Knuckledragger

This is a trade-off. Cayenne gives faster attacks, and much longer decays. Things come at you so quickly, you won't notice the noise floor ...until the next day.

That potato video was strangely hypnotic. Anthony Hopkins will figure you out. He'll build an exact replica of your speaker rig. Except the "custom finish" will be human skin.

Civilization 4 for my housemate (birthday present), Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (for me) ...and a cord of firewood.

WHOA. I hate to say it, but the American one is the least cool of the three. That exhaust note was pretty serious, however. Germans are fuckin' NUTS. Iraqis are very resourceful.

At the risk of repeating myself, I must once again state that the TakeTs makes my otherwise-competent dynamics seem sleepy and boring my comparison. I'm currently listening to "Mother Tongue" off Jairamji's Kindred Spirits album. It's an ethnic downtempo piece with strong dub elements and a very powerful vocal lead. It's also nearly 12 minutes long. I started listening with studio monitors (EV Sentry 100As) which are fairly bright and very assertive. The cans I had at the ready were my DT-880s, which I'd been using earlier for gaming. Man, have I never been so underwhelmed by them. The highs just couldn't compare to the EVs. So I dug out my Fugs and of course the highs are any thing but lacking. They do sound a little bit cold todoay. I really amp going to have to pursue a tube amp sometime soon. I do think the 880s might have slightly better tonality, an obviously a much more graceful midrange, but they are just so dozy in comparison. I should add that the Fugs have managed to work consistently in both channels ever since Christmas eve (/me crosses fingers.) I am now curious about the new ported pads that Mr. Takei is offering. I saw someone (stevekelby?) selling his TakeT setup with the new pads, and I'd like to know how they affect the sound (and the fit).

Crap in a hat. Rush Limbaugh called Barack Obama a "spade" no less than four times in this "parody." I am uh, fairly jaded when it comes to Rush's utterings, but this one shocked even me. Unfuckingbelievable.

I don't mean to imply a pissing match at all. Until 20 years ago, I think Nikon has a serious edge over Canon. Vintage Nikon glass is far better than its Canon contemporaries. That said, Canon jumped into the digital realm with both feet and spent a fortune building their own chip making plant. Canon senssors have had a serious lead of Nikon until the most recent generation. The truth is, the Nikon D3 is a better camera than the $3000-more-expensive Canon 1Ds III. It can use any Nikon lens going back to 1979, including all the DX "digital only" lenses. It even bests Canon in high ISO performance, which has traditionally been Canon's strength. I should add that a big part of Canon's dominance has been the success with a full frame sensor. They released the Canon 1Ds in the end of 2002, and it wasn't until five years later that Nikon answered.

Nikon's dSLRs are ...okay (except for the new D3, which is sexy in the extreme, but you may not want to spend $5000.) Until very recently, Canon has been fully a generation ahead of Nikon. You can get an adapter to mount any manual focus Nikon lens on a Canon EOS body. I don't own any Nikkors, but I have a bunch of M42 screw-mount manual focus lens, and a adapter to attach them to my two Canons. I've had a lot of fun using them.

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.