Years ago, before tvs had dvi (pre-hdmi) connections I bought a mid range (at the time) Marantz SR7400 receiver with a great feature called ‘auto surround’. It’d apply a matrix encoding to 2ch audio signals. I found it to be essential for tv viewing.
Fast forward to this past February, when I switched to a lower end Sony receiver which lacked ‘auto surround’, and in my opinion a quality matrix sound mode. It sounds wooden, and hollow compared to the Marantz. Fail; or so I thought.
Yesterday I picked up this Auzen sound card and I couldn’t be happier. I have it sending a DTS Connect (matrix encoded) signal with Neo7 processing applied to it. The result is audio that easily rivals my old Marantz. I’d say it surpasses it actually. I was giving serious thought to the ‘new receiver?’ question, so I’m very happy because I don’t need to switch out the Sony until I want the newer HD audio codec support.
I’m using the toslink ’cause my current receiver is not good enough for the analog outputs.
Today I was ready to go back to Windows. VMPlayer was being the usual bitch that it is, and had crashed my system. My usb dac suddenly disappeared from the system when I took it back from VMPlayer and that was my breaking point; mid-day.
After work I decided I’d try to get the upnp functionality going before I really threw in the towel. After a brief change to my MediaTomb config I discovered that it didn’t work with my Xbox 360. Oh no! A quick search on Google pointed me toward TwonkyMedia as a possible solution so I installed it. A little while later, I was enjoying a movie on my projector.
I’ll wait for Parallels to officially support Fedora 9, before giving up.
My new Vaporite vaporizer arrived yesterday. I got it from a shop in the states at a killer price for the usual combo of a grinder, etc. The grinder is awesome. Jen’s getting it. It’s easily the same quality as the ones I see in the local head shops at $90, which is a joke in my opinon.
So, back to the vaporizer. Anyone that visits and puffs will be hitting this thing; it’s that awesome. The Vapor Daddy really sucks, because the Vaporite is much better at a drastically lower price. I feel scammed a little by the head shop that sold me the Vapor Daddy. Wouldn’t they try it? No more impulse buying in that shop.