Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up
Jun 1, 2020 at 2:27 PM Post #59,823 of 145,767
That’s what half degrees are for; 20 and 20.5 :)

Indeed, often use tenths here:
Me: What’s the temperature in the water?
Friend: 19.7.
Me: Ouch too cold.
(later)
Me: What’s the temperature in the water?
Friend: 20.2.
Me: Great, I’ll go for a swim now.
Friend: ...
I wonder how much of that is the psychosomatic aspect of thinking <20 is cold and >20 is warm. Kind of like how Fall and Spring have comparable temperatures, but since Spring comes after colder weather, it is perceived and treated as warmer than Fall which is coming after warmer weather.

I will say, after living in countries that used metric for the better part of a decade, I do prefer Celsius over Fahrenheit. I have my phone set to give the temperature in Celsius and have come up with semi-easy mental tricks for converting metric to imperial for most common units (distance, mass, volume, and temperature).
 
Jun 1, 2020 at 2:33 PM Post #59,825 of 145,767
It will always be a mystery for the rest of the world why the US uses fairy measurements as the one of two (somewhat) developed countries in the world.

The mystery is not too deep or dark: trillions of dollars of infrastructure built on US customary units.

Just getting back on topic. Schiit, weed and beer go well together.

JC

Schiit, weed, beer AND BBQ all get along well together. At least, I hear weed does, I don't know myself.

Years ago someone asked me if Americans were just too stupid to learn the metric system. I replied: Stupid? No. Stubborn? Yes.

As an engineer I'm bi-lingual.

I also use both, depending on the project I'm working on. I can't "think" in metric units, though. I have to convert them to US customary first. For example, I have no idea if 100 m^3/s is a lot of flow, but I know for sure 1,585,032 GPM is a lot of flow.
 
Jun 1, 2020 at 2:54 PM Post #59,826 of 145,767
I also use both, depending on the project I'm working on. I can't "think" in metric units, though. I have to convert them to US customary first. For example, I have no idea if 100 m^3/s is a lot of flow, but I know for sure 1,585,032 GPM is a lot of flow.
I find it much easier to visualize a cubic meter than I do 264 gallons. :)
 
Jun 1, 2020 at 4:44 PM Post #59,828 of 145,767
Hey guys,

First announcement for the week: The Schiitr opens again June 4!

Yes, we're back. Yes, we're doing all the extra sanitization/sterilization tricks. Yes, we understand if you still don't want to come anyway. That's cool. We'll see how it goes.

The Schiitr is open for normal retail hours, Thursday-Sunday 6-10PM. However, we do ask that you bring your own headphones during this time, and please be patient if we have to do some cleaning while you are there. If you really forgot your headphones, ask us, and we'll probably have something sanitized behind the counter, but we can't guarantee that, nor can we guarantee how well they'll hold up to the constant cleaning. We'll also have a box of masks if you forget yours (LA County requires masks in stores.)

Newhall is in the process of reopening. Most of the restaurants and shops are open as well, so you won't be coming in to tumbleweeds.

Thanks again for your patience and support, and I'm looking forward to seeing you at a Schiitrmeet soon. We'll forgo the one this month until we can work out logistics (do we try to use the patio, do it virtually, etc?) But hopefully next month!

All the best,
Jason

PS: Next announcement tomorrow...with new chapter.
 
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Jun 1, 2020 at 5:14 PM Post #59,829 of 145,767
Kind of like how Fall and Spring have comparable temperatures, but since Spring comes after colder weather, it is perceived and treated as warmer than Fall which is coming after warmer weather.

Physiologically our bodies acclimate to the cold: our blood literally thickens up. Thus a tepid day in Spring “feels” much warmer than the same temperature in fall.

Psychologically we also feel better emerging from the cold versus heading into the cold.

And then there’s the crazy ones. Here in Calgary you will inevitably find people walking around wearing shorts and Crocs in -30 Celcius. (That’s -22 F for you retrograde reactionary holdouts.)
.
 
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Jun 1, 2020 at 5:27 PM Post #59,830 of 145,767
OMG - you poor child! You MUST get a turntable. The whole ritual of it all before you even drop the needle!



You asked, but I'll try to keep it short with my kid experience in regards to lp's...

Like Mike, I had to mow lawns for my hi-fi lp's. When people say "ah, the smell of freshly cut grass", that smell makes me think of a lot of work with no pay. In summer. Relatives got theirs cut for free.

Well, the folks tried to interest me in classical, so they got me one of those "Silvertone" all in ones with 8-track and actual VU meters for recording. And Wendy Carlos' album - Switched on Bach. Meh, I went back to Iron Butterfly, Cream, Creedence, all the cool stuff. I was always about 5 years behind the times, since all the older kids and people snatched up the recent material before I could get to it at the big-box store "stereo section".

The LP's were my "masters", and were transferred to 8-track, later cassette. Good ones, not the general purpose types (laugh).

The ritual:
* Be sure to cut the plastic overwrap off very carefully, because if you left them too long in the wrapping, they could warp the album.

* Be careful taking them out of the sleeve - squash the cover ever so slightly, and blow into them like Johnny Carson's "Carnac the magificent" skit, so you don't have anything in there to scrape as you pull it out. With thumb and middle finger grip on the hole and one side, you can get good at twirling to the other side with your other palm.

* With Discwasher in hand, apply just enough drops to moisten the pad, but not enough for total saturation. With carefully practiced technique developed on albums you don't care about, swipe expertly so as not to defeat the purpose. Let dry a little.

* THEN, hit that up with your Zerostat piezo-gun.

Now, do an initial run-through of the album taking notes about where all the dynamic range is. Time out the tracks, since you may have to re-arrange them to avoid the 8-track - track-changes. Got much better doing this on cassette, but of course, do NOT use 120m tapes - only 90m tapes. For 8 track, I pulled back on the recording VU to help avoid bleed through. Cassette I could do a pretty good job of hitting +1 / +2 on dynamic peaks. On the Silvertone!

So I accepted the loss in quality going to tape, but that was preferable to destroying my LP master, which would entail another week's worth of freaking lawn mowing - or worst of all, the record would no longer be available at the only outlet available to me in the "record section" of the big-box store.

I haven't had LP's for a looong time. But I tell you this - hand me one of your most precious LP's today, and you could watch a master pull, twirl, wash and zaps with the utmost care. And drops that needle with surgeon-like precision. Basically because I had to work my butt off for them.

Forgot to mention how important the sleeve, liner notes, and art-cover means back then too. Loan it to a friend (rare), and have things fall out of it. For an audiophile, (well, I played like one) that was NOT COOL! :)

Funny how the whole ritual of it all meant that listening to an LP was kind of an event, and not just jamming in an 8-track, cassette, or even slamming a CD into it's holder and closing the drawer. Something more intimate about LP's made it special.

The ritual can be an enjoyable part of the process :)

The anticipation of settling down for a listening session, picking the right tune, and tube, plugging the head phones into the ear cups...

For me, it is mostly about the sound and getting lost in the music, but all those other things make the experience more pleasurable too - there is more to enjoying the music than just our ears.

I like nice things and would rather wait for what I really want, than settle for an experience that is 'missing something' even if I can't define it or measure it...

Yes, I want to have accurate, real sounding music, but it is more than that too.

I love the science of music reproduction but also the art.

And even if 'some of it' is just 'in my head', what is wrong with that? Because at the end of the day, isn't it ALL in our head anyway?

Saw an interview with Rob Watts (chord designer) recently and he said measurement can tell us if something will sound bad, but it can't tell us if something will sound good and there is still so much we don't understand about how our brains perceive and interpret sound.

Viva la musica!
 
Jun 1, 2020 at 5:30 PM Post #59,831 of 145,767
Yes! Everyone is required to feel sorry for me until I return from my stressful vacation to Hawaii. While you are waiting for your gear to warm up, have a moment of silence, or say a prayer for me that I might return home safely from the hostile environment of Hawaii and buy a Sol. For those of you who take Schiit's recommendations and leave your gear on all the time...well I guess you can just put the music on and don't worry your heads over the fact that I may never get to hear a vinyl record again.

If music plays in a forest and no one is there to hear it... :)
 
Jun 1, 2020 at 5:52 PM Post #59,833 of 145,767
The fact that some music sounds good on these headphones while other music does not is not the fault of your playback hardware. the problem lies with the recording / production side. ELO was probably EQ'd by the mix engineers to sound good over bandwidth and dynamic range limited AM radio (sounded good there -> higher record & cassette sales). Try out some minimally-processed classical or well-recorded jazz (Jazz at the Pawnshop on the proprius label ???). The goal of the high-end / simmit-fi hardware is to see into the recordings, warts and all.

bigger Loki is making more sense (likely it will have a bypass mode for when its not needed)


edited (added); its also possible that with your higher-resolution kit, you are able to hear more details than the recording engineers did (they were using transducers made with technology from 50 years ago).


Came across this video the other day that talks about the effect on streaming for modern mixing and mastering... I found it pretty interesting... YMMV :)

 
Jun 1, 2020 at 5:54 PM Post #59,835 of 145,767
And then there’s the crazy ones. Here in Calgary you will inevitably find people walking around wearing shorts and Crocs in -30 Celcius. (That’s -22 F for you retrograde reactionary holdouts.)
.

I went to Mcgill for university. It was always great to see as soon as the snow melted in lower field to see students out sunning themselves.

I appreciated and miss the cold of Montreal winters (not as bad as Calgary, but still much colder than where I am now, just south of Vancouver). One more than one occasion, I made a 30+ minute walk home from some friend's place at 11 pm in the middle of winter. Regular pants, long sleeve shirt, and maybe a trench coat I got at the thrift store.

On 30+ minute walks to school, my ipod's battery would finally get too cool to function right as I got to school. After being in class for a bit, it would thaw out.
 

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