The most disruptive audio technology since the CD, since the advent of stereo actually, is ... the iPod. You can lump in mp3, iTunes, and digital distribution in there if you want, but it’s the iPod, the physical device, which has more than anything re-defined what we think of as an audio system in the twenty first century. Shelves of physical media and a playback unit, or, if you preferred, broadcast content, has been displaced by a handheld, personal, portable jukebox. The audio component system of the 1970’s (media, sources, preamp, amp, speakers) has faded into obsolescence, replaced by powered speakers, headphone amplifiers, desktop audio, compact “speakers+amplifier” systems the ubiquitous "dock" fronting a traditional amplifier-speaker system.

Audio is missing the front end.

Because it isn’t an iPod, I’m sure of that. Its day is done. No, it's pretty clear to me that the front-front end of the future is settled: Its the internet. The cloud....

The Nexus 7 is cheap. I paid 19,800 yen for my 16 GB model, shipping and tax inc., and it came with 2,000 Yen credit to buy apps and movies and such in the online Google Play store. And yes, its plastic, even the silver metallic trim around the edge is just a silver-coated plastic part. It is solid, however; sturdy, well-built, and good-looking. The back is covered in grippy, dimpled rubber that feels like leather. The screen is a little dim, but high resolution (800x1280) ~220pi, pretty to look at and easy to read.

With a 7" screen and default portrait orientation the device is closer in spirit to a large smartphone than a small tablet. A giant, wi-fi only smartphone. It's a handy size for reading paperback-format books, comics, and news articles, but not so hot for magazine format publications and A4-formatted journal articles. Browsing the web is generally fine, but the experience varies widely depending on the individual layout of the web page. As you might expect,...

A maid cafe is, as far as I can make out - and wikipedia confirms - a cafe/light restaurant staffed by girls who dress up as anime characters or doll-like maid costumes. Chatting with customers is encouraged, so the atmosphere is more social than a regular cafe. Its also more expensive, and the food worse. (from what I can judge from the menus: its what my nine year old daughter might make if left alone in the kitchen...) They advertise by by having the staff stand around - in costume - on busy street corners nearby handing out small cards.

This is a phenomena that started about 5-6 years ago, or at least started to go mainstream then. Ground zero for maid cafes is the "nerd districts" where computers, comic books, and video games were sold: Akihabara in Tokyo, Nipponbashi in Osaka.

Growth appears to be exponential: every time I visit either region (I'm in Tokyo right now, staying near Akihabara) the number of maid cafes (and therefore maids on the street)...

Copied from this post, for reference.

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Douglas Self writes, He's someone who should know. Anyway, it doesn't take much digging on the internet to confirm beyond reasonable doubt that bypass caps should be as close to the op amp power pins as possible. So thinking about my previous experiments with bypassing the Sapphire, by adding bypass caps around the transistors I also effectively also added a bypass for the op amp, but a rather poor one as the power-pin-to-power-pin round trip loop distance is probably 10...

I posted this earlier today, but I think it deserves to be put in the blog - if nothing else so I can find it again next time ... and there always seems to be a next time when it comes to calculating headphone amplifier gains.

Starting at the beginning, the encoded data on a CD goes from 0 to 1 in 2^16 steps, but in a typical CD player or soundcard, the DAC output is -2.8 V to 2.8 V or 2 V rms or 6 dB. Many sources, such as phono stages and portable audio, are lower, perhaps as low as 250 mV.

How loud the sound is depends on the source signal amplitude, the position of the volume control, the circuit gain, and the impedance and sensitivity of the headphones.

As a practical matter, most people would want the volume control at the 9-10 o'clock position for "normal" listening.

For standard "line level" source, the gain required to keep the volume control at a 9-10 o'clock varies depending on the impedance...

Biggest changeover in many years.

Denon DP-2000, DA-307, DL-103 turntable/tonearm/cartridge
Phonoclone 3 with 160 VA Plitron power supply
47 Labs "Treasure" model 0247 preamplifier
47 Labs "Treasure" model 0347 amplifier
Onkyo D-605SR speakers
Cables by oyaide, mostly.
(photo: Pentax K10D, Pentax FA 31mm F1.8 AL Limited)

If we accept that conventional wisdom that the audio bandwidth extends from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, a good rule of thumb for the f(-3 dB) high and low cutoff points of the frequency response of each audio circuit element is 5x the bandwidth, or 4 Hz to 100 kHz. In practice most designs tend to shift that range a little to the higher frequencies, so perhaps 5 Hz - 200 kHz, or 4 - 250 kHz.

Personally I "tune" my circuits to 4 Hz. That is, the time constants are adjusted to about 4 ms. Capacitance is usually cheap enough to go even longer, but the influence on sonics is typically net negative.

The high frequency side is more interesting, since many circuit elements naturally run into the megahertz range, the the question is do you actively try to prevent that, and if so, where and how?

The biggest issue is bypassing: a small value electrolytic (100 uF) is probably fine up to 100 kHz or so, but quite useless at 2 Mhz. The textbook solution is...

Having recently actually bought some new (not used, not my own design, and relatively expensive) audio gear, and from 47 Labs no less, the following question has been occupying my thoughts of late:

How much would you pay to not have a component installed in the audio equipment you buy?

The traditional price scheme for audio equipment is [BOM-times-X], where BOM is the cost of the parts used to make it, and X is a multiple to cover fabrication and distribution costs, as well as profit for the various parties involved. My understanding is that for consumer audio "X" is about 4, though companies with strong brand recognition can get away with higher multiples. And do.

The basic problem is this: how much it costs to build and how good it sounds are not the same thing. There is some correlation: a large, high quality transformer is pretty much guaranteed to improve the sound quality, but for the rest, stuffing a pretty box with many cheap...