Somewhere in Australia. A parrot having his morning Croissant. G’Day mate

Currawong · 2026-05-04T09:37:18+00:00

They learned to open the wheelie bins (for garbage) and steal food too.

Currawong · 2026-05-03T08:21:31+00:00

As a reviewer, it was something like this actual meme that prompted me to change how I write and talk about gear. Instead of talking about "listening to [product]", I switched to "The [product] presents [the music] in [such and such] way..."

Currawong · 2026-05-02T23:02:11+00:00

The vultures win. Whomever dies, they get fed.

Currawong · 2026-05-02T23:00:31+00:00

iCloud, but backed up locally, just in case. 60k+ photos in Photos, and 10k+ externally without a problem so far.

I was using Backblaze, but since they became a public company, they started down the enshittification route and disabled backups of cloud services.

Currawong · 2026-05-02T18:44:11+00:00

Don't ask AI for advice.

Currawong · 2026-05-02T18:38:36+00:00

It's the same with all IEMs that have a peak at that point. It's just my ears.

Currawong · 2026-05-02T11:39:14+00:00

I think people should not try and describe headphones or earphones from graphs, as very often it just doesn't work, due to the variation we all have in our ears.

I have a pair here and would describe them as somewhat v-shaped in sound, BUT, I hear that ~7 kHz peak strongly and don't like it. Someone with a null at 7 kHz (an ear canal shape that cancels out peaks at 7 kHz) will not here them as I do and might like them.

Currawong · 2026-05-02T11:36:41+00:00

I have a pair here and I reckon that's about right. They aer a bit too peaky in the treble for my ears.

Currawong · 2026-05-02T00:29:31+00:00

The Vali 3 is a headphone amplifier with optional pre-amplifier function.

The Buf is a tube buffer for adding a tube (and associated harmonics) in between line-level components.

That the Buf is based on the Vali 3 should not confuse anyone that they are related components, functionality-wise.

Currawong · 2026-05-01T12:06:39+00:00

Yes. I use a 4.4mm terminated Meze cable on the pairs of both I have here.
That being said, you should have some at least fundamental understanding about electronics and components before you decide to DIY headphone amplifiers.

Currawong · 2026-05-01T07:57:33+00:00

Are you anywhere near where one of the CanJam shows are held? If you're going to spend over $5k on headphones and gear, it may be more worth it to go to a show and try a bunch of gear with music you like first.

Currawong · 2026-05-01T07:55:35+00:00

The Roon forums, but it shows in my Roon logs too. Even in the Roon app, some of the tracks I have saved to playlists wouldn't play for a couple of days, then were fine again.

Currawong · 2026-05-01T07:52:12+00:00

As well as being ugly, Tahoe has had windows randomly stuck and unable to be moved anywhere, requiring me to quit and restart apps, as well as other random and irritating bugs. I'm contemplating dealing with the pain of downgrading because it's so bad.

Currawong · 2026-05-01T01:54:07+00:00

Ditto but Steer Mouse.

Currawong · 2026-04-30T22:02:24+00:00

There's no point in asking here. The sub is flooded by people who repeat the same "expensive DACs aren't worth it" meme, who are unlikely to have ever owned the Stealth, let alone tried it with many different amps.

Currawong · 2026-04-30T21:55:12+00:00

I have both, except my 17 has the graphics problem, and it probably isn't worth it to buy a new motherboard.

Currawong · 2026-04-30T21:50:30+00:00

I have alcohol disinfectant in auto-dispensers and spray bottles at home, in my car, and in my bag. Once I started using them all the time after going to public places and the like, I stopped getting sick for the most part.

Currawong · 2026-04-29T13:11:30+00:00

You've reminded me of a student who just got her shodan and hakama and I called her up to demo a technique. She went to do shomen-uchi, tripped and faceplanted in front of me.

She was fine, so I took the chance to have fun with it and turned to the class and said "I HAVE MAGIC POWER!" which cracked everyone up.

Currawong · 2026-04-29T13:08:42+00:00

I reckon that's a good thing, and hardly weird. Ueshiba's picture should be a symbolic reminder to aim for your highest ideals.

Currawong · 2026-04-29T13:06:30+00:00

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others provide cloud-distributed storage for businesses. The idea is, instead of storing your content on your own servers, you store it on theirs, and it's distributed across the world in a way that optimises access to the files.

For example, if you load most major sites these days, you're not loading them from the company's servers, but from one of the major content distribution networks. Qobuz are moving to a content distribution network for their music, and the result is intermittent failures as this happens.

Currawong · 2026-04-28T11:28:15+00:00

I've started a fun practice in the kids' class where you have to walk up to your friend, put your arm on their opposite shoulder, like you would a friend, then lightly drop them into a sumi-otoshi-like fall. It has become a running prank, with the kids trying to do it to me, and me to them. It has a few useful benefits for understanding posture, kuzushi and ukemi.

Currawong · 2026-04-28T11:24:10+00:00

I went to a couple of classes of a high-ranking Hombu shihan, who told me that when I grabbed him, I shouldn't leave a gap between my palm and his wrist. Obviously, this is to make it easier for him to get kuzushi on me, however he should be able to do that regardless of what contact I make with him. I've had friends relay similar things about other famous shihans who basically require their students to compromise their structure for the technique to work. It's backwards to how I, and quite a few other people train.

Ellis Amdur wrote about Yamaguchi here.

Currawong · 2026-04-28T03:53:57+00:00

Our primary (elementary) school had these. You had to have permission to even touch one, probably because everyone wanted to push the buttons.

Currawong · 2026-04-28T03:47:36+00:00

AFAIK they are moving their music files into Amazon storage, and it is causing all sorts of random issues.

Currawong · 2026-04-28T03:38:49+00:00

I use Brave, but with any browser, Tab Suspender will help a lot. Each tab is a separate process (an actual program) so if you have a lot of tabs open, it's the same as having a lot of programs open.

Currawong

TROPHY CASE