

Back at Chicago Hyatt O'Hare for a conference. A lot fewer headphones than I remember being here last time. Must have redecorated. I will see if any of you guys are still banned from the Hotel before I leave. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I could have said that just as easily as you did, and suspect that many other people feel the same way about it. It's like any hobby, I guess. There is that initial phase when you're all into it and spending a ton of time on it. In this particular hobby, that involves a lot of listening, experimenting with all sorts of gear, reading, reading, and more reading, and then eventually you start to think you have something to say, so you start posting, and every now and then you argue with others about things that have acquired a heightened sense of importance in your life... and for no particular reason other than that's how you've been spending your time. Then eventually, you lose interest in most of it, and certainly in the need to argue with others about things that really aren't (or shouldn't be) all that important in your life. So if it's headphones, you can say, "I thought they were good, you should give them a listen..." or if it's scotch, "I sure like it, you might want to add it to your list..." and then get on with things that actually do matter. Which, no doubt, is some new hobby that you now think matters, for some reason. At least if you're like most of the rest of us.

Ok, now I'm back so I'll continue this monologue but I can report that the mod is a complete success. No problems fitting the boards back in place and the sound is as it should be now. The amp is still on the warm side of things (pretty much the same output stage as the 717 so this is to be expected) but the bass has far more control now and the top end isn't misbehaving any more. I still have to do some more surgery to raise the gain at least 6dB to match the other Stax amps but as it stands now the 727 has mafia approval.