February2010Issue-ML-80632-ML-

Wes did a superb job of describing the sound of a difficult untreated room, the effects of good acoustic treatments and the process many of us go through improving a room.

His sound descriptions are dead accurate: "minimally furnished, it sounded hideous - clattery and shrill, with lumpy ill-defined bass." He later describes reducing "high frequency clang." Wonderfully evocative and scarily precise.

No need for me to repeat the review here as you can all read it, but I am struck by how well he captured in words what he went through and how it turned out.

John Curl was the one who taught me this one:

He said, get a pencil, an H2 or the like.

Open up your digital gear. Power it down first, please, and let it drain for a bit. Also, make sure you have no static to dissipate on your person. make sure you are grounded.

Scratch or cover each IC surface with graphite from the pencil. Like coloring books, when you were a kid. But this time, use the pencil on the IC's surface/tops.

The graphite is conductive, slightly. It will dissipate any charge build up on the plastic IC surfaces..

Do an A-B. Before-After.

...can be made on line at the Red Cross website with an easy pay link to your Amazon account, if you so choose.

I can't believe Jay Reatard is dead, at 29. They're investigating it as a homicide. This, after I learnd that Teddy Pendergrass died... in a grim mood, especially after the tragedy in Haiti.

R.I.P.

Hi all. I'm new here so go easy on me. I'm looking for advice on a 5.1 speaker package with a budget of about $3k. I've looked at the Focal Dome(not sure about the design), the Quad L-ite and the ERA D4 series. I haven't actually heard the ERA's but I can't find any bad reviews about them anywhere. Actually, I can't find anything negative about ANY of these packages, so I'm kind of stuck. Help if you can. Thanks.