Re: The New Other Bench Audiophile Thread, astonishing arrogance edition

[Iago]

Well, and to further muddy the waters, Oppo has entered the headphone market with planar models. More than I want to spend, though!

http://www.oppodigital.com/headphones-pm-1/

[iAmCodeMonkey]

Well, and to further muddy the waters, Oppo has entered the headphone market with planar models.  More than I want to spend, though!

http://www.oppodigital.com/headphones-pm-1/

Those look nice. But for the price, I myself would buy the Bowers & Wilkins P7's for home-use and keep the money I saved in the bank.

[Iago]

Supposedly Oppo has another pair coming soon that will have the same drivers and electronics but with lower-grade materials (no lambskin!) for $699. Still more than I want to pay, but Oppo has never disappointed me yet.

[Iago]

We appear to have lost Seamaster, but I ended up buying new computer speakers instead, and I am extremely happy with both their price and performance. I went a bit outside of the box. (Literally, once you see them.) If you are interested, I can post a review. . .


In the meantime, back to the original astonishing arrogance topic, I offer this gem from Stereophile regarding a demonstration of ethernet cables. I am still a bit of a back-and-forth agnostic on cables in general, but this is definitely ridiculous. The relevent story is right at the top under the picture with the Vandersteen Treos:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/show-2014-day-3-morning

[iAmCodeMonkey]

In the meantime, back to the original astonishing arrogance topic, I offer this gem from Stereophile regarding a demonstration of ethernet cables.  I am still a bit of a back-and-forth agnostic on cables in general, but this is definitely ridiculous.  The relevent story is right at the top under the picture with the Vandersteen Treos:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/show-2014-day-3-morning

$52,000/pair speakers AND monoblock amps???!   

WTF...

[Iago]

So the speakers and amps bother you, but you are O.K. with a $1200 Ethernet cable?

There are far, far more expensive speakers and amps out there, even on that page -- the $140,000 Von Schweikerts leap to mind. I would be very, very happy with Vandersteen Model Sevens, and if I was willing to take out a loan for equipment I would seriously consider them. I would argue that they easily outperform the Von Schweikerts at a third of the price. But I am a definite Vandersteen groupie. I did pay about $10,500 for my Quatros (including the external crossover networks) and a few thousand more than that for the center and surrounds. And I would argue again that they are a bargain for their performance level. We all spend money on what is important to us. Worth pointing out that I drive a 2006 Buick with over 120,000 miles on it. Contentedly. (My wife now has a 2014 Fusion, but that is another story.)

[iAmCodeMonkey]

So the speakers and amps bother you, but you are O.K. with a $1200 Ethernet cable?

Um, what?

My apologizes if this sounds arrogant or what have you, but if you read my post again, you will see that I never said that...

And by the way, a $1200 Ethernet cable is also ridiculously overpriced, in my opinion. I myself have seen speaker cables that cost over $20,000. Look here if you are curious:

http://audiofederation.com/dealership/prices/nordost/index.htm << scroll down until you get to the Odin series.

For the record, I am also not one of those people who, for example, thinks that every solid-state amplifier sounds the same. I try to be more open minded than that. But there has to be a limit somewhere down the line. i can see that spending some amount of dough on half-decent cables for audio is fine with me if the need arises, but really, how much is too much? In terms of price versus sound quality benefits?

I mean, the Nordost cables DO look pretty, I will give them that, but as far as their Odin line is concerned, do $20,000 speaker cables really make your music sound that much better?

I doubt it somehow.

Your $10,000 speakers must sound great, though. When I was auditioning my Bowers & Wilkins P5's, the salesman showed me a pair of their 802D Floorstanders with a 450 Watt McIntosh amplifier. He told me that it was around $40,000 for the whole system, including pre-amplifier. It was pretty amazing, although I myself would never spend that much.

[Iago]

My apologizes if this sounds arrogant or what have you, but if you read my post again, you will see that I never said that...

Not at all -- just internet communication going on here.  You did not say that, but you were replying to my post about the ethernet cables, which included the link to the Stereophile article which also showed the Model 7s and amplifiers.  Since you only commented on something that I was not actually posting about, I made the comment (which was intended to be ironic, but that is hard to express over the internet) that I did.  Of course you would think that the cables were overpriced -- but since that was the subject of my post but you got sidetracked on the speakers, I made a failed attempt at irony.  Do not try this at home, kids.


I would never spend the kind of money that some people do on cars, or computers, or what have you.  We all have our things that we spend money on, and things that we will not.  For me, music and movies are one of the single most important things to me, so that is a relatively easy area for me to allocate the funds.  And I get my use out of it.  Mind you, I am driving my Vandersteens with a Krell preamp and amplification, but have ALL the speakers hooked up with around $300 worth of Blue Jeans cables.  Though I would not mind upgrading those to some basic higher-end cables built on solid science, such as Kimber's 8TC.  I do not believe all of the snake oil, so I do not spend as much money there.

[iAmCodeMonkey]

I initially did not "get" your irony. I do now after reading your reply. LOL

[Iago]

Perhaps I should have thrown a "?!?!?!?!?" at the end of the sentence instead of a simple question mark.


If Nessie ever shows back up, we can even go back to the normal thread derailment here and I can share my story about breaking my toe at the gym two weeks ago. . .

[iAmCodeMonkey]

Perhaps I should have thrown a "?!?!?!?!?" at the end of the sentence instead of a simple question mark.

If Nessie ever shows back up, we can even go back to the normal thread derailment here and I can share my story about breaking my toe at the gym two weeks ago...

I broke both my left and right big-toes once. It was pretty uncomfortable.

[Iago]

That would be nasty. This was just my right pinky toe, so not that much of a big deal, but pretty painful nonetheless. Nothing like rolling a pallet jack with a full pallet of 24 packs over my toes, breaking several of them and ripping one of my toenails out from the root. But that, as they say, is another story. . .

[Seamaster]

Ouch!

On the one hand, sorry to hear of this news. I hope you're nearly healed.

On the other hand, happy to see the thread properly derailed.

[Iago]

Fully healed. No biggie. Mind you, one of our dogs got hit by a car two weeks ago and she lost an eye and had compound fractures in her pelvis. She now has a screw in one side to reattach it to her spine. So, the toe is a bit less of an issue, relatively speaking. (Plus, we got a new puppy as well, but that is another story.)

[Seamaster]

Your poor dog. I hate seeing animals in pain. And your poor bank account, unless you have pet insurance.

[Iago]

No insurance, unfortunately. Pet insurance is very expensive. Mind you, a $6650 bill from the emergency hospital was nothing to sneeze at, either! Plus, we have a ton of work ahead of us while she heals. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

Here she is before the accident. This is the picture that I used on our Christmas card -- she is making what we call her "love eyes." We will just have to get used to calling it a "love eye" now!



Here she is after getting home from the hospital two weeks ago, hanging on for dear life:



And here she is a few days ago, looking a bit perkier. She is even perkier now:

[Seamaster]

Well, she still looks cute. And with being a domestic dog, it really doesn't matter if she has one eye or two. Is her pelvis expected to heal fully.

I know pet insurance is expensive. I guess I learned my lesson a few years ago when I didn't have pet insurance and had to cover medical expenses on two cats, including heart treatment, bladder surgery, kidney treatment and cancer treatment. Yep, they went all out in their last act. I can remember the total cost, but it was over $20,000. The things we do for four-legged furry creatures.

[Iago]

Well, that certainly makes $7000 seem tame! But we do not even look at them as furry friends; they are family, pure and simple. Unlike you, we have no equivalent to SeaJunior. (Who is doing well, hopefully?)

Here is the new addition:

[Seamaster]

Furry friends was just a term of endearment. They are indeed family and nothing less.

Is the new addition a bichon?

Seajunior is doing well. We hit the slopes last weekend (he boards, I ski). Unforutunately, some of the runs weren't open. I guess there hasn't been enough snow.

[Iago]

The new one (Raimi, after guess who?) is half Shih Tzu, half King Charles Spaniel. All cute. She is also a beast to deal with -- nearly boundless energy, not yet potty trained, and chews up everything, including my lovely new Wenger laptop bag that I got with the new rig. She is unquestionably the "puppyest" puppy that we have ever had.


Sydney gets her last stitches out today. The vet took the staples out of her hip last week, but he wanted to leave the stitches over the eye socket for another week. Makes sense, too -- until the socket fills in with scar tissue, there are just those two narrow edges of skin being held together by the stitches. He wanted to make sure that it was fully healed for a stronger connection before he pulled them out.

[Seamaster]

Makes total sense, and what's another week at this point. Puppys are a lot fun and hard work. Can't win them all!

Survey says Sam, Ted or Ivan -- in that order -- 'cause you have a penchance for choosing the obscure and might well have went with No. 2 or 3.

[Iago]

Well, my love of obscurity took you slightly off the track, because the main theme with my dog names is still my favorite directors. Stanley was named after Kubrick, Ridley was named after Ridley Scott, Sofia was named after Sofia Coppola, Sydney was named after Sidney Lumet and Raimi is named after Sam Raimi. It has gotten tricky because we switched to female dogs, and while there are many female directors that I love, most of them have pretty dull first names. So I cheated Sydney by spelling a male name alternatively, and I double-cheated Raimi by taking the last name of a male director -- a last name which happens to work as a female first name.

[Seamaster]

See, now I thought Ted also directed, albeit not nearly as many films as Sam. But I get how Ted would not have likely directed enough to be one of your favourites. He is certainly known more for his acting credits.

[Iago]

Actually, Ted Raimi has not directed much of anything. One short and a few episodes of a TV series. Mind you, Sam acts as well, and I think that he is every bit as good as his brother in that regard. Did you ever see [Indian Summer? He plays a clumsy summer camp handyman, and does some pretty impressive physical comedy (including one seemingly innocuous stunt as he is bringing a boat into dock that could have easily gotten him killed with one false step.)

Sydney got her stitches out a couple of weeks ago. This is from the same day, but she actually looks much better now. More hair is growing back, and the redness is gone:

[Seamaster]

I dunno. I think she looks kinda cute with the scar. Don't get me wrong; I wish she had never had the accident. But all things considered, she's still got the cute card.

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