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catscratch

High Rollers
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Everything posted by catscratch

  1. Got somewhere between 6" and a foot. Shoveled for 6 and a half hours because I'm small and weak. But we can use the driveway now. Did I mention that I just love shoveling snow for hours? Somebody kill me it's my favorite! Guess I probably should have fixed the snowblower. Hindsight and all that.
  2. Signed up but haven't heard anything from them yet. Cautiously optimistic about Quake - they've put together about as good a team as they can at this point in terms of who knows what Quake actually is, but I don't know if the market will support a real old-school shooter with no skill compression or concessions to modernity, or how much they'll water the game down to make it more accessible. Recent Quake-style games have failed (Reflex, Warsow) and frankly I'm surprised they managed to put together enough of a business case to the suits to risk a Quake-style game right now. Maybe the suits thought that if they threw in some moba elements the success of Overwatch will carry them through, but ask anybody that has ever tried to compete with Blizzard about how well that went for them. Though an alternative theory is that Syncerror used an old CPM CTF mod that had classes for inspiration rather than drawing from Overwatch. At the end of the day, if the game has proper Quake movement, solid netcode, and matchmaking I'll probably be happy. We'll see.
  3. Driving back one night I heard these guys on NPR. Grabbed me so hard I didn't want to leave the car. Post-Rock? Rock-Jazz? Who knows. Fairly simple, but oh so right.
  4. Yay. But in addition to having a company that actually knows how to run a business, they (meaning Stax) also need to fix the price disparity between US/Japan, and make sure that US stocks are up to date with the latest Japanese releases. Which, I guess, is hard to do when you don't shift the stock you have because of price fixing. I'll be honest, the shitty outdated distribution system has kept me from buying a lot of headphones I otherwise would have very much liked to try. Well, that and the whole not having any money thing.
  5. Of course my snowblower broke within the first 6 feet. Why wouldn't it? I paid good money for it, and now it's out of warranty. As the Donald would say: Smart! At least, 4 hours later, I can leave my house. Got a good workout, too.
  6. Learning mouse aiming can be problematic for people that didn't grow up in the PC shooter era. If you're only going to play casually, then controllers are fine. If you intend to play competitively then you'll have to learn to aim with a mouse eventually, but it is a lot of work. On a controller, ergonomics are fixed and how to aim is more or less obvious. On a KB+M setup the ergonomics are up to you, and there are many different ways to aim, or even hold the mouse, so the situation's way more complicated. I'll echo the advice to use whatever you feel comfortable with, and if you start getting into the game enough to feel like you want to invest actual time into it, then learn to use a mouse. I've posted some resources to that end before, but I can relink stuff like this (not entirely accurate but gets the point across) or this or this. FPS games do take a lot of execution unfortunately, and learning it is not so much a function of age as a matter of effort and time, and not having said time when you're older.
  7. Yup, the ESS phones definitely raised a "hmmm this could be cool" flag for me. And right on about wualta, he was the man. Hope he's ok. But then it's not just the ortho thread, it was HF as a whole. HF's sad evolution is pretty typical for a successful board that doesn't quite manage its transition into success right. The board becomes the place to be, all the techies and kids that want to be cool join up, and sooner or later the old farts look around and say "wait a minute, who are all these people and what are they talking about" and then they leave, helped along by management that values sponsorship over content. When you find a good community, value it while it lasts, because it won't. Bummer about those Sigmas...
  8. Looks like Fang finally crossed the line, and a lot of the negativity surrounding headphone pricing in general has been heaped onto him, and his attempts to defuse the situation only made things worse. Certainly his awkward English didn't help. I almost feel sorry for the guy - almost, since he's undoubtedly guilty of price gouging, but then so is the whole bloody industry. I think the worse step for the industry would be intentionally compromising their less expensive models so that they don't undercut the performance of their higher-end models. I'm sure manufacturers would like a world in which all product niches are stratified and all good-sounding headphones are really expensive (kind of what the German car industry does). If that happens, and price/performance anomalies like the HD600/650 or KSC75 are discontinued, the hobby will truly be dead to a lot of enthusiasts. Quite frankly, it is that scenario that scares me, not the idea that somewhere out there somebody's making underengineered, underperforming $6k headphones. Maybe it's pointless worrying. This market isn't an oligarchy like the car industry and if somebody discontinues outstanding value headphones, somebody else will see an opportunity. Maybe this current Fang thing is just the market normalizing its concept of value. Maybe these headphones will fail, and so will he. But then I look at some of my posts from 2007 warning of exactly this and think "who the fuck is this idiot I don't want to say I told you so... but I did." In other news, I rather like the L700.
  9. Wasn't Warwick audio pushing this tech due to the lower cost? How does that connect with the $5k price of the system, if that's really what it costs? God, this industry is pissing me right the fuck off. I like the style though, very sleek, except for those cables.
  10. There are pros and cons to both. The Mk2.9 has better dynamics and more treble energy but its midrange tonality isn't quite as spot on as the Mk1. But make sure that your amp is up to par, cause if it's not, you'd be better off with something easier to drive.
  11. Let's all sing the Bethesda Christmas Carol: On the first day of Christmas, Bethesda brought to me: 12 Desktop crashes 3 Day 1 patches Huge frame rate issues And lots of DLC.
  12. Thought I'd share if anybody cares. http://aim400kg.com/ This is a neat aim training tool for FPS games, and mouse accuracy in general. There's a bunch of flash exercises for accuracy, reflexes, and speed. To get good use out of it, make sure your windows sensitivity is at least somewhat equivalent to your in-game sensitivity. To do this disable "enhance pointer precision" in windows and any mouse acceleration in game, measure how much you move your mouse on your mouspad to get across your desktop in windows, and across your FOV in game, and make sure the two are the same. You can also calculate it out based on your sensitivity, dpi, and reported FOV in game but mice rarely operate at their stated dpi and games often don't render their FOV correctly so measuring it out is better. Some of these are pretty brutal. Also, I suck.
  13. I was looking at Asseto Corsa. Is that the most accurate game out there right now in terms of physics? I like a more simmy game, might be time to dust off the old racing wheel.
  14. Valid counter arguments. Another one is that there will be a niche for affordable performance always. If the HD650 goes something will pop up to replace it, because there will always be those looking for maximum value. Of course designing a value product properly and making sure it performs is always going to be hard, and escalating prices will continually redefine the concept of value. Still, getting into DIY has never been more appropriate.
  15. Sigh. Let me get out a towel and mop up the puddle of sarcasm at the bottom of my last post. Somebody might slip and fall. I'm not whining about not being able to afford new shinies. I'm whining about the value proposition of the hobby dropping out as a whole. I suppose it had to happen - headphones were in a bubble of sorts for a while. Manufacturers will jack up the prices as far as the market will bear. It just sucks to see it start to go, that's all.
  16. I have read that the Chinese market is even more ready to part with disposable income than the US market and very often people just ask for the most expensive crap regardless of what it is. If that's true, Fang releasing this is simply capitalizing on an opportunity, regardless of what people may think about it ethically. That, or maybe he just doesn't want to be left behind in the prestige wars with Sennheiser, and if they're willing to abuse the good will of enthusiasts to release a pointless marketing statement, then he needs to do it too or risk falling behind. Shit like this infuriates me because even though it is a pointless gimmick to most people, it changes the expectation of how headphones should be priced, and it makes it far more likely that manufacturers are going to position their high-performance offerings at a level where less and less enthusiasts can afford them. Though at this point it's too late to start bemoaning the trend of making high-performance headphones luxury goods, since aside from a few value propositions like the HD650, here we all are. In other news, I heard Focal's next headphones will have plutonium-coated drivers - the warmth of radioactive decay gives them a lovely midrange tone, and the mutations they induce in your eardrums improve your perceptual capabilities by as much as 20%! Only available to the most discerning customers, of course. Now, I'm not that discerning a customer, all I have is a vintage 40 year old HD650, so I'm not as good of a man as a customer that has a new Orpheus. But I long to improve my lot in life, so that someday, someday I'll be the sort of man who listens to a Shangri-La, has a set of Focals for his Astell & Kern, and drives to Monaco in his Lamborghini. I can't afford anything that anybody makes at all anymore, but I'm just happier knowing that this hobby exists for better people, and somebody somewhere is enjoying the beautiful, beautiful music (with his happily mutated set of golden ears). P.S. Is there a market in magnetic levitating blocks to elevate your cables?
  17. The new Orpheus is what, $55k? That's a full 10% better. I'll take one of those. And a BHSE/Carbon/Stax rig? Please. That's, like, what, conceivably $10k max? This is at least 5 times better, lmao... I'm going back to the summit-fi forum... plebs.
  18. Tyll is the last person I'd accuse of selling out. He's one of the few reviewers I read and listen to. Having said that, I often don't hear things the way he does. But that's fine. Use honest, educated opinions like Tyll's, use your own ears, use whatever metrics and science you know, and put all of that together to guess if something is for you or not. Changing your mind in this hobby is a pain in the ass. The internet remembers everything you say and nobody realizes that the situation in the real world always changes. So if you say A and a few years later you say B, people will assume you either sold out or have no idea what you're talking about, when in truth you're just being honest about things as you see them at the moment. It's one of the reasons why I don't post about headphones much anymore. But then again I have nothing to post anyway, though 10 years ago, that didn't stop me.
  19. At the risk of turning this into a shitstorm, I'll say that there is some merit in fighting the good fight at HF. Its size and visibility makes it a source that a lot of people turn to first, and not having knowledgeable folks on HF that can speak with the voice of reason does others a disservice even if they don't realize it. However, don't take this as me pointing the accusatory finger and saying "why aren't you helping." I certainly gave up on it years ago (not that I had much to add in the first place), and if you don't want to, well, fuck 'em. Unfortunately...
  20. I have no idea why I don't play Elite considering how much I played the Wing Commander and Privateer games back in the day. Someday I'll get into it I'm sure. NMS is a paper-thin gaming experience but the tech behind it is fascinating and will probably be a landmark moment in games. I'm sure a lot of developers are looking at it and thinking "what else can I do with this." Also Starbound finally left early access and I recommend it. It's a very polished experience now and is quite good for someone looking to get into the Minecraft/Terraria style of games but is put off by the sheer complexity inherent to the genre. Now Starbound isn't really less complex, but it is a more guided experience that tells you what to do, whereas Terraria is truly obtuse to newcomers. At the end of the day, Terraria is still a better game IMO but Starbound has better combat mechanics and more of a focus on exploration.
  21. I haven't dealt with them recently, but I have had a lot of dealings with Kaneda in the past and he's always been a stand-up guy. I hope once he's back on his feet he'll get his business sorted out.
  22. So it's true, No Man's Sky is a shitty PC port. Playable, but only just. The frame rate isn't great, the game seems to pause and stutter on object load, the pop-in is bad, and the interface is not intuitive. There seems to be really bad mouse smoothing, mouse sensitivity options don't work as advertised and the FOV, while thankfully adjustable, doesn't seem to be as high as indicated. 100 indicated feels like 90 at most. But I can live with 90. The game is more or less right up my alley, endless wandering around in procedurally generated environments occasionally saying, "wow, cool!" The combat, such as it is, is laughable and the amount of actual stuff in the game so far is quite low. But it feels like the foundation is there for a really great game. Think Terraria 1.0, which means that I can't wait for 1.1 and up. But, there's a lot of technical issues on PC to be fixed first. You can tell the team is new to the whole PC thing, when they were showing off their own game they were playing it internally with a controller. So the clueless PC interface is understandable, as are the technical problems. They seem to be listening though, and hopefully they'll learn. So far they did something HIGHLY ambitious for a small team and mostly pulled it off - however they oversold it as the game to beat all games, makes sliced bread look last century, etc. It's certainly not all that. In terms of combat mechanics, story, npc interaction, etc it's all very simplistic at best. It's more of a slow, meditative discovery simulator with a bit of Minecraft. If you run through it looking for cool fights or scripted events to do, you'll be bored. But if, like me, you loved wandering around aimlessly in an Elder Scrolls game going "wow" at the pretty pictures, this game gives you an endless stream of that, and occasionally some bits of crafting and resource gathering to do, with combat mostly as a nuisance. I'd say wait on this one unless the description sounds exactly like your jam. Then try it out but be prepared for some PC port issues on the side. On the PS4 it's more stable and more optimized, however you will be dealing with 70 fov (supposedly, feels like less), 30 fps and aiming with a controller. None of that is acceptable for me but if you don't mind it, it seems to be the better running version at the moment.
  23. catscratch

    Top Gear

    Makes sense. They probably would have fired him anyway. Chris Harris can definitely take the reigns, the question is if the BBC is willing to drop its bet on starpower and take the risk that a show led by a virtual unknown (popularity among us internet dorks doesn't count) can bring in the ratings. It's more likely now, especially since most reviews pointed him out as being one of the few positive aspects of the new show. We'll see.
  24. Cheers Birgir. Wish you all the best. Will lift a tankard in your honor in a few.
  25. Cheers Milos. Always insightful reading your posts, wish you all the best.
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