Dusty Chalk

The biggest difference is isolation. I can't stress this enough, people don't realize how much that changes the entire listening experience, even were the rest of the room entirely quiet (which it weren't). It is the equivalent of making the background blacker. Dogs go from barking noisily to just flapping their jowls; cats go from insistently vying for attention to being perfectly content; friends go from whiney airheads to intellectual confidantes. It's really win-win all the way around. The low-end extension out of the BH was about the same for the O2 and the 4070, the Orpheus had more. It must have been the opposite on the KGSS, based on Chris' take on things. I should also mention that Hirsch's Orpheus was modified to able to take the Stax bias, you probably shouldn't try that with just any Orpheus. I think. Although I think he did, which is how he found out it couldn't take it. Or something. I'll let him post about that, I don't remember now. Hirsch? As was already answered, it is, indeed, the playful kitty-kraken, which seems to have confused a ship full of people with a large ball of yarn.

For those of you who don't frequent Head-Fi, someone posted that Oldies.com is having a fantasy warehouse clearance sale similar to that other one. Some of them are SACD's, but don't just search on the text "SACD", as not all of them are correctly identified. Ends Wednesday.

Orpheus, by a very wide margin. O2 MkII and 4070 were too close to call. The HD800's sounded great out of the GSX (as a baseline comparison point). I didn't listen to anything else. The kitty was pretty playful, too. Skinniest cat I ever did see (without looking scrawny). Thanks to Chris for having us over, Dan and Colin for making the pretty far trek to bring most of the gear, Mrs. Dreadhead for the snacks and being tolerant of a great big geekout, and everyone else for playing along, and all of you guys for playing along at home. EDIT: I should mention that this was entirely unfair, as the BH was running on Stax bias, which was complete overkill for the Senn, which made it sound really good.

Well, if you separate out your choices to integrated amp + USB DAC later, yes, your options just shot up about 10-fold.

What price range? I just recently read a very positive review of the Cyrus 8 XP d.

I'm looking at amazon, and I'm not seeing the one I have, so I'll go and check later. Not that I'm an expert or anything, but when I bought it, my guitarist friend (Spacey) told me to get this one, it was the default one that everyone got, did the job, and was relatively cheap. I want to say it was a Yamaha, but I'm only seeing one Yamaha, and mine looks more like one of the Korg's, but cheaper. It's just got a simple little LCD display, tunes, and does nothing more (no metronome, no nothing).

I got as far as St. James Infirmary and decided I needed something with a little more energy, so it temporarily got eschewed in place of Amorphis' Skyforger:

Okay, > 1:1.

You guys have way more interesting posts in this thread than I can even put words to.

Ratio of to pic is 1:1.

Satchmo plays King Oliver

Isn't there a setting for the speed?

I didn't get the feeling that it was just one song, but the credits only list one song. I liked all of them. And yes, I have the album wishlisted. That's what I call audiophile music -- that's why they play that kind of music -- that sparse, jazz trio shit -- at all the audiophile conventions. It makes any system sound good.

Chinese or Thai in about 30 minutes.

T-shirt

Really, the accent is on the 3rd syllable? Laughing at/with Voltron about "nope still doesn't sound good". I'm trying to think of it without thinking of ketchup, and I can't. I think that's my problem. I bet it'd be really good as a ketchup replacement -- I have a sweet tooth.

The Heads, as in the Talking Heads minus David Byrne? My latest old discovery was Wishbone Ash. Dang they were good.

Schubert, Trout Quintet, Rosamunde Quartet, SACD

You're not alone. I've read other people (read: professional reviewers) that have proclaimed (paraphrasing), "a violin is supposed to have bark and bite. And an unmuted trumpet at full throttle can be piercing."

And here I was, thinking you were talking about brothers Tim and Neil.

Zing.

You could always go MOT and woody headphones...

This is so great, that I just went back and started it over. With different headphones. I'm hearing things I've never heard before (which means it's either a better transfer, or they compressed it a little). I really would love to hear this and Glassworks on SACD.

So many questions about that picture, most start with "why...". Thanks for the reminder Hopstretch, in for three -- guaranteed to get laid that way. Perhaps I'll wear all three at the same time, maybe I'll get a kumquat foursome. Of course, with my luck, it'll be with those three in the above pic.