blueqube

Had a covid scare at work. I had to get tested… Negative… I can recommend people avoid needing a test… 😅 Very unpleasant, not as bad as I thought but still good to avoid.

My daily driver noise cancelling headphones just kicked the bucket. I decided I would spring for the Bose unit as a replacement. Bose has the reputation of being the best NC headphones on the market. I work and take calls in super loud environments so I figured I would give them a try. As an audiophile I’m usually repelled by Bose but I can totally give the NC 700’s high marks! The noise cancelling is amazing, works as advertised and alot better then I was expecting.

The audio quality via Bluetooth is super base heavy and via cable it’s kinda lifeless. I’m feeding it from a THX 789 so it’s not the source. So as a music headphone I would say pass unless you like boosted base and only listen via Bluetooth. For my intended purpose however as a noise cancelling headset for calls it’s bar none! Highly recommend!

Today was my first day back in the office. It’s a huge mess because everyone took equipment home and the ops people have dumped parts and stuff in our cubes. 😅 I spent 2 hours cleaning and getting my computer working again. I left all my monitors at home so I can easily work from home next week so I had to scrounge up monitors and keyboards!

Good week to start back… Holiday on Friday and I had Monday off! Next week I will work from home again and rotate week at Mahwah week from home. Not bad, but I did enjoy working from home full time. 😅

Well that’s my update for today! Be safe and enjoy your time at home if your still not back to normal yet.

The fireworks in NYC are crazy! They sound like big professional mortars! I can’t imagine why the police don’t stop the people launching them… Seems like a huge roof fire hazard.

On another note went to Costco for the first time since lock down. It was not crazy so I was very relieved. I bought a bunch of food I didn’t need. 😅 They had a very good Korean BBQ meat dish that I thru on the BBQ. It was very good, so if you find it in the meat case I suggest you try it.

Went out Kyacking this weekend. It was a bit hot and humid but still fun! As you can see all the weight I lost pre-pandemic is back! Can’t wait for things to get back to normal so I can exercise more and eat better.

Looking for a great sounding small passive speaker for your desktop? I think I have found the perfect solution. The Mica RB42 which is $149 at Amazon. It’s an excellent budget near field monitor for the price. The soundstage is excellent and the center image is dead on. Big sound in a small package.

They are very well built for the money. One caviot, they are fairly inefficient at 83dB. Your going to need an external amplifier that has some good power to feed them. I’m running them off an old Rotel amp and using my headphone amp as a pre-amp. This setup is ideal.

I was was using USB from my computer to the headphone dac/amp but decided that sucks! I installed RoPieee on an extra Raspberry Pi and connected that. Now I can control the music in Roon from any of my Roon control devices including my computer. I don’t get window sounds or audio from videos but I can live with that.

Apart from that I’m doing research on nano reef tanks. I want to set one up in my office. When people piss me off at work I can stop and look the the reef and calm down. 😁

I will be going to work every other week soon. I’m the first from my department back. I expect to be the eyes, ears and hands of everyone in engineering . I’m going to be running around which is good, I need excersize.

I recently discovered a new singer named Lights. Her sound is best described as synthpop. The music is a bit compressed sounding, think loudness wars. Nonetheless it’s really nice sounding and has some crazy base. If you enjoy female vocals and a more electronic sound you will surely enjoy her music. I recommend the album “Skin & Earth” which is actually the music to accompany a comic book series of the same name she published. Give her a listen on Tidal they have her album in MQA 96kHz 24bit high resolution!

The downstairs AC unit is installed and working perfectly now. It wasn’t without some additional issues. 😅 The AC disconnect box I purchased at home depot had the wrong disconnect plugged in… So it took some additional troubleshooting before I noticed this… I have it bypassed at the moment. I need to make my way back to Home Depot for the proper plug in module soon.

Here is the indoor unit up and working. It is super quiet and very cold. I’m 100% doing a multi head unit for upstairs once this virus scare is over… I need some help getting the unit up on the roof… Going to do a roof mount on my flat roof section. It will be almost an invisible installation.

Here is how I ran the piping for this unit. It’s done this way because I need to burn up 16 feet of lineset… Otherwise I need to learn how to flare pipe and recover refrigerant… Both things I don’t want to deal with!

I chose this route to keep the lineset below the exhaust from the pellet stove… Heat rises so I figured it would be safe in this location. I wish it wasn’t so white but nothing I can do… Might be able to somehow color match it… If I have time maybe I will try it…. Probably not tho! 😂 It’s kinda hidden with tiger lillys.

So this project is behind me now. If your somewhat handy, don’t mind purchasing some specialized tools and don’t mind reading the directions this is something totally doable. No need to pay thousands to have a pro do it. 😬

I decided I wanted to hear what DSD sounds like so I got Michael Jackson’s Thriller in the format. I thought Flac and MQA were clean… This takes it a step further, I doubt even the master sounds better.

DSD is not for everyone tho. You need a DAC capable of playing them back, the files are huge and the albums are more expensive. But if you like HiRes music, I don’t think you can get any better with current technology.

Looks like I will be working from home for at least a year. I’m working on upgrading my home office as it looks like I will be spending alot of time here now. I have a dual monitor setup but I think i will ask if i can get a third like I have in the office. I really need lots of screen restate for work i do.

I should also build some shelves in here so I can can store books and things…as well as my printer and scanner. I have a perfect place for it so I should really get of my butt and look at what is needed to get it done.

I moved my office into Patricia’s old craft room when she moved out. This room gets very hot in the summer but doesn’t have enough power for a window AC. I will need to run a new 20 amp circuit up here sometime soon before the heat gets really oppressive. I turned my old office into a guest room so I can have people visit now.

On another note I tried to stop drinking coffee. It appears I am addicted to caffeine! I stopped for 3 days and had a headache for all 3 days. I broke down today because I didn’t feel like doing anything. I will start cutting back until I am only drinking one or less cups a day. Now I drink at least 2 big cups a day… so big it’s probably 4 normal cups. That and soda but I have stopped the soda. I am only drinking water and juice now.

Well It’s time to move on to something else now… spent enough time writing this for now. Until next time… peace.

This is an amusing movie! Probably need to be careful about where you watch it but man it’s funny at times.

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