laxx

No turnstyle. I ride the express bus, so no monthly pass. It's $40 for a weekly pass, but after I do the math, it's not worth it for me.

$50 Metrocard. Good for another week. =[

Finally finished season 1 of Buffy last night. On to season 2!

So who else wants to write one up?

I'm probably going to read it instead of watching it.

I thought the modded Oppo was about $800. I just checked the site and it's: DV970HD - $800 DV980H - $850 DV981HD - $875 Then there's a few additional mods that cost ~$200-295, but you can forgoe those.

I started watching Transformers Animated - Transform and Roll Out last night. It's an full movie length introduction for Transformers Animated, a new series that will be on Cartoon Network. It's no Transformers from 1984, but it's still fun to watch. I still need to catch up on Beast Wars as I never enjoyed watching it. Reading it on the other hand was pretty good.

What an old thread.

Makes me want to pick up a pair. I just saw a guy walking into the MetLife Building on 45th and Park with ATH-ES7 and I just wanted to ask him if I could have a few minutes to listen to it, lol.

Finishing off season one of Buffy.

So when are you going to try quitting again? No one likes a quitter.

I'm going to remember this line for a long time.

That's pretty hot!

Heh, whatever.

Merry Christmas bitches.

Damn man. It sounds like you're shovelling everyday!

Lol, are you sure you wouldn't raise the budget and get the Anthem Statement P2 while you're at it?

Alright, I'll put the Naim stack on my list to audition come January when I actually have the time to go.

Ah. I suppose that could work, though I think I'd prefer an actual preamp. I don't know why.

When you say variable output, do you mean more than 1 output? If so, I do plan to go the separate DAC and preamp route.

Not really. I don't even plan to adda CD player. I have a cheap Sony CD/SACD player and it works for me. I rarely use it, so it's not on my list right now. I'd like to eventually upgrade it, but it's way down on the list. Essentially, it's speaker, pre, DAC, power. At least that's what I'm thinking since I don't have a pre, so that's #2, I feel my power amp is better than my DAC, so DAC is #3. These are my priorities unless someone can convince me otherwise. I do plan to go audition some speakers after the holidays are over, so any input on what I should look out for would be great. I actually wanted to try out the AV123 Strata Mini's, but I've been lazy and haven't posted on the AV123 forums for a local person to let me go over.

Cool. I don't think I mentioned my actual budget. I guess I'd like to keep it under $5,000, and if it's less, awesome. I do plan on selling the Darkvoice and the RS2's that are in my sig, so that adds a few hundred as well. So with that, it would be awesome if the preamp had a decent headphone section as well so I can still use my K701's, though that might change as I might just give the entire headphone related stuff to my aunt instead. But I guess it wouldn't hurt if the pre had a decent headphone out. And a remote would be fan-fucking-tastic.

Alrighty boys. All I've done in HC was bullshit around since I've been here and I figure now's a better time than ever to get serious. Here's my audio history, it kind of sucks, but it's better than nothing. I've always been a fan of high quality sound, and it all stated with my Sony walkman back in the mid 90's. I found the stock earbuds to be horrible and I bought the Sony Fontopia earbuds (~$115 and I was 12 years old) and found them to satisfy me. Fast forward 10 years, I'm in college and bought a pair of cheap headphones from Circuit City (Panasonic blah blah blah ~$30) and they were perfectly fine through college. In 2006 when I graduated and moved home, I realized I used headphones all of the time because my bedroom (at the time) was right above my parents room and the uncontrollable bass of my Logitech Z-680 speakers bothered my parents immensely. I found Head-fi around that time and started with a pair of Sennheiser HD595's since I wasn't planning to get too into this hobby. After using them for a month or so, I found their bass to be bloated and rolled off highs, so I figured an amp might fix that. Again, I didn't think I'd get too into this hobby, so I bought a Corda Aria as a one box solution. I actually liked the Aria with the HD595's. It openned the top end a bit, tightened up the bass a little, but ultimately, I found myself looking for more. I wanted even tighter bass, a more open sound, better imaging, and a less forward presentation of the music. I asked for a pair of K701's for Christmas and I got them. I fell in love/am in love with the K701's. I've heard HD650's out of the SP amps during the NY meet and found the bass to be too much for me (I like pretty light bass if you're asking). I know it's not the best place to try gear out, but I think too much bass isn't something that would change if I had the SP amps at home instead. So with the K701's and a few hundred hours of burn-in, I found them to sound a bit hollow out of the Aria. Dry might be a more common word to describe it. Without going into too much detail of what's wrong with the combo, I'll just call it unengaging. From there, I figure tubes might help, so I sold the Aria, bought a Constantine DAC and paired it with a Darkvoice 332 (my parents were in China at the time and picked it up for a decent price). I got some new tubes and after a few days of burning in, gave it a listen. I liked it. The bass was a bit fuller (tube rolling helped too), the midrange was much more involving, and the soundstage felt more natural. I enjoyed this combo for a few months and figured I'd be done with the hobby until I get either: 1. a raise at my current job, 2. a new, higher paying job, or 3. get involved with DIY. Fast forward 4 months and #2 applies to me. So now I'm back in the game, though accompanied with a few changes. I changed rooms (dimensions are about 15" x 12") and am no longer above my parents. Also, during the 4 months, I acquired a power amp (labelled power amp, but it's an integrated [power amp with volume pots along the input RCA]) and a pair of speakers. Both are fairly old, but both free. After getting them, my headphone/speaker time is about 20%/80%, so I figure my next step should be in the speaker world. The amplifier I got was a JVC Laboratory Super-A M-7050 (conservative 150 wpc @ 8ohm), which I was told was the top of the line model back in 1979 costing ~$1,500, and a pair a Pioneer CS-R580s. I find the sound to be warm, engaging, and very fluid. But at the same time, there's so much I miss from the K701's experience that it's left me wanting SO much more, especially regarding detail retrieval. So I'm here to ask what I should do. I have a somewhat mediocre budget, not wanting to spend too much as I find it wrong to buy a $5,000 pair of speakers while living upstairs in my parents house. What do I buy? How should I budget out gear? One thing I do want badly is a preamp. I'm tired of the mono volume pots on the BACK of the JVC amp and would like to just max those out (or take them out of the chain altogether) and use a stereo pot on a preamp instead. I also think the weakest link in my current chain are the speakers, so those should be on the list as well. How about a source upgrade (DAC as it's just too convenient to give up)? I'm very confused as to what approach I should take. Part of me thinks I should go all out on the pre and DAC and get not too expensive speakers (no one will questions how much I spent on the other components, but they will if they see huge speakers), and wait until I move out do the bigger speaker upgrade. And since I have a working power amp, I figure I'd use that until I move out as well. I guess my general questions are: What components should I buy? What ratio should I break down my budget for each component? Also, recommendations on what I should audition would be awesome as well, though I am open to just buying before I hear it if it happens to be something older that's not as common in stores. I'm a fan of buying used as it saves me alot of money so long as it's resellable. Wow, long post.

You have to get the Zhang Hui Mei - The Original SACD.

Well, I've seen most of it back when it was aired, so the show isn't new to me. It's the ending I never watched (stopped midway through the show). I still watched a few random episodes, but I didn't see any of seasons 5 or 6. I'm starting from scratch so I don't forget anything. =]