BtownVolvo

Browsing through the "Post a Picture of your Latest Purchase" thread right before placing an Amazon order. That's not weird, right?

LOL, beat me to it. She has poor form but decent talent.

HA! I remember this one from the video before the gif. So funny.

auto, tan and dirty ass carpets, no thanks

Oh totally, but those are easy enough to change out. But 1-owner in that color? Not so much.

Obviously, that price would have to drop significantly for me. But they're a pretty reputable shop around here, so I'd assume they gave it a decent once over.

Ooh! Someone needs to pick this up!

http://www.vol-tech.com/1998_Volvo_V70_Austin_TX_224742757.veh

Its too bad we're all so spread out. I go to a lot of stereo shows and speaker demos and bring the darker cherry ones w/ me, they rate very well. I've also brought the huge ones as well and those sound amazing too, but they don't have a very high WAF for most guys just because they're too big.

I can't wait to get my bookshelves done, what I have so far sounds amazing. They use the same driver as these speakers: Swan M3, only mine will be about $200 (plus cabinet material), and those Swans are $1750. I'll be bringing 2 different pairs of bookshelf speakers to a demo in Ft. Wayne IN this May.

What kind of audio engineering do you do?

Crazy! Totally wish I could come check out the shop!

I mainly work with audio for retail environments. Primarily editing and QC. I'm beginning to track vocals more now for on-hold messaging, which is fun. I have a pretty modest home setup, but the fun stuff is at work.

Desk: JBL LSR305's and a LSR2310SP in the corner. Behringer FCA1616 interface, 1 Mojave MA-200, 2 Audio Technica AT2050's.

Critical Listening Room: JBL LSR2328's and another LSR2310SP in the back

I'm working on a couple different projects right now. I'm building my bookshelf speakers for my HT system, and I'm building the whole sound system for our church.

The beginning phase of my HT speakers. First I test the woofers to find out what cabinets they like to play in, then build the cabinets and mount the speakers, then test the speakers to build crossovers. Pick of the original cabinet I made, the Labatt box was used for determining where the speakers would mount. The second pic is the speaker in front of the mic for testing.

And these are the speakers I'm building for the church system. These are 6' tall. I started w/ an array of piezo tweeters, but they didn't work (sounded terrible) so I switched to one single, very efficient Eminence tweeter. These are by far and away the loudest speakers I've ever built. Once these are done, I'll build a pair of horn loaded subwoofer cabinets w/ 15" subs in them.

Pic of the inside of the cabinet, then the original array of tweeters, then the cabinets w/ the new, single tweeter.

So...hook a brother up with some rad towers doe...

I've always wanted to try building my own speakers. Just terrified they will sound like shit or I'll likely have a buzzing somewhere from my suspect craftsmanship.

The online audiophile scene is comical. I'd agree, it appears to be jammed with elbow patch guys. Lemme go replace my $10,000 headphone's cables. The ones that came with them weren't soaked in snake oil long enough.

Oh totally. Recent favorite of mine: http://www.chord.co.uk/blog/new-chord-ethernet-cables/

Yeah SACD served no purpose for me ever.

Hell CD and even cassette back in the 80s only ever served as a portable music option

Aaron was the true baller with DVD audio...

That set-up is nice. Its obviously a dual mono stereo setup, But are the amps on the rack SET amps and then the bigger mono-blocks on the floor appear to be a Push-Pull set-up. so you could switch from a low watt SET to a higher watt PP?

I am just basing that off of Tube configurations Those 300B are sweet.

Whats the Turntable spec? Arm? Drive?

Yes! I knew you'd pull through with DVD-A. Bet you had a LaserDisc setup, too?

To be honest I'm not positive on all the specs. The guy that built the system got canned shortly after so I didn't get to talk to him about it. Actually hated the guy, but then he built this, and I was conflicted in my hate

For SACD, it depends on the recording and artist. You're right there aren't many artists doing it anymore. But, if you compare Dire Straits, Brothers In Arms CD to the SACD its night and day. Same w/ Eric Clapton, Alison Krauss, Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here, etc.

That is a nice looking set up, but I'm not a fan of tube amps. Are the speakers custom? If so, what drivers? If not, what kind of speakers?

Yep speakers are custom. Not sure what the drivers are.

I'm willing to bet that the mix for SACD was different than the standard release. So might have just sounded better/different because it wasn't the same mix. But as far as sound quality is concerned, it's theoretically similar.

Yeah I have. I didn't think it was sacd quality.. But I didn't fully audition so l can't offer a fully accurate opinion.

What do I know I listen to records..

I like Shure earbuds.

Love Stax headphones.. No longer own any. Stupid ex wife.

LOL! SACD. Assuming you could even find the release you wanted on SACD, it really didn't offer many advantages over standard CD except 5.1 surround. Get into Analog and then we're on a totally different playing field.

Here. Just snapped this for you of our office lounge. Hand built by one of our guys. That should keep you busy for a second.

NICE!!! So, given the fact that I like to listen to my iPod on shuffle w/ about 5k songs on it, but hate the SQ from it, what do you recommend? That PONO seems like it would be great. I have a really good SACD player, but thumbing through CDs isn't any fun when you're shooting pool or something like that. I also heard about this, Astell&Kern Portable High Fidelity System, but not sure how well it sounds on a regular system (rather than through headphones), and if that PONO is the same thing it has more storage and will be $300 cheaper.

Any suggestions?? My music library is already pretty much doomed. Before I knew anything about this stuff, I stored all music in MP3 format. But, I do still have a decent SACD collection, as well as all my standard CDs. But if something like this came out, I would buy any new music (or replace old) w/ lossless.

What I like to do at home is this:

- Rip all CD's in as .wav using iTunes. I know, miserable. But it works. Also, you can rip them to an external hard drive for all the space in the world.

- Use an Airport Express near my stereo, then run my computer through Airport to stream to the stereo. Play through the apple remote using airplay.

This way you get convenience of thumbing through your entire library on your phone/tablet, create playlists, or even use it at a party using iTunes DJ at a party so guests can log on and pick songs like a jukebox.

Grado has some nice stuff

Are all of em decent headphones? Or is the "beats price equivalent" not worth it? ~$200

I love my Sennheiser HD 280s (OTE) and they're only ~$120. Those are my beat around headphones. At the office, I use HD 600's (OTE) and could wear them all day. LOVE LOVE them. Gotta also keep in mind that they're open-back as opposed to the 280s which are closed back. Not an issue if you're in a relatively quiet place. I use the 280s on the airplane all the time and they work/sound better than any Bose "QC" bullshit in my opinion.

Are you an audio engineer??

Yessir!

Also, my .02, FLAC isn't really necessary for a portable player. You're not going to really hear any noticeable difference with your apple earbuds (Grado's yes, beats earbuds no). Now if you're playing back on a system that has an actual Low, Mid, High (or at least other halfway decent speakers) yes, you will totally hear it and would only consider lossless.

Sorry...I have pent up anger from beats headphones HAHA /rant

I have no experience with them, so I went and looked at it right now. Their website and kickstarter is frustrating. It's a big sales pitch, with the details buried in the middle.

If I understand it right, it's basically a music device capable of playing FLAC files. If you want to compare the difference between FLAC and MP3, you can rip any music CD to both FLAC and MP3 and do your own comparison. Granted, this is limited by the audio hardware of your computer. Personally, I think FLAC and CD both sound better than any MP3. But it's not to the point where I want to run out and buy a FLAC player as soon as possible.

FLAC files are huge. So what you're used to fitting in to ~100GB of space with 128-192kbps MP3 will not fit roughly a tenth of the music.

You can do a fairly accurate comparison by using a free DAW such as Audacity. Start with a raw .wav or FLAC. Duplicate it, then convert that to .mp3. Stack them on top of each other in the multitrack, then flip the phase. Line up the opposing waveforms and you'll essentially hear what is not being played with an .mp3. The worst part is if you can actually make out the song using only the missing artifacts.

Oh the joys of audio engineering!

Totally stole this from Graydon on FB

Edit: MOAR

Travis, in a time not so long ago:

I for real want those glasses...

They look like they're from the "North Korean Dictator" collection.

I'm blasting Slayer - Raining Blood in my office and I still can't wake up. Zombie status.

Aaaaaand coffee just shot out my nose.

Ah yes...a French car in it's natural element. On a flat-bed.

Dat noise.

God I have a ton of work to do today, but my brain just keeps saying "nah...you're good. Keep trolling VS"

mistake by the lake i guess.

Now now...no need to call Kevin names.

Went to the local Volvo dealership to pick up some parts I ordered, walked out with my parts and a job offer.

Super random.