Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/18/21 in all areas

  1. Warm here....should take the Bubble for a top down spin. Experimenting on car window cleaning recently. First alcohol and water. Next vinegar and distilled water. Third 2 drops of Dawn and distilled water. Microfiber cloth with each. Happiest with #3 but now I read they make a waffle microfiber cloth that's better. Saw a guy on youtube use a clay bar on the windows so I may try that as I already have a few😑 Want to play with my new preamp but it resides at my house and I don't. The house share person stays up till two and sleeps till 11am😙 Well at least I can look at a photo of it........
    5 points
  2. Hi, @Mossy bottom Souvenirs memories, I had a beautiful LP12 in 1980: with a Lurné arm and a beautiful Dynavector Karat Rubis, it was an extraordinary ensemble at the time. Congratulations on your beautiful set up: turntable, arm, cartridge 🧡
    5 points
  3. I am the opposite, I just want a taste, or three but definitely not all, way to dangerous for me.
    5 points
  4. This is such a beautiful album Takes a few listens to have all the intricate notes to be absorbed, but well worth it A recommended listen to all - when time allows Artist - Steve Hackett Title - Voyage Of The Acolyte Album ID - https://www.discogs.com/release/1433178-Steve-Hackett-Voyage-Of-The-Acolyte
    5 points
  5. you can send it me.... I will tell you all about !
    4 points
  6. I am a devoted Nelson Pass follower and read and watch most every I can find that he has done and does. He has said that there is a difference and improvement in sound with boutique cables but minimal. Where the rubber meets the road has the most benefit, the amplifier. Sure one can dive into the world of seeking the next fraction of and inch but that will cost much more for just a bit of difference. He also says hearing is a very complicated subject that we do not fully understand and no two people hear exactly the same much as no one has the same fingerprints. He used a friend to test his amplifiers before he died that could hear the difference between negative phase 2nd harmonics and positive phase 2nd harmonics. A feat I would never be able to hear. Something most would never be able to hear unless one has exceptional hearing and probably training to do so. Engineers see things different then the average person. Becoming an audio engineer is not an easy task and is to be admired as I do. Take the "Crash course electronics and PCB design by Udemy" and get a taste of what is involved becoming and engineer. https://www.udemy.com/course/crash-course-electronics-and-pcb-design/ I am glad we have an engineer on this forum giving his opinions being most engineers do not have or take the time for social media platforms. One side will never win when talking about what one hears and the other does not. Reminds me of talk between vinyl vs digital. I prefer vinyl thinking I can hear a difference between the two.
    4 points
  7. If it wasn't for the passionate engineers you wouldn't have the great gear you have, it is practically a known rule that THD and "RMS" whatever is meant by that (I think you mean power and low distortion) is not indication of how an amplifier will actually perform or sound good. We are the ones taking it further and making all the correlations between what we hear and the in and out characteristics of a device. I can't speak for others, I only wish to help explain the mechanisms behind the gear that way there people can become more educated consumers. Engineers that dismiss correlations like low THD isn't an end all spec to weigh an a devices prowess, but it should be on the list as it shouldn't be ignored either are just as guilty as the audiophiles that dismiss psychological influence as part of the equation. Cables are of course important, many are on the right track that purchase good quality products at a fair price knowing the point of diminished returns. Hell I don't care if you have so much money to burn that you just need somewhere to spend it, but at the end of the day just acknowledge what it still is, a conductor with predictable equivalent models that adhere to the laws of physics just like everything else. I have mentioned many times that you can hear a difference with examples and explanations. Education is paramount for consumers, wouldn't you like to know that it may not be the conductor making the sound change but the RC network the company hides inside the speaker cable to change the loading on your amplifier? If not that's fine, ignorance can be bliss or hey not everyone cares how things work but if we are going to jump on the internet and discuss these things people will read it and so more information is always best in my book. When someone says speaker cables really smoothed out my harsh bright horns so these $5,000 speaker cables are the best upgrade ever, huge difference!! Wouldn't it be best if everyone knew it was just the $1 worth of resistors and capacitors hidden in the cable that made the sound difference and anyone with $1 can try this on ANY of their cables to see if it improves harsh treble? I personally think that is best for everyone in the hobby to make everyone's life better and easier. It is overwhelming to think that you can only find what is good for you by trial and error, this is the approach many take. Read a review, talk on a forum or two, purchase or take a demo home and listen. The combinations are endless. I prefer to deduce everything down to equivalent models with input and output characteristics. Make correlations between these characteristics and what I hear, or what everyone hears for that matter in regard to "good sound". Then find the best way to achieve the goal with least amount of effort and waste.
    4 points
  8. There have been many jokes about that, from just the names of speakers. MCM 1900 MWM Magnificent woofing machine or Motengators Heresy Cornwall .
    4 points
  9. I hope this isn’t as bad as it sounding and somehow instead something Gil is able to recover from in time. I have always appreciated and respected Gil’s contributions to this forum and especially his technical abilities and knowledge. I hope and pray the best for you my friend…!!! miketn
    4 points
  10. I contacted them via PM and am willing to help. I could probably store some gear in hopes that Gil will recover and be able to enjoy it in the future.
    3 points
  11. I agree, and it all comes down to what you want to do. Code developer, game developer or user? You might need a machine at this level. I am a code and automation developer for some of the largest companies globally. If all you do is browse the web and watch videos, a tablet is perfect. We have both, and use both daily.
    3 points
  12. I don't see why you had to resort to personal insults, smiley face notwithstanding. Trust me, we engineers know a whole lot more about signals than THD and RMS, and we put it to work every day. We notice the things that people hear (or at least claim to hear), and we try to figure out why they hear them (assuming that they actually do). That is why sound quality continues to improve all the time. We recognize that there are things that we should but don't measure, and once we figure out what they are, we measure them. I have no problem with people attributing sonic differences to "things that we don't yet understand", though I do have a problem with attributing huge sonic differences to them -- if the effects were that large we would have noticed and investigated them long ago. But for anybody to claim that there is magic involved is naive. Attributing things that one doesn't understand to magic belongs in the Dark Ages.
    3 points
  13. At least you checked and caught it. So many people don’t, so they type up sentences that are beyond ambiguous, they’re more like oxymorons, so you have no idea what they’re trying to say. You know, something like “Bob Dylan and Neil Young can really sing well, so I never listen to them.” Say what? As for Neil Young, I always thought he couldn’t sing, until I heard him on a DVD, Live At Massey Hall 1971. His singing has subtleties in it that I’d never heard before, and that don’t show up on the CD. His piano and acoustic guitar playing also sounded better than I had ever remembered.
    3 points
  14. wanted to check in with an update... finally got those polyester caps in the correct values and installed on homebrew type AA crossovers. The difference was very apparent right away. But it took awhile to start processing what the differences were that I was hearing from the ALK universal XO's. And now it's impossible not to hear the difference between the two. I have gone back and forth twice between the two and its amazing how subtle, and yet striking, the difference is. The ALK's are more transparent than the AA's with a very clear top end and mid section. The AA's seem to me to be a more lively feel to them, more of the band in the room thing. They were warmer, and though a little less articulate than the ALK's, the AA's just have a very pleasant and fun sound. And I swear the AA's gave more bass... though maybe thats just me. The ALK's were very articulate and clear. The differences between the two remind me of my experience rolling 12AX7 driver tubes in my integrated amp recently. The AA's are like the Mullards, warm and luscious and the ALK's are more like the Telefunken's with a sweet clear tone. I guess the AA's ended up being just what I hoped they would be... kind of more of that vintage hifi thing compared to the ALK's. But there is no clear winner... really like them both for different reasons and my favorite XO's are the one ones I'm listening to at the time. I guess I'll go back and forth for awhile, happily. Might start looking at the tweeter upgrade now... never ending. thanks for all the help!
    3 points
  15. Hi George, How are you! Yes, Good eye. Well Tempered Tone Arm, and my trusty Benz. Well done, you!
    3 points
  16. I am doing research on hard drive speeds, and seeing just how fast I can get drives to read and write data. Faster loading times for regular software, faster games. I had to replace my old computer which had a major hardware issue. It was freezing up constantly, even after I underclocked it by 50%. Because of the chip and tech shortage right now, it's darned near impossible to buy a top tier video card. The only option I had was to purchase a "pre-built" machine with the bones that I wanted, i.e. the right motherboard, CPU, case, and most importantly the GPU / Video card. Ram and other small parts are easily replaceable, which I have done. So I said goodbye to the old i7 4770k with dual GTX 770's, and hello to my little friend: Processor :: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Processor 24 cpu cores (24X 3.7GHz/64MB L3 Cache) Memory :: 16GB [8GB x 2] DDR4-3200MHz RGB Replaced with 128GB [32GB x 4] DDR4-3600MHz ARGB (more on this and why this much is needed in a bit) Storage :: 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Video Card :: GeForce RTX 3080 - 10GB GDDR6X (VR-Ready) Motherboard :: ASUS PRIME X570-PRO ES W/ WiFi So on with the story. As everyone knows, the bottlenecks in any computer system have always been around the storage solutions. Floppy disks gave way to hard drives, then on to SSD's, and recently there came the M.2 drives, each generation getting much faster than the one prior. I was once given a 1.5TB high voltage SCSI array (high end server hardware!) directly out of a business server room. It had 15 drives in a RAID 5 configuration to reach that storage size. I took it home happily, because 1.5TB hard drives weren't even available in the mid 1990's! I ran it for a couple of months, and then realized that the array cost me over $200 a month in electric bills. All by itself. Buhbye. A while back I had purchased 5 Samsung Pro 256GB SSD drives (solid state, no spinning platters) from a friend on the forum. I decided to add them into the new machine as a RAID 5 striped array. All 5 drives are used as one "logical" drive, with each one only having to read and write 1/5th of the data. This means that you can read and write up to 5 times faster than a single drive on a SATA6 port (this varies in the real world, but is a good starting point in describing a raid drive). Additionally, I added a 4TB old style hard drive with spinning platters for data and some other items that will be shown below. And now let's get on with the speed testing, and I will show you the results from the slowest to the fastest (The last item is an eye opener, no doubt!). First up, I tested an old USB 2.0 30GB thumb drive on the new system: (Here are what the codes mean: SEQ means sequential reads/writes, RND means random reads/writes, 1M is 1MB file size for the reads/writes, RND4k means random reads/writes of 4k in size) Traditional hard drives until recently could only read and write at 50MB per second, and that is only if you had a decent one... A USB 2 drive is about half that speed, as you can see. The next drive up is a new USB2 1TB stick, which is worse than the older one above: Next in line is the 4TB hard drive: (with the advent of SATA6, hard drive speeds more than doubled!) Now here comes some better speed. The M.2 NVMe drive that came with the system: (M.2 NVMe is a small board, not much bigger than a thumb drive that attaches on top of newer motherboards. They have a direct interface with the CPU, cutting out all of the traditional slowdowns by running all of the data through the motherboard chipsets) As you can see, the data transfer rates are now in the GB per second range (1,000 x MB), instead of merely measuring in sub 150MB speeds. This is over 20 times faster than the old style hard drives!  Here are the numbers for the SSD RAID 5 array. Better than the M.2 NVME, but not by a whole lot:  Still, 2.6GB of sustained transfer speeds is amazing. Now, as a real world test, I copied an 80GB file from the M.2 NVMe drive to the raid array: 1GB per second (a real world 1 Gigabyte transfer rate is kinda mind blowing, as the "modern" wired networks only transfer 1 gigabit per second!) Now comes the biggest, baddest disk transfer speeds I have ever seen! There is a piece of software available that allows you to portion out the RAM on your computer, making it into a functional "hard drive". It's called RAMDisk, and if you have enough RAM on your system, you can utilize it for some amazing storage and transfer speeds. This is why I spent the extra $550 dollars on the ram upgrade, and $21 for the personal use RAMDisk. http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk RAMDisk - Software that Accelerates, Protects, Optimizes - Server Memory Products & Services - Dataram An affiliate (referral) program is a terrific way to earn some extra cash online. If you have a website, blog, social media, etc. then you can quickly and easily begin earning money. memory.dataram.com   Here's the weird thing: I purchased the RAMDisk Extreme upgrade, which supposedly raises your RAM drive allocation to 64GB. It did not limit me to that size, but instead allows me to use as much of my RAM as I like. I don't think that they intended this, and I sure as hell am not going to tell them they screwed it up!  I apportioned a hard drive in RAM that is 80GB of storage, leaving my system with 48GB of usable RAM for the operating system.  It doesn't sound like much, but I can load 6 or 7 of my favorite games on it, and enjoy the fastest machine possible for my budget. Anyone familiar with computers knows that your RAM disappears when you shut your computer off. This software writes all new or changed data to a file on an actual disk drive, backing up the RAMDisk in real time. When your system starts, it automatically loads the drive back into your RAM.  Here are the speeds that I achieved today with the new RAMDisk:  14.4 and 12 Gigabytes per second transfer speeds? Are you freakin' kidding me?? Now my mind really was blown. I loaded several of my favorite games on the new ram drive. Portal 1 and 2. Half Life 2. Quake 2 RTX. Pinball Arcade. They loaded in a blink of an eye. Even level changes were darned near instantaneous. Just incredible. I also moved my "Temporary Internet Files" to a folder on this drive to speed up web browsing. Anyway, just thought you would like to see some real world options, so that the next time you are either building or buying a system you can make more informed decisions. Oicu p.s. Here are some other ram disk software options: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/12-ram-disk-software-benchmarked-for-fastest-read-and-write-speed/
    2 points
  17. In the end that is what it is all about - fun & enjoyment. Having multiple crossovers for a speaker is like having multiple amps or speakers or anything else audio related.
    2 points
  18. Thank you. Although many do not understand or accept this reality it is nevertheless the truth. And also some people do not like horn loaded loudspeakers. Some do. I am in the second group. The freedom from excessive IM distortion and the dynamics that horns are capable of just do it for me.
    2 points
  19. You are not viewing this correctly. If your woofer has 10% THD it doesn't matter what source or amp you use that speaker will always be the limiting factor. You can't increase or decrease your speaker performance, it is what it is no matter what and the transducer distortion will always greatly out weigh anything else in the chain even with low fidelity equipment.
    2 points
  20. & I found denatured alcohol worked really well on maple syrup. It came out of the sugar maples that a doofus planted next to the driveway where I grew up! Just didn't make sense in south Charlotte, blocks from where the Corvette club met every year the week of the big September race.
    2 points
  21. I received my Schiit Audio Aegir amp about 2 hours ago. I have a pair of Klipsch LaScala speakers. My previous amp was an Inspire Hot Rod KT66 tube amp built by Dennis Had(8 watts) and my pre-amp is a McIntosh C2500 with Sovtek 12AX7LPS tubes. Within the first couple minutes I could tell that the Aegir was a noticeable improvement over the Inspire Hot Rod tube amp, even though the tube amp sounds very nice. The more I listen to my system with the Aegir, the more I want to listen to it, very nice sounding.
    2 points
  22. Bon ami works great on stubborn glass stains. Should not scratch glass but just in case test in a inconspicuous area.
    2 points
  23. I hear LaScala's are PA speakers a lot and it is a crock of s**t. Same drivers and horns are K'horns with a 2 fold vs a 3 fold horn as in the K'horn. So why in the world would anyone think they are just PA speakers and K'horns are home speakers. Possibly because they were introduced as a PA speaker by PWK but found favor among serious listeners wanting to save a few bucks over K'horns. Missing something like 1/3 octave on the bottom end but these days with cheap subs it is no big deal. If you have to crank them up before they come alive it is in the crossover. I am using a simple 1st order crossover ditching the autotransformer using discrete L-pads for attenuation and mine fill the room at the lowest volume one can listen with. You hear this a lot with those that buy the steep crossover networks from Al. Using steep networks one has to crank them up before they come alive. PWK favored simple 1st order networks at the beginning and used an autotransformer due to the low powered amplifiers for the time to save a few milliwatts.
    2 points
  24. I can see why people would draw the conclusion that a power cable would make a difference, it is bringing power to your equipment right? The better it can do this the better the amp works right? Totally reasonable assumptions of deduction and logic. Until you understand exactly how your power supply works and then it makes zero sense. Let's think about your 120v household power. Does it remain the same 24/7? Hardly, in fact it jumps around as much as 8%. Not to mention noise and harmonic distortion brought in on the line also. All a power cable can do is increase or decrease it's resistance by conductor size, no other variable in the model can effect anything. For changing loads within the amplifier you will get a drop across the resistance of the cable, more drop (loss) the more current, so ideally you want a large enough conductor to not drop much across it. Still with me? Ok, well run the numbers and you will see the amount of drop is nothing compared to the normal voltage fluctuation of the main power normally that the cable can never change. The cable cannot change the noise or the harmonic distortion either. We engineers know all of this so we design the power supply to not even care about what is happening on the mains or from the mains power. The active components in your gear modulate the DC power supply, that's it, that's literally all we are doing. We make the DC supply from the AC and if you have ever looked at the 120v AC 60Hz sine wave on a scope before and after the rectifiers you would see why nothing on the mains side would ever matter. First we filter out the garbage on the AC side anyway but the rectifiers are grossly non-linear loads, they chop up the 120v 60Hz which produces nasty harmonic distortion, but it doesn't matter because we filter all that out also. After filtering and smoothing we then REGULATE (if a good design) the DC supply in the device so no matter the load we have low impedance source that remains a constant voltage no matter the load. There is absolutely no way a power cable can do anything that many people claim they hear. The only thing the power supply will not fix is if there is too much distortion on the line or DC, that makes the power transformer very unhappy. I would love for anyone to show any sort of correlation between output of amp and it being different with different power cables.
    2 points
  25. You don't. But if you pick a website hosting service and build your own VPN like I did in my post, you are reasonably certain that everything is okay. It is mildly complicated, but if you follow the guide step by step it will work just fine. As for network security, yes it does form another layer of protection for your private network. Due to the fact that you are only using the VPN connection, it makes it darned near impossible for someone to crack your network because all of your communication only happens on the VPN outlet. They would have to break into that machine, and then into your router from there. Could it be done? Possibly, if you had a team of the best spend a LONG time. Other targets are much easier, and attackers will move on.
    2 points
  26. You might want to try this. Slightly mustard/vinegar tangy, its been on almost all my grilled sandwiches for the last 50 years. Its also good as a baste on grilled chicken. Mike
    2 points
  27. I can't speak to DirecTV streaming but I have been a DirecTV customer for probably 16 of the last 19 years that I've lived away from the ability to have broadband internet service. Those other three years I had Dish. I've also owned three different houses, apartments too many to count. Prior to DireTV I subscribed to cable TV in at least four states. All the major providers including Comcast. Putting aside cost because it has been so many years, I can emphatically say DirecTV has the best picture quality and sound. Far beyond any previous cable TV I paid for. Very small outages due to weather which are very predictable....look out the window. Unlike cable TV when they seem to go out for no apparent reason. Customer service sucks across the board. Is satellite DirecTV an option?
    2 points
  28. Prepping for installation of ; Wanna hep?
    2 points
  29. I have always felt when someone has a preconceived opinion before buying something and then shelling out big bucks for it they will make themselves believe it will sound better. Even if expensive cables do improve the sound it will be minimal at best. In other words money better spent on something else. That being said I have no problem with someone spending their money on whatever they choose if it makes them feel better.
    2 points
  30. so what's the dope on hope ...lol.. I think PKW was on to something... subliminal messages
    2 points
  31. "if I can't have it all, just a taste'll do"
    2 points
  32. My 1972 Heresy speakers dominate our living room. Apologies for the messy look, but I listen to music all the time... Listen to CDs, streaming, and mostly vinyl records.
    2 points
  33. Nope it's Hope, but have been to Jamaica many times, it's somewhat safer than it was in the past when a drug lord ran the country.
    2 points
  34. Gee, I dunno. It is my understanding that the K-77 has always been a handpicked, rebranded T-35 from EV. Therefore, you should be able to get a new diaphragm. I had to lighten up your pictures. It appears this is a bass refex box. The woofer has a wizzer cone. The only other speaker is the tweeter. Is that an oil filled cap? I noticed that Cabinart in 1955 sold several variations on the Rebel horn. What you have doesn't seem to be that. However, there is also mention of a Rebel-Ortho which in context does not seem to have a bass horn and might have been a reflex. It is supposed to be a 3 way though, and yours is not. Perhaps yours is a home built unit. Are there any labels, brands, serial numbers, or the like, hidden on the box itself? Gil
    1 point
  35. PM sent Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
    1 point
  36. I believe in the scientific method to understand the universe. That said, we are learning more about subtle forces every year. Understanding the universe is a ongoing process. Also, psychology is very powerful. If someone believes their system sounds better with a 500$, or 5000$, cable, then does it? My wife thinks our Alexa sounds great, I don’t. Who is right?
    1 point
  37. I'm not sure I'd completely agree with that sentiment. Although the loudspeaker is very important, the source and amplification are almost neck and neck with speakers. I have heard some amps with horns and my conclusion was if that was the only amp available, I would be seeking out a different speaker. Fast forward to a different amplifier and the sound is transformed. Now I won't say that speaker cables and interconnects will make or break a system. But when you get all the other pieces of the puzzle right, they are the icing on the cake and allow you to hear better what you paid for. Shakey
    1 point
  38. If only I were going to Destin soon.....
    1 point
  39. just like when I wake up in the morning....
    1 point
  40. Yessirre George. It's a chore sometimes! I just ordered 4 pounds of Honey Processed (unwashed) beans from a great place in Costa Rica. Last time I did this it got here quicker that what I ordered from less than 100 miles away at the same time!
    1 point
  41. This is a myth. Everything you hear is without a question measurable since it resides in our predictable Newtonian physics world. The key is knowing what to measure. The only thing that cannot be measured is psychological which is what accounts for 90% of what people hear, it's all in their minds not their ears.
    1 point
  42. Best Wishes to Gil . FWIW @opusk2k9 is as knowledgeable about buying and selling Klipsch as you will find. He is also a straight shooter.
    1 point
  43. Beautiful wood under the black finish.
    1 point
  44. Transcendent Sound "The Masterpiece" 300B OTL. Purchased from a seller on usaudiomart. 2015 build with a few upgrades. Tubes are 2 Psvane 12au7s and 2 Shuguang Treasure Black Bottle 300B-Z. THD less than 0.1%, gain 12db, SN 100 dBA. Will be paired with an ATI 1502 (150 wpc) in a second system. Listened to 3 CDs (John Lee Hooker, Sonny Rollins, Over The Rhine) yesterday and was PLEASED!
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...