A Geek Goes Flying

The Chair Back in May, in the middle of an organization kick, I had a KIA Nero EV rental for a few days, and used it to pick up some closet organization stuff at IKEA ( KALLAX shelving units ; DRÖNA inserts ). I’d been thinking about getting a reading chair that would be more conducive to reading and some work, vs. the IKEA FRIHETEN that provides all my living room seating. Somewhere in my reading, I stumbled across someone raving about the POÄNG chair, which has a bit of a cult following and a strong pedigree: No Shame in the Poäng Chair Architectural Digest Poäng: The Little-Known History Of Ikea’s Most Famous Chair Fast Company The Goddamn POÄNG Chair (“[T]he famously frugal IKEA founder and billionaire Ingvar Kamprad, who died in 2018, owned the same POÄNG chair since 1978.”) I wasn’t sure if it would fit my weird, lengthy proportions, so I decided to try one out during my IKEA visit. And, yep, it fits more or less perfectly. So I picked it up with the matching ottoma...

AONIC 215 Way back in 2007 or so, I finally splurged on a pair of good headphones (i.e., not bundled with a music player, or the $19.99 ones from Best Buy, I'd been using since I was a teenager. I picked up a pair of Shure SE210s at Fry's and was blown away - they were the first headphones that ever made me go "wow." As time went on, though, they disintegrated, and were set aside. These days I mostly use over the ear stuff , but I wanted a portable set with noise isolation with foam plugs without having to go aftermarket, and an integrated microphone. I decided to see what Shure was up to these days (er, well, 13 years ago(!)). Had the opportunity to pick up a pair of the AONIC 215s (which are the SE215s repackaged, apparently) for $65. They’re ... Fine. Competent. They don’t blow me away like the 210s used to, but I've upgraded my cans and my expectations several times along the way, so that's to be expected. They're probably roughly o...

I picked up a second-hand Schiit Jotunheim 2 for a great deal, but it does not have a DAC card installed.  Schiit Jotunheim 2  For my arrangement, I kinda need one. ( Trying it out with a Topping D10 Balanced revealed what the amp is capable of.) Having Schiit install it blesses the entire package with a 2 year warranty (and since the Jotunheim is second-hand, it has not Schiit warranty otherwise): For out-of-warranty products, having Schiit install the DAC module re-activates the warranty on the complete product for 2 years. ( Source ) So I ordered the 9028 DAC card , which is balanced (and half the price of the multi-bit card): Schiit ES9028 DAC Card I placed the order on April 18th, at which point I was #2 in a queue of 2. By the 24th there were 5 in the queue, 6 as of the 29th, 8 on the 1st of May, and 9 by the 4th. I got the email with the RMA number and ship-to address on May 8th and mailed it out yesterday (in the original packaging, the whole thing was 5 lbs., and it...

Shanling M1s being used as a DAC So I found a good deal on a used Schiit Jotunheim 2 , but it doesn’t come with a DAC. I expect I’ll pop in a $100 ES9028 card and probably splurge and pay the $50 to have Schiit install it. I’m positive I could do it, but Schiit will bump the warranty on the whole package to 2 years if I do that: “For out-of-warranty products, having Schiit install the DAC module re-activates the warranty on the complete product for 2 years.” But I haven’t done that yet. And I should be responsible and sell off some of the gear I’m not using to cover the cost of the upgrade. (I already sent a Schiit Hel off to a new home...) But I know me and I know I’m going to want to play with my new “toy” at least a little bit, which means it’s going to need a signal.  At first I was going to drop $25 or so on an Apple USB-C to 3.5 mm dongle , a USB A/C adapter , and a decent 3.5mm to RCA Cable , but then I screeched the needle off the record and realized how silly it was to s...

Looking at FLAC players for an old iPhone I want to repurpose into a listening station (that I think I’m going to build around the JDS Atom 2 stack ?). Quick synopsis of the few I’ve looked at so far: VOX . Premium features, including basics like a parametric EQ and EQ presents, an ad-free experience, gapless playback, etc., are locked behind a subscription. $49.99 yearly or $4.99 monthly. Once I saw that pricing I stopped looking at it. Flacbox . Natively connects to WebDAV, SMB, etc. servers, along with the usual litany of cloud services. Premium is a lifetime purchase of $14.99 (with a free trial), and includes ad delete, an unlimited number of cloud services, downloading albums and playlists, an unlimited number of playlists and songs in a playlist, etc. Has a 10-band EQ with precise ± decibel settings per octave. A contender. Doppler . A 7 day free trial and then a one time $9 charge. Doesn’t connect directly to servers but helpfully links to instructions for how to mount servers ...

(With apologies to Thanos. Cute idea for a headphone stand !) Thanos bust headphone holder I recently picked up the Drop 2.5mm to Sennheiser headphone cable (for $19, I wouldn’t have at $50) (the 3.5mm single-ended cable that comes with the Sennheiser HD58x Jubilee headphones is hilariously long; the balanced cable is only slightly awkward in comparison). I’m using it with my EarStudio ES100 MK2 portable Bluetooth DAC/Amp, and it does seem to make a difference - the headphones seem “punchier” with the balanced connection, and can be set at a lower volume for an equivalent sonic experience. Liking it. So of course that set me down the rabbit hole of DAPs with balanced outputs. The least expensive seems to be the $130 SHANLING M0 Pro , but to use a 2.5mm connection with that you’ll need their $14 3.5mm to 4.4mm adapter , plus another $10+ 4.4mm to 2.5mm adapter like this , and now you’re at like $160 for the audio player, and you have something akin to a Rube Goldberg machine sticking...