Geek with Family

The Fatman iTube is a new two piece integrated tube amp from TLAudio that docks any iPod except the shuffle (or my pre-dock, normal FireWire iPod, I assume). If I already didn’t have my convoluted Airtunes-DAC-Rogue Audio 99 Tube Preamp setup, the iTube would make a handsome addition to my listening room with its exposed tubes, laser etched chrome finish and wood block die cut around the tube seats (maybe it’s even maple, everyone knows how good maple sounds, just ask Mapleshade).

From the product description:

We present the Fatman iTube Valve Dock. This unit features a docking station that is compatible with all iPods (except Shuffle). You can control the iPod functions via the remote control – allowing you to sit back and relax whilst enjoying your favourite music and movies (yes, you can watch the movies and images on your TV too !) In addition to this we have developed a matching valve amplifier. This provides the classic audio characteristics of valves, improving the listening experience and adding value to your iPod system. The amplifier can also take alternative sound sources to allow for more audio options as well as a video output to connect video enabled iPods to your TV!

I know the iPod is more than just music now, I just hope the extra video circuitry doesn’t add any noise to the audio stream.

Shiny.

[via Boingboing and Gizmodo]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Hairstyles of the Damned is a fictional memoir of a metal head, Catholic high school loser on the south side of Chicago circa 1990. Though I went to high school at the same time, my experience was way different with children’s theater, skate rock and Shadowrun in the Pacific Northwest instead of diner parking lots full of airbrushed vans, heavy metal and Dungeons and Dragons in the Midwest.

Today, during my evening commute, I read the following bit (it’s in the context of smoking pot for the first time):

Mike got up and put on some Black Sabbath and all of a sudden it started to really hit me. The song, which I knew well, "War Pigs," sounded different, broken into a hundred parts like a symphony, each instrument separate and multiplied, Ozzy’s voice warmer somehow, like he was someone I knew singing in the room with me.

The passage struck me as perfectly describing the audiophile ideal: separation of instruments, warmth, presence and more real than real. I listen to music to escape into an emotional fog, the closer it sounds like the passage above the better the experience.

Maybe Joe Meno could make some money on the side with high end audio amplifier and loudspeaker promotional copywriting.

The book is funny and sad and offers a ground level view of what it’s like to be a "teenage teen," check it out (I still have a third of the book to go).

Popularity: 39% [?]

I deserve a purple heart for my near fatal injuries in the last format war, SACD vs. DVD-Audio. I lost an arm and a leg investing in "future proof" Universal Disc Players and six extra boutique audio interconnects. I strained my eyes trying to find the anemic high resolution audio formats section in my local record mega-store (real record stores—the kind that sell records and CDs that aren’t James Blunt—never carried SACD and DVD-A and wouldn’t even buy them off you) until I needed to visit my optometrist. Like most war veterans, I was ridiculed by my peers for buying "dead audio formats" (this included vinyl, which has refused to whither like the two discs in this gorramn war). The wounds are too deep: I mean, I bought an abysmal Ryan Adams SACD out desperation for any content. I now cower at the dawn of another war.

Continue reading HD-DVD and Blu Ray - Early Adoption?

Popularity: 2% [?]

We watched Jurassic Park over the past two nights (it’s not overly long, we just have to start it late after my daughter’s in bed and the sun sets). Steven Spielberg’s movie holds up after all this time in only a few areas. Some of the actor’s performances (I’ll tell you who sucked: John Scottish-old-man, his grand daughter, the little kid at the opening dinosaur dig site that Sam Neill threatens to gut, and the hatchling velociraptor—so wooden, like an animatronic puppet covered in strawberry jelly popping out of an egg) were standard Spielberg over-emoticons, the writing is a little forced in the science-y parts as described by Jeff Goldblum (if you liked Michael Crichton’s take on cloned dinosaurs you’ll love what he has to say on the "myth" of global warming), the effects are great when the monsters are puppets and not CGI, in those scenes the filmstock gets all grainy and soft. What I really couldn’t believe was the sound of those dinosaurs.

Continue reading Jurassic Park DVD’s DTS Soundtrack Bites Me in Half

Popularity: 4% [?]

I’ve mentioned Babelcolor in the last couple posts about calibration. The application can sample and convert between any color space and profile. I checked it out because it is the only third party Mac application (it’s available for PC too) that can accept xyY readings (important for certain calibration Excel spread sheets) from the Eye One Pro in emissive or ambient modes. I was surprised to find it does everything I need to calibrate my Sanyo PLV-Z3 projector in its trial mode.

Continue reading Babelcolor - Mac OS X Utility for Eye One Pro and Projector Calibration

Popularity: 4% [?]

Sunday night, I stayed up late calibrating my Sanyo PLV-Z3 LCD projector. I attempted a full gamma and grayscale reading from 0–100% using GetGray’s 10% increment gray window test patterns. The Eye One Pro can only get reliable sub-30% grayscale readings when you point it directly at the projector with the ambient light head attached (as opposed to the usual emissive readings from the light reflected off the projection screen).

Now I have a problem. My projector is mounted on the ceiling, a little under seven feet off the ground. My camera tripod—that would normally hold the Spyder2 Pro or Eye One Pro—only extends to about five feet high. I had to find a solution to getting the Eye One two feet in front of the projector and fully bathed in the light path so I could sit at my Powerbook and take readings in Babelcolor. I needed to mod my tripod.

Continue reading Howto: Camera Tripod PVC Extension Pole for Eye One Pro Front Projection Calibration

Popularity: 4% [?]

GetGray is a hobbyist produced home theater calibration DVD. You can only buy it through internet download, as it’s a VIDEO_TS folder you burn to a DVD-R. As implied by the title, the DVD’s primary purpose is to track your digital display device’s underlying gray scale with the aid of a color measuring device like the Colorvision Spyder2 or Gretag Macbeth Eye One Pro.

Continue reading GetGray Calibration DVD Review

Popularity: 11% [?]

Google SketchUp was released a few days ago for Mac OS X. I’ve been waiting for this one to render my real and imagined home theater rooms and electronic components in all their detail.

Searching through Google’s 3D Warehouse (keywords: hifi, electronics, audio, HDTV, etc.), I found many SketchUp users already had the same idea. After a quick search, I discovered three or four nicely detailed theater or listening rooms. One SketchUp-er created super nice replica’s of his Classé system including CD player, processor and amp. You can download and edit or use any of the models as components in your own SketchUp constructions. This is a great way to learn the application by reverse engineering other’s hard work.

Continue reading Google SketchUp for Mac OS X - Render Your Home Electronics in 3D

Popularity: 3% [?]

FuzzMeasure Pro is a new audio analysis graph pr0n creation tool for the Mac. Now you can create all those fancy charts you see every month in Stereophile:

FuzzMeasure Pro is an audio and acoustical measurement application you use to perform, analyze, and produce visually stunning graphs of your measurements. Using FuzzMeasure’s tools, you can easily gather measurements of a home theater system, recording studio, stage, auditorium, raw loudspeaker components, and more.

This app looks like a great (and only) audio calibration and loudspeaker analysis tool for the Mac. Armed with this software, a mike and a Macbook you could show off all of your audiophile measurement results on various forums. Whenever someone posts "My new speakers sound great," you can reply with charts for Frequency Domain Analysis, Time Domain Analysis, Delay Finding, Reverberation Time, Waterfall Plots, and Impedance of your superior equipment. Or you can tell them they suck and you rock.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I don’t trust my Radio Shack 7-Range Analog Display Sound Level Meter. I know the device lies to me whenever I take an audio test signal reading because acoustics experts have told me so. Whenever I do take readings that I think will enhance the blend between my Vandersteen 1c front loudspeakers and Hsu Research VTF2 subwoofer, I have to do too much math in my head. If I want to measure a 63 Hz test tone at 75 db on the SPL meter (+1.5 db error), I actually want the needle to center on 73.5 db. Or, wait, is it 76.5 db? I can never remember. If only I were a polymath (read Scott Westerfeld’s Midnighters trilogy).

Continue reading Rives Audio Test CD 2 - Enhance Your Radio Shack SPL Meter

Popularity: 4% [?]