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This morning I put the final touch on the silverware chest that Steve and I have been building by installing the insert that holds our silverware set. I bought it from Rockler and designed the chest around it. I'm proud of the chest and think it is beautiful even though it is not completely perfect in every way, and I certainly never could have done it without Steve. We made the chest from a single large board of jatoba wood and it turned out to have some twists and warps that were a bear to manage. Also, it has high mitered corners and my design idea was to wrap the grain from the left side, across the front and continue onto the right side. The lid is also mostly a single piece with sides formed by the sides of the box and an ebony border around the insert. It was by far the most complicated thing I have ever attempted and Steve claims the same for himself. I am going to post a bunch of pictures of the finished product, but not the blow by blow building shots as I did with the dining table from last month. I don't want to bore everyone and I don't have many photos anyway. The only two parts that I am going to highlight are the lid and the horizontal routing we did to make an ebony inlay on the edge of the drawer opening (which covered a mistake we made earlier). The lid piece was too big for my router so I had to build a router sled and route it that way. The first pic shows the setup with a dummy board, the second the jatoba board while being routed, and the third pic down shows the board after routing and a first sanding. It was a cool exercise. The horizontal routing was done on the router table Steve and I built, which can be tipped 90 degrees so that the bit extends outward horizontally, duh, and allows for tenons to be cut precisely. It worked great to make a slot for the ebony insert that is exposed when the drawer is pulled out. Lastly, here is the box when we glued it up with the lid still part of the box. Steve's plan all along was to build it this way and then cut off the lid an inch down from the top so that it would fit together with the box perfectly. It worked to an extent, but the twists and warps in the wood made it much more difficult to accomplish and not quite "perfect." So, the rest of the pics are just the chest in some detail to show the continuous grain wrapping around the three sides, and the ebony accents and the handles that we made from ebony as well. It was anxiety inducing and I definitely lost sleep along the way (covid is to blame as well), but the results are pretty fabulous imho.

I have to say that the whole process, even with it's challenges, was quite enjoyable for me. I helped out when extra hands were needed, and did provide an idea or two, but Al was the real force behind the project. He has gotten so good, in such a short time. It's really amazing! Most of the time I set on a stool watching him work away (I just love hard work, I could watch it all day). I knew from the beginning that this would be a difficult project. Lining up four 8" mitered corners on boards that are twisted and warped is no walk in the park. But I also knew that if Al could pull this off, then he could tackle just about any project. It may not be a large project, but it encompasses so many woodworking skills! A fantastic learning experience, from which he had to correct some mistakes, solve some difficult tasks and come up with some unique solutions. I am really impressed with his abilities and perseverance. Al has also been a stand in for my company lately. As we've quarantined together, and I'm not yet comfortable working next to other crew members, Al has offered on three occasions to be my first mate, so to speak. We've installed a challenging set of kitchen cabinets, built from scratch four closet organizers and installed a floating bathroom vanity into a tiled wall, where the tiles were as hard as diamonds. He catches on so quick, and was just a blast to work with. I'm quite sure though, that he hasn't worked for such a paltry wage in decades. I've been teasing him about getting his pay to him as quickly as possible, in case he's in dire straights. 🤪 My dream is that one day two retired dudes can set up a decent shop and build beautiful stuff. I know how much he'd like this, because he can't get enough of my singing in the shop!

Mostly today, with a little work yesterday, I built Claire a ballet barre for sheltered in place Zoom classes from the SF Ballet and her longstanding barre exercise place, The Daily Method.

Ah - the good old battleship grey Cambridge Audio livery. It was panned by the reviewers, as were the buttons on the CD player (they described them as reminiscent of poking dead flesh). Very unfair, because the product performance and sonics were good. However the reviews killed that iteration of Cambridge Audio (~1990). We acquired the wreckage when I worked at Wharfedale, including a massive inventory of product, for almost pocket change (at least in a corporate sense). We sold the inventory at knock down prices, and then did nothing more than change the appearance to a dark gold colour, and the dimple in the knobs became a light gold colour pin instead. After that they sold very well. I turned the Cambridge Audio technical team to the re-launch of the Leak brand, that Wharfedale owned. Among those was a very young Steve Sells, fresh from University, who I let off the leash and told him to design the best power amp he could - a Krell-beater. I got a design consultancy to do the appearance design, and Steve designed FET output monoblocks of truly heroic performance. When we set up to show that at Heathrow, I wired up the speakers and only got a very quiet sound like a tinny transistor radio. I'd left the shorting links across the back of the speakers, and Steve's design was playing the speaker cables into a short circuit without breaking sweat. Fast forward several decades, and Steve is now director of engineering at Naim. They likewise let him off the leash, and the astonishing and ridiculously expensive Statement was the result (google it). Cambridge Audio, from its foundations in 1966, has been bust umpteen times over the decades. But astonishingly it is still very much alive and still British, and owned by Richer Sounds. It was orignally founded by my good friend and mentor Gordon Edge (RIP). To celebrate 50 years from the foundation of the company, Cambridge Audio introduced the high end Edge series of products in 2016. They even incorporated Gordon's always barely legible signature on the circuit board silk screen.

I've been doing the same thing Jim! I picked up one from Pioneer that opens up so that disk don't get stuck inside. Works well but man is ripping CDs slow. I've set up a Roon server on my imac since it is on all the time and got a 2 bay RAID 1 harddrive that is networked and is in the closet. Roon is fucking awesome! Love been able to steam music anywhere in the house I want! Planning to replace my Airport Express (ethernet to optical) with the Rasberry Pi + Ropiee (eithernet to USB) that Marc suggested so I can get hires in the music room. Today, I moved around my headphone setups for kicks (one at my desk and one in the music room). Decided that the GS-X mk2 needed to be near its cousin BHSE. Plus, it is a good way to procrastinate grading.

Far too hung over for the dirt bike, so taking the car over the pass to Tahoe seemed like a great way to kill time. The whole mask thing didn't seem too popular up at incline village. I was really surprised.

We adopted a dog! Her name is Olive 🥰

Karen and I gave a presentation to a group of doctors (M.D.s) at one of our local hospitals. It went over very well.

I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a crazed redneck who lives in the woods. I have an artesian well and the groundwater here is hard as a black metal album. I have not one but two filters between it and what I drink. The first is a grit filter, the second is a taste & odor (charcoal) filter. They needed to be changed when I locked myself in 9 weeks ago, and I was out of spares Today I arranged pickup of new filters and replaced them. This is what the grit filter looked like when I removed it: The filters are pure white when new. For two decades, I have snarkily referred to the filter swapping process as "changing the house's tampon" because I haven't matured terribly much in the last ~35 years. Mr. Frog was not at all impressed the proceedings.

We got up to our place in Maine, is good to be away from the same walls. Took a ride into Kennebunkport, and was pretty disappointed to see most people NOT wearing masks either, despite signs all over the place with guidelines saying to do so. Karen would step FAR away from people if we passed them, I think some got the idea but didn't give a shit. But we did get to see some good ocean views, and got some decent food for tomorrow's lunch. We'll order and do curbside tonight. I'll be back home tomorrow but Karen will likely stay one more night. Good for her soul! Pic from Cape Porpoise.....

Setup a Raspberry Pi + Ropieee network audio bridge for my music room setup. Super easy to put together and works great. Thanks for the tip Marc!

I entered a scoring competition put on by Spitfire Audio and HBO. They made a clip (without any music) from this seasons Westworld available, I imported it into Logic and it was off to the races. It took a couple of weeks to create my entry and win or loose, I learned a lot and enjoyed the experience.

I can confirm that this works very well. 😁

Had BBQ new york steaks and admired this D2HBaaaA This one is a is a OM1A with brazilian rosewood one of only six made

Got my pretty new PSU cables put in. I need to train the wires going to the GPU a little better, I'll do that when the new case fans arrive in a couple days.

Decided to take trip back in time so I downloaded a copy of dbpoweramp and ripped all of the CDs that have accumulated over the last couple of years. Halfway through I also had to replace my cheap-ass DVD writer with this which worked really well.

Here is a T2 on original DIY T2 board with all modern components. High voltages decreased by 100 V to satisfy fjpf2145 and ksa1156. Batteries are on small daughter boards. There is annoying hum on left channel. Right channel is silent so hopefully it’s possible to get rid of the hum.

All boards are here and I am ready to start shipping the boards to the GB participants. I'll be using USPS Priority Mail for all US participants. All US GB participants please PayPal me $8.40 for the shipping charge. For international participants I will PM you the shipping charge after I have the package weighted at the post office. I have used first class mail without insurance and tracking in the past. Please let me know ASAP if you want to add tracking and/or insurance but be warned they are quite expensive options. I'll ship the package when I received your shipping payment. When you PayPal me, PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR SHIPPING ADDRESS and HEAD CASE ID if you have not done so when you PayPal'ed me the cost for the boards.

Sous vide Oreo cheesecakes are submerged and cooking.

So, what are the odds - found someone in my neighborhood listing a twelve channel Dayton Audio amplifier that they aren’t sure if it works. I picked it up for $50. If it works, that would be wonderful. If not, we’ll, it sure is heavy. I am hoping to have a bit of fun with my audio testing gear tomorrow!

Pork and veal meatballs with a garlic cream sauce and (sinful) pasta.

That's some high praise from Dr. Wood, and the rest of you, and I'm flattered. He did more than watch, of course, and working with Steve and with Doug has been a great education. Their different styles and approaches have each had an influence and I've tried to meld them into a hybrid. I wish I hadn't mentioned the lack of "perfection" because it definitely got overblown. I am extremely happy with the results, including the things that were challenging and didn't come out perfectly in line with the picture in my head. And as far as setting up a shop, the first order of business is a motion sensor that starts music playing as soon as we walk in to keep Steve's a cappella efforts to the minimum. 🤡

Nicest project I've ever had a hand in!

Got up early to ride out to the coast. Stupid weather won't wake up to the fact that it's may. It was 30F when I left the house at 5:40. Still, view was nice. @Augsburger - I won the coldest ride challenge today.

Taco Tuesday Steako de Mayo!

Finally completed the dynahi. I really enjoyed this DIY processing. Based on previous experience, this time I spent more time on selecting parts and adjustment, also increased heat sink size, quiescent current increased to 75mA. The gain keeps the original design value (200K/10K) and there is no background noise even using high efficiency earphones. Thank you everyone for your experience and information on this thread.

"I Still Play features eleven new solo piano compositions by John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, Louis Andriessen, Donnacha Dennehy, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Brad Mehldau, Steve Reich, Pat Metheny, and Randy Newman."

This is immediately where my head went. Sell one of the spare DACses, the NAD, and the displaced monitors and call it even? I know, fuzzy math, but isn't that your thing, Shelly? 😈

OK, the passive demo speakers are on their way so it's too late to change right now. Will see how they sound when I get them

5lbs of home made bacon. 10 days to make. 5 days cure. 5 days rest. Cooked up first test slices.. it is nice, with no bad stuff in it. It is a touch salty, but can refine the cure in the future. Followed this guy, we use to watch the show. And we have his books. Cheers And bacon on...

Built another Ropiee appliance. This time used RopieeXL and the 7" Pi touchscreen display.

Just got these in...

Last night we made pizza with mozzarella, parmesan, scallion, garlic hot peppers, pancetta and egg. Tonight, I made this recipe and really enjoyed it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/magazine/punjabi-red-beans-recipe.html

Fine...

Spent most of the day reviewing and approving English transcriptions and Spanish (Latin American), French (France), German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Hindi, Italian, Dutch, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese translations for several dozen videos. Really wish I could read Spanish (Latin American), French (France), German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Hindi, Italian, Dutch, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Here's my balance servo module. It uses 4 HN4C51J's. Works great... You could make a little board with the HN4C51J that pins out to the 2SC3381.

Got good news from PCBnet - they will remanufacture the PSU main boards to the spec'ed 2mm thickness. Expect to be shipped next week. PCBnet has truly been a top notch company to do business with. Their product quality and customer service have both been excellent!

One of mine

Fajitas: 1. Lime marinated chicken 2. Peppers and onions 3. Homemade refried beans 4. Sour cream 5. Guac 6. Salsa 7. Cheese Delicious.

Reverse sear prime ribeye And grilled corn

Petra Haden is one of the Haden triplets, daughters of bassist Charlie Haden. Super talented family!

Damn it Brent! how many times have I warned you about pulling your pork on the forum! And Andrew...My invitation to dinner must have gotten lost in the mail. Sinful pasta was my drag name back in the day.

This whole thing is just odd - less than 24 hours after getting a call from FedEx to inform me that the "shipper" in Taiwan had sent FedEx the wrong item to ship and the correct item has not been shipped and I should contact the shipper directly, the boards showed up yesterday (I know that PCBnet has some of their boards fabricated in their Taiwan facility). As expected, these 2mm boards look and feel great! Going to start packaging boards for shipment and I should receive the GRHVxxxx bare boards next week.

Actually, mine will arrive soon as well. Thanks Marc!

@shellylh - I love that you have an extra M51.

Thank you. Them pins looks very interesting indeed. Regarding my current project. Goal with it was to build a T2 on an original board with all modern components. After a visit in the ditch I returned to the narrow road. Rebuilt the batteries to original LED version on the board. Had to change some resistors as I reduced voltages - battery is 640V instead of the original 740V. Furthermore the change to fjpf2145 instead of 2sc3675 called for a Darlington par out of pair of fjpf2145 in batteries. Very easy to make a Darington pair on the original board. Yellow Teflon wire from base to a via on the board – perfect and the via has a perfect diameter. Some components (ksa1220, ksc2690,ksc1008 and j112) have different pin out as the original ones so I twisted their legs to fit the board. Thanks Michael (mwl168) for how to bend legs on the ksc1008. Bottom line: I believe I’ve built a decent version of DIY T2 with all modern components. I’m satisfied and am about to make myself not so sober (it’s Friday evening). P.S. some problem with one channel, unwanted noise and hum. Happens now and then if you have T2s…

DEP Florian