[Orange5o]

Photoshop going to subscription realllly irked me

 

[Bowmoreman]

Interesting! Watched the PSaudio video about Mike Moffat's blind test, piqued curiosity... So I'm using 12 awg speaker wire, unknown quality, It is marked as "big brute". Looked at audioquest as referenced in the video and there is no way I could or would pay $700 for speaker cables. Is there a cheapo of known decent, substantial quality that I could try?

I’m sure there are tons of used quality AQ cabling out there; interested in my 15 foot pair of AQ Lapis dating from 1990? You don’t have to go high end at all to beat 12 avg “lamp cord”…

DHLabs (Silver sonic) makes quality cables at affordable prices (I’m using them for most of my interconnects these days, replacing some of my old AQ stuff).

I’d never spend 700 on speaker cables today; back then the deltas were literally as huge as McGowan/Moffat covered in that video.

 

[bagwell359]

I have them on 22" walnut stands on spikes I got made by Tyler Acoustics a few years ago. They are hollow so I filled them with about 30-50lbs each of stainless steel sandblaster beads.

Then I put them on these isolation feet on top of the stand. I used the feet because I'm trying to keep their prodigious bass from going into the bedroom downstairs*. It may be imaginary, but after putting them on the feet the bass got more precise and the imaging tightened up a bit. Well worth the double sawbuck.

P.S. I think the tweeters are at the same level as my ears. I have a thick rug on top of the wall-to-wall. It could also be Linn Space Optimisation helping out.

* fool's errand - the sound is traveling through the heating ducts

If I do fill them it would be sandblaster beads, that's the best media.

The stand has nice spikes, and it is a slab floor. I worry about getting them knocked off the stands, so right now 5 good size pieces of velcro. I put in 2 4"x9" pieces of dynamat inside the stands on opposing edges, seemed to deaden a bit. The outside of my metal stands ring if you hit them gently with a something metallic so a piece of Sonex facing front is the first kludge.

Yes, cutting resonances always gives cleaner bass.

I would have been fine with the 22" but after the 26.5" it seems like 28 rows back and up, before it was row J and about even. I tipped the tweets up to ear height using the spikes but its not treble getting lost its the mids. First stop piece of concrete 2.5-3" higher and see what that does

* fool's errand - the sound is traveling through the heating ducts

 

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

Re. subscriptions…

Music and streaming subscriptions make complete sense to me. I'm one of those weirdos who actually prefer to lease their content over owning it. I'm not very likely to re-watch TV shows or almost all movies more than once, so it's a much more interesting value proposition to me to lease access to large libraries rather than buying small amounts of content. But that's just me.

Because of my professional background, I also do have some (albeit limited) sympathy for software houses of any size that feel the pressure to take the subscription route for their offerings. I don't like it, but I get it. (I can get into this topic in a bit more detail at some point if there's interest and when I have more time.)

But then there are cases like this:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/c...cription-services-back-into-vehicles-44508289

Please excuse the crude language, but this is all I have to say to this and similarly brain-dead attempts by corporate accountants and board members at first screwing their customers for their money and then their shareholders for their stake's value:

 

[Bowmoreman]

Fascinating story. I worked with a lot of litz wire for headphone cables.

My *general* experience with all cables over the last 35 years is that more, smaller strands is usually better than fewer fatter ones… then there’s complexities of insulation, conductor materials (Copper, OFC, silver coated OFC pure silver, etc. etc.)… but Ill take strand count over individual guage any day.

If you really want to have fun, experiment with airspaced solid core, single strand conductors for giggles… super cheap to try…

 

[Bowmoreman]

Thankfully I'm not at all into any sports so I can save there. If telescope eyepieces or camera lenses had a subscription service, however, I'd be hosed. ...though I recall that one of the camera brands has, or tried something, where all the software is on the camera, but to unlock certain features and functions you have to pay extra. Brands like that - including automobiles - will never get my business.

Have some eyepiece porn, @sixergixer Glad I bought all these years ago and have them amortized now. Can’t imagine what renting them would be like. Fortunately, they hold value very nicely…

I own all my “glass” from this scope, to my eyepieces, to all my Nikkor glass over 40 years now…

I consider it optical jewelry. I don’t rent jewelry

 

[Paladin79]

My *general* experience with all cables over the last 35 years is that more, smaller strands is usually better than fewer fatter ones… then there’s complexities of insulation, conductor materials (Copper, OFC, silver coated OFC pure silver, etc. etc.)… but Ill take strand count over individual guage any day.

If you really want to have fun, experiment with airspaced solid core, single strand conductors for giggles… super cheap to try…

There is very little I have not worked with or tried. There are even air core cables because after 100,000 hertz skin effect starts to really kick in and the signal is on the outside of the wire so the center is of no use.

 

[Bowmoreman]

Photoshop going to subscription realllly irked me

Me too… I still have my ancient photo laptop with CS3 physically installed on it for Astro processing. Perpetual license installed on MY disk.

I despise subscription/rental models

 

[AstronomerXI]

Have some eyepiece porn, @sixergixer Glad I bought all these years ago and have them amortized now. Can’t imagine what renting them would be like. Fortunately, they hold value very nicely…

I own all my “glass” from this scope, to my eyepieces, to all my Nikkor glass over 40 years now…

I consider it optical jewelry. I don’t rent jewelry

We have similar tastes in eyepieces! Thanks to my own collection and a large gift from my brother, who also has expensive tastes, I have 62 eyepieces. Far too many (I had pared it down to under a dozen at one point), but they're in logical groupings and I can't sell any of them before I try them. At least, that's what I keep telling myself...

 

[Bowmoreman]

We have similar tastes in eyepieces! Thanks to my own collection and a large gift from my brother, who also has expensive tastes, I have 62 eyepieces. Far too many (I had pared it down to under a dozen at one point), but they're in logical groupings and I can't sell any of them before I try them. At least, that's what I keep telling myself...

Yeah I used to have more, but I did get carried away, e.g. I didn’t really “need” the 17 Ethos in between the 13 and the 21… LOL. When I sold my Denkmeier binoviewer, I also sold my pairs of Pentax 10mm and 24 Panoptics…

For some reason, people are always impressed by the “holy hand grenade” 31mm… LOL

But 62? Yeah… way too many, thin the heard and get some more audio gear!

 

[Paladin79]

Finally it is time for an oil finish. I am adding a little color to make the stripes pop more.

This part is super slow, wiring takes little time.

I am also using black splines and black RCA inputs in keeping with the Tyr shelf look.

 

[AstronomerXI]

Yeah I used to have more, but I did get carried away, e.g. I didn’t really “need” the 17 Ethos in between the 13 and the 21… LOL. When I sold my Denkmeier binoviewer, I also sold my pairs of Pentax 10mm and 24 Panoptics…

For some reason, people are always impressed by the “holy hand grenade” 31mm… LOL

But 62? Yeah… way too many, thin the heard and get some more audio gear!

Yeah, the 31mm has a certain mystique about it, but damn, it's a heavy beast!

As for 62 EPs, yup. First I have to sell some watches to pay for the Avalon mount per my promise to my wife. Then I can sell eyepieces to pay for some serious Schiit that I have my eye on. I did sell a second Holy Hand Grenade this Summer, and I have a case full of Takahashi EP's that are completely redundant to the cases of multiply redundant big glass, plus 3x Zeiss binoviewers and too many pairs of Zeiss and Televue EP's (including 2x 24mm Pans). I'm still debating whether to keep or sell the 12" Meade SCT that's coming this month. It was optimized by Company 7 and has 2x FeatherTouch focusers and other nice bits and should fetch a decent penny or 2, should I sell it, Meade's recent demise notwithstanding.

 

[Adam Balm]

Finally it is time for an oil finish. I am adding a little color to make the stripes pop more.

This part is super slow, wiring takes little time.

I am also using black splines and black RCA inputs in keeping with the Tyre shelf look.

Gorgeous!

 

[Syan25]

Have some eyepiece porn, @sixergixer Glad I bought all these years ago and have them amortized now. Can’t imagine what renting them would be like. Fortunately, they hold value very nicely…

I own all my “glass” from this scope, to my eyepieces, to all my Nikkor glass over 40 years now…

I consider it optical jewelry. I don’t rent jewelry

I owned a Celestron telescope a few years back. Took some great shots with it.

 

[Syan25]

Finally it is time for an oil finish. I am adding a little color to make the stripes pop more.

This part is super slow, wiring takes little time.

I am also using black splines and black RCA inputs in keeping with the Tyre shelf look.

Very stylish.