Love Relationship - Part 2

昜得無價寶,難得有情郎.

"Parking Lot" indicator

Job market is starting to pick up. Head hunters are now calling people around, luring them to go to start up company.

Something I learn from the past how to find a good Hi-Tech start up company.

This is what I developed "Parking Lot" indicator.

When you see lots of nice car in parking lot, like Lexus, BMW, Porsche ... it tells some workers already make the first bucket of money. Base on their connection, it has higher chance the company go IPO. Should think to go there.

But don't make this decision so quick. If those car don't leave after 9:00 p.m., which means those people work nights and days to make it. You have to think about if this life style fits you.

In addition, from my experience, if those nice car don't leave early, means they become rich thru work hard. Even they may make it, but usually don't make it big.

Those don't need to work hard usually have big company connection, and will get bought through acquisition by big company; Or have good relationship with venture captial with loads of cash. So they don't need to work too hard.

Organic fruit joke

My company order organic fruit everyday from www.fruitguys.com to "refresh" our mind. (Give company excuse to call for early exec. meeting.)

When I check the crate boxes, they accidentally left the bill and charge $350 USD for several boxes. WOW!!! sounds like government business.

Other co-worker say we are in wrong kind of business that why our stock drop because we sell it so cheap.

And I joke around, we should sell our switches for million dollars and say it is "ORGANIC". Then our stock will come back.

I guess how we label and market the product is more important than anything else.

香港人常用Term士 - Part 2?

請幫幫ASIMO.

"水擘擘"點解?

Love relationship - Part I

Is in search of perfection is good or not?

I believe the goal is good. But how to approach make a big difference.

I recall one thing my ex-boss taught me why Microsoft is so successful.

1.) They sell junk for a fortune. That allows them to maximize their profit margin.
(Look at how many service pack and “Blue screen of death” we encounter)

2.) When they develop junk, time to market can be much faster.

Then he asks me for a scenario.

“ASIMO, suppose you can develop a bug free product in a year. Should you take a year to do so, or use 20-30% of the time to develop it which can satisfy 50% of the customers? Which method will you choose?”

For me, I will take a year. For him, he will take 20%. Why?

Instead of using 80% of time to perfect the software, he wants to use 80% of time to dominate the market. Before the competitor come up the product, he already started eat up the market. When their product comes, there is no vacancy available. Then starve them to death.

I know one friend who is trying to find a perfect husband. She looks gorgeous that’s why she has “Qualification” to be picky. She is keep looking till most of her friend get marry. She complain her “expiration date” is coming soon, there is no good men nowadays.

~Sigh~, why she didn’t take 80% of her time to complement with the imperfect one instead of wasting this valuable time to search endlessly for the one who has already been taken?

香港人常用Term士?

各路英雄,請教ASIMO

我知道什麽是"Hair"吓, 但究竟這個Term係點樣出嚟呢?
好"Nor"又點樣閃出嚟呢?
點解用"閃"來形容速走? 走得快如"閃"電?
點解叫老婆婆做啞"Sim"?
我讀書時用"Cult"女, 現在用"Gai"女. "Gai"女又怎樣出嚟呢?
"路人甲"又怎樣出嚟呢?

~sigh~ 我真係好"NOR"!

Hi-End Speaker - Need technical aspect???

I left out technical aspect to those Hi-End speakers because I find those are boring to non-technical readers plus they are not that meaningful.

Even cheap Sony amplifier THD spec. is almost excellent in engineering aspect. But when you listen, everyone know what I mean.

Sorry, I never measure frequency response, step response ... myself.

Go and find those for yourself on the web.

Or maybe I write a blog to share how to read those chart. That maybe useful for people who are interested to know what those graphs mean.

Hi-End Speaker 4

Cabasse Atlantis.

Highlight:
Coherent like Tannoy Westminister, but more romantic. This speaker is like Château Lafite Rothschild winery. Music it generate is so smooth, and the after taste is so unbelievable it planted in my mind.

Pros:
Time and phase coherent, romantic, smooth.

1.) Image is the strongest area to this speaker.

2.) Easy to drive. No muscle amplifier require.

Cons:
1.) Frequency and transient response is not that great. A little bit too smooth for my taste. I prefer Thiel CS 7.2 or B&W Nautilus.
2.) Even bass generate believable sound volume. Again transient such as guitar puck is not that fast. It is on romantic side.

My 2 cents:
This speaker is good to use YBA Passion or Gryphon Encore amplifier to push. Musical Fidelity kW is also very good too. I really miss it til I find B&W Nautilus.

Hi-End Speaker 3

Okay, back to discuss Hi-End speaker.

B&W Nautilus - The prestige.

Highlight:
To me, it is the best speaker in the world.

Pros:
Image, coherent, almost no box coloration.

1.) When I walk close to tweeter with low volume, sound came out from the nautilus tube make it surround the entire tweeter section. It is so life like almost can touch.

2.) No box coloration. I believe nautilus technology really works. Only Wilson Audio WATT come to mind close in this area.

Cons:
1.) Need 4 power amplifiers for each channel. So 8 power amplifiers in total for traditional 2 channel system.
2.) Hard to match good speaker cable. Due to high impedance.

My 2 cents:
This speaker is not good for tube amplifier (Forget Jadis). So far the best with Classe Audio CA-M400. KRELL FPB 600 and was very good too.

Hi-End Speaker 2

Hi-End Audio ≠ Hi-Fi (High Fidelity) Sound

Every speaker have their own coloration. Some less, some more.

Is Hi-End speaker higher fidelity than the average one? For me, yes.

In my opinion, price for performance almost flat out after $8000 USD per pair. Anything above 8K is a matter of taste.

Like you get knock by Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali, either one will make you ring. Just get bruise in different place.

In my opinion, the price for performance ratio goes steepest from $500 - $2000 USD.

Below 2K, Vandersteen 2ce Signature is my favorite. Small speaker, I pick Harbeth LS 3/5A or a mystery speaker I will introduce later.

So is the highest fidelity speaker the best? To me it is not.

To me I need some "favor" or "coloration" in the speaker.

In this way, I can listen more variety of music because music itself is more important than speaker.

Some of you may know. If you listen to Polygram recording using studio monitor like Genelec. After one to two hours, you will feel so tired.

Why, because the recording is not perfect. So the perfect speaker will reveal the bad recoding so mercilessly.

So the Hi-End speaker I am going to introduce have a good level of fidelity mix with a coloration that brings the music more "Favor". Like salt in the meat, to bring its favor out.

Enough definition. Now, let's talk about some Hi-End stuff.

My view to Hi-End Loudspeaker

Below are the best loudspeaker I ever encounter.

Some of those I am lucky enough to enjoy.

I will try to describe those speaker sound characteristic as objective as a robot can - ASIMO.

B&W Nautilus - The prestige



Cabasse Atlantis


MBL - 101 E


Infinity IRS V


Apogee - The Grand


JM Lab - Utopia Be



Dynaudio - Evidence Master



Duntech - Soverign

我對 Lexus IS 350 的看法. 展望未來 IS-F

究境 Lexus 凌志工程師知不知道 BMW 寶馬 3 Series 的成功原因嗎?

還是 Lexus 行政堅持他們一向造車的作風, 以靜,舒適為工司的造車旨標或哲學?

在 1990, 他們的口號 "Relentless Pursuit of Perfection", 在他們的車系上盪然無存.

寶馬 3 series 的成功在於 "Handling", "Ride", "Feel", "Luxury", "cabin space", "50/50 Weight Balance", "Brand Name" 及 "Price" 各種 factor 的平衡.

現在的 IS-350 巳經行快, 很 "powerful", 但沒有 enough "road feel", "steering feel", "smoothness of engine sound". 我覺得 Lexus 要取得 3-Series 市場先, 才對新 M3 作出攻勢. 現在太急進了!

我想 IS-F 將會是 IS 350 的 "higher power edition. 如果是要 "power", 人們可以買 "STi" or "Evolution", 為何買M3 或 AMG C63 呢.

希望 Lexus 除了"increase power" 外, 也能 improve 其他 factor. Achieve better balance hence reach "Relentless Pursuit of Perfection" 的口號吧!