Padded Cell

i thought I would post a note following an experience I had at the Apple Store Covent Garden today. Over the years I have been a pretty loyal customer for Apple. Many iPhones for all the family, upgrades every few years or so, iPads for all, iPod touches for the kids, numerous MacBooks etc. I write this post on my iPad. Yep, I am the kind of guy who could be excused of being an isheep. But one of the reasons I buy the products from the apple store is that the after sales service thus far has...

Hi, I understand the PS3 could rip the SACD layer from disks and thus give listeners access to HD music from CDs of theirs with that layer. I have several disks with SACD layers but no HDCD player and I rip my disks. Surely there must be a computer component any of us could buy which does this. If the Sony PS3 did it, does anyone know where such a computer component could be bought?? Cheers.

The joys of DIY - completed the suspension rebuild on my car (2006 325xi). New front struts/rear shocks, control arms, springs, bushings, sway bar end links and bushings, tie rods, and even subframe bushings. Feels like new - better, actually, since I bumped the struts/shocks to Bilstein HDs. And all the more satisfying for having done it myself (alignment excepted). Any other driveway DIY mechanics out there?

Fresh back from completing his physical education degree, I showed my 23 year old son my new 272/250DR/Ovator 400 combination on Fraim with dedicated spur in a dedicated listening room. He said whilst he did not want to cause offence, the system lacked bass, and really Dr Dre sounds better on the Muso. As such his gangsta rap and other music dating from the last 10 years is played on the Muso. He prefers the way the Muso booms slightly, and is content with spotify. His mates tend to agree...

I have a Nikon D5 xqd with a couple of SB5000 flashguns. There are so many advantages of using this new combination tool, I feel as though I could write a book. It's so cleverly crafted that, in the right hands, it's another game changer like the D3 was. I wish it had a little less shadow noise in the lower iso ranges, but I can't have everything. Perhaps Nikon will improve this area in future firmware upgrades...........or maybe they'll just try to make us buy a D5x.

To kick this off, unfortunately what might prove in time to be bad news ....... but ya never know. BBC Sport is to "reluctantly" end its Formula 1 television contract three years early as part of savings across the corporation; there is a £150m gap in the corporation's finances & BBC Sport has to deliver £35m in savings. Channel 4 will take on the BBC's F1 broadcast rights from next season. BBC Radio 5 live has extended its commentary rights for F1 until the 2021 season. No news on the...

What a superb and inspired aired program from Channel Four no less... All of my most successful relationships have been when I encountered a partner naked on a first date https://youtu.be/3h_xk3-Dyy8

This sent out to pupils by our local Highschool p.e teacher: Dear Men of Forms 5 & 6, "In life you never regret the things you did; just the things you did not do" Would you like the words 'committed', 'determined to succeed', 'has leadership potential' and 'is a team player' on a reference from the school? Would you like to actually achieve something to be proud of this weekend? If so, read on. You have a choice tomorrow morning. You can either lie in bed and achieve NOTHING or get up...

Standing at a railway station today I noted, through the browned and decomposing paper detritus between the rails the aftermath of an apparent inability of passengers to observe the requested etiquette of not flushing the train toilets in stations on at least 10 separate occasions. Questions: a) is this prevalent near you?; b) is the jettisoned waste processed hygenically before it hits the ballast between the tracks? c) are we effectively travelling along an open sewer? and d) if so, what...

Hilarious story about the train with no seats...I mean you couldn't make this stuff up, it would seem too far fetched, too farcical. Yet while showing admiral restraint in defending their service against potentially business damaging lies, Virgin have politely shown the truth of the matter. Corbyn and his team have shown again they can't even lie well, they seem to believe that denial is the only and best policy The man is killing the Labour Party, sooner or later someone with a bit of...

I know the base rate has been at a record low for years now, and was recently reduced by another 0.25% but I got an email from Nat West today notifying me of further reductions wef 1st Oct. The reductions that really caught my eye were cash ISAs below £25k - a savings rate reduction from 0.25% to 0.01% and a similar reduction for 'instant savers'. Yes, I haven't mis-typed that 0.01% - pretty much as near to zero as makes no difference. Having already moved most of my savings away from this...

I started a thread some time ago about using USB sticks with iPad/iPhone. I'd post this as a followup, but can't remember what I called the thread! As background, I wanted to use one of the 'new' USB memory sticks with USB and Lightning connectors to store my own PDFs from scans of purchased Sheet Music, and also to view these and DVD image files (of guitar teaching type) on the iPad. I purchased a GMyles 64GB (Apple approved) USB/Lightning stick, and initially all seemed well, although I...

I believe it formally started with President Nixon and was reiterated by President Reagan, but there are always other agendas, for example taxation and pharmaceutical companies going out of business. Yes there are always extremes in the normal distribution of population. Most people buy kitchen knives to cook for example. Anyone can buy paracetamol from their local chemist for 20p and kill themselves. Not to make this thread morbid, but provoking of views.

Is this a new low?

Workers installed a private pole for Yukio Yoshihara's home in Tokyo I saw this just now and had to pass it on to those of you who don't love the Wall St. Journal enough to subscribe. I had my doubts when I visited years ago, but evidently they are just like us. He might need a Naim dealer to help with his setup though! TOKYO— Takeo Morita wanted absolutely the best fidelity possible from his audio system, so he bought a utility pole. The 82-year-old lawyer already had a $60,000...

I mean literally non-stop. One week non-stop? A month? A year? 5 years? 15 years? (I don't mean being stuck in a 6'x4' with a sink loo and bed. I mean music non-stop, wherever you go!) It can be your favourite music, so lets control that confounding variable!

Continuing my search for a replacement for Aperture, I've bit the bullet and decided on Capture One Pro 9 - and started the arduous task of migration about 300Gig worth of memories. A couple of observations for those interested: - Like Aperture and Photos, Capture One works with catalogs with managed (internally stored) or referenced (remote) files, or any combination. Within C1, it's trivial to move files from managed to referenced vice versa, import and export to other catalogs, and switch...

I am prompted to hear opinion, spurred by recent news I have seen around the world. Is it Amsterdam and North Korea? Where else?

Beautiful opening show! TYVM Rio, TYVM Brazil.

Hi, thought I'd start a new thread as it branches off from my question on why humans like music. Yes, this question is linked, but in its own right, different. A human can play drums and be recorded by a computer to be at a regular tempo. Why is that so? What adaptive advantage did it give us? Communication? Now, I appreciate that the judgement of it being in tempo is of humans by humans, so mathematically it is maybe a self justifying tautology: "I think it is in beat" "Why?" "Because I...

This question intrigues me. I recall Steven Pinker having a hypothesis I can't quite articulate. He called music an 'aural cheesecake' and referred to instinctive brain mechanisms stimulated such as syntax recognition, but because I can't recall what he said, I evidently don't understand it. Is it conditioned responses we have excited, e.g. taking us back to our foetal stage? Is it associations with nature akin to green being most restful for the eyes due to its photosynthetic abundance? I...

Most of us would consider a dedicated hi-fi spur from the domestic supply to be a sensible upgrade (for certain values of sensible). This chap in Japan seems to have gone one - or, arguably, several - stages better than this: http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-gift-for-music-lovers-who-have-it-all-a-personal-utility-pole-1471189463 [Some may consider this would be better placed in the Padded Cell for a number of reasons. I wouldn't argue with them] Mark

Will someone give him proper justice or are convicts not as inclined to punish ISIS preachers?

This question I am posting to Home Theater, but appreciate its transfer to Padded Cell. In short, I had an experience with the Occulus Rift and it is mind blowing - based on my prior experience up until now. Forget Dolby 7.1, or 3D TV, you are almost THERE! I believe films of the future will be recorded this way, and it's not a fad like 3D TV. Next year I will invest in it I think. Can you foresee you taking this up?

It had to happen some time - one of my (relatively new) single 4Tb drives has started failing. I have backups but the experience was slightly unsettling and more time consuming than I'd like, and it's prompted me to look at online alternatives. Amazon Drive in particular looks like a good deal: USD 60/year for unlimited storage for whatever you want to store. It's fast, too - almost as fast as my home upload speed theoretically permits (100 Mbit/s). However, the terms of use include a very...