290 I'm sure they like lips on their bottoms

Drew 00:00

Drew, how you doing? Mr. Paul, how are you? I'm tired. I'm right there with you, man.

Paul 00:09

It's been a rich full day.

Drew 00:11

Yeah? Well it's been it was uh the big birthday weekend, right?

Paul 00:15

Yeah, today's my daughter's 16th birthday. Okay.

Drew 00:18

And Zachary came home and everything. You want to talk about what you guys did?

Paul 00:22

Uh so uh I I woke up early in the morning and drove to Athens and got Zack and brought him home. And then after we brought him home, uh, we did presents and stuff. Then she went uh to pick up one of her friends who is gonna spend the night tonight. Uh and they went and took some photos and then she wanted to go to my daughter wanted to go to Olive Garden for her birthday, so that's where we went for dinner. And then we came back and uh had cake and uh now you're all caught up. You know, you know who loves Olive Garden? Uh uh friend of the show Robert?

Drew 01:01

Friend of the show Robert might be the biggest Olive Garden fan I've ever met in my life.

Paul 01:06

Yeah, yeah. I did eat I did eat some chicken parm and it was pretty good and I am uncomfortable right now. So yeah.

Drew 01:12

Yeah, I'm uh I'm a little bloated myself. Um funny enough, I also had chicken parm tonight. But nothing. Okay. I mean, look, I I have been accused, rightfully so, of being a snob. I wear that badge. However If people were like, hey Drew, want to go to Olive Garden, I'd have a pretty hard time saying no.

Paul 01:37

I would never pick it myself. But I'm also not gonna say no if someone wants to go.

Drew 01:43

So yeah, I'm in the same boat.

Paul 01:44

Yeah.

Drew 01:45

Yeah. So I I can maintain this I can I can maintain semi-snob status. I'm never gonna suggest it, but I probably won't say no.

Paul 01:52

Yeah.

Drew 01:52

Yeah, exactly. Okay. Cool. So how is Zach readjusting to college?

Paul 01:58

Uh so far so good. Uh You know, he had his first week of classes this week and he's uh, you know, getting used to all of that. Uh Next, well starting this coming week, which will be the second week, is when club starts and he's joined a pickleball club. So uh oh, we also went and bought him up some pickleball pickleball, pickleball paddle, uh so we can play pickleball. Yeah, so that's gonna start next week, so he's really excited about that.

Drew 02:27

So Man, all kinds of all kinds of racket sports in the Baylor household these days.

Paul 02:32

Oh, I know. I know. It's it's yeah. Hitting balls with rackets. That's what we do here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew 02:39

I'm sure they'll hit the balls. Um Okay, uh so let's let's sort of jump in here. Um uh so first things first, a little bit of older business. So uh alleged alleged friend of the show, Eric Darling. Um Uh he uh he he's he's very important. Uh he is very important, yes. Yeah. Uh he had sent me a text message uh where he wanted to know Which particular phone case you have. And I'm I'm taking this opportunity because of all the people who listen to this podcast, all six, I think at this point, he should know that we maintain a show notes listing. We do. We do. Which I believe I believe he has access to this very document. However, I think I think he does, yeah.

Paul 03:34

Yeah.

Drew 03:35

So he wanted to know specifically which case you have, and I think this is a good time to revisit that to see what your current case status is.

Paul 03:42

Yeah, uh so I bought the uh minimalist case case in slate from from uh bull straps that's bullstrap. co there'll be a link in the show notes eric uh I got the model that has the camera control button and also it doesn't have a bottom lip because I I like a I like a b I like a bah a lip free bottom. There we go. Uh It's leather. It's great. You know, it's wearing. It's got a nice what patina. It's got, you know, it's got some scratches, but it's great. It's a great case. It's holding up really well. It looks nice. I have after having not having a leather case for a bit, uh I realized that I missed them and I really like a leather case.

Drew 04:31

So can I tell you what's funny about you? Hmm. I secretly bet myself that you had ditched the case at this point. And I was going caseless. Yeah, that's kind of uh secret like I'm using Eric as kind of an excuse, but I had secretly kind of told myself, I bet you you got sick of the case already. No, I I like it. I'm

Paul 04:52

I am I mean I dropped my phone today in the bathroom, Drew. Like I'm afraid to go caseless. I'm like, I'm just gonna- if I broke go caseless, I'm just gonna break this freaking phone completely. And I'm also probably I'm Famous last words here, people. I don't think I'm gonna buy a new phone this fall. I think I'm gonna try to go two years with this one. So I'm uh yeah. I'm trying to hold on to this bad boy, but we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. There's there's rumors of the one of the new iPhone 17s that that it's gonna be orange. And that could get me.

Drew 05:25

So that could that could probably get me too. I did I I did see that post. We have a separate topic about iPhones coming up. So, okay. Uh good, Eric. I hope that answers your question better than I can. Yes.

Paul 05:40

Um it's a nice case. I mean they're not they're not cheap. But they are they are very good quality. It looks nice. It's made well. It's holding up the the You know, the buttons on the side and yours got metal buttons on top of the the real buttons. They feel premium, they feel good, they don't You know, they they click well. It's it's nice. Yeah, the cam and the the thing over the camera control button also works really well.

Drew 06:06

So yeah, I I ten out of ten, no notes. Okay. Alright. I still I'm still rocking my, you know, tactic tactical. Yeah. Yeah, tactical case. Um God, you know, I I I kind of I kind of wish, actually, you know what? I they have to make one, right? Molly iPhone case. They have to make a Molly case, right? I don't know. Let's see here. iPhone 6. Okay. Well fuck. I have ad blocking turned on. Armor mount. Okay, they make ha, this is interesting. So here, check this out. Um I I I I'm not I'm not gonna buy this. I promise you I'm not gonna buy this.

Paul 06:49

Are you sure? Are you sure?

Drew 06:51

I promise you I'm not gonna buy this. The juggernaut

Paul 06:56

Oh yeah, so it goes onto one of your little your your one of your things.

Drew 07:01

Yeah, and then and then you can like fold it down hand like semi-hand strong.

Paul 07:07

Yeah, look at that.

Drew 07:08

That's that's Yeah. And then I think I think it's I yeah, I I assume that it's like a case mount color Uh juggernaut case keeps limited quantities in stock. A hundred and five dollars. Oh wow. Samsung devices, wow. Yeah. Oh right. Galaxy S22 Adventure. Ooh, complete your kit. Yeah. Oh, you're $200 deep for this whole lifestyle. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I bet you it'd be I bet you here's the thing though. I bet you it'd be I bet you you could get some really cool like body cam video with this. Oh a hundred percent, yeah. Yeah yeah Yeah, I'm deep. I'm deep in the Molly lifestyle right now, man. And and like not the not not the cool drug Molly, like like the actual like military cosplay Molly. Um okay, cool. All right, uh let's shift gears to video games. Follow-up for everybody. Yes, I did buy the Metal Gear Solid remake Remastered. It's fantastic, man. That That I I actually meant to include a particular YouTube video for you last week. It completely slipped my mind. Uh there is a channel called Punk Duck. I don't know if you've ever watched any of his videos. That's not sound familiar, but Yeah. Um he made a video called How to Metal Gear. Okay. And oh, that's not the right link. Uh I said copy link, please. Cop share. Copy, okay. Come on, computer, you can do this. Uh he makes he makes he makes funny videos. Um I I would encourage you to go watch that because he talks about why three is so great, um mirroring a lot of the same things that I said, but he also talks about why Uh the Phantom Pain is also really, really good, and all the other ones are kind of bad. So uh if you if you are looking to get psyched up to play it, I don't know if it's your kind of game. I think it is, but I think you should go uh I think you should go try it and go watch that. But anyway, let's talk about video game stuff. Yeah.

Paul 09:21

So uh Gamescom. Gamescon has been going on since it's isn't that in Germany? I don't know. Big gaming conference. and uh a lot of uh influencers and uh new media types Have got their hands on the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally and the ROG Xbox Ally X. And uh, I'm gonna tell you, Drew. It looks real good. Yeah, they actually got to use the uh the one of the the big things part of the Microsoft and Asus uh you know uh Team up here is Microsoft is finally making a stripped down version of Windows 11, uh kind of a la Steam OS That is gaming handheld focused. They even went so far as to make the uh the setup experience for Windows 11 controller friendly. So there you go. Uh uh Apparently Microsoft is saying it uses two gigabytes less RAM than normal Windows. Uh which is really nice it. Yeah, that's uh uh but the what I've seen of the operating system, it remind the They they basically took like the Xbox UI and and and like also like cheated off SteamOS's homework. Uh, but I think that's a good thing. Uh one thing they are doing, which I think they're actually doing better than Steam, is so Steam has this Steam Deck verified program, right? And It it steam deck verified does not mean the game is going to be playable on a Steam Deck. It means that when you start up the game, it's at native resolution and recognizes your controller. That's it. That's it. That's it. So there are games like uh the most notorious one is like the Horizon games. They're Steam verified, but like you'll get like frame rates in the teens. Right. It's real bad. It's real bad. Microsoft is uh taking that one step further. They're gonna have two levels. They're gonna have one, hey, it runs. But you may have to tweak some settings and going through. And then they're going to have another level which basically means like, hey, this runs great out of the box. You don't have to think about it. Just launch it, run it. and it'll go. And they're verifying games across across stores, so to speak. So like the if you like Obviously they're gonna push Xbox and the Microsoft Store and Xbox Cloud, but it also integrates with all the other launchers and apparently the certification is going to be for uh any game across any library. So I think that's going to be a good thing going forward. People really like the ergonomics of it, the little uh little wings on the side, the little controller handles. Uh yeah, it looks it looks really good. It the it's running the AMD uh Z2 extreme, so it's the the the successor to the one that's in the current ally. Uh and it looks like it's they weren't able to like you know, get all their tools in there and count frames and shit. But for all the games that they were able to play on it, it looks like it runs really well. So I'm kind of excited about it and I think I'm gonna get one. When it comes out next month or October?

Drew 13:02

So So a couple a couple quick notes for those of you that have been paying attention. One We really belittled the hell out of this when the first screenshots leaked.

Paul 13:12

Yeah, it's kind of ugly. Uh, but it's designed to be held, not looked at, I guess. I don't know. Yeah.

Drew 13:18

I mean, same. Uh the other thing I would say is um aren't you supposed to be getting another handheld here soon?

Paul 13:29

I mean I my 1x sugar is going to be here at some point. So yeah. Yeah, but that's that's that's that's a retro handheld. This is a this is a this is a uh uh A gaming PC. A big boy. A gaming PC in your hand. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So uh different different.

Drew 13:48

Hey, uh, hey, hey, hey. What's it gonna cost?

Paul 13:52

Oh geez. They did not. So okay. At Gamescom they did not say pricing, which I totally understand. given, you know, gestures at everything.

Drew 14:12

Wait. Huh? Yes, yes, I do. I do smell the cope. I smell the cope from here.

Paul 14:19

Uh it's rumored to be 900 bucks.

Drew 14:22

Ah, it's a spicy meatball. Yeah, but it's a spicy meatball.

Paul 14:27

That's okay. I still think I'm gonna order one. Yeah.

Drew 14:30

When can you pre-order it

Paul 14:32

Uh it is supposed let's see, hold on, release date. They did say it's going October 16th is the release date. So I imagine at some point I'll get a flurry of emails from every from everything saying, hey, you can talk you can pre-order this now. So yeah, I will. I will. Yeah. So a little over a month away.

Drew 14:55

Alright. So here's the question note. Like I I understand the the retro handheld appeal and collection. Um which is great. I I am very firmly in that boat. I will say that of all the handheld devices I have right now, I spend the most time on my Steam Deck playing retro games. Okay. Yeah. Just because it's the most powerful device I own, and I have been playing some Nintendo 64 games recently. And some PlayStation 2 games. Yep. Now that said. If you if you do end up ordering this, will you actually use it as a Steam gaming device or will it just become another retro?

Paul 15:39

No, no. I use my ally X to play PC games, right? So what have I been playing on here? Let me fry this bad boy up. It's right here on my desk. Oh, I've I what I've been playing the most recently is The Last Epoch. Oh, okay. It's an action RPG, a la a la la Diablo. I've I always heard good things about it and I finally uh installed it. Oh, just mute that so we don't get beeps on there. Uh I replayed all of the Batman Arkham games on my Ally X. That was fun. I played some steampunk on here. Steampunk. Cyberpunk as well. I've also I also played Call of the Lamb again. I love that game. There's a new expansion coming. There's a expansion coming out for it next year again, which adds like a whole new area. So I can't wait to play that game again. Uh I have played Diablo 4 on here quite a bit as well. And uh last epoch. And uh, ooh, and my uh my favorite time-killing game of all time, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, which is the vampire survivors like set in the the Deep Rock Galactic Universe. It's a good time. It's a good time.

Drew 16:57

Yeah. Vampire Survivors is still uh is still my number one go-to. But I get it. I I totally get that. Okay, so okay, so you you will get it and you will play those things on it. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul 17:14

Obviously, you know, uh like you know and some There are some AAA games that come out that you look at and like, no, like they they'd spent absolutely no time thinking about handheld games, right? But a lot of games coming out this now, at least give some thought to to handheld games and how they run in low power environments and like a lot of the games I I run I can I run at like 17 uh watt TDP which is pretty low Uh if I do need a little bit more powerful, that does go up to like 25 or 30. Uh obviously that sucks the battery a lot. Uh but if I'm only playing for like an hour or something, that's totally fine. Uh but like yeah, even like a lot of modern games, they they usually like have a mode. You know, obviously they're probably targeting things like the Steam Deck. But it turns out that if you have a device a little bit more powerful than the Steam Deck, the Steam Deck settings are a great, you know, it's a great starting point and you can you can uh uh go from there. And what I really do like about the ROG ally is the variable refresh right screen, right? So as long as you can hit about 40 frames, if you do if you get below 40 frames, things do look kind of bad. Yeah. But if you can at least hit like 40, 45 to 50, things do look really good on that, even if you're not quite hitting 60. That's why last epoch usually hits about 45-50 uh with the the lowest settings that I have. So yeah. Very cool.

Drew 18:44

Uh so uh I I so they haven't announced pre-orders, right?

Paul 18:48

They have not announced pre-orders, no. No, because they have not announced pricing. There's no official pricing yet because, you know, tariffs. There I said it. It's har it's hard to release a device that yeah that sells in America today. It's tough. It's tough. Yeah.

Drew 19:07

Yeah. It's it's kind of funny. Um I I have been spending a lot of time on Reddit. Me too. Because I it's it's like the only pure website left. Dig's coming back. Sorry. I couldn't even get through it. Yeah, I never I I was never a dig person, but I I've been spending a lot of time on Reddit because there are several communities on there that appeal to my interest, believe it or not. Yeah, it turns out. Yeah. The the the the lawn care subreddit is legit the most helpful subreddit I've lawn to but I I digress But I've been spending a lot of time on Reddit and I'm increasingly seeing in my like for you feed or whatever people getting like UPS asking them for money. Tab their packages. And everybody's like, why is this happening? And I just I and I I just I just want to throw up that that meme, who could have foreseen this, right? Exactly. Huh. Okay, buddy. Now where will you so what retailers will carry this? Or is it like an online only thing?

Paul 20:23

You can buy it from Asus. Uh Best Buy also usually keeps them in stock. I think Microsoft is also going to sell this as well.

Drew 20:29

So well that would make sense. I mean if Microsoft still has a gaming division in six months, but what's an Xbox?

Paul 20:37

Uh everything's an Xbox. Yeah. You're an Xbox. You are an Xbox. Uh but I think it's you know I'm sure the device will come with a like trial of uh you know Xbox Cloud streaming. I also looked at like Microsoft recently added cloud streaming to like two of the lower levels of uh of uh Game Pass. And I'm like, I betcha that's for this device right here. uh get people locked into a subscription to stream games from Xbox Cloud.

Drew 21:13

But August and September are when my Office 365 and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions usually are usually expire. So I'm I just I just paid for both of those things this week. I do I do like Xbox Games Pass. Now I will say that Even though I'm even though I just even though I just uh updated it, there hasn't been a lot that's been added to Game Pass recently that is that has intrigued me. I will say they just added Dragon Age to Veilguard

Paul 21:48

Uh it's worth giving a try. I like that game quite a bit.

Drew 21:51

It's it's not perfect, but I remember you you you you spoke pretty positively of it. Um I enjoyed it. You know, the big thing is like the the Call of Duty games are on there, and I'm sure I will end up playing Call of Duty this year, even though I did play the Battlefield 6 beta and it was phenomenal. They made it more Call of Duty like, which is fine with me. But there's, I mean, they've added a bunch of games, but like some of them are games that are older and I have no desire to play. And then like they added like Persona. Like Persona is a game series. I don't get it. I don't get it either. Yeah. I if I wanted to read a book, I would read a book.

Paul 22:30

Yeah. But I I have learned that I just I used to really enjoy like turn-based RPGs. I have learned this age. I don't know, I just don't have the patience for them anymore. I I just I just don't even going back and playing the older ones that I enjoyed when I was younger, I just can't I just can't do it anymore.

Drew 22:49

That's why, you know, I was a little on the fence about the Final Fantasy VII remakes. We talked about this before, but I'm I'm glad I played them. I mean they were The fact that they turned them into more like ARPGs was was fun with like the ability to pause and do things. But yeah, there hasn't been a lot on Game Pass recently that uh that I've wanted to play. But hopefully that I think um there's some new ones coming out. Oh, you know what, you know what is on Game Pass. Uh here's here's a shout-out. So you're you're a classic gamer kid like me. Did you ever play the games Heretic or Hexen? Yes, absolutely. So there there is a remaster of both of those games. Oh. Where it's like everything is upscaled, but it like looks good. Okay. And it has all the expansions. So on Game Pass, they have Heretic and Hexan and then all the expansions for both. And for those of you that don't know, uh turns out that when Doom came out Uh they've they made Doom in different flavors. There were a couple Doom spin-offs. Like I remember there was Blood. You know, that and then they and then I think you know, id software did Heretic and Hexen as well. Yes. Those were like uh medieval doom. Except you were like a sorcerer. Yeah. In heretic, you were like a sorcerer. Hexen, you were also a sorcerer slash like blade user. I'm trying to remember. I think I enjoyed Hexen way more than Heretic, but

Paul 24:15

Yeah, I like Hexan Hexen a lot. Yeah. For some reason I can out now all I'm thinking about is Rise of the Triad. Oh my god.

Drew 24:23

First of all, uh, you know what, can we can we just talk a minute about how great Rise of the Triad is?

Paul 24:28

That was so fun.

Drew 24:30

It was so great. I remember I remember sitting in the computer lab as a freshman playing land games of that. Yes. The multiplayer was terrific. It was amazing. And it was like 2. 5D Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was all it was all very sprite-based. Um they they did they did do a remaster of Rise of the Triad, and it's fine, but the original Rot R O T T. exe, oh god damn. That is that was some chaos. The weapons were crazy. You could be instead of instead of God mode, they had dog mode. Yeah, it was it was very funny, you know, uh drunk missiles going everywhere. It's just Rise of the Triad, that has to go in. That has to go in the show notes. Great game. But again, that was one of those knockoffs. Let's see what else was there. And then like Duke Nukem came along. Duke Nukem 3D was good. I mean, obviously Quake. Quake. Quake is when things went full 3D. Yeah. That was a milestone. Quake was quake was Quake was a pretty important milestone. Yeah. Looking up. Right. Actually looking up.

Paul 25:41

Yeah. They plus the quake soundtrack. Oh, so good.

Drew 25:45

Very good. Very good. I was actually listening to a lot of nine inch snails this weekend

Paul 25:50

Yeah.

Drew 25:50

Uh they're coming out with a new album for the Tron movie.

Paul 25:54

Oh, they are? Yeah. Yeah. So Trent Reznor has like he basically put Nine Inch Nails aside and was like doing a lot of like movie soundtracks. Uh but he got the band back together. In fact he's touring right now. They got the band he got the band back together and they made an album for the neutron movie. Which I do not I don't understand that at all. There's a single out for it, uh, but yeah, I don't I it

Drew 26:26

Did you see the or did you see the other Tron movie that they renewed?

Paul 26:29

No, I did not.

Drew 26:30

It was it was good. It was okay. Like I it was it was a it was a good watch. It was a good watch. Yeah, I was um I was scrolling I was scrolling through a lot of discography for um for Nine Inch Dales this weekend and uh Man, their stuff's so good. It is. It's good. It's good. Yeah, I was listen I was listening I had basically had only on repeat. Such good stuff.

Paul 26:51

Okay, okay, yeah.

Drew 26:54

Hey, uh, this took a time to revisit Paul's record quarter. You haven't talked about records in a while. Let's go look at Paul's Discogs.

Paul 27:00

I haven't So if you go to Paul's Discogs right now and you look at my collection, you will see uh a bunch of CDs that were just recently added. I was in the basement and I found a box that had the CDs that I kept. I was like, oh, I'm gonna go put these in discogs because I'm broken inside. Uh you'll see it's a lot of things mostly it's mostly nine-inch channel stuff, but I really haven't Purchased.

Drew 27:24

Let me go. Let me go look. I actually have your link bookmarked here. Not the actual events fixed.

Paul 27:31

Yeah, those are CDs. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew 27:34

Mess noir from Behemoth. Is that how you say that?

Paul 27:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Drew 27:41

Uh let's see. Closer to God, further down the spiral. Yeah, you you did. With Teeth. With Teeth is a great album.

Paul 27:48

Mm-hmm.

Drew 27:49

Yeah. Downward spiral, pretty hate machine.

Paul 27:52

Oh yeah, that that downward spiral s like C D Like, oh dude, that uh me and that album had some moments in high school. So that's yeah, I was glad to find that one again. That's a good one. Mm-hmm.

Drew 28:05

The day the world went away, the fragile, things fall apart. Huh. Murdenoz by a perfect circle. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. I I actually listened to that one. It's good's good. It's good. I like that album. Okay. And broken, down in it. Um R paying your game by mindless self-indulgence.

Paul 28:25

Yeah, I I can't I almost thought about not putting it in there because it turns out that band is highly problematic. But uh yeah, yeah. One cop one copy for sale for $500? Yeah. I have gone to a couple of mindless self-indulgence shows, and I will say I I I don't I don't know if it's possible to get a cocaine contact buzz, but it sure felt like it.

Drew 28:51

Uh it is. Um Yeah. I'm not gonna say how I know that, but Very high energy shows. Woo! Yeah. Let's see what else what else we doing on here? Demos and remixes. Ted like a whole. Oh man. 1990. Oh my god, I'm so I know, I know, I know, yeah. Sin was 1991. What was their first album?

Paul 29:17

Uh pretty hate machine.

Drew 29:18

Yeah, I was gonna say. And what year was that? That was 90 as well, right?

Paul 29:22

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Drew 29:25

Mm-hmm. Huh. Yeah. Fear inoculum. Mm-hmm. From all deft tones. Oh, that's vinyl. Okay, I'm into the vinyl now.

Paul 29:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Drew 29:43

Good for you, man.

Paul 29:44

Yeah, and those vinyls, that's that's the last I spent like 200 bucks the last time I went to the record store with my daughter. So yeah, I bought some I bought some records. Oh, is your daughter into it? She is collecting CDs. She likes CDs. She she does have some records, but mostly she hangs them on her door. I mean hangs her hangs them in her in her room as decoration. She's one of those, but it's fine. I support that fully. But she likes CDs. In fact, she got a bunch of CDs for her birthday, so.

Drew 30:11

Ooh, okay.

Paul 30:14

Oh, what did I get for her?

Drew 30:16

Anything I would appreciate, or is it all like

Paul 30:18

Oh, okay, you're never okay. It's weird. It's weird. Okay, so let's go to my- Let's go. What did I get from Amazon? I did have to buy a couple from Discogs. Uh, what did I order her? Uh sorry, our Amazon list. Okay, uh, so the the the the what she got from Amazon was uh tragic kingdom by no doubt.

Drew 30:40

Oh, okay.

Paul 30:42

Celebrity Skin by Hole, which I well I respect her. I I didn't there the to I there are better Hole albums out there, but I'm not gonna hold that against her. Okay. She got uh two Billy Idol records, the self-titled uh Billy Idol and Rubble Yell. Okay. Okay. Uh she also got the uh No More Tears from Ozzie Osborne.

Drew 31:07

Timely, timely.

Paul 31:08

Uh-huh. And uh I also ordered her a couple off of discogs that she wanted. Uh uh it's uh Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic from The Sundays. I think it's like a compilation album. And uh Down to Earth also by Ozzy Osborne. So those are the ones she wanted. Cool. Now what does she listen to them on? She has she has a C D player boombox thingy a boober. Okay. So she she doesn't use dad's equipment I she's more than welcome to it whenever she wants to like sit in my office for an hour.

Drew 31:46

Okay. Okay.

Paul 31:49

Oh, and she also got the new Sabrina Carpenter uh album for her birthday. So it's it's you know, it's uh yeah, yeah, Sabrina Carpenter. She she's the zeitgeist, yeah.

Drew 32:02

So I I think this is a pretty good segue then. So I made I made a I made a purchase this week. Okay. Yep. So I finally went out and bought a new DAC and headphone amp

Paul 32:16

Oh, fancy.

Drew 32:17

So for those of you that have been listening, uh my previous one was a uh pre-box s2. Um which it's from Project, which I'm using right now. Project. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Great company. And and credit where credit's due. I had that thing I think I I think it's probably six years old at this point. I got them not too long after they came out. Um it was a great little unit. I had other than the fact that it was older and I'll talk about why I replaced it here in a minute. Great little device. Great form factor. The one of the main things I liked about it was just that it was really kind of small, kind of compact. You could power it directly over USB. However, if you wanted a more clean signal, you should plug in the power cord. It just took like a little barrel adapter and you could plug it in. Um so that's what I had, and and it worked great. But over the past few months, the little display on the front of it, pixels started going out. Like first it was a couple, and then it was like kind of hard to read. But you could still like if I was adjusting the volume, I could very still I could very clearly still read the number. The other thing that was happening was occasionally when I would boot my computer up. Um it would look like it was powered on, but I wouldn't get any sound. I would have to like unplug it, plug it back in.

Paul 33:42

That has started happened to me.

Drew 33:43

Yeah. Yeah, and and part of that's Windows. Uh friend of the show, Jeremiah has a whole spiel about how like You know, things are not deterministic by Windows when like gravity is protected. Like so I part of that's Windows. Part of it is I just think this thing is it they I think it was time. And then the other main thing, the other thing, the other main thing that was problematic for me is when I would plug this device in Uh I would always install the driver and it would you know install the necessary Windows drivers and everything. No big deal. It would install a little like taskbar utility helper thing that would like tell you you could set like bitrate and stuff from that. You could also set it in the control panel, but whatever. Uh but what was interesting was that device had a remote. And the remote would show up in your device manager as a human interface device. But as long as that device was enabled, my computer would never go to sleep. It would think it would think it would think for whatever reason. that that device would keep my computer from like and when I say go to sleep, I just don't mean going into like sleep mode. I mean the monitor wouldn't even like go into power saving mode, right? Hmm. So every time I would like reformat my computer, what I would have to do is I would have to plug it I would have to plug this device in, go into device manager. basically open the window on every HID device, human interface device, and I would then unplug the box And then one of one of those little boxes would go away. And that's the one I knew to disable in the con in in the device manager so my computer could go to sleep So, not major deal breakers, more annoyances than anything. So I I was doing some research this week. Again, I was on Reddit, I was on websites. I don't use Chat EG. I I I can read things on my own. Thank you very much. And what I ended up going with is I went with a company called SMSL

Paul 35:43

Oh, yes. I've I've I've used one of theirs in the the I used uh my original speaker amp was from them. Okay.

Drew 35:51

So I went with this device, the RAW MDA1.

Paul 35:56

Okay.

Drew 35:58

So this is a nice little unit. So the one thing I will say, and you know, don't send me your hate mail. The way a DAC, an AMP, so first of all, what what are my requirements? Before I even get into all that, like what are my actual requirements? Well, first and foremost, I want one unit. I love shit, right? The the the company shit. Like they make an all-in-one DAC amp, and then they also have what they call their shit stack, which is like the Jotunheim and then the other one. I want one. With the DAC and the Amp or yeah.

Paul 36:31

Yeah.

Drew 36:32

Yeah.

Paul 36:32

I'll I I I like a nice integrated amp as well. Yeah.

Drew 36:35

I I want I want an integrated DAC and AMP. And for those of you that have never gone down this before, the DAC is the thing that makes it show up basically so your computer sees it as an audio output device versus just taking a line out. And then the amp is the thing that actually amplifies your headphones. Now I'm currently rocking Sony, you know, XM1004s or whatever wireless headphones, but I have them plugged in with a cable. I'm not using the wireless capability, I'm not using the noise canceling capability because they're they're actually pretty good headphones. So I wanted an all-in-one device. The other thing is I want it to kind of look nice because it sits on top of my desk. The things that are on my desk I want to be aesthetically pleasing. There's a lot of really goofy-ass looking Dak and Amp combos out there Yes. That that I I just I I know it would drive me crazy to look at those things. So I wanted something a little more aesthetically pleasing. And this company This uh whole SMS SMSL which stands for like some Chinese company name. I I I I'm I'm not even gonna try it. You can go to the website and the show links, Eric. You can go out there and you can like look this up and you can see it. But Uh it's it's a great little device. So it it's pretty minimalistic. It has two headphone jacks on the front, has a bunch of inputs and outputs on the back. It has one dial and has a really nice screen on the front uh that shows you, you know, your current like you know volume and then what mode you're in, what is your current bitrate, all that other stuff. And it it's it's perfect. It's it's a great little device. Uh I ordered it directly off Amazon.

Paul 38:12

Okay.

Drew 38:13

Um now in as far as comparing this to the the other device that I had, so I have listened to music and I have played games with this now for about 48 hours, and initial impressions are good. I I will say that what I'm hearing through this on like the higher end of like the treble scale is much more clear than on the pre-box two. So I've been I play a particular game called Escape from Tarkov, and audio cues in that game are probably the most important thing that you hear. And you need to really be able to listen for people's footsteps in that game. And uh the joke that we say is that it sounds like everybody in that game is walking on sunships. So like so like when you're when when you're walking in a building, like the ground is very crunchy. Like imagine walking on broken glass or gravel or something like that. So That's on like the higher end of the audio range versus like the low end bassy type stuff. Now when you're shooting a gun or something like that, like that's when you hear all that. But I have noticed, especially in that game, that I'm I'm really able to hear those sounds much, much clearer than I did on the pre-box two. So I definitely feel in terms of audio quality and then of course listening to music and all that, like it it definitely sounds good. It it it definitely serves its purpose.

Paul 39:37

How big is it?

Drew 39:38

Okay. So It's not small.

Paul 39:43

Okay, okay.

Drew 39:45

Oh, I see the dimensions there. Okay. Yeah. I would say that you can probably put two pre-box twos side by side. And it'd be about the same size. Okay. It's it's it's not it, you know, it's deep too. I would say it's probably one and a half pre-box S2s deep. So it's a little bit of a bigger unit, but it is it's chonky. Like it definitely feels solid. The it's metal, the front of it, I think, is also metal. The dials is nice and clicky and tactile. And look, it has a bunch of features, okay? And I'm not an audiophile to the point where I understand the different like fast roll-on, fast roll off. All the different like filters that you can apply for like adding warm sound that makes it more sound like a tube or something like that. And in fact, I watched this. There was one particular YouTube review that I watched that really sold me on this. This is what I watched, and he basically not only reviewed the unit, but he basically walked through setting it up and like what the different settings are and what he recommends. So it's from Gadgetry Tech. I I had never seen his channel before. It's a really good review. It also shows off the unit pretty well and like the dimensions and how you set it up. Um but I have a problem. Okay. All right. So the one thing that I'm hearing on here that I did not hear with my other amp. Is interference from my phone. Oh no. Okay, but hold on though, okay? Here's the thing. I'm pretty sure it's my headphone cable Huh. But but but here's the thing. If I take my iPhone right now and I bring it over to my headphone cable and I lay my phone on the cable. If I get an alert on my phone or a text message or anything, I start to hear a little bit of like clicking and interference on the line. When the phone is near the amp, I don't hear it. But here's the mystery though. The only thing that has changed in my setup is my amp.

Paul 42:06

Yeah.

Drew 42:07

I'm running, as far as I know, I'm running at the same bitrate that I was. I I don't You know, unless there's some other filter or something on here that would the way the signal is coming out of this thing and going down this headphone cable is different than the pre-box two, which I don't know if that's a thing or not. So I went I went on Amazon and I ordered a couple things, right? So so there's there there's only a couple other than the fact that this is a different DAC and AMP, there's a couple other variables here. First and foremost, this thing is USB-C. My other device was like USB A to USB printer. I don't even know what that what that's called. Yeah, yeah.

Paul 42:52

USB, yeah. Yeah, USB C. The square end.

Drew 42:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul 42:56

USB B.

Drew 42:57

Yep. So this is on the back of this device is a USB C. And I have it currently plugged into a USB-C port on this computer. It came with a USB A to C cable. But it was comically short. Like it was no way it was gonna reach off of my desk and onto my computer. So I ordered a a nice braided, like USB A to USB C cable that is a probably a little more shielded than what I'm using now because like the only cable I had in the house that could reach is the Apple USB C that goes like into the big power brick that would go into the MacBook Pro. So I don't know if that's where some of this stuff falls down, but again, it's very weird to hear that interference on the line. I also bought a new headphone cable that I think is probably a little more shielded than the other one. But that's the only disappointing thing that I've heard so far. But again, it only happens when my phone is near the headphone cable. When the phone is near the amp, it doesn't happen. So I guess uh and and again if you don't know that's fine, but what would be different about the signal coming out and onto the headphone line? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, it's it's it's it's driving me nuts. I don't like that. But I don't know what else it could be

Paul 44:28

Yeah, I don't know.

Drew 44:31

Yeah, that's the that's the only thing so far that has caused me a little bit of grief with this. So all in all, it's pretty good. All in all, it's it's pretty fucking good.

Paul 44:42

No, you're still using like the Sonys with them that we're gonna use?

Drew 44:45

Uh-huh. Well, so I'm I'm open to new headphones.

Paul 44:49

Okay, I just bought a new pair of headphones.

Drew 44:51

Well, so be before you talk about your new headphones, right? I I went on our favorite website, RTings. Mm-hmm. And you know, they are recommending the the latest generation of the Sonys. Yeah. Which, you know, like they're like 300 bucks. They're not crazy terrible. And listen, I know audiophile headphones are a thing. And just like everything else that you and I do, you can spend as much as you want to spend on these things. This amp can clearly drive all the ohms in the world. So I'm not necessarily worried about buying headphones that wouldn't work with this. Um But one of the headphones that sort of uh came across my desk were the Sonos headphones, which I believe you said you have, right?

Paul 45:35

Yeah, the Ace, yeah, yeah.

Drew 45:36

Now can you use them wired?

Paul 45:39

I have no idea. I I I have no desire to do so. Right. Yeah. Right.

Drew 45:46

That's why I didn't buy a pair because I feel like the primary market for those is wireless listening, but I have my AirPods Pro for that. Or AirPods Max, I mean.

Paul 45:54

Let's see, what does the internet say? Yeah, according to Sonos, you can use a wired connection. Uh you it's US uh USB C He also connects to device with a three and a half millimeter headphone jack using the included USB-C to 3. 5 billion oh even come even comes with the cable. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what did you just get? So uh okay, so I'm I I have I have learned what kind of headphones I like the most. Okay I A, I prefer open-backed headphones. Interesting. Open backed headphones for basically what you put what uh exactly what you they sound like. Uh they d they're they're they're open on both sides to the speaker, so if you're playing music through them, people beside you can also hear your music. Right? It is not enclosed, it is open. Right. Uh the A one things is generally cooler on the head, right? Because they're open, more air gets through, and they have a wider sound stage. It feels like the music is coming from more. more uh all around you instead of just like uh mar merry to your ears.

Drew 47:10

Okay.

Paul 47:11

I also like uh magnetic plane far plainar planar magnetic or magnetic planar as the driver Right. So it's not a traditional driver. It uses like a thin piece of like a magnet to vibrate a I don't know something magic magic. I like them. It focuses more. It's I don't listen to a lot of bass heavy music. I like mids and highs, because you know, I listen to my my my devil music. And Minnetic Planars are good for that. I also don't like paying an excruciating amount. Uh, so I just got so I had a pair of uh these are replacing another pair of Hi-Fi Man headphones where I noticed that like all of the padding and the the the the top of it after many many years of using it was disintegrating So I bought a slightly newer version of what I had, and it is a it is from drop. com It is the Hi-Fi Man, Hi-Fi Man uh HE5 XX Plain Armageddon headphones.

Drew 48:17

Okay.

Paul 48:18

And I love these things.

Drew 48:19

They're great. Okay. Did you buy the stand? No, no, no.

Paul 48:25

I have I have like one, two, three, four, five headphone hooks on of my are on or near my desk at all times anyway. So I did not need a I did not need another stand. So yeah, I hang my headphones under my desk.

Drew 48:41

Okay. So I'm not opposed to open back headphones. I'm not. If you work at home by yourself, yeah, they're great. I like I like closed back headphones. A lot of people do. A lot of people do. Okay. Do they make the same one clothes back style?

Paul 48:58

I don't know. Uh the hyphen make makes a lot of different. They make so many headphones. Oh dude, and that some of them get really expensive.

Drew 49:11

I'm sure.

Paul 49:12

Yeah.

Drew 49:13

H E X five five so if I go to headphones and drop is a great website by the way I totally forgot about this so close back headphones and then is there like a brand show all brands there is hi fi man So they have a drop in hi-fi man H E R7 DX closed back, but they seem very cheap. They seem very cheap. Hmm. Unfortunate.

Paul 49:41

Yeah.

Drew 49:43

Okay.

Paul 49:43

Yeah. Oh, the ones I have, though they're not are they not selling them anymore? Oh no, I guess oh well I guess they still are. Okay, you can still buy them. Oh yeah, I like them. They're really good. And I felt so stupid. Okay. The headphones on them do not have a marking letting you know which one is the left and which one is the right. Oh no. So there there they are the it does come with the cable. I replaced the cable because I I put it I used a braided one. There is a marking on the cable. So once you once but I had to go to the internet and I'd be like Which way do I put these on my head? And and and uh you know what helped me, Drew? This wonderful Reddit thread. Okay. Explaining like, yep, I had the same issue. I contacted support and they said you can identify it by the one that has uh like what they say like the one on the left has the drop logo on it. Yeah, yeah. So then so then I plugged in my cables and now I look at my cable. And I also like I also I'm a gentleman. I hang my headphones on the hook. So they're it's the way they go in my head, so I don't really have to think about it anymore. But Yeah. Yeah, they kind of but they're they're comfortable. They're they're I mean it is nicer than a sixty dollar pair of headphones. It is not as nice as like an eight hundred dollar pair of headphones. But yeah But they they they're they look like they're built well, they're they're light, they sound great. Uh I'm very happy with them. Yeah.

Drew 51:22

Yeah, and and Part of the reason too that I'm looking at new headphones is, you know, my human filth has really degraded the lining around these. So, you know, just you know, human oil and skin, like the like the the the covering on the ear cups kind of like slows off. Yeah. Yeah. It's not it's not great. It's not great. So I'm I'm in the market for that. So okay. I'll have to I I go to tool around on drop. I totally forgot about that website. I feel like such an idiot. Yeah. It's a good web yeah, it's a good website. All right. Uh last thing before we call it a night here. We'll push we'll push the phone topic to next week, but yeah, let's do that.

Paul 52:04

Yeah.

Drew 52:04

Yeah. Okay. Uh so our dishwasher came uh this week and was installed. And did you did you get yours, by the way?

Paul 52:14

Uh it is scheduled for installation September 11th. Oh, great. So I've got some time. Okay.

Drew 52:22

Yeah. It's pretty good. So Okay. Yeah, if you got the same one I got, there's a couple things that I wasn't aware of that I just want to make you aware of. First and foremost, the door is spring-loaded. So if you don't open it all the way, it's gonna slam shut.

Paul 52:42

Okay. Okay.

Drew 52:43

Um so just be aware of that. Yeah. The indicator light to make sure that it's running is on the bottom and shines on your floor. That's kind of cute. I don't know if I like that. I don't know if I like it.

Paul 53:02

Oh. Yeah. Well, a little bit of electrical tape could fix that problem.

Drew 53:07

Yep. Um Like everything else in the world, it's app enabled. I thought I was gonna be able to coexist with this dishwasher without the app I don't think it's possible. Is that not true? Okay. The only way to know how long it's gonna be before your dishes are done is to look at the app.

Paul 53:26

Oh, I I don't care about that so much. Okay.

Drew 53:29

Yeah. Uh but so far we've brought we've run a few cycles through it. It it seems to be cleaning things very, very well. So uh it's it's it's a it's a substantial unit. It looks really nice. I don't know if you just got regular stainless or if you got the dark stainless. We got black stainless, yeah.

Paul 53:44

Okay. Yeah.

Drew 53:45

No, it's it's it's a great unit. You got the recessed handle one, right?

Paul 53:48

I did. Yep.

Drew 53:49

Yeah. Oh it's good. It's got it's got a really nice handle on it. The touch controls on the top are really nice. The display is really nice. Um the app is fine. I mean compared to appliance apps, it's it's it's better than anything Samsung is ever gonna do or LG.

Paul 54:05

Oh dude, the LG. I use the LG app, because I have an LG washer and dryer. And it is nice to have a push notification when your dryer's done. Cause like you could be like, I guess I I I mean, I'm not too proud to say I usually do my laundry when I'm at work Working through the day when everyone else is out of the house. And it is nice to get a push notification on my phone when the dryer is done. But that app is just fucking hot garbage. It really wants me to just buy all into the LG appliance lifestyle lifestyle. I'm like, no, no, thank you. I just want to push notification when my washer's done. Thank you.

Drew 54:43

Okay. Yeah. And it will it the nice thing about it, the night the one thing I will say about the app is it's really good about telling you like the current status of the dishwasher. Like How full is your drying agent reservoir and all this other stuff?

Paul 54:57

That's nice.

Drew 54:58

Yeah. Okay. So I did that. It's thoughtful. You know, I was, like I said, I I just want a dishwasher that I open up, I put soap in, I close, it runs, and you know, all the dishwashers now, all the controls are sort of on the top of the door. And if your dishwasher is recessed in the counter, like you can't see those things once you close it. Mm-hmm. Um so if you need to pause the cycle, stop the cycle, view the cycle status, view the dishwasher status, like you're you're gonna want to set up the app. It it takes two seconds, but Uh you know, you can you can probably pre-register your fucking account on the stupid app, but uh but no, it's it's it's good. The the the shelves are very nice, it's very sturdy. Um you could definitely feel the the quality in it. So uh all in all, we're pretty happy. Pretty happy so far.

Paul 55:47

Good, good. I I can't wait for mine to to come. And I was also talking with people uh who I work with that my dishwasher has died and Uh uh another person I work with has has a Bosch 500 and he loved it. Just absolutely like it's great. Like he's never gonna buy. You know, he's like, I'm I'm a Bosch for life now. It it works great.

Drew 56:06

So Yeah, I mean we I we had At our old house we had something Bosch. I can't remember what it was. One of the applies was a Bosch and it was it was fine. You know, it was great. And Yeah, I I think we're in the same boat. Now I know they make a bunch of other stuff. I don't think they make stoves and microwaves. Maybe they do. Yeah, I don't know. But I think the stove and microwave are probably gonna be the next thing we're gonna replace maybe the fridge but our fr I I really like our fridge a lot actually um so I don't know but yeah it's uh it was a good purchase I'm happy with it I mean our other one worked you know But it was time and you know now it doesn't stink all the time. And uh they make espresso machines. They make a lot of stuff, yeah.

Paul 56:48

Fridges, dishwashers. Yeah, they make they make uh gas ranges and cooktops and microwaves. Yeah, they make it all. They make it all. Okay.

Drew 56:58

Yeah, that might be next then. All right, buddy. You're tired. You had a full day. We had an agenda. Let's uh let's get out of here.

Paul 57:05

Yeah, doing the best. com. You can find all the show notes, all the links. Uh Eric. And uh hey, thanks for listening.