Why in the world did systems with single ended tube amps sound good? By all rights they should sound terrible. Anything with that much distortion should only have made things sound worse. And yet, opinions are sharply divided. Why? Turns out there is a reasonable, if complicated possible explanation. This is a geeky story […]
Category Archives: audio
Life as I see it podcast #13 I got new speakers!
Yes, I got a new system. This time the system is mostly just the speakers. I have ditched my vacuum tubes (gasp) and ton to an active speaker system. A regular system gets a small signal from a source (CD player, computer, etc.), goes to an amplifier, gets sent to the speaker where it […]
Welcome to Night Vale
The Idea Channel on YouTube is always interesting but I think its real value to me is how it exposes me to things that I wouldn’t know about otherwise. It was the first to clue me into Adventure Time (I still need to watch some more before coming to a conclusion about that). Tonight […]
Stereo overhaul
OK, Last stereo post for a while, I swear… I have been willing to put up with a lot over the years in order to get the sound I wanted from my stereo. My goal has always been to get an equivalent emotional response as I would to a live show. It wouldn’t be […]
Stereo journey
For those of you that haven’t been keeping up with me for a while, I need to make a confession that may prove to be shocking to some. I am recovering from Audiophillia Nervousa. This has actually become a bit of a rare condition. Starting in college, I became obsessed with the idea of “sound […]
Best Buy
While I was waiting for my stereo to be installed, I wandered around Best Buy. I hadn’t done a full store tour in a while, and it was illuminating. After hearing about all of the tablets released at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (I think it was 40!) I wanted to see what […]
New car stereo!
I have been enjoying playing my iPod in my car ever since I got it. The factory CD player had an auxilery port in it and it allowed me to listen to whatever I wanted. After some early issues, I got the sound quality to as good as it was going to get. It was […]
My stereo
I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath waiting to hear what I’ll be doing next with my audio gear… Well, you’ll be able to rest easy now, now more sleepless nights worrying! I’m still enjoying the heck out of my Squeezebox Touch. It is the digital front end I have always wanted in […]
I have music again!
So, my Squeezebox Touch got here today. In a lucky break, so did my switch and ethernet bridge. To recap, the SB Touch is a network/internet music player you can hook up to your stereo. I can stream the music from my computer via the network to it, or I can use it independently to […]
You never know when you’re going to be an idiot
I’m a huge audio geek. I’ve been pouring over amp schematics for years, I’ve listened to more systems than I can remember, and I love reading about all the new tech in audio. I’ve been troubleshooting audio problems for oh, 20 years or so. I had been mildly disappointed in the audio quality of my […]