Shawn Kernes Blog

The last TV I bought was a Sharp Aquos LC52D62U 52-inch 1080P model in 2007, the same year my youngest daughter was born. It seemed huge, had the best picture I had ever seen, all the fancy new HDMI inputs I could hope for, and of course support for HDTV content. That TV has seen (or shown) some things. Endless hours of Teletubbies, my little pony, and bob-the-builder. Since I got that TV my eyesight has deteriorated a bit, I have prescription eyewear, and sometimes text can appear a bit fuzzy. Over the years new technologies such as 3D came along. 1080P wasn't all that bleeding edge anymore, there was no longer a need for the composite or S-Video connections on the TV, and a few more HDMI connections would be nice... But none of those things made buying a new TV worth it - especially since we rarely watched TV and the whole eyesight thing. Along came 4K, ROKU OS, HDR and Dolby Vision, and multi-zone LCD backlighting. Time to get a new TV. I considered...

Everyone seems to have their own list of "audiophile" recordings for testing their system or impressing their friends. Some examples include: https://www.cnet.com/news/the-audiophiliacs-top-music-tracks-for-testing-speakers-and-headphones/ https://www.whathifi.com/features/10-best-songs-to-test-your-speakers https://www.lifewire.com/stereo-test-tracks-3134905 https://www.soundandvision.com/content/test-tracks-your-most-important-audio-tool https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/usa/en/blog/test-your-speakers-cambridge-audio-engineer https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/pauls-picks-updated/ And of course there is the all-important dynamic range database: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr/desc/1 Personally, I'm more interested in impressing my ears than I am in impressing friends. And I'm certainly not interested in listening to music that I don't enjoy.  I thought I would start my own list of albums and tracks that meet the following criteri...

These days its really easy to listen to almost anything you want. Subscribe to Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Soundcloud, Tidal, Amazon Music, Deezer, Qobuz, Nugs, Groovers (the list goes on-and-on)... and stream what you want, when you want it. Some of these services, like Tidal Masters, even provide high-resolution MQA streaming (which I personally think sounds really good). Nugs has even announced that they are bringing MQA to iOS devices. To me, the biggest downside to using digital streaming services (besides sound quality - since with high-resolution flac and mqa streaming the gap has basically closed) is that listening to music becomes less intentional. For the most part, people don't sit down and listen to an album anymore, they pop-on a digital mix of some sort - and either let it play in the background or skip around from song-to-song and artist-to-artist, often not letting an entire song play through - let alone an entire album. It wasn't that long ago that li...

Records get dirty. And dirty records hiss, click, and pop. The first thing that comes to mind for most people when they hear record cleaning are those diskwasher brushes and d4 fluid. The next thing people think about is usually something like the audioquest anti-static brush. Unfortunately, neither of those really clean the record. At best, they simply remove surface dust. For real cleaning, a wet solution is required. Some options include: 1. distilled water + wetting agent in tray of water with foam mat 2. fancy version of the above like the spin-clean 2. vacuum cleaner like the vpi 3. ultrasonic (cavitation) cleaner For the simplest and cheapest DIY solution, you can make due with the following: 1. 14 inch round cake pan (about 2 inches deep) 2. foam mat (from arts and crafts store) to cover the bottom of the pan 3. distilled water 4. a wetting agent (like photoflo, tergitol 15-s-7, or detergent (lubricant and fragrance free)) 5. paint pads (something lik...

I have been considering options for adding a disk transport to my audio system. There appear to be few good modern options at "reasonable" price points. standouts include: https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/usa/en/products/cx/cxc http://www.psaudio.com/products/directstream-memory-player/  (im not sure anyone would consider this a reasonable price point) there are also some great resources for choosing or modifying older models: http://lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/TRANSPORT/CD_transport_DIY.html I'm thinking it would be really nice to play the DSD layer of SACD's through an external DAC, namely my Directstream DAC... Which, thanks to SACD copy protection, leaves me with only the Directstream Memory Player as a commercial out the box solution. I could go with something like an Oppo 205 which includes a really good DAC Chip, and power supply. It also happens to play MQA and work as a ROON endpoint... This would be a nice one box digital solution for my 2nd syst...

There are a few "frivolous" things I am willing to spend money on. They include cars, watches, audio equipment, and outdoor equipment. My favorite things are highly engineered for the sake of being highly engineered. Watches, cars (or motorcycles), and tape decks rank very high on my list. I traded a Panerai PAM111 watch for a PS Audio DirectStream DAC a few months ago. I loved the watch but rarely wore it, and I have never owned a true reference level DAC before (the closest was a Benchmark DAC1-HDR, a Logitech Transporter, and a TACT 2.2XP)... Seemed like a good trade. Putting the DirectStream DAC into my system wasn't life-changing... at least not at first. I plugged it in, installed the Huron firmware update, and started streaming from Tidal. It sounded good. It wasn't until I A/B'd it against a Sonos connect that I realized how much clearer it the DirectStream was. It literally sounded as if I had removed a wet blanket from overtop my spea...

There is something lost from the experience of listening to music when you can jump from song to song, and artist to artist without ever getting up. There is something that you can only get by listening to an Album, on vynal or tape, straight through in the order the artist intended. There is something about the process of making a mix-tape for someone you care about, a knowing they will hear the songs in the order you laid them out. I have been getting back into tapes lately. For all the same reasons tapes were a natural "successor" to vinyl, I think they should, and will make a comeback in the next few years. There are a few TOTL tape decks that are well known among almost anyone who lived through the 80's and 90's. They are: Nakamichi Dragon Revox B215 (and its variants the B215-S, and H1) Tandberg 3014A While all amazing tape decks, they also already fetch amazing prices. It's not uncommon for people to pay ~$3K for one in great condition. I ...