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I've had this rant brewing for a while. In the world of photography, large format photographers are the biggest dicks in the room (in the Tice sense.) If the subject is holding still, large format (which is basically anything between 4x5" and 8x10") cameras do things better than anything digital and do it with 100-150 year old technology. Large format cameras can correct for perspective in ways that even the most sophisticated SLR lenses cannot. Large format photographers shoot at tiny apertures far beyond the point of maximum sharpness for any lens and deep into the diffraction loss territory. Their lines rendered per square inch is much worse than any digital camera but they make up for it by ...having more inches (I swear I wasn't trying to make so many dick jokes when I started.) Film stock is many orders of magnitude better now than it was in decades past, but apart from that it's quite possible to use camera equipment from before the war (the great war) in 2023 and be a functionally state of the art photographer. There's a rather large issue of color vs B&W stock and reciprocity failure that I've ignoring, but it's not directly relevant to the subject I'm going to address here. As I've alluded to in many posts, I now live in Vartha's Mine Yard full time. This storied island is and has been the home to many talented photographers (including at least one super famous one.) There's man in his 60s a who lives here now and shoots with a late 19th century LF camera. I have yet to see his work, but I'm very interested in doing so. Tangent: Large Format is one of the last signposts before sanity starts to disappear completely. After 8x10" the world of Ultra Large Format begins with 11x14" AKA "My contact prints are better than yours." ULF is where madness sets in. I've seen an 11x14" camera. It was ginormous. Anything beyond is lunacy for lunacy's sake. Of course, the final destination for a photographer that has utterly taken leave of his senses is ...alternative and historical processes. The people who make cyanotypes, tintypes, daguerreotypes etc. are artisans, craftsmen and people who make me look totally sane as I'm ranting about the mintue details of the work an obscure Eastern European electronic music producer at the end of my radio show. Ahem. As I was saying, I have a small confession to make. Since moving to MV, I've become a bit of a Facebook Boomer. That's really saying something as I loathe Facebook and ...don't really like the baby boomer generation. It turns out that on an insular place like MV, most of the locals communicate ...in a private FB group. Even my (sainted, octogenarian) mother who has never used FB in her life, is aware of this group. I now log into FB multiple times a day to check out what's going on about town. As one might expect much if it is "need a place to live" "lost dog" "found dog" "why is that on fire?" etc. Old Zucc's AI sure has noticed the uptick in my FB usage. I'm now getting all sorts of notifications from FB that I haven't before ("We've got a special survey just for people like you!" "The FB Messenger App for OS X is ready to download!") I figured a good way to get known on MV (in spite of being a 4th generation Vineyarder, my grandfather ran the fish market in my town in the mid 20th century) was to show off some of my photography. I've been posting a couple shots I've taken in the last ...18 years on MV to the group. My other main skill is putting words together about why exactly I really do or do not like something, and I've been using the positive side of that trait to explain my history on MV and the subjects I've photographed. So far I've gotten a consistently positive response. There are a lot of photos posted to the MV FB group, and the vast majority of them are current tech smart phone overly HDR snapshots that drive me nuts. It's not that I'm such a snob that I can't appreciate snapshots taken by Joe and Jane Average, on the contrary, I love work like that. Photography by the people is often the most interesting. What drives me batty is the pseudo HDR math "everything is the same brightness level" look that smartphone camera software produces. It's designed to appeal immediately to the untrained eye. It makes me want to scream. Once a while, a real artist shows up. As I said, there are a lot of really skilled photographers on this island and many of them make use of very specialized camera equipment, often to spectacular effect. In the summer of 2001 a fella with an LF camera did an interior shot of one of the Victorian cottages here on MV: "Gingerbread House, Methodist Campground, Oak Bluffs, MA, July 19, 2001. 8x10 camera, 165mm @ F/22, 4 seconds, Tri-X film, minus development." As I said, LF cameras excel at things where other cameras falter. Correcting for perspective in architectural photographer is no mean feat (I know, I've tried and more or less universally failed.) When I saw the above image posted to the MV FB group, I excitedly commented how impressed I was and that a 165mm lens is "quite wide angle" for an 8x10" camera, roughly equivalent to a 22mm lens on a 35mm camera. A day or so later, I got a notification of reply to my comment on FB. I won't quote it here, but it had been dipped in bromine and condescension. The photographer corrected me that the FoV was closer to 28mm because of the "crop factor" of 8x10. Motherfucker. That's not crop factor. That's ASPECT RATIO. If you're going to be so thoroughly pendantic, you've now taken on the task of being correct about the minutiae at hand. I suppose one could make a case that camera lenses produce image circles and the film plane is "cropping" a square or rectangle out of them, but that's not how the terminology works in common usage. Unfortunately, sometimes LF photographers are the biggest dicks in the room in the ...TubeRoller sense. (How's that for an OG HeadFi reference?) Also, I should learn to take things less personally.

Some results. I have made a complete pass using my Marantz model 40n -> Stax SRD-7 -> Stax SR-007 setup. It has been fascinating. I have grown to appreciate the work. It didn’t get tiring even after 40+ listenings. I found that I really appreciate a good recording/mastering, but the performance has to rule them all. Here are my thoughts on my preferences in ascending order. Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1, Violin Concerto No. 2 & Violin Sonata No. 1 Neeme Järvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Lydia Mordkovitch, Gerhard Oppitz 2009 https://album.link/i/1656559337 – The performance borders on the screechy a lot in the first movement. The lead is pushed forward, and in the higher registers can be a touch harsh, not all the time, but enough to be distracting to me. I am not saying that my Prokofiev has to be pretty, but I have to be able to follow your story. The dynamics and pace were all there. And the third movement was pretty sublime. Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2; Five Melodies Anne Akiko Meyers 2010 https://album.link/i/398214615 – We played a bit with the shrill at the opening of this one. There are some nice dynamics, but the upper registers of the violin were not as controlled as I would have liked. There seemed to be a little bit of a veil over the recording, slightly muted, I played with the volume and it was the recording. Anne has the techniques down, the transitions from playing, to plucking to strumming were seamless, that does not happen for all of these performances. There is just a slight harshness in their playing that pulls this away from a really great performance for me. Prokofiev & Nielsen: Violin Concertos Liya Petrova 2018 https://album.link/i/1434309960 – A Very nice recording. Performance was strong and consistent. The dynamics of the recording were slightly compressed that stole some of the power out of the bigger moments. Overall a nice balance of the orchestra and lead, but Liya does get lost a bit in the third movement, when it is very important that she be pushed forward. The pacing was comfortable, just enough to keep the action moving. Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Maria Milstein, Phion Orchestra, Otto Tausk 2023 https://album.link/i/1656675394 – Unknown artist, label, orchestra, conductor, new recording. Here we go. I liked it. The pacing is slightly slow, but they do some good things with it. Nice balanced recording, slightly violin forward. Overall good performance with some character and highlights of understanding of the work. Great dynamics. Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos.1 & 2 / Tchaikovsky: Sérénade mélancolique Leila Josefowicz, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Charles Dutoit 2001 https://album.link/i/1452220126 – I wasn’t initially into this performance. It had a nice balance in the recording, but it seemed just too slow without the lift of expression. But there was something there. The violin sound was fuller, almost like it was being played on a viola. This kept me intrigued and listening for more. The performance is a little sloppy here and there. But Leila finished so well that it still gets an honorable mention. Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 - Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D Major Cho-Liang Lin, LA Phil 1992 https://album.link/i/401535446 – Almost too balanced? Full bodied recording, delicacy and weighty. In the end was it a little too perfect? Maybe. This Sony recording is very good, and it seems to me that the performance is almost note perfect. I think it gave me a really good basis of what prokofiev wrote, without interpretation. I know that this is not fair, and I feel bad, because everything is done so well, but if I am not pulled into the interpretation, there is not much I can do. Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos.1 & 2 / Stravinsky: Violin Concerto Kyung Wha Chung, André Previn, London Symphony Orchestra 1990 https://album.link/i/1452190869 – This gets a lot of points for just being what it is, Chung, Previn, LSO, Decca. I am pretty much all in from the start. It did deliver on most points. The recording was done very well, with great space and dynamics. The only thing that pulled me out of the recording was Chung not creating the flow that I wanted and felt from others. There were times when I was presented with a note, and then another note, and they didn’t seem to be connected. Also there seemed to be a disconnect between bowing, plucking and strumming. This work has them all and they need to be seamless to have the work come together. Glazunov & Prokofiev : Violin Concertos - Elatus Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mstislav Rostropovich & National Symphony Orchestra 1997 https://album.link/i/80023300 – The sleeper in the group. It shouldn’t have been with Anne-Sphonie and Rostropovich at the helm. I guess that there is less to complain about than to shout about. It is well recorded and wrapped up in a nice sounding package. Enjoyable, but I was never quite drawn all the way in. Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 - Walton: Viola Concerto - Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending Isabelle van Keulen, NDR Radiophilharmonie 2018 https://album.link/i/1438420362 – One of the slowest recordings, but it does not feel that way. Isabelle has a lovely way of hitting the notes and then bringing in the vibrato, to get the attack then body and warmth comes in. A good modern recording, with a nice soundstage and balance from solo and orchestra, with dynamics. I felt that they had something to say. Some performances are slow because the performer cannot keep up, I felt like Isabelle wanted to show me some of the passages that are so pretty that I had missed them. And I was thankful. James Ehnes Plays Prokofiev James Ehnes, Gianandrea Noseda, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Amy Schwartz Moretti, Andrew Armstrong 2013 https://album.link/i/1608385372 – A darker brooding performance and take on the work. And it works. Well recorded by Chandos. Balanced from front to back. Fast when it is fast and melodic when it needs to be as well. Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No.1 / Sibelius: Humoresques Op.89; Violin Concerto Ilya Gringolts, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi 2004 https://album.link/i/1452182124 – There is a focus on subtleties and dynamics from Ilya. Not too surprising coming from DG. Almost a perfect recording. You are placed in the fourth row, and you are rock solid there with the orchestra laid out in front of you, with Ilya a few feet in front of them, very nice. The pacing is quick, but not fast. It gives a lot of movement to the work. We are going somewhere, and I think I want to follow. Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 - Violin Sonata No. 2 David Oistrakh 2004 https://album.link/i/696929966 – A historical recording - 1954 - Conductor – Lovro Von Matačić - London Symphony Orchestra. David is the father of Igor Oistrakh, we will get to that in a bit. The recording does not have the dynamics of the others, and there is hiss. A great performance? - absolutely. Technical abilities in spades, and a lightness on fast passages that really shines in the third movement. It falls short just because of some of the sonics. Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No.1 & 2 Gil Shaham, London Symphony Orchestra, André Previn 1996 https://album.link/i/1452224616 – LSO, Previn, DG. Okay Gil, let’s do this. I really liked the pacing. The recording is detailed and clean. I like that Previn has different approaches based on the performer. Feels like a collab between them. Gil wanted to run, and he can run, and LSO was right there to follow. This was not that high on my list until this final listening. It might have needed a full system to really have it come to life and make me pay attention just that little bit more. I didn’t listen to these together to start with, and it was when I was about 3 minutes into the first movement, I started to think, wow this one really does sound a lot like the great performances release. Well a quick discogs search later, and yup. They are slightly different masterings of the same performance. Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 Isaac Stern 2019 & Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 Isaac Stern, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy 1983 https://album.link/i/1522244483 – Just a great recording. The power and balance are all on display. Isaac attacks when he needs to, and relaxes into the melody when it is warranted. The orchestra and Ormandy are right there to support everything he is doing. It sounded more like jazz, that they were listening to each other and playing off each other. It is a 1965 recording and does not have the inky black background levels. But as far as pure listening - it is a pleasure. The second movement is almost too fast, but Stern can hold it together. For streaming the 1983 Great Performance version of the 1965 recording is the one to pick. Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Itzhak Perlman 1982 https://album.link/i/1025523737 – The subtlety and phrasing is just amazing. A master playing a masters game. Does he drop a few notes? yeah, and no shits given. Itzhak has such a flow that it is hard to keep up with him sometimes. But when you do it is a beautiful ride to be on. The recording is a little violin forward, for reasons, but still a good recording. Prokofiev: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19 (Digitally Remastered) Sergei Prokofiev 2014 Tidal link - https://tidal.com/browse/album/36944865 (I am not sure where else you can find this) – Then there is Igor Oistrakh (son of David above) paying something very different. This is so far beyond anything else in the list that it should be a new category. Variations of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto? It is hard to explain what this recording does for me. It builds tension, it releases it, it makes me marvel at virtuosity, it lets me peer into the music like never before. Does it sound good? Luckily, yes it does, not great but good enough. Apparently Prokofiev was not the biggest fan of his readings, but he got over it. Way back when I did my first pass of all these, this recording stuck out to me and had me saying wow more than once. Others play trills, Igor plays bird songs. My favorite version, even if I may listen to Itzhak more in the long run. So no one has read this far - but I will have three of these in rotation. Itzhak is just so good, Stern for power, and Igor for the pure fun of the music. It was a fun ride. None of these are bad at all. Remember that these were my top selections from around 50 total recordings. Not planning on another marathon anytime soon, but you never know.

so i posted this elsewhere because people really want to spend large amounts of money on an electrostatic amplifier that uses a pile of 300b. this is the first of two. Megatron xl with 4 x 300b Megatron xxl with 8 x 300b Power supply #1 goldenreferencehv all solid state Power supply #2 tube rectified lc filtered no regulation solid state regulated bias. Power supply #3 tube rectified lc filtered 4 x 6l6gc fully regulated voltages. 300 volt tube rectified and 6bq5 regulated power supply. solid state regulated bias high voltage rectifier tubes are gz34 (5ar4) 300v rectifier tube is ez81 I figure a megatronxxl with power supply #3 should come in at a retail built price of $40k evidently one or more companies are making dc supplies that slam 7 amps into cold 300b resulting in tubes that don't last very long. so this will have a slow start quad 5v power supply board. the xxl will have 2 of these boards. amp chassis will be about 14 x 14 x 4 inches. power supply box should be the same size. the spice simulations indicate that minimum distortion is set at about 33ma, so this is likely to eat about 300 watts total power consumption. distortion will end up about .01% at full voltage swing.

New Lana Del Ray. I think she just keeps getting better. I'd love to see her in concert this year if she goes on tour.

300B's have been ordered so time to show Woo Audio and Hifiman how this should done.

The NorCal folks might appreciate this one

I rechecked all resistors and everything was correct, though I noticed that the 1M resistors ohmed out at ~750K or so on the bad board vs. around 500K on the good board. I went ahead and changed out the C2Ms. After that, the 1M resistors now ohmed out at ~500K in board. Fired it up, and the tabs of the DN2540s were now around 3-ish volts. Vce on the PZTA42s is now ~13+ volts, so SUCCESS!

I was wrong. Beyers are actually useful for something.

Mikey, you are a treasure. Thank you. It'll take awhile to digest all of those, but I just realized that I have a DVD of the Oistrakh '54 performance, and I remember kind of being blown away by the performance. Can't wait to check out some of the others on your list.

Good thing they put an antibacterial coating on the lens, keep that staph infection rate low for all the kiddies poking at it and asking "granpa, wha's dat?"

I did search but I couldn't find a dedicated thread about DIY electrostatics so in the spirit of getting the discussion started, here is something I've been working on. Well over a decade ago I bought up all the spare Sennheiser HE60 parts to assemble new headphones. The first thing to go out of stock was the main housing so to assemble the last pair, I had to adept a HD650 housing to take the HE60 drivers. Ever since then it has stuck in my head to make my own drivers for those housings and well... here is version 2.0: I bought a ratty old HD650 and completely stripped it apart. Headpad, earpads and cable went into the trash while the rest went for a long bath. First step is to make the baffle flat so a lot of cutting with nice, sharp, flush cutters. I naturally forgot to take a picture of that step... Next step was to fully measure what area I had to work with and design PCB's to match that, while maximizing the open area. The end result is three different PCB's, as they are all setup to be dual sided. One for the stators, one which holds the diaphragm and finally the simple outline which holds the dust covers and can act as a spacer. Some pics of them assembled in the housing: Four nylon screws hold the sandwich together, fixed with PEEK nuts to get extra gripping power as the assembly had to be as flat as is possible. Dust covers placed away from the stators so they don't cause any issues. Earpad side: Due to the screws, some earpad mountings have to be cut up to get the pads to fit but yeah, they are just cheap crap from China so who cares. I could cut a slot in them to try and make it fit but maintaining as much pressure on the drivers as I can is far more important. Final assembly with a King Sound cable as I have a couple of those sitting around. For the diaphragm I used my usual stock of 1.4um film and the earpads are just the cheapest leather pads I found on ebay. I have a couple of nicer ones but these are the thickest and that helps make them more balanced sounding. The diaphragms were stretched by hand on a mirror (which is my preferred way) and glued with wood glue (thanks for the tip Aumkar!) which is just perfect for this. Coating is anti-static spray which means they energize in five seconds or so which I can live with. Now for the sound... pretty damn good for something so simple and literally being the second set I assemble. Well that and zero effort has been put into sealing the baffle or just any sealing at all. I just stuck the PCB's onto the baffle and built up the stack. Overall sound signature is similar to the HE60 but not as diffused and with far more bass output. Maybe a tad too much at times as there are some oscillations that I can pickup at very high volume levels and under high excursion. I tend to go with slightly less tension on the diaphragm so that might be it. Treble is very pronounced with the thinner pads but with the ones pictured, it is just perfect. These are not forward at all and the soundstage is excellent for this size of a driver and non-angled earpads. Sensitivity is slightly lower than the regular Stax sets but still only marginally so. All in I'm very happy with the roughly 150$ outlay for these. Now this is version 2.0 but the first version used a HD58X from Drop, brand new in the box that I cut up. Same driver profile but thicker stators so the efficiency was really bad plus the stators had full solder mask on them. Now I'm out of the spacer PCB's for the dust covers so next time I order PCB's, I'll make another set. I also have some diaphragm spacers which would work well for normal bias as I've always wanted to mess more with that.

Robin Hobb - Farseer Trilogy I read some interview saying that these books were one of the best fantasy series in the last 30 years. George R.R. Martin seemed to agree, as he is blurbed on the back cover. So I picked the first one up. It started ok. I figured I'd put it down if I got bored and move on to something else. But I kept going. The more I read the more I started really getting in to the world the author has created. There is some really great stuff here, and Ms. Hobb has the prose of a seasoned writer. Now I just finished the second book and am on to book 3! I'm all in. If you at all enjoy fantasy game of thrones-ish type series, this one is a winner. (sadly I got ebooks from the library and am not reading those amazing looking folio society hardcovers)

buy whatever you can find that is the right voltage and meets minimum current requirements. bonus if it fits the original holes. otherwise remove old studs, drill new holes etc..

I've replaced all MPSW56/06 with matched using circuit from here. I've also replaced my LEDs with matched LEDs. Previously the LEDs were correct at 1.7Vf but they were rated 20mA while the new ones are only 2mA. The amp still has that intermittent rustling noise when warming up but volume was quite low. I've also realised the high pitched turn off sound is not normal after reading back like this guy. Since I'm not in a rush I spent a few days tinkering with the biasing and offset. With lower offsets between -O/+O to ground, there's no turn off high pitched noise on se output. With lower offset between -O and +O, there's no turn off high pitched noise on bal output. Lower offsets during turn on mitigates turn on thumps but it will affect readings when the amp has warmed up to temp (also the high pitched turn off noise returns on either se or bal out). All 4 VR pots on the board will affect every reading that needs to be checked. Finally settled with a setting that has soft turn on thump, no high pitched turn off noise, lowest rustling warm up noise on my very sensitive Final Audio Pandora Hope VI with 16ohm impedance and 105dB sensitivity. On HD650 and HD525 there's no noise floor. My throwaway portable Oneodio Pro-50 has a medium noise floor and very low warm up noise. The only downside about this is the +ve and -ve biasing voltages are different 750mV and -740mV. Being only 1.33% difference, I don't think I'm too worried. All in all such a great project. Maybe my next Dynahi SuSy I'll just use MPSA and see how it runs.

Sorry Todd. RIP Zuny.

Sorry for your loss.

This.

Sorry for your loss. RIP Zuny.

Of course days after I bought the Hasselblad 907x 50C for waist level shooting. Coming 4/20 (maybe).

I'd watch those guys wherever they went, nothing like some good ol' drinking game camera comedy. I just hope the wealth of info on DPR doesn't disappear forever. Between the forum, sample galleries, studio tests, there is so much useful knowledge there that deserves to be preserved. It's the single best archive of information of the digital photography era.

sad, that was my go-to site.

the T2A round black thing is the fuse, you can check continuity. Looking for exact replacement now 24 volts 1.67 amps mounting holes 3.7 x 1.7 inches made in 2005, so its definitely time to replace this may or may not fit the mounting holes https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Delta-Electronics/MDS-065APS24-BA/?qs=%2fha2pyFaduirkRCGmuVLPGG%2b%2b1Owb2DkcY1eufxPxz01f8scL9gSWw%3d%3d this seems the exact item but its end of life, so maybe buy 2 https://www.mouser.com/productdetail/murata-power-solutions/mvad040-24?qs=sGAEpiMZZMsPs3th5F8koHWdVLP2qW6GCxvvDr00QbM%3D

RIP Israel "Zuny" Zelitch. 99 years old, he was in the same Independent/Assisted Living facility as my mother-in-law. In times after his wife passed, and my father-in-law was gone, he was a wonderful companion to her. She passed in June 2021, he just passed today. A brilliant and fascinating man, not much for idle conversation but had some fascinating stories. Also a major part of local Yiddish organizations, and very well known in that community. Unfortunately he was unconscious soon after catching COVID recently, was moved to hospice where his son (wearing basically a hazmat suit) got to say goodbye. A woman from that Yiddish community was called and they held the phone to his ear while she spoke; he actually twitched his eyes several times. Shortly thereafter, he passed. One link with info about him: https://portal.ct.gov/CAES/ABOUT-CAES/Staff-Biographies/Israel-Zelitch Karen and I had met his son and daughter-in-law years back, when our kids went to the same after-school program. We also found out his son's wife was my neighbor growing up! We got to reconnect after we found out Zuny was his dad. Karen was able to share some stories about Zuny and her mom that his son was so thankful to hear. Just a wonderful family, and a fascinating man. RIP Zuny, you may have two women vying for your attention now! 🙂

Big news. DPReview.com to close. The only hobby site I had a longer relationship with than ones on headphones. https://www.dpreview.com/news/5901145460/dpreview-com-to-close