Dragnet, Watchmen, and last year's RMAF show report

When I wrote last year’s report, I had just finished reading the Watchmen graphics novel. I really liked the way the Rorschach spoke, and it was with his voice that I wrote the commentary of the report.

Rorschach from the Watchmen

In the graphic novel, he was still a wacko, but he had this kind of cool, clipped, adverb-less way of speaking that I thought would be great for describing the rooms at the show. The movie -which I finally got around to watching – didn’t really capture the voice very well.

In any case, I meant it to be kind of CAMP and a tongue-in-cheek kind of over the top detective-speak more like Joe Friday than the Rorschach character in the movie.

The feedback I got however was that it did not go over like that with a lot of people,and I apologize if it seemed rude or psycho.

Joe Friday

Maybe if I put up a little Joe Friday icon next to each comment, people will get the humor of it all….

It really was fun to write. Leaving out adverbs. Cool. Quick. To the point. Neli says still mistakes in XDS1 post. Argh. Perhaps kill self first. Then fix post.

Photos of Emm Labs XDS1 – with the power ON

[People seemed to enjoy the previous photo shoot, so here are a few more – with the power on]


Breaking in the XDS1 player on a system that… sort of resembles the one we are taking to RMAF. We think. Today.

Haven’t done any serious shootouts yet, but seems to be less digital [how can you be less digital than something that doesn’t sound digital? I don’t know – but it does] and have more separation than the CDSD/DCC2 pair [we are using the DCC2 preamp for the XDS1]. I think I remember saying the same thing about the TSD1/DAC2 when we first heard them too. Emm Labs is steadily progressing toward digital nirvana.

One thing we can say – the player responds to the remote control very quickly. Switching tracks takes about 1.0 seconds. That, by itself, is almost worth the $25K price tag. 🙂


Several shots here of the Esoteric transport with the metal tray


The drawer opening during the photo.


On power up.

Free Ads on Spintricity?

One of the things I like doing the most is helping promote the hobby. I especially enjoy helping smaller manufacturers – in particular those that make less expensive but good sounding equipment for the money – get attention from the audiophile community [one of my favorite things about the show reports].

We have been offering people the opportunity to publish their press releases, for free, for the last few weeks – but press releases are hard to come up with, especially if you, like me, cannot tell the difference between press releases and advertising. Many people do not want to offend us sending us a advertisement when we asked for press releases only.

So we are going to fix that.

And, as we all know, the economy sucks [unless you are a bank, insurance company, or wall-street firm – or lobbyist or news channel for the same].

Now that the magazine is [almost :-)] usable we could go out and pound the pavement signing up advertisers just like all those other rags. But then we would just get the same ole same ole advertisers who can afford to pay for advertising and the other 98% of the industry would be left out of the party.

Well, that kind of small potatoes party is just not what Spintricity, who brings you 3000+ photo / 2200 page show reports, had in mind. We want 1000s of of brands to be able to present their products, services and story. Well, we want a lot anyway.

To that end, dear reader, we are trying to get everybody in our high-end audio wonderland to pony up one FULL-PAGE ad, which we will publish for free in each issue of Spintricity.

In this way we want to turn each issue of Spintricity into a show report-like cornucopia, a bonanza, a sh*t load if you will, of equipment, and information and photos about equipment – in addition to articles on the lives, times, and adventures in audiophiledom.

For those companies that can afford to do more, we will offer the ability to purchase additional pages, to purchase attention getters for their ads, and to purchase special ‘live webpage’ ads.

To assist with ads, you manufacturers who cannot afford to hire a graphics design firm, and don’t want to go completely bald [yes, you women too] trying to learn photoshop, you can select a photo from one of our show reports [or send us one of yours], send us some (small amount please!) text and we will make an ad for you.

This will be the policy for Spintricity for the forseeable future, and forever if things work out as we expect.

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One last thing. A show report is coming right up. You know it. We know it. [Oh boy do we know it].

OK, yes, that would be RMAF 2009 [that is Rocky Mountain Audio Fest you search engine, you].

We create a separate, linkable article for each room at the show. In the article is several pages of photos. In amongst those photos we will run industry ads, for free, for products in that room. This will allow visitors to show report pages for the room to see tech spec sheets, ads, backgrounders, other products from the same brand, whatever.

This allows you, the reader, to see lots more (accurate and appealing) information about the equipment displayed in the room.

We will run 1 fullpage ad/spec sheet/whatever for each brand listed on the sign of the room. Exhibitors can purchase additional pages.

For those who can’t exhibit at the show – we will run your ad in the show report as per a normal issue. Not sure where we will put these if your equipment is not on display, but we’ll figure something out.

[I know I am talking to two different audiences in this post, the industry and audiophiles – and I am switching back and forth faster than a switching power supply – but, well, sorry about that].

Many in the industry read this blog – and we will be sending out emails to the others. But who reads emails [about 20%]? So you audiophiles need to coerce your favorite manufacturers to come up with an ad to publish in Spintricity. Remember: FULL-PAGE [any format] and lots of juicy take-no-prisoners graphics.

Enjoy!

Email ad submissions to: industry@spintricity.com