Currawong

I must have missed this when reading, but where are people getting their boards made?

I've finally gotten around to pulling out the KGSS boards and am plugging the values into a Mouser project, following the guide in the first post, starting with the resistors. However, while I was tweeting away about it, I was offered a Blue Hawaii built by pabbi1, I think which, according to a friend of the owner, just needs the LEDs changed and a case to get it working again. I imagine the LEDs are similar in purpose in the BH as in the KGSS?

The ED9s were just lucky timing, before Sennheiser, Beyer and others had their new flagships out, so, being shiny, they were hyped to death. It's entertaining watching at least one owner, in massive denial, go nuts every time the measurements are mentioned.

I can't help wondering what brand those servers are.

Having run them through a 007t for a few days now, I can definitely say they'll be worth the wait. I haven't compared them directly to O2s yet, but suggesting they are the Omega I revisited is probably not far off. FR is, as others have said, more like your classic Stax rather than like the O2s. Detail and resolution are other-worldly. I don't need to turn the volume up nearly as high as with the O2s, suggesting they are more sensitive, but that is possibly as much the relative amount of treble and the mostly jazz and classical I've been listening to as anything. Their impedance is 20kOhms lower. I haven't tried music with deep bass yet or tested how much the cups resonate playing loudly. I just noticed though, checking specs, they are a bit heavier than the O2s.

You know what sux? Having a pair of headphones turn up when you don't have an amp to plug them into. Craig very kindly lent me a 007t until I can sort something out (ie: stop being slack and build the KGSS). I've learned my lesson not to hesitate when I've decided on gear.

I use the original Nikon 18-200mm and the 35mm, the latter on my camera most of the time for indoor shots. As long as there are no or few straight lines involved, the 18-200 is quite a good all-round lens where there is a lot of light. I use it outdoors when I have no idea whether I'm going to be shooting a close-up of my daughter or a scenic view. I'm glad I didn't go with anything bigger than the D7000, as the combination was heavy enough as is. I tried the D300s in store and knew it was going to be too much weight in the end. I've been thinking lately to add the 24mm alongside the 35mm as indoors I feel I want just a bit greater field of view. However, there are the 17-35mm f2.8D ED and 17-85mm f2.8G ED lenses I noticed which would possibly make for good indoor and scenic kit, trading off not too much for flexibility. Then there's the 24mm f1.4G ED if I want to go for broke but the thought of buying a $2k lens for a camera that cost half as much is rather scary, though I'm sure it would be end-game as far as indoor shooting would be concerned and it would likely rarely be off the camera.

I tried the Audiophilleo 1 with the iPad 2 and got a "This device draws too much power" notice. I'm not sure whether or not this would be the case with the model 2, which doesn't have the OLED display and the corresponding features. I had another listen of the Audiophilleo with the Reference 1 and DAC 1600HD though. The results are the same as my first impressions: Sans Audiophilleo, the difference between the two DACs was fairly splitting hairs, the Parasound edging out the Ref 1 on sounding natural, yet spacious and detailed and the Reference 1 a touch harder presenting instruments. With the Audiophilleo, the Ref 1 improved noticeably, but with the Parasound I didn't feel there was any difference. This, to me, says good things about the Parasound's immunity to what input is used and that it is as good as it will ever be sonically as well as that a relative weak point on the Ref 1 (and, I imagine Reference 7 as well) is the digital input. My reckoning is, after I had a similar experience with the Cambridge 840c (with its fancy DSP) as I have with the Parasound, that if a DAC seems to sound different depending on what input or transport is used, then it might benefit from a good S/PDIF converter (or better transport). If not, however, then an expensive converter is a waste of money.

OWC's 480GB SSD is now only $879.99 and the others have dropped too. They have new, faster SSDs, useful for people with 6Gbit controllers (doing the math for the speeds attainable), but that is only the latest MacBook Pros IIRC.

I wonder how the marine who put the bullet in his head must feel. Must be the highlight of his military career. I expect too that hiding out in Pakistan was a clever tactic, as the US would have otherwise had to get permission to conduct a raid and, in doing so, the Pakistani military would have tipped him off. It also meant that he was close by sympathizers who were probably passing on military intelligence.

Specifically wanting USB input and the no-cable connection and their general spiel being appealing, I've bought an Audiophilleo. So far, I like the results on my Reference 1. In a quick test before I packed it before moving, I didn't notice it having any effect on the Parasound.

Went into the Apple store after work and it was packed with not one, but two queues for the iPad. Went into a local Softbank Mobile store at their closing time (they close an hour before leaving to take care of final customers) and I was the first customer to buy an iPad that day! My dodgy Japanese held up. I just told them I'd recently bought an iPhone 4 and I understood all the paperwork, just tell me where to sign. I think the girl behind the counter, fearing having to explain everything in English to a foreigner at closing time, was as relieved as I was when I said that. It probably doesn't help that tomorrow is the start of the Golden Week holiday, which is equivalent to XMas/NY in a Western country for its length -- up to 10 days for some people.

The speakers I've lived with in the past were my father's. They were, respectively, Magnats (model number forgotten) and Paradigm 9SEs. They were both from 20 or more years ago. Amps were Luxman as far back as I can remember. The (Alpine era, regrettably) Luxman + 9SEs were not set up in any special way, but were in the living room which had curtains on one side and a wall of books on the other, but overall did a good job of disappearing, the overall result being fairly polite. I liked my Paradigm Atoms sitting on top of the Magnats more than the Magnats themselves, so I'll leave it at that for those. The Luxman I tried in the shop reminded me of the old amp I had in its presentation. I have the inkling feeling I should ponder an ever-so-slightly "musical" tube amp here instead, which would give me some flexibility in tuning the system slightly via the tubes used. This would possibly nicely contrast my headphone rig, which is very monitor-like in its presentation. I can't say my bias is towards Paradigm now, as I haven't tried enough speakers to form an opinion. Some speakers that did impress me in shop demos (all some years ago) were: B&W 805s, unknown Monitor Audios and especially Piegas (now THERE is an idea!). The room size, which I've finally measured, is 262x310cm (8x6' x 10.2'). The speakers will be on the shorter wall with windows on one side, using translucent curtains and regular curtains for day and night respectively. Floors are wall-papered and the floor is faux wood. I don't see myself shelling out for "audiophile" treatment, unless I can pick a couple of very good value treatments for specific locations) so the strategic placement of carpets, bookshelves and the like will be most or all of what I do. Most of my listening will be at fairly low levels, which will influence this a lot. I may, however, put the speakers in the main room if they don't get enough use in mine, but I have the Paradigm Titans for there at present. Yes, sorry, I should have been more specific. This is a good description. I wouldn't say they are dark, probably because I've been listening with the LCD-2s lately which make everything, even O2s, seem bright. Thanks in advance guys for any thoughts you may have.

Yeah, just saw that Softbank will offer the 16 GB iPad for free if you sign up for 2 years on Twitter after I posted. That's tomorrow! Guess I'm going to have to pass through the city on the way to or from work and pick one up.

I wish Apple would hurry the fuck up and start selling the iPad 2 here. That Oscilloscope idea is pure win. I may have to grab one of those (and then remember how the hell to use one).

I went to my regular hi-fi store, MacBook Pro in hand, for some speaker evaluation today. The plan was to try the Harbeth 7ES-3s originally, but things were considerably altered by my running into the fluent-English-speaking KEF dealer the last time I went there who pointed out a new pair of Q900s in the store. I'd neither experienced Harbeths nor KEFs, so was somewhat intrigued. The KEFs are cheaper, but have a funky combined tweeter and mid designed to improve the soundstage and image even when listening off-center, along with a passive cone instead of a port, the whole aim being making them very room-friendly. So the idea was to plug my MBP into the Esoteric K-01 they have on display and use whatever amps they have there. However, I spotted they had a Luxman L-550A there going for around $1700, so I thought this might be a chance to do things properly with an amp. However, Mac OS X decided it didn't like the Esoteric at all and had a kernel panic, twice, after barfing up the music after a few seconds of playing. I luckily had a CD I'd burned of a recent playlist and the store had quite a stock of music, though not a lot I was familiar with. Suffice to say, the overall picture with the Harbeths is that they are quite in-you-face and brutally honest, the Esoteric + Luxman coming across as a bit clinical. I suspect a Leben might be the go here. Problematically was that the tweeters were a bit low, the 7's sitting on the Harbeth stands which aren't a lot bigger than a footstool. Rock definitely was the go with these in a big way, getting my feet tapping. Other music feeling to me like the speakers should be further apart for preference. In contrast, the KEFs were distinctly odd and, not surprisingly, much what I had expected -- not as detailed as the Harbeths, with slightly wooly bass, but the imaging, even when off-center being good, but, possibly fixable by tweaking the position, a little off sometimes, but pleasant and more forgiving with the more "just the facts maam" components. If I were buying speakers for a family room for casual listening, the KEFs would be up on my list. I'm thinking of going back on Friday, since it's a public holiday here, along with a bunch of digital gear, maybe including the Parasound, and having another round with more music. Does anyone have any thoughts on setting up the Harbeths (calling Tom Hankins!) and what amps I might look out for to use with them? There's a Luxman SQ-38u in the shop as well I could use as a tube demo (I imagine it would give me an idea if I'm really a tube person for speakers or not). I don't really need a heap of inputs, though balanced input would be nice -- something the Luxman integrateds have.

I solved this by buying a family code off of eBay for less than the regular Apple price for a single licence, then giving the extra accounts to family and friends.

In practical terms, for something like a regular external HD, it'll be the same improvement over Firewire 800 that eSATA is -- that is quite significantly for demanding applications still, but most so for people using SSD drives. I think the point of it is that it can scale to ridiculous levels of speed with arrays for people working on full HD video. OWC just announced even faster SSDs with 500+ MB/sec read and write speeds, so the timing could be excellent, but you'd still be easily looking at somewhere over $3k for the fastest 1TB of external storage without getting more exotic, assuming someone releases a 2-bay RAID box.

Over here in heathen Japan, there is no Easter, and Toyota has a large family wagon called the Noah.

That sounds like what some small companies do in Australia, where they hire drivers on commission who use their own vehicles because they aren't large and established enough to be able to afford a proper fleet etc. In one place I worked, we used the drivers of such a company for deliveries, with half a dozen on permanent roster. Lots of entertaining times with that, including one who tried to steal a customer's box of software from under our noses.

Aimless1: Having been laid off enough times in my life and going through the same economic downturn over here, my sincere sympathies. We finally got everything sorted out to move into a bigger apartment with a nice mountain view in a couple of weeks. Because we just missed peak time (March, in time for the April start of school and work/financial year) instead of having to pay $1-2000 to move, it'll cost $4-500.

OWC has a frame that will put a notebook drive in place of the optical drive if you want to seriously upgrade your MBP's internal capacity.

Sounds like the driver got a free new keyboard.

I might ask a friend of mine, who is a wine expert (and presently minding my decanters) about aerators. I know my father used to let red wines sit for a hours before serving them, so they might be good kit for the less patient. My father's collection, all crystal (click for the flikr album):

I'm up for a set of boards as well, as I'll have space to build stuff shortly.