Be Excellent To Each Other

Obligatory link to Monster Cable vs coathangers double-blind ABX: https://consumerist.com/2008/03/03/do-c ... er-cables/

Indeed, but there is a difference, unlike with digital.

Also, I do kind of think that if you spend £10,000 on a power cable and you can hear £10,000 worth of difference, placebo (not the right word but anyway*) or not, then it's worth the money.

What shouldn't be allowed is people stood in the showroom saying that you simply have to have the expensive cables.

* Psychoacoustics, apparently. Cor.

I love the language of the cable sellers and proponents "It was as if the drums were carved from ice, such were their transient speed, power and impact."

Basically this woman right here;

I don’t.

Hello. Are you my brother?

This is pretty much what I'd been saying, bro.

Indeed. The inside joke is that the cables I'm currently using to watch my TV cost about £180.

At least they still work

Valid. And that's the one thing that is worth paying extra for perhaps, which is build quality - especially if you're going to be plugging the cable in and out a lot and shoving it in a bag (if you have them for a laptop, maybe).

But not £180.

What's the over/under on that being more than your TV is worth now?

Hmm, dunno. The TV is seven years old. I'll look it up.

Heh. This again, huh? I always remember Kalmar (what happened to him?) eternally berating me for having the temerity to like the sound of my beautiful old valve monoblocs, when apparently anything over a £50 all in one CD bedroom hifi from Dixons was a waste of money.

Grim... is absolutely correct: it’s about way, way more than the digital source, any old shite can read that data for you, it’s all about the analogue because you know, and surprising as this will seem to one or two here, we don’t hear things in 1s and 0s.

I’m about to fulfil a lifetime of passion for hifi, dating back to when I was building speakers from Cornflake packets, and get a pair of B&W 800 D3s, the best speaker in the world bar none. Mrs C’s soul will sound as never before, I can’t wait.

Kudos to Grim... re. ‘Psychoacoustics’. Awesome!

In this week's Exxxtreme Body Mods, a middle-aged man from Cheshire is fulfilling his life-long dream of implanting a pair of £20k speakers into the body of his wife.

"I know people will say it's mad", Cyril Cave said, not-at-all madly.

"But when you love someone. Like, when you really love someone, it's not enough to simply hear them tell you about their day, the new kitchen they have their eye on, what's for dinner. Sure, you hear that. You listen, you nod. But that's not enough. You've got to hear their soul. Every rumble, every gurgle, every frrrp. Now, with this extreme body mod, I can hear our love. And now she also looks like Krang's vessel in Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, which is totally a bonus."

*salutes*

Also, the best speaker in the world is a Cerwin Vega CVP 121, AS ANY FULE NO

The best speaker in the world is the one on the bottom of the Samsung mobile phone that plays shitty dance music tinnily on public transport.

The best speaker is the one you have with you

The best speaker? Betty Boothroyd

The only good reason to buy Monster cables is their lifetime guarantee. I know a couple of semi professional guitarists who play a lot of live shows that use Monster cables because guitar cables get trashed, and the Monster ones may cost 5 or 6 times the cost of the equivalent Fender or whatever, they last a bit longer, and when they break, you take them back and get a new one. (Pretty much no quibble, possibly apocryphal tales of guitarists cutting cables in half and getting them replaced are around)

That's a guitar cable, that gets trod on, caught under amp cabs, chucked into leaky vans, and generally abused. Stereo or TV cables that basically sit at the back of equipment forever? Nah.

Pity they couldn’t afford to make it look pretty.

I miss my old AR18s.

That didn't matter. All that mattered was that if someone put their drink on it while we were DJing we could slap the EQ up and bounce it off again.

The pain of watching the notifications pop up on ps4 telling you that your friends are coming online, They're joining a party, look you've been invited, oh look they're playing worms and you've been invited to that too! Excite!

Except mr/mrs you has her annoying friend over, They're watching... He's just not that into you. They're talking all the way through it too, laughing loudly at all the... "Jokes"

Sigh.

Better think about the additional TV scenario.

Oh man

It's still happeninggggg

Take out the knife

You know what to do.

Use a Psvr as a personal gaming screen?

Is this a real solution? Great excuse for a vr if so. Bit unsociable mind you. I'd need something to run Netflix and Amazon etc alongside the ps as well, I've got a 360, would that do it?

Could I use the vr and remote in a different room? That would be less weird.

Or I could take out the knife.

I know what to do.

She bought a new cable and is now happier with the picture quality. I’ve been working In Scotland again all week, so didn’t see the difference when she swapped over, but at least we won’t have to go back to the shop to argue about getting a refund.

The only remaining problem is that the new tv can’t be mounted on the old wall bracket. The holes are in the right place, but the new tv requires wider diameter bolts.

Can't you drill them out?

She’s considering leaving it on it’s stand on the cabinet it’s currently sitting on, but if not, we’ll try drilling.

Erm, I dunno. I expect it's possible. The 360 can definitely do your media, but you'd have to ask a Psvr owner the other stuff

In an ideal world, you'd want something like the Hololens that lets the real world in too. A nice big virtual screen hanging over the chick flick!

Work got me a shiny £150 DAS 4 keyboard. It's lovely.

My home keyboard now feels like a minging fucking sponge.

It's a shame that work keyboard got damaged and had to be thrown away....

Had a look at that, but in the end, went back to Corsair. After the last one blew up I've waited a bit and the K95 Platinum arrived today.

Lovely piece of kit, but in some ways the software is outdated. This one comes with 6 keys you can assign shortcuts or start programs etc

If I want to have one of these keys open a folder on my NAS I have to have to use a cmd file and have the action run that.

Not the end of the world the Alienware Keyboard I had years ago just let you browse

Also discovered that once you assign things to these keys, they need to be added again each time you change the colour profile.

When I shut down my laptop at work before I go home, sometimes the connected displays (a thunderbolt display and a Dell 27") show a purple screen with fuzzy dots for a few moments.

It really doesn't matter but it annoys me before I go home.

Jesus, okay, gotta delurk again in cheese related outrage. Cathedral cheddar is pleasant but essentially mediocre. For full flavour cheddar supermarket crunch Morrisons special Davidstow cheddar was the way to go. However I think that stopped mid 2000''s. Or maybe I just don't have a Morrisons near me anymore.

If you're not rating your cheeses by deli standards you're doing it wrong!

Welsh Black Bomber cheddar is currently cheddar of choice, flavour wise, albeit tricky to extract in satisfying slices from the wax coated wheel.

Bousin (for men) soft cheese is the cracker based comfort eating cheese of supermarket champions.

Port Salut for me is the ultimate cracker based cheese, although be aware a cheese has to be genuinely pretty nice before smoking, smoking awful gagh cheese does nothing but add a new definition of awful to an existing shonky cheese. I sadly include Dairylea in that.

Baked camembert cheese with crusty cheese and wine is divine, as is deep fried brie & cranberry sauce.

Don't be cheap with your cheeses! In this dark, bleak new world they matter, more than ever!

For anyone interested, a comment like this is by far the fastest way to get banned from Beex.

Hey, I would not scorn a baguette with pickle and cathedral but c'mon, are there no delicatessens in the midlands, have you forgotten how beautiful cheeses can be? Maybe you need an education next BeexBQ!

All the best cheeses are from the Midlands.

THEN THERE CAN BE NO EXCUSE.

I don't live in the Midlands.

There is that.

Below M62, above M4 is midlands

A few years ago I discovered the delights of Derbyshire cheese and then suddenly our supermarket of choice stopped stocking it. Now, whenever we see cheese on sale, we look to see if they have it. They never do.

Nowhere near. Above Banbury, below the Peaks.