Currawong

Amazing story, I can't imagine what it would have felt like to live through that. I was reading the story of the girl who managed to sneak into the hotel where they were having their bed-in protest and knock on his door and how, after talking to her parents, they allowed her to stay with him for it. Sounds like he was a very cool guy despite being a star.

The Monkey's comments thirded, I enjoyed reading this and wish more people could write this way, including myself.

I tried mine with the Zamp briefly. The sound was a bit dull, but ok.

Thanks for the technical explanation. Most helpful.

I'm thinking I might stop here with the LCD-2s -- I've stopped caring about building a Stax rig and I don't want to ruin it with the HE-6. If I get any more gear it will be a good power amp and those Harbeth Monitors I've had my eye on for quite some time. Maybe if I see K1000s for a good price somewhere in the future, I will try them, but I am pretty sure I'm done with gear. DIY on the other hand...

Happy Birthday crazy DAC man.

I've noticed a lot of broken images for gear on HeadRoom lately. They also seem not to be making anything new.

I think that they are probably selling way more Mini Servers than XServes and considering that the racker server market is too cut-throat to compete in the writing was on the wall.

A tip about the screws: The front screws (at least they are on the front on mine) are for tightness, and the tiny hex-screws in the rear of the blocks, if they come loose, the cups can do a 360 in the manner of Grados. Due to their weight, I found they'd slip notches when I didn't want them to, so I set mine to the position I wanted and tightened the screws.

I like the Q version with analogue inputs and a pre-amp.

If anyone is getting the new Air, FFS get 4GB of RAM, as it is NOT upgradable later. I did go and have a play with the new models in the Apple Store yesterday though. The 11" is obviously the smallest they can get the screen without it being annoying, which it would be if it were any smaller. My wife used to own one of those tiny Sony Vaios, which were annoying to actually use. I might have to see if I can't drag my wife into the Apple Store next year and get one or the other for her, as she doesn't like the weight of my old MacBook Pro.

That looks much better to me than what was there before. If "none of the cost cutting" is there, I wonder if that isn't a sign Stax are doing well.

After the O2s (and LCD-2s) the 404LEs sounded too mid-forward sounding to me, and the LNS (with the thicker pads) sounded better. It was the opposite when the HD-800s were my main cans. Fascinating how one's brain changes and adapts.

No worries. I don't read Computer Audiophile often. I'm going to try Pure Music again though, as Amarra Mini has a problem with not starting to play until 4-10 seconds into the song if it has been left idle for even a minute. It's a mystery, even to Sonic Studios.

I contemplated not posting impressions in my first post for this reason. Probably what I need to do is use it for a while, switch to something else, and see how I feel. Usually it ends up being that I feel the music is better or worse with one or the other this way. I did that with digital cables, though in the end it was BNC vs. RCA, and the former, being closer to spec, won easily.

I just added 833 tracks in one hit and it survived. How many did you try? Wouldn't surprise me if adding a few thousand tracks killed it.

If you open up the Console, do you get any interesting errors relating to the program? As for bit perfect, I wouldn't imagine that turning on dither and a set output word length in the prefs would output bit perfect. I think the whole bit-perfect thing is a hangover from Windows XP discussion where the system screwed up the audio output. For me, I've thought to experiment whether allowing Amarra Mini to increase the word length to 24 bits (with or without dither) made any difference compared to the 840c's up-sampling, or that of the Reference 3. Some playing around only revealed that the volume level changed switching up-sampling on and off in the Cambridge, so without an SPL meter, I'm rather screwed trying to discern a difference. Going by my average knowledge of digital things, I'd probably have to listen at damaging levels to discern a difference anyway.

A new music player: AyreWave from sbooth.org Mentioned here: Stereophile: Wavelength Leads the Way Initial impressions this morning is that it puts out better music than Amarra Mini (2.0.1). More texture to instruments (low-level detail) with my LCD-2 or borrowed O2 rigs. If I don't pay attention, but just listen to a good acoustic track in a relaxed manner in both, then I get the feeling that Amarra is a little bit more hard-edged digital in presentation and with AyreWave the music sounds a bit more "real". The simple UI is good: Select a bunch of tracks in iTunes or the Finder and click on the relevant button in AyreWave to add them to the persistent playlist. Pretty damn good for free.

I recommend taking Yoda's advice about trying.

Beats? I think a beating about the face and head would be in order. You need to listen to much better music before considering expensive headphones.

spritzer: I bags first listen of your pair. I promise I wont lick drool on them.

If the 4070s get a facelift, then the older model will suddenly drop in price on Yahoo Auctions too. I thought they were godly with vocals at the time I got to try them, but how I'd feel now after going through so many other headphones I don't know. Thirded about trying before you buy. Being rather un-coloured, I did find them rather brutal about the quality of everything else in the chain.

Have you heard the Denons before? Much the same thing.

If they'd tried to make a reasonably balanced-sounding headphone, instead of the boom-box-for-your-head shit with the pointless unusual metals, I'm sure they could make a decent and reasonably-priced pair of headphones. As it is, the Shures I heard the other day sounded better out of a Pico Slim + iPhone than all the shiny-metal Ultrasones I've tried. If the Shures didn't cost twice what they do in the US over here, then I'd pick up a pair of 440s for travelling with.

The digital input chip excepted, that has much the specs of the Cambridge 840c. Might be quite a good value pairing with one of the better digital input boxes.