Hopstretch

The 997 is not made in the US. It is a modified, amp section-less Sherwood-Newcastle 972 and is built in Korea. Interestingly, the Trinnov Optimiser technology that will be built into these is rather reminiscent of the Smyth Virtualizer, but for speakers. It allows for not only time and phase correction, but also virtual speaker remapping, so you can -- for example -- "raise" the center channel you have under your TV so that the sonic image emanates from the center of the screen as it should. It's reportedly frickin' awesome. The following is from an online conversation with one of the S-N product guys.

Brian Eno -- Another Green World

E-MU 0404 M-Audio Transit

Bon Iver --Blood Bank

This might come in handy, once it stabilizes a bit.

Plymouth Navy Strength is worth a try. Do be judicious with the dosage, though.

Ultravox -- Vienna Apart from the title track, which is pretty much all anyone remembers, there is a ton of good stuff on here. A punk band going new wave with the help of Conny Plank's krautrock chops. Also sounds really great for a (very) early eighties production.

Good enough motivation for me!

I'll take two, please.

Morrissey -- Years Of Refusal

Under $1,000 -- Headamp GS-1.

It's a loop out. Pity they didn't go the extra mile and make it a pre.

Morrissey -- Bona Drag

Massive Attack -- 100th Window

That is some very interesting stuff. Thank you. I am definitely one of the people who finds the HD800, for all its other virtues, somewhat on the harsh side, particularly in the presentation of vocals. One reason for that, I suspect, is that I like to listen louder than most and the 800s really don't seem to like being cranked up. I guess Senn's sweet spot and my own are a few dB apart.

Verizon HATE wifi.

Mazzy Star -- So Tonight That I Might See

Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerds!

Neil Young -- Live At Massey Hall 1971 Like being there. Whoa.

Also very nice? Bit of an embarrassment of riches right now thanks to the good offices of New Hampshire's own ever-generous Dark Knight, who also threw in some really good toobs for it. It takes the edge off the HD800s a little bit, but the GS-1 still has it beat for top-to-bottom competence to my ear. The HP4 seems to be in a different class to both, again purely in my own limited experience thus far.

Anytime! Wife got home from her business trip and is wrangling kids, so relaxing a bit here. Little Craig and Tim have been playing very nicely together. And I just cracked a new bottle of that orange stuff.

Clench. Unclench. Clench. Clench. Unclench.

Sin

It's funny. I am PC Audio all the way on the sound side. But I still like my physical media for video. HTPCs are still way, way too fiddly for me and -- as a finicky viewer -- downloads involve too many resolution/compression compromises at this point and probably will for a while yet. An it-just-works Mac solution might see me drifting to the dark side, though.