devwild

congrats!

I have my tablet (though I don't use it much for logos) and would be willing to give it a go too if you want.

Me? have a target? hell, I'm just prone to rambling I do enjoy playing with this stuff though. I was one of the handful of people that actually bought BeOS (3, free upgrade to 4), and actually used it a fair amount.

Indeed, I had a feeling that might be the case, that's why I clarified in my first post. It was just a warning for others because that is a big problem in the budding areas of the linux community. In general Windows tends to be more finicky about drivers, because of its loose and bloated APIs that have been built upon for so many years, especially when it comes to video and audio (as computer-as-source fans and gamers are well aware of). It also has many more poor drivers written for it by third party companies, big and small (Sony VAIOs are a great example). This leads to far more instability problems. I personally place the blame as much on the moron developers as I do on Microsoft though. Outsourcing takes its toll too... Modern laptops for example often have cheap and/or bloated wireless, LAN, and USB drivers, where large chunks run in user-land and spin CPU cycles at high priority, try to do more in software to save 10 minutes of battery life, etc. The linux drivers however are kernel modules that just do what they need to do to function properly, and thus tend to be more stable and work much smoother with the rest of the system. Linux in general also doesn't lock on IO and hardware requests like the NT kernel still does, which makes it feel smoother. And if it does bog down, runaways on linux are usually easier to kill (-9) . You might notice that Windows Server 2003 with its default process handling setting is much less prone to locking up than Windows XP as well, thought certainly still not perfect. Linux tends to have problems as well as soon as you get into third party, corporate developed drivers. Like I said above, my dell laptop dual boots Ubuntu. When messing around with the ATI driver, which refuses to accept my screen's modeline, manually or automatically, the driver would screw up my framebuffer so bad that unloading the module and restarting X by hand with the open source driver didn't even help, and I had to reboot many, many times. Even pro hardware designed to run on linux has problems because the developers don't, or can't account for all the oddities that crop up in modern distributions. I enjoy working with *nix varieties, and I really wish my current job allowed me more excuses to manage *nix servers. I replaced my desktop with a G5 at home because I wanted unix tools around without the pains of trying to keep linux-as-a-desktop up to speed all the time for my needs. However I have spent much more of my time administering windows boxes, and as a result, I've built up habits that lead to me having far fewer problems with Windows than most people. I generally only reboot my XP laptop and windows server based HTPC/file server for major security patches (I hybernate my laptop the rest of the time, including for booting into linux). I don't have problems with spyware or viruses, and I have the same hardware problems (usually a hard drive failure), I have with any other machine. It's amazing how that works isn't it. One last note on uptimes, if someone here ever gets a job administering a *nix server of any type that provides critical services: If you schedule a downtime, and make any changes, manually or through patches, that modify your startup scripts, swallow your uptime pride and reboot the box. Check that *everything* runs properly and that your services all start with the proper configurations. It is so much better to reboot during the downtime than to have your users scream at you months down the road when their web server or the like isn't working right because you reboot for some other reason. You'd be amazed how minor changes can cascade into nothing working quite right, even if you were 100% sure everything would be fine.

I'm sure you keep a good eye on things, but I just want to say this as a matter of course... uptime isn't everything. There have been critical kernel vulnerabilities in the past year which should be patched, not to mention ssh, apache, etc (though generally you only need to reboot for kernel patches, or nfs sometimes when it gets finicky). Especially in the case of a box used as a firewall and/or web server, keeping your box secure is of utmost importance, and bragging about uptime is often bragging about a box on the virge of getting hit by script kiddies. I'm not saying that's the case with you - if you know your weaknesses, watch bugtrac, keep track of your ports... you can last a lot longer without patching. But the uptime bragging rights are a pitfall many new linux administrators fall into and eventually get bitten by. If you really want uptime try a BSD varient.... BTW, BSODs haven't been much of an issue since Windows 98/ME. 2000 and XP only BSOD due to faulty hardware or poorly written drivers (probably 80%+ of BSODs I've seen in the past 5 years have been from bad RAM, the rest bad video cards or ATI's drivers).... and the same issues cause linux to kernel panic. Windows has it's issues, but before you start on the OS wars it's best to get the facts strait. Most of the frustrations I experience with computers of any variety these days are hardware related... and moreso dealing with the vendors as a result.

Attend the the tale of Sweeney Todd. His face was pale and his eye was odd. He shaved the faces of gentlemen, who never thereafter were heard of again. He trod a path that few have trod, did Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

I seem to remeber knoppix or some other live CD I used once supporting the use of a floppy or usb flash drive as your homedir so you could save bookmarks, cookies etc. Of course could do that with most any distribution after you boot. wmv files are always a problem. VLC will play some, but far from all, and most of the players need codecs added, which you can't do off a live cd. It's like trying to play internet videos on a mac, except that quicktime doesn't work either . Thank goodness for sites like google using flash now. (Though again, many live cds don't come with flash because it is closed-source) I dual boot ubuntu on my dell laptop, and it works nicely. Wireless even works with the ndiswrapper quite well. However, even for every day browsing I end up booting back to Windows because I get tired of things not working. It's great to have around when I need it though.

I would sure like to know more about the new total bithead's SQ as well... I have several friends who might be interested in buying one, as it's basically the cheapest retail all-in-one solution for laptops. However, I wasn't terribly impressed with the standard version of the previous Bithead SQ wise, on USB power it was actually quite similar to my desktop sound cards. I used it mainly at work, and for flying because it's the least likely amp to bring the attention of the TSA I can't complain, it was Tyll's reward from the headroom tour (thanks!) and I still appreciate it, and got some good use out of it. Short of getting a chance to hear one myself it would be nice to hear some comparisons to amps I know somewhat - Xin Supermini, HeadRoom Micro, Go-Vibe, Pimeta... because it would be great to have a simple solution like that to suggest to friends on the entry level of headphone insanity, but I want to know its faults as well as its strengths before I make suggestions.

You may also wish to try the ubuntu/kubuntu live cds, they are pretty nice.

sounds like.... your own dumb fault

Wow Tyll, sounds like HeadRoom will really be doing what it can to challenge the market more and combine audiophile design and more modern controls and features. Hats off to you and fingers crossed. A robust switched volume circuit like that on the Lavry DAC would be pretty sweet on a next-gen maxed desktop/home.

It's not an absolute need, but at least from my perspective, it's a move that makes sense. The D-Class amps really are starting to redefine speaker amps, and this provides an excelent opportunity for HeadRoom to extend their reach of audio equipment one last logical step. They are already providing power management, DAC, headamp/preamp (!) components in a unified series of matching components. Why not provide the last piece of the rack that appeals to a number of headphiles, an affordable 2 channel speaker amp that can drive a set of mid-range speakers with ease without overly complicating their setup, and leveraging what they have. AV123 is actually doing the same with the X-series electronics, just that the headamp is the afterthought component, which makes more sense for speaker-philes, but HeadRoom's approach will appeal more to those of us attacking our setups from the other side (are we the dark side? ). The X-series also includes a seperate DAC/switch combo (hint hint). My 2 cents on that bit. I agree that there needs to be some clarification on the power supply options.

I have the 50's which are generally considered a notch down (mainly due to fit which I don't have a problem with), and despite all my gear I still get "dang, that sounds good" moments walking around listening to them from my nano. So no, absolutely not overrated, Koss did a great job with those drivers. Perfect for portable use. Edit: but no, they aren't giant killers

yes.

You forgot about screwing it up once or twice, screaming, and posting to head-fi. Also, I personally have found I solder a bit better if I have a drink first (calm the shaky hands )

How refreshing to have discussion and explanation over what was done.

I think he was just trying to help keep your private info private. edit, more info: http://www.head-case.org/index.php?topic=275.0

Hmm, now that is interesting, seeing as all my headphones tend to be lower impedence. I would be very curious to hear how the new desktop module compares to the Aria.

Thanks a bunch for the info Tyll, I know you're like the rest of us... if we only had the money we could do whatever we want.

Add some low cost additional features like more switchable ins and outs that make it a more versatile device, and I honestly don't think anyone in the market for such a DAC would care. I wouldn't. Headroom amps don't sound good with my equipment, but I would be glad to support them in buying a good dac I could use with a multitude of gear. I understand that Tyll wants to sell his amps, but to my point of view, with the online crowd at least, that's not how the market seems to work. People buy the bits that sound good. Since the Headroom amps don't work for me I currently have little interest in his products beyond the microdac I have (and possibly the micro switch once it finally comes out). I also think a stationary DAC would be a great entry product to the Headroom line for a lot of general audiophiles. I know Tyll has already debated this a lot and there's no point in arguing, but I can't help but be disappointed. I desperately want to see more good options in the dac world. The microdac was a baby step in the right direction in my mind.