digitalbill

There's nothing much better than the sound of a Ferrari V12 at full throttle - now that's music! The 275 GTB was one of Enzo's most beautiful designs. I wonder if the driver could have been Gilles Villeneuve? He was one of the fastest (and craziest) drivers in the history of F1. Guess we'll never know.

I'd have to say that bass impact for me really depends on the kind of music that I'm listening to. I love the PS-1's for rock - Zeppelin, ZZ Top, BTO, etc. On the other hand, I don't like the PS-1 at all for jazz. The R10's I used to own were AWESOME for jazz - perfect even. Rock music on the R10's didn't do anything for me at all. I still haven't found the headphone/amp/source combo that's great at every genre of music. Maybe that's part of the fun in this hobby.

Thanks hirsch for the meet impressions/photos. What an amazing variety of gear to sample. I've spent a lot of time with the XCan/XRay v3 combo - probably more than anything else I've owned, since it's my office rig. I've been really impressed with the XRay and less so with the amp. The XCan sounds great with a few headphones such as the PS-1 and DT700. It seems to tame their bass-heavy tendencies and bring out more of the mid-range goodness. With other headphones, it just doesn't sound right - just like you said. I've tried numerous Audio-Technicas and Sennheisers with it and was not impressed. That said, for $400 it's been a solid,reliable amp.

The fun of photography is learning to control the camera to get the result you want. Ansel Adams envisioned the final photo in his head before ever taking the picture and had the skills to manipulate the camera, developing and printing to create what he wanted. I think that digital is even more fun than film, since the results are instant. Digital makes it a lot easier (and cheaper) to experiment with new ideas and shoot as much as you like. The basic principals of photography though have not changed with the advent of digital. The rules of exposure and composition remain the same.

I'll take a stab at this one having owned a wedding/portrait studio for ten years. I'm not familiar with the Canon A520 specifically, but I'm guessing it's a point & shoot camera. In general, the more control you have over your camera (shutter/aperature), the better. Point and shoots usually set the exposure for you, often with less than great results. Several things about taking photos of headphones - turn off your on-camera flash, that will almost always result in poor looking photos. Use either diffused daylight from a window (direct sun is not good), or a lamp of some sorts. You want the light to sweep across the headphone to create hightlights and shadows in your photo (flat light is less appealling). Digital cameras don't like too much contrast (difference between the highlights and shadows) so try filling in some of the shadow with a white piece of cardboard if the shadow areas look black. If you use an incandescent lamp or flourescent for your light source, make sure to set your camera's white balance to match. Each of these sources have a different color temperature from daylight. The background of your photo should be simple and contrasting from the subject. This way, the viewers eye's will fall on the subject and not be distracted by the background. Remember that the higher ISO (film speed) that you set, the more grainy your photo will appear. In general, use the fastest ISO possible with the light you have available. Take several photos from different angles and focal lengths. For hand-held shooting, try to stay at 1/40 of a second or more to avoid blurring. You can shoot at slower shutter speeds if you use a wider lens setting, zooming the camera all the way in will require a higher shutter speed. Hope this helps some.

Congratulations! You're a lucky man. My kid was almost four before he finally gave in and started using the john. That last year of diapers was pretty disgusting.