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Post by ant on May 27, 2023 21:04:45 GMT
Cracking qualifying session today, best part of the weekend historically. Probably this one wont buck the trend. But a really good qualy, without anyone stacking it in q3 and grabbing pole by default either
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Post by ant on May 26, 2023 16:55:59 GMT
First one i had was an arcam black box 3, then on to a musical fidelity x24k. Both used with an arcam delta 170.3 cd transport. Then no dacs for a long time as i was using an inca design katana cd player. that broke and i did some faffing with philips cd players. i needed one to go with a mac mini in about 2010 which ended up being a beresford tc7510. One i use now is a topping e30, this has a cyrus cd7 and a streamer that i forget the name of plugged into it. Dont use it much, i wanted it more to run a laptop and rew for measurement purposes
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Post by ant on May 25, 2023 11:56:33 GMT
As a measure of how utterly boring this season is, no replies for over a month... Not much interest.
Merc has now put some side pods on its 'shitbox', altered its front suspension to increase its anti dive geometry, put a new floor on it and a few other tweaks.
Will this mean its any better? We can but hope..
In other news, honda have agreed a deal to supply aston martin with engines from 2026, and the daily heil reckons lewis hamilton has had a 40 million offer to jump ship to ferrari. Make of that what you will.
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Post by ant on May 21, 2023 19:15:30 GMT
I dont tend to be brand loyal, but stuck with one phone brand for years. sony phones, going right back to the sony ericsson days. i had a nokia 7650 way back when, then went back to sony until i got this samsung. I got it because i broke my last one, an xperia z3, and had it repaired twice. 2 screens were put in by a local repair shop that didnt work. The repair shop did me a really good deal on the note as an apology for the 2 failed repairs. When this on finally dies ill probably get a sony again even though ive been very happy with the samsung, but im completely out of the loop on phones these days.
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Post by ant on May 21, 2023 16:30:15 GMT
Still have my samsung galaxy note 9, have had it for a very long time but i wont change it until it breaks or the os it has becomes completely obsolete. Think its on android 10 Its been very very good Its still recieving security updates so until samsung stop supporting it ill keep using it Phones are much of a muchness now imo, the tech has plateaued for now. Not really sure where they can go thats objectively better than what they could do 3 or 4 years ago
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Post by ant on Mar 19, 2023 16:46:10 GMT
Put together a nice little upstairs headphone system this afternoon.
Comprises of a jvc ql-y3f dd turntable i repaired and restored last year (was just sat there doing nothing) with a spare audio technica at-f7 cart, an old project phono box se i found in a cupboard and a world audio design hd83 headphone amp.
Headphones are a pair of fostex t50rp mk3 planars.
I have a set of b&w p7s and some sennheiser momentum 2 over ear cans aswell but i need a headphone extension plus the 3m fostex cable to use them. Neither of the other 2 have a long enough cable.
I was using all 3 previously as the amp was next to where i was sitting, i was using a dac and tablet to stream music but the tablet usb port went south so it was unusable. Accommodating the turntable meant it had to go at the other end of the room.
No loss, the fostex cans were my preferred option anyway.
Sounds really rather pleasant.
My wife reckons it wont be long before i start faffing with other decks and phono stages and making a mess in this room aswell......
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Post by ant on Mar 18, 2023 10:10:56 GMT
Ive had a mini for about 3 weeks, its had the odd dropout which has been more to do with my crappy old virgin media superhub having rubbish wifi than the mini. Ive been using tidal connect. The app is pretty good on its own, tidal connect is easier. I have it connected to a topping e30 dac rather than using its internal dac.
Only thing i wish the mini had is an ethernet port but the pro has that for some more dosh.
I dont have any hi res files and am using tidal hifi at 44.1, my cyrus cd player is plugged into the dac too, i have a hard time telling much difference. I want to get another one to go upstairs with my headphone setup. For the money i think it is excellent.
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Post by ant on Mar 11, 2023 11:12:55 GMT
Well i seem to be doing things backwards. Ive got myself a little streamer recently, a WiiM mini because i wanted one to go with a headphone amp and mf m1 dac instead of plugging an old tablet into it via usb. The usbc socket was not up to being plugged and unplugged so was dropping out all the time.
So, the WiiM mini is streaming via tidal connect and that tablet is controlling it.
Plugged into the main system rather than the headphone system and going via its optical out to a topping e30, it sounds quite satisfactory as a transport. It does have its own internal dac but i havent tried that.
Ive bought things on vinyl that ive found via tidal suggestions, so in the short time ive had tidal and the WiiM mini, its actually expanded my record collection rather than making me want to dump the collection and go the digital route
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Post by ant on Mar 4, 2023 19:04:48 GMT
First race qualy done, exactly as expected. rb half a second up the road, ferrari good on one lap and looking like it eats tyres from the practice long runs, merc looking abit crap again. Minus it headbutting the track. Which is nice. Aston martin on the other hand looking very good indeed and alonso qualified in front of both mercs. 11 world titles in the first 7 places on the grid, 3 world champions, alonso finally in a good car. Mclaren looked bloody awful to drive, nico hulkenberg in q3 in the haas was a cracking start. Would have been 8th but got his lap deleted for track limits. Alpine looked crap given all the big talk in the off season, williams actually looked pretty reasonable. Alpha tauri did not look any better than last year, alfa romeo looked sort if fine, where you would expect.
Having alonso at the front of the field will be very interesting
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Post by ant on Feb 21, 2023 12:27:40 GMT
The rumour mill also has it according to shed kravitz that merc has a b spec car waiting in the wings. Cant see that being so, it would cost too much
And apparently honda have been in contact with several teams for the new engine regs. Mclaren honda would be abit daft, id love to see a williams honda works engine deal (AND LOOK AT THAT! AND COLOSSALY THATS MANSELL!)
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Post by ant on Feb 18, 2023 12:45:13 GMT
Edit: correction, nyck de vries to alpha tauri, logan sargeant to williams
Logan sargeant and nyck de vries are both on my watch list this year, nyck looked like a veteran in the williams at monza, a class act jumping from the aston martin into the williams, and logan sargeant looks very promising to me. I want both to do well. Also zhou. I thought he did really well last year, the number of reliability issues he had skewed the numbers and masked how well he did on debut. Tsunoda needs to step up though, he was still pretty inconsistent all year
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Post by ant on Feb 18, 2023 10:11:13 GMT
All the cars (bar the rb19) have been revealed and preseason testing is just around the corner. What does the 23 season promise?
A quick recap, rb and max won 22 without breaking a sweat, merc looked rubbish all season, ferrari did ferrari things, alpine looked pretty good when they werent blowing up. Mclaren looked awful all season, alfa looked great then imploded, williams showed one or two glimmers of light. Haas had some ups in all the downs, alpha tauri did nothing of note and aston martin perked up a little towards the end of the season.
Fred went to AM, danny ric benched himself, mick s got benched, piastri to mclaren, nyck de vries to williams, latifi went home. Gasly to alpine, hulkenberg to haas, seb hung up his helmet.
Vasseur to ferrari, seidl to sauber, vowles to williams, stella as new mclaren tp.
Rb got done for cost cap overspend.
What does this year hold?
Can merc get back to the top?
Can ferrari organise a piss up in a brewery?
Can rb overcome the aero testing reduction?
Can alonso not piss off his team?
Answers on a post card
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Post by ant on Feb 10, 2023 12:07:53 GMT
I have a load of different decks, my lencos, a jbe dd, jvc dd, roksan xerxes, technics sl150, a 301, you are welcome to call in some time for a listen to a few.
Dont take an internet opinion as anything other than that. Ive got all drive types and enjoy all of them in different ways, listen first. Mr smiths opinion is not likely to be exactly the same as your own Just because you have a budget of 1500 quid there is no reason to spend it all just because you can. There are hundreds of choices
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Post by ant on Jan 23, 2023 22:37:16 GMT
25 years ago Lp12/akito/k18 NAD c340 Arcam delta 170.3 and black box 3 LINN index 2
20 years ago
Lp12/project 9c/ortofon 540 Musical fidelity a3 Musical fidelity xray Quad 11L
I have none of it now..
Since 2005 i went in every other direction possible via diy, japanese recievers, countless (literally) turntables, valve amps, vintage cd (mostly early philips based). Kids, redundancies, cars, bikes, houses ect mean the money to throw at hifi was spent elsewhere.
There are individual outstanding pieces of kit that i had that i wish i had kept such as the yamaha pf800 turntable mt wife bought me on a whim, the quad 11Ls and a huge sony reciever but not all that many.
Longest lived bit of kit is my jbe series 3 which i have had for 13 years. It arrived via courier about 8am, 10 minutes after i got my wife and newborn son (no 3 and last thank god) to sleep after bringing them home from the hospital. I had just sat down with a cup of coffee. So that deck has its own little story and means alot to me.
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Post by ant on Dec 21, 2022 23:47:20 GMT
Edit: ive just realised i havent made any actual substantial changes in a couple of years Since i got the nelson pass f5 and b1 i have been quite happy.
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Post by ant on Dec 21, 2022 22:24:36 GMT
None at all. I might build myself a new turntable as ive had some more ideas, but thats the only thing. Otherwise i havent come across anything that i want to look into
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Post by ant on Dec 17, 2022 17:16:01 GMT
I made a change to tidal instead of spotify which sounds better. Tidal is now on my phone and the tablet. I got a curly usb cable like a telephone handset cord so that when the tablet isnt plugged into it it hangs down and is coiled ip out of the way rather than snaking about far too close to the turntables. I didnt need to use the usb to usb c adapter then either.
I also bought some b&w p5 cans so i could use the phone and listen while everyone is doing whatever in the living room. This sounded really good. I was interested in the b&w p7 cans, and i was sent some by a generous member on another forum. These are very nice indeed.
So im now streaming tidal off the phone through the p7's, and tidal off the tablet via the dac when i actually get to use the main system.
I have found that i am streaming via the phone and cans much more than i am the main system. I am still playing records by default even with the option to stream being there all set up. However the list of records i want is getting longer and longer having found them on tidal.
I am really liking the headphones having never been a headphone person. Having 3 teenagers in the house and all the 'entertainment' concentrated in the living room and dining room means it is i who gets the shit end of the stick when it comes to actually playing music.
The headphones are also really good sounding compared to what ive had before apart from my audio technica electret planars, which are not convenient to use. The p7s better those slightly which they should, the at cans are just short of 50 years old.
I am looking covetously at the new gen planar magnetic cans such as the hifiman range....
Not exactly the avenue i expected to be on when i started faffing with streaming, but there it is
Headphones are an interesting subject all on their own
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Post by ant on Dec 13, 2022 16:15:19 GMT
As it stands now barring a proper upset in 23 where someone, probably alpine have the potential, builds a monster of a car, there are 6 plum f1 seats. The merc, the ferrari and the rb seats. So we have verstappen and perez, hamilton and russell, and leclerc and sainz in the plum seats.
If alpine pull one out of the bag, that puts gasly and ocon in potential competitive seats.
Of those 8 drivers, hamilton is likeliest to go over the next few seasons when he decides to retire. But give him a workable car and he will race the wheels off it.
Of those 8, hamilton leclerc and verstappen are the best of the best. Of the remaining 5, russel is maybe one step down, sainz another step down, maybe, but a very very canny customer that i would not discount. Perez, ocon and gasly are not particularly special. Id say there are 4 shoe ins for title condenders, hamilton leclerc russell and verstappen. Those 4 are obvious. What isnt so obvious is the other 4 who should be in the other seats. Sainz yes, norris yes, alonso yes. Who would be the other? Nobody else stands out as anywhere near capable of being a championship contender. When hamilton retires merc would be completely daft not to try and snatch norris, and merc is the only one likely to be in the market any time soon unless perez comes unravelled at rb. Or unless sainz comes unravelled at ferrari. Norris is stuck for the next few years at mclaren or until lewis retires. Even if perez gets the boot, who wants that poisonous second rb seat? And sainz would have to become a human disaster to get the boot from ferrari who above all need some stability. And a pitwall who arent watching reruns of allo allo on gold during the race
Norris right now is stuck between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go until someone jumps ship
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Post by ant on Dec 13, 2022 14:44:50 GMT
Vasseur can always go back to running f3 and f2 teams where he brought it is i leclerc through.
Seidl does right to grab the audi job with both hands, to square away a new full works team is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Mclaren and williams won't get their glory days back. In my view mclaren has been rebuilding since mika hakkinnen took his sabattical, they screwed adrian newey over, and ferrari took over as the dominant team. They were an absolute shower when it came to reliabilty when kimi was so unbelievably quick, mclaren did him out of 2 drivers titles. Lewis came in and they built a good car, then imploded again with spygate, lewis won despite mclaren in 08. Even when ron dennis got pushed out and it was supposedly a new dawn, all the mclaren shortcomings were exposed. Their treatment of honda was very shoddy, they shoved a renault in the back of it and the car was shown up as a dog. Even with the merc in the back of it it was a dog. Their cars have been crap for the last 10 years and they have been too arrogant to see this until seidl and brown came in and told them how things actually were.
Williams are just a shadow of the force they were. Bmw pulling out of f1, an exodus of talented personnel, frank williams being unable to run the team and claire williams been unable to change the entrenched ways of working that frank left, no money for 10 years and an inabilty to turn the ship. When bottas left for merc in 2016 they had a reasonable car but took a wrong turn and never found their way back.
I dont hold any particular faith in mclaren, i think norris should be somewhere else, imagine what he could do in a car that isnt crap. Quite frankly he hasnt driven what i would consider a good race car. Now seidl has gone Piastri may be kicking himself this time next year
What i would like to see is porsche to buy into williams and honda to buy alpha tauri. Neither team are relevant, propping up the back third if the grid. Haas are relevant simply because they are american, alfa are now relevant because of audi. Racing point are relevant because of aston martin and the massive investment, alpine because they are a works team. Making williams and AT porsche and honda works teams running at the budget caps would be very exciting.
Having merc, ferrari, rb, audi, honda, alpine and porsche works teams all running at the budget cap would bring a level of parity not seen since the eighties.
That would leave mclaren, racing point and haas as customer teams with the pick of 7 engine partners, bring in andretti and 2026 could be phenomenal
Vasseur will be gone by then and have been replaced by the scuderia canteen manager because he is italian
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Post by ant on Dec 13, 2022 10:12:52 GMT
Capito and fx gone from williams yesterday, rumours that seidl is leaving mclaren to go to sauber to set up for audi.
Quite where williams are going to come up with a new tp and technical boss from at short notice i dont know. If the seidl rumour is true it looks like mclaren are going to be scrabbling around for a tp.
I give vasseur 2 years max before the scuderia management are out for blood again
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