feckn_eejit

My MG-IIIa beasties (gifted from a family friend!) started me down the path to Audiophilia Nervosa beginning about ten years ago... they have been through a shitty 90's Pioneer receiver, a Hafler SE240, B&K ST-140, B&K ST-202+, Bryston 4B NRB, Bryston 4B SST and finally a Pass X250.5. Not to mention every other upgrade to every other component... they just continue to get better! Obviously the later stuff is better but it costs big bucks... but the B&K ST-202+ is AWESOME! How many amps you can pick up for a few hundred used can go in after a honkin' big Pass Labs amp and not be embarrassed? This is one! It's not quite as good in the bass slam department as the Brystons (then again neither is the X250.5, which is why I'd like to biamp with 7B ST monos on the bass panels...) but much less harsh and grainy in the high end with the brutal ribbon tweeters. Many call its sound "tubey", which while I think is unjustified, isn't a totally outrageous comment. I could not possibly rave enough about the ST-202+... they pop up on AgoN with some regularity for less than $400 usually... and trust me, with Maggies, you will not replace it until you are ready to spend more than a couple grand on another amp. Try to find one of the earlier ones with the gold writing on the front, they are built fairly differently than the later ones and sound a fair bit better. If you can't find a +, you could get away with a ST-202, and perhaps even a ST-140 if you don't listen too loud. Since you have something to listen to now, I'd hold out for a ST-202+, and then you'll easily be able to go up the Maggie chain quite comfortably. The ST-202+ sounds fantastic on my Totem Forest speakers as well, and my buddys B&W CDM-1s (really brought more bass out of the CDM-1s than we thought they were capable of!) Check out the Planar Asylum and you should see a fair bit more praise for the ST-202+.

Duncan Browne - Streets of Fire (1979) Though I only really like 4 of the 7 tracks, those four are absolutely, ridiculously, outrageously fantastic...

The Pursuit of Happiness - Love Junk (1988) Ridiculously good Canadian college-radio pop rock with a decent amount of bite and a somewhat-more-than-healthy dollop of sexual frustration. This, their debut, was produced by Todd Rundgren... 13 tracks, 9 of which are killer, which is a pretty damn good ratio!

I'm a big SR-X Mk.III fan, and the SR-X Pros really fixed their major shortcomings for me... either way I received a pair of SR-5/NB right before I left for a business trip a few days ago and won't have time to really try them for a couple of weeks! Got a pair of Gamma Pros with a f**ked arc assembly as well, and a nice chunky extension cable with the female end cut off... rather considering making a pair of SR-5/NB Pros... hopefully not sacrildge to bugger around with the "Gold"s!

Both AWESOME!! I can never decide whether #1 Record or Radio City is my fav... leaning towards Radio City these days. As for Together Alone... very good but not sure Time On Earth isn't my fav of theirs! It's seriously frickin' good! Saw them on their latest tour, in the pissing rain... so worth it! Luckily I can't think of many albums I can't enjoy due to heavy play during shitty life periods... only thing that pops out is Feist, which reminds me of when things were *seriously* fucked up with The Girl I'm Gonna Marry Some Day ... Currently spinning on the 'pod: The Sighs - What Goes On (1992) Stretchy, have you heard this? You'll love it!!! Let me know...

The HDSPe series is PCIe. I ordered my HDSPe AIO in June '08 and finally received it in April... Good call on poking around on gearslutz for a comparo, thanks jp! I am deliriously happy with the AIO overall. Best bonus was that my Grate-oh RS1s sound *way* better plugged straight into the AIO's headphone out than through the RA1!

Anyone have any insight as to whether the recommended Lynx card's digital outs are demonstrably superior to compared to, say, a RME HDSPe AIO?

from a hotel room (5G iPod -> Grate-oh SR325...!) in Edmonton on a brutal, busier-than-shit business trip:

cool, will have someone look into sourcing.....thanks!

Thanks for all the input, guys... these Senns look ideal... are they not a current model? Have they been replaced by something else? Any idea where I can buy a pair hot shipped to Vancouver?

So, one of my clients is leaving to do a bicycle rce in th Alps on Friday, and knowing that I'm a bit of an audio nerd he had asked me if I can source him some good earphones for the trip. Thing is he can't be TOO isolated as he needs to hear traffic/etc, so he can be aware of what's going on around him. He's reasonably picky about sound... but source will be straight from a 160gb iPod to put things in perspective. His ear cavities are pretty small so for example a small UE tip isolates him too much for bicycling. Price is absolutely no object but fast availability is... any ideas? Thanks!

this was my solution to getting a RME card into a machine that ran MacOS without dropping for a Mac Pro... PM me if you want more info on this sorta thing.

So good. MFSL smokes the "Deluxe" edition btw... I really really like this one as well, in fact I probably listen to it more than Night and Day:

My fav TFF album........ ............duck fancy..... you gotta be kidding........

I have a soft spot for Jeff Lynne as well... seems most of the albums he's touched absolutely reek of his signature production touches! The weird hi-hat sound... the twelve-string acoustics with all the bottom end gutted...

i was going to guess four and a half years but you are probably right!

Put my IIIas in a near-field type situation in a 10x12 room once... the bass was RIDICULOUS! ...pretty tough for them to be anything other than perpendicular to the floor on stock stands methinks

don't blame you... what's the going rate? what a beast...

seconded, this strikes me as an ideal solution... though you will need a hell of a nice sub to keep up with the delicious planar bass...

Kinda interesting how they "upgraded" the Unibody Macbooks to "Pro" status... also note new 15" Mac Pro sans fancy graphics. Did they drop the ExpressCard/34 slot from everything but the 17" now...? Sweet to have FW800 in the 13" models. Oh an the internal battery is TEH SICCNESS, and it's not particularly hard to do the replacement anyway... On the fence about the 3G "S". 32gb would be nice but I just bought elnero's 5G 60gb with the intention of throwing a 240gb HD in it and going totally lossless... other than a doubling in capacity it seems like just a speed bump... hard to justify... Wonder what the quietest OpenCL card I can throw in my hackintosh would be... my goal with this box was to be quieter and run cooler than a real Mac Pro (we have 30 at work and they COOK HDs and ram!!), without sacrificing much speed... Oh and the '09 Mac Pros piss me off... have to go for two procs to have >8gb ram... Either way can't wait for Snow Leopard and Adobe CS5 to put on our graphic designer's desks, gonna change their lives!!

Nice. Not so sure I'm with you on Yello though!

So......if I don't need closed, and I'm a resolution fanatic, O2MkIs are the way to go, as long as I can swing a BH I assume Are the 4070s as brutal to drive as the O2s?

I'm also very curious about the 4070, especially given my SR-X Mk.III/Pro love!