catscratch

Damn edit timer. Meant to read "Look at the Ultima GTR, it posted an unofficial 1:12.8 a good while back..." but youtube autolink messed things up... This wasn't the Stig driving either mind you, it could easily have been closer to 1:10 with him at the wheel.

I don't think so. Cars age too fast. I have no doubt that soon enough something will come along and knock it off the top. Look at the Ultima GTR, it a good while back with a 720hp engine and that's basically an overgrown kit car, and it accepts engines up to 1100bhp anyway. The Caparo T1 was around 1:10.6 (vs FXX at 1:10.7) and its aim is to be road legal even if it has issues in its present iteration. Still I'm surprised they put up the FXX time in the first place since last I heard it wasn't road legal. That's a great show, very spontaneous and genuinely funny at times.

Thanks for the impressions! I guess you could say that my sonic preferences lean towards the fluid/organic side of neutral, but neutral means a lot of different things to different people. Still I really like the O2 Mk1, HD600, and K340, don't much care for the SR-404, and generally can't listen to Ultrasones, A250, or ER-4S at all from the piercing treble, so maybe that will give some idea. I can't stand any kind of treble harshness, cold/nasal midrange colorations, loose/bloated bass, and grain. I also don't like a U-shaped FR since while I listen quietly most of the time I do like to crank it while listening critically and boosted bass/highs will cause fatigue. I'm guessing that I'm agonizing over two presentations that are essentially slightly different takes on neutral and there's nothing to worry about from going in either direction. In any case I'm really looking forward to impressions from the next few weeks. The custom IEM market is really interesting, with a lot of competition and pretty stiff consumer standards seeing how most of them are aimed at music professionals, so it's not surprising that there's so much development and improvement going on. I would really like to see an FR for the JH13 if that's even possible and see if it can provide any meaningful output at 20khz like JH claims. That would really help it when it comes to rendering overtones/harmonics and will give it a textural edge over other IEMs.

I really like Top Gear but I hate their attitude. The whole chauvinist Britain > * attitude and the idea that everyone else can settle for second-grade content. They can go fuck themselves. If you don't want everyone else to watch your show don't show it to them, but don't give people scraps like they were dogs while you sit and eat your five-course meal. Also youtube is what gave them their popularity in the first place and their constant crusade against youtube'd content is ridiculous. I always pay for shows and music that I like but they're not getting a cent from me as long as they keep treating me like a second-rate viewer. I thought the whole Schumaker thing was pretty lame too. They've been milking the whole Stig identity thing on the web site for years and now that the show is running out of ideas they're probably going to start doing it every episode on the show too. But the rest of the episode was pretty good IMO.

Thanks, I really do look forward to your impressions of the full version. AFAIK you, Justin, and Larry all have the ES3x and will be getting the JH13, and I hope digihead won't be able to resist either since I have found his impressions to be pretty spot-on thus far.

I'm still waiting for more feedback on these. I was dead set on getting the ES3x but now I'm going to wait for impressions from people that have both the ES3x and JH13. In the meanwhile I'm just sitting back and staring incredulously at the 30+ page appreciation thread for a product that isn't even out yet. Anyone else find the very idea of appreciation threads within the context of the current state of HF destructive? It's all very fine to have an appreciation thread when you have a solid poster base of rational people, but when you have a forum full of consumerist trolls who somehow identify themselves based on what gear they have and now many posts are under their belts, it starts to breed even more rampant fanboyism. Yeah, I own lots of Westones. I guess by HF protocol I should then think along the lines of this: Down with Shures! Down with Ultimate Ears! Quick, run to the trenches of Westone appreciation threads and let's all start lobbing trolling grenades at the trench of Phonak owners, after all their IEMs are less expensive than ours and they're easy pickings! But watch out for the JH mechanized divisions, their $1100 IEMs are even more expensive, and we have to make even more noise or everyone else will think we're second rate! I mean, they have twice the drivers and are even more expensive, and that makes them better people! Or maybe I should jump over to the JH side - this could really increase my sense of self-worth!

Well if you didn't like Pattern Recognition then Gibson probably isn't for you. Neuromancer is his most popular book but it's a very adolescent book really and he's done better since then. Pattern Recognition is probably the most polished example of his style. I also like (some of) his short stories. I do like Gene Wolfe. "Fifth Head of Cerebrus" and the "Book of the New Sun" series were great, and "The Wizard Knight" series and "Pirate Freedom" were quite decent. As far as surrealist SF goes I would recommend Michael Swanwick's "Stations of the Tide." This is the only Swanwick book I really liked so far, though I'm a huge fan of his short stories (esp. "The Dog Said Bow-wow"). He's a much better short story writer than a novelist IMO, but Stations of the Tide is an exception.

Those nerdy paragraphs as you call them aren't the reason why Stephenson needs an editor. All that stuff is great, and is what makes him so enjoyable. But he does need work on some characters as well as pacing/storytelling and maintaining tension throughout. Snow Crash is a perfect example - very good tense buildup but tension evaporates in the end and the resolution is a major letdown. Gibson has his problems too but his main strength is his multi-layered surrealistic and almost psychedelic narrative. He has a tone quite unlike just about anyone. And yes, Pattern Recognition was the last Gibson book I read and I liked it quite a bit too.

All I can say is - it's about bloody time you joined. Welcome to the madness, straightjackets optional.

Wow, lots of Stephenson action going on. And speaking of Stephenson... just finished Cryptonomicon. Pretty typical work for him really - 1100 pages of entertaining and occasionally insightful rambling. Some weak plotting, some good and believable characters together with some not so good ones. The book is definitely more consistent than Snow Crash and more entertaining than The Diamond Age, worth reading but he still has a long way to go to catch up to Gibson and other people at the top of the game.

Better than ES3x? What's the sound signature like? One of the reasons why I put off getting the ES3x is the JH13 coming out, so very much looking forward to a comparison when you get your #1.

Yeah, I've never done that so I don't know if what I heard was real or placebo. I'm open to either possibility.

Yes, I meant A/B testing, I didn't have an ABX box. It would be very interesting to get my hands on one though. I'm not one for endlessly debating the differences between cables either since to me that's always the very last component of the system, and so far I'm still swapping sources around trying to get the rig just right. But with the 007, and so far only with the 007 (both the Mk1 and Mk2), the difference was more noticeable right away rather than being more along the lines of "well I think I hear something but I'm not sure." There was more treble volume with the silver and a bit less midbass/lower midrange, and it was definitely more suited to the 007's FR. The 007's resolution is really startling and a whole host of considerations that just don't apply with most headphones suddenly start cropping up. Definitely looking forward to your impressions with the KGSS.

Understandable, but try some simple ABX testing with the O2 and silver vs copper cable. I was certainly very surprised at the results.

Woob - 1194 Legendary, and for a good reason.

Jude is laying it on pretty thick lately. Still, this is interesting. I do like balanced armatures when they're implemented well, and if this turns out to be a good IEM it will be a very good option. UE is probably going after Westone and trying to reverse their trend of undercutting UE prices. The near future for IEMs is looking very interesting.

Forcing myself to pass this one up. Finances aren't great and I simply don't need it. Not that this has ever stopped me before but, you know... trying to be more responsible, mature, and all that nonsense.

Haven't heard Cynic's latest. I haven't gotten any new metal in about 2 years. Just not in a metal phase, though I may get back into it. A few more regulars I forgot: Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve, Chaosphere Fear Factory - Demanufacture Isis - Oceanic Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness (one of the very few pretentious prog-metal albums that I like) Dream Theater - Awake, Images & Words. Yes, I liked DT and I'm not ashamed to admit it. But they sucked since Kevin Moore left and I stopped caring after Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. What a horrible album, bloated, pretentious, and thoroughly devoid of songwriting talent or emotion. They need to kick out Jordan Rudess and find a real songwriter to actually stand a chance at making good music again. But at least the Liquid Tension Experiment disks were pretty good at times. I never cared for Opeth that much though I did like some stuff from Morningrise and Still Life. Opeth I think are too unfocused and while they have melodic talent they have terrible song structures. I mean, look at most tracks from Still Life - play good catchy riff 4 times, modify slightly, play 4 more times, switch to acoustic segue with a melody repeated 4 times and some mellow vocals, then play first riff 4 more times, the repeat... boring and predictable and a waste of good melody. Dissection's Storm of the Light's Bane is the album that Opeth wish they could write, but they never will (IMO). Also not a fan of Agalloch even though everyone used to rave about them. "Grey Metal" is right - grey and dull. Melechesh has some amazing tracks, but is also very uneven. I can't call any single Melechesh album my favorite but a few tracks I do really like. Proscriptor's drumming is amazing and the vocalist sounds like a tortured imp, which is a plus. Naglfar I thought was a pretty solid Dissection rip-off. This isn't really a bad thing but they will always be measured against Storm of the Light's Bane (as well as The Somberlain though I like that disk less), and they will never measure up. They need to do something different, and they do have the talent, but maybe not the motivation. I also think that you cannot make truly evil and tortured music unless you are evil and tortured yourself. When Ihsahn was evil he was making fantastic, bone-chilling evil music. When he became a star he tried to fake it but it wasn't the same. This is why Burzum will continually make music that sends chills down my spine - he is an evil, twisted, anti-semitic murderous monstrosity and it shows in his music. But when you take some posers - which a lot of successful metal artists become - and ask them to write evil music, you usually get a caricature of the genre that is laughable at best. There are lots more albums that I liked but I don't remember now.

Perennial metal favorites regardless of genre: Nile - Black Seeds of Vengeance, In Their Darkened Shrines Dissection - Storm of the Light's Bane Alchemist - Organasm. Damn you Alchemist for overcompressing Trypsis. DAMN YOU TO HELL!!! Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse Arcturus - The Sham Mirrors, Slideshow Symphonies Finntrol - Jaktens Tid Cynic - Focus Watchtower - Control and Resistance Cryptopsy - None So Vile Nevermore - Dreaming Neon Black, Dead Heart in a Dead World Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding, Accident of Birth Outworld - Outworld Falconer - Falconer Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine, Terria, Ziltoid the Omniscient Strapping Young Lad - City Pretty eclectic metal tastes and of couse I'm leaving out all the old-school Megadeth and Iron Maiden I usually can't get enough of. Though to be perfectly honest, I haven't fired up any metal in about a year, just not in a metal mood.

Holy fuck, PCM1704, analog volume control, FLAC, OGG, and APE? Want. Want badly. However no digital output = fail.

Then half of them will be inscribed "Waddragon" or whatever name that fucking douchebag uses at the moment.

Very likely Chinese fakes. Fake A-T's are something of a rage these days and any time you have an unknown vendor selling A-T's well below the asking price you can pretty much assume that it's going to be a fake automatically. I would only buy A-T's from known, reliable, legitimate vendors even if I had to pay more. RE OP: IEMs are the way to go I think, and the SE530 is definitely a good candidate. I was playing around with the idea of getting the UM3x to play with but I may just skip straight ahead to the ES3x. If you have the funds I would very much suggest doing the same - not necessarily the ES3x but a good top-tier custom-molded IEM in general. The UE11 is another candidate and Jude is busy pimping JH IEMs over on that other forum right now but they may be worth a look as well. IEMs are doing very well and even my old ES2 was very good as a closed headphone, and the new generation of customs should be an improvement.

Try angling the earbuds slightly forward if you're wearing them without the headband, and also you can try wrapping the cord around your ear IEM style to alleviate some of the cord pull, though this does but a bit of pressure on the detachable joint. With the headband, I used large-sized tips and bent the headband to alleviate some of the pressure. The fit was way more comfortable, but sonics were I think a little better without the headband and with the tips shoved right in... It's a tricky little bugger but you can get it to fit well.

Strange question since I know you've sold your Opus 21 a long time ago, but how do you think this would do as a DAC vs. the Opus as a DAC? I'm not asking for anything exact obviously but just ballpark rough estimates. I'm not happy with some aspects of the Opus, specifically grain, but I also don't use a conditioner and the grain may be caused by that - it could simply be AC noise? Me = technically incompetent noob utterly confused

Hit up Stone Brewery if you're into beer, it's only 30 minutes or so outside of SD. Also there was a nice Russian bistro that I really liked in SD, Pomegranate I think it was called but not sure...