Luccus

TLDR: The Corsair Virtuoso Pro is good and becomes pretty impressive with a bit of EQ. If you need a microphone, I think this is pretty ideal, especially for the price. And even without the need for a (btw. detachable) mic it's still pretty good. Somehow.

About two months ago, I stumbled across a post on a German blog about Corsair Gaming, Inc's Virtuoso Pro. A gamer headset from a gamer company for gamers. Please excuse my snark, but that raises just about every red flag I can think of.

But somehow, it did pretty good in Igors measurements. Rtings also measured it and it still did well, but other than those two, there's just not a lot of good information on the thing.

About three weeks later it got a bit cheaper (130,-€, instead of the usual ~160,-€. It was 110,-€ last year too). Not exactly cheap, but fine for the assumed performance, and the included microphone solved a problem with my current setup.

By now, I've been running it for a month… and it's good. Not only is it good out of the box, it takes well to EQing. Which, for me, is the absolute kicker and opened the doors to combining it with pretty a cheap Fiio JA11 / JCally JM12 with flashed firmware as they come with built-in PEQ via Web-USB interface (the app is a burning pile of trash btw.) and microphone pass-through, just a lack in power. But the Virtuoso Pros are pretty sensitive anyway making it a pretty perfect match.

I'm currently running them with this EQ:

Preamp: -5.7 db
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 20 Hz Gain 4.8 dB Q 0.6
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 150 Hz Gain -4 dB Q 0.8
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 1500 Hz Gain 2.9 dB Q 2.3
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 2700 Hz Gain -2.5 dB Q 2.8
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3900 Hz Gain 6 dB Q 1.8

Here's my reasoning for this, if you are interested.

Imo, there are just two problems, both having to do with microphonics:

Corsair somehow thought a nylon sleeved cable was a good idea. Visually, I agree. Microphonically, it's terrible. I don't have a huge problem with it, but both the mic and the ear cups easily pick up any noise that comes with any movement of the cable on pretty much any surface. This is stupid. Secondly, unless you're a horse, the microphone has to be bent into an L shape. The arm is just too long and the microphone is prone to plosives. Not a good combination - even if the L-bend makes it easy to fix.

Other than that; I'd say they are pretty good headphones… with a microphone! Which is rather perfect for my use-case, where I switch from PC-gaming plus voice chat to my phone plus music and mix and match tasks as they come.

Edit: words & phrasing

Last year I managed to fertilize a single flower on my cherimoya tree, which is a bit difficult as the flowers are female in the morning and turn male in the evening. This year I will hopefully be able to have the tree in a south-facing window. So I'm hoping for proper fruiting next year.

Also, strangely enough, cherimoyas seem to do well in an indoor environment and don't seem to have any pest issues at all.

About two years ago I read up on chitin as a possible pest control/deterrent as I was always struggling with mealybugs and thrips, especially in spring, and buying IPMs was getting quite expensive.

I had the most problems with my banana tree (thrips) and my kumquats (mealy bugs). But since I added insect frass (in my case sheddings and droppings from zophobas) in the fall two years ago, this problem disappeared almost miraculously. Since then I have added a small handful every spring and haven't seen a single thrip or mite on any of my plants.

Sooo… idk, it definitely gets a "worked for me".

The plants are: a cherimoya, kumquats, figs, a banana, two monsteras, and a bunch of pitahayas (although the cuttings are only 1 year old and haven't found a permanent home yet), hoyas and a small pineapple.

Looking forward to hear everyones experiences with this!

I finally managed to pollinate my cherimoya!

For the uninitiated: Pollinating cherimoyas is a bit tricky, because their flowers only bloom for a single day. During this time, they are initially female and can absorb pollen, but only turn male in the evening to harvest pollen from.

To pollinate them successfully, you have to sacrifice at least one flower, take its pollen and hope that the next flower opens before the pollen is no longer viable.

They also develop large velvety leaves:

TLDR: Citrus keeps turning black and oozing resin. But I can't find the problem. I thought it must be root rot, but they look perfectly healthy:

Long version: Because my first and second citrus trees fell victim to root rot, I started using a very airy substrate made of pine bark, perlite and some humus/worm castings in a 5:1:1 ratio for all my plants (figs, pineapple, cherimoya, monstera, etc.) with little adjustment. You may recognize this as 'aroid mix'. But it works surprisingly well in my indoor space with a west-facing window and terracotta planters (and my tendency to overwater).

But I can't wrap my head around citrus.

It always starts with rapid growth, followed by very suddenly dropping and crisping leaves, black stems and finally death.

I thought I must be root rot again, which I need to mind during winter. But today, when I dumped my fifth (!) tree, I found only perfectly healthy roots and nice smelling substrate.

I think it must be a pathogen… but what? I am at a loss. I keep killing my citrus trees and I don't know why. :'(

EDIT: replaced "5:1:1 mix" with "5:1:1 ratio" for clearification.

One of my smaller monstera pots keeps growing these little mushrooms and I'm wondering what exactly they are.

They come after every watering and dry off pretty quickly in about half a day or so.

EDIT: They are 'fairy inkcaps'. Thanks to Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.net!