postjack

One day I might get a squeezebox for my den, so I can rock the party that rocks the party.

chain restaurant steak. \ it was the most underwhelming meal I'd had in a while. Sounded so good, steak on lettuce with chipotle bleu cheese dressing and onions. But they even managed to mess up the chiptle bleu cheese dressing, it had NO cheesy bleu tang.

some kind of salad with meat on it. lone star.

Really? I assumed that longer interconnects would be better, since I remember reading somewhere about long optical cables being bad, so I transposed that on any cable carrying raw data. But a longer USB chord would actually work a lot better for me, since then I would be able to put the DAC on my Gusdorf rack. I can just move the Modwright's power supply to the floor next to the rack. Here is a hideous flash photograph to show you what I'm dealing with: When I got my turntable I had to move all my computer stuff to one outlet and all my audio gear to another to eliminate a ground loop. I originally planned on putting the DAC on the desk to the left of my monitor, and running ICs from there, but now I'll probably put it on the rack and run about a 12ft USB cable from the back of my computer. Should save me a few bucks.

throw sum ds on that bitch.

what kind of chicken? is it fried? is it delicious?

The DAC is on its way. Should arrive next week. I need to buy a USB cord and some really long interconnects. This will be useful since I just rediscovered bt.etree.org. But I also haven't ripped a CD I purchased for months, so I've got a huge backlog of albums to run through EAC. \

apple!

I wanted to x2 the whole vinyl and Senns thing, you are not the only one who has noticed that vinyl really livens up the HD650. aerius made a similar pronouncement, or at least he said vinyl made Senns not suck. Vinyl makes all my cans better, but it is most noticeable with the HD650. And I've got a super-budget analog rig.

son of a bitch!

Welcome to head-case!

Thanks all for your input. With redbook, sometimes my Sony sounds to "hard", which, if I understand correctly, is part of the house sound for a lot of their players. This might be why I find myself so often turning to vinyl for relief. So a softer sound might be just what I'm looking for. I shot the seller an email, we'll see what happens. Peter, iirc you have auditioned both the MKI and MKII versions of this DAC. Is there any visual way to determine which is which, so I can verify that the Aqvox pictured in the agon ad is indeed the MKII?

dude!!! ryan adams is king. You pretty much need to hear Heartbreaker. The MFSL SACD Hybrid is incredible. Hell, you don't even need to hear the whole album, just listen to "Come Pick Me Up" and try not to cry like a baby because its such a perfect song. His albums can be radically different one from the other, and he is insanely prolific. I think it was in 2005 he released three albums. He also had some kind of rap project he did that you can download on his website. I've never been brave enough to listen, but people say it is funny. There is talk that before he ends his relationship with Lost Highway (of course he is a pain in the ass for record companies) he is going to release a box set of all his unreleased stuff. I can't wait. Oddly enough, Stephen King is a huge fan, and he wrote this brief review of the new album, Easy Tiger, which is on amazon: "I think there are really only two kinds of pop music CDs these days. There are the ones you listen to only once or twice, maybe downloading the single good song to your iPod or computer; then there are others that grow stronger, sweeter, and more necessary each time you play them. Gold was that way; Cold Roses was that way; so was Jacksonville City Nights. I won't say Adams is the best North American singer-songwriter since Neil Young...but I won't say he isn't, either. What I know is there has never been a Ryan Adams record quite as strong and together as Easy Tiger; it's got enough blue-eyed, blue-steel soul (with the faintest country tinge) to make me think of both Marvin Gaye and the Righteous Brothers. Probably ridiculous, but true. And the songs themselves are beautiful--the lyrics tightly focused and brief, the feeling one of melancholy calm that will probably be a revelation to fans that remember the old, sometimes angry Ryan Adams. Now there's this, maybe the best Ryan Adams CD ever. And I know you want to listen to it right away. But slow down. Take your time. This album asks for that, and it will reward your full attention. In other words--easy, Tiger." Having dumped all this praise on Adams, not even I like all of his output. I still haven't really warmed up to Rock N' Roll, for example. But anyway, check out Heartbreaker or Easy Tiger, the first album or the most recent. They are probably my two favorites.

My next excuse is I need a balanced source.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_detail.cfm?Title_ID=39925

Excellent point. It would now be just a purchase.

And I'm thinking about making an impulse purchase. I've been wanting to bring my computer/foobar/flac back into the audio family for a while now, and reading iron dreamer's and others' comments makes me think the signature of the aqvox might be too my liking (overall laid back, emphasis on the midrange, decent enough soundstage). Plus it has lots of options to tweak, which is fun, what with the oversampling, filters, and what have you. And I figure I could offload it without losing my shirt if I didn't like it. So should I do it? Is this a decent price? http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1189793122

and I thought I had gas.

True, the new headamp sounds interesting. However, small size and transportability are not important to me, and these are some of the selling points of the product. But hey, it could still sound as good or better then an Apogee or Desktop, for all I know.

Has anyone ever done a shoot out between the apogee mini-dac and the headroom desktop balanced? BTW, still waiting for KenW to tell us what he thinks of his desktop. I read some of his impressions over at h***-f*, but I'm feeling neglected as a head-caser.

nope. but i did pledge a fraternity, and when we had to make dinner for the brothers, one of my pledge brothers would pluck his pubic hair and wrap it around the business end of a fork. we called it the "magic fork".

how do you play that game?

more work blues: today i am training a new associate on a system I've only been using for four days. since they are short on trainers. good thing i have such a sunny disposition.

You gunna build it for me? I'm really quite pleased having both the Melos and the Dynahi. I don't know if I would be happy with just one. Strangely, the W5000 favors the Melos, while the W11JPN sings out of the Dynahi. as for balanced amps, personally I don't know if I have a can I like enough to go balanced with. Its almost like once you've invested in a balanced amp, you need to be a one can guy, i.e. this is my favorite can, so it is the one I'm going balanced with! As you can see, I own many cans, still trying to find my favorite sound. Anyone ever balanced an hp-2?

flat sterling silver. it would develop a lovely patina. sterling is my favorite precious metal!