WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions.
Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
I did not get a chance to listen to it, but I did get to see the 590 in person. The 590 is a humongous beast. Your guy friends will be super impressed with the size. And all of their wives/girlfriends will say, "Those are absolutely not going in our living room."
Creative in the U.S, the Blaster folks are offering 30% off nearly everything using the code YAS30
Creative runs frequent sales and the prices fluctuate, so YMMV on how real the discount.
But the Sound Blasterx G6 and G5 Refurbs seem a good deal at $70 and $49 after coupon. This is $10 off the previous low for the G6 I think which seems like a great price for a DAC/Amp that measures well.
The Aurvana Live! SE over ears are $49 after coupon which is about $10 off normal price. Do some SE googling for comparison to the original. So far as I can tell the original CAL changed slightly over time, and the SE is like the later CALs but with earcup sparkles.
The Creative Nova, the weirdest and most versatile Alexa speaker, is just $42 after code. I was not aware of it, but it seems to do everything and more, but reviews are all over the place as to how well it does them.
At that same link Amazon is now listing the new Phillps TAG6105 headphone previously only listed on AliExpress - but I can't find any listings on AliExpress that say they've sold a single unit and there are no reviews listed either. Same at that Amazon link, searching the 5709 comments for the item "TAG6105" doesn't turn up any hits.
The TAG6105 is based on the SHP9500, modified to connect via USB with a volume + game/music mode inline USB wired controller, includes Microphone with volume control - and adds RGB to the SHP9500, and it mentions "sound card DSP" - not sure if it is an actual PCIE card or they are talking about the USB inline controller:
Etymotic ER4XR's are on sale at Amazon for $166, by far the best deal I've ever seen. MSRP $349. I bought them, and they are the real thing. I don't see similar deals elsewhere, but maybe they're making room for a new model?? Go figure, go buy.
(I already have the ER3XR's, and they have spoiled my enjoyment of the Senn HD6XX's ... the Ety's make the Senn's sound just too veiled in the treble, and with sloppy mid/upper bass. The Ety's provide such detail on each instrument's timbre, and have bass in reserve that is totally controlled and realistic. I listen to classical more than anything else, but the Ety's transients are fast and make me want to listen to early PJ Harvey to catch the great percussion. At their worst, they will not conceal the engineered brightness of some popular music recordings. Sound stage ok but not large.)
Etymotic ER4XR's are on sale at Amazon for $166, by far the best deal I've ever seen. MSRP $349. I bought them, and they are the real thing. I don't see similar deals elsewhere, but maybe they're making room for a new model?? Go figure, go buy.
(I already have the ER3XR's, and they have spoiled my enjoyment of the Senn HD6XX's ... the Ety's make the Senn's sound just too veiled in the treble, and with sloppy mid/upper bass. The Ety's provide such detail on each instrument's timbre, and have bass in reserve that is totally controlled and realistic. I listen to classical more than anything else, but the Ety's transients are fast and make me want to listen to early PJ Harvey to catch the great percussion. At their worst, they will not conceal the engineered brightness of some popular music recordings. Sound stage ok but not large.)
Check slickdeals and search for Etymotics. You'll find that various Etymotic IEMs have been on and off sale at Adorama now for months and months. Occasionally Amazon price matches them.
So these items are both deals as well as resulting usage improvement for Browser, Music Apps, and other Apps on Windows, Android, iOS, Macintosh, and Amazon Fire devices.
I had been frustrated with laggy performance on my Windows 10 PC while browsing, using Apps like Tidal, Amazon Music HD, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video. My machine isn't normally slow - AMD Ryzen 3700x + Nvidia RTX 2070 Super + PCIE 4.0 2TB SSD - slowly but surely the overload of Ad's, Trackers, and referral add-on's tacked onto URL's has gotten to the point it's overloaded all of my browser and system mitigations.
So I started looking for a system-level alternative to consolidate the mitigation where it counts - at the network level before it enters the browser or apps.
Fortunately, I found 2 products - one expensive and one free, and an old reseller site I used long ago that cut my cost by >50%.
I had used Adguard a long time ago, but it was too new and under development. I went back to check out Adguard recently as I was getting tired of browser extension management and the lack of system-wide blocking for all applications, and I found Adguard to be very much optimized, but not perfect - I'll link another tool as well to cover the junk missed by Adguard Android - but AdGuard performs well enough for me to buy a Family Lifetime License for 9 devices, for $29.99 - from one of their legit resellers StackSocial - the prices on StackSocial were so low I asked AdGuard and they confirmed via email that StackSocial was their legit reseller.
Adguard also has DNS servers that implement QUIC protocol and is an improvement on DNS over TLS and https, and additionally AdGuard pre-filters DNS request results against their filter lists which stops downloading the gunk rather than blocking it after it is downloaded.
There is a real improvement in interactivity, page loads, and wonderful lack of ads, tracking, and malware - although no "threats" have been logged by Adguard yet.
I'm using it on Windows 10 , and an Android phone and Android tablet, but the license is good for all the devices Adguard supports.
Windows Adguard Blocked Items Counter Status:
Windows Adguard DNS Settings, using QUIC DNS to Adguard Blocking DNS server - many DNS server options, this blocks more bad stuff than an OpenDNS server - which cannot do QUIC + AdGuard DNS level blocking, only TLS/HTTPS connections + Adguard HTTPS filtering, Ad-blocker AdGuard deploys world's first DNS-over-QUIC resolver | ZDNet
TLDR, found Adguard - a system-wide cruft blocker + QUIC DNS Server provider + a huge discount through StackSocial - an external reseller, and "Vanced Manager" an Android Youtube cruft blocker that covers the stuff Adguard misses on Android, and a newish AdGuard VPN that is really inexpensive now on StackSocial:
And, I haven't tried it yet, AdGuard VPN is a new Service for Adguard - probably great from some locations but not from others The deals through StackSocial for 1 year, 3 year, and 5 year for 5 device licenses are kinda hard to pass up, I'll try out the VPN trial later myself.
Check slickdeals and search for Etymotics. You'll find that various Etymotic IEMs have been on and off sale at Adorama now for months and months. Occasionally Amazon price matches them.
There may be others now and in the future many are waiting for the Hifiman HE6SE V2 return in August - with perhaps another discount to $699.
---------------
Update: Wow!, found a quick and easy fix to the Windows Lag I was still seeing - probably due to the recent Windows Updates.
Here is the command to run (as Administrator): DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
Etymotic ER4XR's are on sale at Amazon for $166, by far the best deal I've ever seen. MSRP $349. I bought them, and they are the real thing. I don't see similar deals elsewhere, but maybe they're making room for a new model?? Go figure, go buy.
(I already have the ER3XR's, and they have spoiled my enjoyment of the Senn HD6XX's ... the Ety's make the Senn's sound just too veiled in the treble, and with sloppy mid/upper bass. The Ety's provide such detail on each instrument's timbre, and have bass in reserve that is totally controlled and realistic. I listen to classical more than anything else, but the Ety's transients are fast and make me want to listen to early PJ Harvey to catch the great percussion. At their worst, they will not conceal the engineered brightness of some popular music recordings. Sound stage ok but not large.)
Check slickdeals and search for Etymotics. You'll find that various Etymotic IEMs have been on and off sale at Adorama now for months and months. Occasionally Amazon price matches them.
Thanks for the tip. I thought of Adorama for cameras that were not mislabeled grey market items, not the lowest price. Today, the ER4's are $300, so no deal now, but I'll check other stuff later. I see they have lots of audio, which I didn't know.
Yep, I tried signing in as a student and the ER4's are still $299. They have some pricing algorithm that looks for repeat buyers or members or soemthing.... but I looked at several items, and none of them are real bargains ... unless I use your link.
Thanks for the tip. I thought of Adorama for cameras that were not mislabeled grey market items, not the lowest price. Today, the ER4's are $300, so no deal now, but I'll check other stuff later. I see they have lots of audio, which I didn't know.
Anker today is hosting a Gold Box deal on Amazon, including sales that reach up to 43 percent off original prices. Like other Gold Box sales, this one will only last for one day, so be sure to check out the deals below before they expire later today.
Anker today is hosting a Gold Box deal on Amazon, including sales that reach up to 43 percent off original prices. Like other Gold Box sales, this one will only last for one day, so be sure to check out the deals below before they expire later today.
