mjb

has anyone tried/heard one of the audio note dacs (2.x and up)? they're supposed to be amazing... and a 2.x signature just went for a pittance on agon... mjb

what is the reasoning behind using a belt-driven cd transport which differentiates it from a direct/gear-driven transport? is it one of those "isolation" things? which i guess leads to the next question... i understand when it comes to tubes and cartridges, but how can minor/micro vibration have any affect on digital? thanks, mjb

I'll stop by the boss's office and let him know I'll be leaving work now to go home and listen to my new speakers and take pictures for head-case ) For stands I'm using an embarrassing but effective combination of solid wood bar stools topped-off by Primacoustic recoil stabilizers (basically 10lbs of steel and foam compressed into a 2 inch pad that the speaker sits on)... I'll take some pictures tonight. mjb

I hooked them up last night about midnight... and not wanting to be up all night, I only verified they made sound for like 2 seconds... listened to them for about an hour this morning. Overall an excellent speaker... certainly lives up to the many reviews I've read and I'm only driving it off this 70w Rotel class AB SS. Lots of detail and transparency, very "correct" sounding, in that the instruments sound like they're supposed to. The bass is tight and controlled, but there's obviously an octave or two missing. I need to spend more time with them before I can pick them apart and I need a new amp ) I picked these up used with the intention of spending some time with them to see if I'm prepared to drop around $10k on a new pair of the VSM's. mjb

no, the rotel is my stand-by... an appropriate amp purchase will come after the speakers are chosen/purchased... thanks for your concern though, that would be a shame wouldn't it?! thanks, mjb

the devil on my shoulder...

Yeah, that is a route to go... it's just that he'd give me full trade-in on a new pair I buy from him, not necessarily any pair... and while I like their speakers, I don't feel the sound justifies the high cost until you're up into their diamond tweeter line (803D is very good, the 802/1/0D are great)... but yeah, I might just bite the bullet and grab a new pair of 804S to listen to while I save another 10k ) Thanks all, mjb

first of all... my question specifically pointed out the set of speakers i've heard that i like but can not afford right now and was asking the question of those who've heard those speakers and may be able to point me in the right direction for what to audition. In case you haven't noticed, there are a whole hell of a lot of really good speakers out there, far too many to audition... this was intended to narrow things down a bit for me. 3k on speakers IS different from 100 on headphones... unless you're made of money. i can afford to lose whatever i would lose on resale of 100 headphones... but not so much 3k speakers. But thank you so much grawk for your ever so helpful wisdom on how to shop for speakers and participate in the speaker forum. mjb

yeah... maggies get all the love, but man, there are already so many speakers to choose from, a man must limit himself to keep his sanity...hrm i was thinking of taking advantage of their 90 day money back offer to try them out. i've just got a 70w rotel rb-1050 power amp.. think that'd at least do them justice to try them out on?

i like paradigm... but not enough... but then i've only heard their monitor and studio series' i've not heard any quad or von schweikert... maybe i'll hit the road this weekend.. thanks, mjb

so, if you had 3k to spend, which would you get? i've decided against going the hi-eff + set/jfet route... i'd like to stick with an AB amp >60w + tube pre. i know what i like when i hear it, but everything i like is too expensive ) fwiw, if money were no object, i'd get a pair of b&w 802d. if i go over budget and pickup a new pair of 804s's ($4500), my local dealer is willing to give me a generous trade-in (basically 99% of what i paid new) once i have enough for the 802d ($14000)... and i know that if i change my direction, i can get really good resale value on agon for any of the b&w line (speaking from experience, having sold 3 pairs of b&w's on there over the years)... for those of you who've heard the 802d, would you recommend anything i should hear? thanks, mjb

What do you guys think about Zu's? Specifically the Druid mk IV? I'm thinking of picking-up a pair used for around $1600... I briefly heard them at a dealer and really liked what I heard, but they were being driven by a big solid state amp (even though they're very sensitive)... I plan on driving them with a 2 watt decware SET amp. Thanks, mjb

their web page says the coax goes to 192k... but the toslink only does 48. mjb

what about the trusty old apogee mini dac/mini me <-> some optical or coax interface <-> pc? not sure, but the firewire version of the mini's might go all the way up by itself.. mjb

oh, i assumed he wanted the roommate to have internet access through the existing internet connection... if not, then wpa is definitely secure enough to keep him off the network. p.s. if the roommate wanted the new guy to have access to the internet through the existing connection, but no access to the lan on the airport, he would have to segment off a new nat'ed lan such that the roommate's connections out would route, but at the same time could not see the airport lan. this is the reason for "internet <-> airport <-> nat router a <-> nat router b"... if there was just "nat router a", the roommate could gain access to the airport lan. basically, this does the same thing for the airport lan on the internal network as is being done from the internet, i.e. hiding the lan network through nat. mjb

have him get 2 new wifi routers (any cheap brand will do) and connect the first router's WAN port to a LAN port on the airport router and connect the second router's WAN port to a LAN port on the second new router... turn off wifi on the first new router (the one connected to the airport) and put a new WPA password on the second new router and have the roommate connect to that one... he won't be able to see anything on the airport's network but will have internet access through the magic of NAT ) p.s. the middle router doesn't need to be a wifi router since it won't need to be broadcasting a wifi network anyway. mjb

if you're looking for low complexity, i've found running mplayer with the named pipe flag works the best. it opens a named pipe which you can send text commands into and control it just like you're at a keyboard sending it commands/key strokes. so you can echo/cat/print/etc from scripts or apps into the named pipe to control it. last time i played with mpd (about 8 months ago), it had promise, but i found it kinda fidgety... not unlike squeezecenter... promising but fidgity imho. mjb

component, composite and hdmi... actually, i'd rather it didn't upsample. my tv's source control is insane, just looking for sanity... and i figured i could also grab a couple small bookshelf speakers to replace the built-in tv speaker(s). this is the livingroom plasma, which is basically for the kids and the wife... which is to say that no money is being spent on this, because they don't care about anything other than ease of use. besides, my basement projector and 2 channel is restless and needs to eat ) mjb

in general, do any specific brands stand out among others when it comes to cheap receiver headphone amps? i'm looking for an inexpensive remote-controlled video switching device and a cheap used receiver seems to fit the bill... i remember reading a while ago that the pioneer elite series supposedly have discreet amplification for their headphone out... basically, i'm looking to spend a couple hundred bucks at most and the only thing i care about is that i can switch video sources, so i thought i'd try to narrow it down by something i do care about... i realize most or all will suck compared to a decent separate headphone amp, but i'm just looking for any that supposedly suck less. thanks for any input you guys have... mjb

sometimes when i reinstall windows, my usb ports are all full of yellow exclamation points in device manager, right after installing the chipset inf files (which should be done before any other drivers...) i think it happens when i start the install from a restart instead of a cold startup (from previous shutdown). i always check device manager right after i install the chipset inf files and if i have the yellow exclamation points, i just shutdown and reinstall again. btw, this only happens to me like 1 in 25 times or something... hope this helps you. mjb

p.s. a new avatar for grawk )

the wifi router is doing nat and your cable modem probably isn't... it could be that there's a ton of traffic and stuff that your computer firewall is needing to deal with when directly connected, whereas when you're behind a nat router, it deals with all of it for your computer (i.e. ignores it all)... but it could really be a lot of stuff... without sufficiently looking at all sorts of variables... you can't really know. mjb

you need to check the "All Controls" radio button in the System Prefs -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts... it's located at the bottom of the pane.