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BoomMF

Burnt Ends
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Everything posted by BoomMF

  1. They have a switch on the back labeled off and surface of the sun.
  2. I've had the home theater wired and speakered for Atmos almost since I moved into this house about 5 years ago but only just these past few days have I had a processor installed that can handle it. Decided to swap out the Marantz for an Emotiva RMC-1 pre/pro and XPA-9 amp. My biggest problem was deciding how to fit everything into a room that was designed and built before "home theater" was even a thought experiment. And what little extra space I had has been quickly consumed by physical media. I thought racking everything might be a good solution but have you seen what quality carpet-lined studio racks are going for these days?! Scrounging around my storage I found an old slanted rack that I used in my music room's previous life and it should do nicely until I find one that's more visually appealing or until I find that the cabinet's rake is giving the mounted optical drives fits, forcing me to swap it out. So far everything's copacetic. This also allows me to dedicated the top of the unit to the record player, which I'v wanted to do for a while anyway. The Turntable and acrylic base weigh about 70lbs, so this meant I had to brace it. I cheated by using the center channel speaker, but since the processor plays the record player's input in reference stereo this shouldn't be a problem as the center channel will never be active while records are being played. Since the Nvidia Shield is controlled via bluetooth I'll probably hide it in the back to further unclutter the area. The RMC-1 (running v2.5 firmware) has been amazing so far. It's room-corrected with DIRAC Live and the sound in this space has never been better. I feed it SACDs via a Sony UBP-X800 (which by default is set to downmix audio by default, so tracking down why it wasn't passing Atmos info was a goddamn pain. What kind of psycho engineer makes THAT the default and calls it something vague like "BD Audio mix." ffs) and I can tell that's going to be my next addiction (collecting SACDs). With the XPA-9 I now have the power to fully realize the speakers' capabilities. I hear it time and again and it's true, clean excess power does the most, pound for pound, towards improving speaker performance. I went from a "rated" 125W (8 Ohm) a channel, and a low volume ceiling, to 300W @ 8 Ohm across the front line. (490W @ 4 Ohm, while these are upper-to-moderately sensitive 6 Ohm speakers). Suffice it so say, this has breathed new life into these towers. And it does it all while being cooler, which is a concern since I do not intend to use the rack fan I purchased just yet. I saved a couple of 2U spaces (covered with blanks for now) for Emotiva's ERC-4 reference CD player and an Xbox One X, but I'm lagging on the latter because I think I might just upgrade to a Series X in here too (rack kit for the One X is inbound though), but that's gonna be 4U and a whole other world of problems. The former is a differential CD player with DACs to die for (and USB in to leverage those DACs across any number of other sources), but more importantly will complete a sexy unified hardware asthetic. And when it's all said and done looking cool is probably more important. The rack is getting there. I have space to push the wall currently hanging the red black-out drapes several feet, and one day I might do that. I dream of having a dedicated stereo speaker setup to compliment the current, cinema focused speaker setup. (This is why I went with the XPA-9 as it has two extra full power modules/channels which would be great for a Zone 2 stereo setup. But Emotiva also make a 2-channel differential XPA amp that might be all the endgame power I need and would slot in perfectly into the rack and would look killer.) tbc
  3. I recently mounted a framed Android tablet to a wall to use as a Spotify frontend, bluetoothed to a receiver that feeds a whole-house speaker distribution switcher. Works fine but neither Spotify nor the tablet itself have a screensaver (which would be killer displaying album art or, be still my heart, Pop-Up Video-style factoids about the artist) and Spotify's interface doesn't make for the most attractive or functional kiosk. Do any of you nerdz know a good Android frontend/kiosk app that can clean up Spotify and maybe even use the camera for motion detection? It seems that in 2022 with cheap tablets and cheap streaming services we'd be trippiong over solutions for this...
  4. BoomMF

    Pink Floyd

    The 2018 Remix LP is fantastic (Animals has never sounded better imo) but the 5.1 SACD is my new reference disc (Pink Floyd seem like a band that would have gotten into 5.1 from the get-go, are you kidding me?) 5.1 is Animals realized. And ditto on the Dogs talk - that dude is a jam of jams. Sent from my SM-X900 using Tapatalk
  5. And as a side note, Root was designed by a Texas Ex.
  6. But they don't sell Gilmour's hands at Sweetwater, sooooooo...
  7. A nylon signature guitar? This a wild world we live in.
  8. Nothing more late-80s, early-90s Americana than Gold Laces sitting beside those Deluxe saddles. Power ballads just jump off this sweet motherfucker.
  9. Get you a Phantom chess board and we can play remotely!
  10. Any of you big brains know what kind of rack Herman has against that back wall?
  11. Here's your chance to get the paterfamilias: https://www.christies.com/about-us/press-archive/details?PressReleaseID=10168&lid=1&fbclid=IwAR1LwN-W1QVHB4joW5DkDfr4E-f4ZR_XkGTl58jggx9Yx7CW9plkPjzipoA Oh snap, that was last year. The listing says it's estimated at $150k - It sold for $980k. I wonder what Joe B. is doing with it now...
  12. BoomMF

    Vinyl

    This is vinyl. If it isn't overpriced, overwrought, and over engineered for its simple task gtfo.
  13. Paul is about to invent the Tube Screamer. Guitar will never be the same. We are all witnesses. Sent from my SM-F936U using Tapatalk
  14. I still have my wine red Les Paul Studio. It was my first LP and when I played it I had this feeling like I arrived or something. (I listened to some recordings I made with it back then and I most definately had not arrived.) When my oldest gets big enough to appreciate it, it'll be his first "real" guitar. Hope it means something to him. It's an early-90s model, which were some damn good years for Gibson. I still play it because it has the thickest neck of any guitar I own and sometimes you just want to feel something substantial (that's what she said).
  15. BoomMF

    Vinyl

    Decided on the preamp. Stuck with Transrotor and their Phono II. Now I'm ready to switch over to a moving coil should such an emergency arise. A couple of One-Steps arrived too. I don't know why people sleep on Folk Singer, but whatevs, it makes it cheaper for the rest of us. Aside: This hobby is getting ridiculous (moreso than is the norm) with the announcement of the AP Steely Dan UHQRs and the Bill Evans Riverside Box reprint, so finding (relative) deals is especially a treat and colors my enjoyment of whatever I got over on. (Chad's not who he used to be.) One of These Nights isn't my favorite Eagles record, but it has the coolest cover and that's enough to want a definitive version of the LP. Lyin' Eyes is just a bonus. And there a wizard little record store in Spring, Soudn Revolution, and I picked up a bit. I love me some 60s bubblegum and the Seekers are probably a bit better than that, but given what bubblegum has become in modern music, 60s bubblegum feel like German prog rock in comparison. Also, Adam Ant is criminally underrated. You might want to check out Mammoth WVH. I'm curious to hear opinions on it. I was pleasantly surprised - it has a high floor if it never quite touches the stratosphere.
  16. That's my jam, which is really just a Jazz III, the pick of picks. #plectrumtalknotgoingaway
  17. BoomMF

    Nirvana

    Speaking of Come As You Are... My wife and I made the pilgrimage to Aberdeen. And visited a bunch of places we've only read or heard about. Like Kurt's childhood home. And the bridge under which he and his friends used to hang out. It's definately muddy under there and it overlooks the Wishkah river. The bridge makes an appearance in the opening lines of Something In The Way. (Side note, while in Seattle we went to see The Batman and unbeknownst to us that song features prominently. I dig serendipity like that.) Adjacent to the bridge is a small park in honor of Kurt. I don't think the city really embraced their hometown hero until recently, perhaps a lot of that had to do with Kurt's public general dislike of growing up in Aberdeen, but times have changed and he's everywhere now. While we were at the park a lady walked by obviously giving a tour and she mentioned proudly that she went to high school with Kurt. There's a funny sign in front of the house nearest to the park. Man, considering the traffic we saw in just the short time we there I'd hate to live in this house. Seems the owners don't like it all that much either. We didn't get to talk to Phil. We visited some lesser known places like the alley where Kurt was arrested for graffiti. Unfortunately, the graffiti has since been removed. I bet they'd like to have that back. Or his high school, where he never graduated from but ended up getting his first job, as a janitor. Up the street from the high school a bit is the site of his first place after moving out and where he started becoming more serious about writing songs. We even dropped by Krist's childhood home. It's about a mile away, as the crow flies, from Kurt's, but a world apart. There's a really cool little record store downtown, Boomtown Records. I picked up some overpriced Nirvana LPs for some friends just so the receipt would say Aberdeen, WA on it. I picked up some Melvins for me because obviously. The store recently put up a white board below that large Nirvana pic for visitors to sign. The wife and I have center stage. Aberdeen isn't near as bleak as I was expecting. It has a small town vibe, for sure, but it also packs a good amount of personality. Check out Billy's if you like chicken fried steak. I watched Tech beat Texas from one of the booths so I'll probably skip it if I'm ever back here...
  18. Speaking of, still waiting on news about these... https://www.instagram.com/p/CfcZjOBvyBc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
  19. This dude is behind me at the Baltimore Hard Rock. Best seat in the house.
  20. Billy Strings's jams with Molly Tuttle are phenominal, if you get a chance.
  21. Has anyone ever won a weekend like Wolfgang won this past weekend? Would have been cool to see him play his dad's first Ernie Ball, which, if you look at the science, is the Telecaster's only rival for sheer amount of concentrated dork. But still, would've warmed the heart to see it. I don't think I gave him a fair chance because of the nepotism and being Team Anthony, but that ends now. The guy has wicked chops and seems like a sweetheart.
  22. BoomMF

    Vinyl

    45RPM UHQR of Kind of Blue arrived and its fantastic. Is this the last time I'll need to buy this album? Probably. Will it be the last time? Probably not. It came just in time to test out my endgame turntable. After much hemming and hawing, I went with the Transrotor Zet 1. I haven't decided on my endgame stylus or preamp, but they're coming. I never thought I'd have a shot at one of these. Now, styli...
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