Knuckledragger

This is what my yard looked like yesterday morning. Plow guy didn't show up until nearly 4PM. Fortunately, I drive a Subaru. It really was that blue out. I told my housemate I needed to white balance my eyes, they must be lying to me.

I, for one, believe USG took those pictures. EXIF scrying tells me that he has a Canon PowerShot G7, which is a very nice point & shoot. My first camera was a PowerShot S60. I kept it on my belt and took it with me everywhere. It was nice being able to take quality pictures anywhere I went (cameraphones are a blight on humanity.) My S60 died twice, once when it was three months old, and once when it was 13 (warranty expired after 12.) In spite of this, I bought ...another Canon. This time an EOS 30D. Having an SLR and a handful of lenses has revolutionized the way I take pictures, but man, do I miss the compact size and light weight of my PowerShot. 1/25th of a second exposure, sitting near the edge of the table. I used to take shots like this all the time. I used to be a member of an improvised tripod group on Flickr. I'm afraid this technique works less well with an SLR. I'd love to buy another point & shoot, but that's $300 I could spend on a new lens (mmm, EF 85mm F/1.8 ) or *chuckle* audio.

Did you click on the link, Dusty? "Motivator: Create your own customized motivational poster ? Inspire! Motivate! Mock!"

Strictly speaking, that's a motivational poster not a lol-whatever. </pedant> Yes, um... Politics!

Music: Oliver Lieb, Tom Waits, Geir Jenssen, The Knife, Johnny Cash. Comedy: Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce. Film: Alfred Hitchcock, Wim Wenders, Stanley Kubrick. What? This was supposed to be about gear? How about modern Canon lenses, and vintage Nikkors? I do own an awful lot of Sennheisers, but I seem to listen to my TakeTs and Beyers more these days.

You haven't per chance been listening to Boards of Canada, have you?

WHOA. Reservoir Crayons. That may be the coolest thing I've seen all day.

In a word: fuglyphones. More broadly, in October of 2007 my rig more than doubled in cost, after being stable since the spring of 2006. I ordered TakeT H2s/TR2 from Mr. Takei, and when they arrived, had an old power amp of mine (Halfer P125) repaired. Then I ordered some custom XLR -> 1/4" TRS ICs, to go between my source and the amp, and locking banana plugs for for the amp -> TR2 connection. In spite of their many quirks (and occasional refusal to work properly) the Fugs have been a fascinating and informative pair of headphones. Additionally, bought one pair of dynamics (2003 DT-880s, on the cheap) and a mess of Quail power cords. The 880s have proven to be a good foil to the Fugs (they have a gorgeous midrange, which is the H2's biggest weakness.) 2008 has great uncertainty. I want a full frame digital SLR. Whenever Canon releases the successor to the EOS 5D, I won't be able to even think about spending money on audio. Of course, I do still entertain the option of a dedicated amp to drive the H2s. So far the only choices are a KGBH-SE ($$$$) or some unknown Japanese amp.

Crikey. Tonight I've been futzing around with my rig a bit. Ostensibly, I'm preparing to use the amp that current drives the TR2/H2s to power a set of studio monitors, while the H2s are sent back to Japan. The first step (at least from the perspective of one as illogical as myself) is to get cables of sufficient length to reach the speaker cabinets. On a whim I connected the new cables to the TR2, and dug out the H2s. I gave them one more listen and now I can't get the right channel to go out. Clearly, there is a gremlin or two in my system. I've been in the bourbon this evening, and generally my M.O. when dealing with misbehaving electronics after a little tipple is Don't. Fuck. With. It. Consequently, I'm not going to be making any more attempted diagnosis or repairs this evening. Instead, am going to enjoy the speed and dynamics that the Fuglyphones can offer, and think no more about it.

I'm using a Halfer P125 60WPC solid state amp. ... The honeymoon with the TakeTs officially ended an hour ago. What started as a crackle in the right side has progressively worsened to distortion, and now it doesn't put out any sound at all. I wiggled the cable in the right earcup, and the sound would correct for a minute, but as soon as I moved, it faded again. Now it won't come back with any movement. Given the voltage that the TR2 puts out, I opted not to mess with the H2s any further. I am not happy. I now have to contact Mr. Takei and see about getting the H2s repaired. Which means sending them back to Japan, and being without them for a period of time measured in months. 0_o This is not a good thing. I've had the cans for less than two months, totaling a few dozen hours at most. I've never dropped them, and stored them in the box they came in when I wasn't using them. Duggeh mentioned the cabling was the weak link the H2s ...he didn't know how right he was.

Tonight I took the Fugs out of their box for the first time after two weeks with the 880s, and a few days with the 650s. Man do my dynamics sound sleepy compared to the H2s. These cans are so in your face. I don't do much A/B comparison with equipment, preferring to spend a long period of time getting to know the character of a piece of kit. That said, the H2s are completely unlike any other headphone I have ever heard. It's like looking at my music through a Canon EF 100mm F/28 macro lens. I'm listening to Ashtar Command's cover of Mazzy Star's "Into Dust" and at the end of the song, when the female singer repeats the "into dust" line I can tell which bars she's breathing in on. This approaching the musical equivalent of TMI. The TakeTs are sensitive to everything upstream and report on it in [excruciating/euphoric] detail. Apple's AAC codec sounds okay to me at high bitrate out of my iPod/Kosses, but is downright unlistenable with the H2s. The midrange, which can already be problematic, becomes an absolute quagmire. I spent several hours today ripping CDs to flac because the lossy versions on my HDD are unacceptable. I'd be curious to hear the previous rev of the H2s, that have a more recessed high end. Cymbals have so much energy with my version. I'm itching to hear the H2/TR2 driven by a nice tube amp. Something that will smooth off the edges a bit on the upper frequencies.

I own two 1/4" reel to reel decks one is a relatively small Tascam, and the other is a massive Otari that sits in its own 3' rack case. If I sold both, I might be able to afford one of their tapes. 0_o The Tape Project's page has one of those menu boxes that follows as you scroll. Those thing always creep me out.

I can't say, as I have never purchased music from the iTunes store. I wouldn't want to make a bad situation worse, however. I did buy a few FLACs from Music Is Here, a digital download company based out of Latvia. $1 per file, no DRM. Sounded pretty good to me.

0_o Unless the source file was lossless, that procedure is going to result in an awful transcode that will be full of artifacts.

Database error The Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio database has encountered a problem. Please try the following: * Load the page again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser. * Open the www.head-fi.org home page, then try to open another page. * Click the Back button to try another link. The www.head-fi.org forum technical staff have been notified of the error, though you may contact them if the problem persists. We apologise for any incompetence.

Head-Fi appears to be down for me. Can anyone else reach it?

So did I. It actually makes more sense that way.

A huge bag of packing peanuts.