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I'll have to look again but I don't recall any Made in China labels on any of the Antek transformers I have bought. Antek's pricing is quite reasonable, and their quality is good from my experience.

Listened to a couple tracks -- this is great! Thanks for turning me on to them. Music on TIDALDakhaBrakhaSee the releases of DakhaBrakha on TIDALMusic on TIDALДахаБрахаSee the releases of ДахаБраха on TIDAL

Well that's too bad. For reference, my hearing damage is bad enough that I can't tell the difference than when it's just my hearing. At least shoegaze still sounds like shoegaze.

This is a not so funny incident locally around 10-15 years ago, where an elderly lady put the car in reverse instead of forward, and pushed the pedal. Shot back and pinned someone by the legs against a brick wall. Life changing injuries.

I wasn’t able to photograph the "buck moon" earlier because of the heat and heavy dust in the air. But this weekend, the conditions cleared up, and I managed to capture something. I’m happy that the different colors on the surface are visible. PD. Until they install fiber optic cable at my house in the South, my internet access is limited, and I can’t connect very often.

DakhaBrakha....holy shitballs were they great! Highest recommendation! Great musicianship, and a massive connection with the audience (they played a small space in Portsmouth NH, they've played here before and a good chunk of the audience had seen them before). I didn't know they did this, but they auctioned off two paintings (and a pair of drumsticks) to benefit Ukraine. I won one of the paintings, and got backstage for a pic with the band and to tell them of my partial Ukrainian heritage! A wonderful night, filled my heart!

Chinese products are OK, but much cheaper buy directly from Taobao.

I dunno, maybe. Appreciate the concern, but some of my faves were struggles initially, so I at least want to semi-understand, before dismissing. The vocals, so prevalent, feel like syrup on everything at this point. And I love My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and most of Sigur Rós. Anyway, easier to swallow, except requiring stamina... Bill Evans, Last Waltz (the last concert).

^^ interesting. I like the tune. I have the new album in my queue, but have not touched it yet. -- So, I listened to 'petal', and it was coming off strange on my headphones. Like it was over driven, sounding like woofer buzz. I have had this before by actually overdriving speakers. So I checked out the first track 'kiss me' and it had some of the same qualities. I double checked by pushing these through my emotivas a bit and yep it sounds like they made a choice. Engineered by Lou Carrao with Max Martin all over the place on the album. Maybe they think it is a 'raw' sound, but it just sounds muddy to me. Regardless I do like the song itself, self actualizing and pissed. It has not turned me off of the album, I will probably listen and report in the other thread. thanks Dusty.

Goes hard 🙃

Usually nothing wrong with Chinese product, unless you pay top dollar. The actual FOB price will be rather low - which is why most of everything now comes from China. Top UK brand toaster and kettle here are both China made. Goes on and on....

Before Psychedelia, There Was SPACE AGE Music

Both the power supply and amplifier chassis are approximately 290 mm × 400 mm × 90 mm, so it's actually fairly compact considering it's a full-size T2. The power supply uses five GRHV regulators and features plug-in bias daughter boards, making it easy to switch between different bias voltages. Right now it supports both Normal Bias and Pro Bias outputs. The PSU also includes about a 50sec high volt soft start. In addition, there's an AC inrush limiter on the mains input. After roughly one second, a relay bypasses the current-limiting resistor, reducing the inrush current seen by both the filter capacitors and the tube heaters during startup. On the amplifier side, most of the passive components are SMD, which helped reduce the overall PCB and chassis size. The amplifier topology stays very close to Kevin's original T2 schematic, but I added support for several different implementation options to make the design more flexible. It supports three different CCS configurations:10M90, 10M90S + DN2540, and the original T2 complex CCS. The active battery section is also configurable. It supports: LED string reference, LT1021 reference. For the 2SK216 and 2SJ79 positions, I added an extra pin so they can be replaced directly with TTC and TTA devices without modifying the PCB. The overall goal wasn't to redesign the T2, but rather to preserve the original circuit while making it easier to build, maintain, and adapt as some of the original parts become increasingly difficult to source. The chassis is CNC machined by a local machine shop. One detail I paid particular attention to was the top cover of the amplifier chassis. I designed it so that the EL34 tube sockets sit perfectly flush with the top panel, which I think gives the amplifier a much cleaner appearance. Additional ventilation slots were added in the center section for airflow. The side heatsinks are sandwiched between the top and bottom panels. This not only gives the chassis a cleaner look and prevents the sharp heatsink fins from being exposed, but also makes it much less likely that you'll scratch your hands when moving the amplifier. To make sure the heatsinks can still dissipate heat efficiently, I also added ventilation openings in the top and bottom panels wherever they cover the heatsinks. I've also been thinking about turning this project into a group buy, although I'm not sure how much interest in the T2 still exists today. The main motivation would be to reduce the chassis cost, since having a single custom CNC chassis made is quite expensive. If enough people were interested, the machining cost could come down significantly.

AnTek transformers are made in China. I purchased the AS‑4T400 (400VA, 400V) transformer and the AS‑3T350 (300VA, 350V) tube transformer to build the Blue Hawaii and Carbon amps. The cardboard packaging had “Made in China” labels, and some of them were partially peeled off. If I had known they were made in China, I might have bought them directly from Taobao.

So Saturday we smoked spare ribs and a brisket in our new smoker This was early in the smoking before the ribs were sauced and wrapped in aluminum foil and before the brisket was swaddled in butcher paper.

More WING breakdown.

I still like the album, but not as much as I liked all the clips and live tunes I heard. Granted none of those had the singing. They are not singers, and I don't think they are really trying to be. I am a music first person when I listen, I still don't know what most Yes songs are about. So for Who Asked?, I just treat it as another instrument. The drumming is actually a style I like, others out there are copying it now as well. I also recently found out that JD Beck was a grad of School of Rock, which I thought was funny. And I agree don't "Try to Like" it. Hard pass is always the option.

A $5,000 camera taught me to forgive every product I own. A Pixii Max review/autopsy/rethink.

Trying to like? I’m not even trying, there’s something in the drumming of JD that enervates me.

Stunning piece of art! We need to know more about... well everything. It's looking quite small?

Also my vibe. I have Catholic vibes.

Wasn't today, but my nephew returned from the ISS last week....! Long read, but pretty cool.... NASA Astronaut Chris Williams Closes Out Space Station Mission - NASA

A full of song album written without live in mind, live without singing (and with e-drums and equipment breaking). I'm still trying to like this release. DOMi & JD BECK @ Lodge Room Who Asked? Bonus: