deepak

(for anyone that still cares) Unfortunately I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to listen to my system recently but I thought I would add an update as I did spend a lot of time with my setup during the summer. The M192 continues to impress me and remains one of the best sources I've heard. The more I listened it the more I got used to its sound and the less it started to "wow" me. Instead the opposite happened where I started recognizing subtle things in music that I haven't heard before- not necessarily details because I don't think this is the most detailed DAC out there. Like I mentioned in the previous posts the dynamics and holographic nature of the soundstage makes complex music much more layered and real. In live jazz pieces that I've heard countless times the recordings started to make more sense and an idea of real space started to become much more focused and clear. Since creating this thread my main headphone changed from the Grado HP-2 to the Audio Technica L3000 (in my was more resolving and detailed after a month of side by side comparisons), and even with the L3000's in between Grado/Sennheiser soundstage venue size started to take a small shape of its own. And just like my profile states, I prefer gear that has natural tone and timbre, and the M192 does nothing short of amazing me in these two areas. I believe I mentioned these two particular instruments in the past, but I'm very familiar with the violin, acoustic guitar and sitar and all sound very real on well recorded material. The only downside to growing so attached to a piece of gear is that if I were to upgrade now I would really need a source that could act as a preamp as well for my speaker setup. So it seems my next source upgrade won't be to replace my M192, instead it will be to start a speaker setup that can be kept separate from the headphones.

You do have a McAlister amp? [me=jpak]keeds, i keeds[/me]

I compared the DAC1 side by side with the DA10, preferred the DA10. I later compared the DA10 side by side with the M192, and the M192 was better by a looong shot, I sold the DA10 in a week. It was definitely a very big source upgrade. I would only upgrade the Northstar if I really needed a source with a built in preamp, which I might if my K1000/Avantgardes get a nice pair of monoblocks. But more than likely the lowly headphone setup will stay seperate from the speakers.

It is nice DAC, high five

Yeah they were all iBooks, right when 10.1 or 10.2 came out. I should have mentioned that. All their T42s held up fine. I've read of very little failure with the Intel Macs, and my next laptop will more than likely be a Macbook.

So rant over In your situation I'd buy a Dell with the extended warranty. Get some stackable coupons and you could probably shave a couple/few hundred dollars off the price since it looks like you're looking for a pretty high end laptop. If it's not entirely obvious Dell rapes you on things like ram, so I would get the minimum and upgrade it yourself. I've done this with all my laptops- just run memtest86 on the sticks for a few hours to make sure they're stable. And if hardrive upgrades are costly, I would look into something that is at least 7200 rpm, your computer is only as fast as the hardrive.

This is pretty much true of any manufacturer. I had a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop for 3 years. Finally in the end of its third year the LCD finally started to not turn on all the time. I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything wrong with the LCD, and it was probably only a bad connection; the thing was dusty as hell. But after 3 years I was due for an upgrade and didn't care to open it up to clean it out. Other than that it was fine. This laptop saw a lot of heavy travel use. I carried it with me everywhere, every day for 2 years straight when I had classes in the city campus. My sister bought a Dell laptop in August '06 for $450 after coupons, a pretty nice machine at the time. Pentium M 1.7 GHz, 512 mb ram, 60 gb hardrive, 15" widescreen (I think SXGA+). And it too has been perfect. She dropped it one time and it now has a crack in the case near the keyboard but it's still stable. My dad got a free Dell laptop through a pharm company, I can't even recall how old it is. It uses a Celeron processor and it's still fine, my mom uses it every now and then for internet and email. As for Apple laptops I got one my first year of med school (part of my tuition ) and it was a piece of crap. One motherboard failure and then the CD-drive gave out. All of my friends except for one (who never used his) saw one problem or another within 2 years, and most of them bought IBM T42s. As for IBM/Lenovo they're the standard laptop given to all interns/residents/fellows/attendings at Dartmouth Hitchcock and I can't recall anyone having problems with them. And most people treat them like shit, I carried mine around on rounds, in my hand, so I wasn't exactly treating it very delicately. My dad has one of the newer Lenovo laptops with the higher power battery (8 or 9 cell?) and it's amazing, he probably gets 8 hours out of it with the screen dimmed.

K1000 + Arcturus = win!

House party edition stepper. I like.

If you like that NOS sound then it might just. Me, not such a fan.

Icarium I have a CD transport that is only 1 of 2 in this planet Earth. Yours for eleventy billion yen.

I like the cut of this guys jib

I haven't really bought new music in a while, this should be nice, Beethoven 60 CD masterpieces boxset [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Complete-Masterpieces-Germany-included/dp/B000NDEMAI/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4899641-6848743?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1188971909&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Beethoven: Complete Masterpieces (Germany) (60 CD Limited Edition Box Set): Beethoven: Music[/ame]

Ah but my varsity jacket was for tennis. So yes nerds

Sounds good

Sent you a PM

So you do not know what it feels like to walk into a room full of innocent people and cook them with your lightning, dark side ftw!

Oh alright, yeah I forgot you could play the planets in any order. I did Korriban last. I was not a big fan of the second one.

The Sith NPC or Jolee? You missed out on some good dialog between Jolee and the robot if you didn't pick him up

The guy you met up with bought one didn't he (L3000, SDS-XLR Hfi'er)? It's listed in his signature.

You had to have him in your party when you landed on Korriban. Then you talk to one of the Sith lurking around outside in a hostile tone.

No this was from Stars Wars Knights of the Old Republic. One of the jedi in your party- Jolee Bindo (black guy) answers "no massa, yes sir massa" when you land on the Sith planet and one of the Sith asks you if you want to be their slaves. Funniest moment in the game, though the entire game had some of the best dialog I've seen in an RPG.

Ban count tally plus one, jerk count tally minus one No massa! (a slightly more obscure Star Wars reference if you can pick it up

Thank you for the explanation thread! And here I thought it was because I made fun of Reks for comparing himself with Darth Maul (sissy).

They often do have limited edition CDs or LPs for sale on their tours. I've had friends mail me a few CDs. Though music wise they're not that great.