Hopstretch

Just get a dozen Noise Harvesters and let them eat all your tasty power impurities. Om nom nom nom. You can tell they work precisely as advertised because when you plug them into an electrical socket they light up, see?

And where is it?

Either way, I perceive it as a pleasant tonal richness, so it's all good.

Who knows, I may now have yours.

Cowboy Junkies -- Trinity Revisted 24/96 needledrop

If there was a Mac netbook, it would only run on organic Quinoa.

Nice one, Nate! It is so great to see some summer.

Must admit I like the "it just works" aspect of both iTunes and the QB-9. Plug it into a spare USB port, select in Audio Midi, open iTunes and you're done, for good. I haven't had a single hiccup in a couple of months. Click play, get great sound. Know we're all tweakers to some extent around here, but that simplicity and transparency have got to be worth plenty to most normal folks.

A couple of recent tidbits on the QB-9 upgrade path from Charles Hansen. Just on the off-chance anyone else is interested.

Not to mention fucking bears.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds -- No More Shall We Part

If I could take a hint, they would have run me off after about three posts around here! I do like the 800s very much, though, and am genuinely interested in better understanding their fundamental characteristics.

Maybe this should be in the "I swore I'd never..." thread, but yeah I never thought I'd be that annoying guy who has the awesome headphones he loves better than cake (or coke, depending on your predilection) -- except for that one teeny little sonic nit that he feels obliged to pick over and over again on the boards until everyone just wishes he would SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds -- The Boatman's Call Mixes very, very well with whisky.

Those are bowls.

I have one too (Digital Reference) and agree it is way too inflexible. I used to use it on my PS3, but it didn't make me any faster in GT5 Prologue.

Possibly because theirs is a diffuse field measurement? I don't know. Maybe Dreadhead would help us out if we sent him some rum. It certainly suggests that Stereophile did screw up their impedance measurement of the HD800, which showed a peak of only about 310 Ohms, since this latest curve agrees pretty much exactly with Headroom's one.

I think that around that region the effect is going to be pretty much the same. Combined with the big frequency spike at 5K... The Qualias are even worse in that range. (Nice suckout, too.)

Another good review.

Mine are out on loan, so ban me not.

Yeah, he just off-handedly recommended 50 Ohms as a suitable divider. Whether that's arbitrary or not, I don't know. There are some pretty interesting measurements comparing the 800s to the 650s over here -- though I have no idea what the accompanying commentary says. Look at these: Those waterfalls are a bit of an eye-opener to me. Is it foolish to conjecture that that pronounced ringing at 6kHz is probably what is pissing people (like, say, me) off with plosives and sibilance on the 800s?

The big knob part?

Back to the 800s. I am really digging them off the HP4 right now. There's a certain coloration that isn't there with the dead neutral GS-1 and it has a slightly smoothing effect, which I like. This is with the stock tubes. I have some 6SU7GTY coming in that, by repute, will take things even further in that direction. I find I also like them more driven off the amp's Lo-Z taps, which seems to plump up the bass. Could be complete bollocks and sonic self-delusion, of course.* (* I did email Tim de Paravicini to ask what the respective output impedances were and he rather ducked the question, but did say the amp has a damping factor of around 12, for what that's worth.)