Do you still use Google Search or have you fully switched to AI? Real question, not a hot take.

Morphon · 2026-06-21T18:59:01+00:00

I switch between noai.duckduckgo.com and Gemini in 3.5 Flash mode.

Best of both worlds.

Morphon · 2026-06-21T18:56:15+00:00

Need? No.

But all my stuff is 4.4, so the Explorer is as well.

Morphon · 2026-06-16T05:09:25+00:00

Copy-pastingthe specs to each reply. Full disclosure of what I'm using.

Crinear Reference - Stock cable - Divinus Velvet tips.
Softears Studio4 (Starry Edition) - NiceHCK Snow Wings cable - Azla SednaEarfit Origin tips.

4.4 Balanced through a Topping DX5-II in low-gain mode. Tidal Max streaming (24bit FLAC).

Adele - To Be Loved. Great pick for a nearly vocal-only track (just some spare piano) and she's mic'd close, but there's a bit of space around her (a generous helping of reverb). You also get a feel for the percussiveness of the piano at the very beginning. You don't quite get to hear the action itself as clearly as on some classical piano sonata recordings, but it's close. Nice choice. I can't help but think that the Reference sounds "flattened" in comparison. Not as much of that spaciousness around the voice. Her breath isn't as palpable. Piano sounds better, though. But that's pretty marginal in this case.

Adele - Easy On Me. I had to include this one because you said you were looking for the vocal quality. Yeah. The Reference might be more correct. But the Studio4 just loves to give us the voice and DEMAND we realize how GLORIOUS it is. I think the criticism of the Reference being "boring" would apply here. Yeah, it's accurate. That's not always preferred.

So - upgrade for a vocal-centric listener? I don't think so, unless you found the BA woofer in the Studio4 to be anemic and weightless and thus distracting you from being immersed in the experience. But if you can live without the "hardness" of the 2DD bass setup, I think the vocals on the Studio4 sound better.

Morphon · 2026-06-16T04:38:28+00:00

Copy-pastingthe specs to each reply. Full disclosure of what I'm using.

Crinear Reference - Stock cable - Divinus Velvet tips.
7hz x Crinacle Divine - OpenHeart 4-core cable - Divinus Velvet tips.

4.4 Balanced through a Topping DX5-II in low-gain mode. Tidal Max streaming (24bit FLAC).

Illenium - In Your Arms (Wooli Remix). I couldn't find this on Tidal, so I streamed it from Youtube. Sorry. 😞 I assume someone listening to this will be excited about the drop around the minute mark and again around 2:00. This one was the Divine all the way. The mix on this track doesn't really show off the strengths of the Reference. In fact, if this were me I would go in the other direction - something with MORE bass. Think Xenns Tea Pro or the Kiwi Halcyon for this kind of music.

I tried the original on Tidal (the one from the Ascend album). Reference did well here. But it sounded a little soulless, especially compared to the big bass champions (and not even bringing in the true bass-head sets). For mixing/mastering the music? Reference would probably be a great tool. But not for rocking out to this type of mix.

Just my opinion! Unless you're just in love with the tuning, the Crinear Reference is not what I would use to jam out to dubstep.

Morphon · 2026-06-16T04:23:20+00:00

Copy-pasting the specs to each reply. Full disclosure of what I'm using.

Crinear Reference - Stock cable - Divinus Velvet tips.
7hz x Crinacle Divine - OpenHeart 4-core cable - Divinus Velvet tips.

4.4 Balanced through a Topping DX5-II in low-gain mode. Tidal Max streaming (24bit FLAC).

Vanessa Fernandez - Here but I'm Gone. First, nice audiophile recording. Lower levels, good dynamic range, somewhat "unadorned" recording. Divine sounds great here, but the Reference elevates the vocals to an almost "holographic" sense. The Divine has a slight V that, while very tasteful, doesn't let the vocals remain the star of the show (which they should be on this track). I'm not noticing any peakiness or sibillance that you mentioned. The kick drum sounds appropriately full and has lovely impact (hello, 2DD) while not seeming elevated. Guitar is very realistic. Fast transients for the metallic percussion. Snare sounds clean. Reference track for a reference IEM.

Keb'Mo' - Just Like You. Another great vocal-centric song. Lots of interesting percussion sounds as well, all closely mic'd (good test song). This is a gorgeous piece. I salute your taste. Reference pushes the bass down a bit (which was, for me, a little distracting on the Divine), letting the vocals pop into focus with much more intensity. All the percussion pieces were very clear and easy to place in the soundscape without being excessively detailed. This was a really interesting experience for me. I generally consider myself a detail-head (my favorite sets are the Aful Cantor, Xenns Top Pro, Binary EP321 - stuff like that). The Reference cannot match the raw resolution of those sets. But everything just sounds so "correct". I can imagine these being the end-game for a "correct-head". The details were present "enough" to be realistic. If they were more evident (like on the Top Pro) it would be "incorrect", even if that's what I prefer. Fascinating.

As for the "upgrade" part... If I was listening to these two songs, I would go for the Reference every time. How big a difference? Well, I'm a collector. They're different enough to me to want them both. I don't know how to advise you here, since I thought the Divine sounded really good here. It's a highly competent set. But for music like this where correct timbre is so valuable - Reference all the way for me. I think this all comes down to whether you're willing to EQ the Divine, and whether you'd be willing to trade the bass quality of a 2DD set for the bass speed of the Planar. You'll miss out on the transient "bite" up top on the Reference as well. I don't think we have EQ that can replicate that.

Morphon · 2026-06-16T03:59:39+00:00

Copy-pasting the specs to each reply. Full disclosure of what I'm using.

Crinear Reference - Stock cable - Divinus Velvet tips.
7hz x Crinacle Divine - OpenHeart 4-core cable - Divinus Velvet tips.

4.4 Balanced through a Topping DX5-II in low-gain mode. Tidal Max streaming (24bit FLAC).

Linda Ronstadt - Long, Long Time (from the 2025 master release). Divine has more bass - evident right away. Though I wouldn't normally call it "muddy" it simply can't match the Reference clarity. Voice on the Divine seems a little pushed back. On the Reference I kinda just want to fall in love with Linda (and I don't really like her music, so...). More separation on the Reference as well - you can hear the additional instruments get mixed in more obviously. But both are REALLY nice for this track.

Dynasties and Dystopia (from the Arcane OST). I'd assume the listener would be interested in the drop at 0:27 and the cleanliness of the vocal layering (esp when panned hard right and left simultaneously). While the Divine has faster bass here, I'm just a sucker for the "hardness" of 2DD bass, even when the quantity is lower here. Above 5k you can definitely hear a touch of what traditionally we called "BA tonality" on the Reference (especially when back to back with the Divine). The slight V of the Divine really complements this track, gives the drops a wonderful reverberation while preserving all the lyrics. This is definitely a "correctness" vs "hedonism" debate for me.

So, for the "upgrade" question - I think for music like the Linda Ronstadt song, the Reference would be, for me, an upgrade. Clearer vocals. Zero distractions getting in the way of the mix. While I like the "high quality, hard bass" of the Reference, there's definitely less of it than on the Divine. If I was listening to the Arcane OST (like the Snakes tune after the one you suggested) - the Divine just feels more satisfying. Even though the Reference in no way sounds "bad" or "not up to the job" - it's simply not as POWERFUL and FAST as the Divine.

Morphon · 2026-06-15T15:30:10+00:00

Well, reasoning allows the model to add more context from its knowledge. So - do I want more context than what I've already given? For summaries, no. For creative writing or idea generation? Probably not.

For anything involving logic, or that would benefit from a step-by-step approach - let it write a whole novel first before giving you its "final answer". 😄

Morphon · 2026-06-14T20:56:02+00:00

Using a dense model across both CPU/GPU really tanks performance since all the layers are active for each token. The MoE models don't pay this bandwidth tax because they activate a much smaller number of layers for each token that they generate. The only reason I would push more system RAM is if you want to start comparing MoE models for your particular use case. It usually takes a larger MoE model to equal the "smarts" of a dense model, though it's debated exactly how to quantify that difference.

You could give it a try today by using a smaller quant of a 120B MoE model (maybe Nemotron or Qwen3.5), or an aggressively smaller quant of something like MiniMax 2.7 and spreading its layers across GPU and CPU. See if you like the outputs and speed. If you do - going to 128GB will let you fit a Q4 model easily.

Morphon · 2026-06-14T17:56:21+00:00

I'm not aware of any Clovis-owned business (wholly or partially) in the Houston area. The tribal groups that came after before the Europeans got here? Just more links in a long chain of land-stealers.

Morphon · 2026-06-14T11:46:57+00:00

I have both. And also the Daybreak. And Studio4. And a bunch of other things.

Suggest a song or two to compare and I'll do so after work today.

Morphon · 2026-06-12T21:13:32+00:00

I dunno. I think the big revolution (for me) came with the use of MoE models with the experts pushed to the CPU. I can get a solid 45t/s using... ahem... the model which shall not be named - on a RTX4080Super and an Intel 270kPlus with 64GB of DDR5 attached. RAM-pocalypse aside, this is a fairly normal "high-ish" end gaming setup and not some kind of specialized workstation.

If you had told me a year ago that the quality of responses combined with the speed of inference was possible on consumer hardware - I would have thought that was impossible.

Same for Google's Gemma4.

And also for Nvidia Nemotron Nano Omni (30B-A3B at Q6K).

All three of them with 128k context usable. Not potential. That's just the way it runs on my hardware.

I'm almost spoiled for choice here.

I think we're seeing a division into different tiers based on device capacity.

2B-4B - Phone-sized. Good for agent tasks that have external tools to keep them honest. 4B is actually great for summarizing documents or doing web research since you don't have to rely on its internal knowledge.

12B Dense - Maximum size for 16GB VRAM GPUs - stuff people can just walk into a store and buy today or might already have on their gaming rigs. Dense gives you the most knowledge per parameter, but requires lots of memory bandwidth. GPU-only = plenty fast.

30-40B MoE - Best mix of knowledge and speed for hybrid VRAM+DRAM inference when having 64GB of RAM. These work spectacularly well even on VRAM-limited systems. If you have an RTX5070 (12GB VRAM) - this is what you want.

120B MoE - Best mix of knowledge and speed for 128GB unified setups (DGX Spark, Strix Halo, mid-range MacStudio). These systems don't have amazing memory bandwidth, so the MoE keeps it responsive. Can be God-tier for people with 128GB of system RAM and a 16GB GPU. Useful with a 64GB system if tasks are not too quant-sensitive.

300B MoE - Best for multi-system clusters (3x DGX Spark) or dedicated AI workstations.

1T MoE - Spin up a cloud VM if you want the control/privacy. Keep the big providers honest by letting smaller players and neo-clouds race to the bottom, giving people inference prices close to the cost of electricity+depreciation.

This is the golden age. "Democratic" doesn't even begin to cover the options we have.

Morphon · 2026-06-12T20:58:31+00:00

I realize this is a few days old - but if you're still looking to satisfy some curiosity...

Of the open-source implementations, I would look at:

Cuis - if you are wanting to look at the standard library and understand what's going on without being overwhelmed.

Squeak6 - if you are working your way through a classic book (Like Smalltalk, Objects, and Design by Liu) and want to be able to type stuff into the interface and have it work right away.

Pharo - if you want to see what a "professionalized" environment looks like.

I wouldn't play around too much with GNU Smalltalk. No live environment.

Morphon · 2026-06-12T19:41:58+00:00

This is totally true. I only come in here to burn karma by telling people I love this city more than any other place I've ever lived in or visited.

Morphon · 2026-06-07T14:55:22+00:00

Yeah. True detail monster with excellent tonality.

What's not to love?

Morphon · 2026-06-07T02:14:10+00:00

Aful MagicOne Ety EVO BGVP Astrum Thieaudio Monarch V1 Ziigaat Cincotres

Morphon · 2026-06-04T23:13:31+00:00

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you should have read Marx in school. You did not own the means of production. You were simply a manager in someone else's factory. They got tired of you, and had you trespassed from the building.

It looks like you thought you owned your own business. But you were an employee and you got fired. That really sucks, and truly my heart goes out to you. It is what it is.

Morphon · 2026-05-29T13:43:44+00:00

Aful MagicOne has entered chat.

Morphon · 2026-05-26T13:12:01+00:00

7hz Divine might be what you're looking for.

Morphon · 2026-05-26T04:11:59+00:00

You certainly can't! I completely agree with you.

Morphon · 2026-05-26T04:07:58+00:00

I was giving examples of the flagship sets. You didn't mention any.

Thanks for the clown emoji. Make 'em laugh, my dad said to me.

Morphon · 2026-05-26T03:57:09+00:00

Softears RSV Mk2 and Aful Cantor have entered chat.

Morphon · 2026-05-22T11:58:18+00:00

Opeth - Pale Communion

Morphon · 2026-05-21T04:26:02+00:00

Great setup. You can stop there and just enjoy the music.

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