Yikes

The deletion this morning (in less than two minutes) of my reasonable post suggesting the money be used to start a non-profit entity to run the meets spoke volumes to me. Jude obviously is dead set against such an enterprise. Apparently one of the main problems that Jude had with the effort to start a 501c3 was that Tyll consulted with several Head-Case malcontents, including me. I suppose that we?re not worthy. I believe that I was consulted because I have been in the audio industry for twenty years, not because I?m some sort of Headphone Supremeus. In any case Tyll consulted with many people, most of whom are not Headcase malcontents. I?d hate to think that Jude is so petty as to kill the effort to form a National Headphone Organization out of spite for a few individuals. I?d gladly bow out to insure the successful creation of such an organization. I do feel strongly however that it be independent of Head-Fi. It CAN NOT be an extension of Judes little kingdom. The organization needs to be democratic, with an elected board. Tyll, I would be glad to donate $100 to become a charter member of such an organization. Let me know. Ethan

Tyll has been holding the money, primarily because Jude refused to take it for tax reasons.

It pisses me off. Jude kept himself apart from the meet. He specifically wants Head-Fi to have nothing to do with the organizing or the running of any of the meets, but he refuses to let so much as a whisper about forming an organization to do so be heard. He is a selfish little bastard. He wants the money from the meets, but he isn?t willing to expend any effort to help plan them. Yet he is so terrified that something might usurp his illusionary power (An illusion everywhere except on Head-Fi) that he will not let a word be written about any other Headphone site or organization. As I said, he?s a selfish little bastard. He?s not willing to cook a cake, but he wants to have his cake and eat it to, and keep everyone from talking about any other cake or even recipes for cake. Fuck! Now I?m hungry.

........................and it's gone Deleting my posts is a sure sign that the Head-Fi policy is to sensor any and all mention of any headphone oriented organization or web-site aside from Head-Fi. The fact that the moderator who deleted my posts wouldn?t send me a PM about my posts being deleted proves that he is (Are there ant female moderators?) a major PUSSY. The biggest and most significant improvement that Head-Fi could make is have a message appear in the thread saying ?Post deleted by Moderator X?. Currently there is no accountability. Fuck I wish traffic would pick up here so I didn?t feel the need to go there. We?re mostly ass holes here, but at least we?re honest about it.

Some of you are aware that Tyll has been attempting to start an International Headphone organization. The primary purpose of this organization would be to plan and hold the National and some large regional meets. It would also be an independent organization tasked with promoting the headphone hobby. The plan was to use the excess funds from the National meet to start this organization as a 501c3. Tyll has spent a great deal of time and energy working on this project. He stated from the very beginning that he wanted the organization to be democratic with an elected board. After it got going Tyll specifically did not want to be in charge of it. Well yesterday Jude basically pulled the rug out from underneath. He has no authority to distribute the excess funds from the last National meet, but he came out and posted that he intends to give it to charity. He asked for people to chime in with how they think the money should be spent. This thread. http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=200341 This morning I posted this: It was deleted within a matter of minutes. So I posted this Which was gone in less than 2 minutes. Jude seems to feel that everything outside of Head-Fi jeopardizes his private little fiefdom. He has killed the formation of an independent organization that would have promoted the advancement of the Headphone Hobby. He is also making every effort to keep people from finding out how much of a fascist little dick he is. I just thought that some people should know.

Hey!... He is not a fascist.

Well I finally have a little spare cash, so I have at long last ordered a set of K-701?s. I had one of the first sets on loan from AKG last fall (To take to the NY meet), and I fell in love with them. I think that they are the bestest headphones made. Soon I?ll think about re-cabling them. I wonder what wire I should use? Now all I have to do is wait until they get here.

You're kidding right? The Denon authorized repair shop did not find the problem, exemplar audio did. I seriously doubt that they will take someone else?s word for it. This week (After the player has been running for awhile with no problems) I?m going to call the manager/owner to express my displeasure. I?m just looking forward to having my player back.

I got word today that a problem was finally found with my player. The problem was repeatable. I have been told that the problem has been fixed. It was not the Exemplar mods causing the problem. Apparently when the Denon repair shop installed the new drive they damaged (Folded a corner) of a ribbon cable. The player is burning in over the weekend. Next week the player will be upgraded with Mr. Tuckers latest and greatest updates. I?m sorry, but it looks like those of you looking forward to a Viking funeral are going to be disappointed.

The technician?s variation of Murphy?s Law is hitting hard. The player is now on the bench at Exemplar Audio and it is working fine. The instructions are to not send it back without finding the problem and fixing the problem.

Could you use the Aleph for speakers as well? The Aleph series are my favorite Pass Labs amps. Given the size and room constraints I?d seriously look for a high quality small to mid-size bookshelf. Pro Ac, B&W, Aerial, PSB, Paradigm all make decent bookshelf speakers. Don?t skimp on the stands, stands have a huge impact on the overall sound quality of stand mounted speakers.

Is this a dedicated listening room? Or does the room have alternate uses? What?s going to be in the room? It?s a small room, so what is going into it will dramatically effect what speakers could be used, or should be used. The other thing is that if you don?t have an amp yet, you should really be shopping for both speakers and amp in unison. They work together, what you have for one certainly effects what you should get for the other. So perhaps a better question might be; What amp and speakers would you recommend for X dollars?

The original Bryston 4B is a little bright (I always considered them expensive Adcoms, better but cut from the same tonal cloth), with the SST and newer they got much better. Very expensive used because of the fantastic warranty and customer service. Amps that would work well that I have always liked. Classe DR-25 and CA-300 or CA-400 Conrad Johnson MF-2500 Ayre - Any of their Amps (NOT the Integrated) would work very well. The Rotel RB-1090 is a tremendous over achiever. Great dynamics, but it does lack a degree of refinement. IMHO- Not one of the digital amps is worth getting. The great reviews that they get is proof positive that the reviewers don't know their Asses from holes in the ground.

Now finally September 11th will become a date which will live in infamy.

The B52 sounded quite good driving not only the balanced Senns that Ray had but my Modded SA5000's as well. The bass quality was especially impressive. I liked the chassis as it appeared for the N.E. meet; although I think it would probably look nicer in black. Ray mentioned a projected retail of $5000. I can say that it seems to be one hell of an amp, it certainly sounded better with my SA5000?s than the $10,000+ Rudistor did at the National. Flame away.

There are some TV?s where the ?Stretch? mode is graduated, where the middle is not stretched and towards the outside it is stretched even more. This type I find even more obtrusive, the closer something is to the edge the geometric distortion increases dramatically.

There?s no way to get around it, if you want a 4/3 (Standard TV signal) to fill a 16/9 HDTV screen there are two things that can be done. 1st the picture can be stretched. Stretching results in a geometric distortion (Makes everything and everybody short and fat). Personally I find stretching totally unacceptable. 2nd most 16/9 TV?s allow you to zoom. Zooming is a crude (i.e. non-intelligent) version of what is done to Letterboxed movies. When a movie is letterboxed (converted to a 4/3 aspect ratio) the viewable 4/3 box follows the action, so crucial moments that happen at the side of the original widescreen film are seldom missed (except when such items happen simultaneously on both sides of the film). When a TV zooms it just zooms in the middle. This chops off the top and bottom of the picture. This is annoying; the screen chops off the top of everyone?s head, also directors use the middle (even the top and bottom) of the screen for critical items fairly often. The way that I like to describe it is; when zooming you will see more of less, and quite possibly miss critical elements. When you watch with the black bars you will see less of more, and you will not miss anything. A little about fixed pixel displays. Your new TV is an LCD TV that by it?s nature is a fixed pixel display. Such a display has a native resolution (probably 1,366 x 768 pixels). This means that the TV has a scaler built in, and all inputs except those in its native resolution are scaled to the needed resolution. How well this internal scaling is performed depends on the power (processing power) of the TV. Therefore it is unlikely that buying an inexpensive separate scaler will improve the results. Good scalers have tremendous processing power and utilize proprietary algorithms, they also happen to be very expensive. Scaling a regular TV signal (even with the very best scalers) will never result in a picture like that of most true HD signals. The theoretical ?Best? resolution of standard TV is 330 lines interlaced. In reality this 330 lines is seldom achieved. Digital TV (Non-HD) runs the gambit from being as crappy as bad standard TV up to 480 lines interlaced. Then there is HDTV that runs from 480P (Progressive) up to 720P and 1080i. So when viewing a standard TV signal you are attempting to turn a sow?s ear into a silk purse. So imho getting digital cable is the only way to go. Sorry if this post has been redundant, I?m bored.

An upscaler will not get rid of the bars. The bars are the result of the differing aspect ratios. I strongly suggest splurging on digital cable. It?s the best source for HD content.

The boards for the power supply and control are being sent for fabrication next week. Then the prototype will be assembled. There are a couple of output variations that we?re going to try. I should have the first prototype by late September. John is deferring to my headphone experience (The fool?. I mean the sheriff is going to do it. ). So I?ll be giving him feedback about the sound and so forth. In early October I?ll be inviting some quasi-local members to a mini-meet to get their opinions. The only real problem is that the units that we ultimately build are going to be silly expensive. Right now we?re looking at between 2 ?3 thousand dollars in parts; not counting the Siltech internal wire. It?s going to have at least that much wrapped up in Siltech wire. It?s going to be using the equivalent of Compass Lake interconnect for internal wire. If the amp makes it into production it?s likely to use a significantly less expensive Siltech internal cable. Still, I am so fucking jazzed about this amp. John makes killer sounding tube designs, and he is pulling out all of the stops on this one. He was excitedly telling me about the circuit and quickly went over my head. Damn! Within a month I?ll have a prototype to listen to.

Original firmware. I use the player exclusively for music playback and wouldn't use the iLink. From what I have read firmware updates have been for the iLink and some DVD movie playback issues. With what little DVD movies use the player sees there has not been an issue.

Really weird symptoms, a loud hiss (Almost like tube rush) starts as soon as an SACD initializes, however this hiss is not present on Redbook discs. I?m now waiting on some foam that I ordered. The stock box is trash, and the stock Styrofoam is long since useless. I tried pricing professional travel/shipping cases, but they start at well over $200 including foam. The pro case that I?d get if I had the funds sells for close to $400. So I ordered appropriately sized boxes and foam so that I can ship safely. This will be the last time in for service. If it comes back broken I?ll be giving it a Viking funeral.

My Exemplar 3910 lasted thru the Boston meet, however it is now going back again. From everybody that I have spoken to the Exemplar modded Denon 3910 has been a very reliable design. Mine is really the only problem that anyone has heard of. I don?t know whether I should feel good or bad about that. To say that I am disheartened is an extreme understatement. :(

Incase anyone here is into Car audio I am selling my ADS 650.2 amp. Look here http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2105178