Dusty Chalk

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.

Thank you very much!

The KGSS is one of the best amps I've ever heard with the O2.

I should add that it does need to be properly amplified and biased. If it's not "woken up", it sounds like carp.

I never heard the lack of bass that Hirsch heard, but it's definitely not L3000 bass. I think it would make a nice complement, and you should go for it. I eventually plan on getting a pair of the 4070 Stax (closed high-end) to complement my L3000 setup.

The only reason it didn't take me that long is because I cheated. Actually, that would be the Alan Parsons Project, and that's a really great album. If you don't have the DAD from Classic Records (I think it's a DVD-A now), get it. It's imperative. It's funny that you should mention those two albums, because my favourite albums from those two are Sad Wings of Destiny and Heaven & Hell (well, one of my favourites from them, anyway -- Technical Ecstasy being another).

1. Tie -- Animals and Wish You Were Here 3, 4, & 5. Not sure of order -- Romantic Warrior (Return to Forever); Koyaanisqatsi (Glass); Misplaced Childhood (Marillion) That's today -- tomorrow, things could easily change. There's Tales from Topographic Oceans, Safety in Numbers (Crack the Sky), Just for a Day (Slowdive -- but this one is beginning to wear on me, so I'm thinking the honeymoon is finally over -- after over 14 years, though), Remain in Light (don't like "Once in a Lifetime", but love the rest of the album so much, it doesn't matter), Darkest Days (Stabbing Westward), The Mess We Made (Matt Elliott), both of Garbage's first two albums, Kraftwerk's Computer World, The Last Man to Fly (Tear Garden)...I could go on and on and on. Oh, and you're indecisive.

You keep misspelling it...it's Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe.

I'm actually in agreement with the dissenters here -- how is the cure any better than the disease? I agree that Head-Case has turned into a whine-about-Head-Fi board, and I agree that it is a bad thing. But shutting down threads that you don't want to hear about...well, that's what they do, and that's what was claimed wasn't done here. As I've said before -- there is only one way to change the nature of discussions on a board, and that is to change the nature of your part in the discussion. E.G. if you want to hear less whining, then whine less. You want to hear positive contributions? Make one's own positive contributions. So...how about those diamond buffers, eh?

Well, I listened some more last night, and the bass has calmed down significantly. Maybe my amp just needed warming up (hadn't used it in a while). Also, that Talk Talk SACD seems to be mastered with rather significant bass.

You didn't hear the bass? Or do you mean, you didn't hear any obvious colouration besides the obvious bass colouration? (Aside: I knew that going in, so I'm not disappointed.) It does have an otherwise cleanliness to the sound that I haven't heard out of any other headphone I can think of (maybe a high-end electrostat). Maybe that's what you heard. Have you heard the AT-100Ti? I love my pair of those, too. What, you mean mod the amps in there? No way! I might screw it up, let out the magic smoke. That said, I am opening them up, as one of my next speakers is going to be a DIY design, and (again) the Quad will be my reference. (Actually, it's a LS3/5a-based design -- not so much a DIY design as mostly a plagiarism.) But I'll be opening it up to see what kind of drivers it has, etc. I'll take pictures when I do. I'll be using the Quad as more of a audio reference than mechanical reference.

I'd add the Quad L series to that list. And Focal. And since you mentioned transparency, Reference 3A.

That's the new reference, isn't it? I have to admit, I find myself comparing a lot of things to the Quad 12L's. They're completely different. I'm sure I'll get different results with some judicious tuberolling, but right now, in my amp, these are seriously basshead headphones. Almost PS-1 bass. And I don't find the Quads bassy at all. And you know that slight emphasis in the ...erm... emphasis region? The L3000 doesn't have that at all -- if anything, it has a slight midrange suckout (very slight...and maybe -- I might just still be getting used to the bass emphasis, and I'm hearing that as a suckout) with my current amp and set of tubes. It's hard to tell -- I've only had 40 minutes with them so far (Talk Talk's The Colour of Spring SACD).

You keep telling yourself that.

I use the diagonal setup at work, and I have to say, it sounds pretty good (but it's also nearfield listening, and they're bookshelf/standmount speakers). I'll second that suggestion. No, not at all.

No sub? That rules out the Spendor S3/5... A used Quad 21L or 22L. I'll think about it some more, to see if I can't come up with some better suggestions. For new, maybe a Vandersteen 1C? I haven't heard it myself, but I've heard their higher end models. Are those exact measurements? See, the problem is, 10 feet and 12 feet are both multiples of 2 feet, so you're going to have problems with resonances. You may seriously want to consider "treating" the room. (Google on "ethan winer".)

That one should spend most of one's money on the speakers &&/|| headphones for best results. I think markl is the biggest purveyor of this myth, but he ain't alone.

Speaking of which, I just got an L3000, and it is the best shit ever! Or, "...evar!" That I owned, anyway. ("That I pwned, anywayz.")

Yeah, I definitely second the K1000 rec.

But...but...(sputters)...but...based on that reasoning ("...because they're fucking annoying..."), then you'd have to lock this thread, too! So that would be an invalid thing to post, neh? Meh, I'm getting dizzy with that kind of logic.

And then there's this.

DT880.

I've heard the EarMax Pro, and it is wonderful. I haven't heard the Woo 3. The EMP is the best size/SQ that I can think of.