Its a closely-held secret, the lettering on the cable jacket should read normally when looking from source to sink. I did read a rumor that if they are plugged in backwards you could hear "Paul is dead" at a very low level when your system is idle, but I never tried that with mine ... I bought...

I had the folks at Blue Jeans Cable make up the RCA interconnects I needed, using Belden 1694A, since I'm submerged in a sea of RF ranging from nearby AM and FM broadcast stations all the way 5GHz and Beyond (apologies to Buzz Lightyear). That was long before I encountered this forum and Cables...

FWIW, I carry a pair of https://www.etymotic.com/consumer/hearing-protection/er20hd.html everywhere I go. They don't attenuate as much as deeply inserted foams, but they are faster to put on, and IMO live up to their claim of better clarity of sound. If social requirements force me to be...

So many of the factors effecting IC lifetime are a function of temperature that I believe the industry often argues for modeling failure via an Arrhenius relationship. If you want to wrap your brain around a lot more detail, also search on: time-dependent gate oxide breakdown, hot-carrier...

The XMC-1 looks like a nice piece of gear (especially given the fit to running Vidars as monoblocks, if I'm interpreting my glance at the back panel correctly), but cost plus power amps would be beyond the budget for my father-in-law. I haven't looked at Anthem yet, I'll go find their web site...

Everything except the price seems like a great fit, even brand recognition (he currently has an Arcam CD player). Realized my original post left out some detail; crossing the $1K barrier will be a challenge, getting beyond $1500 isn't likely to happen. In my "audio video divorce" scenario I...

This is at best a tangent, more realistically off-topic question for this thread; but I'm looking for suggestions. If there is somewhere better to do reading and research please point me in that direction. My father-in-law is a two-channel listener, primarily classical music, via spinning CDs...

I guess when I read leafy7382's post I interpreted it as "work at home" using the Gadget-to-DAC-to-(listening components) adjusting content to achieve the magic, then a second complete playback with the DAC outputs feeding the Jil for capture as alternate versions of the track(s). The captured...

I think you are in esteemed company. From Tony Duggan's http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Jan01/Mahler_Sets.htm - ... Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer never touched certain symphonies. Both admitted to not understanding the Sixth, for example. Klemperer himself only regularly...

Jason certainly it is clear to everyone who reads here that you've got plenty going on, so take this for whatever it is worth: http://www.schiit.com/guides seems in need of work, I don't see the separates mentioned? Perhaps even more of an issue, it seems to be missing some top-level "system...

Unless you are suffering from an internet connection with data caps, may I ever so politely suggest one of the cloud-based backup product/services (I'm using CrashPlan which is moving away from personal products, but Carbonite, Backblaze, Mozy, etc. ... numerous products exist). Most that I...

In a word, "Yes." My wife often walks in with a CD of practice music for one of the groups she sings in, that someone in the group burned for everyone. She just "wants to play it," without any delay for ripping the disc. I got her Dad a network player as a retirement gift years ago, and he...

Now I'm confused, I thought multi-miking was considered to be part of the cause for imaging/depth confusion in symphony recordings, especially from the era where recording channels became affordable enough to allow large numbers in pursuit of balance perfection and attempting to fix any...

Hummm, Dolly might have some words to say to you (although I would expect her to remain a Southern gentlewoman) ... That is assuming she wasn't too busy heading to the bank to deposit her $19 million in earnings (2016), adding it to her $500 million net worth! To borrow a phrase from a former...

Mike, have multiple listeners auditioned with the same piece(s) of music? If so, did they reach a consistent control setting for the sweet spot? I'm just wondering how subjective the process is, if there is significant variation per listener, then evaluation of a Gadget-processed digital file...