I have the following setup for recording vinyl to digital:     Pioneer PL-200 with Denon DL-110 cartridge Musical Surroundings Phonomena II loaded at 475 Ohms T.C. Electronic Desktop Konnekt 6 powered by unplugged MacBook Pro   The Pioneer is a vintage hand-me-down that served as...

A friend of mine sent me this link a few moments ago:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/legendary/earbuds-time-to-change-the-status-quo   I'm a little concerned about it.  I love the idea, as implemented by the high end Shures.  I wonder if the sound quality will be worth the bother...

After some research on the Rockbox forums, I decided to start looking at the code to see what the limitations were on the digital output.  This lead to me wonder, just how many people are using an H1x0 player as their source, using the digital output?  The Rockbox developers think there aren't...

I pulled the trigger on these after yearning for them for nearly a year. They arrived yesterday, and I've been noticing some significant changes as I've been running them on burn-in, so I figured I'd share my experiences. Initial impressions (0 hours): Very pleased. Sound seems very similar...

Initial Impressions: Prior to some extended burn-in, and the acquisition of a double-conversion UPS, it seemed like a weird combination of slightly bright and slightly muddy, without much interesting depth. After a couple days of intermittent listening, it seemed to settle into being simply a...

I've been using Future Sonics Atrio m5 IEMs for quite a while now, but now that I no longer commute via train, they're becoming somewhat tedious. I've also been having fit issues with the v2 design for some reason, particularly in my right ear. I haven't been using them as much given how much of...

Recently my Cowon A2 started acting up. The left channel in the headphone jack keeps cutting out, and I have to fiddle with it to make it reconnect. This may have occurred when it got pulled off of my desk by the headphone cable last week when I turned my chair. I didn't notice the problem until...

I've been seeing quite a bit of raving about the eeePC (a very inexpensive ultra-portable laptop with a puny 7" screen and 4GB flash drive instead of a hard drive). I'm curious as to whether or not anyone here has picked one up, and equally curious about how the sound quality might be from the...

I did a quick search through this forum, and it doesn't look like there's been a regional meet in the Raleigh area for over a year now. Noticing the fall NYC meet thread makes me a little depressed, since I JUST made a trip up there this past weekend (I moved to Raleigh in August), and really...

The latest Cowon A2 firmware FINALLY fixed the bug where MP3 files encoded with --vbr-new with newer versions of the LAME encoder were constantly skipping. With the v1.91 firmware (which can be found here), this problem is gone, and I can finally recommend this as an excellent audio player. The...

I'm considering switching from my usual LAME 3.97 VBR 0 settings to Ogg Vorbis q7 or q8. This site's test results made this seem particularly intriguing. I encoded a few of my favorite CDs with LAME -V0 --vbr-new, Ogg Vorbis -q7, -q8 (and one album with -q9 and -q10 as well, for curiosity sake)...

I recently got a custom-built, portable Monica 2 DAC with an optical input. I'd love to post a review of it, but doing so would be fairly meaningless without being able to do a comparison to other sources. Given that the Micro DAC and Picolo are the closest devices to this particular build, I'd...

I know there's a limited number of Linux users around here, and probably even fewer that also use the M-Audio Transit, but I'll post my issues here just in case there's SOMEONE around here with similar experiences. Previously, I'd gotten my M-Audio Transit to work on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS by...

First off, bravo to Vinnie and Ken for finding a way of improving on the newer iPods. Very slick! I'm sure they're fantastic, and I'm very curious to hear them. However, along with some other folks, I'm a little concerned about the requirement for a specific, special dock cable that MUST be...

My current install of Amarok on Ubuntu 6.06 (latest version available via Synaptic) using the Xine engine doesn't seem to like FLAC files. I always get a "There is no audio channel" error whenever I try playing FLAC file. And yet, FLAC files play just fine in Xfmedia and "Movie Player". Any...

Is there anyone here who would be willing to build a portable version of a Monica 2 DAC with an optical input for me? My soldering skills are nonexistent, and I'm really itching to get one of these puppies based on the insanely glowing reviews, so I was wondering if I could commission one of the...

Are there any companies out there that make optical cables in lengths shorter than 1 meter? That seems to be the shortest I can find. Also, are there any companies out there that make optical cables with dual RIGHT ANGLE MINI connectors? Lastly, does glass make that much of a difference in...

After some recent experimentation and re-comparing the sound quality of my iriver H120 and my Cowon A2, this time with both piped through my RSA Tomahawk, it became clear again just how much better the A2 sounds. This got me searching for more information on just exactly which DAC is in the A2...

I've been trying to find a simple USB to optical converter to connect my computer audio to an external DAC that only has optical input. Any suggestions? I've come across the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro mentioned here, which seems very reasonably priced. I would have no use for the...

I took the plunge on my first portable amp (the Tomahawk, which is technically my Christmas gift from my wife, although I ordered it, heheh). Now I need to figure out what interconnect cable to get to go with it. I purchased the amp to improve the sound from my iriver H120, in the hopes that it...

I'm curious, has anyone attempted to record the output from an amp (ANY amp) at different phases of a burn-in period in order to try to detect how it's ouput properties change? I recall reading that Ray Samuels suggested a burn-in time of 300(!) hours for the Hornet before it reached it's peak...

I've been running an iRiver iHP-120 since around the time they first came out, but it's only been within the last couple of years that I've really started becomming more curious about improving the sonic experience with it. My eventual goal is to find a nice external DAC and finally use the...