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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/03/2018 in all areas

  1. Just returned from a fencing tournament so now Lance is qualified for two different weapons and four events at the Junior Olympics. By some wild coincidence we are having dinner tonight with two olympic coaches, two olympic foil fencers and some fencing parents. Best of all, no broken foils!
    7 points
  2. Ken Fritz's audio system. Be sure to check out the "build" article (part 1). https://www.psaudio.com/article/5400-hours-of-fun-part-2/
    2 points
  3. Any 90s MTBing fans? Cannondale released some Throwback frames. I want the blue one. https://www.cannondale.com/en/USA/Products/ProductCategory.aspx?nid=49ac1233-6a05-4c22-be65-7b1b77c46b88 https://www.pinkbike.com/news/cannondale-launches-new-f-si-hi-mod-throwback-framesets.html https://www.mtb-news.de/news/2018/12/02/cannondale-roadtrip-zum-traumbike/?utm_source=site&utm_medium=share-button&utm_campaign=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2HHHE-VoPmxtvmcpOPfCNgq-IjdwrASKOi6SmtVbP2fPMKQFwMLiVjUlQ
    2 points
  4. Well...these arrived this week via the Gilmore express and to make it easier for anybody looking for info on them, a new thread it is. As Kevin documented before, the amplifier is a dinky little thing and a direct clone of the Stax SRM-001. The amp is pretty much useless though as it doesn't have any volume control and you can't use it from a portable device as it needs a full 2Vrms input signal to reach usable volume levels. Here is a picture of the entire system plus what Kevin Posted: Opamp feeding a quad of fet's and into the output transistors. All AC coupled... Yet again another clone of older Stax stuff but onto the headphones. The build quality from the outside is pretty mediocre, flimsy plastic everywhere and the creek and rattle like a 50$ set of headphones. The earpads are actually leather on the important parts so that is nice. The cable is rather nice though, a bit stiff and microphonic but a far cry better than what Hifiman and Mr. Speakers include with their sets. I was first a bit puzzled as to how the phones were put together as nothing came loose with minimal force. I stated by removing the back of the drivers which just popped off: That revealed this very minimal damping foam: Now that got me to the back of the drivers but nothing budged. Then I go medieval on it and the earpads do pull off... there is just a lot of adhesive holding them on. I did take the pics afterwards which is why the pads are there in the previous pics. The adhesive is nice though as the pads are securely fastened and can be put back as the adhesive doesn't fall apart. Now we are onto the baffle and this is after I removed the first dust cover stuck to the front there. I'm rather impressed with the build quality and the attention to detail. The drivers are on the small side but that does mean there is room to raise the baffle and get away with flat earpads, Audio-Techica style. Now the money shot, the back of the drivers. Now, when I opened it first up it didn't look like that as there is custom cut, black tape covering all the connections and around the perimeter of the drivers as well. Really impressed by the attention to detail here. Now I did open up the drivers but the angle was really awkward so I couldn't take any good pics. The stators are PCB though and this was a well thought out design. I first though King Sound might have a hand in this design but this is leagues ahead of their crappy drivers. Now some notes, there are only woven dust covers here, two on the front and one on the back (plus the foam) so dust will be an issue. Both drivers on this set have started to squeal though that is at Pro bias levels. More on that later... On the whole though I just don't get this package, the cable on the headphones is too short so are they supposed to be portable? Sure but no normal DAP can drive them properly so it kinda doesn't work... The sound with the stock amp is pretty bad too, no bass to speak of and it is all compressed to hell. I fed it with a preamp to help with the silly low input impedance but it doesn't really help. Now the specs for the headphones are close enough to Stax (well...they use a Stax amp after all) so it is adapter time. The headphones use a bog standard 5-pin DIN plug (nowhere near to be rated fort the voltages involved though) so a quick trip to the local parts store and 2$ later I had a socket in hand. 10 minutes later I had an adapter and off the Carbon CC...well these are quite good. The 50mm drivers will not produce any meaningful bass output compared to larger units but over all, yeah their sins are of omission rather than adding something that shouldn't be there. To me these remind me of Stax SR-X Mk3 Pro's in some ways and what I've been doing with those drivers converted to Pro bias in different shells. The imaging is nice and tight with a solid sound stage, nice midrange presence and a nice neutral sound signature. The bass doesn't go deep but it's tuneful and fun and the treble is nice and extended without ever being bright. The lack of bass depth and bloom does make them a tad thin sounding at times but that is rare. Feed them well and these are very fun headphones to listen to. Bottom line is that the amp is crap and there are issues but there is also a lot to like here. The Massdrop Koss ESP950 setup is probably a better deal at 500$ but these are fun to play with.
    1 point
  5. That’s awesome. Cheers to Lance.
    1 point
  6. Starting with the salt and butter tray. Truffle and Greek butter with Hawaiian black salt and smoke salt and a meat tray with duck prosciutto , etc.
    1 point
  7. Best off MAC locking, as you can't spoof that on a non-jailbroken iOS device any more. Most other approaches can be defeated, leading to a war of countermeasures, e.g.: Ha ha! DNS blocking! - stops accepting DNS server config from DHCP, moves to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8. Have at ye! Egress blocking on port 53 udp/tcp - moves to DNS-over-HTTP client ..and so on. Though maybe it could be fun. Spending all that time working out how to defeat it rather than playing games could even be educational ? (I mean, you could have an openBSD box running without IPs as an invisible bridge, with all the network's traffic flowing through it, and then progressively clamp down on things via PF, that'd be hilarious.. ) Using an AP that lets you define hours of operation per-MAC or per SSID might be a good and painless start.
    1 point
  8. One can always hope... springs eternal and all that. The WES is a particular clusterfuck though as it didn't work on so many levels. It's a collection of 4 mono phase amps really so you need the super noisy phase splitter to the circuit for it to work with RCA inputs and then we have the inductor output loads which simply don't work. Add to that a really, really crappy power supply and all the usual Woo audio safety concerns. So back in the day, for those that are unfamiliar, there was some discussion that they were just doing the best they can or some such BS so I said...can I do better? I set some rules, same power supply voltages, same tubes naturally (though not the rectifiers as they are just stupid) and as similar a parts count and general topology as possible. So output caps like in the original, inter stage caps etc. Throw it all in a spare box and here it is: The massive tower was just something I had and as you can see... it is pretty much empty: The chassis was reused from a dac project our resident "circular hole cutter tech" did so extra holes galore and then it was powder coated to look nice. That's why it has only XLR loop outputs on the back. So here is the money shot... Sooooo...this is a small DC supply to run the heaters of the tubes and my SSPS (simple stacked PS) feeding +300/+600 plus bias to the amp. The amp it self is a combination of a modified SRX front end with a new grounded cathode output stage. That pic is from the first testing so there were some changes done later on but it worked well enough and about 1/4th the size of a WES...
    1 point
  9. Unexpectedly bummed out by the unexpected death of Paul Sherwen, professional cyclist and, more importantly to me, cycling commentator. Sad that I won't see him beside long time partner Phil Liggett any more because they have commentated all of the Tours de France I have followed starting in the late 80s. He competed in 7 and commentated in 33. Commentate in peace, Mr Sherwen. https://www.npr.org/2018/12/03/672806336/paul-sherwen-renowned-cycling-commentator-dies-at-62
    0 points
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