catscratch

I love that Gas album so very very much, and that track especially, probably the best of the em:t label. Also digging Ulrich Schnauss and Gridlock, so keep it coming. I don't really listen to any IDM (that might change though). Probably the closest I've come to the genre is Bluetech, and that's more of a psy-dub-IDM-ambient-nobody-knows-what-the-hell-kind-of-genre-it-belongs-to kind of thing. Embed! Embed! No, not working. You'll have to clicky the linky... This is off the "Sines and Singularities" album, so far my favorite from Bluetech.

That's coming. I think I'll be in the market for a BH/BHSE quite soon. I've long since realized that for me everything else just won't cut it.

Does Stax have a history of AKG-like behavior, i.e. making changes to headphones halfway through the production run and not announcing it? Or is it shoddy QC? Right now I'm listening to yet another modded SR-001 and man, could this thing be any more similar to the O2 please? Same tonality, very similar focused soundstage and fluid sound, not as good obviously but really a baby version of the O2 even more so than the stock 001 is. Really cool. Though now I'll need a portable source that doesn't suck.

*long rant warning, with lots of technical street fighter gobblygook inside* Been playing Super SF4 for a few days now. First impressions very positive on the whole, but with a few obvious and quite lamented facepalms which the community saw a long time ago, and which Capcom failed to fix despite everyone telling them to. But more on that later. Game feels faster, more responsive, and more balanced, at least at first glance. New stages look better, new characters are interesting and returning 3s/alpha characters are... well I didn't play 3s or alpha so I wouldn't know, but they look cool at any rate. Damage output for most characters has gone down, but 3s characters do damage that's more in line with vanilla SF4, and may be overpowered. But of course time will tell. Individual character notes/impressions: Sagat: got nerfed hard, but is still good. Ultra setups mostly intact but do very little damage. Tiger uppercut does very little damage too but he has a new move that doubles next TU damage, and apparently can be used in combos though the timing is tricky. Sagat still looks strong but he can't casually take half your bar now off an anti-air trade. He has to work for his wins. Ryu: retarded super traps are gone, and dp into ultra does a lot less damage. His ability to do huge damage off a single hit or trade is diminished. He also has less anti-air priority. I'm guessing he still has few bad matchups to worry about and should be good overall. G Toyota a.k.a. the Tyrannical Teabagger a.k.a. Mr. Ed Honda: New ultra is seriously useless. Only good in mindgames but you generally need to spend meter to land it (off FADC hands and the like), and it doesn't do enough damage to offset how hard whiffing it will get you punished, or how bad its range is, or how stupidly hard it is to land in general. Ultra 1, however, is tweaked to be more effective against fireballs, and he can headbutt over Sagat's low tiger shots now, which really changes the matchup. His damage output is mostly intact, which means that in relation to everybody else, he does even more damage now. He's dangerous. And fat. Blanka: is subtly tweaked in a lot of good ways. His forawd hop is faster and much more useful. His normals have better range, and some of his links seem to be easier now, especially c.mk into ultra 1. Ultra 2 is useful as anti-air or anti-fireball, makes him even better vs fireball characters but he didn't really need that. Balls are more punishable on block, however. It seems that Capcom wants him to be more offensive and less turtly, which is definitely a step in the right direction. Chun: is not as overpowered as I feared. She has better anti-air priority (df+lk is a good anti-air now, finally) but she's still not vanilla Ryu in terms of zoning ability. Ultra 2 combos anywhere on the screen off EX legs but its damage output is low. It's useful, but hardly game-breaking. Overall she feels more well-rounded and her bad matchups should be a bit easier, but her good matchups probably won't get any more abusive. Guile: is the most improved character in the game, hands down. He's really good now. His charge time got decreased so he can actually keep up with others in the fireball war. His links got easier, his footsies are better, and he has actual ultra setups now for ultra 2. He's more versatile, more powerful, and generally feels a lot more like real Guile, which is great. I don't know if he'll be top tier but he's good. Gen: is sort of the other way around. We've been telling Capcom "this new Gen sucks, all we see is nerfs, what are you doing?" to which their only response was "wait for the finished version before you judge." Well, now we have the finished version, and Gen sucks. There are some buffs but mostly it's huge and unnecessary nerfs. His jump arcs are much worse, he lost all of his good BnB combos, his wall dive setups are gone and have less priority, his meter gain is about 1/3 of what it used to be - what's going on? His normals are faster and can be linked much better, but what good is it if they don't do any damage or gain any meter? He still has a ton of Ultra setups and can take off half your life in a blink, but his sustained damage ability is really nerfed, as is his ability to get around zoning. He's low tier - or at least right now he looks to be low tier. Maybe with time people will discover new things for him, but right now he looks like a massive facepalm on Capcom's part. Needless to say, a lot of good Gen players are furious. That's it so far for characters that I know at least somewhat well. Gen fiasco aside, the game is much better.

BB has a stiff learning curve, especially if you didn't play Guilty Gear. Check out the Dustloop forums and watch as many vids as you can, and of course spend a lot of time in the lab practicing. Get a good stick too. I dropped BB since I really hated the visual style, and in general don't like really long Guilty Gear-style combos. It did have a fair amount of gameplay innovation though, at least compared to SF4. But SF4 is way more polished.

I don't listen to excessively high levels either. Well, not all the time . The 717 begins to compress dynamically at high levels anyway, and you get better performance if you back off the volume knob some ways. The grain could be attributed to a lot of things, but in my rig it's there with the 717 and not there with the SRD-7 Pro/Dared VP-20. Now if the Dared is acting as a grain filter and it's my source all along, that's possible too. In any case, it's not severe or anything, but even slight grain bothers me enough to want to switch. But I also hear slight grain in most if not all dynamics, which makes me unable to fully enjoy them - so it could be my ears being strange. Wouldn't be the first time for that either.

That lack of musicality is the 717, or more precisely the combination of 717 + source. I don't think the 717 is voiced in the ideal way for the O2, it's too dry, too laid-back, and too grainy. It is, however, the only thing short of DIY that can control the O2's bass and generally wake it up on a budget, so your voicing options are limited. You could try the SRD-7 Pro/Mk2, you'll miss out on some bass control but the upside is that you can put any speaker amp you want in front of it, and voice your rig in any way you want. The O2 is truly transparent, and sounds very different in different rigs. It's not enough to just throw it into any old rig, you have to tune it by ear, identify problems in your signal path, and swap components around. So if you think you're done - you're not, you're only just starting.

Raising some Sazerac 18 in your honor, wishing you years of happiness and freedom from sobriety.

Mk2 never fit me properly, the headband tension was far too high and it would pull the headphones out of optimal position a few minutes after I got them into proper position. I did bend the headband and increase clamping force, but still it was far from ideal. Maybe it's my huge head, but the Mk1 does fit much better with its looser headband. Mk2 does look awesome but so does the Mk1, it just depends on how well it goes with the rest of your gear. The Dared is a sculpture in bronze, aluminum, wood, and glowing tubes, and the Mk1 does go much better with that. Still, the Mk2 is moar black, and that matters too. I'm getting the Mk2 pads more just to mess around and see what it does to the sound. I did like the feel of Mk2 pads a lot, just not the headband.

I'm down for a set of Mk2 pads too. Or would that be up for a set of Mk2 pads? Considering that I haven't slept in well over 48 hours I may very well be sideways for a set of Mk2 pads. And always twirling, twirling, twirling on our way to FREEDOM. Anyway, one set for me please.

Not too long until Super SF4 now. I can't wat to see how they fuck up character balance this time. A lot of reported changes I like, but some make me and more than a few are flat-out . Removing Gen's MK Hands combos? 2d ultra for Chun that can combo off EX legs for full damage anywhere on the screen? Guess Capcom really can't put up with Gen being anything other than bottom tier and if Chun isn't 3S Chun overpowered, she really needs a boost? Sometimes I do wonder just what the hell Capcom is thinking, but then I remember that they're Capcom. Two steps back for every step sideways is the name of the game. On the whole though, it does look like it's going to be a better game this time around.

Good luck and take care.

Tell that to Simon Posford. Like any genre label that's entirely too broad, ambient has its share of electronic masturbation, and it has its share of brilliant music. And a lot of things that are dubbed ambient really aren't - but that's debating semantics.

Solar Fields - Movements More on the whacked-out spacey side of ambient electronica but well done regardless. (trying to subdue mental images of a whacked-out Kevin Spacey)

Devin Townsend - Terria Devin kicks so much ass that there's probably not enough ass on the earth for him to kick. He's most likely kicking ass somewhere in outer space (even more likely given his drug habits). And this is his best album, so the asskickery in question is of apocalyptic proportions.

Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down Don't know why they call it Doom Metal, seems like fairly standard alt-rock to me with a somewhat more melancholy atmosphere. However what surprises me time and again as I keep digging this one out of the collection is just how good some tracks here are, especially 1 and 2.

I think that it's pretty easy to get wrapped up in good sound when you're new to hi-fi, the novelty of it all is overwhelming and you really don't want to listen to anything else. But when you're used to good sound the novelty factor wears off and it stops being a neccesity, becoming just... good sound, and not much else really. I used to hate listening to anything lo-fi years ago but right now I really don't care; I listen to the crappy stereo in my car and enjoy it fully; I listen to DI.fm with its 96k streams and enjoy that too. Most of my listening isn't with the massive O2 rig at home but with a plain UM3x out of an iAudio 7 on the go. It all falls apart under critical listening obviously but you don't have to listen critically 100% of the time...

Today started yesterday morning and doesn't look like it will end tonight. Damnit. I hate not sleeping. I'm more than useless but there's just so much that needs to be done right now. I'm pretty sure I've passed the LD50 for caffeine 3 cups of coffee ago. Words like "awesominate" and "kickasserize" are inadvertently finding their way into my lexicon. My eyelids feel like someone hung 15 pound dumbells off each one. Back to work cat, back to work

It's ok. Takes a minute to adjust to but I don't see anything wrong with the new setup. The color scheme is easy to read and isn't fatiguing in the long run.

I have a friend that has an Elantra and I'm always surprised at how good the ride is every time I'm in it. It's been pretty reliable too as far as I can remember, but my friend is not the best when it comes to timely mainteneance.

So are the two extra bass drivers in there for bass emphasis? Better bass resolution and control? Better sales through marketing? I'm confused. Is this meant to replace the JH13 as the TOTL custom or compliment it as an extra bassy version? Either way, I've held out on the JH13 this long, and might as well hold out a bit longer until I know what's what. Then, there's also the BHSE fund that needs, um, starting up.

Well Nile is similar to Meshuggah in the sense that they do make polyrhythmic, multilayered complex music, but from a melodic standpoint Nile is similar to Nile, and no one else really. Maybe Melechesh, but Melechesh have nowhere near the talent or sophistication of Nile (but are a cool band in their own right). I think Nile became obsessed with their own technicality, and somewhere along the line they left their inspiration behind. The music became more technical but the brilliance is gone. "In Their Darkened Shrines" was the last good Nile album for me, and by good I mean one of my favorite albums ever, along with the predecessor. You could try Alchemist's Organasm, that has some of the groove aspect and a bit of technicality though it spends more time in almost Pink Floyd like atmospherics. Cynic is definitely a must, and so is Watchtower though it's rather different stylistically.

This. The Fit,Versa, and Yaris only came here in '07 and other than the Yaris they haven't had a chance to drop below $10k. The Yaris can be had just under $9k but frankly I think there are better ways to spend the money. Step it up one size to stuff like an Elantra, Sentra, Corolla, etc, and you'll find much better deals; they're volume cars and depreciation hits them more. Or maybe a Focus but I don't know how reliability is. Not my segment unfortunately so can't give exact advice.

Andy hit the nail on the head there; the crux of the problem is that the chemistry between the presenters is gone in favor of them playing cartoon caricatures of themselves. If they fix that, then things may get back on track. TG has become a ratings machine and everything has been dumbed down to woo over the casual crowd, who'll flock to anything bright and shiny. The problem is that they'll leave the moment something brighter and more shiny comes along, so TG has been trying to be the brightest and the shiniest and thinking all along that what people want to see are silly stunts with cars and three middle-aged blokes falling over. But that wasn't the heart of the show. The show was about three genuinely interesting and entertaining people having fun with cars. TG may have lots its innocence but there's no need to lose the core of the show that made it what it is in the first place. Decline is inevitable, but in the long term it makes sense to try and put out the best product you possibly can for as long as you can rather than trying to milk everything from a wrong assumption about an incidental winning formula. Stand back and let the presenters be themselves. Let them be as funny and witty and ispired as they can obviously still be. I think they know this quite well though, and probably feel much the same that we do. So I'm not giving up yet.