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a few years ago I was on some Zoom calls with another company that wanted to make a cheap electrostatic amp. 5 guys on a Zoom call. they expected to sell thousands. To who and for what headphones?? the whole thing won't cover the salary of 1 person. sometimes I'm not sure people grasp the size of this market

so here are some more pictures, obviously faked. This is the kgsshv-carbon built by birgir and given to tyll as one of his 2 reference amps. Into a standard 120pf load. right at the limit of my scope probe, have to find the higher voltage probes. first picture 20 volts per division, next 2 are 50 volts per division. all are 10khz square wave. reference cap beginning to bubble due to heat.

Had a somewhat similar situation. My Dad was physically abusive, to my Brothers, myself and also to my Mother. Hearing and seeing my Mother getting beaten was much worse for me than my own beatings. Their divorce after 20 years of marriage was a good thing, but still difficult. I'm an open book about my life, and talking about those times is therapeutic for me. However, it can be difficult. When you tell other people about the physical abuse, they can only see a monster. If it were that simple, just leaving would be a simple solution. But it's never that simple. My Father could also be a very fun, loving person. I'm in no way making excuses for the overboard abuse, but nothing is Black and White. I think my Dad did the best he could with the tools he had. His childhood was bad as well, in different ways, but pretty bad. I think the best we can do is try to mimic the good traits and learn to avoid the bad ones. I've had self esteem issues most of my life, because of my Father. I over compensate for sure, but the older I get, I think the better handle I have on that. I learned a lot of good things from my Father, and we had many, many good times. I choose to focus more on those. In the end, we can only try to improve ourselves, as we're all flawed. I know that my Father was proud of the man I became. And I also know that he was very happy that I did not inherit his violent streak. At the end he was hardest on himself. I do need to say though that the main reason that I did not have children was for fear of copying his abusive ways. I used to wait for that guy to show up in me. Today I know that he just doesn't exist in me. Whether it's true or not, I've convinced myself that my homosexuality had a lot to do with my empathy for others.

I have my share of baggage from my parents' divorce, and my dad "kind of" being there but not 100%. At one point, I had some good sit-downs with him, and I determined that he had his own limitations. One VERY wise thing he said to me, though: "None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes. You just won't make the same mistakes I made...." Well said IMO.

Thanks, Al, #NFLO. Got in a solid training ride yesterday with two of the other guys. We ripped the first hour at 21mph and then decided to chill the heck out.

We're fast approaching a point where it will impossible, even for those in the know, to differentiate between AI generated gobbledygook and genuine audiophool purple prose.

The 7” Singles Paul McCartney 2022 https://album.link/i/1653180402 Example: So, I have been involved in some larger music listening projects. This being one of them. It is an interesting journey (with 10+ hours of listening), starting with the above track, but I have to realize that he had 10 years of writing before this. And it is interesting to hear the B sides, a lot of them were more experamental. But the highs of this run are very high.

Reminds me of the Larkin poem They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

I did a quarter century (just under) in honor of your ride prep. Considering a half century before leaving Michigan soon. Congrat on beating your goal!

Morrissey Viva Hate, vinyl

Absolutely delicious! This will immediately be put into my repertoire. This dish would probably be very good with just the squash and tomatoes. But the caramelized onions add such a depth of flavor. I may try a little balsamic vinegar next time, as I think it would pair very well.

Why does this stupid track rock so hard? I have it stuck in my head. I guess it is Joe Cocker's backing group laying down the rhythm. Might have to find more of their stuff. I know people love to dunk on Andrew Lloyd Webber but damn the man has composed some catchy tunes.

My heart was weak...

Me, too ...

The layer of caramelized onions underneath the zucchini, summer squash and tomatoes is kind of the surprise of this dish. Can't wait to tuck in, but it's lava hot ATM.

Yeah, I completely agree, this is not a big market at all.

I'm going to attempt a French Tian, because it looks and sounds incredible. I'm carmelizing the onions ahead of time, but will start the veg prep later.

What are you talking about? The dollar is swinging strong against the Yen and Yuan and just came off of parity with the Euro and almost parity with the Pound.

For some reason, people really drank the Cool-Aid on this stuff so anything said about is fake or an attack. It can't be that it is just a crap product...

Thx Brent. My experience with American companies owned by Japanese corporations is that success or failure depends largely on whether the parent company allocated the budget for the American subsidiary in yen or dollars. Hope Audeze gets their budget in the stronger currency. That used to be dollars, but these days the dollar ain’t shit.

Understand. Actually though about you the other day for some reason. I'll PM with chat info (Discord.)

Lurking from time to time. Just got busy with work. Retired and have time now. Where’d the chat functionality go?

I too had two older brothers, and wanted something more adult, but my Father thought that I was still a little kid. I did listen to the Elvis album a lot though. And I think my next album was Three Dog Night: Golden Biscuits. Easy there Brent! Which my oldest Brother bought for me.

Those are still very good! I was lucky to have two older brothers into music. One was ~4.5 years older, and I got a lot of early taste from him (classic and country rock, and prog). But over time we 3 boys each found our own niche for musical tastes....

I think the first album I bought was Dear Science and the first and only turntable I bought was JP's old Sony PS-X7

Your first record was much less embarrassing than mine. I got the RCA record player/speakers combo (mod 70's blue plastic/with stand), for Christmas. I was 10, and the two records I got with it were Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii and The Chipmunks.

The lady is stupid and gave the son whatever he wanted, now he steals a kiss from a player at a very inconvenient moment, the guy should resign, the mother shows how stupid she is. Nothing you haven't seen elsewhere

Another round of Fondant Potatoes.

Forgot to take pics of the rest of our lunch but corn nuts and tempura fried zucchini with blue cheese tomato fonduta (sauce) and pea shoots were a very good start.

Kinda impressed

I've been going through scans of film exposures I took in '06-09. I had very mixed results. For reasons still unclear to me, I had massive beginner's luck with Kodak BW400CN and Fuji Velvia 50, followed by some just awful photos (largely due to bad processing I think.) I experienced hugely mixed results with Kodak Gold 200, which is to say I did quite well with a meh film stock. I also had a lot of fun with a couple trash cams. One I bought at a dollar store in 2006: Shown here last week (taken with my new 5D IV and 85/1.8). I actually had two of these IIRC. A black one and this blue one. Both have crappy plastic 35mm F/11 lenses and lots of light leaks. I got rid of the black one at some point, because one dollar store camera is arguably too many. I also had (and still have) a Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim: Seen here in the summer of '08. It's got a 28mm F/22 lens and considerable better build quality than the $1 camera. It's still a plastic toy, but it's a damn Leica by comparison. I put 3 rolls of film through the $1 camera(s), and one through the Vivitar. I had mixed results with both. At the time, I only uploaded a handful of photos from each roll. Revisiting the scans I'm much more forgiving of bad shots now. My relaxed attitude is for a host of reasons not the least of which is the fact that's been 15 years. Below are only newly uploaded photos. I might go over some ones I liked back in '08 later. The family cottage on MV, taken with the $1 camer and Kodak Gold 200 in November of '06. I really like this shot, and not just because the cottage has been torn down for over a dozen years now. The $1 camera managed to do organically what all the Hipstamatic type cameraphone apps attempt to recreate. The hill across the street from my house on MV, November '06. This shot has been hugely popular on Flickr and I'm not entirely sure why. The truth is that it was a cold November day, but not nearly as bleak looking as the $1 camera and Kodak Gold made it out to be. Pointing a cheap plastic camera with an F/11 lens and fixed 1/30th shutter at the setting sun is a dumb idea. This is a terribly exposed shot, but the car with is headlights on makes the image for me. I get a strong 70s horror movie aesthetic from it. My yard on the mainland, October '06. Six years before I had a bunch of trees cut down. That's an authentic $1 camera light leak on the side there. The view from my back yard on MV, April 07. $1 camera and Kodak Gold engaging in some impressive synergy here. Another shot of my back yard, very similar to the one above. Most of those trees are gone now. What these two shots illustrate is that lighting is the single most important part of photography. Also water is wet, and I strongly suspect it rolls downhill. Edgartown Harbor with Chappaquiddick in the background. That's the famous Mad Max catamaran sailing along, which is something I only just down figured out. My mother had a good friend on MV for many years named Ruth. She was an Austrian, born in 1924. Ruth had done a great many things including being a skilled sailor. She spent her last years owning a farm on Chappaquiddick (Chappy is not that big and there are not many farms on it.) Ruth took a very dim view of Mad Max precisely because it was a catamaran. The first shot I ever took with my Canon EF 17-40mm F/4L, 7/23/08 - 5:58PM (by that point I'd learned to take mostly complete notes on time and exposure.) I had the 17-40 attached to my Rebel K2 loaded with Fuji Superia X-Tra ISO 800 bleh print film. Not a very interesting shot, but it was my first time using the 17-40 on a full frame format. None of the photos I've posted so far had any edits to them, except for this one. The colors were too washed out and the contrast was just awful, so I relented and did a slightly cleanup in Photoshop. $1 camera and Kodak Gold, October '06. In this case, the cheap plastic lens made the image look cheery and nostalgic and less like a horror movie. I have ...a lot more print exposures that I've gone through. Next time: A cheap fisheye adapter a friend lent me attached to a mid 1950s 50mm prime, further evidence that 35mm F/2 is my favorite lens and maybe some terrible B&W shots. Also maybe some current stuff taken with the 5D IV.

Black Cat is a pretty sweet for medium dark roast; I don’t consider it a negative for espresso, but I could see why others would. I’ve been using Elmhurst Pistachio milk for my milk drinks, lately. It’s delicious, and if even I can get basic latte art with it I would say it’s easy to work with. Recommended. Sorry about the Argos taking so long! AeroPress will happily show you exactly what you are getting from your grinder, and I bet that is a delicious cup. How loud is the P100, Bryan? One of my cats hates the Niche (doesn’t mind other grinders): it’s maybe not enough on its own to get me to spend so much on one, but I take his well-being seriously, so maybe it’s a good excuse!

Since the T2 needs a complex power supply I am also including a T2 power supply testing guide. There are multiple options for the T2 power supply but the one I built is: The gerbers can be found here: <insert link> The guide is intended for both pre-power on verification of an amp build, verification of voltages on power on and general troubleshooting. All tests are performed using a Brymen BM869s and peak DCA75. Using a different multimeter may effect the results slightly but you should still get similar behaviours and ball-park figures. All tests are performed with the psu not connected to an amp and no mains transformer connected. unfortunately many of the transistors are packed tightly together so it is not easy or really possible to get test probes onto all the legs of all the transistors from the top and so the verification guide will be separated into two halves: testing from the top and testing from the bottom. Since all the high voltage power supplies are basically identical except for differing values for some resistors ad the pre regulator zeners I will cover one psu rai and the diode tests and dca75 tests should be the same for the other high voltage rails. (The 500V and above rails also have two caps in series with bleed resistors in parallel for the input smoothing and output smoothing to reduce the financial cost of the caps and increase the cap options) The low voltage rails are trivial - diode bridge, bulk cap, monolithic off the shelf regulator and smoothing cap and so will not be covered. NOTE the 3w resistor which direct connects to the 10 volt reference will get hot (depending upon the supply rail) it can reach 80C+, If you look at my schematics above I suggest increasing the value of the resistor to reduce the current and decrease the temperature. Also raise it from the pcb as much as possible to keep it away from the nearby 0.1uF capacitor. NOTE if you use 0.1% precision resistors for the output voltage set resistors then they must be rated at above 250V for the 560V rail or (in my experience if you use 250V rated working voltage resistors their resistance will drift higher and higher with time and the 560V rail will eventually hit the zener string voltage of 600V and this will cause an uncorrectable dc offset in your T2 amp). Transistor and diode location Top The two ksc5026 (T3 and T2) form a long tail pair with T3 input being the 10V reference and T2 input being the the voltage across R5 (and half of P1) in the voltage set string. To improve the performance of the differential amp T6 and T4 form a current mirror. R12 is the common resistor for the long tail. The output of the long tail comes from the collector of T3 and goes to T7. Probe Tests from above Diode test of the zener pre regulator D5 and D4 measuring across each separately, you will get about 0.6V drop, probes reversed the multimeter will register a steadily increasing voltage until it shows open. This is true of each zener in the string. Diode test D2 you will get about 0.6v drop in one direction and an instant open in the other Diode test D1 you will get about 0.52v drop in one direction and an instant open in the other Diode test D3 you will get about 0.54v drop in one direction and an instant open in the other Note it is possible for a transistor to fail in such a way it has very little gain but still has a diode drop and so diode checking transistors is not a foolproof measure of a transistors health. But 0V drop when not expected indicates a short etc. Diode and dca75 tests of the 10m90s NOTE the 10m90s has a live tab and absolutely must be insulated from the heatsink it is mounted to. Like the 10m90s in the t2 amp boards the 10m90s measures the same when the polarity of the probes has been reversed. Just like the T2 amp the peak dca75 can't identify this component in circuit and variously shows it as a low voltage zener ~ 1.6V or an led. Diode and dca75 tests of the fqp8n80s The peak dca75 can't identify this component in circuit and variously misidentifies it as two diodes or a diode and led. Diode checks from underside Transistor and diode location Bottom Diode test T1 2N3904 NPN transistor. forms the active part of the current limit circuit. It monitors the current through R15 and when the voltage drop across the resistor gets too high T1 starts to cut off the pass mosfet FQPF8M80C. If you get correct voltage output with no load but any load massively decreases the output down to about 75V suspect T1 has gone short circuit. Diode and DCA 75 test T2 and T3 KSC5026 NPN transistor. These form the long tail pair differential amp which compares the voltage reference against a portion of the output voltage controlled by the trimmer P1 and the series resistor ladder R3, R4 R5. There should be very close to 10V across R5 if not one possibility is R3 and R4 have too higher a resistance value, possibility from using resistors with a too low working voltage - especially in the -560V rail which puts more than 250V across each of R3 and R4 in the series ladder. NOTE T2 is connected to a both ends of a cap and so this cap will slowly charge resulting in the diode test reading showing an increasing voltage drop until the multimeter finally displays open when the cap has charged to the same voltage as the meter outputs and so no current flows at all fooling the meter into thinking there is an open circuit. This does not occur with T3 The dca75 reliably and correctly identifies T2 as a NPN silicon transistor hfe 19 and T3 as a NPN silicon transistor hfe 2. Diode and DCA75 test T4, T6 T7. Ksa156 PNP transistor. T4 and T6 form the current mirror for the long pair differential amp. NOTE T4 has base and collector shorted together and so measures similarly to a single diode. The DCA correctly and reliably identifies T7 as a PNP transistor hfe 135 The DCA obviously identifies T4 as a diode junction if you don't connect the 3rd lead, otherwise it just reports a short between two of the leads - which is correct. The DCA correctly and reliably identifies T6 as a PNP transistor hfe 2 <<<work in progress>>>

Many people knew him as a country singer. Some knew that for a short time he was a Beach Boy. Not many know that before his singing career took off, he was a member of The Wrecking Crew, and an extremely well respected studio guitar player. In fact, one day when The Wrecking Crew showed up for a scheduled recording session, Glen happened to be standing in front of a microphone. As members of the crew teased him for his humor, they were quite surprised to find out that they were actually there to lay down music for Glen Campbell's first album. Anyway, here's Glen picking the William Tell Overture.

This is my favorite Beatles album. I have several different versions of it (mono, stereo, Japanese, vinyl, cd, deluxe, etc... including an original from '66 that I bought on a visit to London a few years ago) and this is undoubtedly the best of them or at least it's the one I enjoy the most in terms of sound.

Time to catch-up on my musical Blog.. I have been listening, but have not been taking the time to post, I hope that my schedule will slow down in the future to keep on top of it. So much to listen to. Anyway. Study In Brown Clifford Brown, Max Roach 1955 https://album.link/i/1434889869 Example: This '55 Mercury recording is really good and catching the Cliff and Max combo pack in a good place. Other than the possibly racist 'Cherokee' track, a very fun set. Dusty In Memphis Dusty Springfield 1969 https://album.link/i/302307350 Example: Such a pretty voice. We all know Preacher Man, but this album has a lot of great tunes and highlights Dusty's talents. And Many thanks to the members of The Memphis Boys making the sound so good. Mo '69 The Allman Brothers Band (Deluxe Edition) The Allman Brothers Band 1969 https://album.link/i/1469577513 Example: I added this to my queue (along with Brothers and Sisters) a while ago after hearing a track off the youtubes. I never owned any of their albums, I just heard radio play back in the day. I have to say I really like the brand of blues and rock that they put out there. Good recording. Also be careful when someone asks for what to wear for the photo shoot, and you say, whatever you want. RoundAgain Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, Brian Blade 2020 https://album.link/i/1502112092 Example: Just an awesome quad. I hope that they continue to do some colabs while they are in this groove, I need more, and to see them play live. Leonid Kogan Plays Brahms & Khachaturian Leonid Kogan, Philharmonia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra 2012 https://album.link/i/570710062 Example: I am not sure how this got into my queue. Maybe a stereophile testing track? Anyway, really a good recording, for what I was expecting to be a more historical recording (1958,59). I was not familiar with the Khachaturian piece, but something that I will look for going forward. Good balanced recording for orchestra and soloist. Ah, a little research later - turns out that the second work was recorded by RCA and released originally as Red Seal 'Shaded Dog' label. So, yeah - good recording. It is a little tricky when looking through a list and you see 'Guild Historical' as the label on the cover. So, I am glad that I got to listen to this one. And Speaking of happy listening. Revolver (Super Deluxe) The Beatles 1966 https://album.link/i/1643394501 Example: It has been a while since I have listened to this album. The 2022 mix came up somewhere, and there was a lot of chatter and some controversy. People getting all but hurt about this version verses that version and original bla bla. Putting all that aside. I listened to this diligently. And yup, frickin amazing. I go back between this and Rubber as my fav albums of this era for them. The exploration of song format and the introduction of instruments really pushed these froward. Do I need the other 50 tracks of outtakes and false starts? Not really. But what those really point out is how much George Martin was there to piece together all these cuts and tracks into pretty cohesive songs. They were not a one take live to tape band. Also like that there are rough edges and studio artifacts left in. Anyway - back to listening.

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

Not exactly cooking but there was heating involved. Reese's puff marshmallow treats.

French toast: "Classic" & "Waffled"

Here's to Dusty Chalk. We remember him well. Though sometimes he gave us hell. He had a heart of gold, before the mold. Dipped his fork into some ransid pork. He coughed, sputtered, then blew a gasket. Today we lay him to rest inside a Purple casket.

Yeah, that's my recommendation as well. A SRM-1 Mk2, SRM-3, SRM-313 all walk over this thing. Sure the older ones need some new electrolytics at this point but it's a much better sounding system. L300's are also not as good as the x07 series was but quick mod, remove the stupid screen inside the earpads, remove the earpads and take out the 4 screws. Swap the back panels between left and right and fix them back into place so they are reversed from where they were before. Helps clear up the imaging of them.