Recent content by Spocko

You bring up a good point about value and our personal scoring criteria - for me it's impossible to vote without subjectively taking price into consideration. It goes the other way as well: 4-star performance for headphones costing less than $20 will get 5 stars from me while the exact same...

BUYING IT NOW, thanks @amirm

Are you guys working on a premium amplifier to take on these biggies?

It's called staying in business to feed your family. This reply is for non business owners, who don't realize how many of these darn things need to be sold every day to keep the lights on and pay the employees, taxes, insurance, rent, etc. This post (promoted by @amirm ) about the cost of...

Now waiting for the closed back version!

I bet the depreciation on a used Chord is more than the price of a new Topping DAC. It's not like some Porsche 911 models where the value actually rises past its original MSRP after a few years.

agreed, RF/hum/noise is a nightmare which is why I exclusively only use XLR microphones now, but elsewhere in my recording chain there's sometimes noise that I dont know about until post-production, UGH

At some point, the up front costs are fully recouped over a period of years if you compare it to the current rates being charged/paid for the same amount of electricity used, and once fully amortized (however long that takes) it's the cost of maintenance/replacement of the inverter which is...

How funny is that, I just took them on as a sponsor LOL! Nice to know they do good work because I'll be using them too

I can't be convinced to pay 10x more for cables that in theory "may" carry information that I know I cannot hear. It's also possible that well engineered el cheapo cables can hit that max just as well (I'm sure Topping is on it)

That's my conclusion - solar installations + battery storage (with all their gov't subsidies) will get us to energy independence off the grid faster. I expect huge jumps in electricity prices over the next 5 years and I'll bite the bullet for that install maybe next year.

This past week, certain parts of China have limited electrical usage and specifically, the use of EV charging stations https://jalopnik.com/china-shuts-down-ev-charging-stations-to-conserve-power-1849453761 Ironically, the area in question is near a hydro-electric dam that water levels have...

heh, this is why I love FM car radios so much - you forget about audio gear "performance" and only focus on the music. I was soooo happy my rental moving truck had a built-in radio for me and my son to enjoy tunes while we drove for hours. I just prayed for music with no static!

You're correct, sometimes ignorance is bliss as you can only tell if a movie track is "wacky" if you have a reference to compare it to! I'm absolutley a big fan of well engineered gear and you bring up a great point about discounting the "source of wacky sound". I'm currently reviewing some $2K...

I don't think so because it's all about priorities - all products, from sports cars to washing machines, have to decide which features are more important than others as sometimes they are mutually exclusive because elevating the performance of one aspect necessarily attenuates something else. If...