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That’s awesome, I plan on doing a large trident plaque that holds a full size flint lock in the near future. Got this baby up and running.

#twistedbacon

Perhaps as a guide to give you an idea, this was stationed prominently by Mark's front door. Great detail which I tried to match but on a much smaller scale.

Milo and Otis, wow is all I can say. As for me, a gift for a disabled warrior to go with a wheelchair ramp for his house. Carving the handle was one thing but etching the trident was a nerve wracking endeavor. One shot with no do overs. Thanks Mark, you da man.

It sure has a nice finish. I wonder what kind of noises it makes. *squawk*

Got these b22 and o2 boards over at diyaudio for the price of the input jfets alone. Will have to review them and get the needed parts and case.

He wasn't by any chance near a data center generator?

https://youtu.be/yhXd7YvCbgE Fiona Apple covering Sharon van Etten !

I'd say it's a phono preamp, but not the EAR 912 which I thought it was

The fall concert season is going to be absolutely stacked with all the artists who weren't able to go on tour in 2020. So far I've bought tickets to: Julien Baker Waxahatchee Soccer Mommy and I'm sure there will be more to come.

darTZeel monoblocks looks like chonky computer cases to me. Their name looks like a "gamer" brand as well. Frank Herbert once said he based the Harkonnen on the Swiss. For Giedi Prime!

Longish term modern DIY T2 reliability. I estimate its been used around 8+ hours (and more often than not 12 hours) a day almost every day since I built it. yesterday I took it apart for cleaning. I noticed all four 140K resistor strings connected to the voltage reference in the virtual batteries where somewhat discoloured.... hmmm... on further testing I found the D24 led on both channels did not light up at all not even dimly. :-(. but the amp seemed to work and sounded good. (on the left is a brand new resistor from the same pack as the 140Ks I removed from the virtual batteries.) I checked also psu voltages - good. I measured the voltage across the D24 led- about 1.4V. When the amp was originally built these leds definitely glowed as strongly as the others. All the leds where tested before soldering in and were from the same bag I even hand matched them just for overkill. The D24 leds are part of the circuit that provides base voltage and current to transistors that provide feed into the virtual batteries. I checked the virtual batteries - all were 741V on startup and the adjustment pots could adjust the output. So the batteries look good despite the slightly cooked resistors. I removed the voltage references and tested them in a glden reference LV - all good. The discoloured resistors can be explained by the fact they have about 0.423W flowing through them excluding base current draw from the 2 transistors and are on the underside of the board with little airflow - maybe1W would be better or some airflow holes in the pcb, or mount them to the topside of the pcb. So I decided to de-solder the 140K resistors for measuring and the 140K resistors have drifted slightly but all measure within 141.5K. So a little cooked but probably not the case of the problem. But why are the leds not lighting.... Looking at the circuit diagram the D24 leds should get about 0.5mA current excluding any draw from the bases of the transistors. (560V / (560K *2 resistor string to ground). I used the exact SAME leds for the other positions and it also looks like those leds get about 0.5mA excluding base transistor draw and they glow nice and bright. I de-soldered the leds and tested the D24 resistor string to ground. They spot on resistance and have not been damaged or drifted and so should provide 0.5mA current draw through the led. However the desoldered D24 leds would not glow at all with diode check on my brymen BM869s multimeter but do pass current and are not open or shorted. I tried my keithley 2015 in diode check mode (it has adjustable test current) and got absolutely no glow at 10 or 100micro amp but did get strong glow at 1mA - same situation on both D24 leds. I tested my remaining leds from the same bag and they glow on the brymen admittedly fairly dimly, and glow on the keithley at 100 micro amp again dimly but visibly. (I did test all of them on the brymen before soldering into the amp). So the leds in D24 have degraded over time . I used the same leds in the other places in the amp and they are all fine. This would explain why the batteries are working but the leds are off.... So the plan is to do some more testing on the leds and replace them with another model. But what's causing the leds to degrade in brightness on the -560V rail when the others have not? any ideas? regards and and I apologise for the long winded post James Update: I replaced the D24 leds... they now light brightly with a voltage drop across them of about 1.7V. I replaced the resistor strings with the same resistors but now placed on the top of the pcb, raised from the pcb by about 1cm. After a ten minutes with no lid on the amp the resistors reach 65C on the top and 71C on the sides. So its easy to see how on the underside of the pcb with the lid on they could reach temperatures which could cause discolouration.

That's amazing Greg. Nice work and nice gesture.

I have been continuing to play with turntable motors. I have two projects, one a controller with platter speed feedback for 3-phase AC motor and another controller for DC motors, which is an ultra-compact version of the one in swt61’s turntable to drive the Maxon motor. Here are some photos, just got things soldered up and have a whole lot of very tedious testing and software writing to do in addition to the SAMD microcontroller, that cutout is org castellated pads will also fit the new Raspberry Pi 2040 chip, which I am hoping to play with a bit. I hope they work!

It is called z-channel molding and creates a uniform channel and shadow line around the windows and doors. It was Steve's idea to use this method rather than standard trim.

As for me, Milo and I finished our kitchen remodel April 13th.

Finishing projects this weekend with drawer faces and pulls and BLO on the box joint box. I have also started hitting the online estate sales and getting some great deals on woodworking tools. I got the full set of Bow Clamps last night for $40, a 7x10 Wilton Wood Vice for $60 and a Leigh D4 Pro dovetail, finger joint tool for $120, all mint.

If there are any Eggers fans here, he's giving the eBook version of his latest, The Captain and the Glory, away free. https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-captain-and-the-glory-e-book “A very short, allegorical novella, but capacious enough for all of your emotions about this period in history, from amusement to grief to irony to horror… As good as you can imagine, and ultimately, almost a hallucination of hope.” —Virginia Heffernan, Slate’s Trumpcast

I recommend Keith the Cockroach, he specializes in bass (he has German roots so I hear)

I have found that separating the outer cups and inserting live cockroaches vastly improves bass response in these headphones. They need to be true German cockroaches, as palmetto bugs and African cockroaches are too big and bloat the bass to near unlistenable. 6-8 roaches per cup should be about right. And don't forget to sprinkle in some crushed mouse droppings every few weeks. Dead roaches don't make good bass!

I couldn't afford expensive gear when I was young and my ears were good.

James, JoeMat, thank you very much. I will be building the original T2 in the black Dr. Gilmore case with the RK50. A valuable forum member was kind enough to provide the bulk of the transistors, some are coming from BDent. Ordered everything else from mouser, custom transformers from mueller-rondo. Some parts already showed up. Will be posting in the T2 thread how everything goes.

There is a good point of view to have in life, never buy anything from Hifiman!

I don’t have much to add to hugo’s post, agree on the findings except perhaps sounstage which felt a bit more closed in on the 009S compared to 009. I also used my source (sony dap) HP out to drive the T8000 so it wasn’t ideal + noisy environment but I was pleasantly surprised by 009S. These days I am applying dig. EQ to my 009 to take the edge off the mids and boost the subbass a little so I did not think I’d get into the 009S. But what I listened to today was quite promising, the 009S improves on the 009 across the board and I could not find a drawback. It sounds cleaner, fuller body, more natural mids, looses that tendency of 009 to sound thin / agressive at high volume levels and does not loose any treble extension or resolution. I think this one is going to be popular with the mafia given the number of 007 fans and 009 haters ;-). Design wise, besides the official blurb on housing, stators and grill, the pads felt definitely stiffer than the 009 and I bet part of the chances in voicing come from there (perhaps more so than the gold plating of the stators). The 009 really do sound cleaner than 009 from bass quality to transparency overall, the structural redesign of the grill and such may be more influential than I would have thought. It was good to see Sasaki-san there (apparently the head designer Suzuki-san is joining tomorrow) but the new generation of employees seem to be on top of the game already so I can only wish a bright year ahead for Stax. Besides talk on the 009S, Suzuki-san mentionned all D/A related designed are outsourced to edifier (the new portable dac amp fully is), the upcoming dac board addon for the t8000 also won’t come out of Japan (they stick to analog components design). Apart from that, Edifier still leaves Stax full autonomy today it seems.

By the time a lot of us got to the point of owning Stax, there was a lot less hair to deal with. Other than maybe ear hair?