3 'n the Mornin' Part Two [MF's haunt]

Thanks for all the kind words! We both really appreciate it (my SO is an SBAF member too lmao).

As for a wedding... I think the plan at this point is to get a Sennheiser HE-1 instead. Like I said, two audiophools enabling one another is a somewhat frightening prospect.

If you’re an SBAFriend and happen to be in the Northwest region in the future, you’re welcome to come and listen. So long as you get along with our cats, lizards, and frog.

 

Spent some time with a few old friends this evening...




My original LCD-2. Pre-revision-2.5-version-3-fluxor-fuxxor.
The oooooold LCD-2 that sounded like audio honey buckets.
Quite good with enough power to kick their ass awake, kinda like the early SR-007 (not so extreme). I really hope Audez’e gets some of that Mercer kinda “magic” working on the LCD-2C.

The Massdrop build of the CTH is slick. Makes me eager to see what else the MD techs can do with Cavalli designs, now that the good Dr. is closing down his shop.

Pour one out for my homies at Cavalli Audio.

End of an era.
Maybe now is a good time to finally check out the LCD-4. Or wait and see what those Austrian MySpheres and Russian estats can do!

 

Yup, first batch with the metal + foam headband and big ol snakeskin cables.
They still smell as great as the day I got em. Wood and leather care, mmm...

 

Today was spent going in the opposite direction, tho I just know some here at SBAF would say it’s merely a different side of the same, overly worn-down coin:




The L700 deserves some serious love. Yeah, I’ve got ‘em plugged into that diminutive Stax amp, the one oft bundled with the 207 or [now] the L300; its a surprisingly potent little fella, lemme tell ya.

It won’t wake the slumbering drag007n, but certainly it provides for some quality Lambda bonding time.

Listening to the new Com Truise album with this setup (rounded out by a fairly standard issue Sony CD player) is a f'ing solid experience for sure. “Dryswch” has me getting my whole body in on the act, and there are these particular synth stabs that sound for the life of me like destroying a fleet of alien warships in some distant Sega based star system.

Tyler’s “Who dat boy” sounds more cohesive from the honey dipped LCDos. That’s the usual planar magnetic stereotype right? I see no need to challenge it now. On the L700 there’s a whole deranged soap opera unfolding around me, partially in this plain of existence and partially in some other. Maybe Stax HQ? Some mountain shrine? As I picture the second possibility, I can’t help but wave to the speeding McLaren as it flies off the side of the mountain path and speeds off down a road made from vapor. I imagine it’s the same kind of ethereal pavement used in Mario Kart.



*. ~. *. ~. Bit of housekeeping .~ .* .~ .*

I got plans for this weird little blog... thing. That means there’s a 60% change nothing's gonna happen (I’m being generous here). However I would like to start talking more about overlooked / stranger / less mass-marketable gear and the people behind said exotica. I dunno. Maybe talk about music that tickles my fancy, a vaguely lewd sounding endeavor that I’ve been struggling with on and off; I mean you can only say so much about the way something sounds before collapsing beneath the weight of your own bloated prose.

I just want this blog to be... me, I guess? I also want to it be about a lot of other cool people I’ve met and continue to meet in this hobby.

Right now I’m probably the last person you’d want to ask for product advice. I’d likely tell you to buy a Koss ESP 950 and a used Stax SRM-717 (which is actually the best sounding, best kept secret in this hobby, shhh). Or I’d tell you to buy the UE18+ Pro which sound great and which I will likely be buying in the future myself.

Or I’d say to buy an LCD-4 cuz those polished mirror grills and black and white cables are f'ing ace.

Or just buy the Hollow Knight game. It is amazing. It is love. It is available on PC, and soon it will be ported to the Switch. Yeah, go for that last thing!

 

Today I start my hyperbaric chamber treatment for my radiation wounds. Biggest concern is possible hearing damage, bu they monitor this closely. Kinda li ke decompressing / doing the valsalva maneuver.

 

Please be advised that the following is a vent post. It is angst ridden, emo, whatever. Read at your own discretion.


Life sometimes throws you curveballs or whatever. I believe the non sportstastic way of saying this is that life can be an obnoxious motherfucker every now and new.

Just make baseball-ade or something. <shrug>

Turns out I might have an infection on the actual metal plate inside my jaw, which is why the radiation damage isn’t healing so well. This strikes me as odd because my oncologists and plastic surgeons and whomever is in change of prodding whatever hadn’t said anything of the sort of the last two years. Nothing has shown up on scans. So hell, maybe I don’t have an infection there. If I *did* that would mean more facial reconstructive surgery which is something I’ve been hoping to avoid like the avarage “Pro Gamer” avoids showering. So it’s back to visit another doctor on another day.

My own SO begins their long journey down that road I’ve been traveling myself for a while now: IBD, specifically Crohn’s. For those who aren’t aware of the full extent of Crohn’s ravenous appetite for souls, it’s not just that inconvenient disease that makes you have to run and find a bathroom all the time. It’s an autoimmune disease in which your body attacks itself, and if left untreated it can result in your intestine taking on the consistency of concrete. It also effects your ability to absorb calcium, so you can develop kidney stones which are among the most excruciating things I’ve ever experienced (up there with ripping out my own toenail, having a broken epidural induced week-long headache, and having an enema rip a hole thru my bladder). They really do suck something fierce.

What else? Oh yeah, the constant anemia from lack of iron absorption and needing blood transfusions. Developing Deep Vein Thombosis (DVT) and having to face the prospect of being fine and dandy one moment and suddenly keeling over dead a moment later. Then there’s cancer, the “big C,” which can result from the extraordinarily primitive drugs available to treat Crohn’s. I got mine from Humira. They advertise this stuff on TV for psoriasis.

My own SO has only so far dealt with the life-sapping Crohn’s itself (no energy, no drive...no feelings of hope...) and then Predisone, a corticosteroid with some many nasty side effects you really just have to laugh when you read them all. I was on it myself on and off for a year and still deal with the damage to my skeletal system.

Anyway.
The point of this is to vent. To get something out in the open. I’m not looking for advice, but I do appreciate all of you who have good intentions and can hold your tongues. I know you mean well. Trust me, I do.

I’m not posting any of this looking for sympathy either. I’ve had so much sympathy I could be carried to and fro from place to place via comically sized waves of it. Genuinely though, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for your kind thoughts. Hell, thank you for the not so kind ones too.

Someday the stars will align or whatever, and I’ll be able to deal with having a family, and hopefully this person I love with all my heart and soul can get exponentially better healthcare here in the US. Lord knows the doctors at the Medical Center downtown have saved my life on several occasions.




Above: an assortment of olfactory pleasing candles from the World Market, located somewhere in Houston curiously enough. Kind of reminds me of a snake oil sales wagon or old timey apothecary.

There’s something to be said about aroma therapy tho.
It can be srz bznzz.

 

A few minor things have come up, so I figure more housekeeping is in order:

Q. “MF, you spend a billions dollars on audio gear, who not just pay for your SO’s go fund me”
A. The short and sweet is I prolly don’t have the income you think I do. I’ve had some nice stuff over the years, but that has long since been sold off. Mostly gone to paying medical bills.
These days I talk about things things on loan, heard in shops, group buys, listening tours... basically SBAF and good friends helps me to continue to enjoy my hobby of audio writing, and for that I am grateful. I’ll buy something occasionally, but unless it really wows me, I usually send it back (if it breaks like HFM stuff often does) or sell it to friends and take the hit.

Q. “Is your SO [such-n-such person]?”
A. Probably.

Q. “Does that mean you’re [such-n-such type of person]?”
A. Probably. TBH I just assumed this was common knowledge. It was on head-if and Changstar at least.

Q. “You said having a family some day, does this mean...???”
A. I say a lot of stuff. If THAT of all things bothers you, I really do pity you.

Q. “Hey MF, ppl on [this place] are saying hateful things about you”
A. Oh, believe me I know. I find it hilarious.

Q. “You just want attention”
A. Isn’t that what we all want, at the end of the day? To be important enough to be spoken about by complete strangers? There’s an old adage: if you’re bothering some folks, you know you’re doing something right. Or something.

Anyway, the initial post was a ~vent post~ filled with angsty bullshit. I labeled it as such well in advance, and I’m genuinely sorry if you were triggered.