Dusty Chalk

Yeah, I used to, but they pinned me a few times too many, timing it such that my account went near zero, or in one case, negative. (They charged me twice.) That was kind of the last straw. Yeah, yeah, I know, I should have more room on the card. I suck at that. Trying to get better. Haven't gone negative in months.

Yeah, sorry if that was condescending -- it wasn't meant to be. It just sometimes bears repeating when we get too carried away discussing minutiae such as what chips are used, upsampling, etc. -- just to bring the focus back to what really matters.

The Ocean, Heliocentral (instrumental version of Heliocentric) -- quite dig. Will have to investigate this "post-metal" genre further.

Sure, why not. I mean, I'm a big fan of the old MSB Platinum DAC that Justin used to haul around, which is also a ladder DAC, IIRC. Here's the thing: I'd rather have a really good 16/44.1 DAC for 16/44.1 source material than a mediocre upsampling one, but if I have 24/96 material (or whatever) -- which I do -- I, personally, would rather hear it at its original bitrate and bitdepth. That said, I have had good luck with (another MSB product, the Link DAC III) upsampling as well. Perhaps because you're starting with a signal that's closer to the analog signal before the analog stage, that makes it easier...somehow...? Again, making stuff up, because I don't know the real explanation. All I know is that I like the sound. What really matters is that it's a well-designed DAC with a well-designed output stage more than anything. And that if you have other source material than CD (16/44.1), that it handles it well.

And again. Recommended if you like...? Required if you like...? Racially Inquisitive Yearners of Lore?

Thanks for the note -- I canceled my subscription because they kept charging my card without checking first, which they were supposed to do, so I'd rather just buy them manually. Can someone let me know what the latest batch of titles are, so that I buy the right ones? Or is there a resource somewhere? I swear there are days that the only thing that gets me through them is the music.

Maybe he's going DIY. Waits for the inevitable, "yes Dusty, we know you like to extend your own penis, we get it" jokes to start.

Sony released these back in April: The MDR-RF4000K: Also, the MRD-RF810RK (which looks to already be superceded by something). What caught my attention was one particular spec: 2.4GHz. That's the digital transmission. So I'd be curious if anyone heard this, or if we have a serious contender for a wireless headphone yet.

and "...harder..."

My stance on this is well known, but I'll repeat it since you asked this question out loud -- I don't know whether or not the actual frequencies above the known human cutoff (which is age-dependent, amongst other things) can be heard, but I, for one, believe that their effects can be heard, albeit very subtly. My guess (purely talking out of my ass at this point, but when the mind does not have enough information, it makes stuff up -- it abhors a vacuum of knowledge) is that it does something to the phase of the signal, which the ear is known to be pretty sensitive to. Or something like that. Another guess is that once most of the harmonics in a triangle, square, or clarinet wave are heard, the mind's ear can hear a triangle, square, or clarinet wave, respectively, and therefore any discrepancies between what it thinks it should be hearing, and what it's actually hearing (what I call "negative hearing" -- not necessarily being able to hear to the level of detail of being able to know what's missing, but just the binary, "it sounds right"/"it doesn't sound right"). In all reality, it's probably some typically human complex combination of those things as well as others I haven't even figured out myself yet (IMO, again). That said, upsampling isn't at that level of technology that it's going to correct phase, if the original information isn't there, so it's not going to fix that, though it may fix other things. Which is why keeping that information from the source to the point of delivery is more important than upsampling is at this point. That said (yes, another one, on top of the other one), how much information is really there? The answer is almost none. Which is why (a) so few people can hear the difference (on top of just plain not caring or not being able to hear it anyway) and ( it doesn't matter all that much. Pretty much everyone else on this board disagrees with me, and I honor that, but every once in a while, my frustration at not being able to explain my side of things that I have to try and express myself again. I'll try not to get too heated about it this time.

That's fairly awesome (on top of an already awesome dream), and probably worthy of a thesis in and of itself as a case study in psychology. I'm serious -- the idea of "tricking" or fooling your subconscious eludes me -- my thinking being, you shouldn't be able to. And yet, I know you can, because I've woken up giggling from an episode of Three Stooges that doesn't exist.

Win. I've always enjoyed the concept of a Four Little Ponies/Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse mashup.

In hindsight, obviously a troll.

Yeah, let me know the next time you're in town, I'm not averse to going up to B'more, need an excuse to go. And alright, you talked me into it, I'll go back and buy it if they still have it.

Don't buy anything from overly-litiginous Monster. Boycott Monster. Get Sennheiser PX100's instead. Or one of these.

Agreed. Unless it's something that I can't get myself to buy, like the Black Ops (reviews are mixed for a $35 bottle of beer), or some limited something, like the Bell's Batch series. Goose Island, Russian River, Three Floyds, and Terrapin are all largely based on reputation, the rest I actually know and like at least one drink from (Avery make a killer Russian Imperial Stout called The Czar, for example, but I know from reputation that they make other good things; Pike make something called the XXXX Extra Stout which is surprisingly good for a $4 big bottle; etc.). Oh, and scratch Bison -- I got it confused with something else. It's worth trying if "organic" interest you at all, but I ended up not liking it for entirely personal reasons. And at the Three Skulls "tent" (?), you're basically just looking for cleavage, so don't waste too much valuable staggering time there. And take into account that this is just one man's opinion, etc. I do love beer, but I'm a relative novice (only really started drinking recently about the beginning of the year).

Looks nice! Let us know how they sound.

He was...until all of a sudden he wasn't.

And again. RIYL: Agalloch, Swallow the Sun, Shape of Despair, the first Kayo Dot album. Average song length is a little over 10 minutes, and that's including the 3 minute prelude -- link. It's reminding me of something else (again, Swans?), but I can't put my finger on it.

My list would look something like this (my list is alphabetical, as I wrote them down as I thought of them, so as not to provide duplicates, you're going to want to map a "shortest distance staggered" route): Allagash, Avery, Bell's (obviously), Bison, Brooklyn (I mean, c'mon, how can you not like a company who makes a "Black Ops": ...), The Bruery, Dogfish Head (obviously), Duck-Rabbit, Goose Island, Great Divide, Lagunitas, Left Hand (obviously), Pike, Rogue, Russian River, Sierra Nevada, Smuttynose, Southern Tier, Stone, Terrapin, Three Floyds, Three Skulls (hey, maybe Black Bonny will be making an appearance!), Tommyknocker, Troegs (right next to Weyerbacher), Victory (right next to Weyerbacher), Weyerbacher (obviously).

Jesus.

I thought those finally got released on DVD? A new, unaltered hope; the unaltered empire strikes back; and return of the unaltered jedi

Somehow I think we'll need the context, if the sentence goes something like, "it logically follows that f(x) = 2y + dt".

Death Race was not horrible, RE#1 was not as horrible as #2 or #3, neither of which I could finish watching. Mortal Kombat was also fun. Event Horizon is superb, if a bit ...erm... abstract. At least it doesn't have a horrible tagline, like "Mankind's Greatest Threat Is Earth Itself" or "Earth has a Deadline", or stupid faux-science shit, which rubs me the wrong way inordinately. Or you could just get around to watching it already, and decide for yourself. As always.

Well, you also know a guy online who has a whole shelfload of laserdiscs and two laserdisc players, including the very rare Matrix (which was the disc being made at the...Korean?...plant when the earthquake hit, destroying the plant, and no plans were made to create another plant).