Pursuing the Ultimate Music Experiences

Audio Federation High-Fidelity Audio Blog

Forums

Spintricity has forums and I have been wondering about how to keep it from being a place I hate.

About 90% of all people we talk to actively hate the forums – by which they mean people running them and/or the people on them.

Which, if this is true in general, means that forums as such are really not very successful.

I have certainly imagined a forum that I would like to be able to visit – where people are nice, passionate about audio, think about things and share their thoughts freely…

*sigh*

People seem to like Facebook and MySpace. Young people I mean.

Perhaps forums should be organized around groups of self-selected people, like those two communities are. So the forum would actually consist of lots of tiny little forums …and no jerks would be allowed to stay long in your forum unless you wanted them to [because there is the possibility that we are all jerks at some level or another ;-)].

So we could, for an example, have a Jorma Prime Cable forum, where we could all talk about this cable, post new topics [threads] and discuss our experiences about this cable.

Or it could be more general, like The $4K A Meter And Above Cable forum.

I think this would be better than just, say, Cables [does anybody even have a cable forum, anywhere? Or am I forgetting…]. Or the Exotic SET Tube Amps forum instead of … the Amps forum like a few forums have.

You would probably want to participate in many… dozens… of forums… but you would NOT have to participate in the $100 and below cable blow-out forum unless you wanted to [or ones where there are so-called audiophiles who cannot hear the difference between cables]. Or between power cords [I know, I know, it is harder to hear differences in cables on some equipment that has a very strong sound of its own.. ].

So…

Here is your chance…

If you want a nice forum you can go to and chat as your amps warm up for the evening after the power has been out all day — a place you can find out ways to improve YOUR system, and not just read a could of bored guys chatting about nothing to each other adinfinitum… then speak up about what YOU would want at a place like this.

Because we can do just about anything… limited only by our imagination [which, although a significant limitation, is less so than the average human’s lemming tendencies to repeat the same mistake everyone else has made… vis-a-vis forums in this case]

Happy New Year Everybody!

We can always hope that, each new year, it will be better than the last.

Power was out all day today. Luckily it was about 45 degrees out – but

no music

no computer

no hot food

no nuthin.

Hope your all’s was more electrified.

It sure does get quiet, without the furnace groaning and puffing out warm air, without the fans in the computer, DVD player, TiVo, UPS all buzzing away, without the fridge.

Kind of high noise floor, this modern life we all live has.

CES 2009 – leaving in about a week… is anybody ready?

No?

Good.

Neither are we.

Neli is out with a bad cold.

And me, I am trying to avoid her like the plague …

🙂

Anyway we ARE going to exhibit at CES – a smaller Audio Note system than last year [who else is tired of exorbitant shipping rates?] with the Ongaku, AN/E SEC Signature speakers, and level 4 digital CDT-Three transport and DAC 4.1x Balanced.

No. No analog. Only 3 HRS platforms… no rack.

We will be closer to the front of the hotel this year 🙂 in room… uh…. Neli knows, but I think it is room. 1808 here:

I hope it is 80 degrees the whole week…. 🙂

CES 2009 – Spintricity will be emailing most of you…

… industry people shortly.

[A lot of industry people read the blog. So you audiophiles not in the industry, you now get a little peek into the industry, as well as where Spintricity is headed]

We want your press releases, we want your articles and editorials, we want your photos.

And we want your advertising.

We know the economy is tough [but I just love the price of gasoline these days :-)))], but Spintricity offers an upscale web presence at downscale prices.

And this is especially true in the upcoming show issue.

For those of you that are exhibiting at CES 2009, Spintricity offers the ability to put an ad right in with your photos that tells people what you were showing, why it was significant, prices, a link to more information, and why your equipment is to die for [or at least to 2nd mortgage for].

For those of you who are not going [and we as Audio Note just decided to go at the last minute… last week I think] then you can still get tons of exposure for your equipment by putting your own ad in the show issue – perhaps in with a room that showed something of yours, or perhaps in with the general show report itself.

And remember, our ads are for the lifetime of the magazine itself – not a month to month rental…. you OWN that space in the magazine [with legal and technical restrictions, of course. And no porn. Though it would probably be great for everybody’s business…. :-)].

This year the show report will be from the point of view like that in the speakers Guide in our Audiophiles Guide ot the Galaxy – we will talk about flavors of things, instead of from the point of view of the uber-high-end that Audio Federation inhabits [Neli still thinks I should do a mostly text version like the old reports, where we dissect the sound in the better rooms, with only a couple of photos, here on the Audio Federation website].

OK.

What do people think? Any opinions? Anybody? Bueller?

Emm Labs Shootout: TSD1/DAC2 versus CDSD/DCC2 (with older transport mechanism)

[Finally getting some of these shootouts published…]

The juicy details of the shootout are now up on Spintricity: Emm Labs Shootout: TSD1/DAC2 versus CDSD/DCC2 (with older transport mechanism)

Sorry some of these shootouts are kind of out of order – we did so many shootouts during that period – but it would get boring to just focus several sequential articles on the ML3, or the ODIN, or the TSD1/DAC2.

Passive or Active Listening?

Brian Boehler, a long term audiophile and volunteer at many, many shows, has posted the latest article to Spintricity here.

He makes some good points – and there certainly does seem to be a continuum of how intensely we all listen – and different types of music seem to entice different levels and qualities of intensity…

Elrod Statement power cord and interconnects – preliminary photos

Put up some photos David Elrod sent us. Nice!

They are several pages of photos here: Elrod Statement Powercords and Interconnects

We just got a sample case yesterday – hope to have some initial feedback soon.

This just MUST be power cord season – first the ODIN, then we finally get our Prana Wire Satori, and now these.

What is a poor boy [and girl] to do?

Except smile?

And even more powercord shootouts

Not only is there a part II that is to be posted on the magazine in the next few days, a continuation of the Shootout at the Powercord Corral [a name which is an unfortunate side-effect of living in cattle country :-)] – but we also got the Prana Wire Satori, and soon an Elrod prototype [photos forthcoming], to throw into the fray.

Not sure when we are going to get to do this particular shootout – perhaps over Christmas… it’d be something fun to do with our, uh, perhaps somebody here will be getting some music for the holidays… ? Uh, but don’t know for sure….. never can tell, right? *I* certainly am NOT getting Neli music or anything like that [she thinks I am, but that is just to lead her away from what I am really getting her – just like this blog post will confuse her, along with the rest of you out there… ;-)].

Finally, Our New Magazine: Spintricity

OK, Everybody,sorry we have been so quiet [this took for-EV-er], but we finally got something up and a few articles posted on the Lamm ML3, Life and Music, ODIN PC shootout and a music review. Much more forthcoming.

Expect things to be a little choppy and a little slow, this is all hot off the internet presses – but hopefully things will smooth out.

Some hints: the left and right arrows on the keyboard (or the mouse’s scroll wheel) allows you to go to the previous and next pages without having to use the mouse.

Please let us know if you have any feedback, comments, suggestions, problems….

Best when viewed with the newer Firefox 3 (or Internet Explorer 7) browsers.

And stay tuned, we have a lot more articles to post [and some more writers as well who now may be more motivated to send in more articles :-)]

Enjoy!
Mike