Edgar

If you install Visual Studio native on both of the computers, it should work just fine. Then just keep your development files and projects on the external drive, or better yet, in a revision control repository located completely separate from both computers, and you should be in good shape. If you don't want to invest in two full copies of Visual Studio, there are "express" versions available for free from Microsoft. They do not have full functionality, but there may be enough there for your purposes -- you'll just have to look them over in detail to see. Greg

If you're going to have a docking station, dual monitor, etc., why not just purchase a micro desktop system with its own keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc., and keep that in one of the locations? Configure both the laptop and the micro with identical applications, and keep all of your "working" files on an external hard drive that you can tote around with you. As someone who has developed for both Windows and Mac, I can say with almost certainty that using a Mac for Windows development will be nothing but trouble. (Frankly, while I have no love for Microsoft, I find using a Mac for anything to be nothing but trouble. I've never understood how anybody can get anything useful done on a Mac. But then, I look a lot more like the "I'm a PC" guy in the commercial than the "I'm a Mac" guy.) Greg

Lovely sound, horrible shape! I have a pair myself (the ones shown in the link belong to John Stronczer), and I have spent many long hours trying to design a cabinet that houses them in an aesthetically pleasing manner. But the curved fronts make it very difficult. They can be made to match a Jubilee bottom, as they are almost exactly the same width as the K402. I don't know about the 488. I have a pair of Altec 288. If I remember correctly, they are something like 6½" deep. So that will just make a bad situation worse. Be aware that the measurement microphone needs to be as near the listening height as possible. For typical crossover frequencies in the neighborhood of 500 Hz (wavelength ~2'), an off-axis path length difference can be significant. Greg

Jim and I used that technique in this demo. The surprising thing was that the actual delay was not especially close to what was predicted by the measured distances -- has to do with acoustic centers, propagation velocities, etc. But the technique worked. Greg

There are still the issues of source switching and volume control. Many DACs can switch between multiple sources, but not all of them can drive passive volume controls very well. In such cases, the buffering provided by a preamp can be beneficial.

It's not so much that it's "preferred", and it's certainly not "matched". It's a situation in which poor matches can be identified (high impedance driving low impedance), but just about everything else (low impedance driving high impedance) qualifies as "OK". So 100 Ohm driving 30 kOhm is not intrinsically better than 100 Ohm driving 10 kOhm -- both are just fine under most circumstances.

And as for concerns about standing waves, even if the signal travels through the wire at only 50% the speed of light (it's typically faster than that), at 20 kHz the wavelength is 7500 meters, or about 4.66 miles. Until the length of your interconnect is a signifcant fraction of 1/4 wavelength, transmission line effects don't even exist. Greg

I've often wondered about the circumstances under which popcorn was discovered. A bunch of Native Americans sitting around the fire; one ear of corn accidentally dropped into the flames. "Pop!" "Wow, that ear of corn just exploded!" "What should we do?" "Eat it, of course." "YOU eat it!" "Let's get Mikey ..."

It's a boring Sunday morning, so I've been playing with Hornresp. I found a model for the SPUD here, and experimented with different drivers. I only have info for a handful of 8" drivers, and I found that the SPUD response was really pretty poor with all of them. But when I tried 10" drivers, I found that the flattest SPUD response comes from the Klipsch K41! The Electro Voice EVM10m and DL10x are close behind. (Note that my model assumes a 1W input.) Unfortunately the SPUD is only 9.56" wide on the inside. Also, the K41, EVM10m, and DL10x are likely to be severely excursion-limited. But within their limits the appear to perform very well. Greg

Theory says that two Klipschorn bins in Pi-space (intersection of one wall and floor) will behave exactly the same as one Klipschorn in Pi/2 space (intersection of two walls and floor). Hornresp models it this way, too.

I still remember the Schwinn "Cycling '74" catalog! (In fact, there is a pro audio company named "Cycling '74". The founder of that company told me that he got the name from the 1974 Schwinn catalog.) I still have my Paramount, a 1989 OS model. It is my daily rider.

Many years ago I worked as the counter man in a Schwinn bicycle shop. The shop was in a strip mall, and happened to be a couple of doors down from a laundromat, so we got a lot of walk-ins who were really just killing time while their undies dried. On one particular day a woman wandered into the store, and noticed a Schwinn Continental (at the time ~$130) right next to a top-of-the-line Schwinn Paramount (at the time an astronomical ~$1000). They looked exactly the same to her and, frankly, had she ridden both she would not have been able to discern any difference between them. But she argued with me for a half-hour about the fact that the Paramount, which was obviously exactly the same as the Continental, was such a rip-off. She used phrases like, "The Paramount costing $870 more than the Continental while being not much different has convinced me that they have a flawed business outlook", and, "You have to admit, it's taking advantage of the customer." Afterward she wandered out of the store, never to return, feeling very self-righteous.

Benchmark says that the DAC-1 USB installs as a native plug and play device, requiring no drivers. Exactly what that entails I do not know, but if it means bit-perfect audio, more power to them!

Those are two separate issues. WASAPI and ASIO support are dependent upon drivers written by the sound card manufacturers to interface their hardware to the operating system. The player just sends the audio to whatever output port you direct it to, be it ASIO, WASAPI, DirectSound, etc. I can't help you with players. I write my own ASIO software. I have no experience writing for WASAPI.

Best to search the Web for "bit-perfect audio". The PC was not originally designed to be an audio platform, so getting it to handle audio properly can be quite a challenge.

Unfortunately, this is not necessarily true. It is possible with ASIO or WASAPI, but it does not happen automatically -- you have to set everything up correctly.

Image Ones are not noise canceling (at least, I see nothing that says so on the Web page). Effective noise canceling is difficult, and reduced bandwidth makes it a little easier. The Modes still cover the entire human hearing range.

Some computer motherboards have built-in sound cards, and some of those have optical or coaxial S/PDIF outputs. Similarly, some plug-in sound cards have optical or coaxial S/PDIF outputs. I'm not sure that I understand your question, but the optical or coaxial signal is digital. You need a DAC to convert the signal to analog. That DAC will reside either on the motherboard sound card, or the plug-in sound card, or the external USB or S/PDIF sound card. From what I can see on the Website, it should be fine. If your computer has an S/PDIF output, then you can save $100 by deleting the USB input on the BIFROST.

They're all options in the Control Panel. From the Control Panel window, look for "Audio Devices", or "Sound Devices", or just "Sound" (the actual name varies with the version of Windows that you are using).

It will show up as another sound card. You will be able to select it as the output device, and set its parameters, in the Windows Control Panel or in whatever player you choose, just like any other sound card.

All very true, for metallurgical applications requiring great toughness. I am skeptical about any claims for vacuum tube innards, however. In fact, I am concerned about what might happen to some of those delicate internal parts when brought to such a low temperature -- will they crack due to different coefficients of thermal expansion (contraction, in this case) than the parts to which they are attached? Will they shatter with the slightest jostling? Will the seal around the pins be compromised? Any number of ill effects come to mind, and frankly I just don't know whether they are genuine concerns or much ado about nothing.

I tried it with a tub of Cherry Garcia and got a killer brain freeze.

Markertek Full Compass

More detail, with an example: If you need, say, a 100Hz 3rd order Bessel crossover, then create a 144 Hz 2nd order Butterworth crossover. In the woofer signal path, insert a 132 Hz 1st order lowpass filter after the crossover. In the tweeter path, insert a 132 Hz 1st order highpass filter after the crossover. The combination of the 2nd order Butterworth crossover and the 1st order filters will create a very close approximation to a 3rd order Bessel crossover. For cutoff frequencies other than 100 Hz, just scale accordingly. In general, this technique does not work for higher order Bessel crossovers. It just happens that a 3rd order Bessel filter contains a 2nd order section that is very close to a Butterworth characteristic. Greg

If they offer a 1st order filter after the crossover, then you can cascade a 2nd order Butterworth crossover with a 1st order LPF in the woofer path and with a 1st order HPF in the tweeter path. Greg