1. Hybrid Car Driver Etiquette

    As the recent owner of a new Hybrid I’ve noticed a few things, learned a few things, but am keenly aware of certain driver behaviors, things I’m guilty of as a regular driver but will try to be more conscious of in the future.

    Too many people have the “I’m the only person on the face of the earth” syndrome, which is the mentality that they can do whatever they like no matter how it affects other people. When it comes to drivers of hybrid cars, they are the worst. So as the driver of a hybrid I try not to be “that guy”.

    The reasons for people buying a hybrid are probably fairly similar, mostly focusing on getting good mileage. Some small percentage will be trying to decrease their carbon footprint or other “green” thinking. I was accused of being a tree hugging environmentalist Nazi when I announced that I purchased a hybrid. Well… I am not particularly a tree hugger, and I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington, so I’ve lived in places that are full of hard core environmental crazies, but that is not me. That’s not to say that I’m on a collision course with destroying the planet we live on either.

    My main reason for buying the hybrid… is mileage, plain and simple. The lower emissions and low carbon footprint are just gravy baby. So if owning and driving a hybrid makes me a tree hugger… so be it!

    So without any further delay, my short list of things to take into consideration for hybrid drivers.

    DO, drive your hybrid with the goal of getting the best mileage you ever thought possible and you will most likely be rewarded with crazy high mileage figures. My first tank blew me away… 55.5mpg!

    DON’T drive your hybrid at the expense of other drivers around you! In this crazy world, too many people are in too big a hurry for their own good. What do I mean by don’t drive your hybrid at the expense of other drivers? Well… don’t accelerate at such a mind numbingly slow rate that drivers behind you become enraged and feel it would be easier (and possibly funner) to run you over, or off the road in an effort to get around you. From a stop, do your best to accelerate at a steady rate until you reach the speed limit, do so fast enough that you reach the speed limit in a reasonable amount of time and other drivers around you will not even notice you’re driving a hybrid.

    DO, when nobody is behind you, accelerate as slow as you like, run it in pure electric mode if your car can, just be conscious of others around you, this is the single most important thing that will make your drive more enjoyable and stress free.

    DO, use the RIGHT HAND LANE on the freeway!!! When I’m forced to use the freeway, I stay in the right hand lane and set the cruise control to about 2mph above the limit. I rarely have to pass anybody but doing the speed limit is a must. Don’t be the guy doing 5mph under the limit during rush hour. Some drivers may glare at you for only doing the limit, but at least you ARE doing the limit, and if they want to go faster, well… they can go around you. If you’re not doing the limit you’re creating a hazard and quite honestly you could cause an accident as impatient drivers freak out and do stupid things to get around you.

    DON’T use the left hand lane unless you’re keeping pace with the other traffic in that lane. Just because the left lane exists well… see the part on not driving at the expense of other drivers. If you must use the left lane to pass slower traffic in the right lane, speed up enough to merge over without cutting other drivers off or causing them to slam on their brakes to avoid rear ending you. Get around the slower traffic and then move back over to the right lane.

    That’s about it, I may expand on this list later or change the format into an actual list, but you get the gist. I drive my hybrid with the intent of maximizing my mileage potential, just not at the expense of other drivers and generally I don’t get any flack from other drivers, and I’ve seen road rage directed at drivers of certain hybrids before, not pretty.

    Good luck!

     

    tags:  hybrid driver  Driver Etiquette  hybrid cars 

  2. NO EXCUSES!

    This is a very fitting title for tonight’s post. I’m making a promise to myself, to do the things I’ve been ignoring, or putting off, or… making excuses not to do. That doesn’t mean I’m going to get to everything right now, but enough is enough.

    I also plan to as I previously said start posting again. I actually do like the blog, I do it more for my own gratification than anything else.

    Some of the things I plan to cover in the coming days, weeks, months… an update to the Crack headphone amp. A review of the headphones I have, Westone1’s, Sennheizer HD600’s, and my Grado sr80i’s.

    I will most likely do a review of my now former 2007 Honda Fit Sport and a review of my new 2012 Lexus CT200h which in a word is fanfreakintastic!!

     

    tags:  motivation  no excuses  headphones  honda fit  lexus ct200h 

  3. holy long time no see!

    Ok well… I realize it’s been a very long time since my last post. At some point Tumblr changed the IP on me and I didn’t get notification…?! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Ok so managed to figure out what my login was for my DNS and get the A record changed over yesterday and I see that it’s finally updated and the world can once again see my domain.

    Cool right? lol Ok so life has been pretty busy with lots of stuff that demands my attention so it took a crazy amount of time for me to get my stuff sorted so the site is working, well now it’s working!

    I got a new Espresso machine! Lots of fun stuff to go with it. I will post something about that very soon. What kind of machine did I get? Well I’ll tell you… a Rancilio Silvia and a matching Rocky grinder! Let me put it this way… read a little… adjust a little, grind a little, play a little, add a bottomless portafilter, fresh beans roasted within a couple days ago, VST Precision filter baskets, some more reading… I will stop at this point with just a DAMN! Kids… I can make a seriously decent shot of espresso. I am not a pro, and it’s quite possible my neanderthal pallet can’t tell a good shot from a bad shot but… to me, this stuff tastes pretty freakin good. 

    I am also here to tell you… properly made espresso is powerful stuff. If you’ve never had GOOD Espresso… it might just change the way you look at coffee FOREVER!

    Ok enough for now, I wanted to get a small update posted now that I can actually get back in here. I’m alive! I have stuff to write about! Followup review to Living with my Bottle Head Crack headphone amp. My HD600’s, my Westone 1’s, jeez gonna be a while before I get it all down.

    So for now, I hope 2012 treated you well, I hope 2013 treats you even better, and I’m going to try to challenge myself to posting to my blog with a bit more regularity ;) for now, be well.

     
  4. NuForce icon uDAC-2

    I am most impressed with my uDAC-2, I put this on my wish list and my wife picked it up for my bday. I am really enjoying this little device. This is my first DAC, like many these days I’ve got a fairly extensive digital music collection, I also have a pretty large vinyl collection, and as I transfer that stuff to MP3 or FLAC files I really want to make sure I’m hearing everything. I was doing some digging around on the web recently and came across a review of this device and downloaded some FLAC test files. I played them through my regular pc headphone jack and then through the NuForce2, wow. Initially I did notice improved clarity and details I’d been missing before but doing some AB’ing really made that stand out.

    Some have complained about some channel balance issues with the pot on this device. Short of spending as much as this device costs to 3x as much on a high end volume control, I find no fault what so ever with the pot on this device. At very low volume levels it is not uncommon to experience some channel balance issues. I have a couple other amps that at barely audible volume levels there is some noticeable balance issues, but turn it up a smidge and the issue goes away. At low “listening” levels, I have experienced no balance issues at all.

    Now I’m running my NuForce2 into my Bottlehead Crack OTL amp and holy smoke Batman!! I thought the Crack sounded good before… now with the uDAC-2 between my laptop and my Crack, I’m simply blown away.

    I did listen to the uDAC-2 as a stand alone headphone amp while doing homework this week and it isn’t lacking anything either. My Sennheiser ear buds have never sounded so good. I pulled them out and stuck them back into my MP3 player, and then back to the uDAC-2… mmmmnnn musical goodness. Improved bass response, fuller mid range, nothing lacking from the top end either. Vocals are excellent, I have no real complaints, I could probably spend some time looking for one but I’d rather just listen to some more music.

    Well done, I’m very pleased with this little amp/dac I might even be forced to buy a second one to take to work, but as small as this little guy is, I might just have to toss it into my bag and carry it back and forth for a while.

     

    tags:  headphone amp  headphones  icon uDAC-2  music  uDAC-2  usb dac  usb heaphone amp  NuForce  nuforce icon udac-2 

  5. plays: 10

    I’ve been pretty slammed this term, my classes are demanding an insane amount of my time, my birthday is this month and my wife got me a new CD to go with some of my new toys.

    This CD was on my list of wants, Nojima Plays Liszt, I heard about it on the Bottlehead website, Doc mentions how his copy on tape sounds amazing etc so I thought well I must have a copy! So leave it up to the wife to feed the need.

    Here is one track from the CD, track 8, Allegro Energico, it’s fantastic, each time I’ve played through the CD this one always grabs my attention. The rest of the CD is a real treat as well, enjoy!

     

    tags:  Jojima Plays Liszt  music  piano  classical  Allegro energico 

  6. woo another follower!

    Wow I picked up another follower! Seems that they’re an Indie artist, I checked out the sample music they have available, pretty decent stuff, give them a listen.

    http://migratoryanimals.tumblr.com/

    I’m currently listening to a Jazz CD that I’ve had for quite a long time, 3rd Force, Vital Force, now that is definitely worth a listen.

    Also worth mentioning, the Bottlehead Crack OTL Headphone amp that I recently finished sounds better every day, the more hours I get on it the better it seems to get. I ordered a Speedball upgrade for it, this is basically an upgraded power supply, I will do my best to document the build with good before and after pictures I promise!

     

    tags:  Indie artist Migratory Animals  Bottlehead  Crack OTL  3rd Force  Jazz  Music 

  7. Benchmark Media - Masters From Their Day

    In light of my recent headphone amp build I joined headfi.org today and was digging around on the site and found this. Masters From Their Day, the concept is very cool, the videos are really neat as well but… the best part is the music. I am very impressed at the quality and that they have made the tracks available for download for free… who does this anymore?

    Well they deserve some attention! Please check them out, episode #4 is currently my favorite of the bunch but again, they’re all excellent and VERY well recorded.

    Give them a listen you won’t be disappointed.

     

    tags:  Benchmark Media  Masters From Their Day  free music 

  8. Bottlehead Crack OTL Headphone amp

    Greetings once again!

    So for Christmas I got another kit that I’d been wanting. Christmas Eve the UPS guy shows up with my Crack kit from Bottlehead. Woo! I could hardly believe it showed up before Christmas.

    The photo is the finished article. Bottlehead has been around for quite some time, I’d been following them for a while since before I came to Ohio. They sell tube based kits as well as finished equipment but beyond that they also have a stellar reputation for their gear to sound absolutely amazing, well I’m here to tell you that this kit does not fail to deliver.

    Where I find the patience for some of this I’ll never know, it took me 2 days to paint the top plate and end bell on the transformer and I still wasn’t happy with it but oh well I’m not going to sand it down and paint it again. It looks good enough for me. After laying out the chassis I began soldering “by the numbers” basically.

    The kit comes with a CDROM that contains a .pdf of the instruction manual. I’ve never put together a kit that came with better thought out instructions than this one. They are clear and lead you through the entire process. If you can read and understand basic kit building terminology anybody with basic soldering skills can build this kit. Here’s the best part, even if you don’t, but can read and I mean read everything, Doc gives basic soldering instructions in the manual. So like one of the guys on the forum said, “go to Radio Shack, pick up a few terminal strips and a grab bag of cheap resisters or similar and get some soldering experience in, for the cost of some cheap parts you can learn to solder in about 30 minutes.”

    Well I’ve been slinging solder for a while so I skipped through that and got right to building my kit. Here is the naked laid out plate, and the finished view.

    and since I took my sweet time on this build, I was not going to mess it up, I wanted it to sound as good as possible so, slow and steady was the theme and boy did it pay off. Two 4 hour sessions later…viola!

    I have learned several things from all the different builds that I’ve done.

    1. you don’t have to use so much solder that you close the terminal holes, a good joint only requires enough solder to join the wire/part to the terminal, make sure the joint is hot enough and the solder will just flow. Only use enough to get the job done, if you have to go back later and add something you missed or move a part, removing all that solder can be a huge pain.

    2. neatness counts, heaven forbid you have to go back and work on it or troubleshoot a problem like hum or no sound from one channel. If your work isn’t neat and tidy well it’s going to be that much harder tracing the circuit out and tracking down your problem. Plus, when your buddy asks to see the underside of the chassis you want to be able to show it to him without having to explain that yes you put it together and not your 4yr old. :P The other aspect with regards to neatness is that routing of wires and such can help keeping noise out of the circuit, or like in the Crack, the two large resisters that look like big white logs in the middle of the plate dissipate a lot of heat, any wires routed near them could be burned or at least have the insulation melted from the wire if they’re too close. So be mindful of what’s touching what when you build something like this.

    So at this point I have well over 50 hours on my amp, I’ve settled on the tubes that will reside in it for the time being. I was lucky enough to purchase an extra 6080 power tube and several 12au7 variants. Currently the power tube is a PN JAN 6080WC, Bottlehead included a very nice Sylvania GB6080 but after running the amp in for about 8hrs I noticed that something was generating a high pitched tone and I couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on, well the Sylvania is either faulty or microphonic, but swapping it out for the NOS JAN 6080WC the amp is dead silent now. I had tried a CONN branded 12au7, the included and very nice Elecro~Harmonix 12au7/ECC82, a Pinnacle Audio 12au7, and currently my favorite a GE 5 star 5814a.

    I’m listening to some of my favorite vinyl right now, currently spinning is Masterpieces by Ellington, the sound is very detailed. This sure separates the good from the bad, you can hear EVERYTHING! LP’s that I had previously enjoyed quite a lot, have surface imperfections that I just hadn’t been able to hear before now. Well this amp sounds simply amazing. No apologies! I’d rather be able to hear every little thing than not.

    I played Mingus Ah Um earlier and WOW! That one is a 180g reissue and sounds amazing. Ok before I go much further what am I actually listening with? Ahh headphones! Well as luck would have it my wife also got me for Christmas a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7b headphones :D These are fantastic cans. They are noise canceling and do a great job of making me feel like I’m in a sound proof room all by my self listening to music. The Crack amp was designed with higher impedance cans in mind and the AT’s are 300 ohm so I’m in good shape!

    Ok so I have Crack and new headphones and an obvious addiction but the only cure is probably to listen to more music ;) The music through these things is VERY lifelike, the sound stage is wide and dynamic. Natural is probably the best single word I could use to describe the whole experience. Doesn’t seem to matter if I’m playing a CD from my laptop, MP3’s from my player, or spinning a LP, at least with recordings of high quality, the music sounds natural. I have a couple live performances and if I close my eyes it’s not a stretch to imagine being there. I’ve had several experiences where detail I hadn’t heard or noticed before startled me because I didn’t realize it was from the recording and not something going on around me.

    I love this amp, cost of admission is $220 plus shipping, add to that a day or three of your time for assembly and you’ve got yourself one serious performer. Bottlehead has a very active DIY community, lots of help on their forums, plus lots of other kits to feed your habit! If you’re looking for a first kit, or even just something new, give them a very serious look, you will not regret it.

    I’m going to go flip my record and listen to my Crack some more ;) have a good one!

     

    tags:  Bottlehead  tube audio  OTL Headphone amp  Crack  Crack amp  music  DIY audio  DIY Hifi  Bottlehead Crack OTL Headphone amp  Audio-Technica  ATH-ANC7b 

  9. Merry Christmas to all :)

    Playing one of my all time favorites this morning while cooking something to take to my sister-inlaws for breakfast. The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out. I never get tired of listening to this one, absolutely love this album. 

    Merry Christmas all, may you be able to spend the holidays surrounded by the ones you love and good music.

     

    tags:  merry christmas  Dave Brubeck 

  10. thepiano:

    Song of the Day #97: Van Morrison- Moondance

    …a classic that should be celebrated. Released in 1970, this is song that really made Van Morrison famous. Van Morrison is known for mixing genre’s like Jazz, Country, Rock, and Blues. This is more of a Jazzy tune, but he sings it like a Rock star. I’m sure you’ll agree.

    The Allmusic reviewer describes “Moondance” as “one of those rare songs that manages to implant itself on the collective consciousness of popular music, passing into the hallowed territory of a standard, a classic.”

    In 1999, this album was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is also in Rolling Stone’s magazine as one of the top 500 greatest Rock songs of all time.

     

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In hot pursuit of my inner monkey! Let there be Shenanigans!

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