Sean Mulholland - My take on the internet, technology, and marketing
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- Golden Gate Bridge looking for corporate sponsors
From AdAge.com, reposted here since they require a login.
The realities of modern economics are frustrating to say the least when our most treasured landmarks even have to consider stooping to this level. They're also reviewing the Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument.
SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- It won't be renamed the Golden Arches Bridge, but the directors of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge are looking for corporate sponsors to help subsidize the landmark's $87 million deficit.
'Appropriate' sponsors
The district has hired Kevin Bartram, president, Sponsorship Strategies in Novato, Calif., for a six-month study of how to place corporate sponsorships for the world-renowned tourist attraction. The directors have made it clear they won't change the name of the bridge. Mr. Bartram said he is looking for "appropriate" sponsorships that allow association with the bridge "without having a huge presence on the bridge." Some of the corporate-sponsorship projects he will review include the Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument restorations. He noted the bridge district has buses, ferries and a gift shop that could accommodate sponsorships.Local opposition
Still, some of San Francisco's leading ad folks had mixed feelings about the bridge-sponsorship project. Venables, Bell & Partners founder Paul Venables said having the name of an out-of-town company on the bridge "would be horrible" and "make a mockery of our city." One example: Rice-A-Roni, which is known as the San Francisco treat and still uses a cable car as its marketing icon, but is now owned by a Chicago company.But a San Francisco company might do. Local favorites include Gap, Levi Strauss and George Lucas, whose headquarters in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area's Presidio is close to the bridge. Silicon Valley tech companies such as Google and Hewlett-Packard also might be candidates. But Mr. Bartram said he also will consider companies that compete with the locals, such as Microsoft.
Suicide issue
Some wonder whether the bridge, which has been the site of more than 1,200 suicides, might deter would-be sponsors. Hal Riney, founder of the agency now known as Publicis & Hal Riney, called the sponsorship concept "appalling" but added sardonically: "It's possible some clever minds might find some way to merchandise [potential suicides] as well. Maybe they could charge 10 thousand bucks each and we could welcome these people."Rich Silverstein, co-chairman and co-creative director, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, bicycles over the bridge on his way to work at least three times a week. He called the proposal "offensive" and said he would boycott any marketer that participated in the venture. "The Golden Gate Bridge should never be used for marketing," he said.
Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:45:45 -0800 - Funny picture about my line of work (Search marketing / SEO / SEM)
Fri, 15 Sep 2006 00:22:05 -0800 - Mont Blanc in a garbage bag
The basic idea is taking a Mont Blanc rollerball refill and sticking it into a Pilot G2 pen. This mod isn't new, but I finally got around to trying it, and it's definitely worth the effort. Took me all of five minutes to do. This way you have the amazing writing quality of a Mont Blanc without the high cost of one of their pens ($200+ for a genuine Mont Blanc). While I *do* have a genuine Mont Blanc, I did want something nice for the office that I don't have to worry about getting stolen.
See the full details of the hack here.
Fri, 18 Aug 2006 08:33:43 -0800 - How to Silently Overclock with Air Cooling
Overclocking is a combination of gambling, engineering, and hardware hacking. There are many different approaches, and I've pretty much tried them all. I've done extreme air cooling, with something like 200 cubic feet per minute (CFM) rushing through my computer, I've done water-cooling in various forms, including my infamous four foot tall clear acrylic bong tower, and last year I gave it all up for silent cooling. With silence I backed off my heavy overclocks significantly, and lived with more modest increases over stock settings.
My latest nerd adventure is trying for a pretty heavy overclock with near silent cooling. I knew true silence wasn't possible, since true silence is typically considered a computer under 30dB. At ear level mine is probably more like 35dB - you can hear it, but only if you're listening for it. It's about as loud as a whisper from five feet away - typically it just blends into the usual background noise and is effectively silent, though not technically silent.
My Results
I started with this system as a base:
- AMD Opteron 146 @ 2000MHz w/ 1MB L2 cache
- 2x512MB of Buffalo RAM (generic, but uses the legendary Winbond BH-5 RAM chips)
*** RAM SPD (standard) settings are programmed to 166MHz, 2.5-3-3-7 timings
- ASRock Dual SATA-II Motherboard (semi-generic, $65)
- BFG 6800OC (nVidia 6000 non-ultra based card)
- 250GB Western Digital silent IDE-133 drive
- Seasonic S12 380W super-efficient Silent PSUThat's a pretty decent setup by most standards. Not a slow machine, but not a top performer either. But, as of 4/21/06, I've managed to take it much farther than spec:
- The Opteron runs at 2750MHz, and with the 1MB cache that makes it 98.2% as fast as an AMD FX-57, the fastest single-core chip available. FX-57's cost over $800 - my Opteron was $170.
- My RAM is currently at 230MHz with 2-2-2-5 timings. This is 30MHz over stock PC3200 (what most A64/Opteron machines use), and while the science behind RAM timings is mind numbingly boring, just take my word for it that 2-2-2-5 timings are basically as fast as you can get and are typically much better than stock. This required a 3.3v mod to the memory voltage on my motherboard by patching the 3.3v supply from the PSU to the vDimm supply. I put a silent fan over the RAM to keep the ram from frying. I've used Memtest86 to test the RAM up to 244MHz 2-2-2-5 stable, but due to divider issues I'm forced to use a slower 230MHz speed.
- My BFG 6800OC video card comes with a stock setting of 350MHz on the GPU and 350MHz DDR on the video memory. This is typically written out as 350/350. This card comes pre-overclocked - stock 6800nu cards come 325/325. With the addition of a near-silent Zalman cooler and ramsinks I was able to take the card to 400/430 which gives me about a 10% boost in speed.
All this was done with near silence, with the option of total silence. It's also verified as 100% stable by running the computer through a series of rigorous tests such as Memtest86 (9 hours stable), Prime95 (19 hours stable), and 3DMark. This can run all day, rock solid, and never crash, overheat, etc. How was it done?
How you can Overclock in Silence
It's all based on proper airflow. If you can manage the flow of air into and out of your case, you don't need loads of fans or whatnot to make up for a lack of planning. You can have hundreds of CFM flowing through the case and still have 'dead zones' without any significant flow. In my case the in/out CFM of the machine is only about 40 CFM. Inside the case I have additional fans for heatsinks and to help direct the airflow, but only about 40 CFM flows through the case.
First, take a look at the airflow diagram for my computer:
What makes this airflow plan work are these three elements:
1. Case Layout
As the picture shows, I keep the cables in my case very tidy. Don't waste your time packing your cables into Techflex or heatshrink - rounded cables don't make any difference if things are still a mess. If they're out of the way then it doesn't matter if they look messy - they won't affect airflow. Also think of where you place your drives. You want them out of the way of the fans, and you want them to allow for maximum passive airflow. You don't have to force air into and out of the case, let it do the work for you (and in silence).
2. Case choice
I chose a case that allows for maximum passive airflow, the Cooler Master Centurion for only $60 without a PSU. The entire front face of the case is a mesh with air filters behind it, which essentially provides a wide open design that still holds out the dust. The side panel has multiple passive vents, as does the back. If your case lacks these features you can still achieve them. Just remove the cover plates on the front panel, drill holes in the side of the case, etc.
3. Choice of Cooling Components
I use a Scythe Ninja cooler, which is one of the best coolers you can buy, with a silent 120mm ~40CFM fan. This fan is oriented to blow air upward, which aids in case airflow. For the video card I use a Zalman VF700-Cu near-silent 'flower' style cooler with 8 ramsinks for the BGA memory on the card. For case fans I use both 120mm and 80mm silent Cooler Master brand fans. The PSU is also silent yet effective at cooling. The Seasonic S12 series PSU uses a silent, variable speed 120mm fan and an open-airflow design to allow maximum cooling effect. Almost all my fans are hooked up to a Cooler Master Aerogate fan controller allowing me turn down the fans to achieve true silence if I want (music listening for example), though I usually leave them up at near-silent levels for the performance gain in games and other intensive apps.
Planning Case Airflow
In my case I knew that passive intake was the key to silence. I only have one active intake, a silent 80mm fan in the front. It helps to get cool air to an otherwise 'dead zone'. This air helps cool the hard drive and video card. When planning passive intakes, think about how the air will enter the case, and where it will be beneficial. Also, make sure you have negative case pressure, which means that you have more air being blown out of the case than there is being blown in. If more air is being sucked out of the case via fans, extra air will naturally flow in via your passive intakes to make up the pressure difference. This is the key to silent cooling in my opinion.
In the following pic, the passive intakes are marked blue and the exhaust is marked red. Both my PSU and lone exhaust fan use silent or near-silent 120mm fans. These two together pull a large amount of air out of the case, around 40CFM+. My lone intake fan, the silent 80mm mentioned earlier, only takes in about 15CFM. This creates substantial negative case pressure, which allows the passive intakes to function properly. Also I've left any unoccupied PCI slot cover open. This creates even more passive intakes for airflow.
The reason I covered the upper passive intake is because air takes the path of least resistance. If it were open, the exhaust fans simply suck air in through that hole and immediately blow it out of the case. By covering it, air is pulled in via the lower intakes and is then blown over the CPU heatsink before it is exhausted from the case. This dropped temps by 1C-2C.
Taking a look inside, you can see how the passive intakes help bring in air to the case. As you can see, my CPU heatsink, the Scythe Ninja cooler with a silent 120mm fan, has the fan pointing upward. This creates a strong upward flow. This takes all the cool air from the lower half of the case and blows it up through the heatsink, where it is then exhausted out the back. It also sucks away hot air from the video card, thus preventing it from stagnating and forming a dead zone around the video card.
Here's a low angle view of the heatsink fan showing the flow of air upward through the case. Once the air from the lower reaches of the case is pulled upward, it is exhausted out the back via the PSU and 120mm exhaust fan.
Next, see some detail of the front of the case viewed from the inside. On the left is the 5 1/4" bays, and you can clearly see the open-mesh design for the exterior covers which allow for passive air intake, and also allows some heat to escape from the RAM. On the right is the 80mm intake fan in the lower part of the case, which blows over the hard drive and then on to the video card.
And remember - rounded cables aren't always the best option! A flat ribbon cable used properly can actually provide more options for hiding the cables as shown here. Not only does it tuck neatly under the hard drive, it also helps cover the mess of other cables connecting to the motherboard.
And the last bit of detail is a silent 80mm fan zip-tied and wire-tied into the case to help cool the RAM. This fan breaks up a 'dead zone' near the 5 1/4" bays that was causing the RAM to overheat. This extra cooling is normally not necessary, but my 3.3v vDimm mod gives the RAM over 22% more voltage than stock - in this case the cooling was needed. Some of the heat from the RAM is sucked out through the PSU and case exhaust fans, while some simply escapes passively through the mesh 5 1/4" bays pictured above.
Conclusion
I hope this article can help provide you some guidance on how you can manage case cooling while maintaining a near-silent computer. With the right planning significant overclocks are achievable without the need for an 'extreme' cooling solution or significant cost. Please feel free to comment or email me if you have any questions on setting up a good cooling solution for yourself.
Sat, 22 Apr 2006 15:49:35 -0800 - Google Maps Hack - High Yield Bomb Simulator
Ever wonder about the blast radius from nuclear devices, broken down by varying levels of destructive power by distance from the epicenter? Ever wonder, "Hmmm...how can I easily superimpose this blast radius on a map of my favorite city?"
Wonder no more: High-Yield Detonation Effects Simulator
Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:31:32 -0800 - The bastard Microsoft-Apple demon child has been unleashed!
Windows XP on a Mac. I'll say that again - Windows XP on a Mac. Sounds like a joke, or perhaps a bad dream, for hardcore Apple fanboys, but it's true! The new Intel Macs are able to run Windows XP thanks to the work of a hacker named Blanka, which is Spanish for 'white'. Probably descriptive of his complexion since this hacker likely hasn't been outside in weeks. After all, when you're the one to lay claim to the $13,854 prize offered to the first person to get Windows XP to run on a Mac, you've got some stiff competition. No time to rest when the world is gunning for that kind of cash.
Thanks to DailyTech for the find.
Do you want to run Windows XP on your Mac? Are you a PC guy who wants to laugh at the shocked face of a Mac user when he boots up only to see the ubiquitous Windows XP loading screen? Then head over to Engadget to download the hack!
I love it. Finally the real monopoly - Apple - has had it's armor cracked. At least in the PC world you have a choice, despite what the Apple PR department and legions of fanboys will tell you.
Thu, 16 Mar 2006 11:12:44 -0800 - What is Critical Mass?
I read an interesting article on MediaPost about the definition of critical mass. I've included an excerpt, as well as my thoughts on the article.
From Cori Treffiletti: "My definition of 'critical mass' is when a new media format enters the mind of the mainstream audience, which can be measured by when it shows up in an article in Time, Entertainment Weekly or People (none of which I am affiliated with in any way). When any of these media vehicles includes the item in an article, or writes a piece specifically about it, then middle America knows it exists. I don't believe critical mass can be measured by a number anymore, because of my other belief that mass media is dying a slow and painful death. The audience is segmenting, and though you may find an aggregate audience that cumes to a larger number, you will never be able to find a large aggregation of like-minded people influenced by the same media again."
When I worked at a PC games startup before joining the ad ranks, we did some really innovative work with P2P networks. We were (to my knowledge) the first company to make legitimate money off of Bit Torrent less than a year after its debut at Defcon (2002-2003 ish). At the time, Bit Torrent was a long way away from being on anyone's 'mainstream' radar.
But the networks were flourishing. Millions of users from around the world joined in. Word of mouth in the geek-o-sphere. In fact our company heard about it from a guy at a conference, not from any website or news source. Bit Torrent reached critical mass well before anyone had heard of it.
Maybe my definition is skewed by the internet, but I look at critical mass as a point when a trend become self-sustaining. Sites like YouTube don't need to advertise. A large number of people visit and post links on their blogs, causing more people to visit who then send links in an email to their friends, causing people to visit and contribute more content, which then causes more people to visit, etc... It now has a life of its own. Acknowledgement in mass media can surely help kickstart this self-sustainment phase, but I don't think it's a requirement.
Read the full article here: What's Critical Mass?
Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:35:10 -0800 - Framboise Lambic Ale - Unique Belgian Raspberry Beer
Have you heard of Framboise, or of lambic ales? Didn't think so. While extremely difficult to find, our local Trader Joe's had a stock of this rare brew this week. I quickly grabbed a few bottles. The only other places I've found this brew is at the Toronado, a beer-pub in the Lower Haight, San Francisco that carries nearly 80 specialized brews on tap with no macrobrews to fluff up the menu, and at a luxury grocery store in a fancy neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona. I've literally never seen this beer anywhere else. Probably the only reason the San Francisco Trader Joe's carried it is because one of the staff checked out the Toronado!
It's a beer with alcohol content like a wine...but it's not a barley-wine. It's very sweet, and is meant to be drank out of a wine glass. You know how Miller High-Life calls itself the champagne of beers? That's an insult. Framboise is truly the sweet, lightly carbonated champagne of the beer world.
If you see this stuff anywhere near you I highly recommend it!
Sun, 05 Mar 2006 01:25:23 -0800 - 2003 Fuji Royale flatbar road bike - my new ride
So the other half was willing to try biking too, so I handed her my 2005 Fuji Absolute and got myself a used 2003 Fuji Royale. Even though it's two years older than the Absolute, this is Fuji's top of the line flatbar road bike. It's 4 pounds lighter, has a carbon fiber fork, a lighter frame, better components, etc. It's more nimble compared to the Absolute, but otherwise it's practically the same bike. The gearing is also a lot more 'roadie' meaning that it really is a road bike with a flatbar instead of dropbar, while the Absolute is more of a hybrid.
I've also just added some mini aero bars for some more hand positions and a little more speed when it's needed. Got the blue camo tape on there too for extra radical-ness. Other than that I've got some quick release lights, fenders, a nerd bell, an OnGuard Bulldog Mini lock and cable, and a cyclocomputer. I don't use the computer all the time but so far my top on flatland while still seated is around 23 mp/h. Haven't tried a top-speed while sprinting or with the aerobars, but I imagine I could probably hit 25 with the aeros and probably 25+ while standing and sprinting in high gear. Could probably do even faster if I had some real flat straightaways - in San Francisco it's rare to get more than a few blocks without a hill or a stoplight.
I've also put on some Continental Ultra Gatorskin tires on there (700x25c) and some Slime self-sealing tubes. I live in an industrial part of San Francisco full of glass, rocks, etc, and I was getting constant flats. I tore a fat hole in a tire just a few days ago! The Gatorskins are supposed to be some of the most flat-resistant tires out there, and the slime tubes are like the last defense. I also now carry a spare tube and tools to change a flat on the road. I was forced to walk to work in the rain one too many times, so I figure it's worth the investment. Also it's one thing to get a flat two miles from work, but as I go on longer rides it would really blow to get a flat like eight miles from home!
Sun, 05 Mar 2006 00:34:21 -0800 - I'm on a new server
If you can see this post then you're on the new Sean Mulholland site! I've upgraded my backend software and moved to a new server, and I've tested the site and things look good. Of course, if you notice anything please contact me and let me know the problem. I'll try and resolve it ASAP.
Thanks!
--Sean
Thu, 23 Feb 2006 23:01:14 -0800 - New Years Eve in Las Vegas and other Holiday pictures
For the holidays my fiance and I went to Arizona to visit my parents and then went to Las Vegas for New Years Eve. It was a fun trip - we checked out many places in the Tucson, AZ area and I managed to snap some really interesting shots while I was there. After Arizona we did the Vegas party scene for New Years. While it might sound like a blast, it was actually a bit of a disappointment... Just a million people standing on the street drinking with no real purpose - those kind of events are pretty boring. We ended up in the Mirage most of the night before heading home the next morning.
The ride home was actually a mess! You may have heard of all the rain on the west coast. We hit all of it. It was pretty nerve racking since I was in an accident on the highway a couple years back when some friends and I spun out in a heavy rain and got hit by a semi. We ended up spending a night in Bakersfield, CA to wait out the storm.
I've broken up the pics into five galleries so as not to innundate you with a single, 100+ pic gallery:
Las Vegas New Years and the Road Home
Wed, 04 Jan 2006 23:59:44 -0800 - My office headphone setup - great sound while I work
While my reference level audiophile headphone setup is at my home, I actually do most of my listening at work. Judging from my other audio setups you know I'm not going to settle for little Sony clip-ons at the office. Not only does great sound make the day more pleasant, it actually makes me more productive. My office has lots of open space, so having some music on allows me to drown out the various conversations, phone calls, and other distractions around me, but since my headphones are an open air design (see below) I can still hear people call my name and hear my phone ring. It's the best of both worlds!
As with my home setup, it all starts with the source. I store all my FLAC or JTHZ Lame encoded VBR MP3s on an external drive enclosed in a polished Onyx Black Vantec NexStar 3 enclosure. This connects to the computer via USB 2.0, except my work computer only has USB 1.1 - its slow, but fast enough to stream even full bitrate FLAC no problem.
Once we're in the computer we need a soundcard, so I got the legendary Chaintech AV710 in my machine. Why so legendary? This card costs all of $20, yet it sports a high-end Wolfson WM8728 24/192 DAC that is normally reserved for cards costing $100 or more. To make things even better I modded the output capacitors of the card with super high-end Blackgate NX series capacitors. These low density audiophile grade capacitors help keep the sound clean while adding a tiny bit of bass because of the larger amount of capacitance over the stock caps.
Next I get the sound from the card to my amp using a custom built, fully shielded, teflon insulated, 4x22 awg litz-braided silver-plated copper miniplug to RCA interconnect.
From there I amplify the line signal with a Headsave Classic amp. It's a great little amp with surprisingly good sound quality! I replaced the stock AD8620 opamp with dual AD843 opamps. In case you're wondering, opamps perform the actual amplification of the signal, and these opamps are manufactured by Analog Devices. They are both audiophile grade opamps, much better than you'd find in consumer grade equipment. This amp is powered by an fully regulated Elpac WM080-1950 power supply.
Lastly we need to listen to the sound! For that I have my limited edition Grado HF-1 headphones. These were released to members of the forum Head-Fi only, and less than 500 were made. They are based on the $200 Grado SR-225 headphone, but are modified with a wooden driver housing. Wood is very rare in the headphone world, and it is widely considered the best housing for speaker drivers. Each is individually numbered - I have #83.
Overall it's a much more modest setup than I have at home, but it still produces some very nice sound! There is simply no comparison between this setup and consumer grade equipment. This setup will easily outperform what many would consider hi-fi despite its very reasonable cost.
--Sean
Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:36:29 -0800 - Tookie Williams - Live or Let Die?
Like Chris Rock said in his legendary 'Bigger and Blacker' stand up routine, "Nobody is just one thing. On some things I'm liberal, and other things I'm conservative." Most of the time I'm a liberal, often times very liberal, but I'm not a mindless 'follow what every other hippie out there does' type of liberal. And the sad thing is every time one of those anti-everything liberals opens his mouth it gives Fox News a couple hundred rounds of ammunition to fire at the rest of us that are simply championing progressive values - not extreme-left ideology.
So that brings me to Tookie Williams. I must say I have a great respect for his redemption, and I applaud his efforts to try and steer kids away from the lifestyle he has led. On the flipside he did ruthlessly slaughter several people, execution style. Those armed robberies didn't need to become murders. Nobody is going to say 'no' to a gigantic bodybuilder (see the picture) and his crew armed with a shotguns, he could have taken the money and maybe smacked the victims around a bit to feel tough.So then I read an article today by D. Allen Kerr on SeaCostOnline.com, and it sums up pretty much how I feel. Read it for yourself if you like. In short, Tookie's punishment has been handed out, and it's time to let it go. We can't forget the victims whose voices are being buried under the weight of the celebrity and media hype surrounding the case. By letting justice be served, it will serve as the ultimate example of his message. He will become an anti-gang martyr after he's gone, and serve as a loud-and-clear reminder to the kids he's trying to help: "Don't be like me."
--Sean
Wed, 07 Dec 2005 11:10:59 -0800 - How to spend $2000 on a headphone setup (the saga continues)
My audiophile headphone setup has blossomed into quite a beast lately! Here I'm going to lay out every piece from source to my ears to show you what's possible with high end audio. All the prices I list are retail, but I must say that since I scour the net for deals so I have managed to save loads of cash. I highly recommend anyone who gets into this hobby to do the same as it will make it much more affordable.
You might remember my post a few months ago, How to Spend Over $1000 on Headphones. I've since tweaked that out even more, added a few more components, and have settled on what I think is darn near perfect sound.
It all starts at the source, i.e. what you use to play your music. Since I use my computer as a source, I need to be sure I'm playing high quality files. I start by ripping my CDs with Exact Audio Copy to a bit-perfect lossless compression format, FLAC, the Free Lossless Audio Codec. FLAC makes for huge files, so I mainly use that with Jazz or other acoustic music. For hip hop or electronica FLAC is overkill, so I use use specially formulated JTHZ Variable Bit Rate (VBR) LAME encoded MP3s that are 99% as good as FLAC. The great news about these formats is they are all 100% free! If you rip your CD's to these formats you can instantly get way better sound from your system.
Since I use an outboard DAC and amplifier I need a great transport to get this digital data to the DAC. I opted for a pro-sumer recording card, the EMU0404. It outputs a bit-perfect digital signal in a variety of bitrates, but I opt for the non-oversampled 44.1KHz output. This will run you about $100.
To get the bit-perfect data from the EMU0404 to my DAC I need a good cable. The Acoustic Research Master Series MS281 Optical Cable fit the bill. This will run $50+.
But a DAC or amp will only produce sound as clean as the power that goes into it. To make sure it's clean, I use a small and portable Monster Power AV200 power conditioner. It's not top of the line but it does well for my purposes by cleaning the power with Monster Stage 1 v2.0 filtering (and the small size means it travels well with my setup). When at home I plug this conditioner into an Acoustic Research RF line filter for a little added benefit. The AV200 will run you around $40, and its two plugs are used for my amp and DAC.
Now that I have clean power and a bit-perfect digital signal, I need to turn that digital data into analogue sound. For this I use the Deltec Precision Audio (DPA) Little Bit DAC (read more in my Deltec Furl archive). This is a vintage bitstream DAC from the mid 90's that set the benchmark in its price category. A bitstream DAC processes single bits of information rapidly one after another to create a smooth flowing audio signal with no buffering, upsampling, or anything like that (also known as a 1-bit DAC). The DAC is powered with a Volex 17604 14 awg, fully shielded power cord (read more about it here). If bought new, this thing would have run over $800+ in its day.
Now that we have a reference quality analogue signal it has to get to my amp. For that I have custom built, fully shielded, 4x18 awg litz-braided silver plated copper interconnects with teflon dielectric insulation terminated to locking 24k gold plated RCAs (2x18awg lines for signal and ground). These just straight fade anything you'd find at Best Buy, and I'd estimate their value at a very conservative $50.
Now we need to amplify that reference quality line level signal. While your average headphone would be fine with line, audiophile headphones often have very high impedences of 300 ohms. Also an amp provides strong current to handly heavy dynamic shifts in the sound. The solution is a high quality headphone amplifier. Mine is a MisterX Gilmore Lite, based on the Dynalo design by headphone guru Kevin Gilmore. Since purchasing the amp, I've modified it with a variable Linkwitz crossfeed, a circuit that blends the left and right channels with a slight delay to simulate speaker listening. The amp is powered with an Elpac WM071, and with the crossfeed modification it would run about $350.
From the amp you need to get the signal to your headphones, but the stock cables, even on high end headphones, are very so-so. So I went ahead and developed my own line of cables dubbed the Yellowjacket Sennheiser Upgrade Cables. These are premium cables that will run up to $150 or more depending on length.
Finally you need the headphone itself, and I use Sennheiser's top of the line HD-650 Audiophile headphone. It's an incredible sounding headphone and runs around $350 new despite the $550 MSRP shown on the Sennheiser site.
Lastly, all the metal contacts in the audio path, i.e. power, RCA jacks, RCA cables, etc, have been cleaned and treated with Caig DeoxIt and ProGold metal cleaner and conductivity enhancer. This kit is about $40 shipped, and if you have grimey gear it can help get that last 1% out of the system. Also I use those fancy Volex 17604 shielded power cords on my computer and monitor as well, not so much because it improves the sound directly, but it helps prevent power noise from getting out of those lines and into my audio stream.
So add it all up and you've got almost $2000 worth of gear ($1940 to be exact, but $2000 is a nice round number). There's a saying that says every dollar spent on a headphone setup is worth $10 in speakers, so that would put this system on par with a $20,000 home stereo setup. Who knows if that really holds true, but I assure you that the sound of this setup will absolutely blow you away!
--Sean
Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:30:39 -0800 - My theory on how audiophiles listen to music
Often times a layman will comment on an audiophile system, "This isn't all that much better than my system, yet yours costs thousands of dollars more!" They listen to top notch gear and then put on their iPod earbuds and they don't really hear a difference. Some audiophiles hate this, and almost think of these people as the uncleaned masses who haven't learned to appriciate the finer things in life.
I don't see it that way. The reason that laymen can't detect a difference is because audiophiles listen to the music differently, and in some ways it can be a bad thing. The reason your friend can't tell the difference between a FLAC-lossless file being played through an audiophile setup and a 128Kbps MP3 through laptop speakers is because he's not listening to the music, he's experiencing it.
There's a joke from an old Eddie Murphy routine about why white people can't dance, but I think it applies here too:
"Are you people listening to the words or the beat?!?"
Or in our case:
"Are you listening to the instruments or the song?"
In other words, most audiophiles see the forest for the trees, with each tree being a separate instrument, voice, background noise, etc. Change that oak into an elm and we notice - that's not the same tree as it used to be.
The vast majority of 'regular' people only see the forest as a whole, and thus the subtle nuances and details of the individual trees don't really make the overall forest look much different. So long as all the 'trees' are there, the forest looks just fine.
--Sean
Sun, 04 Dec 2005 12:12:51 -0800
