TMoney

Dave over at the EEVBlog put up this informative post on the economics of selling niche electronics. As our headphone stuff is about as niche as it gets, I figure many of the points he talks about in this article are going to apply. Worth a read! http://www.eevblog.com/2014/05/28/the-economics-of-selling-your-hardware-project/

So it looks like this Apple acquiring Beats is really a thing and not just somebody's late April Fools joke. Gotta say, Tim Cook-lead Apple has gone more or less how I thought it would go. IMO their execution on the existing hardware lines (iPads, iPhones, Laptops, Mac Pro) has been spectacular. Samsung and HTC have made big strides, but as of the date of the launches the Apple hardware is industry leading. Tim seems like a CEO who would be masterful at handling iterative hardware with his operations backgrounds and so far he has been. It's the new product lines I'm worried about. iTunes Radio seems to have been a failure. I liked IOS7, but I wonder how much of that was just Ive being Ive rather than being directed by others. Tim just does not seem like an idea man to me. But Beats? Come on, Apple! Isn't the streaming music marketplace already saturated enough? This does not seem like a good idea to me.

There were some brutal kills in that episode, even by GoT standards. The one at the end... wow.

A new language from Rosetta Stone: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/1ba2/?pfm=af14_homepage_Featured_3_1ba2 Haha!

Saw this on Time's website and figured it'd be fun to start a thread to collect great April Fools pranks. http://time.com/44174/best-april-fools-pranks-ever/?hpt=hp_t3 All of these are golden. I remember when that Taco Bell Liberty Bell one went down. Loved this one on Demarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings as well: http://nba.si.com/2014/03/31/demarcus-cousins-album/

A Wu-Tang album may have been relevant back in oh, say 1996. Now, who cares?

A port of the desktop office it is not, but I've got to say I'm impressed by the apps. The Word app seems like it will do well in my document review/edit-check heavy workflows. I wasn't counting on, nor would I want to ditch a laptop/desktop for document creation. I wanted Word for iPad to take a more complimentary role and it certainly seems like it is up to the task. On the spreadsheet front I still couldn't imagine ever working in excel without a keyboard and mouse, but its nice to be able to review spreadsheets and models on my iPad as well. I'm not a powerpoint user so I can't really comment on that one. The OneDrive (the artist formerly known as SkyDrive) integration works wonderfully. I think the Ars review title sums it up in a nutshell: "People who already use Office will love Office for iPad" http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/03/mini-review-people-who-already-use-office-will-love-office-for-ipad/

Seals & Crofts

MS Office apps launched on iPad today. Holy fucking shit, MS did something right. The apps can open the docs we work on at the office and it gets the formatting right on the iPad. I already deleted pages, numbers and keynote. Amazing job, MS. http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you-love-now-on-the-ipad/

I find this answer confusing at best and disappointing at worst. Right now I don't have much faith that the Pono store will be all that much of an improvement over HDTracks. Hoping Neil proves me wrong.

This times a million. I buy the stupidly expensive $45 Japanese SHM-SACDs by the handfuls not because I have any great love for the format but because most of them are flat transfers of original master tapes.

^ Also found out I owed a couple K's to good ol' Uncle Sam. Its a shitty feeling, but if it makes you feel any better we have basically been getting an interest-free loan from the government for the amount of tax we owe. Those getting a refund, however, have been giving the government an interest-free loan.

3.5 TB iTunes library? Wow, thats a ton! (EDIT: Wait, forgot iTunes has music and movies. That might explain things.) Congrats on getting your NAS problem taken care of.

+1 for the Kindle Paperwhite. I totally agree. Since I got it I gotten back to my goal of a book a month after going a long time only reading 2-3 books in an entire year. Its an amazing device, especially for reading at night. Way better than reading on an iPad.

Finished Double Helix. Watson was/is an arrogant SOB, but it was an enjoyable read and it was interesting to learn about the process of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the last 100 years. I think both the praise and the criticism Double Helix gets are both well deserved. In an effort to alternate fiction and non-fiction, I'm doing this next:

Never mind... on Shm-SACD last night Holy guacamole does the Shm-SACD sound great. This is seriously the best I've ever hear the album. It blows the redbook CD completely out of the water. The separation between the instruments and the clarity of Rotten's vocals is miles ahead of any version of this album I've ever heard. I don't have vinyl, but I have to imagine this is as close to the vinyl sound that I'm going to get. Highly recommended.

Because I have no self control, a stack-o-SHM-SACDs from cdjapan. Wallet hurting. Camel - Moonmadness Camel - Rain Dances Creedence - Bayou Country Rainbow - Difficult to Cure Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story Rolling Stones - Still Life Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bolllocks and The Mahler Cycle I've never heard any classical SHMs, so I figured it'd be a good place to start.

Good episode last night. Compared to Sagan's episode on selection with the "warrior crabs" and the staged ancient japanese battle, NdGT's version is a little more down to earth. Its fun to see both not as competing, but as compliments to each other. NdGT is much more relatable whereas Sagan's high-mindedness really gave majesty to the ideas he was presenting. Really enjoying this new one.

The WD MyCloud EX 2 might do the trick for ya. Amazon has the diskless version (you supply your own) for $200. http://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Diskless-Personal-Storage-WDBVKW0000NCH-NESN/dp/B00I2P53NY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1394841454&sr=8-3&keywords=mycloud+ex+2

Got a good laugh out of this on Ars this morning: Oklahoma station drops evolution from showing of Cosmos http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/03/oklahoma-station-drops-evolution-from-showing-of-cosmos/

I didn't love the last two episodes as much as the first six, but wow, what a pleasant surprise of a show. Really looking forward to see who they get and what they do with a second season.

^ Totally agree. If you go on the Universal-Music website it tells you where the master came from. The Queen SACDs are not transfers off of the analog masters. All of the Queen SACDs list the source is listed as "24/92 transfer by Bob Ludwig." In contrast, the Sabbath CDs say "Latest DSD master based on original analog tape." See: http://www.universal-music.co.jp/international/sacd/ I learned the hard way after buying a few of the Rolling Stones SHM-SACDs. Some sounded pretty mediocre, some sounded great. Turns out the mediocre ones (like Beggars Banquet) used the same masters as the earlier Stones ABKCO SACDs while the great ones (like Exile on Main) used new transfers directly off of the analog masters. Go figure. I no longer buy any SHM-SACD unless it was a transfer from an analog master. Even then, the quality of some of the analog originals can be iffy, depending on the condition of the analog tape. I have ended up with a few duds even though they were from original analog masters. The reviews on SA-CD.net are really helpful in sniffing out the lemons. For 40$+ a pop its expensive to be wrong. But, goddamn, when they get it right they sound better than anything other than the original vinyl.

Listened to some of my Black Sabbath SHM-SACDs last night. Goddamn they sound good. Seriously, I doubt you'd get better sound if you were plugged in to the sound board while they were recording. Just amazing. If only these damn SHM-SACD didnt cost 40+ a pop... Seriously, if they were 10-15 a piece I'd own the whole damn universal SHM-SACD catalog.

If the DAC is really the Sabre then I wonder if the Pono will someday be able to play DSD with some kind of a firmware update?