[Food and drink thread]

Sous-vide? Sounds a bit Heston and a bit of a faff for me.

Nothing simpler - about 2 minutes' preparation, a few more minutes in the frying pan, then you can leave the slow cooker to do its thing while you get on with your life.

I've also done spare ribs in a barbecue marinade by this method, and that really works well too.

[Food and drink thread]

Yesterday I cooked a shoulder of lamb in a sort of sous-vide method, which was fab.

• First I gave the meat a going-over with a skewer, then seasoned and seared it in a frying pan.
  
• The meat was then rubbed with smoked paprika and Sainsbury Moroccan spice mix.
  
• Then I sealed it in a plastic food bag, sucking out as much air as possible and popped it into water in the slow cooker for about 1 hour on 'full' and 5 hours on 'low'.
  
• I finished it in a regular oven for about 30 minutes, roasting it along with various diced root vegetables. While that was cooking, I reduced the lamb juices with some red wine to make a gravy, using the occasional spoonful to baste the meat.

The result was rich, tender and delicious.

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

It started off as a Rega Planar 3 but I had it moded at Inspire Hi Fi near Chesterfield. All that's left is the sub platter, bearing and motor.

I thought it might be something like that - it didn't look like any production turntable I'm familiar with. Mine's a bog-standard NAD 533 (effectively a re-badged Planar 2) with a Rega Elys cartridge and running through a Cambridge phono stage. It sounds pretty good for what it is.

I was going to upgrade to something better this month, but my new laptop and DAC used up the available funds. Next year...

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

I am very happy with my dac to but its not a patch on my ...

What make of turntable is that?

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

I dug around in the snarl of cables last night and found something to hook up my DVD Recorder to the V-DAC. I then played a recoded episode of 'The Transatlantic Sessions'. Very nice.

[Random internet link of the day]

Movies from an alternate Universe.

[Uninteresting Trivial Facts]

Facts you have just found out, but are useless for anything apart from posting on this thread #243: Liverpool FC's masseur is Sylvan Richardson, former guitarist with Simply Red.

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

Okay; the V-DAC II is a smart-looking, if utilitarian devoce, about the size of a thickish paperback book. Installing was a breeze. I had already installed WASAPI to bypass Windows internal mixer, which makes a big difference to sound quality on its own.

First up: Dusty Springfield - Son of a Preacher Man. WOW! Stunning sound - voices right there in the room. Then a bit of lo-fi, with an MP3 of the stereo mix of 'River deep, Mountain high'. Improvements were found here too, with more detail revealed from what is only a 128k file. The power chords of Bowie's 'Moonage Daydream' had startling impact and the subterranean bass from Bela Fleck's 'Flight of the Cosmic Hippo' was deep and natural-sounding. This is a definite step up from my previous DAC.

Computer audio for reasonable money and zero-fuss installation has come of age. Happy days.

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

I have a dacmagic and use it as an external dac for my CD player bypassing the majority of its electronics has really improved the dynamics and soundstage.I use a toshlink cable to connect the dac to the cd player.If you have the option with the V-Dac give it a try you might be surprised with the results. I have read some great reports of the little black box.

The DAC will mainly be used via the USB input from my laptop (I have about 500 gigabytes of music on an external hard drive), but my DVD recorder has a digital output, so I could use it to enhance my TV/DVD viewing too.

My old DAB tuner had a toslink connection - I may dig it out and give that a try, although reception was dodgy last time I used it. My current DAB only has analogue outputs.

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

Tonight, I will* be listening via a brand new Musical Fidelity V-DAC II, which arrived in the post this morning. It should be an upgrade on my existing DAC**, as it has an asynchronous USB input and upsampling, plus coaxial and optical inputs, so I can hook up other digital sources too.

*assuming installation is as simple as it is supposed to be, that is.

**already sounding pretty good, but limited to CD-quality bitrates and a single adaptive input.

[Uninteresting Trivial Facts]

I installed Windows 8 today. Scary in the number of changes and also how good it seems to be. I genuinely thought it would be abysmal but it's not.

Blimey, I've only just got Windows 7!

[Uninteresting Trivial Facts]

I now have a new bike

... white saddle, cos I am *that* cool.

That saddle's only partially white!

[Random internet link of the day]

Shoes made from leather are not uncommon, but this designer is a bit more creative with bits of dead animals.

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

Saturday's second-hand haul:

• The Mamas & the Papas - A Gathering of Flowers. Nice, and the photos in booklet reminds me once again what a gorgeous girl Michelle Phillips was.
  
• Three Dog Night - American Pastime. Not listened to this yet.
  
• James & Bobby Purify - Purify Brothers. Contains 'I'm your Puppet' and plenty of top choons besides.
  
• Yello - Flag. Excellent, plus I'd not heard the album version of 'The Race' before.
  
• Various Artists - Hide'n'Seek Again (16 Long Lost Beat & Garage Jewels 1964-1967). This is rather fab. The only artists I'd heard of before were Monks and Eric Burdon & the Animals. The other acts were completely new to me, but the compilation as a whole is excellent stuff, especially for those who cherish their copy of 'Nuggets'.
  

[Random internet link of the day]

Supercars: 10 heroic failures.

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

Soulful last night, with some or all from the following:

• Lamont Dozier - The ABC Years and Lost Sessions
  
• Nona Hendryx & Billy Vera - You have to cry sometime
  
• Sam Cooke - One Night Stand (Live At The Harlem Square Club, 1963)
  
• Burt Bacharach & Ronald Isley - Here I am
  
• And, from Rob Wasserman's 'Duets' album, the outstanding cover of 'Stardust', with a multitracked Aaron Neville backed solely by Rob's virtuoso bass. Worth seeking out.

[Random internet link of the day]

A cat that looks like Martin Scorsese.

[Random internet link of the day]

[Random internet link of the day]

Kabul FC's training session continues despite PA announcement calling for 'Mr Sands' to contact stadium head office.

[Random internet link of the day]

The relative size of things in the Universe.

[Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow]

A joke I spotted elsewhere:

A lot of snow up my end last night...

...

...

...but I suppose that's to be expected if you go to a party at Michael Barrymore's.

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

Dusty Springfield - Dusty in Memphis. Utterly brilliant. Hard to believe that 'Son of a Preacherman' barely troubled the Top Ten when it was released.

[Random internet link of the day]

People who link to stories from 'the Onion', but don't realise it is a satirical website -

Congressman John Fleming, for instance.

[Random internet link of the day]

What the USA's national debt looks like.

[What Are You Listening To - The Reckoning]

Ry Cooder & Manuel Galban - Mambo Sinuendo

The Nits - The Nits

Dub Colossus - The Ezana Stone Sessions. Remixes by various people, available as a free download on their FaceBook site.

Then off to the second-hand shop, where I got:

John Kay - All in good Time

Paul Simon - The Paul Simon Song Book

Peter Hammill - Fool's Mate

Stevie Wonder - Hotter than July