[Jason Stoddard]

Okay (maybe) last post on the diet diversion:
 
1. For those saying "stop fasting, talk to a nutritionist," if I'd done that, I'd still have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and be on at least two medications for same, including one with some very scary side effects (statins)--because that's what I did before the biohacking. The conventional MD and nutritionist sent me down the typical low-fat (but still high processed food/high carb) diet route. My positive results were based on throwing their suggestions in the trash, changing my diet based on common-sense principles, ordering my own lab tests and tracking the results, as well as daily records of blood pressure, weight, and blood glucose...and my primary care physician, a DO, is aware of this.
 
2. Keto diets, as I mentioned, don't work for me at all. I've gone very deep into keto diets, and verified with strips/blood tests/etc, and they all made me feel like ass (or worse). My test results didn't improve significantly over baseline. 
 
3. However, the advice to cut sugar and simple carbs--hell yes. Just doing that one simple thing brought my triglycerides down from the 300s to the 50s. I usually eat "orbitally," (avoiding all the crap in the middle of the supermarket, just real food), use no sugar or sweeteners (except ribose), avoid starchy stuff (but not completely), and generally end up with a diet that's 50-100g of carbs per day. Intermittent fasting is smart and easy too, and a great way to help avoid insulin resistance (at least based on my results.)
 
4. However, what works for me doesn't mean it'll work for you. My results are from several years of tuning and tweaking, and I'm still learning things. Some people do very well on a keto diet. Some people do very well as vegans. Some people will be able to tolerate lots of sugar and starch (at least for a while--there's a joke in nutritional circles that the alternative name for "type 2 diabetes" is "aging.")
 
So, in case anything's unclear, don't do what I do...do what's right for you. There are plenty of people out there who can help you figure it out, but it's most important to trust your own body, your own results, and your own lab tests. 

 

[DigitalFrontEnd]

Jason, one of the best chapters I have read.
 
I appreciate and marvel at how put the events into context, personal, and otherwise.
 
(Aside to your Asides I live a similar life style, what would have been labelled an now obsolete (heh heh) term "health nut. I also try BioHacks and spent 5 years unlearning what we have been told by so called nutritionalists, and health experts growing up. I believe strongly in scheduled fasting a few days a month, but mostly for the it's cleansing and resting of the digestive system. I also take no prescribed medications etc.)
 
To focus in on Stereophile, you mention for some reason they may not like you, or maybe some there don't.
 
IF that is the case, there is good reason.
 
You don't provide the big fat golden 40-50 points to dealers (who also buy ads from them), you don't product churn, which
means a lack of steady upgraded products they can praise as far superior to the previous version.
 
And even if you do provide ad revenue to them now, it won't be on the level of an Audioquest or Wilson, for which Stereophile is basically an extended PR firm,. 
 
You don't support the nonsense known as MQA, which they are obsessed with, or to a lesser extent DSD, which they tried really hard to convince us that there would be tens of thousands of downloads to purchase, and lastly, you just don't suffer fool

 

[DigitalFrontEnd]

  Okay (maybe) last post on the diet diversion:
 
1. For those saying "stop fasting, talk to a nutritionist," if I'd done that, I'd still have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and be on at least two medications for same, including one with some very scary side effects (statins)--because that's what I did before the biohacking. The conventional MD and nutritionist sent me down the typical low-fat (but still high processed food/high carb) diet route. My positive results were based on throwing their suggestions in the trash, changing my diet based on common-sense principles, ordering my own lab tests and tracking the results, as well as daily records of blood pressure, weight, and blood glucose...and my primary care physician, a DO, is aware of this.
 
2. Keto diets, as I mentioned, don't work for me at all. I've gone very deep into keto diets, and verified with strips/blood tests/etc, and they all made me feel like ass (or worse). My test results didn't improve significantly over baseline. 
 
3. However, the advice to cut sugar and simple carbs--hell yes. Just doing that one simple thing brought my triglycerides down from the 300s to the 50s. I usually eat "orbitally," (avoiding all the crap in the middle of the supermarket, just real food), use no sugar or sweeteners (except ribose), avoid starchy stuff (but not completely), and generally end up with a diet that's 50-100g of carbs per day. Intermittent fasting is smart and easy too, and a great way to help avoid insulin resistance (at least based on my results.)
 
4. However, what works for me doesn't mean it'll work for you. My results are from several years of tuning and tweaking, and I'm still learning things. Some people do very well on a keto diet. Some people do very well as vegans. Some people will be able to tolerate lots of sugar and starch (at least for a while--there's a joke in nutritional circles that the alternative name for "type 2 diabetes" is "aging.")
 
So, in case anything's unclear, don't do what I do...do what's right for you. There are plenty of people out there who can help you figure it out, but it's most important to trust your own body, your own results, and your own lab tests. 

100g of refined carbs is exactly where my daily target has been for years now. Massive increase in energy, focus etc. I do spike it before any athletic competition however. 

 

[34th Street]

Not sure if this is off-topic, but I just wanted to say that I've been enjoying the hell out my system now thats Freya's a part of it! I simply can't believe the difference it's made - the amount of (unfatiguing) inner detail that's been added is not subtle at all. It gets my attention when I'm reading or doing something else. What surprised me the most is that I'm listening to a lot more digital (Bifrost uber) now that Freya is on board. I still love my analog front end (VPI/Dynavector/Tavish), but now I'm doing "serious" listening to digital as well, which I've never really done since getting the VPI years ago. I guess my previous pre-amps were somehow not passing through some of the clarity/detail from my digital sources, but hearing all of it now has been kind of a revelation for me. However, I am curious to see measurements on Freya - it's hard to imagine I'm not hearing a dB or two of emphasis in the lower treble, but maybe that's just a perception driven by all of the additional information I'm hearing in that region. In any case, it sounds amazing in my system (which always tended to be a bit dark), so I wouldn't change a thing.
 
Moving on from here, I'll probably just upgrade my Bifrost to 4490 since it's so reasonable, but otherwise I'm good. I've got a lot of music to listen to before I get the gear bug again!
 
So thank you Jason and the Schiit team - the last time I'd been so into the gear side of this hobby was when both Sumo (athena) and Theta (pro basic) were part of my system - go figure!. But ever since then I felt like the high-end audio market had lost the plot a bit, so I drifted away (except for periodic improvements to my analog rig). But now I seem to have come full circle. Fun stuff.

 

[AviP]

Moving on from here, I'll probably just upgrade my Bifrost to 4490 since it's so reasonable, but otherwise I'm good. I've got a lot of music to listen to before I get the gear bug again!

If you're already upgrading, go for the MultiBit.

 

[Tiddlesworth]

R2R dacs are temperature sensitive right? Why are we using temperature sensitive dacs in Mission Critical Machines?

 

[Rowethren]

R2R dacs are temperature sensitive right? Why are we using temperature sensitive dacs in Mission Critical Machines?

My understanding is if left turned on it isn't a problem and most medical things are left on. Not a very technical answer but I am sure someone else can help

 

[Tiddlesworth]

My understanding is if left turned on it isn't a problem and most medical things are left on. Not a very technical answer but I am sure someone else can help

I know MRIs are left on all the time, but you'd think it'd be scary to lose a bit of calculation because the room suddenly got warmer, could be within margin of error still, having to warm a dac up is a hilarious concept to me.

 

[Noldir]

  I know MRIs are left on all the time, but you'd think it'd be scary to lose a bit of calculation because the room suddenly got warmer, could be within margin of error still, having to warm a dac up is a hilarious concept to me.

Warmer isn't the problem, it's getting colder that loses them bits

 

[Rowethren]

I know MRIs are left on all the time, but you'd think it'd be scary to lose a bit of calculation because the room suddenly got warmer, could be within margin of error still, having to warm a dac up is a hilarious concept to me.

If I am honest I can't say that I really notice a huge difference in sound with my Gumby if I leave it on but I do anyway because that seems to be the recommendation and it doesn't really hurt me so why not?

 

[34th Street]

If you're already upgrading, go for the MultiBit.

Yeah, I've struggled a bit on which way to go, and it's not about the extra 150 bucks. I'm leaning toward the 4490 because my Bifrost uber sounds better (to me) than my old Theta Pro Basic II (a Mike Moffat-designed multi-bit converter) that finally crapped out after about 25 years of service. So for me, current delta/sigma sounds better than old (vintage?) multi-bit. I'm sure Yggy would blow both out of the water, but that's not in the cards for me near term. For now, since I'm so happy with the sound I have, I'm inclined to go with the 4490 upgrade over switching to an entry-level multi-bit design. But I'd love to hear any other perspectives, particularly from those who've had experience with both Theta and Schiit multi-bit converters.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

I was going through some analytical housekeeping today, and came up with a couple of other things to think about, with respect to "Obsolete."
 
1. The Schiit website (which has no articles, no forums, no community engagement features—on which you can do exactly one thing: buy something) gets a significant percentage (about 1/4) of the traffic of Stereophile's site—and has higher engagement.
 

 
 
2. Schiit's demographics probably look very, very different (as in, younger) than most other audio companies.
 

 
Of course, standard disclaimers apply (these data are estimates, taken from SimilarWeb and Google Analytics, respectively, etc.)
 
And, of course, Head-fi's own analytics blow Stereophile and Schiit put together wayyyyyyy out of the water.

 

[Ableza]

I like being on the edge of the bell curve. 

 

[darkarn]

  I like being on the edge of the bell curve. 

 
Bell curve, a nightmare material for (former) college students like me!

On a weird note, there is a bell curve god!
 

 

[CarlosUnchained]

Almost an only male hobby. I guess there's a mix of people coming here from engineering, tech geeks, musicians and producers, all of them fields dominated by men as well.
 
I would like to see this change. I'm 25 and I'll do my part.