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Baldur's Gate 3 I was sick with a summer cold last week and had some time to sink in to this. I have never played Dungeons and Dragons before, but I spent the last few weeks studying up on it in order to be ready for this game. It is not often that less than halfway through something I can already tell it is going to be genre-defining. This is one of the ten best video games I have ever played and I am less than 1/3 of the way through it. Take the rock-solid systems of Dungeons and Dragons polished by years and years of iteration by great game designers as a foundation. Add a truly gigantic world with insane depth and attention to detail. Have every dialog in the game be fully motion captured and voice acted. Oh yeah, and have a PC client that looks truly stunning in HDR with everything cranked and runs smooth as silk. This feels like an all-timer. BG3 is something special and I don't give out this kind of praise lightly.

John Coltrane; Live at the Village Vanguard

It´s not a Rudy record but... I wanted to listen to Bill...

I wish you good luck. I can't believe how screwed up Stax as a company is. All they have to do is make the sr007a with spares, support and repair, license the blue hawaii and modern T2 from Kevin and maybe a couple of cheaper energizer designs and they would done.

Speaking of rabbit holes, I've been catching up on Canon digital bodies. I only have ever owned two: The EOS30D, which I got new in 2006. It was never a good model and has aged like a fruit salad. In 2012 I bought an IR-modified 5D (a 2005 model), now called a "5D Classic" and it has aged like a fine wine. I've read up on the mirrorless bodies and while they're quite neat and definitely the future, there's two things I don't like about them. First, they're not as good for manual focusing as an SLR. As I have mentioned, I have a rather large assortment of manual lenses and am shopping for more. The second is that the R series too damn expensive. Older digital bodies can be remarkably affordable. The 5D classic is a downright bargain. The 5D II, a camera I never particularly liked, isn't that much more. The 2012 5D III is possibly the best deal going in terms of price to performance. Weirdly, the 1DX Mk II, which was $6500 new, is an absolute steal on the used market. The 1D has all the pro body strengths/weaknesses. It's built like a tank and slightly heavier. It uses great batteries that are insanely expensive. It doesn't have a flip out screen because those aren't durable. It's weather sealed so attaching L glass to it makes for a resilient camera. All of the above has lead me to the conclusion that my next body is going to be a used 5D Mark IV. The biggest selling point to me over the 5D IV over all of the others (including the 1DX II) is that it has the best dynamic range. I have never once thought "Gee, this photo has too much dynamic range." Half of my battles in photography are try to juggling the highlights and shadow details. The 'bay in 2023 is a fascinating hellscape. The enshittification of that site is real. Sponsored ads fucking all over the place. Obvious scam accounts posting screenshots from other auctions everywhere. Scam accounts buying sponsored ads and eBay doing nothing but collecting the money. The funny and sad thing here is that Canon DSLRs aren't even the main focus of camera scammers. That would be the excellent Fuji 100 series of compact cameras. Apparently some Kardashian or other cancerous influencer name dropped a Fuji 100 a while ago and now an entire generation of human blisters on Instagram and Tik Tok have driven the prices of them up through the stratosphere. The Fuji X100 is now selling for more than it did new. We really do deserve to go extinct as a speci.... UH I MEAN, there are a number of listings for the 5D Mark IV. One guy is selling his with a battery grip and an 85mm F/1.8, which is a mighty fine lens. It's no 85L, but nothing on earth is. Also I've never actually owned an 85mm prime, which is odd given ...my entire history as a photographer. The battery grip will let me cosplay as a 1DX owner. All of the wrist pain for a fraction of the price.

what about the 90C version which is 900v instead of 800v

It lives! the son of the mostly modern (RIP) T2 was powered up for the first time this morning (not in a case and with cheap valves) and looks good. All virtual batteries within 0.6V of 740 volts with no adjustments to the trimmers. DC offset after warm up <4V without any adjustments to the trimmers. DC ballance <0.03V power consumption as expected. I did have a bit of a scare. When powering on with my variac for the first time the led next to the EL34 was very dim compared to the others and all the leds where less bright than my original build. Then I remembered that I used different leds in this build and they are in general less bright. I don't think I can be bothered to remove these leds and replace them with the same as the RIP T2. Latest update in the rip T2 troubleshooting, diode testing and comparing the silicon to the son of T2 it looks like one of the J79s is dead... which is a pain since I have no replacements. This dead J79 is on the same channel as the failed 6922. The op-amps and voltage references tested fine. This does not explain why the other channel also had a massive ballance issue between + and - outputs but at least its some progress.

I don't know who is tossing your salad, but in my situation no intermingling has occured. It's a case of 2 Salads, 1 Plate.

Put the first coat on the Spa Towel Rack and while I was waiting for it to dry I power carved another bowl to go on top of it to hold her bath bombs.

And some blues. Johnny Winter Johnny Winter 1969 https://album.link/i/193769775 Example: Enjoyable album. Nice and rough around the edges, with some solid licks here and there. And the line - "There's so much shit in Texas, I'm bound to step in some"

The Kicker Bobby Hutcherson 1999 (um, must be the remix - recorded 1963) https://album.link/i/724539296 Example: Speaking of RVG recordings. So I think that I might be slow on the uptake that it was Rudy that was the secret sauce in the Blue Note history that made magic happen so much. Now I am not saying the performance, that is the magic on it's own. But capturing the notes and giving them to us is sublime.

Hi y'all, Having a bit of a conundrum with my Stax SR-007 Mk1 (S/N 71169) electrostatic earspeaker. As reported in another HC thread of mine (decided to start a new one here because this was getting quite off-topic there), the right driver's inner dust cover somehow got torn and hence some pretty serious mold damage took place inside. As a result, a rather severe channel imbalance ensued. Opening up the driver for cleaning and assessing the extent of the damage revealed that the diaphragm coating got affected. After having a look at the Japanese Stax repair page (with the help of Google Translate), I learned that Any international inquiry regarding servicing Stax products must go through the official Stax distributor in one's own country (that was the only piece in English in the whole page, by the way). In other words, my trying to contact Stax directly for a repair quote is a waste of time; The 007 Mk1 can still be serviced by Stax in Japan (through the aforementioned channels) but with possible substitution of parts. This includes the sound elements, which are replaced by current 007 Mk2 transducers. Stax won't sell spare / replacement parts directly to individual customers. Regarding 1., I've contacted Edifier (the current owner of the Stax brand) here in Brazil. After their contacting Stax in Japan, the answer was that Stax won't accept items for repair through Edifier Brazil unless either they were bought from the latter or, at the very least, I have a receipt from the original owner showing the original place of purchase. Unfortunately, I satisfy neither requirement - my 007 Mk1's former owner also got it used. To sum up, Stax simply won't accept my 007 Mk1 for repair at all 🤬 That leaves me with only two alternatives for repairing my 007 Mk1: either (a) try to get a spare / replacement sound element unofficially elsewhere, or (b) try to open up and repair the driver myself. Regarding (a), HeyNow HiFi in Australia had these for sale until recently, but they no longer seem to have them. I just couldn't find them anywhere else. Which brings me to my main question: does anyone here at HC know where I can find spare / replacement Stax SR-007 sound elements? I wouldn't mind if they're Mk2 drivers, since this is what Stax would do to replace them anyway. Edit (August 10th, 2023): Second-hand drivers are also acceptable if they are in good condition - if I manage to get one, I might just gut it to get the diaphragm so I can try to keep the tuning of the original driver (as far as its internal geometry goes, at least - see also below). That would also keep the cost down... Regarding (b), in the last couple of months I've been trying to repair the driver myself with the kind and patient remote help of C. Wachara (HC user chinsettawong), to whom I thank once more. To make a long story short, I was able to replace the torn dust cover membrane and the stators only needed cleaning. However, regarding the diaphragm itself I'm currently facing some difficulties I'm not sure I'll be able to solve - that's why I'm also still trying (a). If the diaphragm repair turns out to be successful after all, I'll update this thread with the exact procedure I used since it might be useful to other SR-007 owners. In the near future I intend nonetheless to describe the repair steps that did work out for me, as time allows. Thank you in advance for any help you may provide.

Damn, dude. No lip syncing here.

In the uk I had a sr007 mk2 cable replacement from electromod (I got the cable caught did not realise stood up and damaged the cable). They may be able to help. Good luck https://www.electromod.co.uk/stax-spares

I'm confused. Once you toss them, don't they become one salad?

Similar to https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/30/23780115/aspartame-iarc-who-food-safety-carcinogen My ADI is significantly below the threshold of concern. Plenty of other things to worry about, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/things-more-cancerous-diet-coke-30386860 if you like to worry ("would it help?") How are your Cigars? ?

its easier to do the board, then let the software turn it back into a schematic update: should be final schematic. that is a 3 pole (18db) low pass filter at 18khz. part of schematic now. nfca3.PDF

Tonight for dinner I built a really good, veggie filled salad. Sometimes that's all I want. I did add croutons and dressing.

Talk Talk - It's My Life (40th anniversary)

Spirit of Eden Talk Talk 1988 https://album.link/i/701395363 Example: Why was I not listening to this in the 80s? I was into jazz and classical, along with Nobody in my high school. This would have been something that I would have listened to. I guess it just comes down to exposure. It was not getting radio play, And I didn't have friends to expose me to it. But like I have said many times in this thread, I am happy to discover these albums now. I really liked this, it is more brooding and a journey than The Colour of Spring.

Found the rs export site here: https://export.rsdelivers.com/?fromAmericas=1 But when I enter US as the destination country they redirect me to the US site with "Due to local tax laws we request that you place your order with our US website". dk why this is so difficult in 2023 😃 btw I was told bdent is going to close down in Oct, so maybe last call for something.

I just used up my last pair of spare drivers for repair and I'm not sure where it is possible to get any more. Sourcing anything from Stax now appears to be a massive pain as the parts I've been ordering through various distributors, just aren't showing up.

William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection director) dead at 87...