Plainsong's Safe Haven

Not much audio to talk about anymore

Well, I've been at a plateau with my final audio setup for a good while. The Nad C542 CD player plugged into the Meier Corda HA-2 headphone amp with Meier interconnects really sings with the 600ohm Beyerdynamic dt990. Likewise my portable setup based on custom IEMs isn't changing anytime soon. Audio-wise, there's not much to talk about anymore. Most of my little rants and raves can be found in Twitter.

So I think in terms of blog posts, I'm too inhibited to make much use of the blog space here. I'll continue uploading useless pics here, and there's still plenty to say over in my Juniskins blog, so see ya around the forums and Twitter.

You wouldn't steal a car...

This says just about everything I want to say.

So, anyone know where that really cool download site is, with the cool interface and super-fast downloads so that you can watch the movies without being treated like a thief? I tried buying the dvds but apparently that still makes me a bad person. ;)

Ubuntu Linux - or 2 hours of my life I'll never get back

Before I start this little tirade, I'd like to state some of my experience and opinions about Linux so that you know where I'm coming from. I'm hardly a Linux guru, or even a Linux geek. I just have through the years learned my share of handy shell commands, and I know how to eyeball configuration text and then copy and paste it using Pico (yes, I prefer Pico. Deal.) with the best of them. I'm not the one to go to for technical support in Linux, but I can feel my way through well enough.

So armed with just that little bit of knowledge, occasionally my inner geek will feel the call of the wild and I'll have a driving need to install Linux. But here's the thing. I install it, and then what? It's not really useful for me yet, despite how useful and easy I'm told it is. For instance, try getting a Terratec sound card to work in Fedora or Debian. What about my pocketpc? It doesn't see my webcam. Why won't it see my Wifi card? These are the kinds of things people need, and these are exactly the kinds of things that are dodgy in Linux. There are hacks and workarounds, but for the normal end-user, it's daunting still. It's come a long way, but it's not there yet.

But wait a second. The word around the campfire is that Ubuntu is now easier than ever! Using the terminal to get things working is a thing of the past, and every install cd doubles as a Live cd, so that you can test just how awesome it will make your computing experience.

The realist in me knew it would be a waste of time, but with a Live cd, I didn't have anything to loose. I browsed the Ubuntu forums mostly about Macbook wireless support, and it seemed the answer was to test out the latest Ubuntu Fiery build. I downloaded, burned it to disc, booted the Macbook and away we go.

The experiment is a simple one. How far can you go in Linux without needing to manually adjust some things in the terminal? The short answer? Not very.

Let's see what we don't have once Ubuntu is loaded:

• Native screen resolution support. Try using 1024 x 768 on a widescreen display. Yuck!
• No WiFi. WTF?? The "community" says this should work. There's a fix, but it requires windows drivers, and remember, no opening the terminal window in this experiment.
• Very limited trackpad support - no more tapping the trackpad to register mouse clicks.
• No webcam support (isight is a webcam that is mac and windows compatible). Again, there is a fix, but if I were my mom, I wouldn't know how to do it. ;)

I'm sure the list goes on, but using 1024 x 768 resolution stretched across a 13.3" screen is just horrible on the eyes. It wouldn't matter how awesome anything else is. So adding to this list no Pocketpc or Smartphone solutions (none working as of the last time I tried anyway), it's just useless for me, and I suspect, many others still as well. I realize the issues of getting manufacturers to release hardware specs for driver development, and I realize that also that a Linux guru probably wants to pretend people don't use Windows Mobile devices, and that working on graphics card support and other such things isn't sexy enough. But despite that, this is what many people need and what Linux doesn't have.

So all-in-all, if you have a Mac, then you have BSD already. Otherwise even the most friendly of Linux distros are just not ready for prime time yet, unless you don't mind having the terminal window open much of the time. To me, much of the appeal of Linux is more in the act of getting it working, and less in the act of using it.

I'll reply to the comments before they're even made and say that yes, I was using a bleeding edge build, but only because this was the best shot of getting wireless to work. It didn't work in Hoary and nothing changed for that in Fiery. If all of your hardware is Linux Approved, then I would stand by the statement that it's still not ready for prime time. What happens when you want to plug anything other than a usb memory stick or an ipod in? Yeah, good luck with that. ;)

I blame Welsey Crusher. He's the reason for all of the bad things in my life. ;) And to think there are people who probably believe that's true. I think they use Digg.

I deserverd to gradiate high shcool

I don't usually go for these little quizzes, but this one wasn't half bad, although there are some inaccuracies regarding the world's top three religions. The correct answer isn't there, but it's guessable from the other choices. I'd have an easier time believing the answer to the quiz myself, rather than what I actually found, so who knows how valid that data really is.

Apparently, I can still graduate high school. Go me. Link spotted from Fark.

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

 

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

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Don't let anyone ever say that Sensasphonic 2x-s aren't accurate

As the subject says, I've seen a lot of misinformation and frequency response graphs to prove how much worse the Sensas are compared to the Ultimate Ears UE10. I personally think they're both right up there, and it's going to be a matter of personal preference. I've not heard the UE10, and who knows, maybe I'd love it more than the Sensas. Be that as it may, I feel the Sensas should get credit where credit is due. If your ears can hear it, and your equipment duplicate it, the Sensas will let you know about it.

Case in point, last night I headed over to Klippel.de for one of those audiophile challenges over at Head-fi. It's not a perfect test of course. First off, the base sound file in itself is disorted, and of course this test will favor those with hi-end computer-as-source setups. But no matter, I took the test anyway with all I had near me at the time, my ibook, and the AKG k81dj. The k81dj performed bravely until about -21db, when neither sample A nor B sounded right. I figured it was either my setup, or my ears, or both.

Tonight I plugged the RSA Hornet directly into my ibook, and used my trusty Sensas. Of course this still is a far from perfect setup, but I think it gives the listener more than a fighting chance. :)

So here are my results. The first screenshot is useless, I took it once I got down to -45db, but I forgot to scroll down in time and forgot to correct it. DOH! However, the second one shows the results, so it's all good.

Conclusion? You don't have to use Sensas to pass this test... but they help. ;)

Other uses for guitar string

After a year of use, it looks like that little cleaning tool that came with my Sensaphonics, the same one that comes with Shure canalphones, broke. It's not even an option to not replace it, and I'm sure that Sensaphonic would be more than happy to send me out a new one...

But on the suggestion of headfier/ipastudio member ()()==, I think I'll try guitar string instead. It seems that anything between 9-11 gauge will work, and nickle plating makes it easier to bend. This will also allow you to make a longer cleaning tool, to get at those bits of gunk that the normal cleaning tool just can't reach.

Of course there's the disclaimer that you can break your Sensas, but I think common sense would dictate that you want to be careful. The goal is to remove gunk, not puncture a hole. :p

I've ordered some string, (only have nylon string in the house, and that just doesn't work), and I'm looking forward to trying this out. :)

I guess I should also mention that the RSA Hornet is in the house. It's tough for me to comment on sound, being since I listened for about an hour, and it was to Nine Inch Nails. I mean, it sounded awesome, but forwardness would lend itself well to this type of music. I'll start burning in this weekend, but so far a big thumb's up. Obviously I'll go more into detail later, after there's some more time on the amp.

Speaking of amps, it looks like the ISA Diablo is going to head into it's second year of production. I had predicted that it wouldn't come out until at least Feb, and it looks like I was right. I wonder if it should be nominated as Headphone Audio Vaporware of the year. I hope it actually does get released... someday. There's lots of reasons why it's taken so long. Some of the delays are completely unavoidable and some could have easily been averted. For instance, delays in parts shipping is just completely beyond your control. The same as sickness in the family and such. What is avoidable is biting off more work than you can chew, and then being surprised that there's not enough time to do it all, and then to make matters worse by releasing even more products. That is completely avoidable, but to say so, to state the obvious, would incurr the wrath of most of the people involved with the production of the amp.

I think I'll end the rant there. No point in pissing them off more...assuming they even see this blog. But it's true, and someone had to say it. I hope the Diablo is worth the wait, because it's nothing short of a travesty to take pre-orders and then have the customers wait for a couple of years. By mid-Feb we will be entering year two.