CarlSeibert

Dew eet Jacob! (Full disclosure: a) I've had Apogees for decades and like them. not sure about the Centaurs, but every Apogee I've ever dealt with has needed a nuclear power amp.

Welcome back Jacob! I once turned on the wrong burner and melted an empty double-boiler that was idling on said burner. Totally melted into rivulets of liquid aluminum, just like Brent's only more so. Given that it was some sort of favorite pan (of Bonnie's), thank heavens a local store carried that particular pan!

Oh my. And who said this was a stodgy hobby.

Darn right. Happy Birthday!

We watched that episode (and two others) last night. That Copernicus bit almost knocked me off the couch. The people doing this show are as good as the ones who did 'Deadwood'. Fucking brilliant writing.

One of the reasons why I bought HiFiMan instead of Audeze was this very business. HiFiMan was much more professional and reliable. (Not that the bar is set terribly high in this case) there was too much uncertainty all the way around with Audeze. On the the other hand, Audeze is selling a ton of product, so who's to call them wrong? Resale value is a gamble. That's on me. I want to listen to the things, not flip them, anyway. Now that I can go to a dealer and listen to the sample that I would take home, I'm more interested in Audeze. But being able to shop that way is pretty rare in the headphone world.

I've been happy enough with the phone app. It's better than MOG's was, I think. I do miss MOG's radio feature, though. On the web app you have no access to your favorites, which makes it useless to me. Apple will probably just shut it down anyway, so it's all academic. Like Shelly said: I miss MOG.

And I was going to make a smartass comment about headphones. OK. Carefully during back out of the room now. Sheesh.

Maybe it's just me, but I would try to find a replacement power switch, get frustrated, and then just bypass the damned thing. I turn the machine on and off from the front. And that power cord IEC looks switch-like enough to me ) Or maybe I've watched one to many episodes of 'Justified'

Yikes. I missed your birthday thread. Happy very belated Birthday!!

Good news, Dusty

This is soo 'toopid it requires immediate posting (from tomorrow's LA Times) In an interview here at Apple’s headquarters, Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, repeatedly emphasized the talent that Dr. Dre and Mr. Iovine would bring to Apple. He also praised the Beats music service, which creates playlists for subscribers. “These guys are really unique,” Mr. Cook said. “It’s like finding the precise grain of sand on the beach. They’re rare and very hard to find.” Wow.

About time! I was always mystified as to why American consumers ever put up with that at all.

They're blithering incompetents, but they only claim to do 320 Kbps MP3s. I doubt they would accidentally do higher quality. In the settings for mobile, you can choose to do 320 only over WiFi or on any connection. Like Justin said, maybe somebody misinterpreted that to mean "CD quality" Meanwhile, after two weeks, they did process the refund for incorrectly billing me. But they said my account, as viewed on their website, wouldn't reflect the refund, because, well, they're pretty screwed up. That said, I haven't found anything wrong with the Android app yet. Mind, it doesn't do anything special either. I've yet to see any evidence of "just hit play" our any other life-changing inventions. It's basically just MOG on a better app. Except that I nearly always used MOG on the web, and the web client is useless.

Damn, Chris. I fight with my icemaker a lot. I never thought it could actually win. Congrats CJ! Wishing all who need it a speedy recovery.

And now this: Apple in talks for $3.2bn Beats deal http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e330e830-d6f3-11e3-b95e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz31ANwwJBJ Real this time? Given the lousy job Beats is doing with its launch, it might not even be a bad (worse) thing......

It's that really plumber's putty? Hmmm. I never considered the possibilities of sand in a Seal-a-Meal pouch before......

Happy Birthday Shelly!!!

For a couple weeks, it looks like. Which shows how closely (or not) I pay attention.

So I clicked the sign-up button. Good news: the Android app seems way better. Bad news: the sign up functionality doesn't work right. The web client lacks basic functionality (and basically looks unfinished, probably because it is.) The customer service experience is a disaster . They don't even make the effort to participate in their user forum (which is basically a rant fest). And if I was to guess, the same old crew of inept and arrogant developers is still in residence. And this is on their second try at launching. Arrrrrgh! Where is Healthcare.gov when you need it....

Toaster burst into flames. Now cleaning up dry chem mess in the kitchen. I never did like that toaster.

May 31 according to the email I got this weekend. There is a button in the email for two free months of the new thing. Apparently, you need to overlap subscriptions if you want to migrate your playlists. I'm going to make a playlist with one song each from the several hundred artists in my favorites and migrate that. Actually, it may take two or three playlists. I thing there's a 250 item limit per list.

Happy Birthday Ryan!!!

I don't know if they've set a new date. It WAS supposed to be April 15.

Meanwhile, an update.... I've been trying the X3 with a Pico. First off, this PIco is one with the built-in DAC. The DAC in the Pico is way better than the one in the X3 (up to its sample rate limit, of course). My phone > Pico> NAD HP50s sounded marvelous. It would be really nice to use the X3 as a digital source into the Pico or whatever amp/DAC suits my fancy. But alas, the X3 has only S/PDF out and the Pico and pretty much every other amp/DAC I know of has only USB in. That said - The Pico as an amp on the X3 is really interesting. The sound of the Pico is very different from the tubey-sounding Tomahawk. It's kind of like a really powerful modern solid state amp vs a vintage Conrad Johnson. Sound-wise the Pico is better at a lot of things, I think, but it's all a matter of taste, and taste varies (from day to day, sometimes). What's more concrete is that the Pico does a much better job of driving a variety of headphones. Here, it gets a little strange. The NADs sounded (to me) great driven by the Pico, driven by its own DAC. But driven by the Pico, driven by the DAC (and line stage) in the X3 sounded blanched and amusical to me. ETW-9s on this combination were much better. RS-2s were much, much better. And - to my amazement - HD-650s are superb. Resolving, detailed, nuanced, colorful, well controlled bass - all that stuff. That's good, because I tend to use my portable in odd places around my house. So, I actually have a use for big, open-backed headphones on my portable. So, win. The Pico seems to play to the strengths of the Shure HD840s, as well. The odd results with the HP-50s are troubling. It was a 'headphone-sized' perceived difference between two DACs, all of which measure similarly-ish and generally just don't sound all that much different to me. They sound different in very important ways, but I've always had the notion that the 'amount' of difference was of a smaller order. I suspect that different recordings (huge delta 'amount') interact with gear in ways we underestimate. I used three albums (all artists whose names began with "B") to compare. Maybe artists with names beginning in "S" would drive a different conclusion. Mileage varies: I gave my friend Jim a listen. He liked the X3 - Pico combination a lot. He proclaimed it better sound than his three-piece A&K and iBasso portable rig. Of my closed-back headphones, his favorite on the X3 rig was ........ yup... the NADs. He just loved that combination. So there. I feel like there's a consensus forming that the Fiios are really interesting because they don't cost a fortune and they can sound engaging. But they can't drive headphones very well (Tyler's impression of the X5 suggests so, too). The whole mixing and matching with amps thing makes great hobby fun, particularly if the individual pieces don't cost and arm and a leg. But geez, can't somebody just make a DAP with great sound on a reasonable selection of headphones, good storage capacity, good battery life, and the flippy album cover interface of my iPod? Good news is - we can get all obsessive and frustrated over portables that can sound much more satisfying than a few years ago. Bad news is that they all still seem to suck in some way.