Agreed, but Fitz's response was sort of open ended regarding stand use so I thought I'd throw in a response that actually addressed something related to the thread.
Tyll would argue that there's a pretty large point to be made for using desktop stands for near field listening. I'm inclined to agree with him, given my limited experimentation with raising near field monitors above the desk surface.
I know, just being an ass. You've done the hard work of ripping it all so there's no motivation to do much of anything. And I can't say that I blame you for not wanting to transcode it all either. I've been putting off re-ripping my collection for ages now, but I'll have to do it eventually.
I think Billy was talking about LFF's magic mp3 codec (the original codec, maybe we should call it the hybrid?) which has produced some pretty amazing results at extremely small file sizes. Of course, I don't think anyone has been able to find the codec so it's not really an option.
Ok, then I wonder how uniform their impedance is over the full frequency range. Some headphones, like Grados, are very uniform in their response while others vary greatly - the HD650s vary some 200 ohms. Not saying it's the reason for what's going on here, but it might be worth looking into.
I wonder if there's a weird impedance thing going on with the qualia's that doesn't play nicely with the trafo-coupled amp? I can't find specs for the Sony's anywhere and Headroom doesn't have measurements for them either.
Just because it'll take 10 years to see a benefit is no reason not to drill. You think that we won't need the oil in 10 to 20 years? The real question (for me) is whether or not there is a sufficient quantity of oil to justify the expense and risk. If it is cost prohibitive to extract it then that'd be a good reason not to do it, time is not a good reason.
Sure, no secrets here. I cut the retention tabs on the front of the connector flush with the face of the plug. There's enough of the connector left to hold the flange of the plug so that it doesn't feel loose but it allows the plug to fully seat in the duet and the screws are finally able to grab the embedded fasteners. This picture shows it as well as it can be shown.
click for larger version
Vincent,
If you get stuck for more than a couple days let me know, odds are I have a pair of balanced IC's somewhere that I'm not using that I can send you.
Has the new series started? I looked on Friday and saw that they were taping but couldn't find a date when the new episodes were supposed to start airing.
Well I reinstalled the RAM and ran some memory tests, all of which passed and the machine has been stable so far (knocks on wood). If all goes well this week I'll have a go at installing Tiger at the end of the week.
In other news I finally sorted the issues that I was having with the available VGA connectors. Indra's cable will be the first to be tested by someone else so hopefully she can post impressions when it arrives.
Ok macophiles, I've got an OS X question for you. The laptop that I'm currently using is a Powerbook G4 w/ 1GHz processor and a piddly 256Mb of RAM. It's using OS X 10.3x9 which I believe is "Panther" or some such nonsense. Basically what I'm trying to do is upspec the laptop to the point where it can use the Duet. I've got a 1Gb RAM stick, but it was unstable when I first installed it. So my thought is to try upgrading the OS to Tiger (10.4.11, I think) and I'm wondering what I have to do to do this? Can I just download the upgrade from Apple? Can I purchase a used copy? Other thoughts or suggestions appreciated. I'm trying to limit my investment here since it's really just going to be used to test some Duet cables.