Another example of questionable spending. No wonder Epic doesn’t want its employees working from home.
And this is my questionable spending. It’s questionable because the version with an Intel i5 for a hundred bucks less than the i7 would have been fine for my purposes.
My beloved HP ProBook 11 G2, that I’m using right now, will migrate from the porch to the bedroom. Oh, by the way, as modest as the traffic is for this site, it’s viewed on phones over desktop/laptop computers by a 3:1 margin.
Once again, my apology to the hearing-impaired among you.
THESE. SOUND. AMAZING.
TRUTHEAR x Crinacle Zero In-Ear Monitors
Normally only $50, they were a $42 Black Friday impulse purchase. The TRUTHEAR x Crinacle Zero IEM’s can sound bizarre at first, and they did, until finding the right set in the supplied collection of earpieces. For me, the biggest set of the clear silicone pieces does the trick.
The sound follows something called the Harman IEM frequency response target. It’s a bit bright for my taste, and the mid-bass is lacking compared to the incredibly tight, deep bass. But the impact, clarity and overall WOW factor when listening more than make up for those quibbles.
This quote from the Wikipedia page about Steely Dan’s Katy Lied aligns with what I remember reading long ago about the album in a hi-fi magazine article. The citation Wikipedia is looking for is undoubtedly in that particular issue.
Band leaders Becker & Fagen said they were dissatisfied with the album’s sound quality because of an equipment malfunction with the then-new dbx noise reduction system. The damage was mostly repaired after consulting with the engineers at dbx, but Becker & Fagen still refused to listen to the completed album.[citation needed]
To refresh my memory of the original sound, I listened to my 70’s vinyl copy of Katy Lied on my living room system with the Thorens TD-166 MKII and Ortofon Super OM 20. I’m now ready to revise my opinion.
It’s brilliant! Ignoring my quibbles about the mix, the way the lacquer master was cut, as described in yesterday’s post, is outstanding. I am especially impressed with the dynamics. Here’s the first minute of “Black Friday”, played on the office turntable, a Pioneer PL-112D with Shure M92.
WOWEE! That is one dynamic cut of vinyl! There’s certainly no loudness compression going on there.
Seeing that graph made me wonder if swapping in my Grado Green cartridge would be up to the challenge of tracking the record. The answer is no, it isn’t. The difference in volume isn’t the issue, it’s the crackling that can be heard when listening with headphones.
So, aside from the noise reduction equalization snafu, resulting in the hasty re-mix, Katy Lied is an impressive technical production. It’s especially noteworthy for its early use of a computerized cutting lathe in the final stage of mastering the record.
Yesterday, I heard Steely Dan’s “Black Friday” as a Pandora random selection. I heard the song again today, when Mark Lindsay played it on his SiriusXM show, American Revolution. I took that as a sign, not that I should go shopping, but that I should write about the notorious technical nightmare associated with the album Katy Lied.
I was immediately disappointed the first time when playing Katy Lied. Not disappointed in the album itself, because I was only a couple of minutes into it, but with the sound. What I heard when playing it on my JVC VL-5 turntable (that I regret very much no longer having) belied the production’s care and attention to detail, as explained in the liner notes.
The overall sound seemed somewhat “hard,” with the percussion and cymbals having an unusually brittle quality. The description of a 24-track tape recorder meant that noise reduction had been used. Did something go wrong with that?
Yes, something went wrong with the noise reduction. As I later read in an audio magazine article, a lot of “golden ear” listeners could tell that something was amiss in the final mix. A Boston company called dbx had faulty gear, resulting in the need for a hastily re-created mix, as explained here.
I am very impressed with the Topping E30 II Lite external digital-to-analog converter I bought a few weeks ago. Purchased primarily for the display, to figure out my Chromecast Audio problem, the improvement in sound over the built-in DAC’s in my digital sources is obvious. The shimmer of cymbals is very realistic compared to what I had been hearing all these years, and the overall sound is now much more “open and spacious.”
The E30 II Lite is on sale for $85, compared to the $100 that I paid for mine.
It’s called the “Lite” model because its more expensive brother, the E30 II, has two DAC circuits. Normally costing $150, the E30 II is also currently 15% off. As I always do, and enjoy very much doing, I took a deep dive into the technical weeds to finalize a selection, and I couldn’t find a reason to buy the more expensive model, other than bragging rights for having two DAC’s.
Note: These products come with power cables, but not a power adapter. A standard 5V USB adapter with an “A” port is needed, and by now doesn’t everybody have some spares sitting in a drawer?
I’ve completed a lengthy journey of understanding a problem with Google’s (discontinued) Chromecast Audio device. The symptom is the sound sputters, as if it were gargling.
The process I’ve been through to figure out the problem would be tedious to explain and boring to read. The upshot was that I bought an excellent external DAC with a display.
Topping E30 II Lite DAC
These are the essential points:
Android resamples audio to 48 kHz. This will be seen when using the Home app to cast all audio from Android, rather than casting from an app that does its own audio rendering.
Android audio played via USB is always 48 kHz.
Resampling 44.1 audio to 48 kHz causes Chromecast Audio to “gargle.” This is true whether using the device’s analog output or an external DAC.
USB audio works perfectly at 48 kHz.
Google Chrome browser no longer supports audio-only Chromecast.*
All of this is within Google’s “ecosystem” and control, especially considering my Android phone is a Google Pixel 4a. It’s an example of where Google continues to be sloppy and inconsistent.
They create a lot of interesting stuff, with the Chromecast Audio puck at the top of the list, as far as I’m concerned. It’s painful recalling the innovative Logitech Revue with Google TV being abruptly discontinued. Google’s problem is they don’t fully commit to the pursuit of polishing their products to perfection as Apple, following Steve Jobs’ lead, seems obsessed with doing.
*Correction: The Chrome browser in one of my Windows 10 PC’s continues to show Chromecast Audio as an available device. It’s playing the audio for a YouTube video, at 48 kHz. So after so much careful checking, being sure that my WiFi PC’s are on the same network as Chromecast Audio, only to see the device no longer being listed in the Chrome browser, I am confronted with yet another quirk that will require even further testing.
