Hopstretch

Ta Monkey man. I did look at their Nano, but didn't want to have to fart around with TRS outputs.

Toto -- Toto IV MFSL CD

No one is insulting your baby elephant ears, so no need to flap them. It's demonstrably true that some of Mikhail's stuff sounds good despite his, ah, eccentric design choices. Voltron's SDS-XLR, for example, was absolutely kicking ass at CanJam with the HD800s. And now, of course, it's gone boom bye-bye. And then, oddly, Andy's SDS-XLR didn't do much with the Senns at the same event. Tube variation? Design variation? Different vodka consumed during build process? Who knows. Point is, Singlepower stuff is a crapshoot to both operate and evaluate.

Due to a change in the configuration of my system, I'm looking at getting a passive volume control/preamp for the odd occasions when I want to listen to my monitors rather than my headphones. Does anyone have any experience with the NHT ones? Or any thoughts on whether it's worth the extra tenner (and cable costs) to go balanced all the way through my system? (They go for far less than MSRP online. The Goldpoints look nice but are way too spendy.) The HP4 converts balanced input to SE, but the Quads have XLR ins and -- given it's a desktop system -- there's a lot of RF interference about. All cable lengths will be pretty short once it's properly set up.

One man's meet is another man's pissup.

Aimee Mann -- Magnolia

Seconded by the anarcho-syndicalist faction. Not that we observe bourgeois rules of order, other than for linguistic convenience.

The Flaming Lips -- The Soft Bulletin

Because I don't own these and, frankly, can't afford them, I'm taking the position that they must be overrated. Oh, and you're all shills obviously.

Odd thing happened to me last night at 3 a.m., too. Son: (Mysteriously standing by my side of the bed in our room. Our kids don't get up at night and have never, ever come into our room while we're asleep.) "Hey, Dad!" Me: "Huh? Wha tha fu...? I mean, what's going on, buddy? Is everything OK?" S: "You don't love me." M: "Huh? Wha the fu...? I mean, WHAT?" S: "You think I'm a fussbudget." M: "A what?" (Still in the waking-up-trying-to-process phase here.) S: "A fussbudget! You do!" M: "Who even says that word? Are you even awake?" S: "I don't like the mean butterflies!" M: "Ohhhkay. Back to bed, buddy. And I do love you, more than anything." S: "Alright." (Goes back to bed.) Zero recollection of any of it this morning, of course. And, seriously, who uses the word "fussbudget"? I know for damn sure I never have.

You're both twats.

^^^ Want! Thomas Dolby -- Astronauts And Heretics

Signal Cable Video Reference? 14 AWG, 3 conductor, 100% foil shield, $49.

My wife and kids ditched me to go to the mall, so I'm forced to sit by the pool drinking beer and catching rays. They will pay for this indignity!

Welcome. Given the jiggling, I'm going to go with the cord-to-plug connection probably being the issue. But it's probably also worth trying a different pair of phones quickly to make sure it's not the jack on the Mac that's borken.

Welcome. Given the jiggling, I'm going to go with the cord-to-jack connection probably being the issue.

Au contraire. As in many other areas, they are alone among their fellow Europeans in scorning the Ghey-Ballsack method.

English proof is determined by weight, not volume.

Warren Zevon -- Warren Zevon 24/96 needledrop

moar bits moar better!

Which makes it all the sweeter that you get most of its core functionality included with your $1400 receiver/pre-pro.

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