“Digital audiophile” used to be somewhat of an oxymoron, but today digital music is gaining the respect of many diehard audiophiles. Unfortunately, digital music will sound pretty bad if you aren’t careful. You may also be under the impression that a good audio setup will cost you an arm and a leg. Have no fear. There are several simple and relatively affordable ways to dramatically improve the sound of your digital setup. Here are some recommendations to improve your system and maximize the quality of your digital music:

1. Buy Decent Headphones
This is the first step. If you don’t have headphones capable of producing great sound, don’t bother following any of the following steps. You won’t be able to tell the difference. Based on my limited experience and research, I recommend the Sennheiser HD580 audiophile headphones. They will run you about $150, but you won’t be disappointed. I recommend headphones over speakers because you would have to spend close to $1,000 to get comparable sound out of speakers.

2. Use an Amplifier
Now that you have decent headphones you need to make sure you can give your headphones a quality signal. That means you need an amplifier. While this has the potential of breaking the bank, you can actually get by pretty cheap if you shop wisely. For portable use I use a homemade amplifier that I bought off Ebay for about $25. Do a search on Ebay for “CMOY headphone amp” on Ebay. For home use I have an old Sony Receiver that I got for under $50. If you feel ambitious, you can [build your own tube amplifier from a kit](http://www.retrothing.com/2006/05/build_a_stereo_.html) for under $200.

3. Encode in Apple Lossless
Dump all the MP3s you downloaded off Kazaa. Not only are they illegal but also the quality of most “Free” music is not good enough. This is because the bitrate of those files is often kept low to provide smaller file size for quicker downloads. If you want better files, your best bet is to re-encode your cds in a lossless format. ITunes defaults to 128kbps if I remember right, so you will have to change some settings to get the “lossless” format. To change your import settings in iTunes, simply go to your preferences and under “Advanced” you can select “Apple Lossless Encoder” in the importing section. The downside is your files will be pretty large. Another good method is to use the AAC Encoder and set a custom bit rate of 192kbps. That will make somewhat smaller files without sacrificing too much quality.

4. Listen to your iPod Instead of iTunes on Your Computer
Your music will sound much better going coming out of your iPod than if it were coming out of your computer - even when playing the exact same music files. I was very surprised to learn this fact, but it is very true. The reason is that computers are noisy places. The iPod is remarkably quite and has a very high rating for giving a clean signal. Using the battery power is better than plugging the iPod in. When your iPod is “docked” noise will be introduced. This is another reason to use an amp because it will preserve battery power since you won’t need to have the volume maxed out.

5. Simplify Your Setup
It is possible to listen to my turntable through my computer, but the sound suffers because the setup is so complex. The rca cord of my turntable connects to an rca to mini jack cable which connects to my iMic. The iMic goes to the USB jack on my computer. After passing through some software, it goes out of my computer and into my amp. Finally it ends up in my headphones. By the time the music goes from my turntable to my headphones it has passed through so many components, the sound sucks. In fact, when I used this setup I actually picked up a radio station with the signal. I have no idea how, but it during the silence I could clearly hear an AM station. When compared to the turntable going straight into my amp, it is a night and day difference in sound quality. The lesson is to simplify your setup as much as you can. Don’t use any more cords or adapters than you have to. For the cords and adapters that are necessary, it also a good idea to invest in the premium ones.

6. Trust Your Ears
Your setup will be different, and it will take plenty of testing to optimize your setup. Trust your ears, and have fun. These are the things that have worked for me, and I hope they help you. If anyone has some additional tips, I would love to hear them.

My iPod has started acting weird lately. I was trying to play an album that I purchesed off iTunes (In the Reins, by Calexico and Iron and Wine). My iPod would play most of the tracks off the album and skip some of the others. The “bad” tracks would show up for a second and then advance to the next track without playing any of the song. In fear that my harddrive was going bad, I ran the diagnostic mode tests on my 3g iPod. That is scary in itself, especially when some of the tests take a long time to perform. Luckily everything checked out ok. Next, I checked the files in iTunes. Nothing seemed unusual. I deleted them off my iPod and put them back on. Same problem. What the heck? I decided to change the files in iTunes. I changed the name from “Calexico & Iron and Wine” to “Calexico and Iron and Wine.” I removed everything except the track name, track number, artist, and album. When I put the files back on my iPod, to my surprise they all played. I suppose it was an anomaly, but I thought I would share the story in case one of you runs into the same problem. This kind of thing never happens with my vinyl!

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If you eat too much McDonald’s in during your pregnancy, there is a good chance your baby could be born looking like the photo above. Actually, I think it is supposed to be Ronald McDonald as a baby, but that’s beside the point. The first two brands my son could recognize were Wal-Mart and McDonalds. Oh, and Pepsi. I have fond memories of putting a can of Pepsi in the middle of our coffee table and watching my son go in endless circles around it. It would have made a great Pepsi ad. Anyway, there is a lesson to be learned there, but I am not quite sure what it is. If you come up with something let me know…

Remember that Seinfeld episode where George is afraid that if his two worlds (his dating world and his friend world) would collide it would be the end of him? “A George divided against itself cannot stand!” Well, blogging is kind of another world for me. Almost noone in my daily life reads my blogs. I rarely go out of my way to talk about it, and I doubt that there is much here that would interest them anyway. I actually like it that way. It is kind of a fear of “world’s colliding” thing.

Recently I was invited to lunch by someone who had read my blog. Not only had he read my blog, he read a post I made that criticized him. Needless to say, I was a little nervous about meeting him. What can be said in private that can’t be said on a blog? Plus, he had the ability to do plenty of homework on me, while I had no way of knowing what to expect from him. If he hadn’t of been persistent in his invitation, I would have been more than happy to keep the blog world separate from the physical world. (Sidenote: I read a post earler last week that said, “If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they would punch you in the face.” I think the same thing could be said about blogs. I don’t know if that is necessarily a bad thing, but blogging does have the fortunate side effect of me not getting beat up when I tick someone off!)

Well, I went through with it. I let the worlds collide, and to my delight, it was a very pleasant lunch. We easily worked out our differences, and the conversation made a smooth transition from conflict to recognition of similar beliefs and attitudes. Actually, I couldn’t believe how much we had in common! If there is a point to my story it is this: If you have a blog and are ever given the opportunity to meet a reader, jump at the opportunity. Let the world’s collide! You will survive and you might even meet someone that you have more in common with than you might expect.

“Dad, I onna bake a kae Pleez on bed.”

To translate for my son that means, “Dad, will you please make a cave for me on the bed?” I have been making alot of caves lately. We pile up the pillows and then crawl under them and imagine we are inside a cave. Rian tells me all the animals he sees and what they are doing. He loves this game and it is about the only thing he wants to do lately. Why? Well, I wonder if “making caves” is a somewhat universal human activity. I remember in college hearing one of my favorite professors (Don Dynneson) talk about how children love to make forts and hiding places. He thought that these structures represented a subconscious desire to return to the womb. Think about it: Surrounded by softness. Warmed by cozy bodies. Light colored as it passes through the blankets. A place where worldly problems don’t exist. Feeling his heart beat and hearing him breathe. Being connected to someone who you love more than anything else. Knowing you are loved. It really is a wonderful feeling, and I think that Dynneson’s “womb” observation is very close to the truth. Making caves with Rian makes me appreciate the bond that mothers must have with their children. Happy Mother’s Day!

Advice about how to land a job seems to keep popping up. David Kadavy points us to “How Not to Interview” on YouTube. (The bird caller cracks me up!) On a similar theme, the podcast over at BADG is worth a listen where Nate Voss explains why getting a job is like dating. All I know is I am very happy to be employed and not looking for work. Come to think of it, I am glad not to be dating or hiring either.

After making another round of tweaks to adrian3.com I thought of one piece of advice for anyone thinking about starting a blog: Don’t wait until you have your templates perfect to start your blog. Building a “perfect” website takes an incredible amount of time. If you wait until you have the perfect templates and every little feature you are wasting valuable blog time. Get your site up and running and worry about perfecting it later. For one thing, this allows you to start building content. It also lets you understand what your content will be and how it is going to work. Once you know that you can build your design accordingly. I would even go as far as to say don’t start customizing your site until you have written for a while. Use one of the default templates to start out with and slowly build and modify it until you have a decent site. Think of designing a blog as a neverending redesign. Never stop thinking of ways to improve your blog’s layout. That is the philosophy I have taken with Be A Design Group. I have constantly tweaked the site and still have a ton of little things I would like to do to improve it. If I waited until my templates were perfect BADG never would have started. So what are you waiting for? Start your blog today.