Leaderboard

Played tourist in SF this afternoon, Where I encountered ... https://en-us.sennheiser.com/sf Sennheiser's only store in North America (?) Knowledgeable staff, and the usual suspects The new stuff isn't too shabby.

A somewhat of a Franken-Pass.

Hole in the wall, SF Chinatown fare

Went kayaking at Silver Springs today. Great day for wildlife viewing. Tons of water birds, basking turtles and alligators and most importantly our first manatees. Now relaxing with a wee dram (see imbibing thread for more details).

First Thanksgiving course created by chef Peter, Beef Wellington ala Gordon Ramsay

^ For the most part. I would populate the (2) 10uf caps shown in the arrows below, as these are pre-regulator for either onboard or offboard. I know Kerry said he populated all of the caps even though he used offboard regs, and they aren't required.

had this question in my mail, so as reference for users with offboard regulator, these parts in the square are not needed:

One can always hope... springs eternal and all that. The WES is a particular clusterfuck though as it didn't work on so many levels. It's a collection of 4 mono phase amps really so you need the super noisy phase splitter to the circuit for it to work with RCA inputs and then we have the inductor output loads which simply don't work. Add to that a really, really crappy power supply and all the usual Woo audio safety concerns. So back in the day, for those that are unfamiliar, there was some discussion that they were just doing the best they can or some such BS so I said...can I do better? I set some rules, same power supply voltages, same tubes naturally (though not the rectifiers as they are just stupid) and as similar a parts count and general topology as possible. So output caps like in the original, inter stage caps etc. Throw it all in a spare box and here it is: The massive tower was just something I had and as you can see... it is pretty much empty: The chassis was reused from a dac project our resident "circular hole cutter tech" did so extra holes galore and then it was powder coated to look nice. That's why it has only XLR loop outputs on the back. So here is the money shot... Sooooo...this is a small DC supply to run the heaters of the tubes and my SSPS (simple stacked PS) feeding +300/+600 plus bias to the amp. The amp it self is a combination of a modified SRX front end with a new grounded cathode output stage. That pic is from the first testing so there were some changes done later on but it worked well enough and about 1/4th the size of a WES...

I was in an extended discussion with a friend of mine tonight (a few of you will know him as Bludvessel) about how modern pop music makes me ill. We covered some of the studio tricks used on things like Taylor Swift's dance pop and Gabrielle's "Dreams" (don't look it up) and how they make me QUESTION MY VERY WILL TO KEEP ON LIVING. We then moved on to pop music that I actually like. Oddly (and by that, I mean "not odd in the slightest") KSIA came up. I have ...strip mined YouTube and P2P for live KISA. There is precious little. There are a few music videos, some official some not. I've never seen this one before: Dunno if I remotely GAF about the video, but the song is one of my favorite by KISA. I mostly prefer the original incarnation of KISA with Sarah P on vox, but there's a lot of material on the second album with Jessica Bell singing that's basically as good as synthpop gets. My favorite touch is the acoustic phone that rings briefly during the breakdown. While we're on the subject of KSIA, this is the song that got me into them way back when:

kefdirect has LS50 for $1,000...

Hoping all of you have a wonderful day, full of family, friends and food!

Mixmaster Morris hangs out with SomaFM's Rusty Hodge and a friend. Sbubby! Rooftopping in S.F.

Music Direct is having a Black Friday "preview" sale. One thing stuck out for me, the Elac Debut 6.2 (newer revision) for half price....abut $150/pr instead of $300. I had owned their Debut 6 model from the original series. It was VERY good, but just a bit too soft for my ultimate liking. The .2 revision supposedly has a better tweeter, so I expect a more balanced sound. If I didn't have maybe 9 other bookshelf speakers I'd grab a pair! ? Fuck, maybe I will anyway.... https://www.musicdirect.com/speakers/ELAC-Debut-B62-Bookshelf-Speakers

Something I noticed in the mini BOM was that the power switch listed (8161SH9AV2BE2) isn't rated for AC power duty. Instead, use either the "G" or "Q", which are both rated for 120/250VAC. Use 8161SH9AV2GE2 or 8161SH9AV2QE2 instead. Mouser stocks the "Q".

So, Dropped Joanne’s niece, Sophie, off in Corte Madera to enjoy some retail therapy while Joanne and I were at work. Joanne had pointed out https://www.marinij.com/2018/11/19/marin-kitchen-caters-to-canine-connoisseurs/ So Sophie visited and told us all about her trip The fresh vegetables on ice, the open kitchen, how the “consultant nutritionist” “individually tailored” her requirement for some doggy treats for a friends Husky back in Cayman She went with the venison. And sticker shock (maybe the lack of posted prices should be a clue) I would say “only in Marin”, but they have branches elsewhere. https://www.justfoodfordogs.com/