[Derrick Swart]

Is she the Irish cycle racing champion?

Oh yeah yummy hummlies from Aberdeen Scotland!

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

First publicity photos of The Rolling Stones, 1963

JC

 

[Derrick Swart]

First publicity photos of The Rolling Stones, 1963

JC

 

[artur9]

First publicity photos of The Rolling Stones, 1963

JC

No idea they ever looked so ... establishment.

 

[ghfiii]

No idea they ever looked so ... establishment.

that hurt, I may be old, but, but, but ... well, I got nothing

 

[macdonjh]

...and now for something completely different. It was time to switch up my new living room system. For the last week-and-a-bit I've been listening to DAP-Bifrost I multi-bit-Musical Fidelity V90-Stax SR-Lamda. Today I took my Bifrost out and put it back in my bed room system to keep my Mjolnir I company. In it's place I inserted my Loki Mini. I bought the Loki at the same time I bought my Bifrost. But the performance of the Bifrost cured so many of the things I wanted changed in my system I never really used the Loki.

This is a pretty slick, compact system. The DAC in the Astell&Kern DAP I'm currently using is pretty warm and soft (one of the things the Bifrost cured for my bed room system), so it provides a good balance with the sharp, bright Musical Fidelity electronics. Bypassing the Musical Fidelity DAC is a good thing for my tastes. The sound was a little groundless, though. Not enough foundation. I started playing with the leftmost knob of the Loki. Just taking it "off the detent" didn't make any noticeable difference, so I kept going. Getting to 1:30 or 2:00 was interesting: here we go. Turning it all the way over quickly became too much. The sound got thick and muddy. The sweet spot for me turns out to be just counter-clockwise (anti-clockwise for the metric system folks) of 3:00. Call it 2:45. To me it's still a subtle bump that quickly fades into the unconscious background. Meaning I quickly forget I've bumped the bass and just enjoy the subtle enhancement rather than noticing it with every note.

"What is Hip" from Tower of Power was so much fun I listened to it twice. Grooving rolling bass, the transient snap from the percussion was palpable with the Stax electrostatic speed, and the really fun rhythm was not lost. Good times. Time to turn it down and mellow it out a bit for some Bill Evans.

The electronics will be heading out to my other hobby den this weekend. I'll be installing some speakers in the wall. Part of the original plan six years ago which is finally being executed. I'm looking forward to having some music while looking up. As for my living room system, my birthday is getting closer, hints have been dropped. Of course, the hints were dropped to my teenage son, so they were dropped with a sledge hammer.

Treble is a bit recessed with this combination. Good thing there's a rightmost knob to play with. Scotch first, though.

Day 2 with this particular system:

Must have been a perfect storm: perfect music at the perfect time, with a synergistic system. One modification from yesterday: swapped my AK70 for an antique Aune M3. Everything came up rhythm today.

"Song of the Wind" Carlos Santana, Caravanserai
"Acid Rain" Riverside, Wasteland
"Hybrid Times" Riverside, Anno Domini High Definition
"Hyperactive" Riverside, Anno Domini High Definition
"New Generation Slave" Riverside, Shrine of New Generation Slaves
"Through the Other Side" Riverside, Rapid Eye Movement
"Limelight" Rush, Moving Pictures
"Malignant Narcissism" Rush, Snakes and Arrows
"Satch Boogie" Joe Satriani Surfing With the Alien
"Ready Let's Roll" Bob Schneider King Kong 3

While microdetails weren't highlighted this afternoon, overall articulation was definitely front and center. Instrument separation was nearly supernatural which made it easy to follow each musician's contribution. Bass was Pink Floyd warm and deep and yummy. And stronger, more authoritative than last night with the AK70. Midrange, especially vocals, was a bit up-front, treble was a little recessed but with good detail. Actually, overall the sound was more muscular than with last night's DAP. What stood out was Pace Rhythm and Timing. I found myself coming as close to dancing as I ever get: that embarrassing head bobbing timed poorly with the music. Absolutely excellent.

I did give my Loki's rightmost knob a slight twist clockwise, giving the sound a shallow V-shape.

I'm sure there's a significant contribution by the Argle Bargle Effect (discovered 3/31/2021, @Jason Stoddard). As I said at the very beginning: perfect music for the mood, quiet house, slightly altered system with what turns out to be great synergy for today's selections. A few other songs did sneak in, and the acoustic pieces didn't grab me. Not as rhythm driven.

 

[NewSchiithead]

Listening to this 25 minute live session has consumed much of my past week, including this morning. I've been a fan of Hania for a while. You can find her music on bandcamp - https://haniarani.bandcamp.com.

One of my favorite things about this thread are the posts by other music lovers that lead you to things you would never otherwise even know existed. Thank you very, very much. She is quite wonderful. It is going to take a while for her first CD to get her from Europe, but it's coming.

 

[Derrick Swart]

One of my favorite things about this thread are the posts by other music lovers that lead you to things you would never otherwise even know existed. Thank you very, very much. She is quite wonderful. It is going to take a while for her first CD to get her from Europe, but it's coming.

Via Rani I got to Matthew Halsall, also wonderful tunes from his trumpet!

https://www.matthewhalsall.com/

 

[erik701]

I have found that setting aside time, sitting down and listening to a CD, or even a ripped CD but listening to all the tracks on disk in the original order, increases my enjoyment. It also helps if the CD or LP was released during the artist's lifetime, so a CD from an album that the dead artist released is more enjoyable than a "best of" compilation from after they passed. A glass of wine also helps.

Some albums are composed in the way, when each track has its own place in order and it was heavily thought out why it should be on position 3 rather than 4 or 2... It's often a case in Metal genre. So I agree and most of the time I'm listening to whole album from the first track.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

I was browsing USB audio interfaces this morning for upgrades to my home setup and was thinking now that Schiit is into gaming interfaces with Hel and to some extent Fulla, would there be any point in producing a no frills audio interface for streaming/podcasting setups. Something along the lines of 2x2 or 4x4 I/O's using expertise in DAC's to help up the sound quality output without breaking the bank on additional software or signal processing plugins.

Welcome to the thread, @Ninhalem . I'm using a pre-microphone input Fulla for my online science classes (with a USB-powered boom mic). Schiit's current version of Fulla (version 3) seems to be a fantastic option for headphone-mic warriors. I prefer my Fulla's larger, beefier 'phone jack.

I remember Logitech and Sound-blaster marketing such beasties that you describe (I almost purchased one).

...or this one (that looks suspiciously like JDL's Element)...

.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

Telling my ex-wife (perhaps this is why we are now "ex") that she was cleared for take off, did not go down at all well.

Also, her sense of humor failure indicator light didn't work when she was using that machine either.........

With my CPAP facemask, I look like I'm about to go SCUBA diving every night.

 

[S0undJunk1e]

This chapter reminds me of why I dislike the ASR forum so much. Listening to the gear is barely even an afterthought for Amir and his ilk. I wonder if he buys his vehicles solely on the basis of torque/horsepower graphs.

I really could care less what ASR thinks, they are free to enjoy the hobby however they want. What I really dislike about them is how they treat people with different opinions. I've had my share of back and forth with them in other forums.

Example - I put up a post on r/headphones about how I was enjoying the blessing 2 IEMs with the Hip-Dac and the GTO filter update. Dude puts up a link (with plenty of graphs) about how the filter is trash. Then honestly can't understand why I might find that really annoying

 

[Ableza]

No idea they ever looked so ... establishment.

Look at that shaggy hair and my gosh they are smoking in a publicity photo! Very anti-establishment for 1963.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Ragnarok going to get some more press -

https://twitteringmachines.com/in-b...arok-nexus-integrated-amplifier-fully-loaded/

 

[33na3rd]

Look at that shaggy hair and my gosh they are smoking

So was their music!