Disqus - Latest Comments for jontemple

Re: Ultimate Vaporizer Comparison Guide

jontemple — Sat, 03 Aug 2019 14:12:15 -0000

Soooo, it seems like the full alcohol dump is not the 1st way to clean the sidekick.. I was warned not to dump alcohol into the bowl. Wipe the inside the bowl with a Q-tip that has alcohol, but not dump alcohol in the bowl.

However, I'd love to put the top part "with the screen" intro alcohol would make it easier to clean. I find it important to keep the screen clean for better performance.

This comparison article is excellent..

By the way, how does the Sidekick V2 look?

Jon - I'm wondering if it is worth upgrading for me..

Jon

Re: Ultimate Vaporizer Comparison Guide

jontemple — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 21:12:26 -0000

I have a sidekick and I saw something that surprised me a lot in the review, about the
EASY-CLEAN BREAKDOWN:
“the SideKick by 7th Floor Vapes can fully break down for easy cleaning. After removing the batteries, the ENTIRE SideKick unit can be soaked in a bath of 97% isopropyl alcohol (or higher) for deep cleaning of your machine. (Did we mention the batteries must be removed first...? Yeah, take note of that.) “
I thought this was a "no-no.
I mean just take out the batteries and drop it all in alcohol?
This is news to me.
How about the top that has the screen? Can I throw that in alcohol?
Cleaning the screen without having to unscrew it?
It's a great unit.

Re: Eligible ASUS Phones to get Android 7.0 Nougat Update

jontemple — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 20:52:19 -0000

PLEASE add the ZenPad Z500M.
Bad news, it appears that Asus is NOT going to be doing the Nougat thing. Here is the up to date list of companies that either have had Nougat pushed to them or is scheduled, Asus is not even in the discussion
Google
HTC
Huawei/Honor
Lenovo/Motorola
LG
OnePlus
Samsung
Sony
Xiaomi

Re: Android N Release Date & Update Schedule: When Will YOU Get It?

jontemple — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 20:22:18 -0000

So Sad, I notice that Asus is not on the list. I was just about to purchase a Z500M Asus tablet, but that is not going to happen.
Apparently, there will be not upgrades on Asus phones and tablets.

Re: Why the NFL Can't Play on Friday and Saturday (and Other Times Congress Interfered with Football)

jontemple — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 00:24:04 -0000

Old article and very poorly researched and totally misleading.
It is the NFL that owns Congress and all taxpayers subsidizing the NFL.
In the tax code, the NFL does NOT have to pay any federal taxes!! It is written in the tax code that the NFL cannot play on Friday and Saturday or they will lose their tax free status. They CAN play on those days, but if they do, they will be taxed like every other corporation does.
The NFL made 9.6 billion dollars last season.
An arcane tax code change that eased the 1966 merger of the NFL with the
old American Football League landed the new combined entity in section
501(c)6 of the tax code, designated as an industry association.

Re: Different Types of Marijuana Concentrates Available in Colorado

jontemple — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 02:29:12 -0000

Thanks corners. I really love my DBV. (Da Buddah Vaporizer)

What attachments do you have?
I have sprinkled a little ear wax in with some flowers and it seems to work really well. Would like to know other thoughts and ways to use it.

Tried some bubble hash with DBV and it seems like the hash took longer to vape than the flowers. I might take about 4-5 breathes and then I would notice more vapor coming out. It was the hash and it has a dryer taste.

I want to know about the oil add-ins on DBV.

Thanks,
JT

Re: Different Types of Marijuana Concentrates Available in Colorado

jontemple — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 23:08:49 -0000

This is very good simple summary of concentrates. I am a mmj person in Colorado who last used "flowers" about 30 years ago. I was totally lost about the concentrates. I also use a vape, DA Buddha, which is great. What are your thoughts about "delivery systems for concentrates.
a) What is HBO?
b) Any problem with consuming a non-oil concentrate with my" da buddah" by mixing in a little concentrate with my usual weed then just vaping as usual?
b) Can people mix a little concentrate in some and smoking a joint?
c) The Dabbing thing I have never seen done. I personally only use a vape now but isn't Dabbing a smoking kind of thing?

Thanks,
Jt

Re: Sennheiser HD-280 Pro Headphones

jontemple — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:20:44 -0000

Disqus,

I think 5.1 could be excellent for movies, if the sound is reproduced well. When some of the sounds going on, off to the side, all of a sudden get heard from another satellite speaker.

It the biggest propent of 5.1 and now 7.1 are gamers. They surround themselves with the speakers to play.
Sometimes I think that gamers are controlling the multi-media market.

I think speaker location and the relationship between to move watcher/gamer, with a 5.1 speaker system seems to be much more important than with stereo.
Am I correct? Isn't the relative location of the listener to the staellite speakers essential to getting the effect of 5.1 ?

For listening to music, I much prefer stereo. With an excellent producer and enginner.

First, PLEASE download and install Firefox 3.5x. Firefox is amazingly small. http://www.mozilla.com/en-U... You might have it and I hope you are a Firefox user. If not, the "world" of incredible donated add-ins awaits you, as does faster file transfers and more security.

Also, if you don't have it, please download the "donationware" project called VideoLAN. It plays about every type of audio and video that exists.
A new version has been released and it works on virtually every type of platform, there is. http://www.videolan.org/ .

If you have those products, I know that I can share some files with you.

I know that the Ipod and MP3 has frustrated some of the great music producers/engineers. Because of the stupidity of the RIAA, and the greed of Microsoft/Apple, formats that increase the potential of what a
skilled msuc producer/enginner can do. I have forgotten the name of the format. It worked for some CDs as well as music on DVDs. The insistence of the DRM "virus", has killed that off.
I hope it is understood that the true reason for the Microsoft/Apple promotion of DRM is not about copy protection, but is about royalty fees that get paid to Microsoft/Apple for the use of DRM. It also limits competition, etc. I never had a DRM audio file on my PC.

Guess what, more new music is being written as well as heard from GAMES, than from any type of music players.
More about that later.

Ogg Vorbis for audio and Ogg Theora for video re open source and license free. It is very exciting what is going on with both formats. Very much like FLAC.

As Ogg Vorbis being superior in sound quality to MP3, is not a opinion type of thing, it is documentated heavily. At lower levels, it is especially slow. But since Ogg Vorbis audio is open source, there are constant inprovments
in it and specialized compiles. 64 bit compiles, no problem, some compiles that work better with lower "q" rate or bps ratings, some for dual CPUs, etc. Plus some incredible simple encoding tools.

Since Firefox 3.5x with HTML 5 support has come out, it is much more important.

I would be more than happy to share some songs with you to hear.
You also can be a help to be, since I am experimenting with Ogg Theora video. I have some videos i would like to share and get your opinion on.
The codecs are built right into Firefox and to add video or audio to a web page, takes about three simple lines of HTML 5 code. So easy.

Do you have a PC or something that has a good FLAC / Ogg player ?
I can recommend some free/donationware players, as well as ways you can have them played on "Direct Show" (Microsoft), players as well.

If you have those products, I know that I can share some files with you.

I will point you to some more information with the fundations involved with Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora.
I am not an enginner, but I am an IT guy. I don't understand, or want to understand the real deep and dirty "technical" stuff that audio enginners understand. However, I like to and usually understand the "functional", concepts abourt different multimedia formats.

I am looking forward to when they have comfortable, reasonably priced and effective 5.1 headphones. I know that some are out, but I don't think that they are very practical. None are being made by Senheiser, although I would bet that are working on that in their labs. They would only come out with headphones like that, only when they are ready for the public and are of high quality. That would be cool for movies and the gamers. I am not a gamer, although I do play Rock Band on the Wii. No PC games. I think that is a blast for those of us (like me), who have played "air guitar" for many years. :-)

Jon

Re: Sennheiser HD-280 Pro Headphones

jontemple — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:08:20 -0000

Thanks so much for writing !!

Don't you agree that there are a lot of crappy head phones/plugs that have so much distorion, ESPECIALLY BASS, and they are thought of as "lively".
Then again, if one is listening to music from small, badly encoded MP3 or WMA files on an Ipod, they are going to miss most of what is good.

About the size of FLAC. I play mostly Ogg Vorbis, which is fantastic and give a much fuller, superior sound than MP3. Ogg is lossey, but I encode at a certain quality level, usually from FLAC or directly from a CD, and it is hard for me to hear any loss at all.

If one considers, that FLAC is about 50% of the size of losless files on a CD, or ones that are ripped to raw, losless WAV, and is exactly, bit for bit, is 100% the same quality as the source, the size is pretty amazing.

So I will keep archives of my audio in FLAC format and listen to FLAC from my cheapo, but effective home "theater" system, my PC and my Laptop. It is great that if I need to make a CD, copy to a SDHC flash card, or to an external disk drive, that I have connected to my DVD player, and my backup drive, instead of fussing with media. I don't have toworry abouty scratches, etc. and FLAC is every bit as good as the original source.

I was getting swallowed up by all the media I had around. No more.

I encode to Ogg Vorbis for my portable player, the COWON.

If you were in Colorado, I would love to have you try a COWON. The difference in the power and the fidelity, compared to any Ipod, is enormous.

I have had a U3 and two D2s. The "U" line are smaller and audio only, and my older U3, still goes at 64 watts and plays FLAC and OGG natively. It plays fantastic, it just doesn't have the features or near the capacity of my D2.
There now is a D2+. There are now other portable audio players that are supporting FLAC and Ogg Vorbis natively.

If you have Firefox 3.5x installed on your PC, http://www.mozilla.com/en-U... , there is a very, very exciting situation going on with the new International, Internet standard with HTML 5.
It can stream audio and video, regardless of what OS you are using on your PC (Firefox works on all of them), as combined in the new HTML5 standard, which Firefox has jumped on, is a "decoder" to allow
playing in open source, free licensed, Theora Ogg video format, as well as Ogg Vorbis audio. It will work straight from the browser. No flash, or any other type of media player is needed on the PC to see video or hear audio. It is very exciting and all browsers, except for the worst, browser in the world, are being compliant with the W3 International Internet Standards, but the pressure FINALLY is getting to Microsoft/Apple (virtually the same company).

If you have Friefox 3.5x installed and/or install one of the many players like VideoLan, which works on all platforms, is open source and plays about every audiio and video format there is, please let me know.
http://www.videolan.org/

I can share some stuff with you.

Since I am an old fart, (58), The Beatles coming to America, really changed everything for me. The re-masters are fantastic. Last night, I plugged in my COWON, to my Sennheiser CX-500s, ear plugs, and listenwd to
the re-mastered "Abbey Road". It amazed me. I heard all sort of subtle, instruments, harmonies, rhythms, that I didn't know where there. Amazing stuff. For example, I didn't know that George Harrison, bought one of the first Moog Synthesizers, ever made, (until a few days ago) and on "Here Comes The Sun", I can hear, some wonderful, subtle sounds from it, additional little harmonies, instruments, just remarkable.
I almost feel like it was going on, right in front of me, with all of the harmonics and instruments, being playing between my ears.

Between The Beatles and the production and engineering of George Martin, make it possible, it just is amazing.

One of my favorite Sennheiser's, and I am not the only one on this one, is the inexpensive, miracle of technology, the Sennheiser PX-100. There are almost 1,000 comments on it, on Amazon. I just found out the Sennheiser is coming out with a PX-100 II. I looked and looked, then read, it hasn't hit any stores yet. The same for their inexpensive, closed PX-200 II.

I personally don't care for closed air headphones. For one, they don't sound as good, as ones that allow open air into them. The other reason ,that they seem to hurt my ears.

Sennheiser seems, to have increased their product line, as I was on their site yesterday.

I just love the clean, natural sound, they provide.

If I had a lot of money, I would like to purchase a entire collection of headphones and use the ones that fit my mood and situation.

Last thing. I hate to sound like an old fart again, but with audio, I really am not very fond of 5.1, 7.1, etc. I still like Stereo the best, and I have speakers connected to my cheapo Home theatre, that have two satellites and a sub woofer, that is amplified. Designed, by this guy Henry Gloss. He had a way of making it so where I move around, the stereo seems to adjust to where I am. They also integrate movies that have 5.1 in them.

Thanks,

Jon Temple

Re: Sennheiser HD-280 Pro Headphones

jontemple — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:38:35 -0000

Excellent review. It may sound strange to you, as it is for me, but I find SO many reviews, where the reviewer doesn't seem to get it and discusses everything else but what is most important. Sound Quality - Sound quality is the most important headphones characteristic for me.
It is always sound quality and comfort, everything else are amenities. I get amazed on how often, Sound Quality gets ignored or we get some statistics.
Of the about 100 headphones of all different types and costs that I have purchased, my favorites are my Sennheisers. Audio is very subjective, but with the Sennheiser line, it is all about sound quality, BUT, non-distorted, accurate sound quality. The "silences" are beautiful. NO artificially sounding/distorted bass, which for some reason is looked for. Ugh. I want to hear the music as it is played, without distortion and have them fit well.
I have read dumb reviews from some users stating that Sennheiser wasn't as "lively" sounding, as the garbage, distorted headphones they liked, it didn't pound enough bass. I want to scream at them, YOUR HEARING DISTORTION !!
I am so glad you mentioned Sony. To me, they are the worst value for your dollar with headphones. Maybe that is different in the very high end. But one just has to look at their specs and compare to equivalent headphones at the same price line to tell how bad their price/performance ratio is.

The two headphones I use the most are the "classic", Sennheiser PX-100s, all 2.1 ounces of them, with unbelievable quality and the most comfortable phones I have ever felt. I stopped using their more expensive full ear covered phones, because the PX100s have such great quality and are so light.

For earbuds, I love my Sennheiser CX-500s.

I am fortunate NOT to have anything by Apple, no Ipods. I use the far, far, far superior portable player (MP3 player), the COWON (COWON D2). I listen for audio formatted in either losless FLAC or just about loseless , Ogg Vorbis, both are native to COWON units, made in South Korea. The only MP3s I hear are audio books and BBC documentaries on them.
I plug them into my car as well. On my PC, I listen to losless FLAC.

My tastes are varied, with I would say Classic Rock, from "the day", blues and classical. I also use them as a tool for bass guitar and harmonica lessons, as I can plug them in to my amplifier to hear the audio class, played from my COWON as well as record my self on my COWON, playing with the audio from the class.
my D2, can go to 70 watts, so I get a very full sound and it can handle a very good receiver and amplifier.
They do make the Ipods sound like toys.

If I might make a recommendation for testing headphones. It is GREAT, the remastered Beatles CDs are out. So many instruments and produced by Sir George Martin, who besides The Beatles, produced The London Philharmonic and other classical orchestras.
In particular, he and his son DID the re-mastering and assembling of the music for the Las Vegas show with Beatle music called "Love".
While all of the music is from the original masters of the Beatles records, and some that wasn't released, he mixes one song with another and it sounds great and is fantastic for testing headphones, because of the great production and going from ballads, to orchestration, sitar's, some good hard rock, etc. One gets to hear some surprising, subtle sounds of some instruments and little harmonies, that were never picked up before, because of what was lost in making the tapes into records, but now can be heard. A very good test of hearing many genres on one CD.

The ones you reviewed, sound like a good buy, I it is one that I do NOT have in my collection.
I do wear glasses, so I wonder how they would do with glasses.