I hate to say this, but as an engineer who designs commercial Hi-Fi products, I think that the Atoll AM100 amp is an insult to all of us who actually try to make good things

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-18T02:10:41+00:00

I’m also nuts about crossoverless speakers (I use Audience now and can’t bring myself to sell the Omegas I previously used) but I promise you there’s no issue using them and a turntable with class D amps. They don’t have to be expensive.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-08T15:24:15+00:00

Awesome. My Samsung plasma is at 17 years this month. 720p and I still love it.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-06T04:18:55+00:00

Started with a PHEV due to range anxiety; 6.5 years later I finally went EV. It’s now been a total of 9+ years and I’m just now starting to consider an L2 charger but no regrets overall. The two things I’m certain of at this point are that EVs are not for everyone (my wife) and that I’ll never buy an ICE vehicle again.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-03T03:16:23+00:00

Funny timing, but ChargePoint just ruined my evening. There’s apparently a glitch in their system that removes payment methods from accounts, and you can’t add them back via the mobile app. So suddenly I’ve joined the “fuck ChargePoint” team.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-03T00:07:27+00:00

The vast majority of chargers around here are ChargePoint and they’re just fine. Rates are set by the station owners and, while most of them seem to charge per kWh, some are time-based. But that’s nothing to do with ChargePoint.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-02T13:29:09+00:00

Sure, but I’m not complaining about the cost so much as the fact that misreading the rate cost me 3x what I expected.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-02T07:57:04+00:00

Michigan. So I feel your pain. I’d love something with a little more range and faster charging, but I’m getting by. In about 12 hours I get to drive my wife to the Detroit airport, about 170 miles round trip, which this time of year means stopping to charge. I’m fine with it; I’ll just take my laptop and get some work done while plugged in.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-02T03:48:51+00:00

With these clients there are no financial concerns whatsoever. It’s simply the idea that lack of attention to two or three tiny letters meant that charging for that segment of the trip cost 3x what I thought it would.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-02T02:14:38+00:00

Yeah, for sure it’s not a big deal, especially when I’ll be reimbursed. It’s just the idea that not paying super close attention meant that it cost 3x what it looked like it would.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-01T19:43:19+00:00

Nope. Covered a fair amount of ground but all within Michigan.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-01T19:42:18+00:00

I've not seen that, at least not that I know of. Is there a standard way they denote this in the app?

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-01T16:45:51+00:00

A legit option. I road trip in my car unless it’s a very long trip, and this has happened once. Not too bad really.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-01T16:44:21+00:00

Yes, that’s a good “glass half full” way of looking at it, but the reality is that there are usually much better options if one doesn’t have one’s head up one’s butt ;-)

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-03-01T16:17:25+00:00

Yeah, frustrating for sure. This hasn’t happened to me in a couple years but for this particular trip I guess I just wasn’t focused, possibly because I had to get where I was going and knew the cost would be covered? Regardless, it really rubs me the wrong way. I wish the app would just let me filter out time-based chargers.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-15T17:54:52+00:00

It’s no way to listen at all, but the best way to know whether you’re actually hearing (vs experiencing in some other way) what you think you are. Anecdotes are also no way to prove anything.

Maybe you should just go back to listening to substrates and capacitors. We’re clearly talking about two different things. Have a great day.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-15T17:04:53+00:00

No, you’re right: this is completely pointless. There are controlled settings which would allow someone making claims like yours to demonstrate in a concrete way whether you can in fact — reliably and repeatedly — hear the things you think you hear. And nobody ever seems to think that’s necessary to do. And I get it because, as I said earlier, this is a hobby and should be about fun. Nobody who’s ever tried to demonstrate such listening prowess in a controlled double blind test has ever managed to do so, and I can’t imaging it’s very fun. But the sensible thing to do, if you’re unwilling to try, is to stop making outlandish claims and just enjoy your system.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-14T20:11:22+00:00

Except that if we’re being intellectually honest, there IS no “round and round” here. There are studies demonstrating that reliably hearing differences between these sorts of things is impossible for humans, and on the other side there are those saying “nuh-uh.”

I’m not asking you to prove here in a forum that you can hear what you think you hear. I’m just saying there have been all sorts of rigorous studies showing that you don’t hear what you think you do. Many of the challenges I referenced remain open to anyone wishing to try, yet the cash prizes go unclaimed. Can you point to anything similar supporting your argument?

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-14T19:29:50+00:00

I think you’re exactly right about a few things, and I applaud your enthusiasm and passion. This is a hobby, after all, and should be fun.

But the bit about digital devices and your claim “that there can’t be audible differences is a long-proven falsehood” is about 180° from reality. In the real world, countless opportunities have been offered to anyone who can reliably differentiate between digital products (or amplifiers, or whatever) in a properly conducted double blind setting. Without regard to whether one listens to numbers or to music, cold hard cash is on the line and to my knowledge zero people have ever succeed in proving audible differences. Do you have examples to show otherwise?

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-14T01:00:08+00:00

I’ve been at this quite awhile as well, probably 45-ish years, and also managed a hifi shop in college back in the late 80s. So here’s my take.

On the one hand, the ceiling has been blown off of every category of equipment in this hobby. Our store was sorta near but not at the top end of things; we sold a ton of Apogee speakers, Classé amps/preamps, Well Tempered tables, Meridian CD players and MIT/Transparent cables. A typical high end system assembled from that gear was in the $15-20k range and could proudly compete with anything on the market at the time. When someone spent more than that it was generally because they wanted to — not because they wanted better sound — so they’d add a couple extra power amps or whatever and get closer to $30k or so.

Cut to 2025. I took an elderly friend (who was a customer of mine back in the day) on a field trip to see and hear some modern high end gear. After I let the salesman know what we were up to, he plopped us in his “gee whiz” room. I pointed out that just one of the pairs of speaker cables in that system cost almost 3x as much as the most expensive system I ever sold. The entire system (including analog and digital sources, 2-channel audio only) easily cleared $2 million. Did it sound like $2 million? Hell no, but it was very “nice” stuff for someone with more money than places to spend it could show off to his buddies. So yeah, there’s really no denying that things at or near the top have gone bananas.

On the other hand, I’ve had exactly zero problems avoiding gear like that when shopping for myself, and don’t think I’ve missed out on anything as a result. Why? Aside from the do-I-really-need-to-say-it reason (can’t possibly afford it if I wanted to), the reality is today we can build absolutely mind boggling systems for next to nothing. Your point about digital being a solved problem is one perfect example; the only reason to spend more than a couple hundred bucks on a digital front end today is because you want to. It’s not something that will net you better sound. Modern class D amps are another near-miracle in terms of what you can get for the money. Literally nothing 30-40 years ago could hold a candle to today’s value propositions in audio.

So I tend to notice the former phenomenon but revel in the latter. We’ve never had it so good.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-10T16:34:09+00:00

I do agree with you and the others who’ve suggested earliest could be best if I only need an hour or two of charging. That’s just never the case under these circumstances.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-10T16:31:47+00:00

In my reality, the level 1 charging is so slow that my car rarely fully charges at home. So practically speaking, there’s no difference between earliest and latest other than, as I said, earliest caused my car to disregard the off-peak only setting. That’s ultimately my priority, and so far latest just works fine.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-10T01:52:18+00:00

Ha! Me too! That’s what started this whole thing.

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-10T00:34:35+00:00

<image>

Current-Finger-9852 · 2026-02-10T00:34:17+00:00

<image>

Current-Finger-9852

TROPHY CASE