Dusty Chalk

OMGROFLOLMAO!!!1!

That's some fucked up shit right there, dude.

I have two OBH-11SE's. One of them is broken -- it's mono; other than that, it sounds fine. I got it used. I suspect the previous owner was messing with it. There appears to be an additional jumper from Q9 to Q11 (similar to the one from Q5 to Q6) -- could this be the cause? Or is it a red herring, some sort of tuning thing? I don't see a stray dollop of solder anywhere, but I could be blind. Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone have a schematic of the thing? Tell me what to measure and where, and I will.

It's basically a frequency response plot with a time element added in. The time element is moving towards you as time progresses, so the perfect waterfall would be a flat cliff -- starts off at full amplitude equally across the frequency (that would be towards the back), then all frequencies immediately attenuate quickly, I.E. slopes down very quickly to the floor towards you. Does that make sense?

I lollered. What is a "plugged nickel", anyway?

It's funny, I was just reading this, in which the author does a pretty good job of explaining the different schools of thought behind speaker design without "getting behind" any one in an obvious non-journalistic manner, and yet still acknowledging his bias. Also, I was noticing something about GR Research's "improvements" on the Insignias. If you look at the three frequency responses, most of the improvements in the frequency response were accomplished by the crossover. But from all reports, it is undeniable that reinforcing the cabinet markedly improves the bass, "tightening it up". I have a feeling this would be more obvious in a waterfall response plot than any frequency response plot such as the ones we are looking at. I guess what I'm saying is, don't put all your stock in frequency response plots.

Well, can't find one for the HR824 (which makes sense, because they're all measured individually), but you can find one for the HR626 at the end of the owner's manual (PDF). Looks pretty flat to me. Don't forget to look at the units. At first, I thought it had a 1db hump at 2kHz that the M-Audio didn't have, but then I looked at the units. It's got humps, they're just broader.

I'm guessing the same as any other speakers. It's a good start, though. Dang, that is flat. I'll see if I can find my HR824 freq graphs. I vaguely remember them being pretty flat, though they don't sound it.

Sort of like a redneck drinking a fine wine with a cheeseburger at a backyard barbecue? Or not that bad? I just found out the MSB DAC actually has jumpers for "smooth" and "detailed". Cracks me up. I might have to play with it.

I love Pandora. Right now, it's playing Brian Eno's "Discreet Music". Yes, the entire track. Has anyone else tried this, yet? I know Ken has...having trouble figuring it out? Anyone want me to set up a station just for them? Just name a couple artists, and I will... And yes, an Opeth/Mannheim Steamroller station is in the works. I'm just trying to figure out why it keeps playing Metallica...?

You shield them for most of the way, and then just stop shielding just before the drivers (or just before the split). Well, it's not so much acting as an antenna, as preventing RF interference. And it's not so much that you'll hear the RF itself, if you're going to hear anything, you'll hear a by-product of the RF with the signal going through the wire. And it's highly unlikely that you'll hear it in headphone/speaker cable, you're more likely to hear it if you have a problem before the amplifier, as the amplifier will amplify it. So yeah, we're getting to the point of severely diminishing returns here, but there is a non-snake-oil explanation for it.

Because he's going balanced? And yes, admittedly, it's more correct to say "faux-shielded", meaning it's shielded for only part of the length.

That one looks more like a "OMG! WTF?" to me.

As far away from each other as possible, with spacers. No, seriously, how about shielded?

I've shared out all my stations. Below are links directly to the stations. Organica Electro Industrial -- this one is still pretty raw, if anyone has suggestions on whom to add, I'm all ears. eMetal Eccentrica -- added Tweaker, David Sylvian, and a few others, not sure that was the right direction to go (seems to have made it a bit more mellow), may redirect later. Ambient Electronica This is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm in love. The thing played three whole tracks (out of four) from the Delia Gonzalez/Gavin Russom album, each of which is on the order of 16 minutes. Not in one sitting, but just the fact that it's capable of doing so speaks volumes for whatever licensing scheme they came up with. Oh, and I found out you do need a subscription (to Pandora) for this to work with the Squeezebox. So now a Squeezebox and a Pandora subscription are in my future. I just have to wait until Hirsch gets his Transporter to find out if it's worth the extra dosh, or if I will be happy with the Squeezebox.

Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Not that I didn't have it before -- I did. It's just that, I was going to get the Quad 22L first. Now, I'm not so sure. My world is topsy-turvy!

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuckity fuck. Now I've got G.A.S.

No, you suck. Have you ever heard a 4070? Has anyone ever heard a 4070? One of these days, I'm going to get one. In the meantime, I'll have to settle for my 310 system. Sorry, I've got nothing (useful to contribute to this thread).

Most of those things that he's done, happened a long time ago. Yes, he deserves credit for those (starting Head-Fi, etc.), but as far as I am concerned, the statute of limitations has run out. As soon as he started taking money from contributors and advertisers, he no longer was the sole owner of that forum, and should stop treating it like his own personal domain. He claims to want it to be a self-supporting website, and yet he still wants to control it 100% -- I completely agree with the cake & eat it comment. And how is it he got to decide what to do with the money? You did all the work. And most importantly, it's not his money. I understand your position -- you're right, Head-Fi is the dominant force in this hobby, and you can't afford to alienate yourself with them. Me, I grow sad every time I think about it. Jude used to like me, I used to like him. Without even trying, I seem to have alienated him. All I did was speak my mind, as I saw it. The nature of the way he wants to play this is, that in itself is a bad thing. As far as I am concerned, there is a completely different person sitting in his seat now -- someone that needs to drink some decaf. I just don't picture him doing some of the things that he used to do.

?

As should be obvious my complete lack of answer to that, I have no idea. I was reminded of that (the fact that I don't have an answer) recently. I've been dealing with an asshat on another board, here (follow-up thread, here), and short of perserverantly pointing out every little thing that he says wrong, I haven't a clue how to handle this guy. It's a matter of stamina, and he just plain has more (he also seems to care more). I just can't bring myself to do the research to reinforce what I'm saying, since I know I'm right. Oh, and he's a moderator over there, so don't frequent there unless you're willing to get into it. The fact that the moderators are the perpetuators of misinformation is an indication of the overall class of the site, methinks. (Hmmm...that's pretty universal, too.) I just have to hope that, as it says in my sig, truth will out. It's not my job to educate the rest of humanity, but every once in a while, I have to take potshots at the false-sayers.

Gorgeous cat. I was just telling my housemate that if she gets another cat, can it be an all black one?

Yeah, I probably heard the upgraded version (with Black Gates, etc.) -- I was thinking US$1.5K was severely underpriced. I'd probably get a Koss jack and a Stax jack, as my intended set of electrostatics will be the 4070 and the ESP-950.

New, it's US$1500.

Have any of you discovered Pandora yet? http://www.pandora.com/ Pretty cool way of being introduced to new music -- I have several "stations" set up already (Ambient Electronica, Organica, Eccentrica, eMetal, and Electro Industrial). If you are on, and/or you don't mind me giving them your email address (I.E. if you are going to sign on anyway), then let me know (PM me your E), and I'll "share" them with you. And apparently, there's some sort of sharing of information going on with the Slimdevices Squeezebox, so if you have one of these, you can listen anywhere and all of the other functionality (and you will want to be able to rate and skip songs, &c.), not just from your computer. There are certainly some missteps going on, and you will want to either filter songs out of your future potential playlist, or at least skip them, or tell them that you don't want to hear a certain track for the next month. http://www.slimdevices.com/dev_pandora.html I've been listening a lot lately to my "ambient electronica" station at work, and there's some cool mellow instrumental stuff on there. I started out by making a "Pete Namlook Radio" station, then added Klaus Schulze, Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom, and Bill Laswell (I'm not sure how much Bill Laswell fits in with the rest, but the overall station has a somewhat dubby feel to it, meaning every once in a while, a song will play with some dubbiness to it, but then otherwise it's mostly beatless), then finally renamed the station. I just remembered to add Tangerine Dream, and they're surprisingly less ambient than the rest of the material. As tracks play, I can tell them I love it, hate it, am tired of it, to skip it, or nothing (just let it play, but not affect the rating system). I already like this better than Last.FM, where I could only have one artist influence a radio station. I really wanted a Klaus Schulze/Pete Namlook station, but there wasn't one (for some reason, "Pete Namlook & Klaus Schulze" were both on the "artists like" lists of both artists individually, but neither one individually was in the list for the other...I.E. "Pete Namlook" wasn't in the list for "Klaus Schulze", and vice versa). Now, the only thing that worries me is whether or not my listening habits on one station will affect their choices of songs on another -- anyone know? I kind of hope not, because sometimes I'm in different moods. I've almost exclusively listened to the ambient electronica and they're doing really well here. They've played a couple of Robert Rich tracks, and I remembered that I really like Robert Rich, so I added him. Now I'm going to go and add vidna Obmana (and maybe Fear Falls Burning). Eccentrica: Legendary Pink Dots, Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Coil, Can, Halou. Yeah, I don't know, it's a start. They played some Bjork, and that was perfect, so I added her to the list. eMetal: bunch of Ministry songs (I didn't want them to accidentally pick up on the synthpoppiness of With Sympathy, or the more trad non-guitar industrial nature of Twitch -- there's no way to add whole albums, otherwise I would've just done Land..., Mind... & ...Didn't Feel Like Showing Up Live..., so I just did "Breathe", "Thieves", "So What" and so on), Collide, Curve, Garbage, Nine Inch Nails, Lennon, Plumb, Godhead, God Lives Underwater, Gravity Kills, and Stabbing Westward. Yeah, I know, most of those are more "hard pop" than metal per se, but I can always rename the station later. It's what I like. Now if I could only make a CD of tracks for the car... Electro Industrial: Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly -- any other ideas? I tried to put Young Gods in, but they couldn't find it. Haven't listened to this station yet. Organica: Chris Isaak, Black Heart Procession, Calexico and Lhasa. They introduced me to this new guy I'd never heard of before, named Jay Munly, and I liked him immediately, so I added him to the list. I can always take him out later. I need a synthpop station. And a classical music station. And...nah...I better listen to more than one station at a time before I start playing around much more.