Impious

While you nodded, nearly napping, did there suddenly come a tapping ?

More like confusing reality. Everything you read that you based this thread on is misinformation and pointless. The ONLY answer is to buy something reputable and don't look back. All "scientific" reasons you are using to make yourself feel better are wrong. Stop reading wherever you are getting that garbage information and think instead about what matters.I ran across a thread with clamped numbers for several of the amps I was looking at. Seeing the numbers on what I had originally planned on fall short of others, I began thinking maybe I should be looking for a higher priced used amp to get the most power for my money. That's all this was originally about. Everything in this thread has gone over my head and beyond what I expected. I know I've heard people say plenty of times that clamp tests are meaningless, and should not be a concern. But last weekend I went to a local shop to check out some Hertz and Focal speakers for the front and the owner did nothing but rag on Soundqubed. So I was questioning my decision. I've run across some pretty good deals locally on some amps that should be better than the SQ for less $ (IA20.1, etc) and was just wondering what to look for when buying a used amp as I know plenty of people have been burned in the process.If you can find a comparable quality amplifier that is similar to your power requirements for less money, then that is a viable solution. Not so much for performance reasons, but more money in your pocket is good and buying used you don't take as much of a hit in the resale value compared to new...as long as you are comfortable with no warranty. If you can test it and it works okay you are pretty safe for the most part. Aside from bulging caps or previous shoddy repair work it's pretty much impossible for foretell future issues with an electronic device.FYI majority of shops talk crap about brands they don't sell so they can talk you into buying one from them. Especially if they sell hertz/Focal as those are pretty snoody brands in general.

Try to keep up with the conversation. I specifically stated solid state amps, a true tube amp (tubes on the outputs) is not a solid state amp. Yes, some tube amps have such a high output impedance that damping factor is audibly affected. Since that's not what we are talking about here, as I mentioned solid state amps and all of the amps discussed here are solid state, your scenario is completely irrelevant. More on topic, you can very easily calculate the difference in response both in the frequency and time domain and the difference for any two solid state amps is going to be below the audible threshold. It's not a matter of opinion, and it's not "my" opinion. It's a fact of mathematics and physiology. I don't care what engineer told you incorrectly, plenty more engineers along with physics and biology demonstrate otherwise. Companies brag about damping factor as a matter of marketing, not engineering or performance. It's a spec that the uninformed will gravitate towards because marketers can make it sound important and "better" when it's not. Just like other irrelevant paramters that companies promote. It sounds like you've fallen for that marketing. I posted a thread years back with writings from 2 highly respected engineers along with another article explaining why damping factor is meaningless. Richard Clark, Stephen Mantz and a paper from audioholics (can't recall the author). And the effective damping factor of that amp you have isn't anywhere remotely close to 3k.

It's not an opinion, it's a fact. The DF of about any modern solid state amp is 1) high enough not to matter and 2) close enough to all the other solid state amps that there will not be an audible difference. Your comment about short speaker cables is equally negligible in terms of audible difference. Cable thickness is likewise a factor where once it is sufficiently thick as to not cause an audible decrease in output (which also means it's sufficiently sized for the current) it's not going to matter. Those few hundredths of a milliohm in resistance are not going to do jack shit to the damping factor when it's connected to a coil with a DCR that trumps all of the resistance throughout the rest of the circuit. Your system may have sounded "tighter", but had absolutely nothing to do with the damping factor, cable thickness or length. You are assigning your results to the wrong variable, plain and simple. Not a matter of opinion here, either. No reason to argue as there is nothing to argue about.

Then again I like my team but not the direction of the company, so your statement doesn't fit me 100%. We are always at the mercy of HQ, and they routinely change things for the worse or make things way more difficult than needed. So I always feel like we are fighting within between the field and HQ

I can honestly enjoy almost any work. It's the people, the culture and the direction of the team/company I'm with that matters. I hate my job. I don't mind working with customers in general, but interacting with them in my current capacity makes me want to go crazy. I'm constantly arguing with somebody about something, and 100% of the time it's because they suck at life but want to blame everyone else including myself.

Damping factor is also effectively meaningless and does not lead to "tighter bass", even if the DF is 50x higher. Once damping factor is "high enough" to not audibly affect the sound, which is true for just about any solid state amp, going any higher doesn't matter...it doesn't sound any betteror "tighter".

You can do a lot more with your life with an accounting degree than being a CPA. My degree is in accounting...never worked a job as an accountant one day in my life. It is certainly a good career choice of that is what you want to do, but you aren't limited to that. My career field has been banking/lending. You can be a staff accountant for a business, and even then there are different areas of focus such as specifically working in cost accounting, etc. With some more higher education work your way up to CFO of a large company some day. Auditing is another path you can take. Hell, join the FBI, SEC or a similar law enforcement agency. They are always in need of accountants to work forensics in white collar financial crimes; cooking the books, fraud, etc. A BS in accounting and masters in finance will open a lot of doors for you in the corporate world in terms of upper management opportunities in the financial side of things.

You are not understanding. Clamp test like the one you just quoted are absolutely meaningless. Forget you ever read it, it means literally NOTHING.

Brutal. Just brutal.

Worth listening to until he starts screaming. This. I actually REALLY dig the music, but can't stand singers that do nothing but scream. I can never understand them either. If that had a lead singer who actually sung I'd have looked into buying their album

None of your post makes sense.

I have an employee now who, based on experience, should be way overqualified for the job. No higher education. She was a no-brainer to hire based on experience. My God is she dumb. Works hard, tries hard...but it's just not there. If she is working on something and anything deviates from normal or from how it was explained, she is dumbfounded and absolutely can not figure out on her own how to resolve it. Even if the answer is painfully obvious and simple. Annoys the shit out of me. Employee she replaced I had fired for unsatisfactory performance. Same situation, based on experience should have been a perfect match. Nope. Lazy, unmotivated, wouldn't do shit all day, fucked everything up. Leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Fuck experience. Fuck education. Show me you are smart, quick and willing to work hard. That's all. The rest I can train you to do. But I can't train intelligence or motivation/willpower where there is none. I need to learn how to judge in an interview that someone is smart, quick and hard working. that I haven't figured out yet.

Yeah, not sure they fit my budget. When I was looking at base layers they were about 2x the cost of some other places

Experience trumps knowledge every timr.No offense, but in my experience that's something people with no degree say to justify their lack of higher education. Your statement is definitely true in many cases, but also very wrong in many others. I have hired several people who have absolutely proven that statement wrong many times over. One of them still works for me...not enough to justify firing her yet...but should have all the experience needed to excel, and absolutely does not. Performance is average on her best day. I went to what was ranked as the 2nd best college in the nation, have a Physics degree and no one has ever yet cared about my education. My experience, absolutely. I also ignore degrees pretty much when I hire. Yep. I agree 200%. I don't have a college education and you will find very few technicians in this nation who can, and do, perform at the level that I do. Without blowing smoke up my own ass, I feel I am in the top 5% of techs in this country, my coworker said he feels I am in the top 2-3%. I work hard, and work very well. I worked while cancer was destroying my body, I went to work puking from chemo, I went to work when I was unable to walk across my shop. Even being that ill I performed at a greater level than 2 of 4 other techs at my shop. I have worked with techs who have engineering degrees, and in fact I work with a guy with his engineering degree. His drive to work is no where near my level. He is quick to leave when he has no work or if he has to go hunting. He feels he is so smart that his time is best spent elsewhere if he is not seeing the hours he wants. I have found that people who hide behind "those without a degree are lazy" are hiding their laziness behind their degree. But what do I know? I am a long haired druggie, alcoholic who doesn't have to scrape up a few pennies for a POS car... in mmy early 40s I had enough money to retire comfortably... but I don't have a degree, all I have is a little experience; so I must not work hard. I am glad a dude like Sean can see past a piece of paper. It is leaders like him, with vision, who realizes that a degree means very little compared to drive and experience. I don't think anyone ever said or implied a piece of paper is the only thing that matters. My point was experience is great IF it's the right experience, or the person can apply that experience...but "experience" in general is about as useful as that piece of paper if they can't properly apply it, or that experience wasn't as strong as it might appear on the surface, etc. Someone with the right skill set can successfully turn knowledge into performance with limited experience. Someone with limited formal education can take their experience and turn it into performance. Like you my dad is a mechanic. Self taught for the most part. He was putting motors on bikes before he was a teenager. Started when he was 16 and is 58 now so has 42 years under the hood, much of which didn't have scanners and other test tools so he can troubleshoot and fix a lot of problems without many devices when a lot of younger techs can't figure it out if some device doesn't tell them the problem. He's probably one of the best in the state. no degree. No formal school. No certifications even. Yet I guaranty he can run circles at almost 60 around just about every ASE certified tech in the state. That's meaningful experience. However, there are techs out there...and you've probably met some, who have as much job time as you do and yet can't match your performance. They either simply aren't as bright and mechanically minded, haven't had as good of a mentor, maybe they worked in a more niche market or general market and haven't ran across the same problems you have, etc. It looks like you two have pretty equal experience on paper, but in reality you can probably run circles around those other techs. My point was, it has as much to do with the PERSON as it does either their experience or education. Strong minds and strong people can take knowledge and quickly transfer it to performance. Strong minds and strong people can take experience and quickly transfer it to performance. But on the flip side, people with what looks like good knowledge or what looks like strong experience can also suck ass....because it depends on the PERSON. Like Sean I have always looked more at experience than education, and those bets have NOT paid off as much as they've failed. My two best performance employees was one who was straight out of college with no experience and the other came over with no education or any real experience. I'm clearly not good at judging those character evaluations yet, as that is clearly where the difference lies. What I see in common there are two people who were green who I could mold and shape and who were also bright, caught on quickly and worked hard. It's figuring out those important character traits about a person more than anything else. Those are the traits that have helped those employees succeed, and those are the areas where the less than stellar employees lacked. It had little to do with either their education or experience.

Okay, now I have a coat, know what I want to go with for wool base layer....would like to get a couple fleece pullovers or quarter zips. Anyone have any recommendations?

I've made the mistake of rubbing my eye after eating fire Cheetos without thoroughly cleaning all the powder off my fingers first...that was pretty hardcore suck age as well

Experience trumps knowledge every timr.No offense, but in my experience that's something people with no degree say to justify their lack of higher education. Your statement is definitely true in many cases, but also very wrong in many others. I have hired several people who have absolutely proven that statement wrong many times over. One of them still works for me...not enough to justify firing her yet...but should have all the experience needed to excel, and absolutely does not. Performance is average on her best day.

The mids on the old 720prs set the M5 mentioned were world class performers in terms of linearity and distortion, kicking this shit out of anything CDT.

I thought this prv stuff was supposed to be pretty good?I have no idea about their actual build quality...but for your purposes (2-way comp set), and really most any purpose, their performance is going to be horseshit. They were poorly designed in terms of parameters, which makes them useful for about nothing. Also as M5 pointed out, you can't just add a random mid to a predesigned component set. There is dumb luck, and it might "work" okay with another mid in place of the Sony (but not the PRV) since the crossover is probably just a simple textbook design.....but the best bet is to purchase a new comp set rather than trying to cobble one together with unknown results.

So I'm going to guess the point of this product is to be the first "serious" SPL meter for use with smartphones/tablets?

I don't understand your point.Also you have a goat shaped uterus. Those are the symbols for the 3 projects Maynard James Keenan is a part of.You really have to understand the point of the 3 projects. Tool is meant to be a band that contends with topics deeply intellectual or from an intellectual perspective for the most part. APC is similar but deals with things from a more emotional rather then intellectual perspective. Pusifer was simply an artistic outlet for MJK that he couldn't pursue with either of the other bands. It's mostly meant to be more tongue in cheek type of entertainment. There are some serious songs, but a lot of them are qwerky, comprised of sexual innuendos or serious subjects tackled from a very non-serious perspective. For those that don't know, MJK also likes to perform stand-up comedy...Pusifer is his outlet for "that side" of his musical artisanship. One of my favorite songs is Humbling River from Pusifer...it's one of the more serious songs but wouldn't have fit the Tool/APC genre. I'm a HUGE MJK a fan. IMO he's one of the best, unique and most interesting musical minds the world has known. Admittedly not all of his projects are going to be everyone's cup of tea...but I think it's easier to "get" if you understand what he's going for in each individual project. He wasn't looking to rival Tool with Pusifer....two completely different outlets serving two completely different purposes for him artistically. They weren't meant to be similar to even in the same genre. Same with APC.

That coat got here already. Glad I didn't pay for the expedited shipping...The warehouse is in the neighboring state so it shipped on Fri and arrived today

Took my daughter to the BMV this morning to get her learner's permit. Passed the test on first try However, this also serves as your warning.....STAY OFF THE ROADS, THEY ARE NO LONGER SAFE

Saw a show a few years back about a crazy car designer that improved the fuel efficiency of a Semi by 30% based strictly on improving the aerodynamics. That was without touching the drivetrain, strictly aerodynamics. Of course the thing looked like a space shuttle and probably wasn't street legals....