Items that are really good

[El Diablo]

Leader,

I second that mouse.

And my contribution to this thread (thanks to others recommending to me when I asked in OOT):



http://www.pacificcoast.com/

[Soh]

Actually I bought it in Japan. But it's just a simple rope.
I'm not sure if any kind of rope will do it, but you can try.

[nutsflopper]

balla headphones

[UMTerp]

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And my contribution to this thread (thanks to others recommending to me when I asked in OOT):

http://www.pacificcoast.com/

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El D,

I went and read the OOT thread you referenced, and you were specifically asking about comforters - is that all you were referring to with your post?

When I click the link, the "feather beds" featured prominently on their website intrigue me. Any experience with them? I'd never even heard of a feather bed before. But if their ad is true, and a $150 purchase is all that's keeping my bed at home from feeling like the one at the Bellagio or the Borgata, I'm pretty pissed at myself for not buying one earlier.

[KJS]

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The lack of equalizer on these is a major beat, IMO.

KJS

[Austiger]

I think this bed is gorgeous. You can see the craftsmanship by enlarging the pics after you scroll down.

Rossetto

[The Hag]

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How this post didn't get any love in the 10 or so after it is beyond me.

so, here it is;

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

[AtlBrvs4Life]

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I like how you found the exact model. Very nice.

[Rick Nebiolo]

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I've never understood the point of an ipod dock--why not buy a $2 mini-->RCA cable and hook it up to your stereo for better sound? I guess the portability would be useful. What kind of batteries do these take and how long do they last?

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this is 2007, who the hell owns a stereo?

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I still do but I'm 53.

Having a stereo was SOP in my youth. I remember sharing a four bedroom dorm suite with seven other guys and four real loud stereos (the large Advent speaker set was a seventies youth iPod).

~ Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

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I've never understood the point of an ipod dock--why not buy a $2 mini-->RCA cable and hook it up to your stereo for better sound?

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I thought sound quality was very bad hooking up my iNano this way (but then again the iNano sound output may pale compared to an iPod; read the PS below if you know). I'm in my fifties and have no easy way of finding out since not one of my friends or family owns a full sized iPod!). I record mp3 tracks of my CDs using Exact Audio Copy and the LAME encoder at a high bit rate (apparently this is the geek approved way). My living room stereo is decent; about what the average college kid had in the seventies plus the CD player (minus the cassette deck which I in fact gave away no thanks to this forum.

Anyway the convenience of an iPod/iTunes/computer based jukeboxes makes playing CDs on a regular stereo hardly worth the hassle, especially when most of your CDs have bad songs that you would easily skip or remove on an iPod type player.

This rambling train of thought brings me to a rough idea of something I think would be "really good" if you already have a large CD collection and have/want/desire a decent stereo. Some of us over 50 year old types already qualify.

1. Over time as you surf the net on your current desktop rip and encode the best of your CD collection into a lossless format such as FLAC or even Apple Lossless. At roughly 3 CDs per gigabyte you should be able to fit a 600 or larger CD collection on a single partition of a second internal hard disk with room to spare. Backup the contents to an external drive so you always have two copies since this is a labor of love.

2. Find/get/hold on to an old desktop computer (assuming it can support a decent sound card and video card capable of driving your TV). Countless people have a desktop computer they want to get rid of these days so this should be no problem. Install a modern large capacity second internal hard disk. The old IDE drives are still available; here's a 500 gig model for under $100. Add a USB 2.0 port (to connect an external drive) if necessary.

3. Transfer the music from the new computer to the old computer's second internal drive (this is easy with an external drive and a USB port). Make sure the computer will run iTunes or another music player you like. Import the music into the iTunes or music player library (BTW, I don't think iTunes supports FLAC well so I may have to go with Apple Lossless or another music player).

3. Find some sort of remote that will work in the same way a dock for an iPod does (in other words the TV functions as the iPod display and the remote works like the clickwheel).

4. Hook it all up and tune it up.

5. Sit back in your favorite chair and listen to your music collection in CD quality sound on a decent stereo with SPEAKERS with the song selection and playlist convenience of iTunes/iPod.

IMO this would combine the best of the seventies living experience (I mean the 1970s, not being 70) with 21st century technology. It could be real balla or it's already being done by thousands of people I simply haven't met and have no knowledge of.

Comments/flames/derision are all welcome.

~ Rick


PS I wanted to post the following question as an OP but was concerned it wasn't "El Diablo forumworthy" (and I'd be laughed off OOT given my age) so I'll ask here, buried deep within a sub-post.

Last week for the first time in my life I listened to an iPod (another poker player checked out my iNano while I checked out the iPod). We kept our own headphones for comparison and sanitation reasons (i.e., who would want to be in contact with something that's been in an old man's ears?).

Obviously I couldn't compare song for song but my .mp3s are top notch rip/encodes. But everything on the iPod sounded much better/cleaner/crisper at any sort of volume. I'm guessing the power amp on the iPod is much better than the one on my iNano.

So my question is (assuming you have tried/owned/own both an iNano and an iPod) do you find the quality of the songs much better on one over the other?

Short answers are OK.