HeadphoneAddict

On the first day of our honeymoon in 1992 my wife and I took the Amtrak on the Oregon trail route to Seattle, with plans to rent a car there and drive through the Canadian Rockies to backpack and camp at various places; but in Oregon the train hit a 17 year old riding his bike on the tracks over a bridge. He tried to outrun the train rather than jump off the bridge. When the train 1st stopped we asked what was wrong, and when we found out I volunteered that I was a doctor and would like to help. The kid had been knocked clean out of his shoes, and was in the ditch with blood coming out of every orifice. Nevertheless, my wife and I did CPR until the EMT's arrived and took over. His friends were there and had escaped off the bridge before the train, and they were all freaked out. The conductor/engineer was too shaken up to complete the trip and we had to wait 4 hours for a replacement. We finally arrived in Seattle about 6 hours later and found that the child had lived another 4 hours before his parents had to pull the life support. We convinced ourselves that we did everything that we could, and that we bought him a few hours for his family and friends to say goodbye, and did our best to enjoy the rest of the 10 day honeymoon. We didn't give a second thought to the engineer though. We assumed sending in a replacement was standard procedure for this kind of thing. [EDIT - today is our 19th wedding anniversary!]

That's unusual.

And for my daughter...

You can de-authorize any computer one at a time as often as you want, in order to play DRM iTunes music/Video on different computers over the limit of 5. But when you don't have access to the computer anymore, i.e. broken or stolen, if you are already at your 5 computer limit then the only option is to "de-authorize all" to get that one computer off the authorized list so you can make room for the new one. Apple cannot de-authorize only one computer for you, even they are also stuck with the "all or nothing" choice. I've had a logic board swapped in my old G5 iMac a few years ago and Apple did the reset for me so I didn't have to use up my one chance on that. But when a RAM slot went bad on the Core2Duo iMac I was able to deauthorize it before I had them replace the logic board. I suppose if one sells their computer they can still contact the buyer and ask them to load iTune and choose store > deauthorize the computer for you. Now, iCloud has a once every 90 day limit for changing devices, from what I've read, but I'm not sure why.

Bumping an old thread like this is not a good way to make friends here. I'd hate to see you get decimated, but it's inevitable that the shovel will come out.

Oh man, I'm so sorry cause that sounds like it sucks big time.

The repaired Macbook works great and they did indeed give us a new battery along with the new logic board. The thing is cleaned up and looks new. Since we couldn't de-authorize the dead computer from iTunes before the motherboard was swapped out, Tyler helped me email Apple support about iTunes authorization (we were at the limit with 5 macs). They were willing to "de-authorize all computers" for iTunes without using up our "once a year" reset. It's strange that the new motherboard was given the same serial number as the old one, and iTunes still didn't think this new logic board was authorized. We made sure to unplug our 160Gb 1st gen ATV first, so that when the iMac was de-authorized we wouldn't have the ATV's DRM protected content removed by accident.

I let Tyler pick the beer over lunch today, and he picked a nice laughing lab that I liked. I should pay more attention to this stuff.

I actually only ever heard the DA-10 via Coax S/PDIF input. I wonder if the DA-11 would have the same issue for you, or if it was just an issue with the optical transport? A lot of jitter could make it sound like that, and I experienced that with optical out of Apple TV into the DL III at RMAF. The Cullen modded DL III and my PWD don't have an issue with the Apple TV as transport, but I never tried my mini-DAC with it. But the DL III didn't handle it well at all. I think my old SuperPro DAC707 couldn't lock onto the Apple TV 90% of the time.

[sorry for the rambling post] I thought the PS Audio DL III was a nice DAC for the price ($699), and in 96K upsampling mode it sounded identical side by side with a Stello DA100 Signature with upsampling on ($895). They both had a nice warm smooth analog-like sound. I played with the two together for about 3 hours and found only a few differences - in 192K mode the DL III soundstage seemed to be slightly expanded and the treble was slightly brighter or more present. They were very subtle changes but really appreciated if I was listening to a darker sounding rig. Interestingly my Perfectwave DAC doesn't seem to change in tone when I switch between various upsampling modes like the DL III did, and I just leave it set for "native" all the time. Before I got the DL III, plaidplatypus brought his Lavry DA-10 to my house for a mini-meet and it gave me the urge to try something else. I thought it sounded slightly better in my GES/O2 rig than my mini-DAC's 1/8" output, and I wanted one - but I ended up with the DL III because the price was so much more affordable. We used a Jensen Transformers ISOmax to convert the DA-10 to single ended for the GES, and it worked really well. The DL III in 192K mode seemed to help improve the recessed treble in my GES/O2 rig and give it crisper sound that felt more spacious and open, while I was happy with the Apogee everywhere else. But in the end I just didn't think the DL III was as refined and musical as the Apogee so I upgraded it to the PWD. I also think the Apogee mini-DAC balanced out sounds a little better than it's 1/8" single ended output, and comparing the Apogee XLR > ISOmax RCA conversion vs the DL III RCA output was another improvement over the DL III. On another note, I think the Cullen Stage IV modded DL III someone brought to RMAF was noticeably better than my stock DL III, and I suspect it might have been better than the Apogee as well if I had been able to compare them. That had put Wyred for Sound high up on my list of DACs to consider before I bought the PWD. My main experience with the DA-11 has been with Jude's rig at RMAF and with the Lavry table at RMAF, and I haven't really been able to compare it side by side with anything in the same rig. I did think the headphone out sounded better than my Apogee headphone out, and similar to the DACmini headphone out, and the PIC control was really nice to set up a crossfeed effect or for expanding the stereo stage. There are so many DACs out there that I haven't heard yet, but of all the DAC's I've heard that cost less than my PWD I think the DA-11 or a Rick Cullen design might be what I'd get.

Fiesty mom's are a good sign in the midst of illness. I wish her well, but I think she's gonna do it without the well wishes.

The Apple store waited until 8:30pm to call us to say that my daughter's MacBook is fixed and ready to pick up. I would have gone tonight if they'd called sooner, but the store is over 30 minutes away. When they called I was on my way home from delivering roses to the restaurant where my wife and I are celebrating our 19th anniversary tomorrow, so I might have made it to Apple if they'd called my cell like I asked. They confirmed the logic board was replaced for the $280, but I won't know about the battery until I pick it up tomorrow. This flat rate refurb deal is a steal.

Happy belated birthday!

These girls? Or this one?

I think tipb.com said that iPhone 5 website was a hoax.

I got 9 CD total from them, six $3 ones and three regular priced ones. For that I earned free shipping.

I loved that.

Cool, I'm pretty happy with the FPE work on my SS eXStatA front and rear panels.

Based on his sig line I think the guy is just spamming us.

Yeah, it surprised the heck out of me when they offered the flat rate thing. I don't know exactly what "the depot" is, but that's where they said they send it for the work. He said they have a guy there that only works on black Macbooks like ours, and they do good work. Tyler might know, since he works at that Apple Store, but I didn't see him there today.

I took my daughter's black Macbook to the Genius Bar since it wont power up since we got back from the funeral. It appears the logic board is dead after 3 years and 9 months. Although a new logic board replacement at the store is over $500 and takes only 2 days to fix, they have a flat rate service for $280 to refurbish the Macbook with a 90 day warrantee. Apparently they send it to "the depot" for a week, where everything that they find that's bad is replaced with new parts. I decided to do that as it seems to be a bargain, especially when they said they are going to replace the swollen battery too (although the battery still lasts 2-3 hours on a charge). I did consider getting a new Macbook Pro/Air for myself and handing down my 2.5 year old MBP to her, but the ones with the features I want are both $1799 (after 256Gb, Superdrive and 1.8Ghz for MBA). The MBA having been recently upgraded seems like a safer bet, since the MBP are labeled as "early 2011" models and I'd hate to be one cycle behind when they introduce a new one before the end of the year. I'd like to see more accessories for Thunderbolt, such as a multi-function docking station that isn't a huge monitor, and I'll feel better about the MBA and no firewire or optical digital audio, etc...

I think you'll reallly like the sound. The software still needs work, gapless, etc...

Along with an extra set of hands and eyes...

I have a couple of cowboy hats myself, but nothing really nice. These are the guys who helped me file for my disability benefits and got me several months of back pay for a small percentage of my first payout. I'm eternally grateful for all the help they gave me, since the whole process was fairly overwhelming.

Congrats Jacob. As for me, things have been crazy since father-in-law died, and I haven't even unpacked the KGSS yet...