Yeah the used gear market is somewhat soft on the more unique pieces of gear (as well as regular gear)
Once of the reasons for that is COVID. Dealers picked up a bunch of supply expecting COVID-like sales to continue and they realized that that’s not the reality. So they’ve been offloading in places like eBay, USaudiomart and the like as “used”.
Couple that with people needing the extra income for a variety of reasons and selling their own gear to places like TMR and you suddenly end up with a market flooded with gear that used to be much harder to acquire.
And then you add in the pain you mentioned of people chatting with no serious interest in buying and it’s an all around different experience than it was 3 years ago.
Currently writing Copy for our Listenmore Cables that we showed off at CanJam SoCal and have finally arrived at our warehouse. What are your thoughts around this opening?
It’s a Headphone Cable - It’s a Drain Auger too. It’s two two two cables in one!
Does this sound like the springy heavy SNAKES that are attached to your cans? Well, our Listenmore Self Terminating cables are the solution you may be waiting for!!! With our patented Erectile Technology the Listenmore automatically adjusts to the correct length for your application.
Earbuds, IEMs, Headphones, or yes, BI-AMPED SPEAKERS are not a problem. Just put one end of our cables within the quantum field of your device and they INSERT THEMSELVES! Automatically. And put the other end in the output device or your choice, and our Self Terminating Ends form themselves to the proper configuration. Just seal them in place with a convenient cigarette lighter.
Your worries are over. Fits securely over your head with convenient hangman’s knot. Never need another cable. Never ever…
Yeah, I guess your text might be safer. HELOC, not 2nd mortgage.
I should note that I’ve replaced every cable on Headphones or IEMs that could be replaced. Some of the ones I removed I would not use to clean a drain, it would be overkill.
Will look forward to Listenmore’s cables. This will be fun.
Apparently you have confused “Drain Auger” with “Brain Auger”
Congratulations on finding a new use case. Although perhaps at the expense of the brain case.
In any case. Congratulations on carrying out a cable line with respect to your name and reputation behind it. I’ll definitely be interested going forward. Nice news to start the year.
OK, I got a text message announcing Headphones.com and the Listenmore cable. I like the cable very much and the text link came up with a $99 price which would be outstanding for the cable.
I put one in my cart and the price went to $149. Still good, but it made me hesitate.
Lessons learned about matching the performance levels of items in the chain:
I’ve been using my HD 800 S with nice desktop amps and my Bifrost 2/64 for a while. With the recent ‘best value headphones’ discussion I tried the 800 S on the ZenDAC. HA HA HA! If you want to hear every little DAC processing defect and grit…if you want to hear the digital dithering of the bass boost…if you want weird harmonic ringing…pair these two together.
The HD 600 doesn’t have the technical potential to reveal the ZenDACs limitations, but boy oh boy does the HD 800 S.
Although I never purchased any Magnepans, since I went the direction of Carver Amazing ribbons, his planar speakers have achieved legendary cult status. Mad respect as I raise my glass to Jim Winey and the heritage that he has bestowed upon the audio community.
Thanks for sharing that Lou, a very interesting read. He was the godfather of all the remarkable planar magnetic and ribbon transducers we enjoy now.
Magnepan speakers were prominent in my very early audio awakenings, along with the Infinity RS-1b, courtesy of having Bascom King’s son as a high school buddy in Santa Barbara, CA at the time.
We would go to his house and listen to his dad’s home audio setup, which consisted of the most mind boggling high end stuff available in the late 70’s early 80’s. What an experience! I had a similar reaction as Jonathan Valin describes in his TAS article. I’d never heard such amazing realism in recorded music, and these listening sessions sparked my own interest in music and audio that continues to this day.
I can’t even recall some of what he had at the time, but a I do remember Audio Research, McIntosh, Threshold, Nakamichi, and both Magnepans and the Infinity RS-1b 4 piece towers in different setups. Mr King had studio reel-to-reel tape gear, and I don’t recall the turntable(s) anymore, but I do remember at least a Koetsu cartridge on one tonearm.
It was like going to audiophile heaven!
I owe a lot to Bascom King, even though I only met him a few times and was a “kid” at the time!
I am wondering, @Torq, if I could importune you and get your advice about room treatments, since I know you have speakers and since I very much respect your opinion.
I have a pair of LS60s with two SVS SB-3000 subs in an untreated room, approx 17x21. I’ve got pretty big room modes in the 50-100hz range, and the Rt60 is around 500-700ms.
I can’t totally treat the room, due both to the expense and to keep the partner happy, but I could treat first reflection points, and or put in some bass traps. I also plan on having Accurate Sound do DSP. Do you think these treatments would make a noticeable improvement? Or should I just go straight to DSP?
Not @Torq, but I would say you can sometimes get away with DSP and not need bass traps (moreso if you can reposition your subs if needed), but you need acoustic treatment to deal with reverb in the midrange frequencies.
You might want to check out this article on the subject from John Darko.
And note the room treatments shown on the Accurate Sound website:
I use both physical treatments and DSP, as I cannot get the results I want with either approach on their own - they have different strengths, weaknesses and capabilities. And my personal preference, because it how I’ve gotten the best results, is to fix the issues physically where possible, and address the rest via DSP.
Dual subs, assuming you’re doing two for “stereo”* rather than just impact/quantity, makes it much harder to address any issues there through repositioning - since you’re unlikely to find a spot that preserves the stereo positioning relative to your listening position AND still both lets the speakers work correctly and actually get everything in a tolerable spot in the room.
*I’ve done stereo subs … not because it makes any difference in where it seems the bass is coming from, but because just using one - at least when it can’t be right between the speakers - always winds up sounding unbalanced to me.
You know you’ve either had one too many, or one too few, martinis (real ones, with gin … and not especially dry) when …
An entire hour passes fighting with a DAP trying to figure out why it absolutely refuses to play anything from the microSD card … with consistent “too many playback error” messages.
Then you realize you removed the bleedin’ card when you listed the thing for sale (before saying “fuck that” to ridiculously low-ball offers and keeping the bastard [SP2000]).
the Listenmore automatically adjusts to the correct length for your application.
