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I've never done veneer edge banding, but I imagine it would suck. I'm working on my dad's desk for my brother in LA and I'm edge banding in a different way -- with solid 1" x 1 3/4" walnut around the old top and a new walnut ply top. Having fun with clamps on clamps.

After 3" of basically sleet the other day the only good thing to come out of it was absolutely epic winter MTB conditions (driveway is a sheet of ice). Went out for 2hrs with the local crew and simply couldn't stop smiling.

Ran my first (mostly in person) conference since COVID this weekend. It was nice to see people in person!

Yep, though inherent would be closer to bought. Mel's sister gave it to us as she left the country to convert souls to white Jesus. And of course ROI sucks for any other choice when you're comparing to free. Especially during rarely used pandemic times and Mel's Mini is just more fun to buzz around in. #firstworldproblems Grahame, there's actually a children's CD stuck in there, that condenses (shockingly well) the first three Star Wars films down to a softer ~35 minutes using voice actors, half of which seem to have never heard the original actors. The accompanying book is long gone ([ding] "turn the page"], but we switch on every few months, usually at night, for a semi-exciting adventure and laugh. Far worse things to get stuck in a CD player. #firstworldproblems

Made a mezzanine adapter board for the TKD 4CP-25xx pot on the original DIY T2 board from Kevin. Precisely adjusted the hight of the pot to board prior soldering. Worked out perfectly.

Sure was handy having two sets of drills and impacts, while building an Ipe deck at the bosses house. At certain locations I needed different, shorter screws, that took a square drive and needed a different size drill bit to predrill.

Not sure if it really needed it, but first car wash since the start of the pandemic. The 2010 Kia Optima is back to all its sexy glory. I really hate this car.

My landlord Dave's wife is in Hawaii, so the permanent and the temporary batchelors are having Migas for breakfast. Corn tortillas cut into strips and crisped in a bit of oil. Scallions and Orange bell pepper sauted with a little scorch. Tomatoes and avocado, chorizo and of course eggs.

Using some of last week's brisket, I'm attempting Texas-style brisket chili for the first time in the new dutch oven. I added some sausage as well because multiple animals make for better chili, in my opinion. Meat/Onion/Garlic Phase Tomatoes and seasoning added. Now just a matter of letting it simmer for 6 or 7 hours and some cast-iron-skillet cornbread will be made later.

I was thinking about Migas tomorrow, with Chorizo.

I think I'm going to be making some Spanish style huevos con chorizo very soon. 🤤

Thanks for the reassurance HS. I'll try to keep any comments about tea contextualized by coffee. I think pu'er (or other aged teas perhaps) if that's what they were drinking, is the closest thing in tea to coffee. One challenge I experience is going from an espresso in the morning to a high-end green tea in the afternoon. The latter is admittedly something I'm not acclimated to, as I drink espresso or pour-over daily while I drink tea quasi-daily. Interesting story about my percussion mentor and his former mailman. My mentor loves coffee and definitely has the palate for it, as he collects and ages some rather fine wines. His mailman at the time loved high end green teas, purportedly dropping hundreds on a purchase of longjing (tl. Dragonwell) one year. My mentor then went, "I wonder how it tastes?" The mailman said "I don't know if you could appreciate it-- you are a coffee drinker after all!" As much as I'm sure the mailman was poking fun at my mentor, there is some merit there. A good espresso is not sharp, but nonetheless strong. A high-end green tea in comparison is always weaker than a well-pulled espresso; even the unusually strong (by green tea standards) "Hunan Gold" I have is no exception. This changes for oolong tea and red tea (black tea in the Anglosphere) which have the necessary strength to be less of a drastic change from espresso; white tea may be somewhere in between. Anyway, anyone who wishes can message me or reply here for tea recommendations. Though, I haven't ventured much outside the incredible teas of Red Blossom and Song (both in San Francisco), and they are completely willing to recommend things too. I guess I have used proxy services to acquire certain teas from China's Zhang Yi Yuan though.

Love that burled section! Sure is looking like a woodshop!

It's not. It's Chorizo con Huevos. 😛 Seriously though, this is the dish I learned in college. My first year was at a city college in Brownsville Texas, one block from the Mexico border. The ladies in the cafeteria all came across the border to work. This was served every morning, and I loved it. It was also my first experience with fajitas. The school sucked, but the food was delicious!

Did you burn an OG mix CD to celebrate?

Chorizo con Huevos For Brent: That translates to Mexican (in this case) sausage and eggs.

The 1849. I can get upgraded bearing guides but it appears the ceramic ones are reserved for the Grizzly ones. I figure since I have no skill; and I am having trouble even figuring out what kind of blades I need, the crappy version will be okay; and I can flip it later if it sucks. Reviews, though few, seem to be very good.

Gives a new meaning to “rolling shutter”.

David Lynch's friend, Chrysta Bell, seems to be channeling David Bowie, Goldfrapp, and Annie Lennox... her new album, Midnight Star, released January 21 (also on cassette and vinyl – why not CD?):

That option-o is uber modern. Looks like an impressive piece of kit. I have not gone down the rabbit hole on grinders as for whatever reason the Niche just spoke to me so I jumped in when it was pointed out here a long while back and haven't looked back. The Lunar has pointed out I can lose about .1 grams or not in back to back espresso grinds. Covered Ears - I have no problem whatsoever if you want to post tea stuff here. It's not my jam, but I find it interesting to read about it. Had a couple of friends at work that were really down the rabbit hole on aged, very strong smelling teas and then I converted them to proper coffee...LOL. Two chem-e's so they went down hard and started making roasters, boards for the timers on the roasters, etc... Jacob - I'm using the Lunar in mode 1 to weigh the beans and mode 4 for brewing. I agree...there is a lot of functionality there. I enjoy using it more if I keep it simple...was driving myself a bit nuts at first w/ it. I'm profiling with some nice results on the Bianca. Taking it to 2 bar for a few seconds and then ramping up to somewhere around 9-bar, then I bring it way down right at the very end of the ~2:1 ratio (20 in 40 out). Very nice with the medium-dark roast Nigerian beans from Memli that arrived. I need to adjust the pump pressure. For some silly reason it came with a default of almost 12 bar....odd. HS

I’ve finally figured out that I want Node 5 on the Acaia Lunar, not 4, though I can see why I would want 4 with a different work flow. The Lunar is much more complicated than the Pearl 2021 or the Pyxis, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.

How much is the Mahlkoenig X54? It’s sort of a high retention grinder, from what I’ve read, though. The DF64 is probably a worthy consideration, but even the 2.0 version seem kinda clunky to use, unless you have a 3D printer. The Niche is hard to compete with at its price point, assuming you can get one. It’s performance is better than good enough, even for pretty high standards of what “good enough” means, it’s well built, and it’s easy and intuitive to use. It’s also just… pleasant to use. They could probably sell it for 50 percent more. I think the Vario+/W+ are worth looking at, and if I can check them out when I’m at Prima I will. I believe the W+ is the same burr set as the X54, but it’s designed to be low retention. I think it’s a very good burrset. Alex, I think there was a tea thread years ago, but I don’t know if it has been active for a while. I sort of got to the point with tea where I was getting good enough results from the cheapest tea I could get away with, which was a consideration because I used to drink a lot of tea, and quit paying attention. I’m pretty happy with my cheap and cheerful Numi gunpowder; I get honey and bright, sweet jasmine, which is what I’m looking for with a gunpowder. I’m not sure I have found coffee beans that are at a similar place for me. Coffee is sort of like beer; the price difference between “acceptable” and “very good” is either small or non existent, so you might as well get very good. I find tea to be much more like wine.

Chorizo in Spain is a grocery product, a kind of sausage with the stuffing into guts, made with pork meat and fat somewhat marinated with lots of paprika, hence the red color. Some types must be cooked, so you eat them with eggs, potatoes into a garbanzo or bean stew, with migas... but other types are cured and are eaten like ham or salami. In most South America countries they call chorizo to very different things, in some countries it's a kind of sausage but different to the Spanish type, or even a minced meat cured or marinated. Either way it's usually delicious

contains gems like this:

so i have got a number of contacts, most with felista built amps, definitely with fake toshiba transistors that blow up. Now another person with toshiba parts with the amp oscillating. Other changes were made, so who knows, and no idea if the transistors are real or fakes. being discontinued more than 10 years ago, everything on ebay has to be fake. so word of warning to people building them and trying to use toshiba (fake) parts. no way to know if they are fake unless you use a transistor tester. biggest tell is that they test barely at 25-30 volts instead of 120

Late to the party, but here goes. Lured a nice small case off of MLA for a cheap penny, wanted a compact CFA (SE). Took some time for my slow mind to figure out how to best use the space in three dimensions, but I found a solution that works fine so far, if you're planning something similar. No interfering leads or unwanted nearness of critical components, and bias can be set without problem. In reality, I'm surprised it turned out quite airy and spacious, considering the limitations. Note the Müller Rhombus transformer device ("Konzept Raute"). This romboid plate interacts wit the circular toroid shape and the electromagnetic waves are forced through the four holes in an endless loop in this electronically confined space, and thus traps all hum in an existant/nonexistant void. This amp is noise and hum free. I'm particulary happy with the volume control, a 24-position Swiss Elma switch that's been lying in a drawer for 35 years. 15K (why not?), shunt coupled and making as little contribution to the signal as possible. I think this plays a part in the clean, revealing sound of the CFA design. The odd resistor out is in the position I mostly listen to, a hand selected Syldavian military plutonium component (0,01%) from 1953, made in a numbered series of three of each value (I own the third one as well) and these days sold on ebay in Hong Kong for not less than $1200, if available at all (only one for sale during the last nine years). Set the bias at first to 150mA, it sank to 135 after some time, which was to be expected. Decided too raise it (why not?) to 200mA. Put the lid on and after three hours it was stable at 175mA after a last fine-tuning. Gets warm, but not too hot. Like all successful, completed builds it sounds wonderful , but if that lasts only time will tell. If so, I may be tempted to follow up with a CFA3.

That looks nothing like huevos con chorizo

I looked at the Baratza line because they are in Washington where my youngest is going to school. So that makes a good reason to start, yes? From what little I could gather the Baratza line tends to do one thing i.e. espresso or pour over well and the other so so. The Sette 270WI was on the short list but lost it's place to the Niche. As for the Lagom P110/P64, as I told Jacob, when they have a 50% off sale I will be all over that.

Opinion? demonstrable facts, more like - for an American audience. Thanks, NYT

bumpybump... nearly two years after doing my first A/B/C of Spotify, Qobuz, and Tidal (where i reported no differences of any kind)... i have revisited Tidal. continuing frustration over Spotify HiFi not being a thing, recent social dilemmas, and the current $2-for-3 month promo for the top tier all pulled me in along with plenty of @recstar24 encouragement. it's a huge jump this time. of 100 or so tracks so far, there's been less than 10 that i thought were not hugely improved specifically in staging and the '3d'ness of individual lines. maybe it's the rig... Tidal Connect into Naim Uniti HE to Utopia is some truly glorious digital. most likely i will stick with it unless Spotify pulls a 180.

My very first set of cans were Koss. Granted they were branded as Realistic (i.e. Radio Shack), but they didn't even cover up the Koss logo. RIP Mr. Koss. a younger me (self portrait) with my Koss headphones over my left shoulder on a foam wig head (yeah I was cool)

its zero feedback or super symmetry. can't be both. a couple of people have made relay switches that switch from one to the other. all SS jumpered for SS all zf for zf mode.

Chris Rea – The Blue Cafe:

Just six years later than Colin, I have now made this cheese buldak recipe twice and love it.

Here's a new twist on my T2 build. I've added both the HE-90 jack as well as a custom built Teflon HE-60 jack with appropriate voltages/resistances. This one is in black chrome That's the back of the power supply...

Finally, my mini T2 is completed. Just want to share my build experience and listening impression for those who are about to build one. Also, a huge shout-out for JoaMat, who conceptualised and designed the amp, provided me with invaluable tips when I was debugging my mini T2 and encouraged me to share my experiences here. -------------------------------- Pics or it didn't happen: -------------------------------- Build experience: Before this amp, I have built the Carbon and Grounded Grid, as well as quite a few dynamic amps including the SMD Dynalo. Overall, I am comfortable dealing with electrostatic amp voltages, but I have limited experiences working on dense and tiny SMD boards. I built the SMD Dynalo with a soldering iron, but this method was unsuitable for the Mini T2 due to the density of the components and the fact that I tend to use copious amounts of flux grease when I solder by hand - it would be too tough to clean the flux stuck underneath the tiny components. Therefore, I decided to solder the SMD parts by the solder paste and hot-air gun method. I used 1 set of mini T2 board, 3 through-hole GRHV boards and 1 delay board (warmup.zip). This amp is fast to build so long as you have a decent hot air gun (I got mine from Taobao for around 25 USD), a pair of fine tip tweezers and some patience. I used a stencil to apply solder paste on one side of the mini T2 board first, then populated all SMD components and used the hot air gun to melt the solder paste. It was quite satisfying to see the tiny parts drawn into their rightful place by the magic of surface tension. It took me about 1 hour to complete the SMD soldering for 1 side, so I'd say that this method is really efficient for the number of parts to be populated. The through-hole components and the tube sockets were populated next, and I used some terminal blocks for the power rail inputs. Just be sure to apply jumper wire for the -15V near the servo opamp. Otherwise, you risk seeing 400V at voltage offset, and frying some input tubes. The transformers I used were 130W and 87W for the HV and LV respectively. There is also a dedicated floating 12V winding for the delay board, and separate filament supply windings are used for the power tubes and input tubes for each channel. Voltage rails were pretty standard - +-15V, +220V, +400V and -460V. The warm-up time was set to 25 sec. There is no need to adjust for output current bias as in the Carbon or GG. The balance servo is activated by default, and all there is to adjust is the output voltage offset with respect to ground, and it can be easily adjusted so long as the potentiometers are soldered to the same side as the tube sockets. The amp runs cool. I used heatsinks that measure 7cm tall, 30cm deep, 5cm wide for each side of the chassis. At steady state, the amp module runs at 39 deg C, PSU runs at 35 deg C. In comparison, my 450V 20mA biased Carbon runs at 48 deg C with 15cm-tall heatsinks. Here are some errors I encountered here and the directions I took to debug. They are based on spice simulation by JoaMat. Hopefully, my tips can help builders who encounter similar issues as I did. 1. On power-up, offset voltage rises to 400V immediately after the HV kicked in. Check the jumper connection for the opamp -15v power supply. They are very short and can be easily missed. 2. 50K resistor explodes (either R11 or R12). It is likely due to an unconnected input tube or dead tube. Check input tubes and Q1A/B, Q4/5, Q11/12, Q3A/B of the same side. Also check tube sockets, because even the expensive ones can have loose connection on NOS tubes. 3. Q1A/B burns. This might not be easy to spot. The sign can be as subtle as a discoloration/fading of the silkscreen on the component surface, or a subtle exudation of flux around the collector pin of the component. This is likely due to a shorted input tube. ------------------------------ Sound impressions Take this section with a pinch of salt, for every DIY build is one-of-a-kind, and mine is no exception. For my mini T2, I used Duelund tinned copper wire as input cable, EIZZ stepped attenuator, STAX SPC earspeaker wires as output wires and a 5-pin socket ripped from a STAX extension cable. The headphone I used was the ES1a by ES Labs. I wish I had the Stax flagships to do this impression and comparison. The amp is fed by a AK4497 DAC, straight out of DAC and a coupling capacitor, bypassing any low-pass filters. For the following impression, I used decent tubes - Mullard xf2 EL34 as output, Brimar ECC88 as V1 and Sovtek 6922 as V2. Tubes do affect the sound significantly, and I will talk about that later in the discussion. My 450V 20mA bias Carbon with GRHV&LV will be a point of reference, as I am sure that this is a sound that many here are familiar with. It has the same volume pot as the mini T2 but SPC input wires and copper output wires. The mini T2 is full sounding with a natural tone. It has got a certain “WOW” factor that makes my carbon sound unimaginative in comparison. First off, the tonality of the mini T2 is warm and mildly bright such that the sound is airy but non-fatiguing, no matter how loud I cranked the volume up. The bass extends deep with a sufficient rumble where the track calls for it. The airy top end gives the amp a wide soundstage, that is paired with sufficient depth. Instrument and vocal placement are accurate and appropriate, without excessive forwardness or recess. Despite the soundstage being big, it does not sound hollow, because the music is full of details and creates a sense of well-layered space that is almost holographic. I have tested the amp briefly with other tubes and found that input and output tubes affect the sound most significantly. If input tubes have slightly mismatched sections, the balance would be too great to be zero-ed with potentiometer and balance servo. The small tubes I used are unassuming. Had I upgraded to better tubes, I guess the amp would sound better. Compared to the Carbon, the mini T2 sounds more organic, more layered and the mids are considerably warmer. It is also way more forgiving on bad recordings. The timbre sounds truer to life, soundstage is slightly larger, and feels like the music has more room to breathe. However, bass extension is not as deep as on the Carbon, and Carbon generally feels more analytical and snappier. To conclude, if there’s one word to describe this amp, it would be “fun”. It’s fun to build and definitely fun to listen to and roll tubes. I consider it as a step up from the Carbon when I use some decent tubes. Otherwise, this amp with standard new-production tubes would be at least on par as the Carbon.

I built a blue hawaii with golden reference HV supply and the simple voltage regulator based lv supply built into the golden reference hv board. Later I added a golden reference lv supply which improved the sound a bit. I also replaced the diode bridge on the LV with a synchronous rectifier for even lower noise. The blue hawaii is a very good amp. Far better than anything I had listened to previously and was a quite straightforward build I did not modify any of the gerber files. I did solder the leds, the resistors you need to measure the voltage across to set the constant anode current and the adjustment pots onto the top side of the board for easy checking and adjustment. I managed to fit everything into one 400mm deep disapante case The T2 build is by its nature almost twice the size of the blue hawaii and of course more expensive. The pcbs are bigger, there's more values and components and more power supply rails and multiple transformers etc. I also had to modify the gerbers to fit my build style, selected volume pot and the case I wanted to fit the amp into. The T2 is just magical and is my daily listening device. If you only have the time and resources to build one build the T2 and get the best to begin with. I don't regret building the blue hawaii but I have not listened to it since I built the T2. I found the T2 build to be big but not difficult. I read the forum posts carefully followed their advice and used xicon resistors and ultrasonically cleaned the pcbs. I also measured every component with a LCR meter and transistor tester etc before soldering them in and checked everything multiple times... I even tested the zeners and diodes and matched all components between channels and between + and - halves of a channel. I actually finished the pcbs about three weeks before I switched the amp on.. I got locked into a cycle of checking and rechecking everything and was convinced I would get sparking or noise batteries. So far I have had no issues at all with the amp and the initial fear I felt from reading the forum posts on failed T2 builds has dissipated. most importantly the T2 has 4 more glowing valves than the blue hawaii and so looks better in the dark... but then the megatron has even more valves

I've used these guys before Stainless Steel Fasteners, Microscrews, American Threaded Fasteners . They are extremely responsive, and cover all the head styles and lengths in both metric and US thread sizes. If you don't see what you want, get in touch with them - not everything they have is on the website. I'll be using them once I decide what I need specifically in US thread sizes for the T2. Craig

You don't need a leaf spring. It only moves 270 degress... Four turns of wire around the thing connected to the shaft and to ground, and you are done. I've actually seen this done a few times.

RIP Richard Lee-Sung. https://www.metv.com/stories/rip-richard-lee-sung-a-m-a-s-h-actor-who-actually-served-in-the-korean-war

Dobie Gillis. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/09/obituaries/dwayne-hickman-dead.html

Being able to double drill and screw would be really nice. What were we talking about? On a completely different note, edge banding manually sucks.