now I'm playing with the AH-D5000, my Denon 1940CI and little dot mk1+ since less than 24 hours and I'm deeply in love with the combination.

It's just so nice and relaxing to come home and listen to one or two cds with a glas of wine or to finish up some work. The only problem is. I don't enjoy my Shure headphones at work at all anymore. I mean they are nice headphones and sound great. But compared to my home setup they are just plain boring.

I just can't wear them and forget about them. Right now it just happens that I play 'Dark side of the moon' or 'Diversion bell' and totally loose track of time, till the music stops and reminds me that another hour just went by and I need to change the CD.
 
Now I just need the dac to arrive to connect the laptop to the amplifier. And how do LP's sound again? Help I'm addicted again and need more CD's...

I guess I'm taking my Mylene Farmer CD (California) with me at Christmas time or make a high res copy on the laptop...

The difference of a little amplifier is just amazing.

today my little dot MK 1+ finally arrived which is the smallest headphone amplifier in the little dot program and it's right now unmodded.

And I just have to say I'm deeply impressed by the sound of it and currently only listen to it with the Shure SRH840 and can't wait for the Denon AH-D5000 to arrive.

Once I have the setup completed and learn the sonic profile, I will start to mod it a little. I already have the parts here, since they were rather cheap. I mean tubes and opamp cost like 5$ a piece.

What is missing?

I'm a bit unsatisfied with the bass and the highs are a bit missing. But that's more related to my low quality mp3's I think. Still waiting for the DAC and SACD player.

but it's really relaxing to just lay in the dark, have the tubes glow and listen to some Pink Floyd.

so after talking with the DMV this morning I'm not allowed to sell a Non Working Car in the state of California except to a Junk Yard.

Looks like I'm stuck with the passat a little while longer. Maybe I just put it into NON OP and cancel the insurance on it. And save till march for a newer car...

But the jeep with 70k miles down looks really nice and 4k is a pretty good price. Sure it's a 96, but 70k miles and 4WD, what do you want more.


and it's red!

Sure a 4Runner would be more reliable, but also twice as much and 4k I could easily save in 3 - 4 month, if it holds. It could even tow my passat to the junk yard...

since the passat is more or less sold. Sale should be final tomorrow evening. I'm researching other cars. And most likely it's going to be a low mileage wrangler (<100k miles) or a high mileage 4Runner (160k around) and manual transmission.

Short anything with a 4WD and rated to be very reliable, since snowboarding season is coming up and I really want to go to Death Valley and UTAH next year.

There is one 4Runner which looks really nice, but 240k miles (it has a new engine and most parts replaced) kinda scare me a bit. I don't want another fixit car...

Oh we also got tickets for christmas.

I finally found the tools I wanted since a long time. Small precision tools to fix mac books, computers, glasses and just in general tiny things.
I think for 13$ it was a bargain.

just discovered a new artist. Katie Melua and I actually really like her album 'Pierce by Pierce' to bad that it's only in 256kpbs and not 321 or higher.

But she has a wonderful voice, it just sounds great and relaxing. More or less perfect after a day of work.

Help I found a new addiction, buying CD's on iTunes...

the last weekend we decided to take a small trip to vegas which turned into an absolutely fun trip.


First of all we had a 2009 Toyota Avalon with close to 300HP as a rental car, which got an average of 30+mpg. Short plenty of power, plenty of space and affordable.

after driving for 8 hours or so we arrived in Vegas shortly before sunset and rented a room at the Excalibur for 99$ a night. Divided by 3 person = 33$ for staying in Vegas. Can't get much better.

After a couple of hours sightseeing and taking a lot of pictures.

we decided to grab some food. Well I decided since I really wanted to try some 'professional' brisket sandwich to compare it to mine.
For this we went to the supposedly best bbq place in town.

well, if this was the best place. I do not want to go to the worst place. Cause the food was over spiced and rather bad. That the waiter gave himself a 17.** % tip for lousy service didn't really help either.

At least I managed to take lot's of pictures of pretty motorcycles and some waitress posed on one of the harleys rather badly. Actually it was that bad that I did not even bother to keep the picture.

after this we tried to watch the water show at the bellagio, but sadly were to late and only got a quick shot of it

and decided to gamble instead a bit at the bellagio.

While we were there some random lady asked nico if he'd like to have a couple of show tickets and after a bit forth and back we figured out the tickets are for free and so we took them. It were 3 tickets, we were 3 people. Short perfect timing and combinaton.

The tickets turned out to be for Cirque du Solei - O and it was an amazing show. I actually ordered the CD afterward on my iphone.

 as you can see in the picture we were very close (4th row) and in the middle of the row. Short perfect tickets, which resale for 140-160 a piece normally.

After we spend the night in our fantastic hotel, we left and drove to the grand canyon.

We made a short stop at the Hoover Dam, fairly unimpressive.

and discovered some way more impressive chipmunks

yes our priorities were clear.But after all It was actually to see how low the water reserves are in Nevada/California.

normally the water covers the white area of the stone.

Anyway we continued to drive over the over Hoover Dam into Arizona. Another state done of my US map btwand arrived a couple of hours later at the Grand Canyon.

There we camped under an amazing sky full of stars

And like always we didn't plan very well and it turned out my sleeping bag was way to cold for these temperatures. Because originally we planned to camp at the Mohave Reserve, but it looked to boring that we decided todo something else instead. Short I was freezing all night and some animal kept pocking me non stop. I'm really shure it was a grizzly bear or mountain lion masked as this little fellow

he was actually so upset, that I didn't leave him into my tent, that he attempted to jump down the Grand Canyon the next day. For example his view was something like this....

No it's noy at an eagle, it's a raven in the picture...

Back to the topic. In the morning we made some breakfast on my sturdy little camp stove. Or in other words some tea and a tomato soup with pita bread. And continued to drive the last 5 miles to the grand canyon.
On our way there we discovered a bock (deer) who showed us that bathroom are optional...

I sadly did not manage to shoot him from the front, since a big bus came and kept honking at me to move my car off the road. I was also worried that he attacks us. Anne mentioned she can outrun him, but I was not to sure about this...

Once we finally arrived at the grand Canyon we took the opportunity to shoot hundreds of pictures. Since you never know when you are there again...

Afterward we drove back to Las Vegas, which was surprisingly quick. We only need like 4 hours or so. Afterall it was just one long straight road more or less...

One our way we discovered an old Airplane museum

And some strange looking houses....

 

When we finally arrived in vegas we managed find an even cheaper hotel. Called Hooters, which was not great. But 49$ for 3 People was a good price for this room and it looked ok. We even manged to watch the water show at the Bellagio this time

And loose even more money....

Also a tradition is, if you visit vegas you need to take a picture of fancy cars like...

a ferrari

a viper

and this was our weekend. 

As a final treat was that we had a nice Dinner at Buckhorns were an elderly gentleman gave us a 1994 Beringer Cabernet Reserve for free. It's a 140$ bottle of wine I could totally NOT appreciate...

The only sad part was that my wonderful Ashley was not with us on the Trip. Well maybe she makes it to the next trip. After all I'm going to San Diego in a week, afterward New Jersey and than Germany.

live is more fun with the right motivation and a couple of sweet deals:

a) 80$ instead of 400$, 2 weeks old - (Denon 1940ci) - nevermind seller backed out of it and can't even give him a bad review so I ended up paying 120$. Still a nice deal.
Second order got canceled too,  now I found one for 150$. I'm getting slightly frustrated...

b) 220$ instead of 699$, 200h used - (Denon AH-D5000)

c) 100$ no deal (Little Dot 1+, want to test a simple version before I go overboard again with the model I want)

d) Little Dot - Dac_I digital analog converter a bit to much money, but was recommended...

e) Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (SACD) - 10$ (I know I'm predictable), when will they release a SACD of 'The Wall' and 'Wish you were here' I wounder. Well I would be happy with the normal CD sometime.

and the best part is, If I don't like the headphones or the player and decide to sell them I can sell them without a loss and most likely make money out of it. Otherwise I would never had bought them.

Other SACD's order;

Norah Jones

Dire Straits - Brother In Arms

Elton John

Pink Floyed - Pulse

Now time to order tickets! for christmas :)

but the really annoying part is that the stuff need 1 - 3 weeks to get delivered :(

live is frustrating,

since I'm back from my wonderful vegas/grand canyon roadtrip, more about this in another upcomming post. I have nothing but issues with my software.

• I have to increase the performance of the export by factor 8 - 10, ok a nice challenge
• switch over the eclipse 3.5.* and nothing compiles anymore
• a deadline is coming up till everything has to work
• I have to perfect some features

and the stuff I actually really want to work on, just keeps piling up, like the quality and quantification module :(