Geek with Family

You may have guessed by now that I own very few jazz or classical music albums. Anime soundtracks featuring Yoko Kano compositions dominate my catalog, but I’m always wary of the CD’s fidelity (it’s hard to tell if your buying a Taiwanese bootleg or the Japanese original). The original Broadway recording of West Side Story is the one non-anime album I have (recommended by some audio magazine a few years ago as a great recording, so I can trust it to reveal system change benefits).

With my six acoustic panels in place I sat in my sweet spot Saturday morning to listen to the Broadway soundtrack. I was curious if the panels would clarify the soundstage of complicated recordings like an orchestra and a musical theater cast.

Continue reading DIY Acoustic Panels Reveal Depth and Clarity in Orchestral Recordings

Popularity: 8% [?]

Is it a bad sign that I’m worried about copyright violations when watching this DVD that promises to explain analog audio and issues around its transformation into digital? The Family Guy’s evil pointing closet monkey and R. Crumb’s “Keep on Trucking” dude show up in a few slides of this poorly produced Powerpoint presentation. Yes, Audio: the Movie is a Powerpoint presentation. It makes every Powerpoint mistake in the book: literally illustrating whatever the narrator is talking about with Microsoft’s included stock art and photos (many don’t even make sense like a picture of a sleeping baby whenever the disc warns of math), blue and purple gradients on text slides with dithered, drop shadowed triangles and circles framing bullet point after bullet point, all full motion screen grabs of the company’s audio editing application, DC Six, are pixelated and unreadable. Worst of all, the narrator’s voice track isn’t well recorded.

Continue reading Audio: The Movie DVD Review

Popularity: 10% [?]

I've begun a Acoustic Test CD project that will contain various test tones, solo drum tracks, bass lines for testing your subwoofer and other musical tracks to test the rest of the frequency range and stereo imaging. Apple's Garageband will handle all the music compositions while Amadeus II will output test tones. This collection of tracks will follow industry experts' and my own philosophies and techniques for getting the most music out of your stereo through proper acoustic set up.

Continue reading My DIY Acoustic Test CD Project Will Help You Get the Most Out of Your Hi-Fi Components

Popularity: 9% [?]

The other day I wanted to re-watch this video of Steve Albini giving a lecture about audio engineering and thought I'd find it on YouTube. I did find a trailer for a very promising audio engineering documentary, Engine Ears, by Violet Biggs.

Documentary film about audio engineers and producers. Interviewees include, Steve Albini, Calvin Johnson, Solex,John Parish, Jon Spencer and many more notables. Studio sessions are covered with such bands as The Little Rabbits and Old Time Relijun…plus many more!

I can't wait to see the whole thing and watch some of my longtime heros, like Calvin Johnson, Steve Albini and Ian MacKaye at work.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I’ve never found any affinity with audiophile journalism’s idea of a great album. The artists they pick to feature in their review of the latest used 2002 Toyota Highlander priced monoblock amplifier are always so boring. The reviewers’ sacred Diana Krall, Miles Davis and Aimee Mann albums will never infect my hi-fi system with their delicately whispered vocals, caressed snare drums and lightly plucked upright bass.

It’s hard to find audiophile opinions on any of the indie rock albums I love. Most current and former indie rock kids have either the same system they owned in college, factory installed car stereo, a Home Theater in a Box, or at worst an iPod and some computer speakers and stock ear buds. The audiophile community prefers great equipment but only to play their jazz, classical, vocal and, at best, classic arena rock albums. I feel very alone in my combination hi-fi equipment and musical taste.

To help out any other aging indie kids whose hi-fi system has grown up but their musical maturity never made it past age 22, I’ve compiled my top five indie rock albums that can show off your hi-fi system. I hope you’ll share more albums with me in the comments. I want this list to grow. To get an idea of all the music I listen to check out my Last.fm page.

Continue reading Indie Rock Albums for the Audiophile - Top 5

Popularity: 2% [?]

I never carry any cash. I figure, anything I need can be bought with my Visa check card. I use it for small purchases at Starbucks ($1.87 every weekday for a grande coffee in a venti cup with a cold soy topper (they used to charge me for soy, but not after I complained that New York City Starbucks provided a soy carafe at the “creation station”)) lunch, the bookstore, video store, grocery store and whatever else asks me for money. The Check Card transactions get posted to my bank account allowing me to track all my purchases. I don’t have to deal with change and tip jars. It reminds me that I’m living in the twenty first century.

Last night, with pockets empty of cash, I tried to use my Visa check card to pay the Naperville Public library $2.20. The $.20 covered a previous late fee (I know I returned the book on time, they just didn’t process it until the next day). I was paying the $2 for renting the American Splendor and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow DVDs.

Continue reading Public Library’s $10 Visa Minimum Ruins My Day

Popularity: 28% [?]

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% [?]

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% [?]

I feel good about my home theater set up when I can go into a high end dealer and feel unimpressed with their demo rooms. I watch the usual African savanna HD stream projected onto a 120" diagonal fixed screen by a $30,0000 Runco front projector and line doubler combo and sigh. I know what I have at home is better for a fraction of the cost because I’ve tweaked my front projection system to a higher level than intended by the manufacturer.

I also lose confidence in mainstream home theater magazines when a casual reviewer pans my projector for flaws that are easily overcome with a color correction gel filter, a Colorvision Spyder2PRO monitor calibrator and careful manipulation of user and service menu settings. The magazine’s editorial dogma may skew their opinions toward the lowest common denominator (L.C.D.), Joe-Best-Buy, but it doesn’t speak to me.

Continue reading Sanyo PLV-Z3 LCD Projector Settings

Popularity: 9% [?]

At Frye’s over the weekend I saw two half shelves worth of HD-DVD software. This is only remarkable because I had not been to an electronics superstore recently to see such a display. I know they’ve been out for weeks or a month or a I don’t care.

The HD-DVDs were grouped at the end of the anime section just before the nature and historical videos. I can’t remember the first weeks or months of DVD’s launch but it was probably just as pathetic (I remember only seeing Eraser and Twister DVDs for a year before I cared about DVD as a source of entertainment). The discs were packaged in the same clam cases as normal DVDs, the "HD-DVD" banner at the top was the only tip-off. Blockbuster!/must buy! titles included: Rumor Has It, The Chronicles of Riddick, Van Helsing, Swordfish, Doom.

Continue reading HD DVD Launch - Top Titles that Geeks Wish They Could Buy

Popularity: 6% [?]