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broccoli soup...

RIP Curly (the Washington Generals finally have a shot) he was so entertaining.

This is a picture I took in the dark at a quarry last night. 10 second exposure on my iPhone 11 Pro

This is a long time coming, but with the corona virus, I've finally got time to do this. This is my review of the KGSSHV Carbon I had commissioned from @joehpj (thanks!). I've purchased a pair of Stax L300 Limited to replace the Stax Lambda Pros I had been using for some 25 years before Hurricane Harvey flooded my house and destroyed my old headphones. I've upgraded the pads on the L300 with L700 pads--these make a noticeable difference for me, as the thicker pads allow me to get a decent seal even when I wear headphones. I've been driving them with a Stax SRM-252s, and it has become apparent to me that the amp was the weak link in the chain. After seeing photos of various builds on head-case forums, I decided that the ones joehpj was putting together looked among the nicest I have seen. I decided to take the plunge, despite Joe being in Taiwan, half way around the world from me. Working with Joe remotely was extremely pleasant. He is extremely professional, and allowed for/suggested various changes, from using the venerable Alps RK501 potentiometer, to upgrading the capacitors, to various colors for the chassis. I decided to stick with the stock black chassis to keep the looks similar to my existing equipment. I stuck with the default potentiometer Joe uses--I believe it's sourced from China, and I had heard good things from other people on these forums about it. I also stuck with the stock caps. The one customization I did ask for was to add the delay on power-on for the HV power supply, as I am intending to build a Grounded Grid amp in the near future, and figured I could use this power supply to use as a reference for comparison as I build the GG. Despite some hiccups during construction (Joe's amp-building partner apparently had a severe illness that added delays), Joe was always very clear with me about the delays and offered a full refund for the amp. Also, when the amp first arrived, something happened in transit that ended up compromising the power supply. After some investigations on the problem, Joe requested that I send the amp back for analysis. Unfortunately, the post office wasn't very kind to me, and ended up damaging the chassis and bending the heat sink slightly on one side. When sending an amp across the Pacific Ocean three times, I suppose this might be expected, and it doesn't bother me at all. The Carbon amps that Joe builds come in two chassis, one for the amp and one for the power supply. The cases are very nice, simple, and elegant, and very much look the part of a professional high-end amp. I'll post photos of them shortly. The inerts of the amplifier and power supply look as beautiful and professional as I can expect. My music tastes are all over the map. I'm a software developer, and typically use my headphones 4+ hours per day, usually listening to acoustic jazz (especially Blue Note--Miles Davis is a personal favorite); singer/songwriters (such as Damien Rice, Thom Yorke, and Nick Drake); rap, hip-hop, and rap fusions (including Beastie Boys, Eminem, Dr Dre, Rage Against the Machine, and Ozomotli); classic rock and prog rock (old Genisis, Yes, Pink Floyd, and the like); EDM (Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, and Deadmau5); Alternative (R.E.M., Radiohead, and U2); and loads more. Basically, I like all styles of music, aside from country/western (unless you consider Johnny Cash country) and most bubble-gum pop music (although I might have a soft spot for my daughter's Taylor Swift music...shh, don't tell anyone). I listen to some classical, but rarely as a critical listener--usually when I'm trying to get some coding done. The sound is, as expected with a Kevin Gilmore design, stunning! Doing comparisons between my Stax amp and the KGSSHV shows that the new amp has substantial "authority" in the bass. The "air" in the midrange is closer to what I hear when listening to SR-Omega/SRM-T1S, the pairing that first brought me to the Stax world, even though it was far outside of my price range until recently. I'm afraid as I get older, my previously excellent high-end hearing isn't what it used to be--I used to have hearing through to 22kHz, whereas from my current testing it appears I'm only able to hear closer to 18-19kHz--still excellent for a male of my age (49). Despite that, this pairing between the L300 Limited and the KGSSHV Carbon is never the slightest bit fatiguing. In fact, with the higher quality front-end, I'm now finding that I don't turn the volume as high as I did on the SRM-252s, which ought to help my ears over the coming years. The noise floor on the amp, even when turned all the way, is non-existent, even though for actual listening I rarely turn it above about 15%. Balance between channels on the stepped pot is, to my ears at least, perfect, although I haven't measured it yet. I've not heard an amp with the Alps RK501, so I don't have a good reference here, but I am very happy with the Chinese pot that Joe used. The downside? I've always found Stax to be extremely revealing headphones, and they exaggerate poorly mastered music, and they are even more so with a better front end like the KGSSHV (old Genesis and Peter Gabriel--I'm talking about you). But on well recorded music, there's nothing better, in my humble opinion. The imaging and separation on old Miles Davis is absolutely superb--Sketches of Spain and Kind of Blue are regulars for me to evaluate equipment, as the simple mic placement, and quality of mics, used by Rudy Van Gelder can be extremely revealing, despite the recording being made 60 years ago. I've got a binaural recording from Stax--a sample disc they produced back in the 90s to show off their at-the-time new binaural microphone--that is absolutely stunning. There's one spot where a door is slammed...every time I hear it, I turn around to see who has come into the room. Likewise, the binaural bits on Pink Floyd's The Final Cut also make me feel like I am there in the room. These were stunning before with the SRM-252s, but they are more...involving, for lack of a better word...with the KGSSHV Carbon. To be honest, I'm afraid the pairing of the Stax L300 Limited with the KGSSHV Carbon has rekindled my never-ending hunt for higher quality sound. I've already determined I'm going to need a new DAC, and I've started experimenting with 24-bit and 96kHz or 192kHz sampled music. To be honest, now I'm beginning to look at higher-end Stax, like the SR-009s. I'm also looking forward to experimenting with tubes on a Grounded Grid. But I've definitely reached the point of severely diminishing returns. Thank you, Joe, for rekindling my old audiophile tendencies!

NIKON D50 - ƒ/3.5 1/500 75mm

Hey, it's Jayne's hat. State of Decay 1 called it back in 2013. "Your tax dollars at work."

Here's my KGSSHV build to offset all the fantastic, professional-looking ones posted in this thread (milling your own front plate?!). I had an old computer case lying around, so used that as the chassis. Thanks a lot to Spritzer. I started with his kit and BOM, and then exchanged about a hundred emails with him. I lowered the values of the pull-down resistors on the amp boards to eliminate hum. Other than that, the thing worked the first time. The player is a HiBy R6Pro, and I'm listening with Koss ESP/95X phones from Massdrop.

We are ready to collect payments from all GB participants and get the boards ordered. Here are the quotes (in USD) based on the quantities we have: Mini T2: $22 (per pair) GRHVxxx partially assembled: $54 GRHVxxx bare board: $4.5 GRLV78: $4.5 GRLV79: $4.5 PSU Main board: $8 The GRHVxxx bare board quote went up $0.5 due to the reduced quantity. The mini T2, PSU main and partially assembled GRHV boards all went down slightly. I have updated the table in the first post of this thread with every participant’s total payment for the boards. This payment does not include the shipping cost from me to you. Please PayPal me your payment to by end of day Wednesday, April 8. I will place the order with the fab house when I received all payments. Add 2.9% if you are in US and 4.4% if you are outside US if you prefer not to use PayPal Gift. Please remember to include your HeadCase ID and shipping address in the PayPal payment note. It should take about 2 weeks for the boards to be manufactured and delivered to me. I will then package and send the boards to you. I will request for shipping cost from me to you via PM prior to sending you the package.

I've been thinking a lot about the movie Children of Men, lately.

For some reason, I have 28 Days Later on the brain, so I listened to the soundtrack and now listening to other soundtracks he's done. Mostly high-brow horror, like Sunshine, The Last House on the Left, and City by the Sea.

It looks like the internet infrastructure is starting to buckle under the strain of increased usage. YouTube is setting standard definition as the default resolution next month and Sony is slowing down PlayStation downloads in Europe. I'm not going to feel too smug about amassing a library of CDs and Blu-rays, just a little. What are you guys doing to adjust to staying at home? I plan on getting a lot more reading and writing done. Unfortunately, the gyms have been shut down so I'll have to stick to running, bicycling, etc. to get my exercise.

Sony has extended their PlayStation slowdown to the US: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196835/sony-slow-playstation-downloads-us-internet-speed-isps-usage-coronavirus

RIP Curly, I am so glad I had seen the Globetrotters with Curly as a kid

I guess most of the parts on underside will stay in place by surface tension. If they fall down don’t blame me – put blame on Newton. Anyhow, I held pcb upside-down and blow 360C at flow 5 for five minutes and 0805 resistors and HN4A51J stayed put while solder was liquid so I could move them off with a tweezer. For me the most difficult is to put the right amount paste on pads, it easily become very messy…

Well not “both hands free” during the entire process. You still have to apply paste and place the component but the actual soldering portion is hands free. There are some methods out there for tackling double sided boards but I haven’t looked into them. Here a few: https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/how-are-double-sided-pcbs-soldered-in-a-reflow-oven.55282/

joamat: on the quick air flow 5 out of 120 !!! even then you can orbit small diodes if you release the tweezers before the solder has melted the quick is powerful, 120 will almost remove through hole comonents and your third arm.... maybe thats why mwl168 only has 2 hands.... temperature 330C to 360C depending upon ground plane, size of component. solder paste nothing special off ebay its MECHANIC XG-Z40 Liquid Solder Soldering Paste 10cc has a good amount of flux in it seems to work quite well for my soldering technique but then I have not tried any other paste.... mwl168: you DON'T have 3 hands?😕 My smd soldering method requires 2, left hand holding the twessers, right hand holding the hot air nozzle....

me think that God would have given us three hands if we were meant to do SMD soldering.

Mine has gone from normal to slow as shit. I haven't really discovered a pattern to the timing.

the niche zero is the answer you seek

Lentil curry

New on Netflix. This was excellent.

This very cool video brought back memories of my buddies brother playing us a weird double album with terrible sound and the worst graphics I'd ever seen. "Quinn the Eskimo" was the only track I remember.

Altered Carbon: Resleeved

One small upside of the coronavirus is it helped me catch up on Better Call Saul.

last batch came out nice -- more pickling.

My Initial impressions of the mini T2. Listening on my stax 007a mk2, normal caveats apply. There is no point comparing it to the Stax srm007 its like comparing a Bentley to a slug. Compared to my hi-amp alpha centauri there is also no competition. The mini T2 out does it in every department as does my Blue Hawaii. I will compare the mini T2 to the Blue Hawaii (mini t2 (golden ref HV and LV, kevin gilmore synchronous rectifiers in the LV tkd volume, cardas hookup wire, groove tubes el34s, electro harmonix gold pin 6922s, simulated single box - transformers piled on top of each other 😞) (blue hawaii, (golden ref HV and LV, kevin gilmore synchronous rectifiers in the LV tkd volume, cardas hookup wire, groove tubes el34s single box) The t2 has more smoothness, and yet more detailed and faster treble with a little more sparkle than the BH. The treble speed is not done via a bright hardness but rather its just fast and articulate and is very musical and "valve like". Mid range is equally strong with more smoothness and more detail than the hawaii. Bass is good, not necessarily much better than the blue hawaii, perhaps the BH goes deeper but the mini T2 is again more rounded and smooth. I think the upper bass is better on the mini t2 which partly makes up for the slight lack of depth. The mini T2 does not shout or dazzle, its just fast and natural. It makes you want to turn the volume up, not because its missing something but because it sounds like its not straining and just wants to sing. Micro dynamics are much better than my BH, Macro dynamics are perhaps a bit more restrained than the BH but the compromise works for me because the micro is so much better then the BH. The mini T2 loves strings and acoustic music. I can’t comment much beyond this since I only listen to Jazz and classical. Image placement is like a blanket around the listener, the Mini has the ability to present the sound stage close to the listener when the recording is close. With the BH everything seems about the same distance regardless of the recording. When the recording has the sound stage further back the mini T2 presents a very wide, detailed soundstage but does not hyper focus on individual instruments, there is detail and yet the acoustic of the venue comes through. I feel the mini T 2is less analytical than the BH, interplay between instruments is better presented, its more musical and makes you want to play at whatever volume you want. there is much less of a volume sweet spot than the BH. Some suggested listening for what this amp can do Rodrigo guitar concertos academy of st martin in the fields philips - beautiful guitar sounds with detail and fantastic plucked strings. Hank Thompson live at the golden nugget. - the mini t2 pulls off the orange blossom special without brightness and the level of detail shows you it’s a packed venue with gambling noises everywhere. j c Bach trio sonatas on chandos - mini t2 shows the mid range warmth that the blue hawaii missing, the recording is on original instruments and can sound a little thin... no so with the mini t2 paul desmond bossa antigua, tape hiss is separate from the instruments, centre drums are articulate, it’s a warm sound but not dull or muddy. The sound is beautiful there is detail but it’s not thrown at you. I am very glad I started this project - even though I had very little smd soldering experience. Everything worked first time no smoke no drama. Now all I need is some cnc machining for the case. the mini T2 consumes about 25W less than the BH and runs cooler too. Conclusion, both the BH and mini T2 are very very good. Building a blue hawaii is easier - there is almost no smd parts and will be cheaper: one less psu board, less transformer windings, less valves and can be built in one box. But the mini T2 is better sounding..... If you have the time, money, skill and equipment give the mini T2 some serious consideration. Now I have to build a full T2 with modern components.... and finally a very large thank you to JoaMat for providing me the mini t2 boards and for his help and support during this build. Best regards and happy building James

Shame on you for using canned beans.

'Curly' Neal, Harlem Globetrotters ball-handling legend, dies at 77