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Icarium

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Posts posted by Icarium

  1. Assemblage 2.6/2.7 and Icarium rants

    in Home Source Components

    Posted

    Yeah it's something I've struggled with a lot. Defensiveness. How much it annoys and frustrates me and here's my thoughts with regards to that.

    Why do people get defensive? It's because they think I am attacking them or think they are stupid or whatever. They are conditioned to think that when they offer up something of themselves that the world is probably going to drop a hammer on them and so they come out fighting and ready to do it. I don't think they really want to, but it's something they feel they need to do to survive. That's why when you try and take away judgment from your feedback but instead offer sincerity and exude a willingness to help with little to no vested interest it just confuses them sometime.

    That is fucking sad and a huge indictment to me of how human society is right now. Why do I have to qualify everything I say? Why do I have to explain that if I don't like something it's not that I don't like people who don't like something, don't think less of people who do like that something and that what I say is personal opinion and nothing else nothing more. I have to do this way too much and its necessary because otherwise I'm going to get misunderstood. Why do I have to spend so much time thinking about how someone will react to something I say and who I might offend before I say it? After all that is something I say really what I feel or what I believe?

    And look to the converse of all this behavior. Why do I have to feel so shitty about myself when people make fun of something I say or give me feedback in the cruelest manner possible? If I do feel shitty about that (And I mostly think that some of us do at one point in time) then is it so surprising that I learn to become defensive? Is it so surprising that I find that things I say are super ingrained into me because I've had to defend them so much? This is just so counterproductive.

    An idea is an idea and an opinion is opinion. There are more valid ideas/opinions then others. Some are definitely more right then others. Just because you have a different idea from someone else doesn't mean you are stupid or even the other party is stupid. Maybe one or both of you just have incomplete information. Do you really think that maybe the other party didn't have a piece of information that you have or vice versa that maybe you guys can't achieve some commonality? Does the best outcome really have to be that you guys walk away agreeing to not disagree and maybe even not thinking less of the other party? Or maybe you win the other party to your side through skill in delivery and maybe yelling him/her down.

    Yes people do these things. We all do. I do it. Yelling at someone and implying they are stupid and crazy for not agreeing with you. Why? Because it fucking works and will cut through the time/effort to really explain something to someone, because yes for some people you need to do it in terms they can understand and this takes time. But in the long term which is a more valuable route to take? Imo, taking the time and making a serious effort at educating the other party. It may be thankless and it may be pointless, but it is my belief that if the other party has genuine interest an an open mind then no matter how "stupid" they are I have been able to get them to understand. They just have to want to. And even if shouting down some closeminded fool will get them to kowtow... I don't know if that's valuable to me because I doubt they really do understand and if anything it's only going to make them feel bad about themselves on some level and yes fucking defensive going forward.

    Another route is dumbing things down. My usual example here is stereotyping. Stereotyping gets a bad rap. It really does. And me just expressing that in public will probably get me some vile glares. Why? It's how humans thing. They base their predictions/expectations of their next experience of something on prior experience/data. This is true for groups of people, for concepts, for music for everything. This is simply how humans think and its natural and normal. Maybe you want to call it something different from stereotyping, but that's really all it is.

    The problem isn't that humans stereotype. In fact trying to get them to not to I think is just counter productive and will never really happen and frankly I'm not sure that it's something I don't want to do. Let's think about what would happen if people didn't stereotype and gave everything a blank state. Well it would take them forever to form an opinion on anything. Humans would get mired into things and probably die off. You can't give everything a blank slate. It's just not scalable and I don't see how it will ever be scalable.

    So what's up with white supremacists then you say? Or other hate groups? The people that give stereotyping a bad name. Well, this is simple. They are doing it wrong. They are doing it wrong! Stereotyping isn't where you draw core beliefs from. It's only the first stage in your thought pipeline. That's how it should be.

    Example: If a guy has only had bad experiences with black people and been fucked over by everyone he has met. I think it's perfectly valid for him to expect that next black person he meets very well may fuck him over. This is an acceptable and understandable situation to me. However, if he does meet a great and nice black person then first of all he does not apply his stereotype to that person and he also modifies his stereotype to: "Most black people are probably gonna fuck me over but there are some nice ones" and probably adjust how his expectations accordingly.

    After he meets enough cool black dudes then maybe that stereotype will turn into "Black people are just people so some are bad some are not bad." You overwrite/modify until you get to this point. Is this so bad? Is he a bad person for once fearing/disliking black people? I don't think so. You are a product of your past experiences and to call that invalid and valueless is selling your own experiences short. Don't do that imo.

    And let's look at how a white supremacist approaches dealing with black people. It'll be more like "I hate black people" and he meets a cool great black person and does he overwrite? Nope, he doesn't even really believe there are cool black people because that stereotype is an unshakable/unmodifiable core belief and that is stupid.

    So what do you think? Do you think the route we are going is going to lead to good white/black US race relations? I don't think so. I think telling kids that stereotyping is wrong and all people are equal is only anchoring race relations in shit. It's dumbing things down to a basic and fundamentally flawed level in a shitty attempt at trying to fix something because you think that's all kids/people can handle. Well, frankly it's not working. Studies show that people when in groups of their own kind are still pretty racist. If anything having grown up being fed this garbage I am only extra angry because it's pretty fucking apparent that all people are not all equal. Sure they all have a right not to be stabbed or tortured and are equal in that sense, but people are NOT equal so I don't know why I was told this over and over growing up.

    Anyway I think society should advocate proper use of stereotyping and I think that would make humans better because frankly if you aren't worry about being political correct and stereotypical thinking in general is very fast. That's the point. You optimize your thought pipeline and you'll be able to simply think faster. Just overwrite/modify and progress and don't worry so much about being wrong. Just worry about if you are getting to the point where you can be right more often.

  2. Assemblage 2.6/2.7 and Icarium rants

    in Home Source Components

    Posted · Edited by Icarium

    That is pretty interesting. My experience with single blind dac testing (Close to double blind since there was very little influence/bias from the guy controlling switching in that after he would hook two up he pretty much immediately forgot which was left which was right) and I noticed a lot of differences between dacs.

    Some were pretty close though, but I am reasonably sure that if we took two that were the furthest sound apart and put them next to each other (In fact we did this at the end) and it was very much illustrative of how different even good decent dacs sound (I think we did this with the Benchmark and Parasound DAC 1600) and as much as I will never buy a benchmark and despite how some feel it sounds like garbage, it really doesn't sound that bad to me.

    Another factor I take into account is how different Filburt's dac and my Spectral sounds. Both are about the two best dacs I've ever heard but also sound almost completely different to me. Sure they share many similarities, but there are many differences and the overall holistic sound signature of the two is very different. They diverge and don't really converge.

    This is proof positive to me that we are nowhere near the point where high end, high cost or even high tech equates to complete transparency.

    If this is a graph of how we progress and refine something:

    \---------/

    \-------/

    \-----/

    \---/ <- We are maybe here. Supposed to be a big V

    \-/

    V

    This is where analytical meets music meets high tech measures well but still has soul and the vibrancy of a live performance. Why shouldn't something with absolutely perfect tech be moving and only be analytical? If the artist is great then shouldn't more perfectly rendered information only make the experience closer to real? Imo, clearly yes. We just aren't there yet.

    But Icarium you nincompoop why do so many expensive things sound the same? Well there are some pretty obvious answers to this. First of all most of us believe in a "high end" sound. I'm sure designers/makers and most of all the marketing people believe this as well and so they create for that. And why not? People will pay big bucks for it. So if that's all they are trying to reach for then is it any surprise that no progress is made towards the pointy end of that V?

    Also a lot of them do scrimp on design and use the same key parts and use schematically similar circuits. Just how it is because the market will bear products like that.

    Moreover why not? If all you needed to do to create and sell a high end product was take something that exists already and "improve" some measurements (And then don't list other measurements harmed by that improvement) swap in some fancy sounding parts and change the aesthetic and people will buy it. Why not? I don't blame just the makers I blame the community (Larger community of audio not just headphones) and I blame the consumers as well.

    And I hate to say it but the caliber of engineer that is going to the audio industry is not generally the best humanity has to offer. This is simply reality and due mostly to progress and the availability of more options and further incentivized by high paying salaries in places that can afford to offer them and value good engineering. Back then Audio and maybe Video and cars and other shit were all engineers had to choose from. Today we see industries like the software industry, the computer hardware industry, cellphone industry and even the financial industry pay a lot for top engineering talent.

    But you say, but engineering disciplines are different! What about those engineers that are only suited for audio. Well first of all I don't really find engineering to be that discipline unique. Engineering to me is more a methodology then really anything specific. And if you are an engineer that disagrees then maybe you haven't found/met an engineer from another discipline that has a lot in common with you. I have so I believe it, but I could be wrong.

    Moreover, it's also a big matter of societal programming. Does society tell them that they should be building faster than light engines or super sweet audio components by surrounding them with computers/the internet and ibuds? Not really and this does have an impact. It doesn't kill off all prospective audio engineers (Especially the hobbyists), but I truly believe it's shrinking the pool of talent.

    And the bright minds that do go into audio.. do they care about tubes? Do they care about utilizing an increasingly vanishing supply of "older" parts or really just what's the latest and greatest on the market? Do they even care about fidelity or just how to get rich quick or DRM making something that plays the radio/mp3s?

    This just makes people like Kevin Gilmore, Justin, Filburt, amb, Doug (Dvsitskk okay I always forget how to spell this), cetoole (And more) that much more valuable and amazing to me.

    So to me yes good dacs sound different. I wish they didn't since it would mean V win territory is getting closer to being reality, but I find that they do.

    It took me a long time and meeting Filburt to really set aside moar money = win or specs = win (Specs are good but they are pretty abusable by selective disclosure and also fine print. Like the THD distortion #s I think for Benchmark being only with a 1 khz test tone rather then averaged out from performance related to multiple tones across the range).

    When I could find something that was clear, super detailed, imaged well and yet had a musicality and tone and fullness and the ability to do speed with a big soundstage all in one package... but I did! A few things! And I have yet to hear anything that really has made me want to "upgrade" and best of all it was relatively cheap compared to some source components I've owned in the past.

  4. Assemblage 2.6/2.7 and Icarium rants

    in Home Source Components

    Posted · Edited by Icarium

    Haha thanks guys always appreciate it :) I'm very glad and know that it is a bit of a trial to wade through it and all I can ask is if you do that that you do spend some time mulling things over not just for me, but for yourself (Why spend the time to read it if you aren't gonna at least think about it? Seems like a waste). And if you come into some things that are inconsistent to what you've experienced and have some good arguments/points that don't jive with it ;p Hit me up and let's chop some logic and I think both of us will benefit. Your model of life/things might improve, my model of life/things might improve and maybe both ours will improve and if we come at each other in full force with passion/vigor/0 hangups and 0 fear of spite then I think something positive will come out of it and there's no downside. We can walk away maybe agreeing to disagree but at least we know both parties tried. Closemindedness is the only enemy ;p but even then no reason to hate only pity and there is always a hope that maybe one day something will change and the other party will become less closed minded and so I'd like them to know even then the door is always open and the bridge is unburned and we can try again :)

  5. Assemblage 2.6/2.7 and Icarium rants

    in Home Source Components

    Posted · Edited by Icarium

    Haha yeah I know. But I've never been one to discount something said even in jest or derision or even when the intent is to harm me emotionally/mentally. Because in the end its still a piece of information. It might be a good piece of advice to act on or it might be a good observation and it seems like a waste to just close my mind to it just because the originator is a dickface. Well even if he is a dickface but what better way to annoy/bother him then by taking something he gave me and making my lot better? Maybe a bit passive aggressive, but oh so deeply satisfying but concurrently I'm becoming a better more progressive person. Seems like win/win to me and anything else is less sane.

    I could just ignore everything he/she says, but chances are that he/she has something valuable for me to know and hear still and to close the door on that just because they are a dickface and they hurt my butt or put sand in my vagina just seems like itll hurt me more in the end.

    Anyway, obviously I don't think you had even the slightest ill intent Morphsci. You are someone I really respect on all levels. You have a great approach to the hobby and the community its clear to me that you are progressing to an ideal gear state without trying to hammer your philosophy down on other people. Plus you contribute on many and all levels in ways that make sense.

    But still my attitude can apply to things said in jest and humor and without seriousness. The absurd. So... many absurd ideas dont pan out, but I think to hold bias against them and not even give any of them some serious thought is wasteful as well. Honestly any idea I hear no matter how ridiculous it sounds or how funny it is I generally run a few "what if" style simulations on anyways just in case it is a good idea that will work for what I need it to work for. This sounds time intensive but as with most things if you practice it properly and gain experience and optimize for it you can do it very fast. I can do it in seconds. If you have good enough models and a thoroughly unrestrained/uninhibited though process then it's as fast and natural as doing things that are muscle memory are for athletes. This might sound unbelievable and arrogant, but trust me it took a lot of self loathing and time and effort to get to this point :)

    I think also many people use humor to emotionally divest investment in an idea out of fear of rejection. If they have an idea that intuitively might make sense to them and they haven't thought it out fully but it does seem absurd with what thinking they have thrown at it... a fear of rejection will form so why not phrase it in a joking fashion? Maybe someone will recognize it and be better equipped to confirm your intuition etc etc. Someone like me ;p

    Luckily now that I've developed my style of thinking I have very little fear of rejection. So I have an absurd idea.. well I've run some simulations on it and even if it goes against the grain and is outside of the box I can probably give some pretty good and valid reasoning as to exactly why I think it's a worthwhile thing to do. And if the other party can't respond to that especially if my delivery is good (Open minded, not judgmental, sincere, self deprecating with humility and humor) then I have faith that most people will gain understanding and agree. If not then maybe the idea wasn't good. I'll see if they have data to support that and if so then I'll try and come up with something better. If they are closed minded and not actually that interested in achieving a better solution (Maybe they are hung up on wanting to do things their own way and close their minds because of that) then honestly rejection from someone like that does not bother me. I did what I can. It's on them and really they aren't even that great so why stress?

    I dont see it as preaching per se. It's more like vomit in the purest sense. I have 0 investment whether or not anyone else reads this or not. This is a good way for me to get this shit out of my head and also forces me to formalize my thoughts in words (Though clearly not that formalized without that much more editing) and sometimes that's what it takes to really figure out and understand and absorb something. So even if no one else reads this I benefit. If 1 person really agrees with me and I help them in some way then its extra credit. A lot of people benefit even better. If everyone picks and chooses bits that they agree with and want to adopt then that's fine too! If someone finds a flaw and comes at me with it with some good reasoning then maybe I can improve. I'm not so married to anything that if confronted with a differing reality I won't jump ship towards reality rather then whatever I believed in before. Reality is important to me :) In fact we all have blindspots so if you do have something that you think really disproves my entire belief structure/attitude well point it out ;p I can adjust and improve!

    However, if you come at me without any good points or theories and just you are wrong because my parents told me so, my society told me so, my god told me so, my government told me so or because my own personal experience has told me otherwise, or because I'm older/more experienced/more successful then you... well I'm going to be a lot less interested ;p There's still interesting information to be gathered from discussion with one of these, but after hearing them repeat their unsubstantiated dogma a few times over I think I'll pretty much be done getting anything of value out of that ;p

    So no preaching. Fuck preaching. Just take from it what you will and even if no one takes anything then like I said there is enough value for me to do it even if its only for me which is why I did it in the first place. If not then I might not have done it.

    So it is like vomit. I'm glad I vomited got shit out of my system that neither I nor my body wanted in there all that badly and there are gonna be a few people interested in it probably... japanese vomit fetishists and maybe dogs, but hey maybe my vomit is like ambergris and hot model chicks will want to make perfume out of it. Who the fuck knows, but it's out there if anyone does and if not then rain will probably wash it away if a dog doesn't eat it.

  6. Assemblage 2.6/2.7 and Icarium rants

    in Home Source Components

    Posted

    Damn that's already pretty good ;p I can't really be objective past 5 or 10 minutes (Probably really even under a minute or so and then I fake it for a bit longer) because I know my audio memory fades and becomes unreliable and I'm pretty good at convincing myself of things and rationalizing things so if I spend any more time dwelling on shit past that I'll go into a circular flip-flop hell cycle where I'll just keep convincing myself I like it better or I like it worse until I get so fed up I just pick one and then try and convince myself that that's what I believe.

    And worse after all that pain and suffering and then finally some sort of relief that just anchors that belief in me and deprives me of my ability to objectively recognize when something is better.

    That's me though ;p Fear the 9345th hr! I'd like to see a graph of your objectiveness and how it correlates to the passing of time. Can anyone help with this ? ;p Haha jk.

  7. Modushop all-aluminum cases

    in Do It Yourself

    Posted

    They wanted me to be their importer, but the discount they'd give me (25 percent) + the cost of storing stuff like that in Cali and my lack of Italian seemed to make the math just not make sense.. or I would have probably taken a stab. Wouldn't be a bad side job Jeff Rossel style

  8. Assemblage 2.6/2.7 and Icarium rants

    in Home Source Components

    Posted · Edited by Icarium

    Yes most of them are lazy or they simply don't care enough but still rep that they do. I mean what do you mean by hard as fuck... there is genuinely hard and there's time consuming. Yes it was a time consuming process for me but it was never hard because I wanted to figure shit out. There were missteps, but there are always missteps. It was a huge time and money investment and I had to travel to get to where I am now, but it was something I really wanted so I paid it without much hesitation. Definitely not hard.

    It's just never really truly hard when it's something you really want.

    I'm sorry but too often people, even long running and established people there, will just buy what someone tells them to buy and wants what someone they respect wants. They look for shortcuts in the worst possible way. They find someone they can place utter and complete faith in without really examining what their methodology is.. maybe their social standing, the kind of things they own, how often they post, how well they post and how cool of a person they seem to be and then just believe in them until they are so utterly burned by shitty buying choices that they have to find a new person to do that shit for them. Or sometimes they never get burned because they stay so rigidly in the confines of what that guru that they will simply never know if there is something out there that would blow their mind if they maybe didn't so blindly follow that guru.

    And you might say "Aha but you said you have gurus! wtf mang what's up with ze hypocrisy." And yes I have gurus. Tis true, tis true. But I have extensively verified their resume through much personal experience and discussion with them. I really tested them and still do with constant questioning ;p I also concretely define the limits of their influence over me much like I did above with Filburt. It is very different. It requires a lot more work of course then blindly following whatever, but again not hard for me because it's something I want.

    To reiterate... what I am sick of from newbs is guys who come into the hobby and take shortcuts like finding a guru to blindly follow and then either think they know everything because they picked the best guru and so far he hasn't let them down (The gear they bought on his/her advice doesn't suck the worst ever, though people can be surprisingly deaf to suckage as long as their guru approves and not even suckage in the sense that I think it sucks, but suckage in that is thin and distorted sounding) or they do get disappointed and then they just shut down whine about how hard it is to get good affordable sound. The truth is they really don't care that much and thus don't invest the hardwork and show a little independence (Not hard to do when you can motivate yourself by knowing its something you really want) and then feel entitled to the best anyways which even if they had they wouldn't appreciate.

    Krmathis? Still a noob always and forever. This isn't even a rant against new people. There are tons of people who enter the hobby and start reaching their hobby goals MUCH MUCH faster then I did. I respect those people a lot. But here's a fresh example in my mind. Trevorlane. Join date on head-fi in 2004 and has 100 posts. So he's been around.. lurking in the tall grasses. Reading posts. Learning stuff. Figuring out how to reach his goals. Did he buy an apache (which he does own) and then start gushing about what a genius Ray is? Nope. He eventually figured out head-case's existence. Did he show up and get torpedo down by the welcoming community? Nope he read posts and figured out that people can be quite hostile to new people and eventually asked me how I thought he should handle it. I told him shrug.. figure out a good question or opinion that shows that you have some depth of thought and just go from there. Hang out in the chatroom too as that's a good way to get people to know you without putting your post-foot out there. And guess what? He did just that and while he may not be a major presence here yet.. well it's a much better entry then what most newbs do. I can appreciate that. That's a good new person ;p by my standards. An even better new person would be someone who does what he did or does what I did but in a much shorter time. In a few months rather than 6 years in his case or my case ;p

    Lastly goals. So we all have different goals. My main goal here is to find my ideal rig or rigs. Some people are here for the people. Some people are here for getting something cheap but good. Some people are here to build some sort of weird following and reputation for being knowledgable and then taking advantage of that. Some people are here to own things that other people will respect them for (Similar to the last one) or things that other people desperately want. Some people simply want other people to buy things they themselves like. Some people just want to make money. Some people just want to find good value. Some people just want to find good deals.

    All these reasons are valid and worthy of some level of respect (Directly correlated to how community-friendly your goal is). Be here because you wanna be here (or there), but be very honest and real about your goals with yourself and with others imo and maybe try a little bit to not be a poison to the community ;p

    So I'm probably coming off as very self righteous and superior sounding. I don't think that way at all. Unfortunately this is just my style I think a lot about these things and as I try to understand myself and why I like things and want things. I recognize that not everyone is interested in doing that even for themselves. That maybe analyzing things will ruin their enjoyment.. and that is fine, but I do somewhat question if you are going to get there without doing some analysis and figuring yourself out ;p Like what are you going to do? Buy a piece of gear and just love it? If you buy another piece of gear at some other point don't you compare the two? Isn't that doing analysis? Or do you just buy a piece of gear and then switch it to another one at some point and then blindly enjoy each of them equally and in a vacuum from each other? I guess I could see that working. That's cool, but maybe don't post a review that makes you seem super objective and did super analysis down to like the 10,000th hr of burn in?

  9. Assemblage 2.6/2.7 and Icarium rants

    in Home Source Components

    Posted

    Haha no worries :) Honestly not angry or even disappointed in you :) More amused then anything. Plus I think it let me distill and figure out some of my thoughts and attitude better I think in order to vomit out that post ;p Still very stream of conscious and vomity, but I did get it out of my system as well by posting it.

    Absolutely the most important thing is how happy you are with it and how much you enjoy it and the hobby :) So never let anything I say or do even if it seems incredibly hard hitting make you lose sight of that. I do want everyone to enjoy things they own and like no matter if I agree with their taste or their choices. I don't expect people to at all! But I don't think my methodology or approach necessarily impinges on that unless their true and actual criteria is something like.. can't think/analyze/consider and hone what I like and if I do then it totally ruins the hobby for me completely. And I don't think there are that many people out there. There are probably more people that think that, but deep down it's not really what they want, but many contrary experiences have dissuaded them from trying more. I do believe that for everyone of us even the most analytical and those of us that have heard the most things there is still something out there that's affordable that we might like better and would own if we knew about it... so why not speed up the search for that by better defining your own exact personal criteria for what you like and learning how to quickly evaluate for that? You might not find that ideal component, but you probably will find something close and you'll know that you've tried your hardest to find your personal best?

    Ohwell that's how I try to roll though. But it's not for everyone. Still, I think what bums me out the most about the hobby is when people appear to purely like something just because someone they respect does and can't really listen unbiasedly and really ask themselves is this the best I've ever heard? Take price out of the picture. Take looks out of the picture. Take tech out of the picture. Take what my friends say out of the picture. Take rarity out of the picture. Take what I want to believe and want to hear out of the picture. And really ask oneself, is this the best? Has something I've heard that's perhaps better and even though if it was cheap.. something I wasn't "supposed" to like or what?

    A good example is the Singlepower SS-1. Honestly right before I made the decision I bought I A/B'd against the Rudistor RP010. I can already picture how some headcasers' cogs are turning. Reflexive "BARF SINGLEPOWER BARF RUDISTOR CRAP AND CRAP. Shut off brain now because they are so clearly crap that it's pointless even spending idle thoughts on either product." Well there is strong basis in that kind of thinking (They are both crap from many angles ;p) and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But for me there are still levels of crap and it's nice to have a good solid experience with crap so you can recognize it and explain it.

    But anyway, back to my example. So the biases I brought into that listening session were this:

    1. Singlepower is a great brand. Mikhail is a genius because he tries to deliver custom solutions and goes a little crazy/hardcore with what he uses and tries to accomplish.

    2. Singlepower is expensive and high priced because of how much time and components Mikhail put into it.

    3. I like the aesthetic.

    4. This SS-1 is the best and most expensive solid state out there and if I ever will want it down the line I'm going to have to pay an 8k+ premium for it so if I at all can see myself wanting it then I should buy it since 8k savings is no joke (This is where Sleestack's business acumen really came in ;p Though I'm sure his intentions were good/generous/kindly, but when you are a that successful business man sometimes you probably can't turn it off ;p)

    5. The rudistor is good and close to the best solid state, but the SS-1 will be in another class.

    6. I prefer how the SS-1 looks

    7. The ss-1 is my ideal because I'm not a tube guy at heart because I like an analytical sound (No longer completely true, but again I really thought I am 100 percent about details/soundstage over tone. Thinness is the price you have to pay for detail and I will pay it! Haha I was so stupid.)

    Anyway I had all those things rolling around in my brain so it really is no surprise to me that I bought it. Anyway on doing A/B between the two. I was pretty surprised by how much I liked the Rudistor RP010 in comparison to the SS-1. It almost made me question everything. The SS-1 had a wider soundstage.. might be more detailed (Wasn't entirely sure, but I was willing to believe that it was but in reality it was close) and I had always told me that wide soundstage and detail are #1 for me. The rudistor though had a punch and organicity and fullness to it though that really.. I mean it wasn't something that I've ever thought I liked, but I was able to identify it and realize that those were qualities that I value and it made the decision hard. I think completely objectively... even then on some almost subconscious level I knew I liked the RP010 better. Yet, I listened into my fear of eventually wanting the SS-1 and the 8k discount on it + the lack of Mikhail wait time + Mikhail did say that he was going to stop making custom amps (Haha, I was sooo stupid then) and that fundamentally even though I was swinging the big money dick I was very new to the hobby and there was probably still things I needed to learn to fully appreciate that big savage laid back and kind of boring beast.

    So I fucking bought it ;p My biggest audio regret for sure. Never again. Yet, there were things I liked about it and genuinely enjoyed about it. I liked that it was essentially 2 balanced amps in 1 and I could hook up two different sources to it and use it like two separate rigs at once. That's something very few amps can offer me for sure. It didn't sound that bad. But yeah 7k? lulzzzzzzzz. Maybe 3-4k with that sound and those features and had actually been of decent/durable internal construction. But even then I certainly wouldn't have bought it. Features are great, but sound first. For me anyways ;p

    So I guess what I'm really trying to say are the things that bum me out about this hobby the most is when someone strongly feels something is the best when it's very likely that it isn't the best for them even by their values/taste. That maybe that's what they believe because someone they respect told them to like it or head-fi told them to like it. Classic example is when someone is like phoenix is best ever because ipodpj says it is!! I respect ipodpj because he posts a lot so he must know a lot! Also he posts with great vigor! People who do that must really know their shit and feel strongly/passionately about it or they wouldn't post like that!

    Sadly most people do not have the luxury to buy a bunch of expensive duds to figure out what they want and don't want. Nor the time/energy/money to go to meets. Not enough data :/ Though when you are plopping down for a 1k+ amp though do you really not have the time/money to do some due diligence? Should do some and if you do it and phoenix is still #1 that's cool. Don't expect your best to be my best, but I'm glad you've found yours :) So yeah it's not about what they like or don't like, but really how much effort did they put in to verify that before jumping head first into phoenix fanaticism.

    Fanaticism.. ugh that's the other big Icarium bum out thing. Some people probably think I'm a fanatic haha, because I also post and express my opinions at times with great vigor :) Maybe I am, but I have also really spent a lot of time figuring things out in a pretty objective fashion or at least as objective as I can humanly be. Can't really screen out all bias even if you try, but that doesn't mean you/I shouldn't try imo.

    Anyways it's not really fanaticism, but fanatic style posting when you don't have the knowledge/authority really to justify it or back that up. A lot of people do this. All the great shills and the their disciples and fanatic followers do it. And it's not really something limit to crazies like jamato8. It's a useful but devilish writing tool that any of us really can and do use. It's like writing a review about something you haven't heard before.

    Any one of us I'm sure can write a review of something we haven't heard before. Throw in burn in updates. Throw in some flaws to make you seem objective and make you seem like you really got the whole picture with the sound. Throw in some snazzy pictures. After you build some credibility.. then unload with the enthusiasm and hyperbole. Throw in more burn in updates to cement that. Throw in some positive comparisons to things that are expensive and that people like. Throw in maybe 1 thing that is clearly 10 notches up in "tier" (Whether tiered by price or general public sentiment i.e. B-52 is high tier) and say something humble like oh for sure this cheap chinese amp loses out to my B-52, but it keeps up surprisingly well! It has similar tonal traits even if it isn't as cohesive and detailed and imaging isnt as precise, but it really is like 70-80 percent of the sound for like a fraction of the cost!!!

    And the newbs eat it up. They do! Why not? I almost do if I didn't know what I was looking at and reading and know that the B-52 also sounds highly overvalued. I do wish people did less of this though. Even if you had your mind blown and you want to express it. It would be great if people interjected more doubt and personalize the hyperbole. Newbs will still buy into it even if there are clear indicators their taste and what they kinda are into is completely different then you, but that's because newbs are lazy and want to just use your experience rather then spend the money/time to do it themselves. They just want to find their guru and blindly listen to them without really understanding their guru's approach/taste. Ask themselves do I and my guru even have the same taste in music? I mean it's not necessary that we do, but it's important to be cognizant of that fact. For instead I like fast paced music that can tend towards the raw with flawed voices and stuff. My heart really sings for that shit. Filburt really likes Jazz/Metal/Funk/80s music. I don't like any of those things. Does this mean I shouldn't listen to Filburt's take on things? Nah its cool cus he also can be really objective and we have overlaps in what we like in sound. Speed/Clarity/Details/Imaging/Fullness/Punchy/Attack... if he didn't like metal or other fast paced music and was not into a fast sound.. then yeah maybe he wouldn't be a guru of mine. Fundamentally I just don't think newbs really draw these distinctions and they should spend a little effort figuring that shit out imo.

    So yeah dreamwhisper ;p Figure out what you like and how to get there. That's most key. Don't like the assemblage just because Filburt and I or whoever seem like we know our shit. Try to know your shit too. If that takes you away from the Assemblage that's totally cool (I don't really think it will ;p but that's my arrogance speaking haha). Sell it to someone that will value it more or someone that's curious in seeing if its their ideal and buy what you truly want ;p That's what community is all about and where I find value in it. Helping me find what I really want and helping others find what they really want.

    What's rewarding to me isn't that everyone has and likes the same things I do, but that the people who do have the same things I do appreciate it as much as I do on all levels and it's their ideal and we can gush at each other about that in absolute wonderment and amazement at how perfect it is for us personally and how cool it is that we both really truly have found our ideals ;p That's the best :) for me. And I'll be honest I'm not entirely sure that you are heading in that direction when we do communicate :/ But that's cool :) Maybe now you can... if my philosophy is something that vibes with you. If not that's cool too :) It's not like we'll probably ever meet each other and so why should I get so personally invested ;p It will always bum me out on some level that there's someone owning something rare that another party wants unbelievably bad and isn't appreciating it to the fullest or more then that other party would... but of course it's not a core belief for me or I'd sell some of my spare dacs I don't use and horde ;p And maybe more fundamentally everyone has the right to own what they own or want to own. That's something I believe in. Even a shit-heel like NoNoNoNoNoNo has the right to own a dac 2.7 because he could pay what the seller was asking for at the time (Sorry Filburt ;p). Moreover one of the things I do admire and respect about NoNoNoNoNoNo was he put 10x more effort and dedication into finding one then I think anyone else... even me and I put a lot of effort into finding my dacs. So good on you NoNoNoNoNoNo if you can even read this. Don't let anyone tell you, you don't deserve it ;p That being said you still are a shit-heel that is poison to any community in a very zero-sum sense.

  11. Assemblage 2.6/2.7 and Icarium rants

    in Home Source Components

    Posted · Edited by Icarium

    Sigh, this is what worries me about you dreamwhisper ;p You seem a little bit selective with what information I give you that you retain. I told you awhile back in PM (Forget when, but certainly further back then Yesterday i.e. date of your post), but clearly there are more significant differences between the 2.7 and the 1100. Different dac chips for one. Different circuit implementation choices. Other different parts that matter more than the filter chip. Like there's still the possibility that maybe for you and your hearing personally the digital filter chip is the secret sauce, but its pretty unlikely since there are more key differences between the two from a technical standpoint.

    Yes technical superiority doesn't always equate to better sound, but I don't think that exception to that is as common as some romantics might think so or want to believe. I could be wrong, but when I try to think about it without bias.. i think reality will demonstrate that not only in this area, but in most good engineering based on solid and complete scientific/EE principles will bear fruit. I honestly think so, but I also don't think it should be the one and only thing to design with. Obviously tune it by ear and other peoples' ears. If it doesn't sound good then maybe you fucked up something or your tech is incomplete and you are forgetting/missing something or maybe there's even a new principle that you now have an opportunity to try and discover and dont discount that.. give it a shot. Most of all, tech-based designers shouldn't bias their take on the sound with 1. how much they buy into the tech principles they used 2. how much effort they put into it.

    So specs are mostly abused and meaningless so that's not a good metric for how technical solid something is. Figure out what what specs and tests do mean something and either do them yourself or find a expert to do it that you trust (Filburt/cetoole/luvdunhill/kevin gilmore/justin and more, sorry if I missed you!). Also people who think and advertise themselves as being really good engineers can sometimes be inconsistent and play fast and lose with what principles they chose to belief in and which they don't. That's silly and that doesn't make you a good engineer. That still places one somewhere solidly in the voodoo territory and its just as much a crapshoot whether or not the product will sound good.

    So yes I want something that is technically sound and sounds good to me and I can place myself in a pretty decent vacuum state and honestly figure out if I feel something does good and not just ooh im a big geek and this is giving me a geek boner so I want it! And I am a big geek :)

    Haha, sorry for the rant. I'm just tired of getting automatically shunted in certain groups or having my hearing taste completely discounted because I'm an "analytical/science" slanted guy and I place high value on it. That I like a soulless detailed sound. That I believe the same things as Dreadhead and other spec/graph fetishers (Sorry Dreadhead! I do like/respect you, and we do have overlap and I do agree if the tech was perfect that all sources should sound the same, but I think we have a long ways to go before the field can even come close to delivering on that ;p The science isn't there yet imo and by my ears and I think most really knowledgeable/experienced diyers/designer will agree and really in the end they are the experts.).

    Anyways more specific to the parasound 1100hd/assemblage 2.7, besides the blurb i threw up at the start of this post. Mostly I do trust Filburt's hearing a lot because I consider him an expert in that area. I have very, very little overlap with him in music and we do have differences in the sound we overall like (He will sacrifice some clarity/detail and soundstaging a bit for fullness in bass/mids and fullness in general), but I know where our differences are and I think his hearing is genuinely good and he can give me unbiased observations about what he hears rather then what he wants to hear and I can form my own takeaways based on his observations. Sure because he can hear things (And I believe he can) between different grades of chips and digital filters and capacitor swaps.... and I know I can't I don't need to embrace those just because those things make a difference to him.

    Anyways basically I try not to be blind/overzealous in accepting everything he says as truth to me ;p Though some people may think otherwise :)

    So haha again back to the digital filters. Two things, they may not apply to you or other people, but I'm a cynical/skeptical guy by nature and so I have tested these thoughts a bit:

    1. Filburt says that digital filter swaps are as subtle as capacitor swaps (Specific to when you already have a solid performing capacitor in there already that does a good enough job in the circuit position its in and you go with something with better performance specs like teflon or polystyrene). After testing I know he can hear the difference but I can't really but either way I don't think he'd even disagree that its too subtle for MOST people without the short of training he's had. I'd go into exactly what sort of training he's had/done but he values his privacy so I'll respect that. Anyway, he's my expert in this area and unfortunately there aren't a lot of those or I'd consult them too. If you find your own or train yourself to be one that's cool, but unless you are a gear genius (Since you've heard a lot less stuff then me in the way of dacs) or Filburt level hearing then I don't think you are there yet ;p Though I see no reason as to why you can't obtain that if you are willing to spend the money and invest the time (I'm only willing to spend the money and my hearing simply isnt good enough to warrant even trying).

    2. I've heard the assemblage dac3 and dac3.1 back and forth with Filburt side by side. These dacs are basically identical except for digital filter and the dac3.1 has a dual pll i.e. supposedly better jitter rejection. Sure that parasound 1100 HD is schematically very similar and that's part of why some of us like them and also because of that, both sound very good, but they are still very different and that's why they sound very different. Dac3 and 3.1 are almost infinitely more similar then a 1100 even if the 1100 is infinitely more similar to a dac 3.1/2.7 when compared to.. say a wavelength cosine dac. Though yeah sometimes two very disparate technologies can sometimes sound surprising similar. Well that's because the science is still incomplete imo ;p but I am confident that there are good scientific reasons why waiting to be discovered as long as people continue trying. Sadly not enough of our best and brightest are going into audio engineering so i dunno when that's gonna happen really if ever.

    Anyway how this is related to that is testing the two we had a good opportunity to really see what differences dual pll and digital filter differences make. Theoretically the dual pll should only perform better and result in less jitter so the conclusions we could draw are:

    a. If the 3.1 sounds better then digital filter + dual pll = better. No real good way to figure out what part of that is digital filter and what part of that is the dual pll really except that since Filburt has more experience with testing those things he can possibly identify which traits are similar to those he's seen from better jitter rejection or better digital filters in the past.. i.e. those two things most likely do not improve sound in the same way.

    b. If the 3.1 sounds worse then digital filter + dual pll (In this specific implementation) = worse. And since we know that dual pll should really just be better then its highly possible that the pmd200 actually is the culprit in the worse sound... that or the dual pll was executed crappily or used wrong.. e.g. the dual pll is great but they stuck a shitty op amp in front of it or aren't utilizing it correctly. This happens a lot so dont just jump over things that have dual pll or other neat technologies in it ;p

    Anyway personally I couldn't hear a difference. Which is great to me because I have a 3.1 (Basically like a 2.7) and since I'm essentially redbook I can get another dac3 or 3.1 and I don't have to necssarily hold out for a 3.1. Woohoo!

    Now Filburt could and he could verbalize why.. I think it was one sounds a teensy bit clearer and it was the DAC3. So reference outcome b listed above.

    Anyway, neither Filburt nor I are perfect nor is everyone like us so yes very much take our experiences/conclusions with a BIG grain of salt, but do factor it in I think when think about this stuff :)

    So yeah, sorry for the lots of text and tangents. I definitely have issues with ADD/editing ;p And I don't think you necessarily stupid dreamwhisper since shrug I told you about this shit possibly a long time ago and not everyone's recall is like mine. Also I doubt I went into as much detail in the chat PM.. so maybe you understand where I'm coming from a little bit better and here's something you can always reference if you do forget :)

    To the rest of you.. if you see inconsistencies with my approach and conclusions and philosophies (If you actually made the effort to read this probably hard to read stream of conscious post) then come at me with your counter arguments and contrary evidence. I always am looking to refine my model :) I could be wrong! And frankly I'm not the type to dwell on that because having a better model is more important to me then being right/wrong or my pride ;p

  12. The ultimate DIY? A Stax SRM-T2!

    in Do It Yourself

    Posted

    Hrm.. so haven't checked in a bit.. is there any new stuff available to throw money at ? Chassis bits? If not that's okay haha tax return isn't in yet.

    The impressions sound awesome and yeah Kevin you deserve all the praise and respect out there for realizing this in 8 months. It's almost unbelievable if it was anybody except for you. Sorry but this trumps a titanium hammer as cool as one of those is ;p

  13. Apple Tablet

    in GoRedwings19's Computer Help Hotline

    Posted

    I tried to install Jaadu on my desktop computer in preparation for using the iPad as a VNC. Unfortunately, my ATT 2Wire router does not support autoconfiguration, and when I tried to configure it manually, it was a headache. I looked around for other options, and found this:

    www.teamviewer.com

    There is now an iPhone/iTouch app: www.teamviewer.com/iphone

    This is a free (if used for personal use, not business) remote access program. I tried it out on my various computers, and it seems to work great, and is very easy to install and use. I'm not technical enough to know the advantage of a true VNC over this, or to understand the details about security. But the web site states it is encrypted and uses the same standard as SSL.

    I hope to use this for remote access of all my computers via the iPad. Perhaps this would work for you, as well?

    On another topic, what do experienced Apple people think about the Apple Care program for $99? I don't usually go for extended warranties, but am willing to pay a bit for technical support, especially on a new and unfamiliar gadget, and for reduced down time in the event of a problem/repair.

    Dunno about with an iPad, but VNC sucks. NX for life! I use it to remote desktop via my macbookpro at work all the time (Into my Ubuntu box).

  16. 2/27/2010 NorCal Meet

    in Meets

    Posted

    Thanks, Voltron now has me covered on transport :) Oh yeah guzziguy mind bringing the jfet parts if they are still in your possession? Well it's probably too late, and I'm not even sure you still have them or what the jfet situation is... so busy.

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