Nebby

Ah, didn't realize that. I saw the line out cables but didn't even think about them, perhaps I should have compared the Oyaide line out cable as well. Curious to hear how it sounded different.

Now that you put it that way I can see how the reasoning goes. I didn't get to listen to the Onkyo dock before it gave up the ghost, but it's not quite an equal comparison as the Onkyo dock is a transport to a DAC while the apple dock was only a line out from the Ipod directly.

There's some seriously weird stuff in Japan.

I didn't really think too much about it before, but I'm a bit confused now about how to take this cable logic. If I heard a difference between the Pico and the Asgard with the Pico being preferred when using a "lousy interconnect", does that mean that I will hear a difference with the Asgard being preferred if I use an "audiophile" interconnect?

Well, how about cranking up the dust collection system so it can be an effective fan?

Well, I still have the Pico. Can't say the same for the Asgard Also got an entertaining reply on the other forum: "What was your source in both cases? Include your interconnects for the Asgard. If you used lousy interconnects, they could have very much negated any benefit you might or might not have derived from the DAC you chose. "

Is it so wrong for me to say that I preferred my Pico Dac/amp to the Asgard?

You should send a pair to Tyll to get measured every few iterations to see just how close you are to your target

You are absolutely correct, though I was just trying to link that "genius" comment to the one made here. My attempt at humor simply fell flat, that's all

Installing Win7 isn't too punishing of an experience, thankfully

You know even though I served in the military and all, I'm just not very American since I'm Asian.

Yea, it was the Orpheus that I had listened to.

I believe they were the HE-90's. I had no familiar material with me so I didn't really have a chance to get good grasp of the sound....but nonetheless I'm curious now. (damnit)

I heard a pair of electrostats for the first time over the weekend and now my curiosity is piqued. I wonder how Stax sound in comparison.

Whenever I see the nick MarkL now, all I can think of is his "slooooooooow" review of the HD800's. Perhaps I should modify that to "SPOOOOOOOOOW" now.

But the question remains.....is he at a MarkL level of genius?

IIRC in Linux you can output video to a text handler and you can literally watch any video as ASCII art.

It's much more fun to build stuff as a hobby than to have to build stuff to order. I think your sell-the-spares-as-you-go plan sounds much more workable

15 days is enough, just make sure to turn it on and let it burn in for a while in a ventilated area, as the initial smell of electronics it gives off is a bit strong imho.

Vicki, you're certainly making sense. What I found was that most of the chargers I have don't have polarized plugs, so I just plug them with the tail end upwards. If you have polarized plugs then I guess the better solution would be the power strip that you linked in the OP.

That's a neat idea to fix the power strip issue. I've been using the belkin strips with rotatable sockets like this one: BP108200-06 Belkin Pivot-Plug Surge Protectors mrarroyo: what if she needs to charge multiple devices at the same time?

specs from the ebay listing I saw for a ver 2 Matrix M-Stage: Frequency Response: 10 Hz (-0.3dB) ~ 35kHz (-1dB) Signal to Noise Ratio: >95dB (0dB) Distortion: <0.001% (6 mW/300 Ohms) Input Impedance: 47 kOhms Output Impedance: Line-out 60 Ohms, Phone-out 5 Ohms Output Power: 200 mW/300 Ohms, 400 mW/60 Ohms Power Support: AC 220-240V/100-120V (Please specify) Front Panel Color: Black/Silver (Please specify) Weight: 2 kg Device Dimension: 280 x 110 x 42mm Seriously though, a 15 page review for a $250 amp?

Didn't notice that one....funny. Oh yea, isn't every amp a cmoy "essentially"?

Well, that depends if it's organic cow milk we're talking about. These are important details!

Connecting outside Japan the max speed I could d/l at was 8MB/sec with a typical speed more like 6MB/sec; downloading within Japan on the other hand was easily 15MB/sec or more depending on server. Routing wise I didn't have too much of issue in my experience. Total cost for the connection was about $80 a month.