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  1. Cool. Thought at first this was California TV, but I eventually realized I was on the Computer Audiophile website. What will be in store for next episode? Needs more Clicks and Likes...let's go guys.
  2. There are a few newer Seattle bands that you should look out for if you want to see something different. If you live in a larger city like Chicago, San Diego, etc, they will make it around your way. The Grizzled Mighty This is probably the coolest looking group of musicians I've seen on a live stage in a while. Whitney will conjure up an image of the Muppet Show; she's a beast on the drums and sexy as hell. The group has released an LP and EP on CD. The Moondoggies These guys are a present-day amalgam of Neil Young, the Greatful Dead and a few others. Their first album on CD absolutely rocks from start to finish and their last two, including a 2013 release, have a more original sound and brilliant song writing. The last two are also available on vinyl. Pickwick I'm not as familiar with these guys, but this is one of the best sounding impromptu live recordings I've heard in a while. Head Like a Kite (sometimes called Daydream Vacation) A mix of a guitarist/singer, a drummer and lots of electronics. Their local live shows usually involve a lot of people in costumes (always someone in a panda suit). At a show a few years ago the opening acts (rappers and other musicians) started coming to join in, then people from the audience. There were about 50 people on the stage and they just kept going like everyone was in the band. Their last album is out on vinyl. The Cave Singers These guys are probably also close to Neil Young in style, but there's something unique about them too, lots of percussive textures. All of their albums are available on vinyl. Mudhoney This video is from back in the day, but I'm pretty sure these old farts still tour. They taught a lot of people how it's done.
  3. At JaguarAudioDesign.com we've released the Jaguar RTOS v1.0, a computer operating system for audio playback with RealTime audio capability within the kernel. If you're using a standard Mac or PC for your audio you may have considerable room to improve your sound. The Jaguar RTOS is available as a free download from the Blog page on our website. Let us know how you like it. The Jaguar RTOS is a fully packaged audio operating system that can either be burned to a disc or thumb drive and run as a Live OS or installed permanently to the user’s hard drive. A real-time audio kernel means the kernel processes that control audio playback are given priority over all others, except a few necessary to maintain machine stability. In other words audio activity is not interrupted by non-audio activity. The theory is that reduced interruption of the audio data transfer improves the precision of the clock timing and results lower jitter. The Jaguar RTOS can be run on a Mac or PC (except for older 2006 Macs) and is compatible with USB DACs that work that work on the standard USB 2.0 driver (no proprietary driver install required) and the vast majority of SPDIF soundcards. Audiophile novices and experts alike will find the Jaguar RTOS an ideal platform for experimenting and challenging the limits of their computer audio playback. Visit the Blog page on the JaguarAudioDesign.com website for further details and to download the image file and instruction manual.
  4. I remember those days well, living in Seattle and finishing school at the University of Washington. Having suffered through the 1980's, holding on to Led Zeppelin, Sabbath, Ozzy (the Randy Rhodes years), it seemed like everything cool was in the past (GnR or Def Leppard, no thanks). I still view the 1980's as a cultural wasteland for music, movies, fashion, etc that I hope to never experience again. Around 1990 when music from Nirvana, Sound Garden, Pearl Jam, Chili Peppers and Alice in Chains started hitting the radio it seemed like the early days of the Stones...a complete rejection of the status quo and a new and completely original direction. Unfortunately I wasn't in-the-know early enough to follow some of the bigger names in the early days, but the club music scene in Seattle was quite vibrant until 1995 and there's a big resurgence of talent today. The club atmosphere of the early 1990's is gone forever though. Back then every small club in Seattle was a complete haze of pot smoke, stage diving, crowd surfing and mosh pits (it was like taking a trip to Mexico), then the stage diving and other lawsuits started. If you watch the movie PJ20 there are a few clips that show how crazy it was. Funny how the crowd energy changed when we started showing up for the same bands 10 years later. I guess 30 and 40-year-olds just aren't as good at jumping up and down as 20-year-olds, but the music back then was great fuel for raising hell.
  5. After the fantastic success of last year's "Live vs. Recorded" meeting we decided to make this an annual June event for the Audio Society. It's hard to beat the energy and excitement that goes along with a live performance and recording and playing back the performance is our way of putting our own audiophile spin on the evening. This year we have two musical artists you won't want to miss. We're fortunate to have partnered with the Seattle Opera to find soprano Kimberly Giordano. Kimberly appeared most recently at the Seattle Opera as Suor Osmina in Suor Angelica. She also joined the Seattle Mariners last summer on Safeco Field to perform the National Anthem. In addition, we have Seattle violin soloist Marie' Rossano. Marie has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony and is also the winner of the 2012 Classical KING FM Young Artist Award. She'll be performing at the Juliard School before our event and with the Salt Lake Symphony after. Phillip Chance, recording engineer for the Seattle Woodwind Symphony, will join us to record the performances of these two amazing women. This event is open to the public and the Audio Society will provide food and drinks. For the information of our guests, the event will start at 7:30pm, on Thursday, June 13th and will be held in the upper level of the Mercer Island Congregational Church on 4545 Island Crest Way. Please RSVP to the Club email address: [email protected] Pacific Northwest Audio Society Seattle Opera Kimberly Giordano | Soprano Marié Rossano | Violinist
  6. April 11th, Thursday, at 7:30pm - First Sound Audio Don't miss our April meeting when we'll be joined by Emmanuel Go of First Sound Audio (Renton, WA), to demonstrate his fantastic line of handmade tube preamplifiers. Emmanuel is renowned for his attention to detail in his products and he'll discuss some of his philosophies and approaches to design and building. We'll have two Fist Sound models on hand as well as Emmanuel's Berning OTL (output-transformer-less) tube amplifier (and possibly a solid state amplifier), all connected to the club's Genesis 7.2 speakers. Guests are welcome! Pacific Northwest Audio Society http://www.audiosociety.org
  7. One of the most renowned engineers in the digital audio world, Andreas Koch, will join us in November. Through his company, Playback Designs, Andreas has created some of the most fantastic digital audio products out there. He'll have his MPS-5 Reference Player at the club for us to hear. In addition, Andreas will discuss his long career as a designer, starting in the 1980's with Studer Revox and then with Dolby Labs and Sony. Playback Designs | Blue Light Audio
  8. For anyone who’d like to try Foobar2000 as their Windows music server player, without having to either live with the relatively useless default configuration or spend a few months learning how to customize it…I’ve posted a comprehensive and very simple set of instructions in the Computer Audio section of my Jaguar Blog that will allow you to get up and running very quickly with the same setup I use on my machine. Just download the program and then the layout files I uploaded, and run through the instructions on the page. I’ve also done two other posts on the setup of Exact Audio Copy and Album Art Downloader, so you’ll have the full array of tools you need for Computer Audio, from start to finish. It’s exactly what I could have used back when I knew nothing. Jaguar Blog | *
  9. Yes, I would agree about the W4S character. It doesn’t add anything, so in a warm system it will still sound warm. The Burson is going to add some body and warmth (tube character). A reclocker like the Off Ramp is going to lower jitter. You could lower jitter with a reclocker, a better server or both. A sound card is a good way to go on a budget. The Juli@ is about the best for the money, though I would recommend having an electronics pro remove the connector and replace the leash with a dedicated coax or BNC. I’m fairly convinced that a good soundcard beats just about any USB. It’s just a lower jitter interface, but there’s no consensus on this. Also, it helps to have a motherboard with native PCI rather than a PCIe bridge or using PCIe.
  10. I've been using the Burson and Wyred since they were released. I sell the Burson units, so pardon my bias. These units both produce amazing performance and have completely different character and I don't think standing them up against each other is the way to look at it. The Burson is full and analog and the Wyred is airy and detailed. For the money, you can't beat either of these, but that doesn't mean both will work equally well in your system. I would choose based on what I'm going for and which one will have the best synergy with the rest of my system. As for the Wyred, it doesn't have glare with USB. Biased again as the designer/retailer of the Jaguar server, but what you're hearing is the increased sensitivity of the Wyred picking up the jitter from the laptop or pc you're using. Connect it to a machine with lower jitter and it's a different sound. As for burn-in, not everyone can hear it with their system or their ears, but it makes a major difference in the sound with all DACs and most (such as these) require, 250-400hrs. They actually sound progressively worse (congested) as the break-in progresses, until you finally break the back of the electronics and it opens up. Listening before that is severely handicapped. Note: The DA-160 doesn't have volume control; the HA-160D does.
  11. I said in my initial post that the display needs to be on for the Phase switch to work; it appears that the display button is not the issue, but some sort of problem with the interaction with Foobar. The full 200 hour break in period makes a substantial difference and you have to cycle it off several times for the caps to cool down, so setting it to play for 200 hours straight won't get the job done. Also, in fixed volume mode, setting the output voltage, as described in page 2 of the 6moons article, is critical. This is done by adjusting the max volume for the input (USB in my case). The default maximum setting, has 14.2db of gain, which is way to much for my system. Choose the setting that gives enough detail, but has adequate power behind the music.
  12. Yes, Barrows is correct about the upsampling. What I should have said is that you can't change the sample rate. I only have a handful of files with sample rates of 96 and 176.4k, so not a lot of material to judge, but so far I don't notice much difference between those and the redbook. Maybe it's the automatic upsampling doing its job? I don't know whether the Minerva's chip had the same feature, but there was a pronounced difference between redbook and 24/192 files. Sorry, I don't know much about the Minerva modifications. This was a guy who is capable of designing his own DAC and he just said the unit was heavily modified.
  13. There's still a surprising lack of feedback about the Wyred DAC, especially the DAC 2. No shortage of guys who will let you know they just placed their order or plugged it in a few hours ago...that information is about as helpful as knowing whether you farted in your oatmeal at breakfast. Someday there will be a site just for those guys. Kidding, but please, at least come back and make a 2nd post once you've had a chance to get familiar with what the gear can do. I was one of the first buyers, but left town for 2 weeks and I'm just getting to the 200hr break-in point. My current system includes a home built First Watt F5, Modwright 36.5 DM, mostly ASI Liveline cords and cables, Zu Druid speakers and a Power Plant Premier conditioner. My last DAC was the Red Wine, which is excellent (but only does 16/44.1). It's hard for me to compare the Red Wine, because it was internal to the preamp and I couldn't use it with the Modwright. Overall, the RW music was more flowing and the Wyred is more direct. Also the RW seemed to emphasize the shimmer of cymbals more, but that might also have been the preamp. The RW Isabella w/ preamp is a smoking deal, especially if you find a used one. I've also heard a modified Weiss Minerva (DAC2) on a completely different system and it was very refined and impressive. The upcoming 6moons review will undoubtedly do a serious shootout with the Weiss DAC2 and the Wyred and I'm betting the Weiss will come out with the slight edge, but at half the price the Wyred will be the no-brainer choice for value. I can't put too much stock in my comparisons, because there are too many other factors differing with the systems behind each DAC; you'll have to wait for the pros if you want really good head-to-head comparisons. I expect the 6moons review will be finished in the next week or two. http://6moons.com/audioreviews/wyred4/dac.html A few tips. Wait for the full break-in period for true performance in timing and nuance; I would say that impressions with less than 150hrs do not apply. The DAC does not do upsampling as far as I can tell (I use foobar). The sound is improved with the display off. The phase inversion can only be switched when the display is on. Balanced output is said to slightly outperform RCA. The Wyred is a stellar performer. I doubt there are very many other options at the same price that will meet it's performance and with the amazing feature set, I'm betting every magazine that reviews this thing is going to give it an award. If you have $1,500 to spend and you're still listening to a CD player, you're really missing the boat.
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