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Rest in power Amadou Bagayoko at 70. We saw Amadou & Miriam live a couple of times and they were fantastic and fun and inspiring. The tag line of the NYT obituary sums it up: As Amadou & Mariam, he and his wife were improbable pop stars on two counts. Their style was venturesome and eclectic, and they were blind virtuosos. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/06/obituaries/amadou-bagayoko-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.904.NxQ_.biksAuc9OkK5&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare I'm going to play Dimanche à Bamako right now. ☹️

Southern culture in the skids last night. Recording at above link.

There are so many no-nos at the bottom that I'm kind of surprised they actually let people in.

Now that the prices of used Corina's seem to be crashing hard, I picked one up. I have the impulse control of a fly when it comes to electrostatic headphones but this set was like new and way less than half price... Overall impressions match those from when I tried them at CanJam NYC in 2023, some parts look great while others feel like a 100$ "GAMING!!!" set for ROG or Razer. The housing is well made and I do like that back design. The headband is utter trash, the earpads feel high quality - yet at the same time extremely cheap and that blue stitching... who signed off on this? Worst yet... what the fuck is this?? I will refer to these in the future as "coRRRRRRRÍÍÍÍÍna". Seriously though, why? This horribly offends my nordic sensibilities. Last year I've also picked up a used Voce, a set I hated when they came out. Put those stock earpads trash where they belong, fit the angled Ether pads and they are quite enjoyable. They are also touching 1k$ in terms of price so for that money, they are a nice set to have. Voce naturally had the same issue as the Corííííína, DCA always has the worst headphone boxes ever. They keep trying to make headphone stands in boxes which make no sense. Now for the sound... I just don't understand why these were made like this. They are like the headphones for people who hate how electrostatics sound. Do you like your headphones to sound expansive with a nice solid soundstage which goes outside of the head? Nope, you can't get that here. On some tracks they are simply claustrophobic, almost if you are listening through thick cloth. Sure, it sounds inoffensive compared to something super forward like the X9000 but compared to something voiced correctly... yeah it isn't great. ere we can see the culprits, mesh on the back on the driver and that stupid damping they put on the earpad side (faint circular holes through the earpad mesh): Why they did this, I haven't got a clue. Electrostatics don't need this level of damping so it could only damage the sound. The Voce was initially supplied with a bunch of damping pads to put inside the earpads so they might think this is necessary... I didn't find an easy way of opening the headphones to check if this could all be removed easily. Now we come to the major issue though... what all this damping does to the midrange. Now this is really compounded by two parts, first off the headphones are rather inefficient and they sound so fucking dull. That means the volume has to be pushed to try and get something out of them... and that's were nasty midrange artifacts pop up. I picked up on some of this at Canjam NYC'23 but in my own system this is very apparent. It gets worse and worse, the more you push them which only goes to show how bad the driver setup really is. That also means I turn down the volume so now they just sound dull, not involving and I wonder why I'm not listening to something else. Now rant over, would I recommend these? Nope... not a chance, even at half price they are horribly overpriced for the performance they offer. On my desk now is the ES Lab ES-2a and the Audeze CRBN2 and I kept wondering why I wasn't listening to either of them instead. The Corina isn't even comfortable so yeah... nothing going for it really.

It was. Time to rewatch Brief Encounter. HBO/Max has the Criterion Collection BFI restoration.

Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon Hiromi - Out There

Mmm...that Prelude in C-sharp Minor is a personal favourite. I hope it was good.

Checking out of the state of Beatbox.. its going well. Wing is blowing up right now. Part of Beatpella House.... Did you pass the K-pop test?

Culture.

I went outside today. Chopped some wood, smoked my churchwarden pipe, had a Fremont beer.... So that is what a blue sky looks like. ... cool 😎

Not cute, but he can cook, so that counts for a lot!

So sorry for your loss, tkam. Godspeed beautiful boy... Sam

I finished Zero Day Dinero wasgraet in it Recommend watch.

How did you meet Marvin, Steve? Is he cute? 😉

Breakfast at Marvin's in Novato. Cheers Mikey!

I got stuck on the second season of Fringe, which decided to make the advances of the deep plot slower. So watched Adolescent or Adolescence. I only liked the 3rd episode, the rest was just meh for me. I was expecting more drama or perhaps something more realistic. Right the beginning with half of Scotland Yard assaulting the kid's house seemed too dramatic and exaggerated. Looking for something funnier I started Chuck yesterday. Being only one season I think it's very likely that it wasn't good enough, but to be honest, I don't care . Oh, I just learned that they delivered like 5 seasons...

Thanks.

Just to be extra clear, if you’re thinking The Pitt is simply an updated ER, St. Elsewhere, etc… it’s not.

Sunday sauce style ghoul ash -- ground turkey and pork loin cubes for meat; mushrooms, beans, okra, carrots, onions for veggies, pizza sauce and rocoto pepper paste and spices to bring it all together. Meat, spices, oil, and eventually onions were seared in the bottom of a pot, then all of it was transferred to the slow cooker while I day drank. and...ah, shit, I forgot the celery...dagnabit...

Goddamn, this is still heartbreaking.

Too much loss!

So sorry Todd. RIP Sam.