dsavitsk

I love the HF2's -- I've yet to hear a headphone I want to listen to more. If I wanted a sound stage, I'd listen to speakers.

I had a netbook for a while and found it to be totally useless. Underpowered, even for listening to music, and too small to work on. I replaced it with a used Thinkpad X61. It has a full sized keyboard, a big enough (4x3!) screen to actually get something done, and turns out to be a much more powerful machine. It also runs XP, which is a bonus from where I sit. I also get ~8 hours of battery life. And, it is barely bigger than a netbook. And, the difference in build quality between a thinkpad and a cheapo netbook is huge. Cost me $275 on ebay, and came with a docking station, so no need to pick up an external drive. Truly the best $275 I have spent on hardware, and my favorite computer I have owned. There is also a tablet version, though I am not sure how well that part would work. Not a bad price, though I'd still take the X61, even at the same price

I can't answer most of this, but I can make some huge over generalizations about tubes in DACs. And, that is, while I like tubes, and consider them to generally be the best active way to produce voltage gain, there isn't much place for them in most DACs outside of marketing, at least those using current out chips. The reason is that a current out DAC chip works best into a low impedance. That means either an opamp or the source/emitter/cathode of an active device. The input impedance for one of these devices is ~1/Gm. With a BJT or a FET, this is easily under an ohm. However, even a super duper high Gm tube, like a 7788, is still orders of magnitude higher. And, those are rare and unlikely to be seen in a commercial device. The highest Gm tube you are likely to see in commercial gear is a 6922, and it has an input Z around 80 ohms which is too high. Moreover, most higher end DAC chips run a pretty high current out, so you'd need to really push a tube like the 6922 to carry that sort of current. Secondly, there is also often a buffer stage, but again, sand devices just work better here. A cathode follower really offers no benefit over a source/emitter follower sound wise and has worse drive ability. And, it costs a lot more to make. And it is likely noisier. There are other topologies, obviously, so maybe there is some really novel circuit going on here to make tubes make sense, but it would be news to me. The place where tubes can work well in a DAC is with a voltage out chip (Wolfson for instance) where you want some voltage gain, but I don't imagine that this is the case with either of these.

Cool, thanks.

My Google ability has failed me -- I am looking for a TRRS to TRS adapter that has a built in mic (perhaps that can clip onto the cord of headphones) so I can use my regular phones to talk via Google Voice. If that is not clear, I imagine it would look like a TRRS male to TRS female jack, with a cord coming out the side with a mic on the end. Does such a thing exist?

I wrote a prototype of something that did most of this a few years ago using Apache/mod_python. As I recall, a basic version that "worked" took me a couple of days to do. There were still issues, and it could be broken if you were malicious, but it would work OK if taken care of. Anyhow, the point is, you can probably roll your own if the requirements are not that steep -- it is a pretty simple application. Otherwise, I'd go with Google.

http://www.nytimes.c...dies-at-70.html "Nick Ashford, who with Valerie Simpson, his songwriting partner and later wife, wrote some of Motown’s biggest hits, like “ and “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEcLuVhRbkU,” and later recorded their own hits and toured as a duo, died Monday at a hospital in New York City. He was 70 and lived in Manhattan."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/arts/music/jerry-leiber-rock-n-roll-lyricist-dies-at-78.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Leiber_and_Mike_Stoller

Happy Birthday!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/arts/music/marshall-grant-bass-player-with-johnny-cash-dies-at-83.html

I'm going to say Volkl Organix 6 And Ideal wire strippers

I spent the day at the friendly confines in sweltering heat watching the two worst teams in the National League battle into extra innings. Was a good game, actually -- 10th inning walkoff.

good to hear. No better feeling than returning a rescued dog to someone.

It appears that you can swear all you like, so long as you cannot spell (or hear).

Good luck, Gary! Stunning work.

I'm not a watch guy, but I do own one, and I like it very much. It is from 1967 which I know because there is an inscription on the back where it was given to someone in 1967 for 25 years of employment. This adds value to me as it was clearly special to someone else, first. I think it was then purchased at an estate sale, and I received it from my brother in law as a wedding present.

I have a smallish 71K5 and a largish (Kiwame) 68K ...

I turned it on at 1'19" and almost turned it right off -- glad I didn't.

This is what I just finished reading. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson Jon Ronson books are delightful, though, they are made much more so if you have heard him speak and can read them in his voice. I don't think this one is quite as good as the last two, but still a fun read. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Dovetails with my own research, so nothing I didn't know, but still good that people are starting to talk about this topic. Half Empty by David Rakoff The thinking man's David Sedaris. Also probably not as good as his last two, but still good.

That looks like a good processor option -- I had been looking at the M versions, but I cannot find a MoBo to work with them, and they seem to cost a bunch more. But, after a weekend spend trying to make a FreeBSD guest on my laptop mount a Windows 7 directory on the laptop and then getting Apache to serve files from it, I am not sure that I have the stomach for such a complicated setup Instead, I picked up a cheap refurb blu-ray that plays Netflix way better than the Atom (and the dvd remote is a ton easier to use than the wireless keyboard on the computer that eats a new set a batteries every 4 weeks) and that should handle that end of things. So, now I just need hardware for a VortexBox. And, my gut says that 35W i3 is a good option, and to avoid the Atoms if I can. I do still want the video capabilities as I want the capability to install X.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!