audiosceptic

I attended the Keith Code California Super Bike school at the Road America racetrack in Elkhart Lake, WI in the early 80's. I had a Suzuki GXR-750 at the time. Back then you could use your own bike as long as you had it safety wired. Best motorcycle instruction I ever received. I was clocked at 138 on the long uphill straightway which I thought was pretty fast. Now I ride this:

Like a champ!

I think what bugs me the most is that most of my broken stuff arrived broken. Bad shipping handling probably account for the Quads being broken and maybe the BA but the rest was probably broke before they shipped. Good thing I'm broke so my bad luck streak will end.

She's dead.

Stealing my thread title from Bob Dylan it seems I have had some recent bad luck purchasing audio stuff over the Internet. I detailed the broken Quad ESL63's I dealt with in the Quad thread. In addition I have had: - Broken new Welborne Labs power supply for my Duet. Sent back and waiting for new one. - Broken new VPI 16.5 record cleaner. I had to open it up and tighten a allen screw to get the platter to turn. - Broken new Seta Nano phono preamp where the left RCA channel cuts out (I use XLR). Vendor is sending me the new model in December because they are aware of a manufacturing defect. - Broken new BA where the volume control was bad. Sent back to Craig and he fixed a broken connection to the Alps RK-50 pot. - Broken headband block on my new LCD-2. Audeze knows about this and is sending me new blocks. - Broken Shure E500 headphones. I use these in the gym and it seems sweat caused the left channel to break. I'm debating if it's worth it to fix or just buy a cheap pair for gym use. Am I just having a bad streak here of have others experienced broken stuff?

I don't know about heavily toed inwards. They weren't exactly facing the listening position but certainly toed in somewhat. Again, nothing I had seen or heard before but coming from a guy who lives and breathes Quad ESL63 speakers this was an interesting setup. I'm going to try it and see what happens.

The chair was no more than 8 feet it front of the speakers which were 20-25 apart. It seemed weird having them so far apart and sitting so close but the image was pretty cool. I had never seen a setup like that or heard one but I'm going to try it once I lug some stuff around.

Well my Quad 63 saga is over after a few bumps in the road. As I stated earlier the ESL63's I bought from Wayne Picquet at Quads Unlimited arrived with broken bases but sounded great. I reluctantly shipped them back to Wayne where he replaced the bases and shipped them back to me in borrowed Quad factory boxes. I had to return the boxes immediately so I was discouraged to find one of the speakers was intermittently cutting out. Wayne had me try and disable the protection circuitry by cutting a wire but that didn't work. Not having good boxes to ship them back again, Wayne questioned if there was any way I could get them to Kansas City where Kent McCollum from Electrostatic Solutions was located. I happened to have a friend in KC that I wanted to visit so I finally took them to Kent earlier this week. He found a bad solder connection on one of the panels so he fixed it and took a look at both speakers to make sure all was well. He did this all free of charge or Wayne paid for it. My speakers are now home and sound glorious. It was a hassle but well worth the effort. Kent is a great guy by the way. I spent some time with him discussing Quads and listening to my speakers through his very impressive Audio Research setup. One thing he did was spread my ESL63's very far apart with the listening chair pretty close to the speakers. Listening to Dire Straits in that system was amazing. The soundstage was huge. I'm going to try and move some crap around in my listening room to get more space between the speakers.

The water was thrown on the carpet although I'm not sure she would be aware not to thrown it on the plugged in power cable if it were flaming (I'll fix that). The surge protector was a cheap one without an inline fuse although it did have a reset button. I told her to throw it away in any case and purchase another. My first thought was the damaged power cable caused this although she claims it did not show any cuts or wear prior to the blowout. My reason for posting was to gather any information that would concern me enough to call the landlord. i.e. the house wiring could have been at fault.

So my daughter is sitting in her bedroom in a rented house while away at college listening to music on a Apple Hi-Fi boombox. Suddenly there is a loud pop and sparks are flying from the power cable to the boombox while the room goes dark. She pours her water on the carpet which ignited from the sparks and called me. The boombox was plugged into a cheap multiple outlet surge protector along with a curling iron and hair straightener neither of which were turned on at the time. The incident caused the house panel circuit breaker for the outlet to trip. Any ideas what could have caused this? She wasn't touching or moving the boombox in any way when the incident happened although she was actively listening to Dave Matthews (maybe it was the choice of music?). Here is the picture of the blown power cord. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3766[/ATTACH]

My team sucks.

I went through the closed electrostatic decision process as well after waking my wife up one too many times while listening to the O2's. The 4070's are an excellent closed alternative to the O2's with a different presentation that is outlined clearly in other 4070 threads. I wouldn't worry too much about the weight of the 4070's if you can handle the LCD-2's. My only concern is the thought that the 4070 may be updated but I think Spritzer addressed that.

I'm in 2 other leagues where I'm undefeated. Must be karma...

I asked both Alex and Sankar several times if I could get my LCD-2's terminated with two 3-pin XLR instead of the standard termination. They didn't respond to my repeated requests until AFTER my headphones were shipped. I was told twice now that Alex would send me a Paypal invoice for the balanced cable but I have yet to get a invoice. I guess these guys are really busy.

Went to Farm Aid Saturday. I really liked Band of Horses. They only played 4 songs but they were great. I'm not a big Dave Matthews fan but I really liked his acoustic set with partner Tim Reynolds. John Mellencamp looked old and tired but played his hits. Neil Young played solo electric and acoustic with the same songs he played a month earlier in Milwaukee. Not a big Jason Mraz fan. Norah Jones was great. The surprise for me was Lukas Nelson (Wilie's son). That kid could play guitar. I didn't stay to hear Willie Nelson but read Steven Tyler came out and sang a couple of songs with Willie.

2nd most points in the league so far today and I'm getting my ass kicked.

I asked Justin that question when I bought my BHSE. He said it will have no problem driving 2 sets of headphones. I tried it once and it seemed to work OK.

I was so hoping that would go into overtime.

I don't think so.

I think the interest in the ULN-2 has died here but I'll provide this update. I bought a new turntable even though I was perfectly happy with the Rega P25 and Denon 103R. I found a Pro-ject RM10 with a Grado LO Sonata for $1400 locally. Not a huge step up but the RM10 is so solid I could polka right next to it and the record would not skip. The sound improved somewhat with the new setup but I still had some slight hum issues through the ULN-2. I also had some cartridge loading concerns and was looking at solutions including soldering the appropriate resistors on the XLR to RCA adaptors to accommodate the correct loading for the Grado. Eventually I bought a Channel D Seta Nano phono preamp that provides configurable cartridge loading and XLR output jacks without RIAA equalization. Immediately the hum was gone and the sound was greatly improved. The top end is extended and I can really hear/feel the bass through speakers. I'm still playing with this setup but like where it's heading.

I can't believe I picked a Detroit running back.

Although this isn't a Stax issue it does have to do with stats so I posted in this thread. So I sold my HE60's through Audiogon to somebody who is also a member at HF. After receiving the headphones he reports that there is a problem where "the sound quailty was a bit distorted and the balance had pulled to the left". I offered suggestions and mentioned he could send them back to me for review. He immediately sent them back to me and wants a refund. They arrived in perfect shape and sound fine out of my BHSE. No distortion, no balance issues. The buyer is using a RSA A10 amp and now believes that perhaps the amp may not have provided enough output to drive the HE60's from the Stax jack or my HE60 to Stax adapter was faulty. First of all it's hard for me to believe that the A10 is so bad it can't drive the HE60 without distortion and balance issues from the Stax jack. I think I read Ray even demonstrates the A10 with the HE60 although I don't know how it is plugged in. And would the the Stax jack provide any different output than the HE90 jack on the A10? If the Stax adapter I am using with the HE60 is faulty, wouldn't I hear it on the BHSE? I'm probably going to refund his money minus shipping because I like the headphones but really believe I wouldn't have to in this situation.

Any way you can list the draft order by Team Name or Owner? I don't know everyone by their Head-Case name.

I can do 9:15 PM or 9:30 PM as the email indicated.

I can do Tuesday at 8:30 EST.