philodox

That short edit window is really irritating... A couple things I wanted to add: RE:MacAvoy --- A Trio for Lute is an omnibus of the Damiano series. RE:Tarr --- I haven't read any of her newer stuff, but all of her older 'real world with a fantasy flavour' novels are among my favourites. Oh, and I am assuming you've read Heinlein. If you haven't read Job: A Comedy of Justice, it has a fantasy feel to it and is my favourite book by him.

I liked tailchasers song, but tad williams isn't really all that great IMO. Some recommendations: R. A. MacAvoy - Trio for Lute is my favourite, but it is all good stuff. Tends to be rather hard to find. Guy Gavriel Kay - Anything, but I like Tigana and the Fionavar Tapestry the best. Judith Tarr - The Hound and the Falcon is a good place to start. David and Leigh Eddings - Belgariad and Mallorean series' - The best written wars I've read in a fantasy work. Redemption for Althalus is pretty good too. Stay clear of the Sparhawk crap. I'm reading Ted Dekker's 'White' right now. My Mom sent me the Circle series for christmas. It's not too bad.

I'm not a big fan of the meridian sound, but modded... who knows.

If it looks like it is easy to open I would do the same thing that I did. If you don't have a soldering iron you could always just rip a couple chips or caps off the board. If this is a futureshop or best buy type return I seriously doubt they will be opening it up to check it.

I had an old creative camera... yes, I know I was stupid to buy it. Anyways, it couldn't take a good picture to save its life, so I opened it up and desoldered a bunch of chips. Took it back to futureshop since the screen nolonger worked and got myself a nice point and click 6mp sony camera which I have been very happy with.

Damn, I've lusted after the japans for a while. Congrats man!

I've had pretty good luck with AntiVir, though I have another program specifically for trojans that I run every once and a while though I forget the name of it. Norton is a POS in my experience and takes way to much system resources. For spyware I just use Windows Defender... I know what people think about MS software, but it actually works pretty well, has low overhead and is free.

hehe, me too. Even though I prefer my K340's, I still miss the little guys sometimes...

Yay K271S'!!! I miss mine.

iPods... also poop

The K81DJ scale pretty well to higher end sources and amps, but don't sound like complete garbage out of more modest gear. Hopefully you will be happy with them in the laptop setup.

Nooooooooooooo! :'(

DAC1 is poop...

I understand and respect aerius' point, but I don't look at it the same way myself. I never thought head-fi was a place to get information to make a decision... I always relied on the opinions of people I respect for that. For me it has always just been a place to find out about new things and show off your own stuff. If I can guide someone with my 'wisdom' that is great... but I am not expecting others to guide me. I'll agree that there are more newbs than there used to be though, and I can see how that would rub some people the wrong way. I just ignore any threads that don't grab me with their title look for the little arrows that tell me I've posted there before. It really does come down to what interests the individual though... and what intimidates them. People who are new to the hobby are really only interested in portable gear as they dont have the money or need for a home setup. I've noticed at a few of the recent toronto meets that it was basically 95% portable audio, and that is where the newbs gathered and that is what they talked about. Other than a few curious people, I basically had to bring them over to listen to my [non portable] setup. That one at the tranzac that we both went to wasnt bad, but the bunch that came before it were brutal.

Sweet! I've always wanted one of those... and now I have two!

But I thought it was exactly like your CD player? [j/k] Just checked and mine does have the orange rectangles... whatever they are.

Good idea, though I think we are pretty much done here. I just don't like when people cut something up based on taking a glance at it when they have no real world experience with it.

Missed the edit window: I would also like to point out that half the reason for going with the zapfilter in the first place is so that I can have discrete balanced outputs. It just happens to be the most cost effective way of accomplishing this as most CD players with this feature stock are insanely expensive. In any case, all of this aside, we will just have to wait until everything is in place... then you can have a listen and see what you think.

It turned the Zhaolu from a piece of crap into a source significantly better than my CD-E5 or Lavry DA10. I would call that exceptional. What chips are we talking about here? The zapfilter is not OPAMP based. I'm confused. Have you ever actually heard a zapfilter Eaphan? I'm sorry, but "It won't nail down tone, decays, and low-level details as well" sounds like you are talking out of your ass... Also, what exactly is the output stage in Biggies modded player? Is it tube based, transistor based, or something else? I've heard it and it does sound great, but there isn't exactly a lot of info about the FabAudio stuff. I think he mentioned that they have closed up shop as well?

Yeah, I was just being a bitch. I am sure it sounds great.

Its all about synergy as you well know. It is not really surprising that your system tweaked for the PS-1 [sounds amazing with them] is not a great match with my K340s. Likewise, my system lacks bass with your PS-1s. ...transformer output? Icky.

Oh, I see... well if you get a chance again, I would try them without the foam inserts. They go from boomy to balanced when you remove them.

Take out the foam inserts and give them a chance to burn in...

Your amp sucks balls with my K340s. As for the output stage in your CDP being better than the zapfilter... that is all relative. I'm pretty sure your output stage is single ended only?

Well, it is not about squeezing the tube sound out completely, it is about designing the amps so that the minute variations between various tubes do not have a large impact. Peter's amps still sound like tube amps, never fear. And no, I am not worried about him designing my amp because he does not believe in tube rolling on his circuits. Why would I be?