IKR? What will he say? What will they do? (chews fingernails)
Ttttrrrrryyyyiiiinnnnnngggg to kkkeep calm
I haven’t thought about R n’ S for many years - love that wacky guys
I blew a piece of lung out my nose laughing so hard at that crazy $hit. Ahh, those were the days with my NAD 7240PE, B&O turntable, and Linn Index speakers- had them on layaway for a year! And it all is still playing well today as it was in 1988.
Thanks Bascom, just for the record, with the BHK Pre set at 70, mine is dead silent, nothing audible with ear to the speaker. I like it that way. 
When Sven Hoek visits. A classic!
Chalky Cheesefist. Where do these guys come up with such bizarre and hilarious ideas?
Now de’re happy!
as a live performance taper my first inclination was to set the DSD output to 100 - even after reading Ted’s explanation of how the DSD volume control works. It was ingrained. W/ the BHK pre I was limited to a range of 38-52 for volume - 38 being soft and 52 very loud. All of which sounded grate!
Dropped the DSD output to 75-80 and gained a world of wonder from the BHK pre. I’m still looking for the sweet spot on the BHK pre. Thanks guys. This is totally counterintuitive from a gain perspective, right? But it sounds damn good!
@cardri. Rich, just thought of an analogy for you - let me know if it makes sense.
Do you agonize over which chainring to select when you are riding, or is it intuitive? ; )
(Which is not the same question as, “Do you agonize back in the garage over which chainring to install before a given type of ride?”)
@badbeef - OK, fair enough. I have a spreadsheet with my front and rear sprockets for every bike I own, which is four. I use a compact chain ring up front to climb better w/ 12/28 rear… keeping my cadence at 75-80on a 5-6% grade to keep my HR below my LT (Lactic Acid) threshold (148 bpm bike, 158 bpm run)… I also have a standard chain ring w/ 12/25 on my Ironman tri bike (Cervelo P3C) cause you are looking for average speed over a lot less grade… YES - I calculate… 
I have a spreadsheet on every training ride (back to 2006) and race I have ridden. I’m a planning and analysis fool. So, when I do something, I need to know why. I have never mounted a bike for a joy ride in my life. I don’t do group rides. I control every aspect I can when I train…
OK, I also feel too… when I am racing it is feel, when I am training it is calculating. I have a Garmin showing me: cadence, speed, power, HR, time interval… I still use it when I race, just more to do w/ feel.
Training: plan/execute/analyze; plan/execute/analyze
Racing: execute the plan that brought you there to race day, knowing you are trained up and feel the day…
Context - for me to change the gain setting on the PRE, I need to know why. As soon as I have contemplated the why, I execute the plan… I also like to feel the moment; however, need data (thoughts, volts, hearing…). The difficult part for me is that I am evolving the language to speak about the data… not a musician, sound guy…
2015 Training log… example…
[edit] I trust data, humans lie, data does not have a dog in the fight… it is what it is… and data is not motivated to corrupt itself or skew it one way or another. Intuition is based on memory. I have a lot of intuition. To keep it in check, I use data. So, my intuition is X and data either validates my intuition or it causes me to pause. So, my trouble with intuition for 2 channel is I do not have the experiences that someone with 30 years as musician or sound person. I am building my memories and language. So, I use the why and analysis as I am building my intuitive data base… I guess you could say… another way to look at it is I have a very serious intuition about my cycling abilities and performance based on a long history of experiences in many venues, training exercises and races. 2 channel I have very little… I trust my cycling intuition, I don’t trust my 2 channel intuition…
Interesting! That is helpful for me to understand your thought process. I can certainly be analytical as well about certain things, but usually only when planning for a job/trip.
With regard to gain staging (as this is the subject here, to me) I learned of it primarily from firsthand experience, many years in advance of becoming an audiophile. When I was about 13 or 14, I hooked up a pair of SM58’s to my brother’s reel-to-reel and recorded his band in his basement. Exciting stuff. Still remember it like it was yesterday.
No extra boxes at that point - the RtoR had built in mic pres, etc. and I didn’t know anything other than “turn this knob up until the meters are in a good place” and “don’t go too far into the Red, but going too far down to avoid the Red results in a noisy recording”. So something like a decade or so of actual recording and listening (all in the Ancient Pre Digital Days) where I didn’t know a Gain Stage if it bit me in the ass. It was just what sounded best/worked best within those simple parameters. Not a lot of “above-the-neck” stuff to fret over, though I’m sure I was pegged as an Audio Nerd even then. I was always the PA guy in the bands I was in - as most of the time you had to have your own, or work the house PA from the stage, when playing in bar bands.
This all changed (albeit over quite a long period of time) when Digital came in, as 0db was now a Theoretical Absolute Limit rather than the area you were shooting for on your meters. Very different from the way analog goes slowly and softly into whatever distortions it has.
Many years later, fully into the Digital Mindset, when -6 or -12dB was “the new 0dB” (now often -18 or -24), I was shocked to hear from Frank Fillipetti at a pro audio shindig that he ignored the meters in the then-massively-popular Yamaha O2R (or was it 01?) digital mixing board. He would regularly go over 0db, because he figured out By Actually Listening to It, that you could hit it harder than normal. Likely Yamaha had built in some “fake headroom” so us old-schoolers wouldn’t run into issues.
But he was the first person who ever suggested actually Listening to the analog sonic result of a Digital circuit rather than taking the Manual or other received Wisdom as Gospel. Never forgot that either. This was not too many years after he took the then-new board to test it out a rehearsal at James Taylor’s barn/studio for a planned album. Most of those “rehearsal/test” tracks became the album we know as “Hourglass”.
@badbeef - you made my point exactly wrt intuition. To me, cycling and training to race is very intuitive… to you, probably not so much. To Paul and a lot of audiophiles on the forum, you have huge memory banks for your 2 channel intuition. I do not. I use to do this 35 years ago for a few years. Last May was the first system I put together in 35 years. I really believe in intuition; however, I am still formulating the language to speak. When I upgraded my Nordost cables to Iconoclast, I got what coherent sound stage sounds like. That goes in the memory bank. I just hooked up an HT Magic HDMI cable and heard what thin sound stage is and a tad harsh means. This is all learned for me so I do get very analytical instead of heck, just listen and you will hear the difference… Thanks for the help in the context, it allows me to process your language…
I get it… sometimes you just have to shut off the analytical side of the brain and just listen to what sounds good and act on that instead of the theory surrounding the why. I look at everything analytically, the basis of my life is theory.
[edit] My team of designers laugh at how may spreadsheets I have and how analytical I am about every thing in my life… it scares them. However, these spreadsheets are for fun… my work is a lot more analytical. When I design, quote, staff… a lot of thought goes into it and many tabs on a spreadsheet… I guess my work has drifted into my personal…
As with my work, it’s what makes you good at what you do. Sometimes it is also “the price you pay” for being good at what you do. It is what differentiates you from those that don’t really care about it very much.
@badbeef - yeah, I stopped apologizing years ago for being data driven, analytical, and very literal. It drives my wife nuts. I listen to every word and process it literally and that gets me into a lot of trouble. Get tired of correcting. Also, I’m constantly saying “you really didn’t think it through” and that drives her crazy. My son had an eidetic photographic memory. He was the coolest kid. At four years old: “no Dad, that is not what you said last week…” use to drive me crazy. Once, I gave him a 3 ring binder of Pokémon cards 100 cards or so… I came back three weeks later and quizzed him on the cards. He knew every card exactly; huge amount of data on each card. It was so cool… doing his multiplication tables at 3 years old up to 100… I miss him so much… my wife use to say he was my mini-me… those were the best years of my life.
OMG - awesome re: the Pokemon thing. Feel that:facepunch:t2:
Edit: my screen says “facepunch:t2” with no emoji, but it is supposed to be a fistbump. What do you see?
@badbeef - I see nothing, I hear nothing… at Stalag 13
My son was born in 1990 so it was big then… I have a Pokémon rubber ball on my rack. He gave me the crystal sphere three days before he passed and Speed Racer was his favorite cartoon. Those items on my rack are worth millions. That is his pic, six months before he passed… I got that bike on my 50th bday. Spent the week in Belize in the hotel suite Lance Armstrong slept in while he was racing. My wife is amazing and without her, I would not be here… money is cool, LOVE trumps everything. I was blessed to feel it unconditionally twice… and I am a lucky man.
NO…no…are you saying what I think you’re saying?
@badbeef - yes, I am… I was driving a car and hit a tree, he was brain dead and we pulled the plug that evening. His 20th year death anniversary was 04/07/19… He is helping God in heaven… I found the love of my life 35 years ago and was blessed with my boy… so I got to feel what it is to be a Dad for 8 years and they were the best 8 years of my life. The rest of the time I spend helping others in service to give what I took away… my life belongs to my son, and I use his time wisely…
You never know what God will bring… wake up every day and spend it like it was your last. Surround yourself with positivity and cut out all the negativity… it has no place… be kind to one another, you never know if it will be your last day… I was coming home from the park after playing with his new remote controlled car… on top of the world… SHIT HAPPENS!
This is the reason I like this forum. There is a lot of really good people here, helping one another. Sharing their lives, thoughts, ideas… it is an amazing place thanks to so many and Paul for hosting the forum. Thanks to the leaders and long time contributors that keep it civil and always trending positive…
Jesus, buddy. So sorry. That is some fucked up shit. (guessing Elk will forgive my French)
Richard, it’s wonderful that you can share your story (and more than once!) and have put so much into perspective and gone forward.
And I didn’t realize that you were just recently back into audio, helps me put a perspective on a lot of your audio musings. I’ve enjoyed our conversations. Audio is such a fantastic pursuit and hobby. You’re right, this is a great place to share ideas and give and receive assistance.
“Riding the gain” on the DSD, my ZTPRE preamp, my ZBIT and my ZROCK2 and mono block amps is an adventure. It’s like having a handful of different systems. I’ve now got it set up so that most recordings can be handled between 80 and 90 on the DSD and things sound rich and lively.