Leaderboard

As much room porn as it is speaker porn. Germany.

One thing's for certain, it sure AF won't open the pod bay doors for you.

Knucks, I think this is what you're asking for. If so, PM me an address and I'll get them sent out via USPS Priority mail.

After yesterday's GWAR pledge drive, Sparks! example: The Official Video. or live at Glastonbury (with Lydia Tár)

I refinished a stock. After removing the finish, used something called timberluxe - it’s birth year linseed oil and pixie dust I guess … it’s reassuringly expensive and doesn’t last long once air gets in the bottle. Then used a few coats of wax. Ta da! My second project was quite the opposite in terms of success. The stock used a stain/filler base with crappy poly top coat - it’s almost like it had hand drawn dark grain streaks to simulate flamed walnut appearance. I am going to have to regroup and figure out how to re-attempt that one.

One of the neat things about living in such a famous place is that people do things like jump in a small airplane, fly around and photograph the town with a fisheye lens:

Well this just arrived and as is our fashion, it has not been plugged in at all before I rip it apart. I'm having some camera issues (bloody Lightroom) so not as many as I'd like. Now first off why this belongs on a trashpile... here is the output: It's a pain to get a camera to focus between the transformers so I ended up grabbing the phone. Those are the ballast resistors, two 1M units in series and one 3M3 unit, all in 1206 package so likely 150V rated. Yeah no... just no, this is not good enough!! It gets worse though... It's a shit angle but here is how the transformers connect to the output socket: Now do you notice any parts on this PCB except connectors? Nope, neither do I... there is no protection on the output at all. No 5K1 output resistors nor the clamp circuit found on all later Stax adapter boxes. This thing will kill your headphones when pushed hard enough and there is nothing to protect the user if something goes wrong. Yup, pure class here... zero fucks given. Some other random pics, main amp runs off a +/-15V supply and the PSU brick is 15V/2A. Preamp presumably and the whole thing looks to be AC coupled through those electrolytic caps so that will not sound good at all. I see no other reason for those caps to be there so yeah, who does something like this. At least the volume pot is 4 gangs so the thing is fully balanced. Conclusion, without even plugging it in, this is a pile of crap and should not be used by anybody. The small changes to make this secure and sound good cost next to nothing but nobody cares. Best avoided unless you want to have a special talk to the manufacturer of your headphones as to why there are holes in the diaphragms... Now if I have time, I'm going to fully strip this thing down and design a PCB for the Stax socket which adds full protection and a clamp circuit. Fix the input caps and other issues that I find and this might a semi good 400$ amp. Personally I'd take a Stax SRM-313 over this pile of crap.

Forgot the pic!

As if the offer by @swt61 were not good enough, I have a sweetener that I can give him to send you with his adapter. It is a "crystal cable"* HD800 cable with Xhadow high end dual 3-pin XLRs that I forgot I had. It was given to me by Uncle Wilson at a meet and he didn't want it back. I don't have any dual XLR amps so you can have it as long as you want it. Only caveat would be that you send it back or give it to another Head-caser if you end up not needing it any more. *Not clear to me it is really Crystal Cable or a knock-off but it is a good cable regardless.

Exactly as I wrote above. Meanwhile Kevin uses a 10R resistor between circuit ground and PE ground (like on newer GRLVs), same as Krell. Nelson Pass uses a thermistor and the IEC recommends a real ground break circuit consisting of a HF power cap, power resistor and a rectifier (inverse parallel coupled power diodes). The idea is that this network must survive longer that it takes the mains fuse to rupture and for the arc to extinguish. This is also described on Rod Elliott pages in more detail. The essence thing is to connect both PE and circuit grounds in the PSU box only at the star point and have both grounds run separately to the amp's chassis. Regarding pin 1 grounding which in this context plays a role as well and was asked above, here is a pic. It goes to the amps chassis and then to the PSU chassis (remember separated chassis ground wire run) and then to PE and is (in a differential amp setup) used with metal chassis basically for shielding only. In order to satisfy the various environments and wildly used grounding schemes and avoid loops, there is a new series of expensive Neutrik EMC XLR connectors using a cap between the connector's shell and pin 1. Here is a good read up on this.

Does it sing Daisy?

Speaking of paying real money for things, anyone want to buy a fisheye lens? It can see behind itself. Careful, that front element is a little fragile. 130,000 Euros and counting.

Used above setting for a long time and haven't had any issues so far – knock on wood. Also, in JoaMat kitchen we don’t use any kind of thermal compound... , but we use

@jokerman777 Based on your post's I'd recommend disassembling both angle brackets, making sure all holes are properly deburred, and all the tappings are clean, also clean all semi's. Make sure the screws can go into the tapped holes using only finger force - if not re-tap the hole. Re-assemble, using regular compound (the white stuff). As for the buzz, you stated to have observed a flash in the region of the negative rails, and showed a burn'ed screw from the positive rail, showing that something was cookin here as well, and might have cause excessive current draw from the transformer causing it to buzz

You also need to be careful on tightening torque. For correct assembly, the torque is surprisingly low. I bought a torque screwdriver for exactly this purpose. What insulating bushes and washers have you used? Have a look at https://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/AN1040-D.PDF Basically overtightening can distort the semiconductor package and compromise thermal transfer, and that you have split the insulating bush suggests you are massively overtightening the fixing screw. Craig

I worked at a used camera store many years ago. We'd periodically find little red plastic circles that said "Leitz" on them in boxes of junk. People would pay real money for those. Even more, apparently, if they are glued to a Panasonic P&S.

I was able to source a pesky CR123A on-island. I spent considerable time cleaning the Leica C3 and reading the manual. Being a Leica product, there is no official PDF to download. Fortunately, some kind soul scanned the paper manual and put that on line as a PDF. The C3 really is a "crappy consumer point and shoot" as envisioned by Leica. It has no exposure settings. Everything is automatic. It is possible to disable the flash. Similarly, the horrific date stamp is on by default but can also be defeated. What separates the C3 from the legion of similar e-waste (besides that little round logo) is its lens. It's a weird, slow zoom, which is something I'd hate normally. Also I don't think it's possible to attach filters, which is a really big downside for a film camera. Also the aperture gets pathetically small at the long end. With that said, by all accounts it's a really good piece of glass. I loaded a 24 exposure roll of long expired Fuji ISO 200 ...something. I will probably shoot it all at the wide end (28mm.)

The power supply matters so much more, and is so much harder to design. Amp circuits are a dime a dozen - they all more or less sound the same.

And this is exactly how you don't do it. You pass both signal and PE grounds (separately) to the amp's chassis. PE connects there to the chassis only. Signal ground is obvious. And absolutely no other connections between both. In the PSU case you connect to the chassis (near the mains power entry): 1. PE ground, 2. transformer shield (if any) and 3. signal ground (best through a circuit breaker, at least a 10 ohm resistor) in a star manner. And this is the only connection where PE ground connects to signal ground (better called circuit ground as a differential signal doesn't use ground).

That's a lot of woofer.

Oldly enough, I say the same for the IRS.

This is going to be a long walk, and kind of a gross one. In the second half of the 00s, as everyone was ditching film, a friend gave me a Canon EOS Rebel K2. It's a very consumer grade film SLR. I put a few rolls through it, but I've never been a committed film photographer. 35mm just isn't worth the cost and effort, and larger formats require one's own darkroom. In a slightly different universe, I would shoot medium format and ULF. I took about 10 years off from photography. The reasons were many, and not all good. I've begun to pick it up on 2023. Part of that process has involved me going through all my old kit. I've carefully cleaned off my IR-modied 5D (I still need to give its sensor one last cleaning) and many of my lenses. I also unearthed the old Rebel K2. Its batteries (it uses a pair of expensive and annoying CR2s) were long dead. I spent considerable time on Amazon, looking at rechargeable options. My interest was primarily in getting a battery for the Leica C3 I picked up a few days ago. The C3 uses a single CR123(A). There are a number of well reviewed options for rechargeables, buuut ...they're considered hazardous materials and can't be shipped to a PO box. This is a recurring problem with island life. I will solve the issue of the C3 one way or another (it's too cool to not use). Even if I just buy a package of lithium CR123s and deal with their annoyingly short lifespan, it will be worth it in the short term. The K2 presents a decidedly different problem. It's not a very good camera. It was never a very good one. I do have an army of glass I can attach to it, but I don't really want to do so. With that said, there is a roll of slide film in it that I started in 2011 that I have yet to finish. I'd not bother, but most of the exposures on it were taken while I was visiting MV in 2011. I have a text file on my Google Drive detailing the date, time, location and exposure settings of all of them. I really want to finish this roll, even if there's a strong chance that the shots are no good. Slide film does not keep forever. As part of of the process of getting re-acquainted with my camera gear, I've been going through the pile of camera bags and lens cases I have amassed. A number of them were stored in an upstairs closet on my mainland house and they're a bit ...stinky. I've been emptying them out and airing them out today. The Vineyard is a very breezy place, and it clears out most odors quickly. Inside one of the camera bags was my old K2. I picked it up and made a horrible discovery. It has a shitty "rubberized" grip, and whatever coating Canon saw fit to put on it 20+ years ago has turned into black goo. Handling it is an absolute nightmare. I dug up a bottle of iso alcohol and and old rag. I spent a good 20 minutes carefully cleaning off the disgusting grip. I am pleased to announce that I am victorious over The Black Goo. Mostly. I also found an unopened pair of CR2 batteries and after 3 tries I got the K2's battery compartment open. The K2 came to life and said "Yep, still got 3 exposures here, boss." I'm gonna hafta attach my 17-40L to it and finish it off. Then I'm tasked with finding an outfit that will develop, scan and return the film to me.

FInally got around to casing my DynaFET. I ordered the case from Modushop in November of 2021. I will probably clean up the wiring, particularly the output wiring. Also need to bolt the transformer down. I wish I would have done the lettering a bit smaller, but overall satisfied with how it turned out, and it sounds great, even though it is single-ended.

I found another blueberry bomb. Yemen: Mocca Mattari, Sana’a Governorate from Coffee Bean Corral It's very yummy. I have another one that I have more of to try roasting next. If that one turns out well, I'll offer it for sale.

The reason I always write it as "Millet(t) Hybrid" is because my HRDMH was a production sample and in addition to having the "Home" upgrade, it also bears a typo: When I contacted Headroom a decade ago when I bought it, the staff member I spoke to expressed surprise that it had been sold. It still smells faintly of pot smoke.

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

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.

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. 😆

Yesterday I repaired a Canon ef 17-55mm f/2.8. I bought it broken for €150, the diaphragm didn't work and here the ST does not repair them, so you have to send it to the mainland. This lens cost arround 800€ new here. For 3 bucks I bought the flex wire conection that moves the diaphragm and after 5 hours of work (I had never opened an objective) and a hour cleaning glasses.... I was able to leave it as good as new. After a good while taking this thing apart: The damn broken flex wire: Its alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Helped to move a few things with Al, at his Brother Tom's house. I have no idea how they ended up with one of Greg's wine corks, but it made for a nice side table.

Tour de France: Unchained on Netflix. Quite good if you are into that kind of thing.

Jest before I stopped playing with it last night I took some measurements, I fed it a 10kHz squarewave, 1Vpp from a function gen and while it was a pain to get a good ground in there, we are not dealing with high speed signals either. Here is the input to the amp: Nice enough squarewave but here is the output of the amp, set to my usual listening level: This was one leg of the output of the transformer, here is the other: Yeah.... this isn't great, is it? Might be the worst I've ever seen but I naturally forgot to measure the primary of the transformers and I've already started to rip the unit apart. I may do that later.

So, I listened to it (as next step it to fully rip it apart) and in my regular test rig which is a Teac UD-503 dac driven over USB. Output set to 0dB on the DAC (no attenuation and no gain either), balanced inputs and I had to use the high gain function and volume control at 2-3pm on the dial. I could listen at full volume level, not something I'd recommend but yeah, this thing is just fucked. This is with SR-207's (my go to test headphones) so anything more power hungry will suffer even more. Now how does this sound... well mushy and very peaky. The midrange has this haze to it and the treble is very... alive. Bass is exaggerated but not always so, it kinda comes and goes as this thing struggles to get any output. Sound-staging is also pretty terrible so I find it hard to recommend this over the Stax SRM-252S. I also put it on a Kill-a-watt and at full output it draws 7.5W from the wall. That's not a whole lot of power there...

My Pixel phone tells me when, and by how much, I am out of level. Consequently, all pictures of my cats are very correct. From the numerous posts you have made, it seems that it is finally time to get off the pot, be honest with yourself, and admit what your true calling is.

I've had this rant brewing for a while. In the world of photography, large format photographers are the biggest dicks in the room (in the Tice sense.) If the subject is holding still, large format (which is basically anything between 4x5" and 8x10") cameras do things better than anything digital and do it with 100-150 year old technology. Large format cameras can correct for perspective in ways that even the most sophisticated SLR lenses cannot. Large format photographers shoot at tiny apertures far beyond the point of maximum sharpness for any lens and deep into the diffraction loss territory. Their lines rendered per square inch is much worse than any digital camera but they make up for it by ...having more inches (I swear I wasn't trying to make so many dick jokes when I started.) Film stock is many orders of magnitude better now than it was in decades past, but apart from that it's quite possible to use camera equipment from before the war (the great war) in 2023 and be a functionally state of the art photographer. There's a rather large issue of color vs B&W stock and reciprocity failure that I've ignoring, but it's not directly relevant to the subject I'm going to address here. As I've alluded to in many posts, I now live in Vartha's Mine Yard full time. This storied island is and has been the home to many talented photographers (including at least one super famous one.) There's man in his 60s a who lives here now and shoots with a late 19th century LF camera. I have yet to see his work, but I'm very interested in doing so. Tangent: Large Format is one of the last signposts before sanity starts to disappear completely. After 8x10" the world of Ultra Large Format begins with 11x14" AKA "My contact prints are better than yours." ULF is where madness sets in. I've seen an 11x14" camera. It was ginormous. Anything beyond is lunacy for lunacy's sake. Of course, the final destination for a photographer that has utterly taken leave of his senses is ...alternative and historical processes. The people who make cyanotypes, tintypes, daguerreotypes etc. are artisans, craftsmen and people who make me look totally sane as I'm ranting about the mintue details of the work an obscure Eastern European electronic music producer at the end of my radio show. Ahem. As I was saying, I have a small confession to make. Since moving to MV, I've become a bit of a Facebook Boomer. That's really saying something as I loathe Facebook and ...don't really like the baby boomer generation. It turns out that on an insular place like MV, most of the locals communicate ...in a private FB group. Even my (sainted, octogenarian) mother who has never used FB in her life, is aware of this group. I now log into FB multiple times a day to check out what's going on about town. As one might expect much if it is "need a place to live" "lost dog" "found dog" "why is that on fire?" etc. Old Zucc's AI sure has noticed the uptick in my FB usage. I'm now getting all sorts of notifications from FB that I haven't before ("We've got a special survey just for people like you!" "The FB Messenger App for OS X is ready to download!") I figured a good way to get known on MV (in spite of being a 4th generation Vineyarder, my grandfather ran the fish market in my town in the mid 20th century) was to show off some of my photography. I've been posting a couple shots I've taken in the last ...18 years on MV to the group. My other main skill is putting words together about why exactly I really do or do not like something, and I've been using the positive side of that trait to explain my history on MV and the subjects I've photographed. So far I've gotten a consistently positive response. There are a lot of photos posted to the MV FB group, and the vast majority of them are current tech smart phone overly HDR snapshots that drive me nuts. It's not that I'm such a snob that I can't appreciate snapshots taken by Joe and Jane Average, on the contrary, I love work like that. Photography by the people is often the most interesting. What drives me batty is the pseudo HDR math "everything is the same brightness level" look that smartphone camera software produces. It's designed to appeal immediately to the untrained eye. It makes me want to scream. Once a while, a real artist shows up. As I said, there are a lot of really skilled photographers on this island and many of them make use of very specialized camera equipment, often to spectacular effect. In the summer of 2001 a fella with an LF camera did an interior shot of one of the Victorian cottages here on MV: "Gingerbread House, Methodist Campground, Oak Bluffs, MA, July 19, 2001. 8x10 camera, 165mm @ F/22, 4 seconds, Tri-X film, minus development." As I said, LF cameras excel at things where other cameras falter. Correcting for perspective in architectural photographer is no mean feat (I know, I've tried and more or less universally failed.) When I saw the above image posted to the MV FB group, I excitedly commented how impressed I was and that a 165mm lens is "quite wide angle" for an 8x10" camera, roughly equivalent to a 22mm lens on a 35mm camera. A day or so later, I got a notification of reply to my comment on FB. I won't quote it here, but it had been dipped in bromine and condescension. The photographer corrected me that the FoV was closer to 28mm because of the "crop factor" of 8x10. Motherfucker. That's not crop factor. That's ASPECT RATIO. If you're going to be so thoroughly pendantic, you've now taken on the task of being correct about the minutiae at hand. I suppose one could make a case that camera lenses produce image circles and the film plane is "cropping" a square or rectangle out of them, but that's not how the terminology works in common usage. Unfortunately, sometimes LF photographers are the biggest dicks in the room in the ...TubeRoller sense. (How's that for an OG HeadFi reference?) Also, I should learn to take things less personally.

Holy dog's bollocks. I just got a Leica C3 at the local second hand shop. For $6.

Black Cat is my “house” espresso. It’s good stuff. Breville can’t be fixed. The steam boiler has a failed weld. Looks like it was bad from the factory. You can’t get the part, unfortunately. Now I need to decide what I replace it with. I’ve been happy with the Flair 58 for espresso, but I miss milk steaming. I could just get another Breville Dual Boiler, but build quality leaves me a bit shy to the idea. I really liked the machine, though. I’m guessing either a Mara X or the Argos Odyssey, probably. I guess it depends on whether I want a cup warmer or not.