CarlSeibert

Assuming - and I have trouble believing otherwise - that the plastic parts were custom designed by Monster. That would mean that these guys would have to buy tooling. With lower volumes than the real manufacturer and thus higher per-unit costs, that wouldn't look like a stellar return on criminal investment. Maybe these are coming out the back door of the same sweatshop that makes the real ones?

I wonder if Monster gives every pro athlete in the country a free pair of Beats. I would actually admire that in a way, I suppose. At dinner tonight I was treated to about two minutes of Dwight Howard in close up, wearing his Dr Dres. (Which begs the question of how far into an Orwellian rabbit hole have we fallen that there are TVs glaring at you in otherwise delightful restuarants and what the bloody hell was a Magic game doing on the tube in South Florida, but those are rants for another day.) Then, when we thought it couldn't get an worse, we have this: Fake Beats By Dr. Dre Studio Headphones. That's like counterfieting a can of Spam.

And Bob Marley, too. Bob Marley Headphones/iPod Docks Launching at CES - Gearlog

Shirts are Us! The shirts arrived last night. They look great. I took most of them to the Post Office this afternoon. I have a couple more to go tomorrow and a few people for whom I don't have all the details, lost addresses and whatnot. I have PMed everybody who falls in that category.

Is this Sleek as in the company from Tampa? (the one that makes custom in-ears with tunable ports?)

Cool.

My $.02: Will Apple sour or shrink to a niche player? Of course. That's what happens to tech companies that dominate a market. Eventually. But when? Conventional wisdom says five or even ten years is way too soon. I think a fifteen year run at the top is some sort of rule of thumb. ( I'm not sure what to think of Motorola here. Their glory days lasted fifity years. ) Apple's success, both in terms of penetration and margins comes from fashion. The fat profits that enable the really highly polished products come from charging monster premiums for cool. Cool is a volitile world. Fashion can change mighty fast. Nowadays five years is a long, long time, expecially in telecom. We'll see.

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Well, since we're being all serious and shit, I should add that some midrange-loving people prefer the way cheaper Shure SE-425 over the 535, which those un-named masses of people (it's me and maybe somebody else whose existence is debatable we're talking about here, actually) find a little hype-y. If you're seriously in the market for such a thing, it could be worth checking out the 425s. Two hundred bucks cheaper is nothing to sneeze at. Does the RE-0 have the same gigantic port in the back that the RE-1 does? My RE-1s have next to no isolation, which could be a good thing but usually isn't.

Really, the big news here is the name. First amps that are the Schiitz, now this. I want Fanny Wangs! (Maybe it is too easy a target. Nevertheless, that was the softball pitch. We need Steve to drive it out of the park. Paging Dr Wood........)

An interesting analogy, given the conflicting sensations one endures in a cold shower. Never thought about it before. So I wonder what the FR of a cold shower would be. Thump and droop or a an icicle at 7 KHz?

WOW! I opened a big box from Steve today. Holy smokes. There were three fascinating looking CDs (Vortex Box is ripping as we speak) CDs and a bottle of ale and some chocolates for a listening session. Thanks Steve! And Peter's photo has been framed and given to Bonnie, who was thrilled. More Christamas cheer is calling... Merry Christmas everyone!

I think I remember some guy in Stereophile hooking his PC up with a high-zoot power conditioner and saying it made a big improvement. My personal prejudice would be that said power conditioner may have kept the noise from the computer out of the rest of his system. And yeah, JP is a pretty big guy. (who we know to have good ears and not be an asshat)

John, I always default to the wild-ass guess assumption that stuff like this comes down to noise (of either kind) or power supply issues. Or maybe psychological factors or something else. Who knows. We can't practically measure any of it, so who cares. If it sounds better, it sounds better. Burning brain cycles wondering why while listening always mucks up the sound in my experience, though.

It's already been established that I may be a very sick person. But this made me laugh.

Square brackets, eh? Logical. OK. One gray, one blue for Brent. Bonnie got the quote. It's $8 a shirt, except for 4XL, which is $2 extra, plus $28 for film and screen. That gives us $8.93 per shirt, plus $4.90 for domestic postage on a single shirt (assuming that a shirt does indeed fit in the flat rate envelope when I get back in town and check.) I'll send out PMs and place the order tomorrow. Whoo hoo. Square brackets work.

Weirdly, it looks like supplies of good grade TVs - specifically the G-25 Pannies that we've been talking about in this thread, in just about any size - are down and prices are up at the moment. Shopping could be a pain. It seems like they are trying really hard to force you to 3D, which pisses me off. That said, I did see 50" G-25s at B&H for $1050 shipped this week. Sounds like you may be more of a candidate for LCD or LED, though. I don't know how screwed up the market for those is, but across the board this seems to be the year of products that don't exist. I just tried to buy a coffee maker for a Christmas present. Zero in stores, zero in the pipeline. Fifth or sixth product like that I've run across this year.

Hmm. <STRIKE>Maybe it's just a preview issue.</STRIKE> Edit: Nope. It just doesn't like me.

I got an email saying the the BDP-93 was shipping. In time for Christmas, sort of. Still waiting for the 7000-series Marantz, which has slipped, what, four months? By the time it's non-vapor, the Oppo will be there, too. Could be interesting.

Pretty much Enigma's MO when she went outside. After we expressed displeasure at her bring us dead animals, she would only bring in live ones, which she would play with. She would try to hide her new toys in the back bathroom. Sort of OK for mice, but we would tend to notice something like a full size dove flying around the house.

That's WAY too effin' intelligent. You must be some kind of anarchist or something.

And what color would Ray - ah excuse me - you like? And why the heck doesn't <strike> </strike> seem to work here?

Agreed with both Al and Alex. 11 (federal) years is an incredibly long sentence. The problem is proportionality. We lock people up for that long for relatively minor stuff. That's how we can have a breathtaking incarceration rate, totally skewed government budgets and a high rate of white collar crime all at the same time. Most societies could only manage one or two of those.

Hi, Here's the current T-shirt list. Bonnie should be able to get a quote this week and we'll know about the cost. Please check to make sure I haven't forgotten anybody or transcribed something incorrectly. tyrion 1 blue XL guzzyguy 1 red large agile_one 1 blue XL tyll 1 blue XL screaming_oranges 1 blue Medium voltron 1 blue XL shellylh 1 blue Medium duggeh 1 red XL nikongod 1 red Medium nikongod 1 blue Medium Jusitn 1 blue Medium jp11801 1 gray XL MexicanDragon 2 gray XL nottonrice 1 blue Medium morphsci 1 red XL raffy 1 blue Large mobayratsa 1 blue XXL fitz 1 blue Medium aura 1 blue Medium crappyjones 1 blue XXL carppyjones 1 red XXL nebby 1 blue Medium mrarroyo 1 blue 4XL iron_dreamer 1 red Large carl 1 red XL bonnie 1 red Large[/HTML]