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Main rig back up after move... finally... First was bill Then Branford And Ludwig

Cheeses care of the Amish via Aimless Al and Karyl, and yak and alpaca snacks from the local ranch.

Fired up and Ethernet connected. Looks pretty good right out of the box. [emoji91]

Another nice hike today on the Flat Rock Trail

Earlier: banh mi now: late night taco hike

Deck Pastie

We don't even know what half those circuit boards are so no wonder you are confused. I tried to make some sense of the GRHV boards and no...just no. Best step would be to start reading the classic KGSSHV thread and work your way over to the Carbon one.

Looking good Mikey! Can you dance and slide in front of this setup?

I guess it depends mostly which direction you are talking about them being tight. You will get some width out of most leather shoes of any quality. How much and how painful it will be depends on the hide used, tanning process, and shoe construction. Standard stuff I have not had stretch out on me more than desired. If your toes are pinched, that will not get better. Try different socks. I can dial in a near perfect fit for all of my leather shoes by matching the socks, and it helps with sliding too depending on the insole.

Fluevog! Thank you for resurrecting this thread, I was trying to remember that name. Dusty needs one pair of wild-ass shoes.

Blinds are on order. The kids already worked out how to find YouTube on it, so I'll probably never get to use anyway.

You need to black out those pesky windows. One cannot have reflections undermining overall screen resolution. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The HE90 drivers I have here from Chinsettawong are just stunning. I need to make up a housing for those one day... As for the King Sound...it's been established that I have problem with collecting. It's so nice though when something actually works as it should. Now the Libratum has had some diaphragm work and well... they sound excellent. They do remind me a bit of the SR-Omega at times, that slightly larger than life nature which works so well with some material.

A local favorite

Done and done. I miss Istanbul already.

They are better built than KingSound so DIY is a gray area...

Just surprised mom with a Sony xbr900e tv for her bedroom. She was quite happy thanks to Brent and his lovely lady friend for helping search through all the options out there and come up with a nice option.

After spending the last 3 years with a Traveler V2, I decided I needed a bit more. This arrived today and I just can't seem to wipe the smile off my face. Standard Avenger with periphery ring and upgraded reference 3D arm.

Now here is something fun... a new electrostatic set from Russia. I do read the Russian forums a bit and I've been following the semi-DIY stuff going on over there. Seeing that this one had matured I decided buy one. Here is the website for anybody interested: http://phenomenon.su/ I ordered it directly and this set was custom made for me. They have two versions available and I picked the Libratum as I prefer circular transducers. Cost was less than 2k$ with shipping here. As you might tell from the pics, the build quality is super impressive and makes most other headphones look like toys. I for one like the Russian utilitarian style where it is all about the function but they can just be described as pretty. Comfort is also pretty good though the non adjustable headpad might be a tad shorter as it touches the arc for me and the hard metal pokes through it. The earpads are super nice, thick leather and attach to the baffle with magnets. The phones are heavy but not a problem for me. Smaller heads might have some issue here as adjustment is limited. So an overview of the design, these are copper mesh stators attached to pcb's with PCB material holding the diaphragm in place. Not sure how thick it is but it might be 2um as the top end is slightly rolled off. I ordered the set with dust covers on both sides but these are just woven material and caused some issues. The resistance on the diaphragm is high so they take a while to charge up but this is something I'll likely improve. More on that later... The housing a single piece with the driver all the way at the back and a thick baffle next to the ear. The screws on the outside go all the way through the set and have heatshrink on them or the drivers might short out. Small nuts hold them underneath the earpads. Take those all out and you can pull the baffle out of the shell to expose the drivers. Thankfully there was adhesive here so I could add solid dust covers with ease. Any claims that these "reduce clarity" are just nonsense. There was another adhesive ring on the back of the driver so I added a second cover there but forgot to take a picture of it. So how about the sound...well first off the major issue I had with the set. So this thing uses a super high resistance coating on the diaphragm which shouldn't be an issue but it isn't hydrophobic...i.e. it changes with humidity. Now this with the lack of a solid dust cover next to the ear is just trouble. The volume level of the set drifted like mad with use as the humidity next to the ears affected the charge. It got so bad that it just went into a mess of distortion. Leave them sitting on their own for a while and the volume would rise again. Simple solution to that...add a solid screen between the ear and the diaphragm so the humidity there isn't an issue. I will likely clean off the diaphragm in the future and add my own coating as it is simply superior to this. Another small gripe I have with the design is the cable. Well it is a Stax extension cable which is excellent but there is no strain relief at all. The cable is firmly anchored in place but it could use some heatshrink or something to take the strain. Now for the sound...well after a number of small scale 'stats I've had here over the years this is a welcome change. This is nothing like the King Sound or HE Audio Jade which were both badly made garbage and sound like lukewarm shit. While these aren't going to topple the 007's it's a damn good try using similar design elements. The sound is super balanced but just a tad rolled off in the top and bottom end. Bass lacks some impact and substance too but nothing to worry about really. The midrange is super nice but slightly "lost" as with the SR-Omega and HE90's. This ties into the soundstage which is projected slightly front of the head and is just a little bit hazy. They lack the super focus of something like the SR-007 but for some that would be a welcome change.

Hey Steve's "What are you powering those B&W 802s with Mikey?" From the UK. Exposure Super XVIII solid state amp. Pretty basic, but lots of headroom. The WE300Bs, used in the preamp, makes the amp sing. I was very sad when I was unpacking some tubes, that I broke one of the JAN 6SN7s from the 50s that tied it all together. Need to do some shopping. The substitute tubes are okay, but too noisy.

It wasn't, until we mounted the t-table on the wall. Now there is dancing.... [emoji229] [emoji227]

You can try filling the shoes with ziplock bags 3/4s filled with water and then sticking them in the freezer. A boot is going to be difficult for a cobbler to stretch, as the stretchers likely won't fit through the ankle. I've had shoes stretched half a size in width, with no cosmetic issues, but that has been calf dress shoes. I haven't had much stretch, from wear, in quality shoes, especially with shell. The leather will soften, however.

Thank you Kevin and Birgir for your kind words. I'm so glad to hear.

Welcome back stateside and congrats on the fantastic TV. I wish the budget would have supported OLED but it's not to be for a year or three. And I don't know that we're quite terribly flawed as individuals. Flawed to be sure, but this is a pretty great bunch overall donchathink? I try to explain d-_-b to folks from time to time and honestly, this group pretty much defies description.

actually chinsettawong's hand built things have better looking drivers I just shipped birgir a latest set of kingsound garbage, why he buys this crap, no idea

I wouldn't buy (most) shoes hoping they will stretch.

Choices ... Chosen ... Correctly

Young Brent

I don't have HBO but the trailer looks fantastic!

If you can track down the early Kraftwerk, that is my favourite Krautrock. (Ralf und Florian, 1, 2, side two of Autobahn, and Tone Float by Organisaion). I do like Can, though. Never did track down all the SACDs, though.

I remember the Unicycles. Those guys were talented. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Moon lander effect! Also, I don't know if you remember that time we went mountain biking in north Potomac, there was a group of guys on Jones. Remember the guys on the unicycles going up the trail?? Ha ha Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

At the everything cherry place.

I'm sold on mono cartridges. I just sold my Ortofon Quintet mono and I'm going to get something else in the near future.

Some gear has arrived.

Finally finished my one. Goes back to 2013 but i am a slow builder. Works like a charm, turned on and everything adjusted up as expected. No noise i can detect and as i used heat sinks 4" high i do not have any heat problems. For those interested i used a smoked acrylic top to the amp and put my led's on the top and fitted Kerry's 1" OLED display front center of the amp under they acrylic and with a cool blue display sure looks sexy. I am crap at taking pics so that is why there are none. Thanks to Kevin, Kerry and Birgir for another great project.

Vinyl:

My general advice to anyone is to get the highest end model, whether you need it or not.

My mistake. What I find pretty impressive about the Utopia is its ability to sound wonderful out of portable DAP. I don't think the LCD-4 or the HD800 can do that.

Bye then

Was thinking the same thing.

Ah! OK. Now I understand the nature of this forum. Sorry for anything. I just came here because I know Justin participates. Goodbye and happiness, very special people.