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Time for an update on the MA-90... or what ever I'm going to call this thing. This is prototype nr.2 and it seemed only fitting to put on the "Orpheus" IQ stand: So what's new, well the headband is now fully DIY with just the arc being borrowed off a Senn HD58x but they are all the same and very close to the HE90 arc in design. Then a custom adapter block in the HE90 style adapts it to the forks... which didn't come out quite right. A bit too long and too thick to bend correctly so I'll have to redesign them but no big issue there. The actual housing is mostly complete at this point but the biggest hurdle were the metal backs, or so I thought: In the end, pretty simple and I can mass produce them by hand in quick order. I've made about 20 of them at this point and they fit snugly in there, no glue needed at all. Inside there is a new baffle, new spacers and new stators but they will need further work. Mostly I have to move the contacts to better fit inside the housing and those are ready to be made. This set is fitted with the cheap Chinese Solitaire earpads and sound pretty good with them. They are 15$ shipped compared to the HE90 pads which are impossible to get at this point.

This is the second revision of Parker's Associate headphone amp, he called it The Executive. Tom from eta headphones helped him organize the PCB order and BOM list for diyers. For more info check out Parker's topic on the eta headphones discord in the System Dump Engineering topic I think his idea was a modern CMOY but taken to the limits of refinement with a single opamp and a nice power supply for a super transparent linear amp, also he made the executive better able to support discrete opamps. My friend Micheal Amster built mine for me since I'm all thumbs and my last couple of diy kits did not go well. I made a few appearance suggestions to Micheal when he built my amp definitely influenced by all the cool diy amp builds I followed over the years on this forum from cool dudes like purk and john mcclean I just received it today so I'm in the honeymoon period but I'd say Parker achieved his goal, it's super detailed and transparent, punchy bass, extended sounding highs and lows. a very "hifi" sound. Finally I feel like my beryllium tweeters are achieving their full potential listening to things like louis armstrong - st james infirmary The only appearance detail I might change, I had him put the power button right next to the volume knob because I wanted maximum space for the laser etched LOGO on the left.. I probably should have put the power button on the far left with the logo in between it and the volume knob. Also the logo is a bit faded out on the silver case, it would look better on a black case. the only deviations from the stock parts in the BOM I asked for were the EIZZ stepped resistor ladder attenuator and changing feedback resistors from vishay dale 10Kohm to vishay bulk foil 1Kohm to change gain from 10db to 1db(better for near field desk use when used as a preamp) and bulk foil is supposedly nicer than vishay dale. Then I replaced the stock opa2132 with a staccato discrete opamp I'm really enjoying it with a Laiv Verse r2r dac as the source and Dunu Mortise full size dynamic driver headphones. This isn't a high power amp so might not be great with difficult to drive planars. I've heard it's low noise enough for iems so might test that soon. It's working great as a preamp to my speaker amp/desk speakers too more info https://etaheadphones.com/products/executive hope it doesn't sound like an advertisement, I JUST got it today lol so I'm fully in the honeymoon phase. I also recently got a eufonika h5 hybrid tube headphone amp with 4W output I also really love for a different sound

The new comment editing widget and I do not get a long, which makes sense as I didn't get along with the old one either. What I'm talking about with the EF 50mm F/1.4 and IR 5D:

One of my favorite photography YouTubers covered a lens whith which I've had a 20 year love/hate relationship. Comment I posted on it:

The Russians were doing Top Gun: Maverick in real life 5 years before the movie came out. Start at the 8:00 mark for "WTF was that?"

Wynton Kelly Trio, Wes Montgomery - Smokin' at The Half Note CD Full

That is using magnets in attraction to apply a force to unipivot suspension string, presumably to resist the tendency to wobble. Attraction between magnets is of course stable.

new prog from PRR Pure Reason Revolution, Terrifying Angels https://insideoutmusic.bandcamp.com/album/terrifying-angels-24-bit-hd-audio

https://oswaldsmillaudio.com/schroder_model_2 For another magnetic (ish) tonearm I often wonder if the simplicity and negligible bearing friction of string or unipivot tonearms compared to more complicated gimbals is worth more than their tendency to wobble about any direction they feel like doing.

Phil Collins in his home studio, 1980s: I spy a TR-808, TR-909 and a LinnDrum.

Funny enough I listed to the following about an hour ago... EDIT: Might as well add...

California Dreamin'

Simple opposing magnets are not stable. The only thing that is stopping this instability is the jewelled bearings - but because of the magnetic instability there is more force on the jewelled bearings to apply a centering force that might be naïvely be expected. I guess that is why the Castagna model A was pretty much the only tone arm to use the magnetic principle. Although at around the same era there was a design and prototype for a parallel tracking arm the used opposing magnets in a saddle arrangement; but that never made it to production. Now it is now possible to levitate stably. The idea being the the repelling magnets are stabilised actively using a set of coils. Around 8cm diameter (so not small) and because of the active control a potential source of electrical interference near to the cartridge. Then there is Meissner effect levitation. That is not entirely daft with high temperature superconductors. Of course it needs the superconductor to be cold enough, so a source of liquid nitrogen is needed. I've done exactly that as a table top experiment when my kids were small, and I was working at Oxford Instruments, so had ready access to chunks HTc superconductor, and a small expanded polystyrene pot for the LN2.

Not all 60s consoles are created equally.

Give me tasty over shred every day. My tastes are very close to Todd's -- though I'm not looking for feeling as much. What I'm looking for is much more abstract: evocativeness, musicality, lyricalness, melody...not sure what the right word is. David Gilmour is a good example. What he can do with a single bend... Tommy Emmanuel Okay, definitely do love me some tasty shredding: Rodrigo y Gabriela (especially Gabriela -- her playing is like a Michael Bay movie. I am reminded of that scene from the Spinal Tap guys where Nigel Tufnel talks about a video of one of his heroes (Beck?) being slowed down and it was still too fast) Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew (separately, but here's a two-fer video 16K views · 517 reactions | Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, T...Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin & Bill Bruford KING CRIMSON - Elephant Talk (1981)Can't find a video, but Marty Willson-Piper toured with just Steve Kilbey after the release of their band's, The Church's Sometime Anywhere where he played acoustic 12-string like a lead electric guitar. There was just something incredibly satisfying to watch a master guitarist translate the absolute fire, speed, and bite of an electric lead straight onto an acoustic instrument using nothing but pure technique and heavy attack. Tim Henson Recent discovery MaroMaro is fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4k1t1Misrk As is Khn de Poitrine

Lots of good ones in here. I would be remiss not to mention Steve Hackett (orig. Genesis)

Okay - just one post of an old fav. Left us way too soon, I at least got to see his twice.

1) Segovia 2) Hendrix The rest. I told myself I wasn't going to participate in the best guitarist thing ever again. Damn it.

Agreed, best on what dimension? Composer?, Serving the song?, Technical Abilities? Innovation? Emotional Response? And from what perspective? Casual Listener? Fellow Guitar Player? Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. Plenty to Agree / Disagree on here, in terms of inclusion or ranking. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-guitarists-1234814010/ A few thoughts of the top of my head. Jimi, Because: Jimi A couple of treo's with a bright future ahead of them. Eric, Jeff and Jimmy. Jeff was probably the least conventional. Al, Paco and John. Friday Night in San Francisco anyone? (that's the concert, and album, Steve) G3 - pick a line up - in this case, Steve, Joe and Guthrie some honorable mentions. Prince. He too can shred. Roy Buchanan - The Best Guitarist you never heard of? Adrian Legg - technique in service of harmony and melody. Allan Holdsworth, The Guitarists Guitarist? Discuss.

For me, it gets a little muddy between technical abilities, and how the guitar playing impacts me/makes me feel. For that reason alone, my favorite is David Gilmour. What some people do with an acoustic or Classical guitar is absolutely amazing, but he hits me in the feels with a lot of his playing.

In early 1990, not that long before his tragic death, Stevie Ray Vaughan performed on MVT's Unplugged (y'all remember when ...nevermind.) Watching on a small CRT with a mono speaker, it was somewhere in in the middle of "Pride and Joy" where I became an SRV fan. Just Stevie, an acoustic 12 string (years later I'd learn it was 1969 Guild) and a stupid amount of talent. At the time I had no idea how difficult it is to play a twelve string, never mind how Stevie did it. In 1989, three musical genres were peaking: hip hop, death metal and rave. I was into all of them and decidedly not into blues rock (acoustic or otherwise). I bought my first CD player in the summer of 1990 (a Pioneer 6 disc magazine changer.) The first "CD" I bought was the legendary Led Zep 4 disc boxed set. The next two were some now famous Iron Maiden single re-releases. After that was SRV & Double Trouble's In Step. Stevie has my vote.

Their parent headquarters (SmugMug) doesn't look like anyone has been inside for two years. Nemo Gould's Technostalgia at The Museum of American Heritage (MOAH) Nikon D4 and CV 58mm f/1.4

Anyone sick of Coltrane posts yet?