Wmcmanus

What I'm most interested in is how people think the HD800 stacks up against the likes of the HE90/HE60 (depending on what you have the most experience with). This is why I started the poll here. I figured the results would get less noise pollution than at HF where many people would vote for either the HE90 or HD800 without having heard both (based on whatever it is that makes them do such things).

Inspired by this thread: The Best Senn Below the HD800 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio and what started out as an intentionally silly response on my part: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/6266249-post84.html, I'm now putting my theory to the test! As I mentioned in that post, I'd pick the HE90 over the HD800 if I could only keep one pair of Senns, but both are world class headphones IMO. I'd place the HE60 third, I think, but I haven't had enough time with them to know exactly how they might compare. Yet, they're probably close enough to the HE90 that they might edge out the HD800 as well, for the same sorts of reasons I suggested in the linked post above. I prefer the HD650 over the HD600 almost always, and especially when I've heard balanced HD650's at meets (really impressive with the SDS-XLR, for instance).

Oh ya, baby... I like it when you lick my... Wait a minute! Where was I again?

Nice response, Vicki. I hadn't read it before making my last post. I'll be curious to learn whether all of the clothes were in her size or if she was busy buying up all sorts of sizes (presumably as "gifts" to her family and friends, but in reality as inventory for her own store). But perhaps I'm focusing too much on cash, because that's the last thing she would ever need so long as she had an endless checkbook at Koss. About the addictive behavior, I guess she loves designer clothes as much as some of us love high end headphones. Too bad she couldn't just chill out with a pair of KSC-75's every now and then and let all of her wants and needs float away.

Have you considered the possibility that she was thinking about opening her own boutique somewhere? Turning some of her ill gotten gains into hard and fast cash? Notice that she was spending money like crazy but the reports don't say anything about how much (if any) of the embezzled funds were still held in cash by her. My guess is that her bag of tricks did not include any forms of direct payments to herself or accounts held in her name. She figured she could get away with everything so long as all transactions looked like legit payments (to whichever dipshits in Koss who were rubber stamping their names as the second signature). So getting the money out of Koss was no problem, but it went directly to vendors and thus went to her as goods and services, not as cash. My guess is that she had side operations going to convert the stuff she was buying back into cash for her eventual retirement home(s). To be in the position she was in, she would have to be a highly qualified and intelligent person, not to mention a real charmer as well. She misused her position of trust for a ridiculous level of personal gain, way beyond comfort needs and such. No, she's not like the bus driver who takes coins into his hand and slips some of them into his pocket to help pay for his sick child's hospital care because his company refuses to provide adequate medical coverage. She's a white collar criminal who deserves to rot in a filthy jail.

Interesting. I've got a Kindle and quite like it. I've been using it more than I thought I would at home. I knew that I would use it when traveling and that's where it's really great, but I've found that one book leads to another when you have an inventory of them stored. Not so true with real books. It's much easier then to put one book down and not pick up the next one for a while. About the Slashdot report: I wonder if perhaps the Kindle just happened to make the perfect Christmas gift this year? It has now been around for long enough for nearly everyone who likes buying "special" and "trendy" gifts to know that it exists because everyone has a friend or two who swears by it. It is likewise priced just about right for conspicuous consumption without going completely overboard. So it was the perfect gift for urbanites this year, and Amazon helped their own cause by pimping it endlessly. Every time you logged on, you had to look at a Kindle in a pretty bow and read about how it was their #1 best selling gift of the season. That would drive anyone who was trying to keep up with the Joneses completely mad until they added it their shopping cart! My guess is that it will settle down a bit now that Christmas is over, and that "normal" books will outsell ebooks again for a while. But there is no stopping the overall trend. Soon nearly everyone who has a cell phone will have an ereader, until they come out with an all-in-one device that adds an ereader feature to some other multi-function gadget.

Major egg on the face of Grant Thornton, the auditing firm. My guess is that there has been a long standing relationship between them and Koss, and the audit program was extremely predictable and thus easy to elude. There is now a mandatory 5 year limit for the partner in charge on any given engagement, then they need to rotate partners. No doubt they did this, but GT is not exactly a huge accounting firm and Milwaukee isn't a huge market either so no matter what they might do there would still be a high level of familiarity. Plus (assuming that it was a long standing audit relationship), no doubt the Koss business was a cash cow for GT in much the same way as Enron was for Arthur Andersen (albeit on a smaller scale). Familiarity breeds contempt. They need to realize that when you least expect fraud is when you really need to expect it. This sort of thing is always a huge embarrassment on the accounting profession. It's frustrating to me that public accounting firms still seem to do everything in their power to mould their junior staff members into little efficiency machines and never allow them the luxury of the time that it often takes to actually think (as opposed to ticking and totaling). Their entire orientation is on completing the audit program within tight time budgets to maintain profitability. Makes me sick that they make machines out of fully capable people who are probably more aware of what audit risk and business risk means after taking their first auditing course than they are after "serving" a two year sentence in public accounting. Sometimes "experience" beats the sense out of people.

Happy birthday, Ken. Hope you have a blast in Vegas!

Not having heard them yet, I can honestly say they're the best sounding $1k I've ever flushed down the toilet.

I called Todd this afternoon and had him put my name on the preorder list. Why even try to resist? He said that nobody in North America has them yet. They're expected to arrive sometime in February. He also said that his first order isn't completely sold out yet... I talked with him about the PS-1000 as well, but will probably hold off on those until sometime this spring/summer when I'm passing through Montana and can give them some serious listening time. My guess is that I'd probably listen to them more than I do the HD800; even though they're not as good, technically speaking, I think they'll be more fun for a lot of music. Just based on what little I can remember about them from CJLA.

I think it's what Vicki and Miguel are saying. We've all tried to love Beyer's other quasi high end offerings (DT770, DT880 and DT990) but have ultimately been left feeling flat, whereas the Senn crowd seems to have much stronger "feelings" (fanboy-isms) for the likes of the HD600 and HD650, so naturally it didn't take much to get them all stirred up. I guess the other aspect of it is that Senn had a proven track record with the HE60 and HE90 (different technology, yes, but still evidence that they can do great things). Beyer doesn't really have that, or if they do, very few people recognize it or identify with it.

I'm fascinated by the sociological aspects of our little headphone world, when comparing the overall level of response that the T1 is getting relative to what the HD800 got when the collective knowledge base was essentially at this same stage. Of course, it was Jude himself (in a very detailed and well written review) who broke the HD800 news, and not too much later, confirming opinions by 2 or 3, and then very quickly 8 or 10 other experienced and well respected folks. After that, all hell broke loose and order books were getting filled in hours, dozens of HD800 speculation threads started popping up (would they be good with X, Y or Z, and were they priced right, etc). With the T1, about the only folks who have heard them extensively at this point are Skylab (well known, but opinions vary in terms of his ability to "get it right" in his reviews/impressions) and achristilaw (I don't know much about him and suspect I'm not the only one who doesn't). So, essentially, the T1's aren't getting much attention, whereas everyone was salivating to get a chance to hear the HD800. I'm not saying that the T1's won't suck; they may well. But from what I've read from these two guys, they seem like strong contenders. Can't say I'm ready to buy a pair on faith, however.

I remember meeting you, and I've met Brent as well. Thus, the warnings!

Dunno... I'd be just as cautious about eating at a place called PePe's in Key West as I would be in San Francisco.

Did Santa stuff all day with 3 of my g/f's younger sisters serving as Mrs. Claus, Miss Claus and Elf. She actually has 4 younger sisters, 2 of whom are busy training for the Olympics (400 and 800 meter dash). They're all so fit as compared to Santa! Forgot the blasted camera, but I'll try to get some pics to post over the next couple of days. I'm pretty worn down, so I've decided to have my cookies and milk and then take a long nap until tomorrow. There has been light rain here all day, so another consideration is to give due respect to the "dry clean only" tags on Santa's expensive suit.

Careful, or you'll end up being a fat fuck like me... Brent is running that risk as well with all of his KK lust.

I love KK, and I know Matt's friends are founders of the business, but the DJ doughnuts seriously ruled.

You're wrong there. Chicks love hearing about accounting!

Nope, nothing so fancy. Had a Subway pizza last night. Not as good as the Esso gas station pizza, but a lot closer for me. This place has actually been there for several years, but the new manager chick has finally opened their eyes about the 24 hour business. I chatted with her for over an hour and was the only customer the whole time. Everyone else here is asleep by midnight.

The beach helps a lot here. When I'm restless in the middle of the night, I just go for a stroll or a swim. There is no surf as such here since the Island is reef protected in 90% of the areas you might want to wander to, so it's like one big swimming pool with the water gently lapping in most of the time. But hungry is hungry and at 3am that doesn't help much. I guess my point is that it's not as boring as a lot of the other places I've lived at. It's now time to jump on my Vespa and head to Subway for a 1am sandwich! No way, man, this is way too cool to be finally true!

Thanks, man. I forgot to mention that I met the rather cute and chubby young lady of a new manager from Canada who made it all possible, and chatted with her (oddly enough, considering her size, and worse yet - mine) about exercise gear and gyms and such tonight. I told her about all of the great equipment I have at my place, which (sadly) isn't getting much use these days. I'm sure I'll get to know her better since she has appointed herself to the night shift. So here's hoping that we'll one day get sweaty together when she needs a good workout.

Right here, in Grand Cayman, and less than 2 miles from my house... Ok, so I know it seems silly, but I've been living here for 13+ years and until now, there hasn't been a 24-hour anything. It took years before we finally had wholesale grocery stores, and the ones we have now are not exactly discount houses. Nearly everything in the retail world closes at 5pm, restaurants close by 9 or 10, and nothing (I mean nothing at all) is open on Sunday except about 150 churches and a couple of gas stations. As an old fart bachelor who doesn't cook (at all) and the kind of dude who stays up all night at least once per week for no particular reason, all I can say is that it's about friggin' time! I can now buy a sandwich between the hours of 10pm and 6am! For years I've been making a 10 mile drive (each way) to the nearest gas station for a gas station sandwich, a gas station hot dog, or a gas station slice of pizza. The pizza isn't bad, actually... Ah, but no more! Now I can have a friggin' sandwich whenever the frig I want to in the middle of the friggin' night (without having to pick all of the veggies off of a leftover sandwich and without having to then nuke it and choke it down). I might just have a couple of cookies tonight too.

Nice pics and impressions, Gene. Like CJ '08, it makes me sad to know that I was there, but not really! It sucks to show up just for the meet itself and miss all of the other stuff, which is where the real fun is. Maybe next time I'll plan around the beer rather than the music...

Can we skip the dildo thing and maybe make something with a pair of tits on it instead?

Better yet, check out the "position guide" which includes, inter alia, some simulated rug munching techniques: Best Sexual Positions Guide