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working through glitches and continuing to make good progress, I’ve now passed the 50% line on my fundraising goal and certainly appreciate all the support received so far!

Unfortunately UK only, but…

RIP Frank Beard drummer for ZZ Top. The band is down to one original member(!)

Excellent suggestion - have started to slowly learn Proteus, that would be a useful exercise.

while you are at it, use the 3rd generation sicfet for the current source. requires extra 12v power supply.

So, a few months back I reached out to Simmconn as I though this pentode experiment would be very nice to try and he very kindly shared pcbs for the project. A couple of other projects got in the way right then but at the end of my summer vacation I had some free time and this was the perfect project to do: Obviously a bit of tidying up remains (both in the amp and behind it ), but it behaves very well and the sound is really good - a bit more bite compared to the EL34 Carbon GG but with the same tonal balance. Definitely a project worth pursuing should you be looking for something new to try. And a big shoutout to simmconn for finding these tubes and developing this version!

⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ ৢ؞ ؖ ꉺლ (aka Wingdings aka Four Tet’s) ʅ͡(̸̢̛̼)̸͚͛:̴͓̑:̸͎̂ ҉ ͡ ͞ ͞ ͞ ҉● ࿀ ● ࿀ ● ҉⃝ ⃝͢ ͞ ͘ ͞⃝̕ ͢ ̛ ⃝ ̸ ̡ ͢⃝̧ ͡͡ ̀ ̧ ̢⃝͜ ҉ ͞ ͞ ⃝͞ ͘ ͞ ͡⃝ ⃝҉҈҉҈҉҈҉҈҉҈҉ :̶̢͙͆(̷̮͂)̵̳̊( ҈͜͢ͅ l̡ ̡͌ Ɵʅ͡(̸̢ Ex. (༼༭ຶཬɷԾㅍㅍ)აِّّْٕٔٓٓ ˓˚✧₊⁎❝᷀ົཽ*ೃ:(꒡͡  ❝᷀ົཽ ꉺლ༽:̸͎̟̯̂̓̌:̶̢͙͙͕̠̩͆(̷̮͍͚̫͚͂̍)̵̳̗̊(　̟̞̝̜̙̘̗̖҉̵̴̨̧̢̡̼̻̺̹̳̲̱̰̯̮̭̬̫̪̩̦̥̤̣̠҈͈͇͉͍͎͓͔͕͖͙͚͜͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢ͅ l̡̡̡ ̡͌ Ɵʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡(̸̢̛̼̞̭͋ͅ)̸͚̰͛̔̾̀̿͒͂v̴̢͚͚͎ȯ̶̞̮͖̑̈́)̸̳̥̰̜̥̺̐ͅ)̴͎̜͍̱̋̌͋̓̾̚ ̷̨ ☼⃝◞⊖◟ ∷፨◉☼⃝◞⊖◟☼⃝ꉂꆭ(☼⃝❁)ᕗ　　҉⃝ ʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡　̟̞̝̜̙̘̗̖҉̵̴̨̧̢̡̼̻̺̹̳̲̱̰̯̮̭̬̫̪̩̦̥̤̣)

It must have been a distorting mirror universe You could almost say it's ...

I have been meaning to post this for awhile, but at the Solid Sound Festival earlier this summer I came across a taper with binaural mics on his ears who I thought of as the Mirror Universe / Evil @Grahame . He only vaguely reminded me of Good Grahame and I couldn't get a shot from the front. No offense G-Man, but I chuckled when the image of Evil Spock popped into my head.

Music on TIDALCerrone - 3 - SupernatureListen to 3 - Supernature on TIDALI was looking at other artists who did the continuous groove thing (initially inspired by a listening of Jean Michel Jarre's Equinoxe Pts. 5-7, but also: New Order's The Village/5 8 6, MacArthur Park, Philip Oakey/Giorgio Moroder side 1, &c.), and Google AI turned me on to this disco suite. Suites. Sweets. Whatever. Kinda how I felt when Steve Hackett released his first classical guitar recording, Bay of Kings. But I eventually came to love it, just like everything else in his discography.

44 years ago today the first CD was produced. Related: https://pitchfork.com/story/columbia-house-is-shutting-down/

Oops, wrong thread

Sudamericano by Leonardo Andersen (2026) https://open.qobuz.com/album/ytv241s3u2iqc Example: Nothing really groundbreaking here, but very nice. Well recorded and well played.

The internet's come a long way in the last 17 years. ... or has it?

I recently acquired a dpa 4017 shotgun but I haven’t used it in the field yet. those tascam recorders are pretty long in the tooth at this point, but I haven’t used them to compare to other options

PetaPixel's useful primer video on shotgun mics started me down the rabbit hole again: Apples and oranges, I don't have a fancy camera, so researching field recording stereo mics again brought me to binaural microphone rigs (like the Roland CS-10EM or DPA 4560) and the the Shure MV88+ and Rode iXY-L stereo microphones for iPhone: https://audioservices.studio/review/microphones-for-iphone For an all-in-1 - the Tascam Portacapture X6 looks reasonable for an all-rounder (this is its bigger brother, the X8):

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Yeah, I'm not surprised as they are essentially a pile of caps stacked on top of each other. They are the easy solution but there are ribbon cables out there. I really like the 20AWG silicone rubber one which was rated to 600V but in did far more in testing. The new cable on the EH-1's is excellent, very much like the Wide PC-OCC Stax cable but with smaller conductors. Even the Monolith electrostatics from Monoprice had custom cables on them back in the day. Btw. here is a picture of the ebay Stax braided cable for posterity:

I’ve bought some braided cables on Taobao，even the best among them has a capacitance per unit length roughly double that of the parallel-style cables used from Stax

I'm enjoying this channel -- lots of cool unique versions. https://youtube.com/@caffinated80s-tt2oc That version of Moving in Stereo at the top is (fire)

Pet Shop Boys’ All The Young Dudes / West End Girls (with the Manchester Camerata)

I thought I'd see if any of these cables are out there and what do we have here: Ebay Stax cable I bought one to do some testing on it but who thinks those wires can handle 1kV and are low capacitance...

Although I live in a few blocks from Moffett Field/NASA Ames/Google's private airport I rarely go through security. Strangely they get a little nervous with random people going "off course" and taking photos. ;) Plus the Space Bar has been closed for a while. An author was speaking this weekend though so swung by and snapped a few shots afterward. Leica SL2-S and, what's been mostly glued on lately, Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Double Aspherical "11873".