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After a quick trip to get a sheet of 1/4" MDF, and I was off and running. She hasn't seen the results yet. I'm thinking she'll be happy. The painter will paint them in... School Blazer Blue Oh, and I got a nice spiral upcut bit out of it. Win!

A colorful Thai green curry

i posted this elsewhere. here is a copy Its all about size (as in core cross sectional area) and maximum flux before saturation. its obvious from the graphs above (posted elsewhere) that the core saturation of the eha5 transformer is about 1.4 tesla indicating the cheapest of core materials. better and much bigger transformers are available from lundahl and edcor. which will both give 20hz to 20khz +0 -1 db and will actually do 1800vpp with a 50 watt amplifier over the full frequency band. without series resistors. without filters. as far as i can tell lundahl does not specify maximum field strength. edcor does and its 2.01 tesla. there are custom c cores with magic materials that can do up to 2.5 tesla. these are a bit expensive. the ll1630 mentioned above (posted elsewhere) will NOT do this. core size is too small. you need a transformer with a minimum of a 30 watt core. The 60 watt edcor are MUCH better. the ifi iesl which is extremely sensitive to power amplifiers is yet another example of a poor design with a tiny transformer. does not matter how carefully you wind the core if you drive the transformer into saturation. the result will be a box about 3 times the size of the eha5. and a weight of about 20 lbs. cost about $600. nope, no cheap way of doing this.

That's old news my friend.

CW: If you think feet are gross, skip this one. AI generated casting of the next Quentin Tarantino movie: Bonus, if one can call it that: Some things are best left unimagined.

Yes, we have no bananas today, with a green curry - Bananas go with Indian Curries, not Thai Curries.

I have a good friend who used to work on the security gate of a military airfield. They regularly would get some five star general, having waited in line, saying "Have you any idea who I am" to which the reply from the security team was to announce loudly "Excuse me everyone - this gentleman seems to be confused who he is. Can anyone help him?" At which point they would do a thorough security check on his vehicle "Can you take your luggage out of the boot sir. Can you open them" - you get the drift! Only the foolish fuck with security staff.

Heartbeat City (2016 Remaster) The Cars 1984 https://album.link/i/1088528654 Example: So I think in the 80s I was really listening to this album, but I was staring at the Candy-O Album Cover (so that stuck in my head). I really liked almost all of these songs. Even found myself singing along to Drive.

This could be a 70s album sung by a 30-40 year old, but it's a 2023 album sung by a 20 something with rich lyrics and a sweet voice. A little Orbison Sounding.

You're the One Rhiannon Giddens 2023 https://album.link/i/1683236541 Example: Continually impressed with Rhiannon. Her ability to adapt to different styles and to do them all so well is amazing to me. This is an album full of solid songs. Each one has purpose and grounding. They were not just going into the studio and see what happens. It is choreographed and executed at a high level.

And for something a little more positive... The cabinets arrived for the smallish remodel I'm currently working on. Got the kitchen and office cabinetry installed Monday and Tuesday. Was installing two tall Armour cabinets in the bedroom. The client came by this morning, looked at the installation and complimented me on a job well done. But she happened to mention that she was disappointed that the cabinet maker couldn't fulfill the designers request regarding some detail ordered. I wasn't aware of this and asked her about those details. She pulled up a pic and showed me... Basically it's just the arches added to the doors. I asked why he couldn't accommodate that design detail, to which she replied that he told her he didn't have a CNC machine. I explained that if that detail was important to her, I could create that and didn't need a stinking CNC to do so. She brightened up a bit, I called the boss, filled him in, and he told me to go for it and make the client happy.

It looks like they got the fire out. Nobody hurt, no loss of property. My Mother may even be able to sleep in her own bed tonight. I'm hopeful this was the final hit, but still half way expecting a call between now and Tuesday, about an earthquake, lotus swarm or the Black Plague.

There is little left for my next adventure:

so birgir bought a a90d without knowing it. nice.

The black front panel looks amazing! Congrats!

Please accept my apologies for any lowering of the signal to noise ratio in advance but my sincere and profound thanks (as a philistine of all things electronic) to people like Birgir, Kevin, Justin and the rest of you that have influenced (directly and indirectly) the creation of masterpieces such as the one below and the influence they have on the lives of us mere mortal lovers of music. This is the culmination of a dream of over 15 years in the making: Special thanks to Birgir for his efforts and support to this community at large

I suggest you get a kit from Spritzer if he still has these left: https://mjolnir-audio.com/diy-supplies/ That is about the only way to ensure real rather than fake parts.

Arrived yesterday and it really opens up every electrostatic headphone that I own. I was looking for an amp that can bring more bass out of my HE90 than HEV90 so I drained my pocket to bid on this and now I am very satisfied. The hev90 has a romantic sound but the t2 amplifies every piece of detail, expand the soundstage to what ever possible with extreme fineness and sweetness. Buying any head-fi gear at this price is ridiculous but considering the previous closing bid I think I got a fair deal. And it is so rare to have T2 being sold alone. I do not need another pair of omega so this deal saves me a lot of money. But this amp's functionality in long run is questionable. I hope my handful of obsolete FETs stock will save me some pain when I need to fix this in the future.

I found the tonearm for cheap

Thanks for the impressions. Since you mentioned the new Lambdas - I would very much agree and reiterate that the new Lambdas have issues with design, build quality, and frequency response. They needs mods to achieve a good seal and they need EQ. Without it they're a mess, but a technically interesting mess that does a number of things quite well. The midrange resolution with these new drivers is really impressive. With mods and EQ you can fix at least some of the issues and make them a much more compelling.

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.

Yup, never solder close to electrostatic drivers without covering them with something solid as any flux splatter with go right through them.

While waiting for the replacement I today brought forward my home-built headphone which has been stoved away for a year or so. It sounds really good, even better than I remembered. Perhaps it ages as a good wine. Wonder what happens if I put it away in our wine cellar for a couple of more years? Original home-built Faulty Stax

I missed this last week.. RIP Gary (Sept 4th) The Dream Weaver Gary Wright 1975 https://album.link/i/321974937 Example: Go listen to Dream Weaver as well. Such a good album of tunes of their time. RIP Gary - Dream Weaving in the sky...

I've posted recently about my blind Mother's motorhome repossession with 2 days notice. Her health struggles. And the very recent understanding that she can't do it on her own anymore. So my Brother and his wife are due to arrive Sunday. They'll most likely be on the road to AZ Tuesday morning. 30 minutes ago I got a call from my sainted Cousin Rene. As it happens she just heard on the radio that there's a large brush fire, and it's headed straight for my Mother's RV park, and her newly purchased trailer (scheduled to go to storage Monday). Thankfully she immediately called her son ( my 2nd Cousin) and he is on his way with his truck and ball hitch, to get my Mother and that trailer out of harms way. She called my Mom, asked her if anyone had knocked on their door to inform them? She said that they just did, but she didn't know what she was going to do. Rene told her that Jr. and 3 friends are on their way and 10 minutes out. How much is this elderly woman going to have to endure before getting the hell out of there? Again, thank God for my Cousin! This has to be a sign that leaving is the right thing!