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Next up on "doing good shit for family" agenda: just gifted Karen's car (2018 Toyota RAV4) to my nephew and niece. Came up in a conversation last night that my brother was helping the kids look for a car. I asked what they were interested in, and based on his reply offered it up. Filled out the title paperwork and tax exemption for gift (though depending on blue book value I may have to pay a bit for being over the gift threshold). Kids came by and grabbed it today. The payback is "future considerations," but after chatting a bit my brother will get me a pair of Ardbeg 25 bottles he recently scrounged up at work. Yum!

@Knuckledragger - not kidding, I look forward to this post from you every year. I'll likely never own an LR again due to price/performance/practicality reasons but a guy can dream, right?

Chesky catalog now on Qobuz

I'm voluntarily getting up at 8AM tomorrow (a Saturday) to take photos of Land Rovers. ^ I wrote that last night and forgot to hit enter. Also I think I managed like two hours of sleep last night. With that said, I made it to the Vineyard Series LR meetup and took a ton of photos. More when I'm less tired.

A few of a real kitty. My son and GF's cat June, looking in on her while they are on vacation. You can see it a bit in the pics, the kids have a hot dog pillow that is awesome!

This vocal performance is amazing. Her control of dynamics, her vibrato (on the "ng"! Do you know how hard that is?!?), her range (those lows!), just...(chef's kiss)

I'll be in my bunk.

Related, Ozzy had a comeback in '88 with his hit song "Miracle Man" which is about Jimmy Swaggart.

Aisles, most recent EP, Obras de Los Jaivas (immediately listened to it a second time, it's great, especially 2nd and 4th tracks), now listening to 2023 album, Beyond Drama and it's great, too. Energetic, modern prog rock with lovely, lovely clean vocals

RIP Cleo. Cleo Laine, Britain's most successful jazz singer, dies aged 97 | Jazz | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/25/cleo-laine-britain-jazz-singer-john-dankworth-dies

In keeping with the theme of recent deaths: Mozart: Violin Concertos, Vol. 2 by Francesca Dego (2022) https://album.link/9hmfjqg7gqtbm Example: RIP, last week, Conductor Sir Roger Norrington (91). This had been in my queue since last year, but never made it to the top. Sad that it had to be posthumously. It turns out to be his last recording. He was not really a part of my musical journey. He recorded on labels and conducted works that I was not buying at the time they were being released. I have some recommendations from a classical music friend that I will check out in the future.

First Cousin to music legends Jerry Lee Lewis and Micky Gilly.

got my kgss clone - power supply here is +24v -24v and -275v and +275v whoever did this for some reason reduced the voltage... probably to reduce the heating on the transistors, which are not cooled at all... well, I drove it for about 10 hours - the transistors are not very hot... it is written on the boards - "To-A-AMP V1.0" \ "To-A-AMP-POV V1.0" kgss-signal-diode-mod ->>>> I found this - they advise trying different diodes... will try what else..? my main goal is - to get a sound similar to KGSSHV or KGSSHV Carbon - is it possible here - or am I asking too much from this? and yes - Of course I will install radiators on all transistors and screw the transistors to the case with plastic screws... but i bought it like this and now i'm trying to play with it for a while any advice or thoughts - is welcome for sure first I had a modified Stax SRD-7 I was not happy with its sound quality and bought this clone KGSS it already sounds better but I believe that I can get an even better sound but I don't know how... it seems the only way is to just buy KGSSHV or KGSSHV Carbon.... any advice or thoughts - is welcome for sure

Golden Earring - Twilight Zone

And i complained about an extra Macbook.. I get it, i get it.. Am not cheap, lol

Are most of the modern failures (X9000 etc) attributed to the driver coating too? RE X1: interesting it's wired out of phrase from the factory! i did feel my X1, whilst sounding good, had a strange soundstage - it was like two walls of sound - and quite different than the other Stax I had. Did you try swapping these connections and did you notice the headphone sounded better?

Too much money:

I may or may not have shed a tear for how much ❤️ I'm feeling at this. Well played, mi amigo de cerveza... well played.

🐔 🌶️ EDIT: Sky

Nice work!

Still haven’t tinkered with downsampling or much else but nature is putting on a show this week.