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BrolicBeast's Living Room Theater - Page 51

post #1501 of 1887
2/6/13 at 9:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

Potential Tragedy: My primary media drive is threatening to crash....attempting to transfer to recently acquired external drive but have already received one error message. If successful, great...if not, I refuse to invest any more time into this. I'm 45 blu rays in and if that data is lost, there's no-way I'm re-doing those. Its just way too early for crashed hard droves...oh well, Time (and the drive) shall dictate the next steps. JRiver is still great for music and worth the price of admission for that alone, as it very well may need to be.

How do you know its about to crash? Chkdsk?
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post #1502 of 1887
2/6/13 at 9:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

Potential Tragedy: My primary media drive is threatening to crash....attempting to transfer to recently acquired external drive but have already received one error message. If successful, great...if not, I refuse to invest any more time into this. I'm 45 blu rays in and if that data is lost, there's no-way I'm re-doing those. Its just way too early for crashed hard droves...oh well, Time (and the drive) shall dictate the next steps. JRiver is still great for music and worth the price of admission for that alone, as it very well may need to be.

Hope it sorts it out for you Matt
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post #1503 of 1887
2/7/13 at 5:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

Potential Tragedy: My primary media drive is threatening to crash....attempting to transfer to recently acquired external drive but have already received one error message. If successful, great...if not, I refuse to invest any more time into this. I'm 45 blu rays in and if that data is lost, there's no-way I'm re-doing those. Its just way too early for crashed hard droves...oh well, Time (and the drive) shall dictate the next steps. JRiver is still great for music and worth the price of admission for that alone, as it very well may need to be.
Oh man that sucks. Just wondering, how old was the drive? I hope you can complete the backup. If those 45 are lost, would you still continue maybe with a new drive?
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post #1504 of 1887
2/7/13 at 5:59am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pokekevin View Post

How do you know its about to crash? Chkdsk?

I had 8 failed rips in a row (4 at a time). When I got home from work yesterday, I saw the first 4 failed, and when I tried to re-rip, my computer wouldn’t even recognize the drive. Then I restarted again and it worked, until I tried to rip again, then the same thing happened. After this, I knew the drive must be getting ready to give up the ghost. But then, the nail in the coffin was when Windows actually told me the drive was failing. You know it’s bad when an OS like Windows actually tells you the drive is getting ready to fail. It has to be really bad for windows to pick up on anything. It actually begged me to back my data up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Franin View Post

Hope it sorts it out for you Matt
Thanks man—I tried backing up to an external drive, but after 10 hours, the rips were only 30% complete. I don’t want to try transferring the data to any other of the internal drives because they are all the same age and have all seen the same amount of use.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MIkeDuke View Post

Oh man that sucks. Just wondering, how old was the drive? I hope you can complete the backup. If those 45 are lost, would you still continue maybe with a new drive?

The drives are actually 4 years old, but they went unused for most of those 4 years. I started this machine with 5.5 Tb of storage, and never went over 1 TB until this digitizing initiative, at which point I added 2 more TB. I have three other SATA Hard Drives running in the machine (and one 2TB external HD), but they are all the same make/model/age as the failing one.
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post #1505 of 1887
2/7/13 at 6:31am
So what's the plan. HD's aren't that expensive now. It might be worth it to pick up a new 4TB drive and try ripping to that. Just as an experiment depending how committed you are to ripping.
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post #1506 of 1887
2/7/13 at 8:02am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MIkeDuke View Post

So what's the plan. HD's aren't that expensive now. It might be worth it to pick up a new 4TB drive and try ripping to that. Just as an experiment depending how committed you are to ripping.

Storage is definitely a lot cheaper now than it was in 2009. I think the time has come for me to put a NAS up once and for all. I’ll pick up some WD Caviar Black or WD Caviar Red drives and be sure to use RAID so I can avoid this problem in the future. I will NOT be doing this until I have legacy speakers in my theater, as those are the priority. I think I’m going to stick with music for now, and will continue to rip once I get the NAS built. Considering I was only 45 disc in, and still literally hundreds left to rip, the loss isn’t as large as it seems in the grand scheme of things. It will be difficult, considering the time investment I’ve already dedicated to this, but since it’s down the line, I’m sure the bitter taste will have left by then.

RAID…RAID….RAID…RAID…RAID is the only way henceforth.

JBOD is not the way to go, as I’ve learned.
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post #1507 of 1887
2/7/13 at 8:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

The drives are actually 4 years old, but they went unused for most of those 4 years. I started this machine with 5.5 Tb of storage, and never went over 1 TB until this digitizing initiative, at which point I added 2 more TB. I have three other SATA Hard Drives running in the machine (and one 2TB external HD), but they are all the same make/model/age as the failing one.

That really sucks. I don't know why some of these drives fail. The oldest one I use is 9 years old from Seagate, and that still houses my original iTunes library (I back this up every few months to an external). However, I had a Seagate 1.5TB external that was only a couple months young that failed on me and corrupted a lot of my rip data. I have since vowed to only stick with Western Digital. This is the only unfortunate downside to having ripped media.
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post #1508 of 1887
2/7/13 at 8:14am
Raid is not a replacement for backing up! Just had to say that lol
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post #1509 of 1887
2/7/13 at 10:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

Storage is definitely a lot cheaper now than it was in 2009.

When the tsunami hit back in 2011, this really threw a monkeywrench into the hardware world. I wanted to buy a hard drive upgrade for a relative last year, and noticed the prices had skyrocketed. Last July, I bought an internal 500GB WD Caviar on Newegg for $80 (today's current price is $70). Prior to the tsunami, that same drive could be found for $40.

Drive prices have started to stabilize and come back down slowly. Until they reach pre-tsunami pricing, I would hold off on a NAS.
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post #1510 of 1887
2/8/13 at 12:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

I had 8 failed rips in a row (4 at a time). When I got home from work yesterday, I saw the first 4 failed, and when I tried to re-rip, my computer wouldn’t even recognize the drive. Then I restarted again and it worked, until I tried to rip again, then the same thing happened. After this, I knew the drive must be getting ready to give up the ghost. But then, the nail in the coffin was when Windows actually told me the drive was failing. You know it’s bad when an OS like Windows actually tells you the drive is getting ready to fail. It has to be really bad for windows to pick up on anything. It actually begged me to back my data up.
Thanks man—I tried backing up to an external drive, but after 10 hours, the rips were only 30% complete. I don’t want to try transferring the data to any other of the internal drives because they are all the same age and have all seen the same amount of use.
The drives are actually 4 years old, but they went unused for most of those 4 years. I started this machine with 5.5 Tb of storage, and never went over 1 TB until this digitizing initiative, at which point I added 2 more TB. I have three other SATA Hard Drives running in the machine (and one 2TB external HD), but they are all the same make/model/age as the failing one.

Well that sucks frown.gif.

Well, here is something to help out, so you can determine the health of your current drives : http://www.hdtune.com/ (just use the trial version, you don`t have to buy it)

Under the Health tab, check the SMART attributes first if all. The app will tell you if any of them are off, and if you have trouble understanding what the errors mean, just post a screenshot around here and i`ll try to explain . After that, you can try an error scan (it can take up to an hour if the drives are big) and see what comes up .

As far as the other drives are concerned, just because they are the same age/model etc. doesn`t mean they will fail in the exact same day smile.gif. They could go on and work fine for years, or fail tomorrow. Just a matter of luck.

Yup, some form of RAID is the best way to go. It`s not actually backup, like pokekevin noted , but a nice way to prevent data loss from a failing hard drive. True backup would mean a set of hard drives with copies of you data stored offsite (somewhere where they are protected from fire/water floods/all sorts of natural disasters) , but obviously that`s expensive, and isn`t worth it for storing media, since you have the disks already and you can always re-rip in case, God forbid, a flood destroyes your NAS/Server etc.
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post #1511 of 1887
2/8/13 at 12:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SergeantYnot View Post

That really sucks. I don't know why some of these drives fail. The oldest one I use is 9 years old from Seagate, and that still houses my original iTunes library (I back this up every few months to an external). However, I had a Seagate 1.5TB external that was only a couple months young that failed on me and corrupted a lot of my rip data. I have since vowed to only stick with Western Digital. This is the only unfortunate downside to having ripped media.

Unfortunately, hard drive quality has gone down in the last years, compared to 10 years ago when that Seagate was manufactured (i still have a 40GB Quantum Fireball that still works even today smile.gif somewhere in the garage). Even WD has had bad batches of drives that would fail quickly or be DOA (dead on arrival). So sticking to one manufacturer doesn`t mean you are safe.
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post #1512 of 1887
2/8/13 at 5:11am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

Well that sucks frown.gif.

Well, here is something to help out, so you can determine the health of your current drives : http://www.hdtune.com/ (just use the trial version, you don`t have to buy it)

Under the Health tab, check the SMART attributes first if all. The app will tell you if any of them are off, and if you have trouble understanding what the errors mean, just post a screenshot around here and i`ll try to explain . After that, you can try an error scan (it can take up to an hour if the drives are big) and see what comes up .

As far as the other drives are concerned, just because they are the same age/model etc. doesn`t mean they will fail in the exact same day smile.gif. They could go on and work fine for years, or fail tomorrow. Just a matter of luck.

Yup, some form of RAID is the best way to go. It`s not actually backup, like pokekevin noted , but a nice way to prevent data loss from a failing hard drive. True backup would mean a set of hard drives with copies of you data stored offsite (somewhere where they are protected from fire/water floods/all sorts of natural disasters) , but obviously that`s expensive, and isn`t worth it for storing media, since you have the disks already and you can always re-rip in case, God forbid, a flood destroyes your NAS/Server etc.

I definitely appreciate that link—I’ll go ahead and give it a go this evening. Yeah, man—honestly, I think my frustration yesterday was clouding my HTPC-reasoning because I clearly have hard drives from ’05 and ’06 that are still going strong in older computers around the house. I began ripping operations again last night using another of the drives and will be backing up to my external HD with only my favorite reference discs. I’ll actually only be ripping reference quality discs until I get a NAS in order. Anything non-reference, I’ll just pop the disc in the Oppo. I’ve discouraged from investing as much time (which I don’t have much of) in ripping this time around. Reference discs only. I may actually pay one or two college kids from church to rip the rest of the collection for me when they’re back from spring break at the end of next month……..

……..on second thought, I’ll do it myself. There are too many variables (i.e. failed rip, selection of lossless tracks, folder setup for series.) I don’t think I can trust anyone with that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pokekevin View Post

Raid is not a replacement for backing up! Just had to say that lol

Yeah I’m aware of this—RAID is a data preservation measure but it can’t replace a complete backup. Initially, when I first put The Ripper PC together, I was going to use a RAID setup so I wouldn’t lose my game data, but when I decided to go TRI-SLI, I had to decide against it because all PCI-E slots were used or blocked with three of those cards running in there. I’m actually thinking about getting a new ATX case and putting together a new rig from scratch for the next generation of gaming—but…I need more of a reason that Crysis 3 to do this though. I miss the late 2000’s when it was normal to spend 4-6k for solid components in a machine that gave you 60fps in one game (Crysis) lol. But my wallet doesn’t miss those days though, and neither does my theater (to which the focus shifted from PC after all benchmarks were conquered).
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post #1513 of 1887
2/8/13 at 8:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

I need more of a reason that Crysis 3 to do this though. I miss the late 2000’s when it was normal to spend 4-6k for solid components in a machine that gave you 60fps in one game (Crysis) lol. But my wallet doesn’t miss those days though, and neither does my theater (to which the focus shifted from PC after all benchmarks were conquered).

Do you remember FarCry back in 2003? That game was really the start of the benchmark gaming tests for performance and graphics. Then came Unreal 2004, Doom 3, and Halfe-Life 2. Then the hardware followed like AMD64, Nvidia SLi, ATI CrossFire, and PhysX engines. I had a benchmark PC back then, that I still use today, that achieved the max settings for all those games. When Crysis came out in 2007, that introduced the next generation of PC gaming requirements like FarCry did. After that, I abandoned the concept of performance PC gaming entirely since the ROI on a gaming PC is worse than a car (I would be lucky to get $300 for my 9 year old PC rig that cost $4K).

These days I focus only on consoles for my gaming needs. Xbox live would be superior to any of the gaming servers that a PC game developer would host (anyone remember the laggy Unreal servers back in 1999?). As far as graphics benchmarks are concerned, do not concern yourself too much with that. You would be surprised that game developers do not tweak these too much, perhaps extra upconverting based on the console/gaming card capabilities. That's one of the reasons they stopped comparing graphics quality of the PS3 and 360 years ago. Though the PS3 has a much more advanced graphics system (my understanding is the developer kit for the PS3 is very difficult to work with), developers are merely interested in porting the code to make the game functional to that console. When I was taking gaming development back in grad school, I learned about gaming engines and discovered most games are in fact harder to develop on a PC due to the changing hardware specs. The concept to develop on consoles was called "fixed platform" was the route the gaming industry was headed to make development costs more streamlined like an assembly line.

With that said, I will be very curious to see how Crysis 3 compares at launch across all major platforms: PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
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post #1514 of 1887
2/8/13 at 9:50am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SergeantYnot View Post

Do you remember FarCry back in 2003? That game was really the start of the benchmark gaming tests for performance and graphics. Then came Unreal 2004, Doom 3, and Halfe-Life 2. Then the hardware followed like AMD64, Nvidia SLi, ATI CrossFire, and PhysX engines. I had a benchmark PC back then, that I still use today, that achieved the max settings for all those games. When Crysis came out in 2007, that introduced the next generation of PC gaming requirements like FarCry did. After that, I abandoned the concept of performance PC gaming entirely since the ROI on a gaming PC is worse than a car (I would be lucky to get $300 for my 9 year old PC rig that cost $4K).

These days I focus only on consoles for my gaming needs. Xbox live would be superior to any of the gaming servers that a PC game developer would host (anyone remember the laggy Unreal servers back in 1999?). As far as graphics benchmarks are concerned, do not concern yourself too much with that. You would be surprised that game developers do not tweak these too much, perhaps extra upconverting based on the console/gaming card capabilities. That's one of the reasons they stopped comparing graphics quality of the PS3 and 360 years ago. Though the PS3 has a much more advanced graphics system (my understanding is the developer kit for the PS3 is very difficult to work with), developers are merely interested in porting the code to make the game functional to that console. When I was taking gaming development back in grad school, I learned about gaming engines and discovered most games are in fact harder to develop on a PC due to the changing hardware specs. The concept to develop on consoles was called "fixed platform" was the route the gaming industry was headed to make development costs more streamlined like an assembly line.

With that said, I will be very curious to see how Crysis 3 compares at launch across all major platforms: PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

First, I am extremely jealous of your grad school experience—a class on game development. My grad school experiences were a little…..less cool. **grumbles to self**

Oh I absolutely remember Far Cry developed by Crytek. I followed it very closely as it was released, marveling at the graphics. Doom 3 and Half Life 2 are actually what got me into PC gaming though. I bought my first dedicated graphics card—the Nvidia 7900GT for Doom 3 & HL2—and then I first fired HL2 up, I nearly flipped at the intro cut scene. I nearly flipped at the detail in Alex’ face. Source engine also made motion so fluid—It blew my mind. Doom 3 was great from a graphical standpoint, but I never finished it. I’m very serious about my beliefs, and all those pentagrams on my screen just weren’t working for me. About a year later, I remember that F.E.A.R. became the new benchmark. The demo blew my mind, and the game blew my mind AGAIN, at which point, I found some obscure drivers and used my (then brank new) Xbox 360 controller (wired via Play&Charge kit, of course) to connect to the PC and play.

After F.E.A.R., I drifted away from PC gaming for a while and absorbed the console way of life until Crysis was released, and even then—I didn’t jump on the bandwagon until Crysis: Warhead was released. I finally was able to get triple GTX 285’s overclocked in 09 (two of which had their own 5”-bay-loaded 500w power supplies to prevent shutdown (which I was getting, even with a 1KW power supply). Playing both of those games in sequence gave me the best overall FPS experiences I’ve ever had—even to this day. I revisited them in 2011 and still was blown away by the sheer graphical beauty. Now, Crysis 3 is coming out.

I’m tempted to scoop up three Nvidia 680’s for another round at TRI-SLI but—unless I sell my triple 285’s, there’s no way I’m taking that route. The 285’s are still powerhouses and sailed through Crysis 2 at Max settings, but I want DX11 Cards so I know I’m able to take advantage of all the technologies available. I’m sure I’ll play it on 360 though, as that system’s graphics are really helped along with a little Darbee aggression. smile.gif
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post #1515 of 1887
2/8/13 at 10:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

First, I am extremely jealous of your grad school experience—a class on game development. My grad school experiences were a little…..less cool. **grumbles to self**

Oh I absolutely remember Far Cry developed by Crytek. I followed it very closely as it was released, marveling at the graphics. Doom 3 and Half Life 2 are actually what got me into PC gaming though. I bought my first dedicated graphics card—the Nvidia 7900GT for Doom 3 & HL2—and then I first fired HL2 up, I nearly flipped at the intro cut scene. I nearly flipped at the detail in Alex’ face. Source engine also made motion so fluid—It blew my mind. Doom 3 was great from a graphical standpoint, but I never finished it. I’m very serious about my beliefs, and all those pentagrams on my screen just weren’t working for me. About a year later, I remember that F.E.A.R. became the new benchmark. The demo blew my mind, and the game blew my mind AGAIN, at which point, I found some obscure drivers and used my (then brank new) Xbox 360 controller (wired via Play&Charge kit, of course) to connect to the PC and play.

After F.E.A.R., I drifted away from PC gaming for a while and absorbed the console way of life until Crysis was released, and even then—I didn’t jump on the bandwagon until Crysis: Warhead was released. I finally was able to get triple GTX 285’s overclocked in 09 (two of which had their own 5”-bay-loaded 500w power supplies to prevent shutdown (which I was getting, even with a 1KW power supply). Playing both of those games in sequence gave me the best overall FPS experiences I’ve ever had—even to this day. I revisited them in 2011 and still was blown away by the sheer graphical beauty. Now, Crysis 3 is coming out.

I’m tempted to scoop up three Nvidia 680’s for another round at TRI-SLI but—unless I sell my triple 285’s, there’s no way I’m taking that route. The 285’s are still powerhouses and sailed through Crysis 2 at Max settings, but I want DX11 Cards so I know I’m able to take advantage of all the technologies available. I’m sure I’ll play it on 360 though, as that system’s graphics are really helped along with a little Darbee aggression. smile.gif

Yeah, my grad school days sucked. Working full time...spending Saturdays studying the Black/Scholes option pricing model.... working every evening on group projects. Luckily it was before we had kids or else I would have likely sprung a gasket. Knocked it out in 18 months taking evening and weekend classes. Confirmed that a PhD was not in my future smile.gif

So here I am 15 years later working for a Financial Services company....in Product...developing Mobile functionality. Everything I learned in my MBA around finance pretty much useless to my actual career ... I know, you learn so much more than just what is in the text book in grad school..or so that is what they tell me. Hey, it pays for my HT and golf addiction so what the hell biggrin.gif
Edited by Frohlich - 2/8/13 at 10:52am
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post #1516 of 1887
2/8/13 at 11:06am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frohlich View Post

Yeah, my grad school days sucked. Working full time...spending Saturdays studying the Black/Scholes option pricing model.... working every evening on group projects. Luckily it was before we had kids or else I would have likely sprung a gasket. Knocked it out in 18 months taking evening and weekend classes. Confirmed that a PhD was not in my future smile.gif

So here I am 15 years later working for a Financial Services company....in Product...developing Mobile functionality. Everything I learned in my MBA around finance pretty much useless to my actual career ... I know, you learn so much more than just what is in the text book in grad school..or so that is what they tell me. Hey, it pays for my HT and golf addiction so what the hell biggrin.gif

Hey, I hear you man. My first MS was in Technology Systems Management, which was actually applicable at that point in my career. The second was an MBA in Global Strategic Management, as I planned to head back to the private sector to “spread” efficiencies I had learned thus far in a public sector career. Turns out, the MBA (and perfect timing) helped place me in a better, albeit unrelated, position. I keep a “personal best practices” list that serves a sort of reference guide that I use when I encounter unique situations with the teams I manage, and interestingly enough, I’ve learned that it’s the private sector that could actually teach the public sector a thing or two about efficiencies. Managing against a profit-based bottom line, while capable of catalyzing greed, can also be a very strong impetus to remain efficient. You didn’t hear that from Brolic though. Heh heh.

So let’s put our heads together and calculate when you’re going to slap two Noesis speakers in that awesome setup of yours biggrin.gif
Edited by BrolicBeast - 2/8/13 at 11:24am
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post #1517 of 1887
2/8/13 at 11:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

Hey, I hear you man. My first MS was in Technology Systems Management, which was actually applicable at that point in my career. The second was an MBA in Global Strategic Management, as I planned to head back to the private sector to “spread” efficiencies I had learned thus far in a public sector career. Turns out, the MBA (and perfect timing) helped place me in a better, albeit unrelated, position. I keep a “personal best practices” list that serves a sort of reference guide that I use when I encounter unique situations with the teams I manage, and interestingly enough, I’ve learned that it’s the private sector that could actually teach the public sector a thing or two about efficiencies. Managing against a profit-based bottom line, while capable of catalyzing greed, can also be a very strong impetus to remain efficient. You didn’t hear that from Brolic though. Heh heh.
So let’s put our heads together and calculate when you’re going to slap two Noesis speakers in that awesome setup of yours biggrin.gif

Waiving crack infront of crack addict...brilliant tongue.gif
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post #1518 of 1887
2/8/13 at 12:05pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frohlich View Post

Waiving crack infront of crack addict...brilliant tongue.gif

Lolol...need a match? biggrin.gif
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post #1519 of 1887
2/8/13 at 2:19pm
It's funny to hear everyone's grad school experiences. I liked what I studied, and have worked in IT ever since. Not that I am fearing changing career paths ever (I almost did a stint in the private military sector), but I particularly enjoy working with users. It's almost like a Tron "greetings program" nostalgia. smile.gif

Ironically enough, I have contemplated going back to challenge my brain again. I'm not sure if I want to keep things like the Chinese Remainder Theorem in memory when there is HD content around. biggrin.gif
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post #1520 of 1887
2/9/13 at 11:11am
Thread Starter 
Ah, the re-rip is complete on one of the other hard drives. Filled a TB and a half thus far. This 4-drive ripping is a real time saver. For anyone thinking about a multi-drive ripping set up, be sure to copy the MakeMKV.exe file to four separate folders before trying to open 4 instances of it. Also be sure to know the "names" of your drives for selection purposes because each time you load the bd's into the drives, they will all read the first drive by default.

Also, for the rips that finish early, don't use the eject function built into makemkv for those...it sometimes opens the wrong drive mid-rip (probably stems from having so many copies running simultaneously.

Heading to a concert tonight to relax the brain...live music smile.gif
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post #1521 of 1887
2/12/13 at 9:39am
Thread Starter 
Thinking about bringing the camera to AXPONA next month. This will be my first ever trade show. I don't like crowds much, but I think this event is worth it.
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post #1522 of 1887
2/12/13 at 10:05am
I have gone to CES 3 times. Trust me, I hate crowds.(You will understand when we meet up at Craig's) smile.gif. But I always have a great time. Even though it's a lot of walking for me
Edited by MIkeDuke - 2/12/13 at 10:52am
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post #1523 of 1887
2/12/13 at 10:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

Thinking about bringing the camera to AXPONA next month. This will be my first ever trade show. I don't like crowds much, but I think this event is worth it.

AX PONA...sounds like some Viking trade show smile.gif Seriously though I had not idea what it was until I looked it up. I should have my AVS membership revoked for that. Sounds like fun. Have a great time.
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post #1524 of 1887
2/12/13 at 12:27pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MIkeDuke View Post

I have gone to CES 3 times. Trust me, I hate crowds.(You will understand when we meet up at Craig's) smile.gif. But I always have a great time. Even though it's a lot of walking for me

I am also a hater of excessive walking. I never spend more than 20 minutes in malls (I always research what I’m getting before I go) and I try my best not to get to Church late so I don’t have to walk from the alternate parking lot. We’re actually making the trip to Chicago the primary focus, with the added bonus of the show on Sunday. I tell ya—it’ll be one difficult Monday at the office. Lol.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frohlich View Post

AX PONA...sounds like some Viking trade show smile.gif Seriously though I had not idea what it was until I looked it up. I should have my AVS membership revoked for that. Sounds like fun. Have a great time.

LOL—The only reason I know about the existence of AXPONA (in the Viking tongue, it means “Wage War against Dragons” lol) is because Stereophile is one of my home tabs that pops up in Google Chrome and they usually have coverage. Now, I had no idea it was going on this March until Ms. Brolic brought it up as a win-win trip out of state. **In French Accent** But, of course madamouzelle!!!!
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post #1525 of 1887
2/12/13 at 2:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

I am also a hater of excessive walking. I never spend more than 20 minutes in malls (I always research what I’m getting before I go) and I try my best not to get to Church late so I don’t have to walk from the alternate parking lot. We’re actually making the trip to Chicago the primary focus, with the added bonus of the show on Sunday. I tell ya—it’ll be one difficult Monday at the office. Lol.
LOL—The only reason I know about the existence of AXPONA (in the Viking tongue, it means “Wage War against Dragons” lol) is because Stereophile is one of my home tabs that pops up in Google Chrome and they usually have coverage. Now, I had no idea it was going on this March until Ms. Brolic brought it up as a win-win trip out of state. **In French Accent** But, of course madamouzelle!!!!

I had no idea AXPONA would be in Rosemont. I might consider going myself. Have you been to Chicago before?
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post #1526 of 1887
2/12/13 at 5:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrolicBeast View Post

LOL—The only reason I know about the existence of AXPONA (in the Viking tongue, it means “Wage War against Dragons” lol) is because Stereophile is one of my home tabs that pops up in Google Chrome and they usually have coverage. Now, I had no idea it was going on this March until Ms. Brolic brought it up as a win-win trip out of state. **In French Accent** But, of course madamouzelle!!!!
I went to AXPONA in NY a couple years back. Lots of "high end" stuff. None of it was optimized for the room it was in and most of it sounded pretty bad, IMO. The Steinway-Lyngdorf room did have their proprietary RC system, and it sounded pretty good, but nowhere near the cost of the system. Lots of huge monoblock amps, weird looking speakers, stupid expensive cables, many vinyl sources, blah, blah, blah. Several of these rooms had systems that cost $200K+. None of them sounded as good or better than my own system at home. Many would consider my system a "high end" system, but relative to a lot of the systems at AXPONA, it is decidedly mid-fi.

It was most interesting to listen to the commentary of many of the other attendees, who clearly were hearing things I did not hear, and who were able to ignore or not recognize many of the problems I heard. The commentary was all the "audiophile" subjective crap: open, airy, transparent, veil-lifted, micro-detail, blacker-background, silkier, faster bass, etc., etc.

The one thing I really did enjoy was meeting Bill Duddleston of Legacy Audio. Their room really did sound good, although the the bass could have benefited from some room correction. Still, Bill's approach to audio was a breath of fresh air in a whirlwind of audiophoolery. Legacy will be in Chicago, and I'm sure you'll hit their room. I expect it will be a highlight of your experience.

I also see that Wisdom Audio will be there. I experienced their systems at CEDIA in 2010, and came away thinking they STOLE that show! That was the most incredible audio experience I've ever had. I strongly suggest you make it to their room.

Overall, tt was a very interesting experience, and I learned a lot about the "high end." The primary thing I learned is that a well optimized "mid-fi" system can sound better than an uber-expensive "high end" system, even if it doesn't have massive dual-monoblock amps, weird looking speakers and cables that cost more than cars.

Craig
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post #1527 of 1887
2/12/13 at 9:38pm
Craig:

Your system is mid-fi? confused.gif Surely you jest! Your speakers MSRP is more than the cost of my first home. But I get your point.

I have heard very few speakers/systems at shows sound anything other than mediocre. I have attended approximately 10 to 15 CES's, and 3 or 4 CEDIA's and 1 AXPONA and the comment that literally makes me want to gag that comes from the mouth of some of the well known reviewers goes something like this: He just walked out of a room that he has never been in, listening to music he has never heard on equipment, non of which he is at all familiar with and says: "that amp sounded really airy" Excuse me!! He clearly must posses some kind of mystic powers.

But shows can be enjoyable for no other reason than to hear some new music and hear the total crap that comes out of the mouth of some of these manufacturers (particularly the wire, power cord and "accessory" companies). And you will get to hear (usually) a number of systems that do really sound great. I know Mark Seaton is supposed to be there and I sure hope he has room treatment in his space.

One thing that really annoys me about shows is that when one of the reviewers walks into a room, if you happen to be sitting in the sweet spot (and waited 20 minutes to get that seat), you will be asked to move --- and usually with not a lot of tact.
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post #1528 of 1887
2/13/13 at 4:13am
Brolic,

I would say the experience will be educational if nothing else. There is a show here in NY in April, and I'm thinking about going. But if I buy a preamp as I seem headed toward doing, research won't be part of the deal. The Chicago show will be a time of bonding with the Ms. over a common interest. Just be sure of who buys lunch first!

A recent TAS letters page (Feb. '13) highlighted the very scenario audioguy mentioned, as one of its reviewers was involved. At Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, in the Wilson room (shared by three other companies) a gentleman was asked by someone (not a Wilson rep) to move from a sweet-spot chair so a reviewer (Jonathan Valin, who hadn't been consulted apparently) could sit there. It wasn't Mr. Valin's fault, and he indicated willingness to sit somewhere else, but the gentleman who'd been asked to move stormed out. An embarrassment to everybody.

I'm not a trained listener, but I have heard differences with speaker cable and with interconnects between preamp and power amp in my system. If, listening normally, I hear something, then it's significant. If not, I save money.
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post #1529 of 1887
2/13/13 at 6:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by craig john View Post

The commentary was all the "audiophile" subjective crap: open, airy, transparent, veil-lifted, micro-detail, blacker-background, silkier, faster bass, etc., etc.

Hey audiophiles can be douchebags too, LOL

Don't forget "tight" and "clean" as descriptors.
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post #1530 of 1887
2/13/13 at 6:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by prepress View Post

I'm not a trained listener, but I have heard differences with speaker cable and with interconnects between preamp and power amp in my system. If, listening normally, I hear something, then it's significant. If not, I save money.

Not to open a can of worms at all, but what cable brand do you prefer in your system? Do you have a preference for speaker wire?
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