Dusty Chalk

Damn, that sucks, dude. They're growing like never before, so they're going to reduce availability? What kind of (drunken?) rationale is that? And thanks for the recs, Jacob, I'll definitely take those notes with me -- all of my favorite beer joints, Norm's in Virginia, Perfect Pour and Belby's in Maryland, Total Wine, Whole Foods, Wegman's, etc. -- all are pretty good about beer, too, so I'll definitely look for all of those.

Under $20 is certainly good, especially since I'm still in the experimenting stage. Thanks for the recs!

Happy Birthday!

Trying to order it, but it's not working.

I do that anyway. The employee recommendations thing, not the black cork thing (there are black corks?).

Just came back from Oh Land/OMD. 's'awesome to hear good synthpop played in a concert scenario. For the 9:30 club, sound was pretty good for OMD. For Oh Land, not so much -- someone left the subwoofers on "Black Sabbath". Or maybe it was the "Rave" setting. I can never tell the difference. I still bought her album, because what I could hear sounded really good. Washington DC area audience was surprisingly energetic and responsive, making OMD feel like returning heroes, and Andy McCluskey has an amazing frenetic energy (which I'm told he always had) -- I hope I work my way up to having that much energy by the time I'm 51. Superb show. They played all of my favourites except The New Stone Age, which he warned us at the beginning he wouldn't (something to the effect of, "we didn't know what to play, so we're playing it safe -- those of you who came for the wierd stuff are going to be disappointed" -- he was just managing expectations, and I think it was the right thing to do -- I grieved for a fraction of a second, and then got over it, just like that (snaps fingers)).

Dan, I told someone that I was going to try to get back into wine, and was recommended to try a Malbec or two -- you like? You happen to know the ABV? Me: as posted elsewhere, I had an Old Rasputin and a Raisin d'Etre on tap earlier, wasn't going to have anything else, but I feel like crying in a beer, so I'll have a Sam Adams Boston lager or something. Perhaps a pumpkin ale. I don't know -- "a beer".

My condolences to those who have lost someone close to you, and to their loved ones. Yeah, don't discount her yet. The ones that come through are the ones with a good support structure. My most positive, most healthiest, most healing thoughts and vibes in a generally Southern direction for Mike's mom-in-law. And yeah, what Dinny said. Please, don't ever let it be you, to be that one.

Yeah, some of these guys drink liquid moss.

Use mah link -- I just got two vouchers for $60 worth of tea for $25.

Also, why would they be fighting in the sewers?

Thanks! (...but they won't take my credit card.)

Steve, we found your personal pic.

HiFiMan RE-262 Denon AH-D7000 Phonak Audéo PFE 122 Stax Sr-007 II & SRM-007tII Koss KDX 300 Small news announcement regarding release of 2 AKG wireless headphones

I think she's gotten as far as saying she's using it.

If I were Darth Vader, I'd use the force to make them Three Stooges each other to death. (coconut-against-coconut sound)

It's fiction dude. It's like, "what if Darth Vader had to take on Alien, who would win?" "Duh, the baddassest of them all, Darth Vader. It'd be like just one stroke of his light saber, he wouldn't even waste the mental energy to mind-choke them. In fact, he could probably take a whole army of them. And if he wanted to take a break from swinging his light saber (which really isn't that heavy), he would just mentally use the force to make them impale themselves on it. 'You don't want to live, you want to impale yourself on my..." "...penis..." "Dude. Ew." "That's what she said." "You mean the queen?" "No, dude, I was just vamping...thinking out loud...oh never mind..."

Yeah, but it's not until iPad 9 that they'll have the retina display. Fuckers.

Want.

I have to admit, this is one of the most epicly entertaining crash-n-burns I've ever witnessed. I mean, if you're going to go down in flames, he's doing the equivalent of dowsing himself in lighter fluid.

What do you mean by, "silly"?

Yeah, the Krell may not be. I like the higher end MF gear (A3 and up). A lot. I don't know about poorly implemented -- I specifically remember him worrying about the orientation of the choke because of the orthogonal nature of RF noise generated by other parts in the circuit (from an interview in Stereophile, of course). I say build. It'd be cool if you built your whole system. I just saw an article on the front of Elektor magazine about developing your own mp3 player. link ...which would, of course, mean building a Pass Labs schematic.

I'm not defending Hahn (nor Fischer), as I have yet to go back and listen to them comparatively, but I will say this about your more generalized statements -- speed isn't always an issue. Sometimes if a piece is played too slowly, ornamentation sounds like it's part of the melody when it shouldn't, and it needs to be played fast enough to "disappear" as it should. (I'm not sure this applies specifically to the pieces at hand, I'm actually thinking of my own piece, where certain aspects of melody don't come through unless it's played fast enough.) Now, that's not to say that it always needs to be played faster, not by any means. Correctly evoking the intention of the composer should be paramount, I will definitely agree with you there. Here, I'll throw you a curve ball -- when I criticized the Beaux Arts Trio, I wasn't talking about speed, I was talking about style and flow. I believe that Schubert should be played "stately", whereas their version just sounds too..I don't know...like they're trying to invoke their own personalities on top of the piece. A good comparison is comparing Keith Emerson's version of the Maple Leaf Rag: with Scott Joplin's: The speed is the same, but Keith Emerson's is much rockier and aggressive, whereas Scott Joplin's is lighter and more playful (presumably as it should be, since he composed it). He gives it a swing that most other renditions I've heard don't have, even at the same speed. I actually used to prefer Keith Emerson's version, since that's the way I played it. Similarly, others might prefer Beaux Arts Trio's rendition of Schubert, contrary to my beliefs of how I think it should be played (and the way most other renditions I've heard it played).

Misery Bear

You mentioned Krell, so I'm assuming you're buying, not building it yourself. Yes? I'm gay for Musical Fidelity, so I'd say the M3 or one of the M6's if you want new, or one of the ones with the Nu-Vista or Tri-Vista tubes in the front end for one of the old ones. But you'll probably ignore that, because no-one around here likes Musical Fidelity the way I do. But if you have a local store that sells used equipment, they're worth hearing.