
TheSloth
High Rollers-
Posts
756 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Everything posted by TheSloth
-
I found the 24 steps ok in the HR amps but only if I was willing to adjust the gain to get a slightly different range (as the steps aren't even). Sound wise, I find them to be significantly better, though I've never heard a pot better than the Blue Velvet. The RK-40 seems to have returned and looks to be a nice price/performance compromise.
-
The $400 was my total cost including purchase of the 60Gb Photo Refurb and the iMod.
-
Have you actually heard the 'iPod wire removal'? There's already a thread on it, but irrespective considering the total cost is little over $400 maximum, it's damn good. Forget portability (never taken mine out of the house), it's just good, period.
-
Well that's the point really. QUAD stats are particularly special speakers, but in the end they are only that way if you can fit them into your room, with the rear space requirements. I had 988's years ago, and those developed my 'hi-fi ears'. But those were in a room where they worked just perfectly in the space. Since then I've had 63's in my little apartment, and they just don't work. You can hear that they are QUAD's, and that they are great speakers, but at the same time they just sound out of whack. So, I'm going to give the Zen's a shot (in the Walnut finish). I agree with your comment about reviewers though. I just saw that stereophile added a review of some Aperion speakers that I was trying as a holdover (hey, it's free if you send them back...) and frankly I can't work out how he was able to recommend them the way he did. Interestingly, though I disagreed with most of the text, they sounded to my ears in my room exactly the way the measurements showed them, at least in terms of overall tonality. I suspect that the fact that I listen nearfield with the speakers in relatively free space is also a factor in the differences in my impressions and others' - they usually sound to me the way they look in their nearfield measurements, however they wouldn't really sound like that once you increase the listening distance and room interactions in the sound.
-
Unlikely to be a better sonic solution. Most (all?) use the all in one USB DAC chip that introduces a lot of jitter, even if it is only doing USB-S/PDIF conversion. Better off to get a sound card with native S/PDIF output and a DAC.
-
Why? It's not a terrible amp, and $689 is hardly a high end price point for speakers.
-
Likelihood is that this is not something that will be supported by default, but will not be very difficult to 'hack'. Core Audio is built at a very fundamental level of OS X, and even though the iPhone runs OS X-lite, it will still be running its audio through at least some version of Core Audio. Even if the functionality has been chopped out to save space and processing time, I'll bet someone with appropriate brains and experience will be able to put it back in fairly easily.
-
The standard response would be 'that's what they said about the iPod'. There is some small truth in that people didn't need iPods, but they found a need for them. The iPhone however is very different. It is not a new market, it's just a slightly evolved version of an old onel, which by the time it comes out will be less and less evolved compared with the state of the art. It's also not a device you can just buy and use - you need Cingular. That to me is the failing of the iPhone. You can't expect to market a product to the masses that requires them to sign a lengthy contract with another provider who has nothing to do with Apple. I would consider buying the iPhone if that price was an unlocked, and at those price points can't understand why it's not carrier independent - at $600 I doubt Apple has any problem with their gross margin, without any subsidy from anyone. I wonder if Apple remember that the product that brought the iPod to the masses wasn't the iPod at all - it was the much later 'mini' incarnation. A simple, easy to use, relatively inexpensive product that works out of the box with 99% of the computers out there, and if you discount the iTunes store (never used it myself) has no hidden costs.
-
I'm a supporter of almost all things Apple, but I have to say the iPhone thing seems to have blown out of all proportion: "Apple Statement iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can?t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price ? we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard's features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]" What exactly does Apple stand to gain from the iPhone, even if they meet their initial sales goals which with the fan base they almost certainly will?
-
Well yes but Aerius has got me all worried/confused now. What's odd is that his impressions seem to be pretty much the reverse of all of the reviews, all of which have agreed with one another.
-
Ridiculously, I can't remember. It was a java applet on a website that sold furniture, and I went to it from a link on another site that I found through google! So it's a long way to try to trace it, and stupidly I didn't bookmark it.
-
Current or original Adagio (flat or slanted mid-woofer baffles?)? Because on top of the angled drivers, they worked on the crossover for even flatter response (and interestingly the HF specs now state 25k instead of the original 30k).
-
Well I'd recommend giving one a try on principle - I actually haven't heard one myself, yet, but intend to get one eventually as even with 1V sources I don't need any gain. It seems to me that if you don't need any gain, an autoformer is a relatively ideal way of controlling the volume without adversely effecting impedance relationships in the way that a passive pot or SA will. If their build quality is up to standard, ASL make a nice looking remote controlled autoformer preamp. If you could live without a remote volume control (I know...), I'd also recommend you try the monolithic sound PA-1, which works as a passive pot up to the middle of its range (0dB) at which point it couples the original signal with up to 6dB of gain as you turn the pot further up. Very flexible for the times that you might need a little gain, and relatively inexpensive.
-
Do you actually need any gain? How about an autoformer design?
-
I only had to click a button for the slippers. Wasn't hugely difficult or time consuming...!
-
Perhaps, but in my room at that nearfield distance, I'm not so sure.
-
I'm reviving this thread for my own purposes rather than making a new one... Ok, so after a while with QUAD's they were just too big, both in size and acoustic space requirements for my room. I sold them and downsized to some simple cones. I tried some direct marketed Aperion stuff and it really wan't good at all. I'm not sure it could really be called good for it's price point even. In any case, I have the opportunity to get an excellent deal on some Acoustic Zen Adagios (www.acousticzen.com). They are still extremely expensive, but with the trade in deal I was offered they are just within my budget, and seem to be ideal for my listening environment (not a huge room, nearfield listening, don't want to fiddle with subs or stands). I'm trying to decide between spending a huge amount of money and expecting a huge amount (in a room that can't be tailored for acoustic perfection), or going for something good but cheap like the www.ascendacoustics.com stuff which is supposed to actually be very good for the money (and from everything I've read, in terms of reviews and the hard measurement data on their site seems to be justified). Attached is a diagram of my room for anyone interested. The things on the walls behind the speakers and the listening couch (where the slippers are) are GIK 242 panels.
-
What a cruel thing to do. Now, even if the drivers haven't changed, he's still going to be wondering ad infinitum...
-
Even if it was any good in the first place, it would have a rolled off low end among other problems when driving Tkam's amps.
-
Standard ICE input impedance of 10kOhms? That's relevant in considering tube preamps, as many will have difficulty giving a flat response into that load.
-
Despite the mock motto, I'm not sure that I would like to find pictures of mutilated heads here either. Head-Case may be less restrictive than Head-Fi, but it's not anarchy and is such for a good reason.
-
Any word on the 5000's?
-
Any comments on the sound?
-
Though you are correctly referring to a pile of bullshit quoted by many head-fi type reviewers, I strongly disagree with your poing about bass extension not being important for instrumental music. Any full orchestral work (i.e. including double basses, double bassoon, bass drum, or anything else down there), or anything played on a modern piano (even if not written for it) demands full extension. With the fundamental frequency of bottom A being around 27hz, it is extremely relevant. Even if the music does not require that note itself, the mere lifting of the pedal releases harmonics in that region, and such technique in using these 'silent' harmonics to flesh out the tone of a single note is fundamental to (good) piano playing. Chop these frequencies out of the reproduction and you can guarantee that you are not hearing the tonal colour that the poor 'instrumentalist' worked for years to accomplish. Of course there are millions of other reasons why you wont be hearing their intentions, but in this specific case it's an often overlooked point.