Dusty Chalk

How about Radiohead? J/K...

He might've been, I'll let him answer for himself, though. Also: Kimber PBJ, but they can have a hint of edge with the wrong systems.

I'll second the Cardas Neutral Ref recommendation. I don't know how "syrupy" they are, but they are warm without erring on the side of veiled.

Does that mean you finally have amplification, speakers, and wires, all set up together correctly? Huzzah.

I demand live feed!

I have globs of money, but they're mostly ones...and they're wrinkled, and sometimes if I've had Chinese recently, they stick together. Seriously: how much?

Awesome. What do you play? My first instrument (in both senses of the word, 'first') is the piano, but I play a lot of synthesizers.

Nodoze, then.

You know, you don't have to read every fucking thread on Head-Case. I know I certainly don't want to get a case of induced narcolepsy.

You and me both, dude. Too bad it doesn't come in black.

You're a musician? I go to my own concerts, as well. I am my own favourite musician.

Alright, we'll take lolcats to the next level: loljesus:

I had a fling with a Canadian chick once. Chicks >>> dollars any day of the week.

I approve.

It depends which $300 cable and which $3000 cable you're talking about. There are some right good $300 cables, and I have another threshold called "ah can has no monies" that prevent me from even trying $3000 cables, so I couldn't honestly tell you. I also have another threshold called "ahm def", which keeps me out of golden ears territory, but I do honestly believe that there are people who can hear better than I do, and to them, there are certainly better cables at higher price points that they are willing to pay. To me, once you get past a certain point, I stop being able to tell them apart -- they're not even different. I don't see the point in me paying more than that. But I do see the point in someone else paying that, if they can hear a difference. And yes, you're right, once you get into stratospheric prices, there is a certain amount of truth to the fact that they stop being so much "better" and start being just "different" -- Cardas has their house sound cables such as the Golden Reference, and they have there less house sound cables such as the Neutral Reference, just to cater to different tastes. Also: UsedCable.com -- in addition to the usual suspects, audiogon, etc. Audiogon is a favorite for cable flippers, so the selection will be better there.

There's this activity called "flipping". You buy something on the used market, and that's how you audition it. If you don't like it, you sell it. It's that simple. Pffft. Usually, they're not. You're definitely getting into the point of diminishing returns when you talk those numbers. So it's not that anyone who buys a US$3K cable actually believes they're 10 times better than a US$300 cable, it's that he believes they are some small amount better, and that he is willing to invest the extra dosh for that little bit better, because to them, they have a mental threshold of "better" that they want to surpass, and they believe they can afford it.

Well...it's not so much about "for now" vs. "later" as IMHO cables are more subjective than just about anything else, and he should try things. There is a good chance that he will like Blue Jeans (or something else of similar ilk), so yeah, he should try those first. I would also throw White Zombie and Anti-Cables out as supposedly good entry level options (although I have personal experience with neither). Those are a couple that I've been meaning to try myself. I also have tried Pure Silver Sound Quartet interconnects myself, and have been very happy with them. I've been meaning to try their speaker cables, although I'll probably go with White Zombie's.

I already had those. Although I have to admit, I didn't have one that looked like Chantal Kreviazuk yet.

So maybe a good way to say it is that the noise floor is higher over here, but the distortion is higher over there. Plus, we have a much higher L3000 per capita over here. You don't get groupies? I was told to "...just wait, they'll be swarming all over you."

I'm not familiar with NetFlix, so please take my guessing as just that: Is it possible you have some setting in your profile that says you can't play BluRay disks, and that's why they're not sending them to you?

Not true. I'm sort of halfway between you guys -- I start with Ragu (or Prego or my favourite, Newman's Own Sockarooni), but then I always doctor it with some combination of the following: oregano, white pepper, black pepper, red pepper, garlic, thyme, other things, whatever's handy (spice-wise).

The following are pretty "safe" in terms of recordings and performances: Living Stereo -- especially the SACD series, but not limited to that, even the redbook layers are usually just damn fine Mercury Living Presence -- ditto I'm also pretty safe in terms of performance of anything by Heifetz, with orchestra, without, whatever. I'm also partial to Hilary Hahn. I have yet to hear anything by either of these artists that I didn't repeatedly enjoy. Follows are some of my favourite recordings: Helene Grimaud wolf box -- 4 out of 5 of the disks are solo piano recordings, but are imminently listenable Dmitriev -- piano sonatas by Prokofiev -- all solo piano recordings, I would call the style "post-romantic", since it's not as dissonant as other stuff in the same style Carmina Burana by Orff a la Thielemann -- this was the first version of this large scale orchestra and choir work that I "got" from beginning to end, and for that reason, remains the definitive version of this piece for me. More later.

Such a great picture that they chose for Wikipedia.

Me too.