Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Because they (his parents) are:

• Privileged
• Enabled his sociopathy
• Benefited from his sociopathy (properties, income, influence with Biden and various members of Congress, etc.)

People are weird.

 

Saturday now in London. Crazy week. Already feels like I’ve been here three weeks. A few people got let go (capitalism), others sent notice, and last day for one (we’ve worked together for over four years and had never met until now) who is headed to different pastures. Lots of wine, beer, bourbon, and scotch after work in Soho on way too many days this last week. Pretty cool to finally meet people I’ve only met via video calls. Super weird too seeing people in 3D.

Hope I didn’t miss anything here.

This was my flight in. Heathrow is a very busy airport, scarily busy. This wasn’t the only one that got those close, some closer actually.

 

Carnaby street. They haven’t taken down the Christmas stuff yet. Bunch of shops here. Stopped by to get boots (it rains here) and a beanie (occasional wind chill but not too bad).


Stayed at too many London touristy places throughout the years. Doing something different this time around. Stopped off the Euston station and started walking randomly around Camden. Headed to St. Albans next. I could live here. Higher taxes, but you actually get stuff for it.

 

That makes complete sense based on what I experienced and saw on the plane. The photo I took above was when we were cleared to land being lower in the stack and veering off from it while the plane above was still in the stack. Before that we were going around in tight circles.

 

Not for audio gear - only for good friends and great conversations while being wasted. I hope you guys don't get another freakshow summer with 42C temps.

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I spent most of the entire day exploring the some of the northern parts of the London commuter belt and back. I guess St Albans has outdoor food tents on Saturdays. Lots of people about despite the drizzle.






Yep, I get the impression St Albans isn't downscale.

The train and tube (subway) system are awesome. This is the first time I've really taken public transportation to all sorts of random places. There are a dozens of lines and many interconnections for redundancy.

The train stations look like some airports I've been in. King's Cross here puts El Lay's Union station to shame.



People drive crossover and sedans here instead of monster SUVs and big trucks. Any American who owns a Range Rover but buys a Tesla to signal climate change virtue should be shot.

 

I thought I was going insane because Soho and Chinatown have totally changed since I was last there (maybe 5-6 years ago). People said COVID changed a lot and killed a lot of businesses other than some local pubs that had been around for a while. The food at Chinatown back then was mostly garbage with one place which was OK. This time around, there seem to be a lot of good places. A search on Google Maps for Taiwanese cuisine popped up at least half a dozen places.

Below is xiaolongbao and pork over sticky rice at Leongs Legend. The flavors are legit. The xiaolongbao wrapper is just slightly thicker than DTF and it's better too. I will try the Taiwanese beef noodle soup next.

 

Now of course I need to weave these tales into audio. Haven't I always said to try to weave your stories (political or otherwise) into audio?

I got to visit one our of locations. The location in question did audio work, no vfx, no color, no video editing, just audio. The location is deceptive because it looks like a hole in the wall place from the outside. Inside there are several medium sized mix stages and I think one largish one (they really don't get big in Soho London because of lack of space). I wish I had taken photos so I could show you. This was a place which was recently acquired, one of those boutique places as opposed to cookie cutter.

I was talking to one of the sound guys and noted ATCs all around for a Dolby 7.1 setup. I looked behind the speakers and noted two decent gauge wires (no, not anywhere near ORFAS.org girth) coming from out of the wall and terminating into speaker inputs on the back. Didn't see XLR into the speaker which would have a meant an active setup. I looked at the sound guy and he said: yep, passive from real power amp sounds better. I laughed and told him that the USA uses the JBLs with the class D DSP stuff (the standard cookie cutter). Don't get me wrong, the JBLs are good. But the passive ATCs are just that much better. The sound guy said: the guys in the US do just movies, we do other stuff too.

I think it's funny how Amir craps all over the ATC with the headless Pink Panther implying total shit (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/atc-scm19-bookshelf-speaker-review.14519/) when the experts, the people who make their living, the boutique places that care about sound quality, would choose passive ATCs over Amir's perfectly measuring JBL + Class D stuff. Amir is an armchair quarterback with expensive measurement gear and no clue.

By the way, the x3 mains, L, C, and R were the SCM45A Pro below. The surround speakers were the pro bookshelves (not pictured).


Snippet from ASR zealot: Pretty much explains it all.


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