Lies!


.

My unit has at least ten different settings plus 'AFD Auto'. Different programs, it seems, are encoded in different formats, so they all have their place. It takes a trained ear to distinguish between some of them but with practice I'll be an expert soon! There is one called C.ST.EX B (Cinema Studio EX B) or "Kim Novak Theater" (I'm serious) that I have yet to find anything coded for, but I'm sure it's out there somewhere!

BTW, Why do you want to be banned? Trust me, it ain't what it's cracked up to
be!!

I can understand the cost issue. I got lucky and had a friend on the industry who got me a nice Grado Signature line cartridge at insider cost. If it weren't for him, I'd still be on a V-15 or something (not that those are that bad). I had a PS Audio moving coil pre and Ortofon MC cart... interesting sound. Not super high-end or exotic by any means, but nice. I like the Grado better.

I have seen pics of massive horn systems online like the one you describe. One fellow had the concrete horn cast into the foundation of his house and was constantly tweaking the high-end horns. That's cool but WAY too tweaky for me. I used to get my jollies tuning and hot-rodding old horn speakers, but I prefer to spend my time listening to the music now that my system sounds good and is just "plug & play." It was fun fiddling with different crossovers and damping material, etc..., though!

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

I did steam engines for a while. B&W 650# 840F superheated, modified D-type boiler powering DeLevalle turbines. Burned NSFO but later switched to JP-5.

Also steamed M-type boilers burning NSFO. Modified D was much mo bettah. More responsive and more forgiving, especially on the superheated side.

I always wanted to run a locomotive. Pushing a ship through water was cool, but a big steaming locomotive at 70 or 80 MPH would be a lifetime charmer.

Never steamed a stationary facility. What's the point? Oh wait, I did too. It was a 150# wet steam boiler firing natural gas for cooking chicken parts back into chicken feed.

This is gonna toss some of the vinyl purists into the realm of denial but I've been ever so occasionally recording my LPs to a hard drive and using a digital doo-dad and a couple of different recording packages to help the process, Where an mere CD is recorded at 16-bit with a sampling rate of about 350 bps, the doo-dad records at 24-bit and with a sampling rate of a whopping 1500+ bps. The end result is indistinguishable from the original LP. I've even left the noise of the needle dropping into the groove just for the effect.

As luck has it, the vast majority of my LPs were never played more than once or twice before, as right from the beginning I adopted the habit of recording a new LP to tape on the first play. The end result is wonderful. Its like opening a time capsule from about 30 years ago!

So far I've recorded some vintage Yes, Iron Butterfly, Chic Corea/Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Crusaders, Ray Charles, Milt Jackson, Stan Gets, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, several classic recordings including some Gregorian Chants and also some vintage Jethro Tull.

I gotta tell youz vinyl heads, to run don’t walk and get a good high fidelity device to digitize yer gems. The sound quality right down to the finest nuances is all there, plus unlike other recording media there is no perceptible noise added.

But get a large hard drive. When I started the process I thought 80 GB would be more than enough. I ran outta space a few months ago and still have about 40 LPs to record…

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

That's very interesting. You then send the signal from a sound card into a pre-amp? Is there any quality vinyl available?

Jorg

The sound card isn’t used. The digital doo-dad sends the output via USB port to the hifi pre-amp, which has a digital signal input. Here’s a reference to the doo-dad... http://www.zzounds.com/item--MDOTRANSIT

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

There's always something that you didn't count on, and in my case I overlooked a VERY important component to my new system. When I was preparing the shipping box for storage, I noticed a plastic bag with a cable in it. No ordinary cable mind you, this one has ORANGE ends on it. Investigating further into the owners manual I find that this is a supplied digital co-ax cable! Now you can only imagine my embarrasment to realize that I only thought I was listening to digital when the sorry truth is that I was listening to digital enhancement through analoge patch cords!! So now I got to go back and unlisten to two weeks worth of sound and then begin anew to REALLY listen to digital!!! Whew, this digital stuff is SO complicated!

I wish that there were an Optical connector you could just plug into your head and receive TRUE digital signals! (they do still call them signals don't they?)

I have some very very bad news, the digital co-ax cables aren’t nearly as good or clean as the digital optical cables, so you are still wrestling with old, impure and 2nd rate technology.

Also I recently saw a reference to a device that permits input of video to the brain in a way that bypasses the eyes. I’ll see if I can dig up the article

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Eh? That's the exact opposite of my experiences. I have been playing with hi-end audio for some time now, and the pricier DACs rarely even bother with an optical digital interface. It's always coax or some sort of locking or balanced type connector. Maybe that's changed in the last couple of years (???)

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

Eh? I musta forgot an emoticon, ‘cuz it was a not a suitably obvious attempt at humor. I read somewhere that the only difference between coax digital and digital optical was the length of cable run. Are there other criteria?

Unrelated but oddly related all the same, here’s the article I mentioned above:


http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.games/04/07/sony.brain.reut/index.html

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"