Kevin Bresnahan

I'm a very happy man today. The Bruins finally did it. Almost makes up for Glen Wesley missing that open net... when was that again? Oh yeah, 1990, the last time Boston was in the Stanley Cup finals. I wish my old man was still around. One of the biggest Bruins fans around. He would've loved this. I hope he had a good view from where he is now.

Last I heard, Jack is closing on June 28th.

I was spinning the latest Mosaic box last night, "Stan Getz:The 1953-54 Norgran Studio Sessions", and I was wondering if anyone else has it yet? I ask because track 5 of record 1, side 2, "The Nearness Of You", has a buzzing sound about 20 seconds from the end. It's not a visible vinyl defect and the booklet makes no mention of it. Kevin

MSE is active. Malwarebytes is passive i.e. you have to manually scan your system for it to be effective. Simply having Malwarebytes will not protect you from anything. You have to open it, update it & make do a "Full scan" to get the full protection it offers.

Valerie - Thank you for the birthday wishes and I am looking forward to The Cookers this Thursday at Scullers.

Try Malwarebytes. It's free at http://www.download.com . Lately, the free anti-virus program I have been using on my PCs is Microsoft's Security Essentials, available free at http://www.microsoft.com . Kevin

Clifford Jordan - The Pantagon A really relaxed session for the East Wind label. I picked up the Direct Disc cutting out of Japan. Jordan with Cedar Walton, Sam Jones, Billy Higgins & Ray Manteca.

Even though this birthday is one year shy of a half century, I'm not feeling old. I'm actually pretty happy today. It's been a crazy year since last 6/12 and I'm glad it's over. First my health issues, then my wife's major health issues... maybe the year leading up to 50 will be better. I have a bottle of Pride Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon waiting to be popped later today. One of the best wines I've sipped. I'm spinning some Jazz vinyl. Can it get any better? Later, Kevin

Shawn, from what Stevie Nicks has to say about Klonopin, you need to get off that stuff right away! In a nutshell, she says that Klonopin ruined 8 years of her life. When you speak about being a different person, read what Stevie had to say, "One day I looked in the mirror and said, 'I don't know you.' And I went straight to the hospital for 47 days."

One bump to the top. Anyone have a SpeedBox II they want to part with? Kevin

David - Any chance you could bring a "5-pack" to the June 16th show at Scullers for me? Thanks, Kevin

I have read about "The Cookers" shows that have been happening in NYC for a few years now, always wishing I could catch this band on the road. Well, on June 16th, I'm finally getting my chance. They're coming to the Scullers Jazz Club in Boston. I can't wait. How could it be anything but a great time with this band: David Weiss, Jeremy Pelt on trumpet Billy Harper & Craig Handy on sax George Cables on piano Cecil McBee on bass Billy Hart on drums Should be a fun Thursday night in Boston. Is anyone else going to catch this show? PS. I hope that Jeremy Pelt's substitution for Eddie Henderson is not health related.

I had a strange audio problem with my PC last week. I installed a new monitor and to get the best picture, I hooked it up with an HDMI cable. Then I lost my audio. Initially, I didn't make the connection that new monitor=no audio. Why should I? There were no speakers in the monitor, right? Well, it turns out that Windows 7 installed an HDMI driver that includes an audio driver (because HDMI *can* carry audio) and that audio driver took control of my sound card. Weirdest thing. I had to disable the HDMI audio driver to get my speakers to work again.

From the studies I have read, three minutes is too long. These studies show that people cannot remember exactly what they heard 30 seconds ago, never mind three minutes ago. Also, do not discount the psychological aspect of the swap. You bought the interconnect and installed it because you wanted to improve your audio playback. It is entirely possible that you heard an improvement because you wanted to hear one. I know I have had this happen to me many times. I find that I almost always prefer my latest purchase over what was there before. I can't remember the last time I bought something, installed it and brought it back because I didn't like how it sounded. And once again, please don't get me wrong - I use higher quality interconnects in most places in my system. I am not advocating using cheap RCA phono interconnects. What I don't think is necessary is buying uber-expensive interconnects. Hey, at least this thread isn't about A/C wall sockets.

How long did it take you to swap the cables? If it was more than a minute or two, you can't remember what you heard (exactly) with the old interconnect. Human's "hearing memory" has been documented to be very poor if there is more than a few seconds between like sounds. If you can't A/B in seconds, you will have trouble distinguishing the differences.

Another for Monoprice. Good quality, inexpensive, and no bullshit. I just recently bought 3 or 4 of monoprice.com's premium RCA phono cables and they've worked well. I always recommend monoprice.com for HDMI cables. They have the best prices. However, I think Blue Jean Cables are the place to go if you want to step up in quality. I bought some of their speaker wires and they are very well made.

Jim - a weed whacker draws a lot of current. If the cord somehow restricts that current (i.e. higher resistance), then the voltage at the end of the circuit (the weed whacker) drops and when that happens, the motor slows down. RCA phono cables deliver very little current at very low voltages. You could never overdrive this cable. Lon & I have disagreed over this for years and I'm cool with the way he talks about it. There are others over on the Steve Hoffman forums who defend ludicrous statements with remarks about how my hearing must be faulty, all backed by Hoffman himself, who does hawk some serious "snake oil" audio products - like the famous "audio coat rack" at $1000 a pair. It's because of Hoffman's defense of these snake oil salesmen over there, I have been hanging out less & less. Just the other day, he told and electrical engineer that he might phuck better then him, but he probably hears better than him. Nice, huh?

I don't believe that RCA cables can improve the sound coming out of your speakers. However, I do believe that a bad or poorly-made cable can degrade that sound. As mentioned earlier, cheap cables usually fail at the connector and cause all kinds of problems from hum to crackle. I've yet to hear a failing RCA cable roll off the highs or lows. I believe that if the cable you are using produces good sounding music, you're all set. If you want change over to well-made, but inexpensive cables, I highly recommend Blue Jean Cable. BTW, I am not advocating using cheap cables. I use higher end cables myself. Having said that, I think anyone that pays hundreds or even thousands of dollars for an RCA interconnect is wasting their hard-earned money. Kevin

This thread got me to thinking that there were several more titles that I'd like to have in my CD rack before they all dry up so I ordered: Valery Ponomarev: Means Of Identification Ralph Moore: Round Trip Buddy Tate/Al Grey: Just Jazz Valery Ponomarev: Live At Sweet Basil Rob Schneiderman: Dark Blue Dick Katz: The Line Forms Here Claudio Roditi: Double Standards Andres Boiarsky: Into The Light I'm looking forward to hearing them. Kevin

As I said in this thread, I saw Gary Smulyan at a local club recently, and he told me that Reservoir Music is out of business. I got the impression that this was going to hurt Gary a bit on the financial side of things. After, you can get royalties from a company that's gone "belly up". Sad. I have some great CDs in my collection from them. Every one of the Nick Brognola dates is worth hearing, with "On A Different Level" being near "desert island" status. They are clearing out all of their stock for $10. Buy 'em while you can. Kevin

The title says it all. I've decided to use a Pro-Ject Debut TT I've had laying around unused for a while. When I last used it, it ran a little fast so I want to run it through a Speed Box II. I can wait for a 10% coupon from one of the usual on-line retailers, but I figured if someone had one laying around, I'd take it off their hands. Offering $120 including shipping (no preference for shipper). Thanks, Kevin

Last week, a guy passed me going about 75 mph down the left lane of Route 495. He was staring at his iPhone. I figured he was using some sort of GPS app. As it happened, I got into the left lane behind this guy just as traffic came to a complete stop. Me being in an SUV, I was higher up than the guy so I was able to see what he was watching on his iPhone. It was a movie! Wait a minute... lots of flesh tones... lots of body parts bobbing... the guy is watching a porn movie!! I had my passenger's window down and so did the guy next to me so I yell over to him, "Hey, check it out, the guy in front of me is watching a porn movie while driving". The guy says, "No way!" and pulls forward to look into the guy's car. He drops back, shaking his head "yes" and we had a great laugh together. The thing I don't get is that his other hand was still on the steering wheel...

Just finished: Steely Dan - Katy Lied Now playing: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - self-titled debut. Record Store Day white vinyl. This sounds phenomenal! If you're a Petty fan, grab these two new vinyl reissues.

I was just playing that last week. Up now: "An Introduction To Syd Barrett". He was one weird dude.

I have the 33 1/3 rpm version of "Rumours". I think it's one of the best sounding versions of this LP that I've heard. The DVD-Audio disc may beat it simply due to the surround mix, but for stereo, they are very close. I absolutely refuse to buy 45 rpm versions of 33 1/3 rpm LPs. The supposed improvement is not worth having to get up every 10 minutes. Personally, I think 45 rpm LPs are a money grab. Double the price for a single LP - only way to justify it.