Leaderboard

@ktm - i feel your pain, almost literally. Yesterday, for the second time in six months I had the dryer almost fully apart. Midway thru: The last time I "fixed" it the problem was just that the belt had jumped the idler pulley. I did notice while I was in there that the belt had a good sized crack but the need to continue to do laundry trumped the need to fix everything. It's only about an hour to get to that level of disassembly. So when it started making a weird screeching noise last weekend I ordered a maintenance kit (belt, idler assembly, and some other misc. bits) for a whopping $40. Andrew and I started disassembling it yesterday around 8:30 and two hours later had a fully functioning, much better sounding, 12+ year old dryer.

Best lens is of course dependent on a lot including what you shoot, and some of these are only available to specific mounts and in specific mounts there are many other options, but favorite? That's easy. Ignoring the CV 50 APO-Lanthar (new and suffering due to second lens choice below) and CV 50 Nokton 50 f/1 (arrived Friday, but first results are encouraging**), the clear winner is the only lens mentioned twice (different mounts), but actually three times. I bought the Voigtlander Nokton 40 f/1.2 E for a Sony system with electric coupling. Although the A7III was my least favorite camera (skin tones under mixed lighting and controls from a Fuji analog control fan), that lens-camera combo was my favorite. When I moved to the M240 I went with the 50mm VM equivalent due to frame lines with the rangefinder. And then when I traded the M240 for a SL, I re-ish bought the Nokton 40mm f/1.2, VM version this time. And of course I haven't sold any of them 'cause I'm lazy. Those Noktons are the perfect balance between character and accuracy in my book. Just pick the 40 or 50 based on FL you prefer. And don't take my word for it. Take a glance at the longest running single lens review thread over at FM (if you run through all you'll even see a birthday boy's appearance in bubble popping fun). There's an argument the Noktons are when Voigtlander went from third behind Leica and Zeiss, to equals (and of course many of Zeiss lenses are also made by Cosina, Voigtlander's owner). And if you discount the Leica approved/branded Panasonics and Zeiss approved/branded Sonys, Voigtlander has released the most lenses and experiments in the last seven or so years. Less expensive is a plus too. Two lens prime option? A smarter person would spread out the focal lengths, but you're talking to me. I'd go for the Sigma Art 40mm f/1.4 (aka Beyond Art - one lens cine specs in a still body experiment - c'mon Sigma do it again!). The Noktons opposite. Big, heavy, 16 elements/12 groups, optically near perfect and will pull resolution out any sensor behind it. Also that auto-focus thing. And watch the pricing as it rotates mounts sales often. Currently Canon and Nikon users are in luck (Adorama a little cheaper than B&H). Check out the below video. I love talking about camera gear and hate doing comparison shots, but you can see examples on IG and less frequently updated Flickr. Same user name and lens always mentioned in IG description at least. Using rangefinder lenses without info sent to camera doesn't help on the Flickr side and again, did I mention I'm lazy? Ha! I'm a big believer in body-lenses combinations. Lenses are creeping up in price (approaching/matching older bodies used cost) and with sensor resolution jumps the old lens-body relationship isn't what it quite was ("date the body, marry the lenses"). If you don't mind using different systems, maybe find magic combos, instead of spreading out to all focal lengths. Or go with zooms which invalidates pretty much everything above. Please! I'm always curious about cases/bags/straps experiences. Recently for me it's been Clever Supply straps and Stone or LATZZ drawstring bags for each lens/body and then whatever non-descript backpack my company gave me or Timbuk2 messenger bag I picked up on sale, that doesn't scream camera(s) inside. ** This is one of the 13 shots I've taken so far. Momentary Roblox disruption yesterday. Again, this is mostly family stuff so anything I say has likely zero benefit to landscape, sports, street... pretty much everything, shooters. But typing this did allow putting off cleaning house for a bit!

i wasn't expecting 2022 to have some personal bourbon renaissance but that's how it broke. against extremely long odds i was selected a month ago with 9 other folks to do Four Roses first ever barrel selections for their official Mellow Moments club. event was on Thursday then bottles sold yesterday. made some bourbon friends amongst the group and imbibed considerably. felt like an HC event. picked top 3 out of 10 barrels. i am happy to report I thieved everyone's samples on the top choice, 11 year OESV from north side of Warehouse P. heavy pours on a fucking belter. ^Brent the master distiller and Mandy who runs the program ^magnificent 10 for selections

I logged onto head-case for the first time since 2018. Seems pretty dead around here. My CD player was deemed unrepairable so I'm on the source hunt again. I put in an order for a DNA Stellaris 9 months ago. Haven't changed anything in my system in over 5 years. Biggie.

@Grawk, HemiSam, Covered_Ears, thanks guys. Yes, problem was I changed too many variables at once. Grind was set waaay too fine, overcompensated when changing from pour over to espresso. Did the pre infusion but did not give enough time. Changes will be implemented after my upcoming wine break.

All of those and not a contax g 45mm in the bunch? Do you even like photography?

I know that your spending a good part of the day driving from LA to Mayberry, but be sure to enjoy the trip!

Happy birthday, Al! Hope to buy you a round in person at the Younger release coming up!

Happy Birthday, Al!!! I hope it's a great one.

Happy Birthday, Al. Hope you have a "Real" hand operated artisan craftsman birthday, Rather than one of those non-real commercial powered imitations.

A Very Happy Birthday, Al!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday Al!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Al!

What it's your birthday? Happy Birthday Al!

Happy birthday Al. Assuming your car’s vibe is currently…

Happy Birthday Al! I hope the drive is good and you have a great one!

Cheers my Friend - Happiest of Birthdays...

Boot from a windows install disk/key, and choose command prompt. Enter "sfc /scannow" without quotes, and see what that does. It's also possible that you have disk or memory corruption that manifested independently, but coincidentally, with the Windows update that precipitated this issue, In which case your hardware is bad and would need to be examined/replaced. You could make a boot disk of Memtest86 to check your RAM for corruption issues.

Allow me to help solidify your point...

So if there's one thing I learned from the headphone hobby it's if you don't have too many headphones and amps you're going to have to collect dust somehow else. With the addition of the CV 50mm f/1.0 arriving yesterday (and today a blah and rainy day to test instead), doing more buying than selling during the pandemic, and knowing that has to change (I have lenses that have no corresponding bodies at this point), decided I needed to lay out the worst offenders to survey the damage (and offer you a laugh). I'm pretty much a prime, "normal" focal length shooter. Prefer 50mm to 35mm, though have drifted somewhat to 40mm over time. Well, 40 is the cine's normal to photography's 50 after all. Anyway, including only lenses at these focal lengths, not 35s or wider or 55 or above teles or any zooms, this is what sickness looks like. 17 lenses covering the same-ish view. "All the shots look pretty much the same!" Yeah, kinda, mostly, not completely, but I know. Don't harsh my buzz. A purge will come. Left to right and front to back... Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.0 (m-mount) Sigma dp2 Quattro [Foveon] camera fixed 30mm (45mm equivalent) f/2.8 Asahi Pentax SMC-M 50mm f/1.7 (k-mount) Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.2 (m-mount) Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.2 (m-mount) Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 50mm f/2.0 (m-mount) Voigtlander Heliar 50mm f/3.5 (m-mount) Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.5 mkI (m-mount) 7Artisans [Photoelectric] 50mm f/1.1 gold-baby! (m-mount) Sigma Contemporary I 45mm f/2.8 (l-mount) Sigma Art 50mm f/1.4 (sa-mount) Sigma Beyond Art 40mm f/1.4 (l-mount) Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.2 (e-mount) Zeiss Loxia 50mm f/2 (e-mount) Mikaton Zhongyi Speedmaster 35mm (50mm equivalent) f/0.95 (x-mount) Contax Zeiss T* Planar 50mm f/1.7 (c/y-mount, thanks @dsavitsk) Fujinon GF 50mm (40mm equivalent) f/3.5 (g/gf-mount) sd Quattro H and Fujifilm X-pro2 cameras not shown for those lenses. And here's a quick shot of a diarrhea sign testing the new lens last night before the sun went down. Buy high, sell low. I do love those Noktons. Maybe just settle on the CV 21 f/1.8 Ultron, and Noktons CV 40 f/1.2, CV 50 f/1.0, and CV 75 f/1.5 and one system? But the GFX is so fun with those Lomo lenses and color manipulation. Maybe two systems? And a basic zoom for each? Oh, that GF35 is so light, basically a X100 on steroids. And that CV f/3.5 so fun at that aperture. And I still have film aspirations. And I'm not going to get much cash at this point for those Foveon cameras anyway. I dunno, is minimalism still in?

Putin 'in better shape than ever', Belarus leader says. That means he's probably terminally ill.

OK, starting to dial in the Flair 58 and running into two learning curve issues. First, when pulling shots it is taking way too long 1.3 minutes and way too much force 10psi, to pull a full shot. I think I need to work on the grind setting, perhaps the setting is dialed in too fine. I am trying to figure out the settings as I move the Niche back and forth between pour over and espresso. Second, once I have finished the shot, I still have a puddle of water on the top of the 54mm portafilter's screen. Oddly enough the puck seems to be relatively solid so it must mean I am getting most of the water through the grounds. Any suggestions?

I missed this a couple of days ago courtesy of Covid - but the JWST has reached full optical alignment. The alignment object is a star well within our own galaxy, and you can see the 6-fold diffraction from the hexagonal mirrors. It is only visible because of the extreme brightness of the star. But everything else you can see are galaxies - right down to the faintest streaks you can pick out. This image is a tour de force of stunning optics and an astonishingly complex machine.

Panic buying Russian tubes

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?):

So, finally time to replace the cable of my 007. Birgir and others have probably demonstrated this before, but I thought I'd show some pics for those who, like me, haven't done it before (and, sooner or later it will be necessary). Off with pads and front plate, and the nylon piece covering solder terminals. Solderer's best friend: electrical tape. Some sacrifices necessary too - had to buy and eat a bar of chocolate for the cardboard to protect driver from hot solder. New cable in place. Also adjusted the headband elastic and put on the pads correctly, wasn't done before. Now the 007 sits tight on my head, sounds better and is more comfortable. Promised myself to fix the 007 when I finished my Carbon, so here goes. Build without major problems. MLA brought his variac for startup, and there were high voltages on the outputs. My mistake, had missed to solder one leg of a PZTA56, hanging in air. Fixed that and it works fine. Wanted to keep it simple and clean. Might add a LED when I can afford it.

My build uses the latest board version that uses PZTAx6 SMD parts. Power supply is 2 GRLV set for +/- 30VDC rails with 2 100VA transformers. Here are the detail steps I went through to adjust and bias my Dynahi. I gathered the information from reading this thread and other Dynahi build discussions on the web. Also consulted Kevin and reference the schematic. I hand measured and matched all resistors, LEDs and transistors before soldering. I only matched the output devices (MJF15030/MJF15031) at very low current but this seems to work out fine at the actual working current (75mA). I replaced one that was about 5% off. The rest are all within 1.5 % of each other. I use matched 2SK170/2SJ74 pairs to replace the THAT340. They are BL grade. Feedback resistors (R52, R56) are 50K (200K on silkscreen) and I use 100R for R23, R24 (50R on silkscreen), 680R for R1, R4 (500R on silkscreen). This combination of R1/R4, R23/R24 works great for my target bias current of 75mA per output device. To bias the output devices for the desired current, it’s necessary to pick the right combination of R1/R4 and R23/R24. Higher R23/R24 resistance increases bias current while higher R1/R4 resistance shifts the bias adjustment range downward. As Kevin has warned more than once, do not test this amp without proper heatsink. The MJF15030/15031 is only rated at 2W maximum dissipation in 25C ambient temperature. I took the following steps to bias and adjust the amp: Step 1 - before powering up the amp: Set RV3 and RV4 in their exact middle value. The Bourns trim pots I use have a 10% tolerance. I measured R9/R10, R11/R12 (100R resistors on top and below RV3 and RV4) to ensure RV3 and RV4 are both centered. RV3 and RV4 are located on the PCB right next to the THAT340. Set RV1 and RV2 to their maximum resistance so the amp is biased at the lowest possible output current. I did this by measuring the resistance of R1 and R4 (the 500R on the PCB right next to RV1 and RV2). On my amp, they are about 640R. On my build, I mounted RV2 backwards (in regard to the silkscreen) so turning both RV1 and RV2 adjustments clockwise decrease their resistance. Step 2 – power up check: Power on the amp and measure bias current (indicated by the voltage drop across the bank of 20R resistors) and output DC offset. With my amp at cold start and before any adjustments, the bias current is about 34mA and the output offset measured to ground is -1 VDC on one board and -0.5 VDC on the other. The DC offset between O+ and O- is 19mV and 25mV. This step is a sanity check to see if anything is out of whack. Let the amp warm up to steady working temperature before proceeding to next step while taking periodic measurements and checking the heatsink temperature. It takes 30 minutes or more for the amp to reach steady temperature. For the following steps, make the adjustments slowly and gradually and allow time for the amp to settle following each adjustment. Step 3 – compensate for transistors mismatch in the input stage: Adjust RV3 and RV4 so the voltage drop across R7 and R8 are the same and the voltage drop across R13 and R14 are the same. This adjustment is tricky and delicate. Adjusting either RV3 or RV4 affects the voltage drop across all 4 resistors (R7, R8, R13, R14). Also the adjustment is made to a 10K trim pot (pre-adjusted to 5K) parallel to a 100R resistor. The resistance change is relatively small at first in relation to the turns of the trim pot. I adjusted RV3 and RV4 in small and equal amount in turn to get to equal voltage drop between R7/R8, R13/R14. Be patient and be careful! This adjustment affects the DC offset between O+ and O-. Step 4 – biasing output sections: Decreasing the resistance of either RV1 or RV2 will increase the current of ALL the 16 output devices on the board. At the same time, decreasing RV1 resistance will push the output DC offset (measured to ground) more negative while decreasing RV2 resistance will push the output DC offset more positive. Adjust RV1 clockwise to increase the bias, say 20mA at a time. The output DC offset to ground will go more negative at the same time. Then adjust RV2 clockwise (CCW if RV2 is mounted in accordance to the silkscreen) to bring the output DC offset close to 0mV (the bias current will increase at the same time). Repeat these two adjustments back and forth until you reach your desired bias current while keeping the output offset as close to 0mV as possible. The offset between O+ and O- is not affected by RV1/RV2 adjustment and will remain very stable through the process while the offset to ground will drift quite a bit. It’s normal. Step 5 – nulling the offset between O+ and O- if needed and/or desired: Adjust RV3 and RV4 in a convergent fashion (one clockwise, the other counter-clock wise) to bring the offset between O+ and O- to 0 V. I consider this step 5 optional unless the offset between O+ and O- is excessive and cannot be taken care by the servo. I did not do step 5 on my amp since, following step 3 and 4, without the servo, the offset is steady at 23mV on one channel and 25mV on the other and not likely to hurt anything. I can always engage the servo if desired. I have tried other methods of adjustment including one that skipped Step 3. The difference is that, with step 3, I end up with more uniform bias current across all 16 output devices, generally within 1.5% of each other. When I skip step 3, while the current between the PNP and NPN banks on each phase is within 1.5% or so, the current variance between non-inverted and inverted phases is about 8%. I did not try very hard but frankly my wooden ears could not tell the difference between the outcome of the two methods. Maybe someone with a scope can see the difference. I also consulted with Kevin and he does not feel strongly if there is a right or wrong method either. One more thing, this thing runs hot! By my calculation, running +/- 30VDC rails and 75mA bias, each output device is dissipating 2.19W. That’s about 35W of heat needing to be dissipated by the heatsink per board. It’s a monster of a headphone amp!

I've learned today that the horrible coat he was wearing in the stadium meeting was made by this firm: https://es.loropiana.com/en/p/man/coats-and-trench/dunnet-coat-FAL8307?colorCode=W000