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    What about Random Turn On SSRs?

There's more to vodka than the taste per say, there's also the consistency, the smell, etc. I'm not a huge fan of Grey Goose, it's the de-facto overfancy overpriced vodka. Belvedere, on the other hand, has a lovely mouthfeel, good flavor and terrific smoothness. Polish vodkas are some of the best. Growing up with Soviet factory-made vodka has kind of clowded my judgment, but the favorite standby to this day is Stoli. Smirnoff is ok, but it's a little harsher and more mediciny tasting than it should be. If you're going to do a DBT with vodka, you can't just serve one shot after another, at room temperature. I say serve two or three shots, one chilled, one regular, one warm (nasty, but it will bring out some of the flaws); have a palate cleanser and some time between rounds; due it over a course of a few days if possible, to minimize the effects of intoxication. And finally, don't just spit the damn vodka out - this ain't no wine tasting.

Ah, thank you. There's an odd incongruity here: if you take the copyrighted PCB layout or schematic art and make boards using them, aren't you producing a derivative work (which would then fall under the original copyright)?

Err.., I had tried the Crossfade LPs, not the M80s.

Sorry for the tangent, but I'm a huge free content whore and was wondering whether this was technically correct. Are the designs explicitly released into the public domain, or does Gilmore license them out?

Actually this happens everyday. North Koreans have been crying while looking at his picture for decades

What Makes A Fuckhead?

The etch looks to be that 3db rise from 1 to 2 khz, then it's fairly smooth until the 10k hump. Or the etch could be a product of a sharp band in the impulse response. I'd love to know how to tell where that sort of thing comes from. Listening to my 404LE, I do notice a tiny bit of extra "presence", however there's nothing overtly offensive otherwise.

There are of course several japanese shops that sell stax products on eBay. I've recently purchased a Stax 009 from joynetcafe for just under 5k. They do move a fair amount of Stax products and claim to be an officially sanctioned dealer.

Damn. I've seen that happen before after years of isolation due to disability, it must be very tough to see a friend go through that. Your friendship must mean a lot to him.

I think you're confusing the upper and lower freq. graphs for the different colored ones. This is partly my fault as the faded 404 freq. response lines are pretty tough to see. Here's a better side by side: There are minor variations below 30hz and larger ones beyond 10khz, though variations that high in frequency shouldn't be that noticeable. My guess is that the >10khz variations, especially in the case of the mismatched L&R responses in the regular 404 driver, might manifest themselves as differences in soundstage / the amount of "air".

Oh yeah, on the topic: going to have to try out the MixMaster next time at a bestbuy or something. & have you had a go at the Nixon/Third Man Records "Master Blaster"?

Ah, then I'm sorry for the insinuation of vehicular manslaughter. The guy who designed the Segway, Dean Kamen, used the same gyroscope-based balancing technology prior to the two-wheel scooter in a 4-wheel wheelchair which could climb stairs. At the very least I'm glad that the popularity of the Segway has allowed him more funding for further research. And I suppose it's a decent mobility tool, though sitting down would be far less stressful on the body and more convenient, as has been pointed out.

Thought I'd resurrect with a couple of observations. I had the good luck of buying a 404LE from Asr back in mid-2010. Needless to say that I'm now a huge fan of the Lambda design and think it makes a great companion phone to the O2. However I always wondered whether there were any differences in the LE beyond the cosmetics/cables. That is to say I suspected that it was a gussied-up 404 with sound similarity way beyond the simple lambda heritage. Which is fine by me, since before hearing it I thought of the Lambdas as some of the ugliest phones around, made worse only by the shit brown. So a sleek black headphone with terrific comfort and fit as well as a sound to match came as a welcome surprise and in my mind were ample justification for the price differential. A unique opportunity to test my suspicions came about after Tyll graciously offered to provide stat measurements. Luckily, a regular 404 was in the sample group. The measurements of my 404LE as well as the regular 404 may be found at: http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR404S2742.pdf http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR404LtdSSL0670.pdf Here's an overlay of the two freq. response curves, with the 404LE in the darker orange and brown vs. the light outlines of the regular 404: The curves are nearly identical, except perhaps for slightly smoother & less rocky upper treble on the 404LE and maybe a slight improvement over the already excellent channel matching. Where I did find a difference, and where it turns out it really might matter, was looking at the effect the different pads had on the isolation measurement (404 in blue, 404LE in violet): Now is it possible that aside from the recorded linear/nonlinear distortion of the response that there is some added effect of having an essentially flat, little to no isolation measurement in an open baffle headphone? Could that variation in the upper bass/lower midrange section of the measurement explain some of the recorded opinions of varying bass response among the Lambdas? Aside from the minor discrepancy between the two channels recorded in the regular 404's 30hz response the rest of the measurements are almost identical. (At least I think it's safe to say that minor differences in HD at decently less than -40db may be dismissed.) The impulse response also looks to be within a reasonable margin of variation between pairs of the same model, though it's tough to tell without those lovely CSD waterfall plots. Again, even though I don't see substantial evidence of 404LE having any notable audible differences from the measurements, the foundational sound of this headphone has been superb. Maybe I've a tendency to prefer a slightly brighter signature because the 404LE sounds fairly neutral.