HiWire

Bit of a link bait title, but I'm glad we're well clear of the lossy compression era in hi-fi CD players - I always turned skip protection off. The test album was Goldfrapp's Head First - pure synthwave ear candy. Head First is an almost entirely electronic album, with heavily-processed real sound from Alison Goldfrapp, a guitar, bass, and drums on selected tracks. I read that Will Gregory and Alison Goldfrapp were somewhat unsatisfied with the results of a rushed production process, but to me, it's a perfect gem. The anthemic, insanely upbeat pop tracks are well balanced against the more relaxed ambient instrumentals. To me, it's a touchstone, both a microcosm and a portal to classic 80s pop enchantment. Inspired by the video, I pulled out my old Panasonic SL-S160 from 1995, plugged in the Alessandro MS-1 and inserted 2 Eneloop AA 1.2V NiMH batteries and it sounded a bit looser and not as deep in the bass with its MASH DAC (with XBS bass off - this budget player lacks skip protection), but serviceable (volume is somewhere around 2 out of 10 with its scratchy old pot and decent channel matching - 2.5+ is deafeningly loud with the Alessandro MS-1) compared to the Sony D-EJ2000 from 2002 - the SL-S160 was an excellent match for my old student-fi Sennheiser HD 320 headphones with a nominal impedance of 100 Ω back in the day. Switching back to the D-EJ2000 on 1.2V gumstick battery with the MS-1 is a sonic revelation (perhaps not a surprise, comparing a budget player to a cutting-edge flagship). People underestimated the Sony when it was released (it came with horrible stock earbuds) - it has a much cleaner overall sound, far more separation, resolution, bass depth, soundstage, you name it - it blows the older Panasonic away in every category - you can hear things on the Sony that are completely obscured on the older player at the same volume level - younger people raised on iPods and wireless headphones have no idea what they're missing. It also demonstrates that you don't need a lot of power to drive the Grado headphones well. It was like comparing a landscape in a dark fog to a bright, sunny and clear day on a mountain meadow. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to finally test a Chord Mojo 2 - I used a Toslink optical cable out of the Sony D-EJ2000 to the Mojo 2 into the Alessandro MS-1 and I heard no difference. It was both reassuring and surprising. Obviously, the source and the headphones were limiting factors, but I walked away discovering that a $150 portable CD player from 2002 can match a $650 DAC from 2022 in my informal test (digital deathmatch!). Finally, I switched to my Arcam FMJ CD36, Headsave Classic, and Grado HP-2. Immediately, there was a change in tonality from the MS-1. It's actually hard to describe - they are in the same family and closely related, but the HP-2 emphasized different parts of the notes. The MS-1 was both brighter in treble and boomier in bass - the HP-2 had less emphasis and it was cleaner-sounding overall. I started to wonder if a pop album like Head First needed the distortion that is more evident in the MS-1 - was the HP-2 too controlled to enjoy non-audiophile music? After a few minutes, I settled into the new sound and I was able to hear a lot more - the full system had much more breadth and scope: treble was less emphasized, but more accurate and extended, with better soundstage, clearly-delineated layers, and better coherence in both the main voices and the background layers and effects. In particular, I heard the layered reverberations at the end of track 5, Head First, something I hadn't noticed before. With the home system, I heard new stuff from an album I'd played hundreds of times - was I taking crazy pills? It shows you that there's more to discover when you really listen carefully. Generally, I'm not an analytical listener and I don't seek out gear that emphasizes detail - I only do this when I'm comparing equipment. I also found myself at the limits of hearing fatigue - listening to the same short album (38 minutes long) three times in a row, even at safe volume levels, had a cumulative effect. Powering through this time, I was able to pick out additional little tunes that played in harmony in the background of the songs - they were barely audible on the other players, but the HP-2 gave them more space and separation. I like the word "holographic" that Joe Grado used to describe his new microphones. The HP-2 are not the widest-sounding headphones, but they demonstrate a giant leap from the plastic-bodied MS-1 coming out of portable CD players. At the end, it's a reminder of what happens when you climb Mount Head-Case. 🏔️ I had been easily satisfied with listening to what I had from 1995 for ten years - but after listening to better headphones and equipment, it's hard to go back. It's good to know I can still easily hear the differences between equipment. As a nice coda, the TTVJ Deluxe Flat Pads are holding up perfectly - no crumbling black foam on my ears! I'm doing a lot less headphone listening these days because I mostly listen out of my computer speakers or my stereo, but every time I get a chance for a full headphone listening session, I'm reminded of why I have such an intense relationship with and recall of great music (and such a large CD and SACD collection). Protect your hearing and enjoy the music!

Son of the beach:

Happy Birthday!

This might be good:

Happy Birthday!

Golden Earring - Twilight Zone

Too much money:

The Cardigans did a version of Iron Man...

IROC Rehab

Yarbrough & Peoples - Don't Stop the Music

Yes, it's pricy. My eye is on the Fujifilm X-T50 but the phone will do for now.

Chris Rea - The Road to Hell

It doesn't help that some of the late-model Intel Macs were serious dogs... I looked at an ailing 2017 MacBook (rebooted itself over and over) and they seem to be notorious for logic board failures. The 2019 16" MacBook Pro had a self-destructing SSD interface that fried data... not the kind of quality you'd want for spending $4,000 (and the butterfly-switch keyboards had enough problems that I had to bring a few into service). AppleCare is a quandary - it's great if you can afford it, but it's so expensive that it's difficult to justify. The current lineup is great for performance and battery life and the Mac Mini is one of the few inexpensive products. I think the base M4 is enough power for the vast majority of users - just get enough memory and storage for your needs.

I have to agree. There are lots of things wrong with Apple (and not just from 2025), but when things are working, Macs can be brilliant. I've been contemplating the upcoming Window 10 shutdown with some trepidation - Microsoft gave users a lifeline with an extra year of support, using a Microsoft account (and their Backup cloud service), but that's a deal with the devil, where you hand them all your data. What could possibly go wrong? I spent nearly half an hour looking at Microsoft Edge browser settings and I think it is sending a ton of private data to Microsoft. Many of the settings are extremely disturbing - it is using some kind of AI to "help" write your text and "accelerate" your browsing. Clearing your cache and cookies won't work any more, from what I can tell - I think it is retaining more information elsewhere, both on your system and in the Microsoft cloud. Windows 11 has been getting more and more scary, with Microsoft ramming Copilot, OneDrive, Teams and other stuff users don't want into the operating system along with new terrifying bugs and increasing surveillance with every update. You can attempt to keep abreast of all the problems - PCWorld does a good job documenting the carnage: https://www.pcworld.com/windows/news Google just forced Gemini AI on Android users - you have to opt out if you don't want Gemini sending messages, initiating phone calls or setting timers on your behalf. They're also cutting battery power to the Pixel 6a phone battery. It's all sounding really dystopian. On the Linux side, things are slowly getting better. It's still an arcane system for non-nerds, but each year the mainstream distros get easier to install and run for newbies. I wouldn't recommend stepping into Linux for non-hobbyists - I've installed Ubuntu and it's been mostly OK but you still need to know what you're doing and avoid running a new update version for over half a year. I was able to find software equivalents for many popular Windows and macOS apps, but I think Linux evangelists are misguided when they claim that it's a suitable desktop system for mainstream users. Going back to Apple - it's apparent that they have a lot of strengths as a vertically-integrated company with a well-developed ecosystem, but the high price of their hardware and relatively small market share can cause problems for home and small business customers. The sad tale Pars posted above about the M4 Mac Mini could be a warning sign.

That's about as far as they can take these cars without becoming silhouette racers... you'll see different levels of extreme car building in the various classes of WTAC (a Porsche 968 has done really well). The cars have massive power and aero to achieve record times (RWD, AWD, FWD)... without the restrictions you seen in regular wheel-to-wheel GT racing. In Japan, Tsukuba's track is used for many Time Attack competitions and WTAC has been doing the same in Sydney for years (there was a lot of coverage on the website www.speedhunters.com). Classes: https://www.worldtimeattack.com/competitors 2024:

1973 Pontiac Trans Am for 2025 World Time Attack Challenge (in Sydney, Australia - September 5-6): Datsun 1600:

The Secret of Monkey Island Opening Theme Téir Abhaile Riú - Clannad, 1976 (I did not know Enya was part of their family)

4 Hours of Imola - race highlights (European Le Mans Series):

24 Hours of Spa - race highlights:

Decode Gen Z Slang: The Sound of F1: The Movie

Kid Charlemagne:

Mina's got da funk: Lizzie Skevington plays some Jimi:

Robert Palmer sings Marvin Gaye:

Toxic CEO: Replacing everyone with AI

The US island that speaks Elizabethan English