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so more than a few people are getting clobbered with 300b that don't even come close to the original published western electric document. of the 7 different varieties i have, only the original 1960's manufactured western electric comes even close to the spec. and the new western electric tubes come in low vgk and high vgk versions. (The B series tubes) just means you have to mess with the resistors. and yep its a major pain in the ass. the el34 original version pretty much worked +/- a few volts no matter what tube you stuffed in there as long as they all from the same manufacturer. or build a megatronxxl now known as optimus-prime. more money, but less of a balance problem.

Mouser is legit, ‘Mauser’ is probably not. The one in the first picture is more likely a fake. Even without a known genuine sample for comparison, you can tell by at least two factors: The four top corners of the plastic molding are rounded and inconsistent, suggesting that the package may have been sanded. The ST logo is a raster image composed of parallel horizontal lines, suggesting that it is a scanned reproduction. A genuine product would have a vector artwork since it is the manufacturer’s original design. Other factors such as the laser marking font or etching depth can vary from manufacturer from manufacturer and even from factory to factory. You would need a known genuine sample for comparison. A low cost transistor tester such as DY294 can test breakdown voltages up to 1kV and measure hFE at different collector current settings. You can choose one that’s close to the transistors’ actual operating point. DY294 Digital Transistor DC Parameter Tester Field Effect Tube Tester Multifunction Semiconductor Tester https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqGVojt

get yourself a high voltage transistor tester and make an adapter board or solder wires to test subject. in this case it absolutely has to have a breakdown voltage of about 640. but in any case >600 the second part is likely genuine. no one is going to pirate a $1 part. the big hfe change i am beginning to see more and more of.

Chris Rea - The Road to Hell

I have an additional question for those who bought it for Mauser. Can you trust it 100? I bought stn9360 and I see a big difference between the two pieces I have left, which I bought some time ago. in the first photo with hFE -150 in photo 2, what mouser sent. here brand badge as a fake. hFE -341, and there are 15 of them.

How much offset can you trim away with the trimmers? I guess one need about 15K to get rid of +10V offset (with 2 x 500K resistors in the voltage divider).

Today the 7.5 kΩ resistors I ordered arrived. To swap all eight cathode resistors I pretty much had to remove every screw on the chassis. Long story short, the offset is much improved, going from –100 V to about +10 V. Big thanks to @JoaMat for the help! For me, this voltage is acceptable, but if someone wants to get even closer to 0 V offset, I think 7.0 kΩ might be the sweet spot. Also worth mentioning: the G-grid adjustable pot on the board offers around 2–4 V of Vgk trimming range. My 300Bs are running at ±400 V, since I feel 450 V is pushing things a bit too much. I think the main reason(Correct me if I'm wrong) for the original –100 V offset was that the cathode resistance was too low, allowing too much current. This made the anode current too high, and because the EL34 CCS isn’t perfect, it compensates by lowering its voltage output. With the original 3300 Ω resistors, I saw the B+ drop from 400 V to 370 V under load. One more note: after increasing the cathode resistor, Vgk sits around –80 V. For safety, I’d recommend replacing the original 220 uF/100V cathode bypass caps with 160V rated ones. More pictures will be posted later.

It doesn't help that some of the late-model Intel Macs were serious dogs... I looked at an ailing 2017 MacBook (rebooted itself over and over) and they seem to be notorious for logic board failures. The 2019 16" MacBook Pro had a self-destructing SSD interface that fried data... not the kind of quality you'd want for spending $4,000 (and the butterfly-switch keyboards had enough problems that I had to bring a few into service). AppleCare is a quandary - it's great if you can afford it, but it's so expensive that it's difficult to justify. The current lineup is great for performance and battery life and the Mac Mini is one of the few inexpensive products. I think the base M4 is enough power for the vast majority of users - just get enough memory and storage for your needs.

The base model M4 Mini is basically the best deal in computing right now. It's so good that it has more or less killed the used Mac market. Except for a few exotics, it's difficult to sell Intel based Macs at all. I'm seeing them pile up on the MV Stuff 4 Sale group. No one is selling Apple Silicon models.

Deck, Farmer's Market Porchetta Sandwich.

I don’t get the “Apple is expensive” rhetoric. They’re comparable in price and have better performance and features than other first tier manufacturers.

I have to agree. There are lots of things wrong with Apple (and not just from 2025), but when things are working, Macs can be brilliant. I've been contemplating the upcoming Window 10 shutdown with some trepidation - Microsoft gave users a lifeline with an extra year of support, using a Microsoft account (and their Backup cloud service), but that's a deal with the devil, where you hand them all your data. What could possibly go wrong? I spent nearly half an hour looking at Microsoft Edge browser settings and I think it is sending a ton of private data to Microsoft. Many of the settings are extremely disturbing - it is using some kind of AI to "help" write your text and "accelerate" your browsing. Clearing your cache and cookies won't work any more, from what I can tell - I think it is retaining more information elsewhere, both on your system and in the Microsoft cloud. Windows 11 has been getting more and more scary, with Microsoft ramming Copilot, OneDrive, Teams and other stuff users don't want into the operating system along with new terrifying bugs and increasing surveillance with every update. You can attempt to keep abreast of all the problems - PCWorld does a good job documenting the carnage: https://www.pcworld.com/windows/news Google just forced Gemini AI on Android users - you have to opt out if you don't want Gemini sending messages, initiating phone calls or setting timers on your behalf. They're also cutting battery power to the Pixel 6a phone battery. It's all sounding really dystopian. On the Linux side, things are slowly getting better. It's still an arcane system for non-nerds, but each year the mainstream distros get easier to install and run for newbies. I wouldn't recommend stepping into Linux for non-hobbyists - I've installed Ubuntu and it's been mostly OK but you still need to know what you're doing and avoid running a new update version for over half a year. I was able to find software equivalents for many popular Windows and macOS apps, but I think Linux evangelists are misguided when they claim that it's a suitable desktop system for mainstream users. Going back to Apple - it's apparent that they have a lot of strengths as a vertically-integrated company with a well-developed ecosystem, but the high price of their hardware and relatively small market share can cause problems for home and small business customers. The sad tale Pars posted above about the M4 Mac Mini could be a warning sign.

DTS gonna be EPIC next spring!

Just dropping in to say Hi and glad to see F1 fans still here. A fairly decent season so far, hoping Ferrari can pull their thumbs out. Cheers!

Blasphema?!? {...or science...}

Things have been so chaotic recently that I'm not sure I mentioned this or not: My M1 lappy had a major problem. First one of the TB ports stopped working, then the keyboard began to fail. I lost use of left arrow key, which was a nightmare. I am constantly using arrow keys to highlight text. I began to get the "MacOS doesn't recognize this keyboard" messages ...on a laptop. I had the option to renew my AppleCare this past February and didn't. Big mistake. It cost me three times that to get this machine fixed. With that said, when one gives APPL nine hundred fucking dollars, they really deliver. They sent me a super neat box to ship it out and got the machine back to me within 5 business days. Here's the punchline. It's an entirely/mostly new machine with my SSD in it. I am on this laptop more or less constantly. The only objects I own where I know the nicks and scratches better are things like my Canon EF 50mm F/1.8 Mk I that I've had for 20 years. Apple is a weird as shit company and I could write a book about them. It'd be titled "Why Apple Sucks Balls, But I Swear On Steve Jobs' Smug Grin, Windows And Android Are Worse At Every Fucking Turn."

Some interesting vehicles at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The Megavalanche Alpe d'Huez is my favorite race to watch.

Unholy carp, that hits hard. I don't usually listen to lyrics, but because of the title was intrigued enough, and ... I mean...just... Limerence was a very important word to me in the late 90's, as learning of its existence helped me to get over a girl. Learning there was a word for what I was feeling let me know that I wasn't alone in feeling it.

I just watched Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (season 1) over the last week...for free on YouTube. Back to studying...

weeee

150ma for -60 50ma for -250

Lucy Dacus - Limerence

Дякую. Thank you very much for your support. sorry, 150ma spec for -60 or -260 ?