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You think about outfits more than I do, Jacob! I chose to go into the office today in exchange for a floating holiday, and had a nice, quiet, and reasonably productive day. Then started re-arranging my apartment with the end goal of using my living room more and having an actual guest bedroom (shared with the diy rig, but something has to give). The computer is moved, which was the priority. Curtains, which were acquired over the weekend, get hung tomorrow when Mr. Planning goes to the hardware store before starting work.

I'm at work in a sweatshirt, jeans, and boots, am in management, and my mom was always impeccably dressed as an advertising executive. Also, I went to boarding school where I had to wear a coat and tie every day. It would have to be my dream job, or a 50% raise, to get me to wear a tie and polished shoes more than 3-4x a year.

Amazon delivered a 6 pound jug of crisco last week, so I used a bunch to demonstrate my wisdom in buying it. Fried chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, pork gravy (using ham dripping ice cubes saved from Christmas) and Thai chili Brussels sprouts. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The map of the UK and South Ireland is so close to the truth. I come from Shirtless Men - they breed them tough where I was born. Mrs S comes from Hartlepool, where it says "Elected a Monkey". That is actually wrong - they hung a monkey. At the time of the Napoleonic war, the French fleet was running up the coast of England, and one of them was shipwrecked of the North East coast, and all the sailors were killed. The only thing that washed up on shore alive was the captain's monkey. It was the way of things that the monkey was dressed in a little suit of clothes. Of course the somewhat isolated community of Hartlepool (at that time) had never seen a monkey, and assumed it was a midget French spy. So they put it on trial, and since the monkey refused to say much they found it guilty by default and hung it. Until relatively recently if anyone wanted to provoke a fight, it only took "Hey lads - who hung the monkey?" Just noticed that it even got onto Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_hanger

The waffle this morning was pretty good too. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Desperado got me laid a couple times. Thank you Glenn!

I do wear polo shirts actually. There have been times in the winter in between laundry sessions where I just kept my coat on all day over a tshirt though. In general, the way I look at it is this: I majored in graphic design and they knew that when they hired me.

I'm at work as I type this, wearing jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie. I'm not an adult.

Claire made blueberry waffles this morning too!

For the pure porn of it and to cleanse the palate after the fucking fitness trackers ... Movement from the new Lange Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon. Hnnnnnngh.

Pinnacle was sold on HF. I don't really use full size phones anymore, and found that the high spl environment caused some sort of tube ringing. Once I noticed it it became impossible to ignore. Not a fault of the amp, in my opinion. Just the physics of exposed glass. Along the way I became a fervent believer in passive preamps. i'm already day dreaming about getting some magnepan mmgs. That was quick.

There seems to be some consensus on the voltage requirements for electrostatic headphone amps. Nearly all of the commercially available designs put out between 1000 and 1600 volts peak-to-peak, a range of about 4 dB. The legendary Stax SRM-T2 was specified to put out a bit more, close to 1800 volts peak-to-peak, which is 1 dB higher. This would be equivalent to almost all loudspeaker amplifiers putting out between 50 and 125 watts, with the T2 being like a 160 watt amplifier. However, there hasn’t been much discussion on the current demands for electrostatic headphone amps. Output stage currents in commercial amplifiers have run between 2 mA/channel (Koss ES950) and 36 mA/channel (Blue Hawaii). Back in 1978, Nelson Pass published in The Audio Amateur (issue 4, p. 12) some measurements he had done on the slew rate of music signals. He tried out various cartridges and LP records, and using a 100 watt amplifier with a 30 volt/microsecond slew rate, reported that the highest slew rate he found with music signals was 1.5 volts/microsecond up to clipping levels. The late Peter Baxandall also published some years ago in Wireless World that music signals required an amplifier slew rate sufficient to drive a 6 kHz sine wave to clipping with low distortion, which works out to pretty much the same thing. A 100 watt amplifier has a peak-to-peak output of 80 volts. The Blue Hawaii, to take a current state of the art amplifier, has a peak-to-peak voltage at clipping of close to 1600 volts, which is 20 times higher, so the fastest music signal would have a slew rate of 30 volts/microsecond when the Blue Hawaii is driven to clipping. So how much current does an electrostatic headphone amp need to produce a slew rate of 30 volts/microsecond? A typical electrostatic headphone approximates a load of about 100 pf - Stax specifies most of their current models between 94 and 120 pf. The amount of current required for 30 volts/microsecond into 100 pf would be 3 mA. This is the amount of current that the amplifier has to supply to the headphones alone in order to play the fastest music signals up to clipping. Since amplifiers don’t sound their best at the very limits of their capability, for any real amplifier, there should be additional capacity in both slew rate and current over the bare minimum required. John Broskie has suggested on his TubeCAD website that for low distortion the maximum signal current demand on a tube be a fifth of the standing current. This calculation also assumes that the amplifier itself does not consume any signal current. But that is not always true. Take the Egmont, a basic, inexpensive tube electrostatic amp circuit. It uses 66k resistor loads in its output stage. With +/- 260 volt supplies the output stage runs at 7.9 mA current. If we drive the headphones to 1000 volts peak-to-peak using our fastest music signal the headphone consumes 1.9 mA, but the resistor consumes 7.6 mA, using all the current the output stage is theoretically capable of supplying. The reason that an amp with a total current of 7.9 mA can supply both 1.9 mA to the phones and 7.6 mA to the resistor loads is that the current to the headphone is approximately 90 degrees out of phase with the current to the resistors – remember the geometry of a right angled triangle? The headphone and resistor compete for the available current, and since the resistor is lower impedance than the headphone, the resistor hogs most of the current and the headphone is left with the scraps. Furthermore, the amount of signal current soaked up by the resistor depends on the magnitude of the signal, whereas the amount of current going to the headphones depends on the speed of the signal, so the ratio of 1.9 mA to the phones and 7.6 mA to the resistor is even worse almost all of the time. In fact, this is a problem for any electrostatic headphone amp that uses resistor loads in the output stage since the resistor sets both the standing voltage and the standing current. Massively increasing the voltage and current so that no user will ever come close to reaching its limits doesn’t really solve the problem, it just pushes it farther away. And then, a further problem is that devices and components which can withstand that amount of voltage, current and power are expensive, which rather defeats the goal of an inexpensive design. Now, take my revision of the Stax SRX tube design using current loads. The output stage runs at a higher current and voltage: 14 mA current with the power supplies run at +/- 325 volts. More importantly, the cascoded current loads on each plate measure over 160 megohms impedance, thus requiring a mere 4 microamps to drive them to clipping, so 99.9% of the total standing current is available to drive the headphones. The maximum current required to drive the headphones at clipping is about 2.4 mA, less than a fifth of the current available. To further illustrate the value of a good current source, let’s go back to the Egmont. With the output tubes in that design delivering the same peak signal current of 2.4 mA, it would produce about 300 volts peak-to-peak with about 2.3 mA going to drive the resistors and 0.6 mA to the headphones. For the same signal voltage into the headphones, the Egmont output tubes have to produce 4 times as much signal current. Now these are “back of the envelope” calculations. But at least, now we have a reasonable estimate of how much signal current an electrostatic headphone needs to faithfully reproduce the fastest music signals. And, it is clear that replacing resistor loads with current sources is a much more efficient method. Finally, let me make a brief comment about a related matter. It is sometimes said that electrostatic headphones require voltage but no power. This is false. It is true that electrostatic headphones resemble capacitors, and with a capacitor, the drive voltage and current are 90 degrees out of phase so that no power is consumed. However, remember that a capacitor is a simplified model of a stat headphone. In fact, electrostatic headphones have to consume energy, because we can hear the sound they produce! Sound is a form of energy, and by the law of conservation of energy, one of the most fundamental laws of physics, that means the headphones have to consume energy.

Thats probably what my $2k is going to pay for. A Project Cars rig for the Obama girls.

Tunnel View, Yosemite Valley.

Your house looks much less crappy than I expected Colin. Where are the ninja swords?

Try and listen to "Ant Rap" three times in a row, I dare you!

I have had the same one suit since 11th grade in high schools that I purchased From JCP I think. Can probably count the number of times I've worn it on my fingers and toes. Pretty sure my choice of residency will likely take attire into account as well "Let your resume do the talking. If some place doesn't hire you or admit you because of the clothes you are wearing regardless of your academic accomplishments, then you don't want to be there anyways." - grandma.

I believe in Carnitas. Jacob, have you ever written up this much lauded recipe which I would have had a chance to try were it not for "weather"?

It would definitely be a waste. Carnitas is God's gift to man/woman (assuming one believes in God).

I knew I liked her.

When Stax did 100V only amps back then they just wired the sockets every which way as they were never supposed to be used with the plug. You need to completely match the picture above but it looks like you are lucky, just move the green and brown to the their correct spots and add the other white wire. Just make sure it is the right one as Stax always used two white ones for some reason. Hehe I'd say most on HF wouldn't call us nicer but welcome. Here we talk about the stuff that actually matters, not the stupid crap HF calls a Stax thread these days.

Here's the recipe - http://www.recipetineats.com/pork-carnitas-mexican-slow-cooker-pulled-pork/. I followed it pretty much verbatim. The cook time, on high in my crock pot, was around 5hrs which seemed to track with the recommendations in the recipe and I can't think of anything that I'd really change. Even using a smaller pork shoulder (~4lbs) there is a ton of of meat for leftovers, not that I'm complaining. In the future there's a pork chilli that I'll be using this for, for sure. In case anyone is curious - the taco construction is homemade guacamole in the bottom, then the pork, then homemade pico de gallo topped with a little cheese on top wrapped in a soft corn tortilla.

Homemade pork tacos. Very happy with the way the pork came out. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Trying my hand at slow-cooked pork carnitas today for use in pork tacos tonight. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Very cool watch. As you may recall, I almost bought one on Massdrop a couple of months ago. I too really enjoy my less costly watches from Seiko, Orient, Citizen, Victorinox and Luminox. Sometimes they just make a nice solid affordable watch that you can touch, look at, lick, or wear for fun. Today I picked up a new old stock opaline dial 39mm Omega Aqua terra 231.10.39.61.02.001 from the AD for 46% off MSRP (same model I returned last summer due to indecision). This is the previous model which is nicer than the current model because of the raised hour markers, 2x longer power reserve, and jumping hour hand for changing times zones. I guess that they dumbed down and ugli-fied the new AT quartz so people would spend 2x more on the co-axial version. On the used market this previous model has been going up in value by almost 30% over the past 6 months, for being more desirable than the new model, and the grey market seems to have run out of these sometime in the past 6 months. I could flip it for a $500 profit, but I wont. I also wanted the quartz model so I'd not have to worry about setting the time and date if left untouched for a while, or worry about getting a full watch service done every 5-6 years. I have 20 mechanical watches, and 5 of those are Omega co-axial watches that must be serviced by Omega, where 2 of the co-axials are chronographs that cost 50% more to service. In 4-6 years almost all of my watches are due for their next service again, since I didn't time things to spread out the services better. It's easy to forget about the costs of maintaining a good mechanical watch. My Seiko, Orient, and Egard watches would be cheaper to replace the movement with my local watchmaker than to service them. Several of the others have ETA, Valjoux, or Lemania based movements that would be easy for my local watchmaker to service at a fair price. And my local Rolex certified watchmaker can charge half as much as the RSC to service those, if my local watchmaker can't get the proper Rolex parts anymore. But my 5 co-axial Omega watches will cost me as much to maintain as the other 15 watches combined. I have no idea how much my incoming NOMOS Orion manual wind will cost to service yet...

Not taking this one for the team. Carrera > Carrara.

and jeff and stretch

My full thoughts will be up today on IF. Basically, Sennheiser did this because they could, I applaud the sentiment. The headphones will not be sold separately unless you're getting them for a second pair to the system you already have. The sound was world class for production gear...meaning it was good, but maybe not great. It was meaty and had heft, but it did sound a tad harsh to me. I only listened for about 15 minutes. The rest of the time I spent talking to Axel...mostly about other stuff off the record. Maybe the most telling comment from Axel was that the new Orpheus customer is more likely than not a soccer player.

"Can my buddy n3rdling come?" They're also having a waiting list for hearing these at CES. I emailed them to get on it but no response.

We just need to know if it sounds good, and you're just the man for that task! Enjoy.

Going to LA to see this in a couple of days. You guys got any suggestions of what questions to ask?

"Halo effect" product/branding?

Well it does give us some data. Either the phones and amp "talk" via active circuitry or there is a load in there which must be present for the CPU to engage the output relays.

I think once people start hearing the new orpheus, the old orpheus will go WAY up in value.

Jude likes them. They're the bestest of the bestest at being the bestest. Although... I suppose I could sell my Orpheus system on eBay (are they really going for $25k to $30k? that's insane)... and also sell pretty much all of the rest of my headphones and amps, and finally be able to claim that I'm a "minimalist" with this fancy hydraulic gizmo.

They probably can shave off half the price if they didn't and continue to spend so much on marketing campaign. They flew in many celebrities for a one-on-one audition as well as to praise their phones. Wayne...we are waiting to hear your impressions.

I might have picked one Coke bezel GMT II with sapphire, 3185 movement, and super-luminova instead of both the Speedy and Datejust. Although when I made that choice myself I already had a vintage speedy and Submariner in the collection... I LOVE MY COKE GMT II