Miscellaneous

Seeking some advice here. I traded some of my stuff for Symphonic line RG2 Preamp. It's in OK condition and sounds good, but shiny steel front plate and body are covered in patina. What can I use to clean it to restore to it's shinny condition. It should look like this: It's also missing two screws from the back plate that hold two RCA jacks to the back panel. Do you guys now a good store to order various crews. These amps are made in Germany so all the screws are hex.

Hey, I'm from Aus. As such, most of our gear operates at 220-240v, which limits my 2nd hand amp purchasing options. So the questions is, is it worthwhile using a step down transformer? What are some of the cons, that I could run into?

Just in case anybody missed this on the other site, the story of the Mullard Blackburn factory Me loves my XF2's...

I need to move some of my speaker gear around to accommodate my future TT which means I need to move my sub woofer about fifteen feet away from its current location. Allowing for curves banisters and height, I estimate I need a 25 foot L/R cable terminated with RCAs and 1/4 TS. Do I need a shielded cable for a sub woofer? Some forum posts say yes others say it doesn't matter. I do not seem to have any RFI issues in my listening room with my current pro audio sub woofer cable but I have no idea if these are shielded or not. After searching around until I have a headache I have narrowed my choices down to either- The Belden 1808A Belden 1808A, twin Miniature C…

https://www.stereogum.com/2184752/bob-dylan-t-bone-burnett-new-audio-format/news/ 🤔🥴

My Pop has asked me to recommend a home theater for him. $10k budget including HDTV. Any ideas, suggestions. Anyone with similarly priced setups out there?

I suppose it's well known, but I like that someone is pointing out the films lost with every expensive new video delivery format. Hopefully, online distribution will shift in the opposite direction. The Ballad of Blu-ray - A Cinephile Takes Stock - NYTimes.com

Yeah, moar power is always needed. The SR-007 also likes silver IC's so some DIY could be in your future.

So, we're closing on our new house on Friday, and we have a month to take care of a few things before we move in. The biggest project is a gut on the kitchen. Recommendations for the major appliances? Leaning towards a slide-in gas range instead of separates, though I do like the cook top and wall oven. And we're trying to decide if a French door fridge is worth the extra coin vs side by side. Liking the Kitchen Aid stuff I've seen, but we're not sure. And washer and dryer... We've been really happy with our LG combo unit, so we were thinking we'd stick with that, but I'm more than happy to hear real world experience and advice. Thanks.

Al, this one's for you. In case you haven't seen this one before. Leave it to a kerazy Korean guy to come up with this thing. http://gedrip.com/xe/ilbe/15151 http://lih203.blogspot.com/ They really need to make a plastic version of this one. I can't believe this crazy dude made it completely articulated as well. Can't wait to see what it looks like finished. -Ed

After blathering in several different threads about photography, and blindly looking around for an already extant thread, I'm making this one. The purpose here is for me continue to natter on about my mad obsession with light painting, and maybe even get a response or two. I've just posted about my issues with cross processing and slide film development, as well as discussing lenses in the recently bought thread.

Read it and weep

bye now

This is either brilliant or the most tortured metaphor ever: http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/05/03/do_high_quality_headphones_really_make_music_sound_that_much_better.html

Looking for a very thin/slim and simple wallet to carry in my back or front pocket. Any suggestions? Does anyone know anything about these? http://www.all-ett.com/

hey all, This forum is great. I'm new to the audio world, and its been fascinating me for a while since I innocently stumbled upon head-fi when researching new headphones (ended up spending 6 times more than I originally wanted to...). Then I found this forum, and I've been casually reading through some of the posts for a while now. Besides tempting me to spend money I don't have, it has also kept me highly entertained. So I decided to join. I'm not going to pretend to know much about anything, and I don't plan on posting that much for fear of instant insult barrages (you guys are all asshats ). Just so you know how much of a newbie I am to this audio world here…

Anyone willing to assist in picking up and shipping a set of speakers located in Lafayette (just outside Walnut Creek)? They are average two-piece tower speakers that should fit easily in most SUV/Truck/Van. I will pay for your time and shipping/packing at a local UPS store. Shot me a PM and I can forward more details.

Qobuz streaming officially came to the US on Valentine's Day. Anyone else giving the 30 day free trial a try? Like the background text info on releases, etc., though that can get in the way as a player occasionally. Seems to have more releases per artist, though some major artists missing in comparison in Tidal, though that could be simply my preferences. Handles high resolution (24/96-24/192) differently (no MQA). Seems to dislike using the word "album."

I am not sure if I can post this, but here is the link to this article, which I found very interesting to read Stereophile: Tim de Paravicini: King of Tubes Now I am wonder what kind of balanced output configuration my Unico have, because of this: "Lots of people have made so-called valve CD players with a couple of token tubes. Most of them don't actually address the problem correctly, because a lot of them, if they're going to offer balanced outputs, actually go back into op-amps to do the balanced output configuration. So they've got this token tube doing not very much". Here is some article about Unico and how it works with output thing http://www.audioenz.co…

I just got the November Time Warner Cable bill, which had a brand new charge for "Modem Rental," which is new and apparently a backhanded price hike. Any other Time Warner customers around got their November bill? http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/time-warner-cable-modem-rental/

I picked up my McIntosh MC2100 from the local repair guy. He measured it at 150 Watts/ch with low distortion (in his words a "righteous" amp). That was good! While in the shop I saw a Marantz 8b, Mc2300 (rated 300 Watts/ch, but probably hits nearly 500), and an Mc40 among others. Helped move the behemoth mc2300. That was cool! I put 4 hockey pucks in place of the missing rear spikes for my Tannoys. Feels more solid, works good! I replaced the crooked-bottle Electro Harmonix EL34 tubes in my Eico HF87 with some new Teslovak EL34ls (same as the Groove Tubes version, and made in the JJ factory I hear). The new tubes look great (much better built) and sound very clean,…

So...I've been thinking. I need to stop dragging all my CD's around with me everywhere. Especially to meets, and to friends' places, when I need a very specific subset of my CD's -- the ones with which I'm most familiar and like. My "test" CD's. So what's the best recourse? I'm thinking: laptop->DAC, perhaps external hard drive->laptop->dac. I was thinking about something like a hard-drive-based digital media player (basically, an external hard drive with a play button): ...or perhaps even: (Obviously, there are more entry-level-priced equivalents.) But I haven't heard anything really about the hard-drive based ones, anyone heard any of these tha…

http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/technical%20downloads.html Download the sound files, crank the volume to "11", and enjoy. I need to go find a speaker dealer with some big-ass bass horns so I can crank the fireworks recording to real life levels & get the full dynamics without clipping or compression.

Do you guys have any recommendations for spill proof travel mugs? I have a few spilltastic mugs but they don't perform to hot in my backpack while riding a motorcycle. Currently I'm using a Contigo. I love the thing except it's starting to lose it's seal after 4 months or so of off and on use. The mouth valve bit leaks sometimes as well as the threads for the cap itself.

Just a quick bitchfest. TTVJ states that "All Fedex Express orders placed before noon on a business day will be shipped the same day." Smells like lies to PJ. My order placed on Sunday still shows as "pending", and my credit card has been authorized. And I paid for overnight shipping so the package would arrive before my vacation. So I've sent them an email explaining that now we'll have to totally rearrange our plans, unless of course they did ship out the package today and just didn't tell me. I had the package shipped to work, and I am off Friday, and I am NOT fucking coming into work during my vacation. Well okay I will come into work to get my package. But I w…