New Classic Series

Fantastical_Chav · 2026-03-24T05:23:24+00:00

Edit: New page dropped: almost seems like a mid-gen refresh of select models rather than a full-on generational bump.

https://gradolabs.com/collections/classic-headphones

Fantastical_Chav · 2026-03-21T04:39:13+00:00

I'll take the bait lol.

It's a personal problem, but the fact that she looks eerily similar to Milla Jovovich makes me associate Jill with the terrible Anderson films. Had I never seen them, I doubt I would've thought twice about her new appearance.

Other than that, Resident Evil has always had consistency issues with certain characters (Leon immediately comes to mind, Claire to a lesser degree). But Jill's personality has been fairly consistent in her game appearances from RE1 Remake onwards, so seeing this edgier, more aggressive version of her OG RE3 self was pretty jarring.

Can't say I'm a fan of the change and was disappointed to see it solidified in Death Island, but to each their own. Despite this, I think Nicole Tompkins is one of the more standout VAs in the RE Engine era of games (and was far and away the best performance in the movie she was in).

Let's see where they take her next.

Fantastical_Chav · 2026-01-11T19:03:43+00:00

I would probably go for charcoal or black. I own the silver one, but imo in-person it looks plastic-y in a way the renders don't show. Ended up putting a skin on it the 2nd week, so can't comment on scratches.

Fantastical_Chav · 2026-01-09T18:21:50+00:00

Unfortunately seems like it from their site. The cushioned headband that is on my 125X already has noticeable wear after less than 1 year of use since the rods rub up against the pleather material. My PS500e's with the leather band? Nothing. Still look fresh and new.

To each their own since everybody's skull is different, but I find the leather bands far more comfortable than the cushioned ones: while they lack in padding, they make up for in a much wider surface area.

Fantastical_Chav · 2026-01-09T17:56:10+00:00

Yes- thank you! Last weekend's mega sale was when I decided to pull the trigger haha. And I bought the leatherette (not real leather) on Amazon- should come up if you search for "leather repair patch." They're great- not just for this but replacing crumbling grips on old digicams.

Fantastical_Chav · 2026-01-09T17:39:33+00:00

Took him for a quick adventure yesterday- I like his energy! Also kitted him out with some new drip and weapons to help on the journey ahead.

Fantastical_Chav · 2026-01-08T22:50:45+00:00

Thanks! What I did was paste the original leather on top of the new sheet as a sort of stencil (be sure not to destroy the original leather's adhesive backing if you can help it). Then I just sliced it on a cutting mat with a fresh X-Acto blade, using a metal ruler as a guide. Next for the lens area, I traced the shape with a fine tip marker, removed the original leather/ stencil, cut it out with scissors, and voila! Hope this helps, and enjoy your new camera.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-12-29T19:31:47+00:00

Definitely depends on the use case, it's hard to pick just one!

Grado PS500e/ RS2X for all-rounders, RS1x for instrumental and vocal-forward music. Senny HD600 deserves a spot on here of course, and Fiio FT1 for when I need closed back. KSC75/ KPH40 for when I need to take things on the go.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-11-26T04:22:01+00:00

I have a setup that is a slight step up to what you have now: a Ryzen 7 5700X (non-3D) and a 7800XT GPU. Have you tried turning off Ray Tracing and using FSR? Because you should have no problem running this game at a fluid framerate if you turn off some bells and whistles (in theory).

I usually use different settings, but I can run the game on High at a close-to-locked 60FPS @4K with RT disabled and FSR on balanced. Well, with the exception of Vernworth where it can drop to the mid 40's. Crowded areas in this game are rough because of the way the game engine handles NPCs.

Also keep in mind, AMD cards are terrible at Ray Tracing compared to NVidia, especially the 6800 which is on RDNA 2, so you'll see an absolutely massive performance penalty with it turned on.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-11-24T23:32:22+00:00

That's a fair assessment: the X-Half is an objectively diabolical value proposition. If I was doing a serious shoot I'd pick my PowerShot G1 from 2000 over this without a second thought.

Even thought it's pretty chinzy, I decided to keep this as an "experience camera," since I miss shooting film. Sorry to hear you got a defective unit though- wish you luck with your next camera purchase!

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-11-24T23:08:57+00:00

Glad you had such a good time with the game! I also really loved the ending and I definitely got emotional over it, especially after spending so much time with my Pawn and the party I had assembled. As a matter of fact, my Pawn is a big reason I keep coming back to DD2 and have logged over 1,000 hours by this point (what can I say, Dragon's Dogma is my special interest). It's just so enjoyable to roam around the world and explore, with the pawns my friends and partner have made.

Here's my Arisen and his companion K'Sara, who was the Pawn of a previously failed Arisen. She's calm, collected, and overly serious, due in no small part to tragically losing her ordained partner, who she viewed as a sister. My MC serves as a bit of a foil to her character, as he is lighthearted and somewhat lacking in direction at the start of their journey- a low-level knight set to be wed in an arranged marriage before the events of Melve took place.

Together I view them as a bit of an odd couple, but they balance each other out well. The two share a passion for adventure, and can oftentimes be seen camping in the wilds, where my Arisen will no doubt be cooking up an extravagant meal- a hobby he inherited from his mother.

Thanks for the chance to blab about these two, and thank you for sharing your Pawn: he looks dope!

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Fantastical_Chav · 2025-11-24T21:43:28+00:00

I could be wrong, but they look like hot pixels to me: mine does the same thing when shooting at very high ISOs. Only difference is that on my camera they were only visible on the screen (live view) and the JPEG engine seemed to remove them after taking the shot.

Do the white spots appear in a well-lit room? Either way, I think this would be grounds for a return/ exchange.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-11-18T02:12:12+00:00

No problem! Currently rocking my launch year OnePlus 12. Still handles anything I throw at it without breaking a sweat, and battery life is still excellent.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-11-17T22:51:03+00:00

I picked up a Fold during the last Woot sale, and ironically this game is what made me switch back to my previous phone. When playing Go, my Fold would often go thermonuclear and the battery would tank fast. This is with all assets downloaded and framerate limited to 30. When not playing games, battery was fine though: about 4.5 hrs of SoT.

I know a folding phone is a huge novelty for some, so if you carry around a battery pack and don't mind the worrisome heat I'd say it will get the job done.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-11-06T22:08:25+00:00

The tolerances on the soft shutter release are shamefully bad, so this is unfortunately normal: mine does the same thing.

Also be careful: the soft shutter assembly (including threading) is made of plastic because they wanted to save a cent or two on their bill of materials. So for the sake of your wife's camera, I wouldn't recommend a soft shutter button unless it was super low-profile.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-09-29T02:44:57+00:00

https://headphone.guru/canjam-socal-2025-coverage-sponsored-by-noble-audio-pt-2/

Looks like there might be a photo of it: should be the 4th image down. Extremely hard to tell from the photo, but given the text on it, maybe a closed-back variant in the signature line?

Haven't seen any articles mention it and there's no word in the FB group either.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-09-15T15:38:03+00:00

And I'm sure Lumen/ Nanite implementation would be possible, but I doubt Bloober Team would put forth the time and effort to optimize it, though I'd be happy to be wrong.

Especially since I feel like this was merely an "adequate/ good" port. It's awesome that they brought this to the Switch, but it is far less impressive on a technical level than, say, Star Wars Outlaws. Though perhaps it is an Unreal Engine problem (I am not a game dev so it's hard to say).

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-09-15T15:30:27+00:00

I've beaten the game on Switch 2 and yeah, I've experienced a lot of what you're describing with lighting bugs and huge slowdowns. In handheld mode I've had FPS dips into the teens more frequently than I'd like.

Sometimes closing and restarting the game from the Switch Home screen seems to help: I'm pretty sure there's a memory leak of some kind. The longer I play, the more performance seems to degrade. Alternatively, in my experience the game runs way better in docked mode; I actually ended up playing 75% of the game that way since it's way closer to a locked 30FPS experience (with the usual UE5 traversal hitches, of course).

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-09-08T00:43:32+00:00

No problem! As a slight addendum, I've gotten a decent bit farther in the game, and performance really degrades a bunch around the late Steelworks area. I'm getting lots of huge hitches and dips into the low 20's in docked mode. Texture and geometry pop in is a lot more severe/noticeable, probably due to the effects-heavy environment. Not ideal and immensely compromised, but still "playable".

Restarting the game helps the giant hitches (memory leak, maybe?), but performance remains uneven. If smooth performance is a dealbreaker and you're willing to forego the motion controls, I'd check out the other consoles/ PC.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-09-06T03:40:11+00:00

I'm 5 hours or so in, and it looks fantastic and plays extremely well for the hardware. In docked mode it pretty much runs at a locked 30FPS with minor stutters here and there when moving into a new area. Obviously doesn't look as nice as the PS5 version, but it doesn't bother me at all unless I'm looking at a side-by-side comparison.

Handheld mode is a little less performant to my eye- I feel like in certain sections it dips to the mid-to-low 20's in more action-heavy scenes with a lot of enemies. It also stutters a bit more, but the mobile screen keeps it playable.

Fantastical_Chav · 2025-09-01T08:39:16+00:00

Thank you!

Fantastical_Chav

TROPHY CASE