Sherwood

Eyy Fitz! Happiest of days! Many years, as they say here in Moldova!

Thanks, Dan, I grabbed some fancy coffee. The two week shipping time to Moldova can’t be good, but local roasters are not killing it. In other news, just got a clever dripper in the mail and I’m in love. Great balance of good flavor and simplicity.

Love CHVRCHES, especially when the dudes sing, love JJJ, cool cover. Much appreciated, stretch. Juliaplaysgroove's cover of Teddy Swims' Broke

Steve, do you have a recommended order for those?

I am 100% out of the loop, so this comment here was where I first learned about Valheim. Looks fun, I'll give it a try.

As a person I've always liked Jude. I know I'm in the house that "disagreeing with Jude" built, but as far as headphone villains go he's pretty low on my list. That said, this interview is a little weak in the way of journalism.

This is really clean and interesting work, Julio! Great job, thank you for sharing.

I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe anyone pays Drop and receives nothing. Worst case, you either get something you don’t like or you get a late refund when Sennheiser can’t deliver on their end. Drop’s Sennheiser 6XX series has been an unmitigated success, and their collaborations with AKG and Focal are similarly well-liked, so I’m confident they’ll sell out this run. I’m interested to see what they turn out, and I’d not be surprised if it was good. I love the HD800, however, and also own an HD58X, so it’s hard for me to be objective.

Per https://drop.com/buy/our-most-requested-headphone-launching-2-18-21/talk? Hey Friends, Tomorrow morning at 9am PST, we are releasing the DROP + Sennheiser HD 8XX. This headphone is the result of hundreds of thousands of community posts and four years of collaboration between the teams at DROP and Sennheiser. Analyzing discussions around the HD 800S, we saw clear mandates from the community around bass extension and midrange balance. The HD 8XX incorporates two novel changes to accommodate those mandates. Where the HD 800S uses a single resonator, Sennheiser developed a dual resonator system for the HD 8XX, creating bass extension down to 10hz (+5db @ 10hz vs 800 S) by changing the resonant properties of the housing. Sennheiser’s team, lead by Jermo Koehnke, reached the bass solution pretty quickly, but our goals for the midrange proved demanding... bordering impossible. After significant research, Sennheiser reached a solution; altered acoustic impedance in the transducer's dampening material to smooth the FR from 2.5k to 8k. This means the transducer in the HD 8XX is unique, it’s a new ring driver. The HD8XX goes live tomorrow at 9am PST with 3000 units available, shipping in November. These 3000 units represent the full production we anticipate for 2021. We’ll make more available if the capacity increases, but this launch is the only guaranteed HD 8XX availability until 2022. Launch pricing for the HD 8XX is $1100 and you’ll receive $200 worth of drop points (20,000 points) with purchase. For future units, HD 8XX pricing will increase to $1200+. So come by tomorrow morning at 9am PST, pickup your HD8XX, use your drop points to buy a DROP + THX 789 for $99 and enjoy the endgame this November. https://drop.com/buy/drop-sennheiser-hd-8xx-headphones ^ this is the direct link for 9am tomorrow, thanks for your support

They did one better:

True enough, Steve. Shame it had to be a good one. I can’t think of any major headphone manufacturer save Stax whose engineering I trust more. While they definitely let a lot of expensive junk out the door, they are still well above the Mendoza line for me.

His review of the Raal SR1 was not glowing, but the EQ settings he came up with are really good. I use them daily, and I'm glad he took the time to post them even though he did not ultimately like the headphones much. I don't think he's totally worthless, but I don't think he is enough of a visionary to be leading the movement he has cultivated over there. As a regular forum user or a guy with a blog, he's informative and interesting. As an objectivist cult leader, he is grating and ill-informed. Also, I think his fucking ears are broken.

I don’t like any of these people, so it is fun to watch them fight.

🥰to all of this. Ryan, I'm going to let Antonio play with the L2 for awhile, then I'll reach out to you. If you're still making unwuse financial decisions by that time, I can't stop you.

Frankly, Antonio, I’d be happy to loan it to you indefinitely. Listen and enjoy on your own time. I’m not about to nickel and dime HC’s doctor.

I still adore my ECP L2 with my HD800s but my listening has switched entirely to the Raal SR1a. I'm not eager to let the amp go, but if any ECP-curious folks would like to hear one of life's great pleasures, let me know. I'm happy to find a reasonable price for the HC faithful.

I think Mr. Miller has endured enough negative feedback, don’t you? Let the man oscillate how he pleases.

My pick for true HC grinder is probably the Kafatek Monolith MAX, which while cheaper than the Ceado is maybe also better.

Those niche grinders are going for a mint now that Hoffman has talked them up.

It has some gearing to get a little extra out of each turn, but it is manual. I’d love to see a video showing how long it takes to grind through 60g of fine ground beans, but no dice so far.

Agreed, I'd help keep Dan in business. On a related note, any thoughts on the Orphan Espresso Apex grinder? I don't make espresso at home, but I do drip through a Bonavita machine as well as siphon and pourover. Through my Baratza Encore grinder many coffees taste pleasant but similar. I'm not getting the same flavor notes I am reading about, and as with all other pursuits in my life I believe it is because I've not yet spent enough money.

Not related to Lloyd Cole, but re: the shifting music income model I found this NYT piece illuminating: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/arts/music/hyperpop-spotify.html TL;DR A lot of burgeoning hyperpop artists are destitute teenagers and Spotify's inclusion of their home-produced music on the very influential Hyperpop Playlist represents an unbelievable windfall for them. When their music falls off the top of the playlist they scramble to do whatever they can to stay relevant and keep the tap open.

I listen to a lot of klezmer music, would you classify that as ghetto type?

I read it for the first time a few months ago, and I found it very similar to you. It was really well-paced, I felt propelled from one plotline to the next, my unhappiness at leaving one storyline outweighed always a little by excitement to revisit another. It's really a great story, laid out well. The discussions about reading order and canon are impenetrable and detract from the experience somewhat, but what can you do? I highlighted the above because I think the sort of Arab fetishism the writing about the Fremen exhibits did not age the same way the rest of the book did. Obviously public conceptions about the Middle East have shifted greatly here in the West, and I'm personally very fond of the kind of romanticized Bedouin culture seen in works like Dune and Lawrence of Arabia, but I also think it's a little skin deep. The noble savage thing is a well worn trope and it fits the larger hero's journey nicely, but it does feel like a bit of moralizing on Herbert's part. It also removes me from the fantasy somewhat, as the other major factions don't seem to have the same obvious real-world counterpart.

The song "Not" by Big Thief is a classic earworm with a tremendous delivery. It's on a later album, Two Hands, if you've not yet branched out. Great album, but you have to fight that impulse.