Leaderboard

After 5 years from the time I acquired the PCBs and parts, I finally took advantage of the free time created by the pandemic and completed my KGSSHV. This is the offboard version with +/-500V supply. I know many have since moved on to the Carbon but I am very happy with the results and plan on building myself a Carbon in the near future. Hopefully it won't take me that long this time. Thanks to Kevin for the great design, Spritzer for his support and providing some of the parts and this thread from which I learned a lot. The case is from Aliexpress but I got a new front panel made at the local machine shop.

Back at it today w/ [2] 5lb brisket flats and a small amount of point I trimmed off one (for burnt ends). It's cold here (36F) so it'll be interesting to see how much fuel the Traeger burns and how things come up to temp. Started things off at 190F, will push up to 225F when the meat hits ~120F, naturally in Super Smoke mode the entire time. Then it'll be the wait-and-see watch for the stall process which is where the Fireboard really earns its keep.

Nice dinner anniversary

That's a good one. I thought about A Bridge Too Far but it's too big of a cast. Now thinking of this:

Elvis' new album with Steve Nieve, Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, and other musicians supporting. Good stuff.

A hammer and a nail set works too.

If you ever make your way out to NH, Steve, I'll make sure brisket is on the menu.

My invite must have gotten lost in the mail. Damn that DeJoy!

Making some progress. A belt should arrive today. Hoping it will fit, but not completely sure until it shows up. The speed controller was DC. It ran off of a motorcycle battery. Noise free, but not the most convenient, so a simple DC to AC wall wart later and problem solved. My TICE Audio Solo power conditioner should keep things clean enough (no relation). The input and output of the Pass Pearl have been figured out. This is a top notch phono stage. And the ZuAudio rebodied Denon DL-103 is out for repair. The cantilever was broken off just past the pivot. I honestly don't remember how that happened. But it's getting an upgraded, tapered cantilever and a new square shank, high polish, diamond true ellipsoid needle to replace the missing, stock round needle. Should be a nice sonic improvement. Now I just need to concentrate on a new, larger stand. it needs to be 20" x 36" to house the turntable and the motor pod. I'd like the top to be thick butcherblock and the base of the stand to be a separate unit. I'll then use the Big Feet isolator feet in between. I'd like a low shelf for record storage and an 8' shelf on top of that to house the phono stage, speed controller and record cleaning gear.

I think I'd just drill 3 or 4 holes in it and call it a day. It's nearly impossible to reconstruct at that point and unless the NSA really is after your data, probably 10x what you need to do.

7 years ago, yesterday. I've watched a bunch of Puddles' videos on his YouTube channel over the years (including "punk rock" and "new wave" versions of Royals). Many a good, some are not. None are as transcendent as this one.

Very cool! That is like a blast from the past!

Great minds think alike.

Spent some dome doing research on USB audio interfaces with 4 analogue outputs. NI still sells the Audio 6 ...as part of a $320 package aimed at vinyl DJs: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/traktor/digital-vinyl/traktor-scratch-audio-6/ Hard pass there. I recent bought a 2 in/2 out unit from MOTU and I have been very impressed with it. There's a model with 4 outputs for $220: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/M4--motu-m4-4x4-usb-c-audio-interface It has a bunch of things I don't need for Traktor, as well as making use of 1/4" jacks for the outputs (necessitating 1/4" to RCA cables.) I don't see to many other similarly priced units that compare well with it. In any case, I found my ancient ESI Gigaport AG and I'm going to do a test broadcast with it in the next week.

As a lifelong fan of both these guys, I'll be re visiting this movie tonight.

The Bad Plus streaming tonight at the Village Vanguard (or if you want to watch during the day seems yesterday's stream goes until tonight). $10. https://villagevanguard.com/livestream

Klaus Schulze & Pete Namlook - "The Dark Side Of The MOOG" / Live in Hamburg (23.04.1999)

I can confirm that the approach also works with beef short ribs. In related news, this is what I grilled tonight. 45 day dry aged top sirloin from my favorite butcher. I took 1/3 of the 2lb monster and tried a reverse sear which came out quite nicely. The regularly seared portion was also quite tasty, but took an insanely long time to come up to even medium. More tweaking of the process. Most important lesson learned, the Traeger probe is crap at low temps. I will rely only on the Fireboard from now on.

I had a very scary halloween last night ...and not in a good way. Background: I am mostly blind in one eye. I see very little out of my left one. I was born this way. Had the doctors caught it in time, they could have corrected it. I'd have had to wear an eye patch for several years (arr!) but I'd have gained sight in my bad eye. None of that happened. Last night I lit a candle I got a while ago. It's got 3 wicks and sits in a (rather flimsy) glass jar. The three wicks are a PITA, necessitating turning the candle to get them all lit. I was working on the third when one of the wicks shot off a bit of ash or hot wax and hit me in the face ...right below my good eye. I said "oh shit!" and put down the candle. After insuring I was alright. I looked at the candle. I didn't get hit by wax or ash. The jar shattered and I got hit in the face with a glass shard, a few mm below my one good eye. Ulp.

Got power back on at my place after two and a half days without it. Fuck you Zeta.