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Cheers Sir TICE! -- Happy Birthday. May all your wood dreams come true.. -

Have a TICEtastic birthday Steve! Cheers!

I didn't know where to put this, but they're re-releasing the Blu-ray disc: https://www.thesdeshop.com/products/tears-for-fears-the-hurting-limited-edition-sde-exclusive-blu-ray-audio The surround disc was originally released in 2023 (I haven't heard it) - every so often, I like to dive down that audiophile remastering rabbit hole 🐇🕳️: https://www.thesdeshop.com/products/tears-for-fears-the-hurting-limited-edition-sde-exclusive-blu-ray-audio At what point are they making redundant product? I might pick up the regular 1999 CD remaster, but this seems kind of excessive. Bonus hole - BACCH crosstalk cancellation filter (one commenter mentions listening on a sound bar on page 6): https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/theoretica-applied-physics-bacch-stratosonic-surround-renderer/

Thought this was worth a re-listen, given the movie release:

Even as a 10 year old, I thought this was great.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights icon, dies at 84. I met him in 1999 or so by being at the wrong place at the right time. I worked for Amherst College in the Media Center in the late 90s. It was a lousy job that paid terribly. I never saw $10 an hour, and my boss had to keep my hours under 20 a week or the college would be forced to give me benefits. That meant I'd have to take entire weeks off but also get called in last minute because I was needed. At that time, Jesse Jackon's star had ridden pretty high and he hadn't yet been rocked by any scandals. He was giving a talk at Amherst College. The largest auditorium space they had (outside of the goddamn gymnasium, which was an echoey nightmare) was Johnson Chapel. I was tasked with getting the sound running, but I wasn't allowed to wire up the speaker with a lavalier mic. Filthy peasants like me weren't supposed to get near the important people. Joke was on them, because Jesse wanted a conventional podium mic. Long and not super interesting story short, I was late getting to one of the locations. I arrived huffing and puffing. There was extra security on campus because Jesse Jackson was a big deal but the cops were still pretty chill (this was pre-9/11 and the age of paranoia). The town police had no idea who I was of course, the College ones knew me. I told one of them "I'm here to do sound, where are they?" He said "they're in the The Octagon, doing a press conference." I jogged over there and went in the front door. The press conference was in what had been the Octagon's library. One part of the downstairs was home to "The Afro-American Department" (the sign had not changed since the 70s) but it was too small even for a press conference. The library was upstair and the steps to are spiral (octagonal) and very creaky. I knew if I went up them, even slowly, I'd make such a racket everyone would be staring at me as I entered. So I stood there and waited. Next thing I knew there was a very tall black man, standing over me with his hand out. I hurriedly shook it and "uuh nice to meet you Mr. Jackson." The entire press gaggle and all the various dignitaries followed him down. Once the scrum had cleared, I went over to Johnson Chapel and found my boss and his (full time) assistant working. He gave me the look of death. I quickly told him the above story and he was sufficiently amused that he didn't admonish me for being late. There was a group from Poland that was video taping the talk. They had one guy who spoke English. He asked me for an audio tap from our sound board. I said "Yeah, not problem. It's mic output only however." He said "I had better get our sound engineer." The engineer spoke no English, but I pointed at the output that said "mic" and he nodded. The English speaking Pole said to my boss "the universal language of sound engineers."

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/17/963124454/jesse-jackson-civil-rights-leader-rainbow-coalition-dies ☹️

Had a crazy commute to work this morning. I thought that I had been transported back to South Texas. Thunder, lightning and rain coming down at a volume the windshield wipers couldn't keep up with.

Go on, squirt a few!

"Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!" Thank you for that reminder!

The man just wanted to find a good beach to surf. Something with a good break. RIP, Col. Killgore.

I love that movie and True Grit (1969) has one of my all-time favorite exchanges

Time to watch my favorite Robert Duvall movie, "The Great Santini." RIP to one of the greats. Need to fit in "To Kill a Mockingbird" too.

RIP Consigliere

Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now and Godfather star, dies aged 95 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/feb/16/robert-duvall-dies-apocalypse-now-godfather-mash-to-kill-a-mockingbird?CMP=share_btn_url

Robert Duvall, Oscar-Winning Acting Legend, Dies at 95.

Someone told me D3a is a good tube, Did this in LTspice… Modified Megatron – one less capacitor in signal path and no feedback. Works in LTspice. That's always something.

Old, but never gets old.

Does anyone have any ideas what kind of damping Stax used in the Sigma? It looks like some kind of material like cotton wool but I'm not sure.. I'm thinking of replacing it, but what... it seems like it's not that simple... it looks like mineral wool... and it looks like they manually adjusted the frequency response of each Sigma using this wool... and i can't just take it out and put something else in...

for scale None of those chairs are in the sweet spot. But I did find a room for Ric.

Thank you, n-maher! I did see where a gent sent one in to be repaired by Niche. @luvdunhill I did not clean mine frequently, but it is worth going in there every now and again IMHO. Very easy to do and there's a few vids out if you like having a reference. HS

On a trip last weekend up the north shore of Lake Superior with my girlfriend and a wolf crossed the highway between Grand Marais and Grand Portage. My girlfriend rolled down the window and snapped a picture. I lived in the Northland most of my life but never thought I'd see one in the wild like this.

Just checking in on Tim .... yup, he can still play.