Islander

If they're that rough, you might want to wait until a better pair comes along, unless you really want to get involved with a project before you get around to doing some listening. With many things, from speakers to cars to houses, the fixer-upper often winds up costing more than the item in good condition.

A good and healthy attitude, DD, even if it can be difficult at times. As for me, I've given up on worrying. Many years ago, I realized that worrying was unproductive and actually made me less able to deal with whatever crisis was impending. Accordingly, now I just prepare as best I can and deal with what happens. Less stressful and more effective.

Michael had an extreme case (I wonder how they'll try to explain multiple border crossings?), but UPS is trouble more often than not. My Dx-38 arrived this afternoon. I told the dealer specifically to use FedEx, not UPS, but they did anyway, with the shipping guy claiming that nobody told him. The brokerage fee was $66, while FedEx doesn't charge a brokerage fee at all. That was in addition to the shipping charge and taxes, of course. Just to improve my mood, although I asked and was assured that the unit would come with a power cord, it came without one, although the XLR cables that I ordered and paid for were included. Driving across the border to pick something up takes time and money, but you just wind up tired, not pissed off. A fair trade, most of the time.

In Jamaica, the pavement is only a few inches thick and is laid on sand, so once a pothole starts, it spreads to giant size pretty quickly. Riding a motorcycle there is interesting, what with dodging potholes, dumptrucks and buses, most of which hog the road. Most of the rental bikes are in pretty poor shape, as well. But it could be worse. In Asbestos, Russia, the prime industry is asbestos mining, naturally, and it's everywhere and is used for all sorts of things, including filling potholes on the roads. The air in that whole city is full of asbestos dust and the people are not very healthy...

Yeah, all that ink seems crazy to me, but it's really popular with the younger people. I'm a photographer, among other things, and it's really hard to find models around here without tattoos and piercings, often in places I could never justify. As for Bif, she seems like the real deal. She's been singing since the early '90s, with several bands, until she started her own. She's been consistent in her look and has won a Juno Award for her music (sort of like a Grammy in Canada). She recently married a sportswriter in a traditional Indian ceremony. Bif was born in India, the love child of private school teenagers who put her up for adoption and she was raised by the American missionaries who adopted her. As for whether she was a beauty queen who went to the dark side for pose value, it's more like the other way around. According to her bio: Another major event in Bif's life occurred in 1995. After years of rock n' roll self-abuse, Bif made the commitment to go straight edge, the punk rock lifestyle that eschews drugs, drink, meat, and promiscuous carnal activities. "It was after yet another bad relationship with a boy," she explains, "knowing full well that my judgment was always impaired and I was making stupid decisions. Because of my addictive personality, I couldn't just go on the wagon. It had to be a lifestyle change. It had to be something that was almost a religion. I swore I wouldn't get into another destructive relationship, I quit drinking and quit smoking cigarettes and eating red meat. I also felt that I suddenly had a social responsibility, because the kids that were coming to my gigs were really young. I realized that I couldn't be a f****** ******* in public any more! With each passing year my convictions have grown stronger and I've never looked back." (That said, Bif does veer from the strict straight edge orthodoxy in that she refuses - REFUSES! - to give up sex.) Her change in lifestyle only served to increase the power and the passion of Bif's live performances. A dynamic and irrepressible presence both on-and-off-stage, Bif and her band have rocked clubs and theaters across North America, as well as such exotic locales as Berlin, Paris, London, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, Stockholm, and Helsinki.

Well, here in Canada we have Bif Naked, a wild-looking singer, actress and poet who lives the straight edge lifestyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge), without alcohol and drugs. She's very talented and popular. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bif_Naked And a video here: She rides a tank downtown and seems to have a voodoo spell on a rich poser ex-boyfriend in this one:

You're right, oldtimer, today's generation isn't any worse in terms of ratio of burnouts to functional stoners, but the burnouts seem to get more press than they used to. But I guess that's the nature of news. The thousands of airplanes that land safely every day don't get mentioned, but the one that crashes is on the front page. There are more TV channels now and more celebrity magazines with space to fill, so we're hearing about celebrities' lives in greater and greater detail all the time, which seems to be stressing out and ruining some of those very celebrities that keep them in business...

People are always joking about Keith Richards and his habit, but the man does take care of business. How often, if ever, have the Rolling Stones had a no-show? In spite of any drug and alcohol problems in the band, they never forget that they're pros and they come out and do the best show they can, even if it's not as great as it was years ago. They may be stoners, but they're not wasters like some of this new generation that really seem unable to keep it together.

You mean, like this:

For a pair of La Scalas, a Heresy is a good choice for a center. When I put a Heresy II between my Scalas, the timbre match was a noticeable improvement over the previous center speaker. I had to buy a pair of Heresies to get that one, but the price was right and now I have a backup or a rear center on the shelf.

For HT, you'll want a modern AV receiver. Yamaha, Harman Kardon and Denon are probably the big 3 among members, but there are a number of other brands in use as well. Vintage and tube setups are nearly all dedicated 2-channel music listening systems. As for the Jubilees, they sound great, but they really are about the size of refrigerators. La Scalas are about the size of washing machines (they're great, I have a pair) and Heresies are about the size of microwave ovens. Hang around and you'll see what sort of speakers suit various home and budget situations. You can spend a little or a lot, but Klipsch speakers are pretty good value at most price points.

A little gory? It's brutal! Saving Private Ryan is a great movie, but it's kind of tough to watch more than once or twice. As for a suggestion, the movie House of Flying Daggers, Chapter 3: The Echo Game. The scene involves drums arranged on stands in a big circle and almost seems like it was made to be a surround sound demo. Later in the same movie, there's a scene in a bamboo forest with spears flying toward the viewer that's very effective. House of Flying Daggers has lots of impressive sound effects throughout the movie, with wind blowing in the bamboo forest, flying spears, flying arrows, and of course flying daggers, plus it's suitable for general viewing.

Rule #1: NEVER GET RID OF SOMEONE'S STUFF WITHOUT TELLING HIM!!! Some people seem to think that they can decide that a certain item belonging to someone else shouldn't be in their living space, so it's okay to discard or sell it. This kind of "reasoning" defies logic and can only lead to conflict. . If you feel the need to dispose of some of your partner's stuff, please limit it to holey socks and underwear. Anything more valuable than that is a possession that means something to its owner. Secretly getting rid of someone's stuff shows a major lack of respect for that person. Wanting to "downsize" someone's speakers for the sake of the decor may seem like an honourable intention to you, but if it's not discussed and agreed upon first, some really bad feelings wiil be generated. Whew, now that I've cooled down a bit, I can make a practical suggestion. Suggest to your husband that a pair of Heresy IIIs and a subwoofer could provide a sound similar to the Cornwalls that he's been happy with for so long, while taking up less space and being able to go even lower in the bass department. He may well be agreeable to updating to current Klipsch technology. The Heresy IIIs are much smaller than Cornwalls and are well-liked by everyone who's heard them. A birthday surprise is always nice, but when it involves a favourite possession disappearing, well that's playing with fire...

I don't like the sound of the seller's name: "iwin-uloose"

Let us know how much of an improvement the double sidewalls give. I'm thinking of freshening up the appearance of the cabinets of my La Scalas at some point and that would be a logical time to add the second layer of plywood.

Of course music can't change the world, it can only change a few people's minds. It's up to those people to change the world. Two songs affected my life. I raced motorcycles in the mid-1970s, but gave it up when it seemed to be going nowhere. I thought about getting back into it in the early '80s, but I was getting older. Then I heard the song Imagination's Real by The Kinks a number of times, which gave me the confidence to go for it again. As it turned out, I was faster the second time around and had more success, including a couple of seasons in the Canadian pro ranks. I kept it up until my mid-30s when bones became too easy to break. The second song is Don't Dream It, Be It from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. That's been my motto for years and has put me in the mood to go for it many times in many ways. It also helps me to remind myself that "nothing can stop the Duke of Earl". Laugh if you want, but this kind of positive thinking keeps me from putting imaginary roadblocks in front of my goals and has enabled me to do lots of things that my friends thought would be either difficult or impossible. Life's challenging enough. There's no need for anyone to hold themselves back from their worthy goals.

I may not be a Monster Cable fan, but aren't 50-100% markups typical on lots of retail stuff? On furniture, for instance? It seems more glaring on audio cable because prices vary from pennies a foot to thousands of dollars a foot and it's still just copper wire, or silver in some cases. Monster is not the only one with crazy-sounding prices. Does it really cost so much to produce those cables that sell for over $5000 for an 8-foot pair? There are several brands of them, along with lots of magazine reviewers to rave about them. Monster is a bit tricky in that it's hard to find out what wire gauge any of their cables are, making it difficult to compare them with other brands.

So would she be happier if you tipped the 402s on their sides? Much tidier looking... A husband that spends his time and money at home? That's a good thing. Her golf widow friends probably envy her. Y'know, maybe some decorator grille cloth on the fronts of those 904s would bump up the WAF to a tolerable level.

That subcontrabass clarinet must be quite an instrument. I wonder if he ever tried to play the "brown note" on it?

I came across this page today. It shows a really high-end horn system. The bass horns start in the garden and come in throught the wall! http://www.galibierdesign.com/systems_kevin_brooks.html

Undersea visuals and super-mellow music in this conservation video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0142Yt2ItQ This one is fun, too:

And here's us thinking that flat frequency response would give us what the recording engineer was hearing and presumably wanted us to hear...

To get really deep bass from a horn system, the horn has to be huge. Even the $229,000 five-way MAGICO Ultimate system uses a direct radiator for its low bass section. A direct-radiating sub that easily goes down to 25Hz or lower doesn't have to be that big or expensive and can combine well with an otherwise fully horn-loaded system. Info and pix here: http://sixmoons.com/industryfeatures/magico/magico.html A little more info: Standing almost 8 feet tall and weighing over 800 lbs each, the all-aluminum, horn loaded, 5-way active MAGICO "Ultimate" is designer Alon Wolf's latest and most ambitious statement. The 2" thick faceplate with 8" and 20" midrange tractrix horns are machined from solid blocks of 6061-T aircraft grade anodized aluminum. The aluminum surface has a unique treatment that imparts a subtle pearlescent glow to the finished metal. The faceplate houses the upper and lower midrange and high frequency compression drivers, each of which weigh over 50 lbs and have a sensitivity greater than 110dB/W/m. Each trapezoidal midbass horn is constructed of half-inch aluminum reinforced by 56 precisely machined ribs that are hand-welded by skilled craftsmen in Northern California. The low end is handled by an 88dB/W/m sensitive custom Aura 15" featuring a high-energy neodymium magnet structure and a 4" edge-wound aluminum voice coil allowing a 2.5" peak-to-peak cone excursion. Overall frequency response is from 25Hz to 25kHz.

What a woman says: "This place is a mess! C'mon, you and I need to clean, Your stuff is lying on the floor and you'll have no clothes to wear if we don't do laundry right now!" What a man hears: "blah, blah, blah, blah, C'MON blah, blah, blah, blah, YOU AND I blah, blah, blah, blah, ON THE FLOOR blah, blah, blah, blah, NO CLOTHES blah, blah, blah, blah, RIGHT NOW"

Sigur Ros have a DVD called Heima, a documentary of a number of concerts they did in several local venues and at least one grassy field in Iceland. They had just completed a world tour and wanted to give the folks at home a look at what had made them famous, so they did a low-key tour of their own country. The video shows lots of the Icelandic landscape and people and it's a really beautiful place.