postjack

great game. awesome it was on CBS so i could flip back to the simpsons, family guy, and cleveland show. i hope new orleans doesn't burn to the ground tonight, i was really looking forward to jazzfest.

again, the 80 only outputs PCM over analog, the 83 does DSD over analog. this is the biggest difference for audio types.

hippie!

yet another generally beloved sci-fi classic I didn't care for. a little bit too "lets all have sex and everything will be fine" for me.

I have yet to finish Snow Crash, to cyberpunky for me. As I've pontificated on before, I don't like VR in my sci-fi, and for that matter I despise lengthy descriptions of dreams in any literature. Having said that I am a huge Neal Stephenson fan. Diamond Age is superb, as is Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle, and his newest, Anathem. So I guess what I'm saying is don't be afraid to skip Snow Crash if you get bored with it. Another beloved author/series I dislike is Stephen Donaldson's Covenant stuff. Sorry Dusty, I'm all for an anti-hero but Covenant is a little bitch, and Donaldson's world-building is dull. Neil Gaiman's American Gods is a classic piece of spec fic, as is Neverwhere. Anansi Boys is great fun for fans of American Gods, but not quite on the same level. Let me go ahead and recommend my favorite spec fic author, Jeff Vandermeer. City of Saints and Madmen is a weird series of interconnected short stories, histories, and interviews. Required reading before picking up his masterpiece, Shriek. A beautiful and horrific world he has created here. Speaking of beautiful and horrific: China Mieville. Perdido Street Station and The Scar are required reading for those interested in the subgenre of authors referred to as "New Weird". When you want to check out the roots of these authors, pickup M. John Harrisons Viriconium. Its weird.

so will my 3D glasses work with Avatar on this thing or what?

in the words of Sick Boy from Trainspotting:"beautifully fucking illustrated."

I think it looks cool as hell. I am shocked they hit the $499 pricepoint.

true, I have never listened to the variable outs of the CDP-2.

yeah I definitely want some 12L actives for the computer rig before it's over with. still not sure why I sold the ones I had. I want to pair them with a, you guessed it, CDP-2. it's the perfect digital source for me in terms of sound, features, and budget. where else can you get a cd transport, multiple digital inputs, a 24/96 DAC, fixed or variable outputs, and a remote for less then $500 used?

sweeeeeeeet!

looks like the biggest difference for us is a) no dedicated stereo outputs with the 80 (shares outputs with the 7.1 outs) and SACD via the analog outs is PCM instead of DSD.

so happy to see the Saints win. I'm no pro ball fan, but I love anything having to do with New Orleans.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2465[/ATTACH] .

Sorry if this has been posted before: Two Gentlemen of Lebowski If Shakespeare wrote the Big Lebowski.

glad you like the fake reviewer quote, I was hoping somebody would know what i was talking about. Physically/techincally I can't really saw what the differences are between the 57 and 63, but popular opinion of some seems to indicate that sonically the ESL63 improves the highs and the lows but sacrifices some of the absolute midrange perfection of the 57. Having never heard the 57 I can't say for myself, but I would love to hear a speaker improve on the midrange I'm hearing with my 63s. In other news, I am in the process of getting the speaker shipped to Kent. I'm opting to just have him ship me the special box, and I'll ship it back in that. This is not going to be inexpensive, but if I can convince myself these are the last speakers I'll own for the next 15-20 years it softens the blow a bit.

nice, thanks for sharing the pictures and the story!

Stretch, my understanding is they are essentially the same speaker as the 63. The same elements with only minor tweaking.

thanks man!

As many of you know I recently came into possession of a nice set of Quad ESL-63 USA Monitors, serial numbers 24783 and 24784. Unfortunately one of the speakers (24784) exhibits a moderate volume squealing noise, with no apparent drop out in the audio. This speaker recently had new panels from Electrostatic Solutions installed by the previous owner. The other speaker is all original parts and functions perfectly. So I shoot Kent at Electrostatic Solutions an email to tell him about the problem. He writes me back and politely says its difficult for him to make a diagnosis without seeing the speaker for himself. I spent a day or so mulling over what will no doubt be an upcoming joyous shipping experience. Then while I'm sitting in my car with my girlfriend in the Wal-Mart parking lot waiting to go meet our friends for sushi, my phone rings and its Kent. We ended up talking for about half an hour about Quad, the universe, and everything. He said it was really weird that I was getting the squealing with no apparent loss in output (when I play a mono recording its razor sharp in the middle of the speakers), but he ventured he could have something to do with old foam surround. But, if it was a problem with a panel, I was still covered under his warranty, which is pretty cool. Even if it is something unrelated to the panel itself, repairs should be (relatively!) inexpensive. Kent got excited when I told him my first electrostatic experience was with the Omega II (though I think I spoke in error, I might have owned the SR-Lambda first), apparently he also thinks its the end all be all in terms of resolution. He said its the best for setting up a turntable. Bottom line Kent is a really cool cat and I enjoyed talking with him. He says if I can get the speaker boxed up he can have a freight service pick it up, which is great because I was dreading a trip to the UPS store. The alternative is to go ahead and pay Kent to ship his special shipping box to me, which I can then load up the speaker in and have the freight service pick up. I might opt for this path just because it would be such a pain in the ass to procure all the packing mats and find a suitable LCD TV box or similar. The speakers are in awesome cosmetic condition; they look great in my den and I

I watched Conan from the 12th on Hulu. hilarious, he is ripping NBC's ass at every opportunity. I can't wait to see what kick ass thing Conan does after all this mess winds up.

Hey Stax Folk- My experience with electrostatic speakers has me back interested in Stax again. I'm hoping to once again own a Stax rig this year, and am looking into my options. Think budget, less then $500 for cans + amp, the cheaper the better. Sound wise I'm looking for accurate, it doesn't necesarily have to be fun. Something appropriate for lower volume listening would be nice. the first thing I thought was the sr-lamba normal, which i owned and loved, and the price is right. but I was hoping to explore other options. I'm not completely averse to an SRD of some kind but I'd prefer a stand alone solution. thanks! edit: sorry for typos or halting language, posting from iPhone.

i have the I'm With Coco pic as my FB profile pic now. so thanks new guy!

I think the biggest consideration here is interface and convenience. I use a USB stick in my car, and while I love to just plug it into the glove box and forget about it, the interface via my car stereo sucks. Hitting a button to scroll through 164 different albums one at a time take forever, and for some reason it will put a large chunk of artists out of alphabetical order. With an iPod on the other hand I could find my desired album in a few seconds.