OK, for reals this time: I won't be making any post till Monday, March 9th as I continue to enjoy all the awesomeness Colorado has to offer.

See you next week and there's some great deals we've been saving up and will try not to overwhelm ourselves or you on the Twitter feed.

Take Care,

AGD

Here's your Friday 5 MP3 albums for $5 at Amazon. be sure to check out the daily deal at the bottom!

• india.arie's Testimony Vol. 2: Love & Politics- Entertainment Weekly review
• Flo-Rida's Mail on Sunday - Rolling Stone review
• John Coltrane and Johhny Hartman - Wikipedia entry
• Melinda Doolittle's Coming Back to You - Entertainment Weekly review
• Coraline Movie Soundtrack - Suite 101 review

Jesse, a loyal AGD reader, sent in this great deal for a Shure KSM27 large diaphragm condenser mic for only $199.97. The mic has been reduced by $100 and you will only be able to find it for a massive .97 cents cheaper at Musician's Friend. However, our research has shown that every where else, the mic is still going for $299. It comes down to who you prefer to buy from at this as they both great warranties and free shipping, so I'm including both links. For the tax conscious, Musician's Friend is based in Medford, Oregon and Sweetwater in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Thanks, Jesse!

Buy @ Sweetwater for $199.97
Buy @ Musician's Friend for $199

Quickie specs:

• Cardioid polar pattern
• 20Hz-20kHz frequency response
• 150 ohms impedance
• 15dB attenuation
• Selectable frequency response: flat; -6dB/octave below 115Hz; -18dB/octave below 80Hz
• 14dB self-noise
• 138dB maximum SPL (133dB attenuated)
• 81dB signal-to-noise ratio
• Requires phantom power
  

The facts about Buddy Holly's incredibly short life and tragic death have been documented up and down and all over television, the web, and movies - even on AGD. So Amazon *finally* decided give us an excellant collection of 26 songs from his greatest hits to deep cuts. For only $2, you can own probably one of the greatest influences of Rock N' Roll and an artist who was truly years ahead of his time. Buy @ Amazon

It's been a while since we've posted from Front End Audio. They have a great coupon code promotion for the Rode NT2-A. Simply enter the coupon code Rode100 at check out and get $100 off this great studio mic ($399 everywhere else). I have personally used the NT-1's for stereo room mic'ing with great results. NT-2's improved greatly on their floor noise and output levels. Buy @ Front End Audio

Quickie Specs:

• HF1 1" edge terminated, gold sputtered, dual 5 um diaphragm capsule.
  
• Omni, Cardioid & Figure 8 polar patterns
  
• Flat, 80 Hz or 40 Hz high-pass filters
  
• 0 dB, -5 dB or -10 dB pads
  
• Complete with soft pouch and clip.
  
• Frequency range: 20 Hz ~ 20 000 Hz (see graphs over)
  
• Output impedance: 200 Ohms
  
• Signal/Noise ratio DIN/IEC 651: 87 dB
  
• Maximum SPL: 147 dB
  
• Sensitivity at 1 khz into 1 kOhm: -36 dB
  

You can thank Zach Braff for unleashing this onto the world. Whispery, adult contemporary pop songs about romantic stuff (fighting, making up, radda, radda, radda). Your mom would love it. I know, I could sell snow to Eskimos. Buy @ Amazon

Get U2's brand new album No Line on the Horizon for only $3.99! Rolling Stone has a good overview of the album here. Buy @ Amazon

The Internet is beginning to gain some momentum on some Seagate 1 TB Barracuda drives failing without notice as reported in the the Inquirer this January. We just read another notice in one of the audio forum groups, and saw another in a software company's forums as well (they're not blogs, so I'm wary to repost). The affected products are Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22.

Seagate has responded with a Knowledgebase article claiming this is a firmware issue that effects a small number of folks, which may be entirely true, but considering that they just settled a lawsuit in 2007 for false advertising, Seagate is quickly turning their once awesome brand name in the audio industry to dust. The Knowledgebase article includes links on how to check if your drive is one of the effected drives.