The Off Topic

OnStar is a dead giveaway it’s from GM; Cadillac Lyriq? Or Chevy Equinox EV?

Depends on how high end you went…

I’m going with Cadillac, since you’re an old fart! :wink: :smile:

Definitely Cadillac…

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That’s right. Liking it a lot so far.
Important detail: It’s that “emerald metallic” color that’s mostly green but sometimes looks blue green and sometimes looks almost black.

Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers always used to temporize, “What color is it?”

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:+1::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::laughing:

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Congrats on the new vehicle, @pennstac !

Yeah, the Magliozzi brothers and Garrison Keillor. Hasn’t been anything worth listening to on NPR since they departed. RIP, Tom.

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“What was your Major?”
— Art History
“Hahahahahahahaha!”

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Office parking lot.

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We two “old farts” probably have a healthy dose of patriotism.

As an American, you “of course” drive a Cadillac and as a German, I love Audi.

Both are icons of our generation.

And:

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Well my first car was a 1966 BMW 1800 TI that had been brought over from Germany. I’ve owned the Ford Fiesta (English) also. My Dad liked Fiats despite that his 131 rusted completely through. My brother likes Audi.

I have had a couple of Chevys, including an Impala SS, and yes, I’m happy with the Caddy, which is very well thought out - almost Germanically thought out. Some patriotism, true, but I also looked at BMW and Porsche and … Hyundai. Audi had no good electric options. Toyota had very long wait times for dubious products. Lancia is not imported. Alfa isn’t doing electrics this year. Accura was BORING, UGLY, and only black, silver, or white. Kia can be stolen with a USB cord. Honda is small…

BMW… the i4 was too small (says wife), the i5 had bad range, and the i7 was $$$$$. Porsche, also small, price near the top of my range, and optioned properly almost doubled in price.

So while the idea of Caddy is maybe 20%, it was not the controlling factor.

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Cadillac patriotic? Hmm? I think of professional athletes and Escalades. @pennstac, where are the custom rims?


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I think the custom rims are an Escalade thing. I didn’t see a factory rim Spinner option.

In fact, I did a $1000 delete option, and went down from the 22” Sport rims with 275/40 tires to stay with the cheaper, more durable, less prone to curb rash and dents from potholes at speed 20” standard wheels with 265/50 profile.

I’ve had my fill of trendy looking huge wheels with a tiny strip of ultra-low profile rubber.

And as a certified hot old fart, I recall when all tires had bias ply rubber, and when skinny tires with 80 aspect ration were standard, 75 aspect ration was sporty. Like a 5.5 inch wide x 15 inch wheel, and 70 aspect ratio was just wild. Unless you jacked up the rear and used Mickey Thompson.

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In Germany, the infrastructure for electric vehicles is so poorly developed and I don’t have any solar-panels on my roof, so I decided to end up with a Q5 S-Tronic Quattro.

My first tour with it was to the South of France, where I took this photo.

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Well hell, if you’re being totally honest you probably recall both Model T days, and horse-and-buggy with iron shod wheels! :smile:

I saw a Cadillac Lyriq on the road today for the first time, very nice. Congrats, I hope you enjoy it. Looks good, I bet it drives very nicely. :+1:

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Audi and Porsche have similar models. Either poor range or very pricey when optioned nicely. Perhaps fine for the faithful but not optimum for a US based comparison shopper. And, the local dealer stocks few all electric.

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All of the Quattros are pretty sweet. One of the sales reps at the Audi dealer covets one of those original 1980s Quattros.

So, I was thinking about poor Taron, having “only” the $17.5k Envy25 to drive his $8k Sus Unveiled.

In light of the great wisdom from the philosopher Dirty Harry that “A man’s got to know his limitations,” I considered what I would drop $25k to get (transducer and power). And the answer, for me, was speakers, not headphones. While there are a lot of valid arguments about rooms messing up the sound, there is still something much more appealing to me about sound-in-a-space over sound-in-my-head.

Having never heard the Envy25 + SusUnv, I submit some speaker + amp combos that I also haven’t heard but would garner far more interest from me. In no particular order,

Axxess Forte 2 ($8k) + Børresen X3 ($11k): Figure another $3k or so for ridiculously expensive Ansuz cables to stay with the AGD family, and there’s still $3k left for a decent front end.

Fern & Roby Amp No. 2 ($8.5k) + DeVORE O/96 ($15.9k): Not a lot of room left for cables or source, but one could get perfectly good stuff from BJC and still be under $25.5k.

Want some tubes and horns?
Toolshed Transcendence 300B ($8k) + Volti Audio Rival ($16k). Again, not much room left over, but one could still get a 9’ run of “regular” speaker cable from Volti’s preferred Triode Wire Labs.

Open Baffle?
LTA Z40+ with NOS EL34s ($8.25k) + Spatial Audio Q3 ($12k). A little over $5k left for cables (I think I remember Spatial and LTA with Anticables) and source.

As I went through those, I realized I would always put more in the speakers than the amp, but sometimes that reverses for headphones. Not sure what I think about that.

What “floats your boat” for around $25k?

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Always been 2 schools of thought in 2 channel.
Source first where you spend most on the upstream components, and transducer first, where you spend it on speakers. They both have their merits.

I think the difference your seeing with headphones, is the transducers top out at such a a relatively low budget, 25K on speakers while certainly it would give you a great system wouldn’t be considered “high end”.
There are LOTs of speakers at $50+K, and your into 100’sK for the most expensive stuff, those systems tend to get front end heavy in pricing much like TOTL headphone systems.

The thing I think you see less of in the speaker world, is low priced transducers with high end electronics, in the headphone world there are those driving HD600’s with $7000+ amps, I can’t think of an example of that in the speaker world, but I haven’t really been a part of it for a long time.

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I’m with you there, bro. Probably almost all on speakers, although if you went with Magnepan 3.7i and a couple of bass panels, you’d have some cash left over for power. I already have enough power that I could get speakers and then decide later I was unhappy with what I have and spend more.

Not sure what I’d get, as spousal approval matters. Harbeth 40.3 most likely. Vandersteen Quatro is in the range too. Eggleston Works Kiva for. sure a possibility.

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Do you and spouse like Ford GT Racing Blue?

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Great price but doesn’t go with our decor. Or since I just bought a car, with my budgetary timing.

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And then the tone, timbre, and quality is transformed by the room…speakers involve lots and lots of shopping with the eyes and then room treatment to adjust them. AV reviewer Andrew Robinson and his ghostly off-camera wife just about melted down a few years back when they moved to a new house and suddenly discovered that all their equipment sounded very different. Uh oh…all those recommendations were wrong???

It’s a lot easier to justify speaker prices when they have multiple drivers, heavy cabinets, furniture grade finishes, and are able to instantly impress visitors. “Bigger is better. Mine is bigger than yours.” Headphones are too small and lack the mechanical complexity that drives many male luxury buyers (e.g., watches, cars).

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