Geek with Family

The Oyaide Carbon Fiber Wall Plate, available through Music Direct, has me scratching my head. I cannot figure out how an aluminum and carbon fiber AC receptacle wall plate can have any effect on the sound of your hi-fi.

Music Direct’s copy:

OYAIDE/CARBON FIBER WALL PLATE (Without Outlet)

Not only the coolest looking wall plate ever designed, this one has technology to back it up! The Oyaide Wall Plate Mounting Frame is milled from 13mm thick, solid aluminum, machined from a single block. Check out the picture of the rear, this is not an outer frame, but an essential part of the rigidity and resonance damping properties of the wall plate! The Carbon Fiber front panel is fully shielded, non-resonant and non-magnetic. This is the first link in your entire audio system, so don’t skimp on the A/C connection! 100% Money Back Guarantee!

Note: Although the picture shows an Oyaide XXX inserted into the wall plate, the Wall Plate does not in fact come with an outlet.

Continue reading Oyaide Carbon Fiber Wall Plate - The $200 Tin Foil Hat of Audiophile Tweaks

Popularity: 19% [?]

Thank goodness this is art and not an actual turntable. The 2.5 cc Turntable’s combustion engine would at least hop the cartridge’s needle out of the groove, if not shatter your favorite vinyl LP.

The designer’s explanation (the site is in Flash and I didn’t feel like retyping, so this is a screen shot, sorry):

So, I guess my new title should be “Best Ironic Turntable Design Ever that Fulfills Your Secret Desires.”

(Via Boing Boing and Ektopia)

Popularity: 5% [?]

Back on October 12 (before I had two kids) I headed up to Quintessence Audio to hear Richard Vandersteen give a talk on his version of high-end audio (hint: it involves time coherence and waveform preservation in loudspeaker design). Find below some product news, high-end audio industry health opinions, fellow audiophile observations and jokes.

Freaks [emphasis mine] and geeks

Because of the sacred sweet spot, audiophilia is a solo pursuit. The audiophiles that attended Richard Vandersteen’s talk on October 12 confirm that we (audiophiles) are all alone. These guys don’t get out much (not you, dear reader, I’m sure your social skills are top notch, like a Theta amplifier).

While discussing the devil’s audio player, Richard suggested an audience member borrow an iPod from one of his kids. By the deer-in-headlights expression on the guy’s face, you could tell he’d never done anything that would result in the production of children.

The audience mix was definitely tilted toward the winter of life. I really hope some of the audience members pushing eighty or ninety could still hear. Best of luck.

The oddest person to show up was an old lady that would lock herself in one of the listening rooms for twenty minutes at a time. She would then poke her head out and shuffle over to the next room as if Richard Vandersteen wasn’t up in front of us trying to convince an audience member that musicians are terrible judges of high-end audio equipment. At the end of the night I was sitting in the Model 5A demo sweet spot and she crept up behind me and said over the vocal jazz, “Isn’t it amazing how he [the dealer] connects all the wires?” WTF?

Continue reading Richard Vandersteen Talk at Quintessence Audio

Popularity: 12% [?]

I knew I shouldn’t have upgraded to iTunes 7.

Now when streaming music to my Airport Express from iTunes 7 it takes forever to switch to the next song and worse it will just stop playing randomly. iTunes will actually get stuck at the 0:00 of a song and when you toggle play and pause it skips to the next song still stuck at zero. I have to quit iTunes at the MacMini to get the signal back to the Airport Express. None of the dot updates have helped.

So is my PSP/Airtunes Dance Party over?

Continue reading iTunes 7 Breaks My PSP+Airtunes Setup - Airfoil to the Rescue

Popularity: 18% [?]

I'm putting together a typical Audiologica CMoy Altoids Mint Tin headphone amp. The electronic components needed for the amp are less than $40. I hope this gives me great performance when I install it between my iPod and my Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 in-ear headphones.

But what if money were no object? How much would it cost to build the ultimate audiophile CMoy amp? Find out below.

Continue reading You Cannot Afford this Audiophile Grade CMoy Headphone Amplifier

Popularity: 22% [?]

Through the haze that is new born care sleep deprivation, I ordered all the parts needed to make Audiologica's version of the Chu Moy Headphone amp that fits into an Altoids mint tin. I fought my former reluctance to buy all the parts through multiple small electronics dealer's crappy e-commerce systems with my desire to improve long commute's soundtrack quality.

If you're thinking about attempting the same project, then the following shopping list may help you. I tried to buy as many parts as I could from one online supplier, Digi-Key. The other vendors were used either by Audiologica's advice or me not realizing how easy it is to upgrade the circuit (hence the trip to Fry's to find upgraded input caps after the Digi-Key order).

Continue reading Simplify Your Next DIY Project With My CMoy Headphone Amp Shopping List

Popularity: 12% [?]

Citizenkeith, a del.icio.us user with similar bookmarks to me, posted a great DIY record cleaner how to with lots of construction pictures. All you need is a wood box, air pump/vacuum, hose, crevice attachment, an old turntable platter and some other parts to hold it all together and you can remove all the grime from your records. If you’re frugal you can cobble together the whole rig for less than $40.

This project is right up my alley: cheap, easy and ugly (but functional, like my acoustic panels).

Michael Fremer hosts another informative record cleaning article, “Zen and the Art of Record Cleaning Made Difficult”.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Michael Fremer, of Stereophile mag and 21st Century Vinyl DVD fame, sent me this The Business article, "Vinyl Turns the Tables on CDs" printed back in May. The Business's Tony Glover says:

According to music industy figures, sales of vinyl records have soared sixfold between 2001 and 2005. Virgin Megastores reports that vinyl singles of new releases from artists like Arctic Monkeys, the Raconteurs and Pete Doherty now outsell CDs by more than two to one.

So, the question is: Do you have a turntable?

No? Well all the cool kids have one. If you're short on cash and can forsake your next iPod purchase, why not consider the new Rega P1 turntable for only $350 (the "only" is relative to turntable pricing scales, where you can easily spend a couple thousand dollars to tens of thousands).

Continue reading Join the Vinyl LP Resurgence with the Rega P1 Turntable

Popularity: 14% [?]

Don’t feel like paying $350 for the Apple iPod Hi-Fi Powered speaker system? Make one yourself (and save $50).

Found this on Hack a Day:

This DIYer made a beautiful real oak tube mono amp and iPod dock atop a single matching speaker:

After pricing everything out, I decided to build a single mono channel to see how it sounded. $100 for the amp, $100 for the speaker parts, $100 for wood (real oak, just couldn’t use that compressed saw dust stuff). I ordered the parts and went to work. After about two weeks of working in the evenings this is what I came up with.

Though not as shiny as the Fatman iTube, this is still a cool looking project (I bet it sounds nice too) that gives the iPod some old-school hi-fi style.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I just finished an Headphone Amp lens on Squidoo. It focuses on DIY headphone amp tutorials and forums and collects some of my archived posts on portable audio. I’m really enjoying making lenses on Squidoo, you should join too and boost the lens population on audiophile subjects (seems like I’m the only one so far).

My other lenses: DIY Acoustics, PSP/Airtunes and an Audiophle Group.

Popularity: 8% [?]