Day: April 15, 2005

What on Earth?

What, you may wonder, is this? Well, some years ago I started a Web page of “random rants,” which was frequently noted as being the best thing on my site. It wasn’t updated very often, but the idea I had behind it was pretty much the same idea as the modern “blog,” except of course that other people couldn’t post comments.

So, here are the contents of the old page, along with a bunch of other stuff I’ve written to various places along the way. I’m brand new to all this blogging software, but it seems to work. I’m using WordPress to publish the site and I’m writing entries in MacJournal. I will eventually get around to messing with the themes and adding links to the sidebar and all that jazz, but for now I’ve just been working on getting the posts up. Now if only MacJournal backdated the entries so they didn’t all look like they were written today…

Impression: Apple’s Pages

I’ve had the chance to use it a bit, and so far I like it. It reminds me a little of my all-time favorite word processor, MacWrite Pro, which never got updated for OS X, in that it’s a word processor with an extra bit of page-layout functionality. Not a lot–it’s not designed to compete with Quark or InDesign–but just enough to make it easy to do two-columns with a one-column header or figure without botching it up like Word.

My biggest quibble so far is that it turns on hyphenation by default. Yuck.

I guess the other knock on it is the media browser. Images are tied to the iPhoto library, which doesn’t help me because most of my writing takes figures which are not in file formats supported by iPhoto, like EPS or TIFF or PICT.

But otherwise, well, looks like things are going to be tough for Mariner. Mariner does have some advantages, like more advanced search-and-replace built-ins (e.g., zapping linefeeds) but I can get a lot of that off various Services now. Plus I won’t have to put up with all of Mariner’s drawing garbage when viewing at odd zooms like 110%.

(original date: 2005.02.28)

Hybrid Highlander $avings

(originally posted to Edmunds.com discussion board on 2005.01.14)

Let’s say gas is more like $2.50/gallon, which it now is in some markets, and you have a longer commute, say, you put 15,00 miles/year on the car.
 
20 mpg = 750 gal = $1875/year in gas cost
28 mpg = 535.7 gal = $1340/year in gas cost
 
$535/year savings. In seven years, that’s $3745. If there’s still a tax break when you buy it new (I’m not sure what the status of that is these days), then you’re paying virtually nothing to get all of the aformentioned benefits plus, of course, reduced environmental impact.
 
Obviously, if you live somewhere where gas is much cheaper or put less miles on your vehicle, it makes less finiancial sense, at least purely on gas price. But for some poeple, the math already pretty much works out right now.

Review: Sennheiser HD595

(originally posted to Head-Fi on 2004.06.28)

Hmm, well, I’m sure I’ve mentioned some bits and pieces of this elsewhere, but let me go through my decision process on how I ended up with the 595s, and my impressions now that they’re here.

I was, as you know, running CD780s unamped, though off a decent NAD headphone jack. The CD780s are truly fantastic for the whole $35 I paid but they’re… well, they’re sloppy. Transients aren’t crisp, soundstaging isn’t very good, flabby bass, etc. And the mids are a bit recessed. So, given I picked up a little consulting money recently, I decided it was time to upgrade.

I figured on my current budget I could go for something like a PIMETA and either 580s or fork out extra for 595s. (I didn’t even consider Grados because the Grados I have heard just did not impress me in terms of performance on classical, build quality, and especially comfort. Not sure why I didn’t consider Beyers–I guess I’m just a Senn kinda guy. A year ago I hadn’t even heard of Sennheiser. Another Head-Fi victim! :-p )

Anyway, I went with the 595s over the 580s for two reasons: [1] easier to drive so the PIMETA should be enough, and [2] I do listen to more rock/electronica than I do classical & acoustic, but I do listen to both. I wanted a phone that would be slightly better for rock/electronica while still being tolerable for the other stuff. According to various posts here (including pp312) that’s what the 595s should give–something in between the 580/600 laid-back sound but not quite as bright and aggressive as the Grados. Oh yeah, and I hate y-cables and the 595s have a single cable rather than a y.

So, I got them Thursday and broke ’em in for a couple days and have been listening a bunch this weekend. So far I’m very impressed. The transient issues I was having with the CD780s are totally handled and the soundstage is FABULOUS–I never expected headphones to have this much soundstage! Mids are of coursre much better, as the 595s are very balanced (you’ve been told that before); they handle a wide range of material very well. They are truly stunning on acoustic solo piano: it really sounds like you’re in the room with one; I was quite shocked at how good this was. And yet they are still fun with more aggressive rock/dance music.

If I was going to nitpick, I’d ask for a smidge, and only a smidge, more bass. I find myself wanting to just slightly nudge up the volume knob when I’m trying to get into a bass-heavy piece. That, and the cable seems a bit flimsy–I’d like it to be a little heavier just so it won’t loop on itself and catch on stuff so much.

They are also VERY comfortable, though not quite in the “strap pillows to your head” way that the 780s are. I love that aspect of the Sonys, but even the 780s feel heavy after a while. The 595s don’t go on quite as soft and fluffy like, but they fit on very comfortably and are very light, even over extended periods. They stand up to multi-hour listening better than anything I’ve ever tried.

Of course, take this with some grain of salt; I’ve never seriously listened to the 580s or 600s. Maybe at the meet next month I can have them go head-to-head with 580s or 650s or something.

Nor can I say how they compare to the 555s since I haven’t heard those at all. I went with the 595s over those because a couple folks here said “smoother treble” and to ward off future upgraditis.

Not as direct a comparison as you wanted, but I hope that helps some, blessingx.

My air travel audio rig

(originally posted to Head-Fi on 2004.01.27)

Well, wow. I mean, just wow.

I just got back from a business trip where I got the chance to really put all the pieces of the my “air travel” rig seriously through their paces, because my flight home was ultra-delayed (4 hours). And what I have to say is, while I may not have reached pure headphone Nirvana, but I’m pretty amazed in terms of size/performance:

15Gb 3rd-generation iPod
Sennheiser PXC250 and MX400
Xin SuperMicro Amp

Many will argue that Shure or Ety would be the better choice than the PXC250s, but I really find all forms of canalphone uncomfortable–or maybe just unsettling. Regardless, I don’t like ’em.

The PXC250s have at least OK passive isolation (closed can, can get a decent seal with practice) and very solid noise cancellation circuitry, which handles the pesky airplane noise. The real drawback with these cans is that, at 320 Ohms, they’re tough to drive from a portable, even a relatively high-output one like an iPod (don’t even think about these from a 5mW MD player without an amp).

The solution? The Xin SuperMicro. I only got this recently and haven’t had much of chance to listen, but did let it run down a couple AAAs to burn it in before this trip. It’s so little it slips easily into the case for the PXC250s. And for such a little thing, AMAZING performance! Very neutral, clear highs, tight lows, maybe a very smidge on the bright side (probably the 8620 opamp).

The MX400s are for waiting in the stupid concourse for them to find a plane, since ya gotta be able to hear them announce the two gate changes (grr), you can’t run the PXC 250s. Xin is right, the MX400s really sound a heck of a lot better amped–not so dark. And they, too, fit in the PXC250 case, even with the SuperMicro in there.

And, or course, an iPod (or some other HD-based player) was necessary since between the wait and the actual flight, I think I cleared over seven hours plugged in. I suspect the crossfeed in the Xin helped reduce listening fatigue as well because normally I find it hard to listen that long to phones in one stretch. So my first experience with a crossfeed was a positive one.

So, I wanted to thank all the folks here at Head-Fi, because I never would have heard of, much less bought, the SuperMicro or the PXC250s without this site (though the iPod is what actually got me here).

Oh, and thanks to Sennheiser, Xin, and Apple for making what could have been a miserable wait seem, well, not so bad.

(Just for the record, the playlist: Crystal Method’s Legion of Boom, Deepsky’s In Silico, Thievery Corporation’s Richest Man in Babylon, Soundtrack from The Fifth Element, Tool’s AEnima, my audio test mix, and some other random tracks.)

ESPN on Limbaugh

(originally sent as an email to ESPN on 2003.10.01)

Normally I’m a big fan of ESPN. But the entire Rush Limbaugh thing shows that some people at my favorite network are not very clever and some are spineless (and some probably both).

Under “not very clever,” how can this come as any kind of surprise to anyone there at ESPN? All the anchors and commentators bringing up this incident act all outraged. It’s not like Limbaugh has never said anything like this before; he’s always been a right-wing demagogue and has made numerous racially insensitive remarks in the past. They should have been outraged when Limbaugh was hired to to a FOOTBALL show, someething for which he had zero qualifications and was totally inappropriate. Where was the outrage then? It’s not like Limbaugh being a racist is news–but it was OK before he said it live on ESPN? Not clever.

Second, if the appropriate people at ESPN had any spine, not only would Limbaugh be gone, but the producer or whoever who green-lighted his hiring should very publicly be given the axe–because if he or she didn’t see this coming, then that person really shouldn’t be given so much responsibility.

And if Bodenheimer had any spine, he’d have said something more like “we’re outraged by Limbaugh’s comments, we apologize to McNabb, and we’re idiots for having hired Limbaugh in the first place.” His lukewarm statement doesn’t even bother to disagree with Limbaugh. Why not? Is Bodenheimer just as much of a racist as Limbaugh? Then have the balls to ask Limbaugh to stay. If not, then have the balls to take issue with what Limbaugh said. The watered-down statement that was issued is completely gutless.

I guess the good news overall is that now I can go back to watching Countdown, which I stopped watching because of Limbaugh–except, of course, that’s if I can stand Irvin. At least Irvin has a football background, but he’s an inarticulate train wreck who has no business being on TV. Less time to guys like him and more for Jaws and the amazing “<insert sponsor here> NFL Matchup”!

iPod vs. Minidisc

(originally posted to some forum, maybe iPodLounge, on 2003.07.26)

I’ve been in MiniDisc since 1999, before the MP3 thing really got serious. I never really liked MP3’s because Sony’s ATRAC blows away the “standard” 128 kbps MP3 in terms of sound quality. I had little interest in solid-state MP3 players when they first came around, and while I thought the first iPods looked cool and all, I still wasn’t inclined to switch over. What moved me over was the combination of AAC encoding, reasonable drive sizes, PDA features, and size of the 3rd gen iPods. While they aren’t as good as ATRAC, 160 kbps AAC files encoded with QT’s “best” setting are actually good enough for the places where I tend to use portable players–airplanes/airports, buses/taxis, mowing the lawn, etc.–noisy places. So I took the plunge and got an iPod.

Wow, do I ever NOT miss MD. Having 1000+ tracks on the iPod means that I don’t have to have remembered to pack a specific disc if there’s a particular song I want to hear later. I never have to dig through my bag on an airplane for a disc which I can’t tell from another one in the dark. It’s tons easier to make a mix via playlists in iTunes than it is to record one to MD.

Of course, that may be because I don’t have a “NetMD” since those weren’t on the market when I got into it. In fact, I don’t have a portable player that even supports MDLP because they didn’t exist back then, and even though all I want is a play-only player, I can’t get one with a remote for less than $150, and I ain’t blowing that for another player just to get a modest technology boost. But I can get firmware upgrades for my iPod. (Actually, I don’t think I could use a NetMD anyway since I’m on a Mac.)

The iPod convenience more than makes up for the very marginal difference in sound quality. At least in the U.S., I give MD like five more years tops–it’s a dying technology that even Sony only supports in a half-ass (err, arse) way here. Oh, and Sony’s role as a member of the RIAA doesn’t exactly put me in their corner, either.

Of course, despite all this, I’m still archiving all my old analog cassette tapes onto MD, go figure. It has its uses.

Oh, and iPods have a drastically higher coolness factor.

Fark thread on “wost movie ever”

(originally posted to fark.com on 2003.06.30)

Certainly the first movie that leaps to mind is The Avengers. I guess maybe Uma Thurman in the body suit gives it one redeeming quality, but man, wow, was the most incoherent pile of crap ever or what?

Others that have been mentioned that I really hate include:
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Rocky IV
Breakin’ 2

Some others I really hated that haven’t been mentioned:
Howard’s End Bunch of stupid, petty English twits do NOTHING on screen for two hours but whine. Oh my god.

Sid and Nancy Starting about ten minutes in, I really wanted both of them to kill themselves, the sooner the better.

Pet Sematary Stupidest, most predictable script EVER.

Mosquito Coast I think it was supposed to be deep, or a political statement, or something. Instead, it just sucked.

Man Trouble> Ellen Barkin and Jack Nicholson mailed in every scene, probably because the script was so farking stupid and the director obviously didn’t care either.

Spies Like Us I was a kid and we snuck in. Even paying nothing, we were STILL ripped off.

Honorable mention in the worst-movie-to-box-office-ratio:
Titanic. Most one-dimensional characters ever, so what was supposed to save this, the plot? Hey, we all knew the ending BEFORE IT STARTED. Ugh.

Honorable mention in the worst-movie-to-critical-acclaim-ratio:
2001: A Space Odyssey Boring and senseless. It wasn’t deep or groundbreaking, it was just pretentious and waaaay too long.

Kudos to pheed for sticking up for Hudson Hawk. You have to be in the right mood, it really is funny. Honest…

Review: PSB SubSonic 5

(originally posted to audioreview.com on 2003.05.05)

Overall Rating
5 of 5

Value Rating
4 of 5

Product Model Year:
2002

Summary:
I have PSB stuff all around for my HT: 4Ts up front, 8C center, 1B surrounds. However, I thought the Sub5 was a bit pricey for a 10″ sub so I considered a couple others like the Paradigm. Truth be told, I didn’t find the comparable Paradigm much different–probably a little louder, but not quite as musical. For pure HT use, I might have gone with the Paradigm. But since I do music as well, I went with the PSB. My living room has a funny shape to it and is entirely open to the kitchen in back, so while the “standard” sub to go with the setup I have is a 12″ (the Sub6), for me, this is more than enough. This thing can easily rattle all the windows in the room when something in a movie explodes–no power issues for me.

Strengths:
More musical response than others in price range.

Weaknesses:
Not quite as loud as others in price range

Similar Products Used:
Paradigms. Also listened to consumer-grade stuff like Infinity and Polk, which isn’t even in the same class–avoid.

Review: NAD T751

(originally posted to audioreview.com on 2002.02.07)

Overall Rating
5 of 5

Value Rating
4 of 5

Price Paid:  $600 at Happy Medium

Product Model Year:
2000

Summary:
I’ve been a big fan of Proton/NAD for some time, and so naturally I listened to the 751 when it was time to go to home theater. Good call. Very good DACs with the expected NAD clean amplification. As others have mentioned, NAD concentrated their efforts on getting it to be clean, not on lots of idiotic DSP modes. This is one of the only HT receivers in this price range that also features solid music-only two-channel performance (I thought this was a particularly weak point for the Denon models). Very clean NAD sound in all modes, not just HT.

Other people have complained about the remote, but I have a universal remote for my whole system anyway and I rarely have to use the NAD remote. When I do end up using it, it doesn’t seem all _that_ bad.

The one thing I don’t like about it is the delay when you switch inputs while the unit searches for a digital signal. Kind of annoying.

Composite to S-video conversion seems pretty OK to me–this only comes up with the VCR for me, since all my other sources are S-video anyway, and we don’t watch much on VHS anymore.

I have this set up with PSB speakers all around: the Image 4Ts up front, the 8C center, and 1B surrounds. I highly recommend the NAD/PSB combo. NAD and PSB are owned by the same parent company and share the same “performance first” design philosophy, and work together very well.

Strengths:
Sound quality, including 2-channel mode

Weaknesses:
Lag on input switching

Similar Products Used:
I auditioned Onkyo, Denon, Yamaha as well.