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I got my Walkman back from repairs. The muting module had issues and it needed a new belt. Sounds great again.

@Icarium Dan made a small group buy of Wagyu beef at Costco that Stretch and I joined a couple of years ago. One of my steaks in a vacuum bag ℅ Dan ended up at the bottom of the freezer and I noticed it for the first time in a long time recently. It fried up real good regardless of the age, I'm sure in part because of the vacuum seal. Claire and Alden and I polished it off happily.

Sous Vide / BBQ pork chops

I have exactly one neighbor. His name is Gary. He's a genuine boomer, turning 70 this year. He is some kind of special needs. In his day, on Marthas Vineyard, there wasn't much in the way of diagnosis so he just kind of got by. He lived with his mother until she passed on my birthday this year at the age of 93(!) Now Gary lives alone, and I live here on MV. Gary does okay, but my (sainted, octogenarian) mother does have some worries about him. He mentioned to her that his electric bill was over $200 this month. She said to me "you have an awful lot of spare LED bulbs, you should see if Gary would let us replace some of his incandescents." She wasn't wrong. For reasons not entirely worth explaining, I have 3-4 boxes of LED bulbs I brought with me to the Vineyard. My father was a hoarder of antique furniture. He built barns to hold it all: In spite of the thousands of records and CDs I own, not to mention the nightclub's worth of lighting gear (and all the stereo equipment) I own, I have always rejected the notion that I am a hoarder. Except for lightbulbs. I have to cop to it. I compulsively bought CFL bulbs when those were a thing, and then moved on to LED bulbs when they arrived. I have done some pretty neat things with them. I restored a bunch of antique lamps: (For colored bulbs, CFLs are better than LED. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.) Even with the lamps above and many more, I have a vast excess of LED bulbs. Today, with Gary's permission I went through his house and wrote down all of the bulbs I thought he could use. Then I went up to my attic where it was 115 goddamn degrees and dragged down a few boxes. I then spent an hour replacing the bulbs in most of Gary's house. I did most of the living area, and discussed with him a few spots I could not get to (the garage and basement.) He seemed pleased. Also I have (slightly) fewer bulbs kicking around now.

Thanks everybody. I almost got a volcano as a present but nope... not yet. As I wrote this an earthquake shook us...

Dang. I will just stick with my old standard (with a pile of upgrades) LP12.

PTSD warning!

Did that bastard Emooze steal it from you? 😡

I once owned that same Walkman.

I know you like to pretend otherwise, Knucks, but you are a saint.

Sea Ranch Brunch

French toast: "Classic" & "Waffled"

Sea Ranch "Entertainment"

I noticed that 1 of the 3 bias was lower than the other 2 after warming up. Had to add a couple of 20 gauge copper strips to thermally connect the 2 heat sinks together.

Baked Ziti. Ziti, sweet Italian sausage, tomato sauce, red bell pepper, onion, garlic, ricotta & fresh mozzarella.

Here is my new CFA2 LargeT version up and running with large triple output transistors pairs it first started up at 200ma bias and turned it down to 150ma offset is less than 1mv with the servo The big resistors are 1 ohm 5 watt 2% Metal Oxide Film MOSX5C1R0G the other resistors are RN55 & CMF55 the caps are 560pf 100v FG28C0G2A561JNT0 47uf 25v FG26X5R1E476MRT0

Meeting with Purk and his friend, Wut. Unfortunately, nothing new to show to them. But, as usual, we went out for a lunch together, and I had to make sure that I fed them enough. 😆

Speaking of Speaking for itself: Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section (OJC Remaster) Art Pepper 1957 https://album.link/i/1443151711 Example: I cannot want much more than Art playing a Gillespie tune. Well and all the other tunes on this album. It must have been pretty amazing to have been into jazz between 1955-64, and hearing these albums for the first time without standards being standards. Add more pepper to your day, it is a good thing.

I tried the amp @ CanJam and thought, hmm wait a minute, the knob is only at 11 and I'm listening THIS LOUD to STAX? That's when I realized.. the gain is ~2400x, which is the highest I have heard of for an electrostatic amp (STAX amps typically 500x to 1000x) but makes perfect sense for demonstrations in a loud room. I changed the gain tube in the Grand Cayman (720x gain) from 12SN7 to 12SL7, which did the trick But that was the end of the show, so...next time

I’m neither good at landscape or square format, but when you lug the nearly five pound Zeiss 50mm Distagon, Hassy 500cm, 42307 45 Prism, and CFV II 50c back (forgot the monopod) into a park last weekend, you try. Here are my best Bon Iver album covers.

This could go here, or on a drinks thread. This is a picture of the ultimate in home entertainment in the 50's. On the right there is a radio, and above it a record player, and the white speaker grill below. Mono of course. On the left, there is a cocktail cabinet with record storage below. Nothing like getting quietly hammered while listening to music. It is not mine BTW.

It does not really matter if anyone agrees with which sound I enjoyed best. What matters is what others would enjoy best for themselves which may very well the the opposite of my personal findings.

They better be careful they don't get sued over those rounded corners.