E_Schaaf

Couldn’t get into Rag 1.5. Must have been a synergy thing, was too sharp and steely on HD650 and Elex (no surprise on the 2nd one). Always felt fatigued by it. Similar feelings I had with Jot 1 as well. Only way I could tolerate it was to put Freya+ in between in buffer mode and set the rag on low gain and turn the volume all the way up (unity gain).

If not for the size I would have a Rag 1.5 on my desk right now, also no need for the speaker outs. But the Rag is what the Mjolnir 1 grows up to be! The endgame moniker fits in my mind. It was great pushing the Genesis G, and also the PM-1!

Have owned one for 5+ years. It's a solid amp, but didn't mesh well with HD600/Utopia nor did it have enough juice for Maggies. I also could only tolerate low gain with most headphones. The unit is so versatile I can't bring myself to sell it, so it's in a closet for now in case I need a backup amp for anything.

Since you're shooting film, I'd suggest find a more special lens which flavors match your taste, and also spend some time on Flickr lens groups. Leave the generic duties to the cell phone.

Think your 35 is already a winner. If you plan to do indoor shoots, 21 might be a good addition. If you’re planning to shoot portraits, the 85 is good.

I always liked the 85mm for walkabout/street photography. 28mm was my "sunsets" lens for all those film years, but I am not sure it'd be worth picking up if you already have 35mm in the bag.

YGPM :)

I mostly agree with @bixby and @Thad E Ginathom but I think something good that was lost with cassettes was everyone making mixtapes. I'm grateful to my Dad for giving me a Kenwood receiver, Sansui tape deck, and some big woofer 70's speakers around age 9 and saying that music would become very important to me soon, so I should start finding what I like.

There's nothing competitively hifi about cassette sound quality in general but I deeply enjoy it for certain genres of music where the sense of pumping and saturation enhances the textures in the mix. House, lofi of various kinds, hip hop, reggae, dub, rnb... I do have some jazz cassettes that beat some lemon vinyl pressings of the same music. Give and take

Also helps that cassettes are often 1/3 the cost and a fraction of the size of a record. Plenty of nice sounding tapes of contemporary music still being released in Japan and Europe

How sweet? ygdm

Sweet like a man at sea. Luckily I'm pretty taxed on bills, so this wont be happening HA HA HA. One of the headphones on the top of my list that I'd like to hear.

Bills are high and nigh but for half off Ill make due and take the opportunity to purchase now at great discount.

I always liked the 7xx series for what it was, but sold mine ages ago. Curious what you'd come up with!

YGPM.

Ahh shitballs. 92 is a good run though! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uAseUVFPNXI

https://www.highdeftapetransfers.ca/products/ahmad-jamals-alhambra-pure-dsd best version of Alhambra.

when i got my cat from the local shelter, she was haughty and i could tell thought little of me, bit and scratched both me and my partner, but for some reason, i was like "this is the one" and she turned out to be the most affectionate, if sometimes a lil saucy, cat ever.

Our cat was super nervous at first too, but also wanted to be around people all the time... so for a while she spent all her time hiding under chairs and couches, but always in a room with somebody else.

When the new cat brings back a mouse or a bird for you, you know enough. You have a new friend.

Your curiosity and work ethic are a delight to behold!

With the exception of 2x on boring work training videos, I don't understand "speed reading" content that's intended to please us emotionally. Why would I fast forward through enjoyment?

Sometimes the speed adds enjoyment for me, or rather, reduces the opportunity for distraction, which in turn makes it a more immersive experience. I am definitely ADHD and was medicated for several years (I was a good kid and took my meds as directed), but had to stop for cardiac reasons.

That makes sense. I'm not ADHD and rather prefer obsessive thinking and high anxiety.

Yeah Buddy! You'll be seeing my money sometime this year. Still love my Mini-S very much. Keeping me tied over for a while

Using the O2 or some other unnamed super secret beauty?

O2. Familiar driver, but new and exceptional flavor ;) some breakthroughs with various nylon meshes applied to the back of the driver and fancy kinetic coupling definitely helped.

@Azimuth bout halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga. My parents place.

Between the Cumberland Plateau and the Smokey Mountains is a nice place to be.

This is why almost every headphone I've ever considered is closed. Spending some time with one on and no music playing helps appreciate just how valuable good isolation is, even if it can't block everything.

Shoutout to all of the ETA supporters for funding this research. Hope y'all can reap the benefits with our next launch... If there's one thing I've decided its that none of the variants are unequivocally best. It's truly like flavors of ice cream.

I've noticed a trend in the market towards constantly using lighter, thinner, more efficient materials across driver technologies. It makes sense on an intuitive level, but it's been refreshing to explore the opposite approach too. Lots of novel textures and sounds I never thought I'd hear from a headphone.

Aside from the obvious duller transients and lesser macro dynamics I have a speculation that stiffer surrounds yeld more plankton and texture and vice-versa (soft surr> less plankton/texture but more clarity).

Would love to build headphones in the future just to play with those interesting variables.

Yes of course - it is a wiring thing. From what @E_Schaaf is describing, this could be what's going on, or it could be simile as you put it.

I do have a sense of the sound of a material through my fingertips even when sound isn't playing through a transducer. The transducers in this context are my nerve endings, and they're inputs instead of outputs. Either the wires are crossed or I've just trained myself deeply enough that I can't separate my expectation bias from my immediate perception. :Shrug:

I think it shows experience and maybe some special cross wiring - but it seems like what good artists/engineers/specialists in a specific field experience with intuition. You just know what could work to solve a problem/where it comes from/what would be good design just by looking at it, way before running a simulation or measurement. Just hours and days and years of time spent and its a good thing!

https://www.etaheadphones.com/headphones

Most orders placed while I'm away from home should still ship before Christmas.

That being said, a new ETA over ear may also be coming soon ;) This one's been quite a journey...

I'm sure many people find these comfortable. Compared with speakers, I find /all/ headphones uncomfortable ;) but I'd rather have the whole ear type.

(also, although it's not great for music, over-the-ear feeds my hearing aids too. This is good for you-tube videos with speech.)

Voice coils generate magnetic fields which is directly due to the current. This means you want as low a resistance possible. So coils are made from aluminum, copper and even silver. Nickel is used for magnetic lamentations but don’t conduct any current. I don’t think you would really see it used for transducers unless it’s a field coil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zylon

LCP! I've tested one or two of those... Perhaps not genuine zylon though. PEEK and PEI seem like great polymers for use in diaphragms too

Please share impressions!