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Post by boomzilla on Jul 8, 2013 19:20:49 GMT -5
Try out "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (the remaster, not the original). Also check out anything by Ricky Skaggs.
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Post by garbulky on Jul 15, 2013 7:26:13 GMT -5
Today I managed to get my hands on a used barebones athlon X2 setup. And after a lot of hiccups - how did I not know about motherboard stand-offs?! - a bit of grimacing - am I really going to stick the MB into THAT junked up case?! - and baited breath, the unit is working. It took about four to six hours of updating multiple times just to get vista properly updated to the latest updates. I have to give props for my friend for me going the route when I asked him how would he feel about an ancient dual core celeron unit? And he said, I think that processor will go great ....in the garbage can. After that glowing recommendation, I kept searching until I lucked out. It still has some way to go but plugging on. Now I have to insert my xonar essence st card into it and see if I can ressurect the old glory. Question: Is 12.160V on the 12V rail and 4.85V on the 5V USB rail a sign of a failing MB/power supply?
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Post by boomzilla on Jul 15, 2013 7:36:17 GMT -5
Not necessarily - Computer power supplies have notoriously sloppy regulation (not in terms of removing ripple, but certainly in terms of absolute voltage regulation). I'd consider it OK unless you begin to get artifacts when in use. If problems occur, check out Tim's Computers on Sherwood. Tim has treated me well in the past.
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Post by garbulky on Jul 15, 2013 7:39:48 GMT -5
Not necessarily - Computer power supplies have notoriously sloppy regulation (not in terms of removing ripple, but certainly in terms of absolute voltage regulation). I'd consider it OK unless you begin to get artifacts when in use. If problems occur, check out Tim's Computers on Sherwood. Tim has treated me well in the past. Thanks. It's a corsaire power supply with a decent warranty and in the past it's proven rock solid hopefully it;s not ominous . I just updated with a photo of the build in progress. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the @#!! side covers for the full size case so some creativity will have to be employed from WAF purposes.
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Post by boomzilla on Jul 15, 2013 7:41:02 GMT -5
Under the couch?
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Post by garbulky on Jul 15, 2013 7:42:36 GMT -5
My couch has a bed in it! I think I'll put it side ways where my old PC you saw used to be. Hopefully this will somehow make the unsightly unseen. Fingers crossed.
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Post by garbulky on Jul 15, 2013 8:04:42 GMT -5
Also thought I'd update with another new-ish addition to the audio family. Much thanks to a friend of mine. Vintage Paradigm Bookshelves. Note the uh, acoustic treatment on top. Can you tell I'm married? They are a lot bigger than they look in the picture. I hope to use it in a different room as a secondary system for teaching. It still needs an amp, I was thinking of a lepai.
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Post by boomzilla on Jul 16, 2013 4:07:17 GMT -5
What bozo gave you those?
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Post by garbulky on Jul 20, 2013 15:21:16 GMT -5
Today I listened to a Blu-ray of Schumann symphny no 3 piano concerto. It was definitely a no-nonsense disc. The soundtracks were available only in PCM 5.1 and 2.0 It was somewhat enjoyable but it brings to me my woes with classical music. It's great. It went from soft to deafening. But part of it simply does not sound like real music to me. The grand piano was a great example. on this recording I was able to hear every note but it simply didn;t sound like a real piano. The word that came to mind was somewhat thin and lacked weight. Almost like it was playing in the next room. Whenever instruments played I couldn't see into the soundstage - it was presented as flat and any depth portrayed in it was vague and diffuse. In fact the 2.0 PCM track sounded worse through the XDA-1 than the 5.1 downmix did. The 5.1 downmix had some trickery involved and I could identify the phantom center speaker etc and there was some "enhancements" to the sound to give it more weight etc.
But it is frustrating when I'm consistently listening to classical music that lacks depth in their soundstage and usually confined to left and right. Some things come to mind.... is it a problem with multi-micing huge stages and remixing them? Maybe it's my ps3 that's the weak link? It can't seem to output anything above 48 khz via SPDIF even if it's PCM.
Today I get to do something exciting..... listening tests with multiple amps including a XPA-2, a mini-x, a crown, and a NAD sourcing through a Jolida Tube DAC. Promises to be exciting!
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Post by garbulky on Jul 21, 2013 11:21:30 GMT -5
So remember that last post just a day ago ^^^^ I got to listen to this exact blu ray just a few hours later on a massive 105 inch screen and guess what. The mix was just right. It's perspective was meant to be that of an amphitheater like seating rather than the view that you would get from my smaller tv. So same mix, just a different picture changed my view.
In other news.... I have in my possession thanks to a good friend... An ATS panel!! Very exciting. So far I tried it on the corner of the front wall and man that thing DOES absorb the sound. But the sound felt slightly unbalanced. So what I did was instead of mounting it behind my tv as I felt the benefits may be taken out due to the tv being in front of it, I mounted it right behind my couch on the rear wall. It's too soon to tell but I sure as heck enjoyed the sound. Very involving and there were some improvements but hard to tell what at this point. The sound was so different. the best I can say is that on dynamic swells it felt cleaner. Needless to say, looks like I may have to save up long and hard to buy more of these panels.
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Post by aliminas on Jul 21, 2013 16:57:11 GMT -5
PS3 to this day is a good source. It's interesting how differently sized picture altered your perception of surround recording.. I never managed to make Crown amps work for me, perhaps latest models are well different. They do good job as sub amps though.
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Post by garbulky on Jul 21, 2013 17:41:30 GMT -5
PS3 to this day is a good source. It's interesting how differently sized picture altered your perception of surround recording.. I never managed to make Crown amps work for me, perhaps latest models are well different. They do good job as sub amps though. I have a ps3. Even though it's analog outs aren't worth it for hifi purposes I do like its HDMI video output. But I only have a small HDTV to reference it with.
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Post by pedrocols on Jul 21, 2013 20:09:54 GMT -5
Also thought I'd update with another new-ish addition to the audio family. Much thanks to a friend of mine. Vintage Paradigm Bookshelves. Note the uh, acoustic treatment on top. Can you tell I'm married? They are a lot bigger than they look in the picture. I hope to use it in a different room as a secondary system for teaching. It still needs an amp, I was thinking of a lepai. You need a new camera .
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Post by garbulky on Jul 21, 2013 20:12:22 GMT -5
Also thought I'd update with another new-ish addition to the audio family. Much thanks to a friend of mine. Vintage Paradigm Bookshelves. Note the uh, acoustic treatment on top. Can you tell I'm married? They are a lot bigger than they look in the picture. I hope to use it in a different room as a secondary system for teaching. It still needs an amp, I was thinking of a lepai. You need a new camera . Hehehe...tell me about it. I don't think it even qualifies as a camera! It's one of those cheap things on the back of a phone.
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KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 9,929
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Post by KeithL on Jul 22, 2013 10:00:34 GMT -5
Within it's "price and power class", the 15/channel TA2020-based Lepai is an excellent performer (and actually sounds quite good). Hehehe...tell me about it. I don't think it even qualifies as a camera! It's one of those cheap things on the back of a phone.
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Post by garbulky on Jul 22, 2013 12:47:57 GMT -5
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Post by garbulky on Jul 25, 2013 8:45:45 GMT -5
I managed to get some of the beatles newly remastered discs the 2009 stuff. Here's a quick review. So far it's promising. I don't know if I can hear a massive difference just yet. But overall there is some better clarity in the separation of instruments. Not a ton of bass. There is a "digital" sense of sound to the voices and instruments but not much different from the stuff already released before. By digital I mean it's not quite real. Maybe it's the recording but there is that artificial sense to it. Best I can describe it is you know when people "clean up" digitized records by removing hiss and all that and the result seems to take out some important audio information? Also would have hoped to see a bit more dynamics. But the added clarity on the mid range does help a good bit to separate the instruments. Especially in the orchestra sections. It's easier to hear the distortion on the beatles recorded voices easier on this one. As I listen longer it does grow on me.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 12:00:31 GMT -5
GB, I have a copy of MMT on DVD-Audio that sounds pretty darn good. I can hook you up with a source for a tremendous amount of hi-res/surround sound recordings, shoot me a PM if interested...
-RW-
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Post by garbulky on Aug 1, 2013 23:31:37 GMT -5
Warning: RANTY MCRANT RANT ALERT FROM AN APPLE NEWBIE who only knows windows! I went to help a lady use her newly aquired macbook pro. Being pretty decent at windows knowledge, it was the biggest frustrating pain in the a double s to figure out anything. At least intuitively. My frustrations summarized. Most of them all stemmed from the dock and intepreting it and how to operate and figure out their file system and system control panels. 1. Maximizing felt tedious as there really wasn't a maximize button. 2. Figuring out which programs were running. I still couldn't. I had a general idea but no obvious thing sticking out. And figuring out how to switch to them. Figuring out which "window" was actually highlighted. 3. figuring out where exactly a folder is. And "users" did not count as a folder location for me. 4. Where are the programs other than safari. 5. No idea how to easily shut down a program or properly shut down a computer (it felt more like a hibernate mode than anything). 6. Scrolling was weird. 7. Windows weren't clearly outlined at times. Sometimes they were. 8. The ladys eyes simply couldn't see the tiny icons and tiny maximize minimize buttons. 9. Safari looked like a clock. e-mail looked like an eagle (we both missed the postage stamp). Only thing that looked obvious was W was word and P was powerpoint. We spent three hours so far figuring out that apple locks onto their programs with an apple id and the lady had apparently created two or three of them. Making her programs mainly OSx lion invalid and therefore it wouldn't install. This frustration would not have happened with a windows device - well at least with a windows 7 and older Can't speak for windows 8 and their skydrive and store thang. I haven't felt like that big of an idiot in a long while. I was about as clueless as the lady I was trying to help!
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Post by boomzilla on Aug 2, 2013 4:36:34 GMT -5
Gar - Going from a PC to a Mac is like a fish used to fresh water trying to swim in the ocean. There was, for me, a two MONTH learning curve before I became as fluent in Mac as I was in PC. I almost decided it wasn't worth it. In the end, it was, but the process of switching was painful.
Some of the good things about Mac include:
1. The look and feel of the interface is highly customizable via the "Accessibility" icon in the System Preferences area 2. You don't have to keep cleaning and tweaking the OS to prevent it from slowing down 3. The Apple store offers free newbie classes 4. The local Mac users group (BRMUG) meets at the Goodwood library at 6:30 every 3rd Thursday of the month
As to "This frustration would not have happened with a Windoze device..." I beg to differ. It may not have happened for YOU, but others have equally frustrating experiences with Microsoft systems.
Any time you have Mac questions, e-mail me. I'll be happy to chip in.
Boomzilla
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